A new charter for
B.C. municipalities

By NIGEL MORGAN

new, draft “constitution” for

for municipal government in
this province is now before the
legislature. Within the next
few days the Bennett govern-
ment plans to make it law. A
massive document of 899 sec-
tions, the new municipal char-
ter will place all village, muni-
cipal and city councils in the
province (with the exception
of Vancouver which has its
own charter under one simpli-
fied, and radically-revised sta-
tute.

British Columbia’s total of 35
cities, 30 municipalities and 48
villages will find their “rights
and responsbilities” considera-
bly redefined when the new
“Act Respecting ,Municipali-
ties” comes into force next
July 1. In effect it will, with
many changes and revisions,
replace nine present statutes—
the present Municipal, Munici-
pal Incorporation, Municipal
Elections, Municipal Manager,
Village Municipality, Local
Improvements, Town Planning,
Shop and Weekly Holidays, and
Poll Tax acts.

Not since 1914 has municipal
legislation as a whole been re-
vised. Numerous minor amend-
ments over those 43 years, no
less than historical develop-
ments and the great expansion
and change in the provincial
economy, have long since cre-
ated the need for a thorough
overhaul.

A strong motive for the go-
vernment’s action! has undoub-
tedly been its desire to get au-
thority to prod municipalities
of the Greater Vancouver area
into some form of metropoli-
tan administration. With 50
percent of the province’s one
and one half million popula-
tion crowded into the lower
mainland area, overall plann-
ing for land utilization has be-
come hopelessly inadequate,
and overlapping of public ser-
vices has become wasteful and
costly.

It would seem that some
form of metropolitan authori-
ty is becoming essential; yet
present administrations of ci-
ties and municipalities concern-
ed have made little headway
during the past four years the
question has been under dis~

cussion.
*

Big issues are involved. For
the people it’s a question of
how to get coordination of
Overall planning, elimination
of costly duplications in order
to provide better civic services
at lower per capita costs, and
how to reduce the present un-
bearable burden of tax bills,

and this without loss of muni-
cipal identity and the democra-
cy and ‘closeness’ that is a very
real factor in the smaller muni-
cipal administrations. There is
a natural and justified fear of
any form of super administra-
tion which would take muni-
cipal administrators further
away from their constituents.

For big business, it’s a
straight question of profits and
how the present privileged po-
sitions of the big corporations
can be continued, and if pos-
sible extended, in a way that
will place an even bigger share
of the tax load on homeowners
and small businesses. For big
business, ‘strong leadership” is
needed to guide the reorgani-
zation.

It’s already evident the Ben-
nett government is out to get
the authority to force the
municipalities into some me-
tro set-up. One of the effects of
the new legislation will be to
put the metro question high up
on the agenda for the Greater
Vancouver area at least, and
possibly for Greater Victoria
as well. How it can be worked:
out to benefit the people, and.
how it can lighten the burden
of, municipal tax bills will re-
quire careful study.

In addition to providing the
mechanics for combining two
or more municipalities under a
metropolitan form of admin-
istration, the new act provides
for establishment of special
“urban areas” within certain
rural municipalities (with an
area exceeding 10,000 acres)
for advancement of special
urban projects.

Provisions for “towns” and
“local district” municipalities
brings to four the new forms
of municipal administration al-
lowed for in the act.

*

Starting with local districts
(populations up to 500), pro-
vision is made for an adminis-
tration by a chairman and two
trustees. Populations from 501
up to 2500 are to be constitut-
ed as villages with a chairman
and four commissioners, Popu-
lations from 2501 up to 5,000
will. henceforth “be called
towns and have a mayor and
four aldermen.

*Populations exceeding 5,000
will be considered as: cities,
except where an area exceeds
2,000 acres with an average
density of population of less
than two persons, when it will
be called a district munici-
pality.

A city of less than 50,000
will have a mayor and six
aldermen, and with more than
50,000, a mayor and eight al-
dermen. A _ district munici-

pality with less than 50,000
population will have a reeve
and six councillors, and one
with more than 50,000, a reeve
and eigh councillors.

