Northwest Wants Revenue Sharing Agreement
Terrace, B.C.- A new survey indicates strong support for a revenue sharing agreement that would see the Northwest receive a share of revenue from projects in that region.
According to an Insights West survey, 85% of Northwest B.C. residents believe it is important to have a revenue sharing agreement that would see a portion returned to local governments.
The poll also found that more than 75% of residents believe provincial government financial support for facilities and services in their region is worse than in the Lower Mainland.
According to research conducted by the Northwest B.C. Resource Benefits Alliance (RBA), Northwest B.C. communities have a combined $600 million infrastructure deficit, with that number increasing annually.
“Without provincial government revenue sharing, our taxpayers do not have the means to fill the infrastructure and local service gaps we face, especially since we can’t tax resource developments outside of municipal boundaries,” says Bill Miller, Chair of the RBA and Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako.
Poll results find that, by far, residents would prefer to secure a share of provincial revenue from resource projects (61%), with significantly fewer opting for increasing taxes on resource companies (34%) or increasing local property taxes (6%).
Three-in-four residents believe resource project development in the Northwest will benefit their communities. Most (82%) expect the resource projects to bring employment opportunities , local business opportunities (79%), increased provincial revenue (76%), local tax revenue (66%), community sustainability (65%), and higher wages (60%).
In the past five years, there has been $13 billion in wealth-creating major project capital spending in the Northwest, generating at least $500 million in incremental provincial government revenue. “The provincial government is relying on Northwest resources to provide monetary resources for the entire province,” says Barry Pages, Vice-Chair of the RBA and Chair of the North Coast Regional District. “While residents are supportive of resource development and the resulting influx of jobs and opportunities, that comes with significant cost pressures for municipalities and regional districts. The revenue leaves the region and we are left with the costs. The Northwest should have a tangible physical legacy from all this wealth, not be left worse off as we have been in past development booms.”
“Negotiations need to begin now,” says Mayor Phil Germuth, Vice-Chair of the RBA and Chair of the Regional District of Kitimat-Stikine. “We’re asking that, by September 9, 2017, whichever government is elected will begin good-faith negotiations with the RBA, representing B.C.’s Northwest communities.“
Comments
The business model for the mining is the same as what is happening in the forest sector . Sending raw logs to mills around the world equals no jobs for value added commodities . Sending all the ore abroad equals NO value added for all mines except the last smelter standing in Trail . We’ve had libcredcons and NDP since 1972 and nothing has changed except for the worse . The RBA can do nothing to change this . The voters in 604 preclude change . First past the post doesn’t work for 250 and never will .
I guess nowhere in the rules does it say you have to know what your talking about.
Well that’s complete crap. First, raw log exports constitute a minuscule fraction of our forest product exports. Second, we don’t produce or export ‘ore’ – ore is the stuff in the ground.
We produce concentrate, an enriched sand-like product that contains as much of the target commodity (or gold) that the mill process can achieve. Some of that product is smelted into the final product in Canada and some is shipped offshore as an export. It’s called trade.
Besides, can you imagine the uproar from the NDP and their band of eco-terrorists (and by eco I mean economic) if a new copper smelter were proposed in BC?
Oh yeah, that was part of Taseko Mine’s Prosperity Project proposal, soundly denounced by the NDP.
Hypocrites.
Well I guess I know a little more on the subject than you . Concentrate is ore . Or, concentrated ore , or it’s also called dressed ore . Either way until it’s smelted it’s still ORE . Btw I’m a BCGreen . We use logic as opposed to dogma . It is the Libcons that are busy exporting our jobs . It is the libcons that have helped the shut down 150 saw mills . It is the libcons that have not even mentioned processing our Mountains of exported ORE for the last 15 Years .
The only “logic” you demonstrated was the term “ore” but the rest of your post was “dogma”.
‘It is the libcons that have helped the shut down 150 saw mills.’
Also complete crap. Sawmills close (or open, or consolidate, or change) because of market forces and the introduction of technology for the purposes of improving efficiency (and reducing costs).
It’s not the purpose of government to prop up inefficient industries for the purposes of maintaining jobs. If your job is in danger because of market forces or the introduction of technology get a different job – and use the training opportunities that the current government offers for just that purpose.
‘The BC Greens will vigorously defend the wagon wheel industry in the face of the big bad BC Liberal party – wagon wheel manufacturing has historically been the backbone of the covered wagon sector, also under attack by big bad Christy Clark. Before you know it the libcons will be coming after blacksmiths and farriers and livery stable workers.’
