Thursday, August 18, 2022

Northwest communities to bring resolutions to UBCM in September


Across the Northwest elected officials and the senior staff members of local governments are making the final plans for the annual UBCM convention, the week long festival of municipal themes charting its course to Whistler from September 13-16.

Yesterday we highlighted the sole resolution project for the City of Prince Rupert and its discussion topic of a tax break to encourage the development of safe and affordable housing in the province.

For a number of other Northwest communities, the list is a bit longer and the topics more varied when it comes to issues that they wish to raise with the members of UBCM during convention week.

Of the Northwest communities, the most active on the resolutions page is Daajing Giids (formerly Queen Charlotte City) which brings five resolutions for consideration many of them focus on BC Ferries and Ambulance service in the region.

Terrace returns with its concerns over prolific offenders, while Smithers wants more money for public libraries, for Kitimat the themes are health care and the need for more cultural awareness training for local governments.

In total the Northwest is bringing 20 topics for discussion for the 2022 edition of UBCM.

A look at the list of Communities with initiatives to launch during the convention looks as follows:

Bulkley-Nechako Regional District 
NR 72 -- Veterinarian Shortage

Burns Lake
RR 27 -- Community Forests Escalating Stumpage

Daajing Giids
EB 4 --British Columbia  Changes to Paramedic Service Delivery
EB 32 -- Cannabis Taxation Revenue Sharing with Local Governments
EB 71 -- BC Ferries Provincial Statutory Guidance
EB 72 -- BC Ferries Commissioner's Relationship with Advisory Committees
EB 73 -- BC Ferries Advisory Council

Houston
EB 20 -- Access to Health Care Services

Kitimat
EB 86 -- Cultural Awareness Training for Local Governments 
NR 5 -- Registration of Internationally Educated Nurses

Smithers
EB 65 -- Regional ICBC Rate Inequities
RR 18 -- Request for Increased funding to BC Libraries 
RR 32 -- Community forest Tabular Pricing

Terrace
NR 36 -- Public Interest Guidelines for charging prolific offenders 

The organization which represents a collective of local government across Northern BC also has a number of resolutions up for consideration, with the North Central Local Government Asccociation noting of five areas of interest for discussion.

NCLGA
EB 25 -- Affordable Housing
EB 49 -- Access to Energy Advisors
EB 69 -- Roads and Bridges
RR 34 -- Justice Reform
RR 36 -- Provincial Sales Tax on Used Item Sales

You can dig a little deeper into their resolutions from the UBCM Resolution book here, which provides a thumbnail sketch of the proposals and the guidance of UBCM executives as they put the proposals forward.

With the planning near complete and communities ramping up their interest and set to head south for convention time, we've created an archive to follow along with the convention as we near the September 12th opening.

You can review those notes here.

1 comment:

  1. Daajing Giids initiates the conversation on cannabis tax revenue sharing and not Prince Rupert. That's interesting.

    ReplyDelete