How do you make a road last 212 years?
As the Mayor of Terrace, a small city in northwest B.C., this is a question I ask myself almost every day.
With 85 kilometres of road and no industrial taxation, Terrace can only afford to pave 400 metres of road a year without additional grant funding. On our current path, if we rebuild a road today, we will not be able to rebuild it again for 212 years.
Terrace is the epicentre of a major industrial boom, and so the province’s success hinges on finding new ways to help our community thrive. This includes today’s big-ticket items like LNG, mine expansions, power line upgrades, as well as the projects our future relies on, such as mineral exploration projects and clean energy proposals.
For all of these, Terrace is a service and supply hub.
Which means, while our house prices and rent have boomed and our restaurants are busy, our roads, hospital, and recreation facilities are also over-subscribed. But, because so many of the industrial projects fall outside of our municipal boundaries, we have not had a corresponding increase to our tax base. Instead, to cover increasing costs and demands on our services and infrastructure, we have had to increase our municipal taxes.
Finding ways to redress this balance is essential for communities like Terrace, but it is also key to the success of all future projects that will drive our provincial economy.
By way of example, 45 minutes down the road from Terrace is Kitimat, where Rio Tinto and LNG Canada fall within municipal boundaries. Kitimat collects $4,796 of municipal tax per resident, with much of that bill paid by industry.
Terrace, on the other hand, collects $1,603 of municipal tax per resident, and virtually none of it is covered by industry. Residents see the opportunities in the region, but are frustrated because they are paying higher taxes without gaining additional services to address the increased burden on their infrastructure.
We want industry in Terrace. We want industry in the northwest. We come from families where the forest industry has long put food on the table. When revenue is created in our regions, we should see a fair share of the revenue.
$250 million over five years is a good start
As the co-chair of the Northwest Resource Benefits Alliance, I have spent many years lobbying the provincial government for a revenue-sharing resource agreement modelled after the Peace River Agreement, which shares tax revenue with the communities supporting resource development.
Last year, we signed a five-year deal with the province which will see $50 million annually flow into 21 local governments from Vanderhoof to Massett. From that revenue, Terrace will receive almost $7 million annually over that time. We have already started to invest that money into critical infrastructure.
This is a start.
But the deal is only for five years, and is not comprehensive enough to compensate for all of the value – and impacts – our region sees. The money is also restricted to specific infrastructure projects. In the Peace River Region, revenue is returned to the communities surrounding development, resulting in a more sustainable situation, enabling communities to be fully committed to supporting development.
We believe the best path forward lies in all parties having a clear understanding of regional economic opportunities and impacts from development. And for the affected municipalities to have appropriate support from other levels of government.
As communities gather in Victoria this week for the annual Union of BC Municipalities convention, Terrace is proposing a policy resolution that asks all levels of government to commit to revenue-sharing with affected local governments for all significant resource development projects. The resolution also calls on government to publicly share assessments of economic impacts from policy and regulation change, such as land use planning.
We have support from many other communities, and it is a practical demonstration that we are willing to work with all involved – governments, industry, Indigenous nations and others – to get things built and ensure that development benefits our communities.
With continued support, we believe we can have thriving communities, and maybe, we can get our roads repaved quicker than every 212 years.
Note: The amount of Kitimat’s tax collected per resident was updated on Sept. 25.