You amaze me .
“It’s not the purpose of government to prop up inefficient industries for the purposes of maintaining jobs. If your job is in danger because of market forces or the introduction of technology get a different job – and use the training opportunities that the current government offers for just that purpose.”
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Completely agree with your first sentence. But your second, while sound advice, perhaps, on an ‘individual’ basis, simply wouldn’t work if applied ‘collectively’ in our modern world. If EVERYONE tried to do it.
The day of a ‘job’ for everyone is rapidly coming to an end. We may be able to provide one, for awhile, at least, by having a shorter work day and work sharing. But with things as they are now, there are simply not going to be enough jobs to absorb all those we’re training for them.
We’re going to end up with a lot of trained people, which may well be a good thing in itself, but they’re going to be very badly disappointed if they ALL think the training they’ve received is going to be their ticket to riches, or even a meal ticket for survival. More than a few are going to be badly disappointed.
The world, whether we like it or not, is working to put its people out of work. And the pace it’s doing this is going to greatly accelerate in the years ahead. Time we focussed on what’s really going to be necessary if we’re going to take advantage of what an increase in productive efficiency really means. And that’s finding a way to distribute an income to everyone, whether they work or not, separate from any they earn through employment. Our biggest problem today isn’t a ‘production’ problem ~ we’ve overcome scarcity long ago in most areas, and our trouble today is more often one of glut ~ purely a ‘distribution’ problem. How do we get what we’ve already made into the hands of those who need and want it without having to make more of it that we don’t need nor want, nor anyone else, anywhere else, does either.
Absolutely right on the jobs front Cred . Have you seen the Apple picking robot trials in Washington ? Thats why the value chain is so important .
No, I’ve heard about them, but haven’t seen what they’ve actually developed. In any case, that’s just one more example of what’s happening at an ever faster pace. More product output with way less labor input. Already some futurists are predicting that over 50% of today’s jobs won’t exist in 50 years time. And that’s not even looking at the huge superfluous number of jobs now in existence that are not really even needed.
If our financial system truly reflected these advances in efficiency, prices of all consumer goods would be falling, not rising. We would view the displacement of labor as a great blessing rather than as a pernicious curse. For unemployment that WASN’T accompanied by unemPAYment is leisure. And history has proven that leisure, far from being just idleness, has been necessary to make further advancements in removing human beings from not only the drudgery of the menial job, but allowing advanced technology to do, or help do, other jobs better.
As regards the ‘value chain’, I believe most people would like manufacturing to stay in this country to the greatest extent possible. For that to happen, though, there has to be a market for the products we’re hoping to add value to. One that will return the costs, plus an additional profit to make the whole process continually worthwhile.
When those markets exist, business steps up to the plate to fill them. If the markets we’re targeting are abroad, the countries receiving our products have to be able to sell something of theirs back to us to pay for them.
If the markets are domestic, then there must be sufficient EFFECTIVE DEMAND (ability to pay a price which recovers costs, plus that needed profit) to match whatever exists in the way of CONSUMER demand.
Here we have a major problem. In our modern, industrial, technologically advancing world only a PART, and an ever declining part, (no matter how much wages are raised), of all the costs that go into any product are now distributed as current labor incomes.
The OTHER part are allocated charges for Capital costs, for things which may have been distributed as incomes at some time in the PAST, but were, for the most part, spent by the recipients when received. (Which had the unfortunate deleterious effect of raising prices, then, which continue into the future). And this money, once spent, is no longer available as purchasing power to anyone.
It rather surprises me that the Green Party, which professes to believe that we should all be doing our bit to “save the Earth” from ongoing environmental degradation, doesn’t clue into the real cause of the majority of it. A financial system that increasingly fails to reflect physical realities. One that forces us to do more than we’d otherwise ever need to do in order to try to earn an income sufficient to cover the costs of what we’ve already done. One would think that Greens would be the first to realise that there is no such thing as a debt in nature. That the ACTUAL costs of all ‘production’ are fully met as production occurs. Or it couldn’t occur. Financial cost is supposed to be an accurate REFLECTION numerically of REAL cost. But in today’s world it increasingly isn’t. And because it isn’t, financially determined prices rise at a faster rate than incomes are being distributed capable of fully meeting them. This forces us to mortgage tomorrow’s earnings to pay today’s price for yesterday’s production. And debt rises exponentially, since in its totality, under such a goofy set-up, it can never be fully repaid.
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