Annual Gathering Of Municipal Politicians Goes This Week
No council meeting tonight as municipal leaders gather in Victoria 250News file photo
Victoria, BC – More than 1800 municipal politicians from across the province are in Victoria this week for the 2016 Union of BC Municipalities annual convention…
This year’s convention will touch on everything from tent cities and homelessness; to gang violence in communities; to a special plenary session on drug-related overdoses, featuring BC Provincial Health Officer, Dr Perry Kendal and the Executive Director for the BC Centre for Disease Control, Dr. Mark Tyndall.
Premier Christy Clark is scheduled to give her annual address on Wednesday, with the election of the UBCM’s new Executive to take place on Thursday afternoon. Local City Councillor Murry Krause is in the running for President and could win by acclamation, if no one steps forward during Thursday morning’s ‘Nomination from the Floor’. (click here, for previous story)
Also vying for a spot on the Executive from northern BC are: Councillors Phil Brienesse from Smithers and Councillor Brian Frenkel from Vanderhoof, both running for Directors at Large, Stewart Mayor Galina Durant for Small Community Representative, and Fraser-Fort George Regional District Chair Art Kaehn for Electoral Area Representative.
The City of Prince George came up with four resolutions for policy debate at this year’s UBCM gathering:
- a call for the provincial government to restore community charitable gaming grants to 2008-2009 funding levels, re-implement a three-year grant funding model to offer non-profits stability, and increase gaming grants proportionally to increases in gaming revenue,
- a call for a poverty reduction plan,
- a call on the BC Goverment to urge Ottawa to include local governments in the equation when establishing a federal marijuana tax fund, and
- a call for a community-based agricultural extension program that would support new, prospective, and existing farmers.
In a report to Council at its September 12th meeting, Councillor Brian Skakun advised the UBCM’s Resolution Committee had referred the marijuana tax fund resolution to a similar suggestion from the City of Duncan, which is proposing a federal/provincial/territorial task force be struck to design a ‘new system of strict marijuana sales and distribution with federal and provincial excise taxes applied’. The resolution also calls for a portion of any of those taxes collected to be shared with local governments.
Discussion and debate on the resolutions begins on Wednesday morning.
Comments
I guess they are not a broke as they claim, there always seems to be money for the unnecessary.
They obviously haven’t heard of Skype or Video conferencing.
Another over rated, expensive holiday.
Do you honestly believe that Skype or video conferencing would be suitable for a 5 day conference being attended by 1,800 people, and where multiple different interactive sessions are happening each day?
of course they can , if they really wanted to
I’d love to see 1800 people trying to Skype at the same time! Who can be the loudest? :)
No kidding! It’s bad enough trying to have a basic teleconference with 5-10 people, LOL.
Funny how there is always money available for these all expenses paid junkets for politicians.
Fundamentally, there’s always money available for anything that can be done. Much is said about the propensity of those we elect to ‘tax and spend’. But the process is really ‘BORROW, spend, and tax’. And nothing at all is ever said about that. Pity.
Just a bunch of do-gooders.
Cheers
“The City of Prince George came up with four resolutions for policy debate at this year’s UBCM gathering:
– a call for the provincial government to restore community charitable gaming grants to 2008-2009 funding levels, re-implement a three-year grant funding model to offer non-profits stability, and increase gaming grants proportionally to increases in gaming revenue,
-a call for a poverty reduction plan,”
Both of which I have advocated for on here in the past, way to go Mayor and Council!!!
Calling for a plan is one thing, actually coming up with a sustainable plan is a completely different story.
Exactly, do you recall the old saying; “you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink”?
In this case a poverty reduction plan is the water, and Christy Clark, and her government, is the horse. It is not just Mayors and Councils that are calling for it, but also school districts! BC is the only province in Canada that does not have a plan to reduce poverty, and yet all we keep hearing from them are *crickets*!
.princegeorgecitizen.com/news/local-news/school-district-wants-provincial-action-on-child-poverty-1.2121334
So what is this plan that you equate to water? Handouts don’t work and certainly aren’t sustainable. Every other province is riddled with poverty so obviously their plans aren’t working.
We’ve had poverty issues long before Clark came along.
That’s your argument? “Every other province is riddled with poverty so obviously their plans are not working.”
Wow… you do realize that all their plans are working, which is one of the reasons why BC has the highest child poverty rate in Canada, right axman? Could another more obvious reason be that BC has the highest child poverty rate in Canada BECAUSE it is the only province that does not have a poverty reduction plan?
.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-has-highest-child-poverty-rate-in-canada-report-1.2440909
MB is at 29.0%. Sask is at 25.0 %. Nova Scotia is 21.2%. New Brunswick is at 21.2% then we have BC at 20.4%. Ontario follows us at 20.0% and the national after tax child poverty rate is 19.0%.
Tell me again how all all the other plans are working?
Quebec is doing the best at 14.8% but since they’ve been sucking money from every other province since Confederation that’s understandable.
I suspect you are using an out-dated source axman, I would estimate it to be more than a decade old. Please include your source with a link to it, as the rest of us frequently do.
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