It wasn’t quite what the northwestern local governments belonging to the Northwest B.C. Resource Benefits Alliance originally wanted but there was loud applause nonetheless when Premier David Eby, two cabinet ministers and a MLA came to the trades building at Coast Mountain College in Terrace March 15 to officially announce the province was giving the alliance a $250 million grant over five years.
Eby said the money, which had already been announced when the provincial budget was released in Victoria in February, will end what he called the disconnect between the taxes that flow to the province from large scale industrial projects and northwestern B.C. residents.
“People haven’t shared that,” he said.
And while the alliance at first wanted a percentage share each year of those tax dollars going to the province, Eby said the grant will instead provide northwestern local governments the certainty of knowing exactly how much they’ll get each year.
“It’s not going to fluctuate up and down depending upon resource prices,” he added.
Eby characterized the grant as one step toward reliable support for local governments.
There are to be no strings attached to the money that most local governments will use to update aging civic infrastructure such as roads, water lines and sewer works.
A formula on how the money will be divided up between the 21 members of the alliance has yet to be decided but its representatives and provincial officials are in discussion.
“We’re hopeful we’re able to reach a decision collaboratively together at the table that works for all communities,” Eby said.
“If it’s too challenging at the table to do this, we’ll do it at the provincial level and we’ll take responsibility.”
Terrace mayor Sean Bujtas thanked the premier on behalf of the alliance, relaying a history of the group that dates back to its founding in 2014.
A grant of $100 million in 2019 followed by $50 million the next year represented a start of what was possible, he said.
“This is not something to us,” Bujtas said to Eby. “It is everything to us.”
“You have been our champion since being premier.”
With Eby were municipal affairs minister Anne Kang, Nathan Cullen, the NDP MLA for Bulkley Valley-Stikine and Jennifer Rice, the NDP MLA for the North Coast.
Eby also commented on a letter sent to him by federal opposition leader Pierre Poilievre asking him to hold off on increasing B.C.’s carbon tax as of April 1.
Unlike many other provinces, B.C. has its own carbon tax but it is aligned with the federal one. Both are set to rise by $15 a tonne to $80 a tonne, representing a price hike of three cents a litre or so on gasoline.
Poilievre wants Eby to join seven other premiers who want the federal government to freeze the federal tax in their provinces.
“As people across our country are struggling, the last thing they need is another tax increase,” Poilievre noted in his letter to Eby.
But Eby would have none of that, saying that if the B.C. tax is frozen as Poilievre wants, it will mean less money for British Columbians. That’s because of a series of rebates aimed at middle and lower-income B.C. residents.
“I don’t live in the Pierre Poilievre campaign office and baloney factory,” Eby said.
“I know that Mr. Poilievre knows that his [freeze] suggestion would be less money for British Columbians. That’s not his priority. Fair enough.”
Eby also said Poilievre has a “struggle with reality” when he and B.C. Conservative leader John Rustad advocated for the return of unvaccinated health workers to hospitals and care facilities in the middle of a measles outbreak.
“Let me be clear, measles kills babies and toddlers,” Eby added.