Provision is also made in
the case of both cities and
district municipalities for the
addition of two aldermen or
councillors by consent of the
electors.

Thus municipal government
is brought more into line with
the present stage of develop-
ment of the province and more
in line with the Ontario sys-
tem. The size of council rep-
resentation has been generally
extended and remuneration of
municipal representatives is to
be increased‘ anywhere from
25 to.100 percent under a new
scale.

Altogether; a monumental
job has been done in detail-
ing, simplifying and clarify-
ing the many hundreds of re-
quirements for municipal gov-

ernment.

The new proposals deserve
careful study by every organ-
ization and individual inter-
ested in the political develop-
ment of our province. It’s our
tax bill for some years ahead
that indirectly is being deter-
mined in the debate on the
Municipal Act in the legisla-
ture. Certainly no other single
piece of legislation is likely
to have so far-reaching an ef-
fect on what happens to our
tax bills in the next decade.

Of primary interest to small
taxpayers throughout the pro-
vince will be provisions the
new act makes for the tax
base, dealings with public utili-
ties (transit, light, power, gas
and communications), voting
rights, qualifications for muni-
cipal candidates, and labor
and civil rights.

Among the most important
changes are these:

The tax base has been ex-
tended to provide for a busi-
ness tax. Since this is a de-
ductable allowance in deter-
mining income for income tax
purposes, is a neat way of ob-
taining for the junior govern-
ment a little bigger slice of tax
revenues without increasing
the local tax burden. Pro-
vision is also made for a tax
on local liquor outlets, up to
20 percent of their licence fee
to the Liquor Control Board.

On the other hand, 'the al-
ways unpopular poll and road

taxes have been abolished.

Conspicuously absent are any

provisions for shifting the tax
load to provide needed relief
for homes, or allow for a grad-
uated system of basic exemp-
tion. Neither is there any
provision for outlawing the
“fixed assessments” racket or
for eliminating the widespread
practice of ‘“underassessing”
big industries like the CPR
and the B.C. Electric.

No provision is made for as-
sumption by the province of
responsibility for paying taxes
on government-owned build-
ings and lands within each
municipality (as has now been
agreed to by Ottawa). And
no provision is made, or even
the intention indicated for a
more equitable distribution of
government revenues to assist
in meeting mounting civic
costs.

Provision is carried over in
the new act for municipal own-
ership of utilities, and muni-
cipal acquisition and operation
of forest licenses. Little ad-
ditional encouragement for
public ownership of utility ser-
vices is offered, however, and
no adequate provision is made
for a worthwhile -and equit-
able return to municipal cof-
fers from this source, despite
the experience of New West-
minster and eight other B.C.
cities.

The tax basis for utilities
has been changed from a flat
two percent of their income,
to. one percent of their net in-
come plus school taxes. A
number of municipal heads
have hailed this: change.

I am sure there will be no
opposition from the B.C. Elec-
tric, for there are few busi-
nesses that would not like to
tie their taxes to profits. The
change may bring in a few
additional dollars today, but
it could be a dangerous. for-
mula in a depressed period.

In the field of democratic
rights, the franchise has been
extended to provide the right
to vote to “owner-electors,”
“resident electors” and “ten-
ant electors,’ which should in-
clude every British citizen re-
siding in the municipality for
nine months prior to an eilec-
tion, who is 21 years of age,
and who registers at the muni-
cipal hall.

The right to vote at 18 (al-
ready granted in provincial
elections) has.not been grant-
ed, and the right of corpora-
tion-owners to more than one
vote has been wrongly re-
affirmed.

Qualifications for candidates
have been simplified to that of
being “an owner-elector” (re-

gardless of property valua-
tions or equity, but at the
same time, the elective prin-
ciple in selection of police com-
missions and parks boards has
been abolished in favor of ap-
pointments. Council repre-
sentation has generally been
broadened, but the right to the
ward system of representation
(as a guarantee against class
and territorial discrimination)
unfortunately is specifically
excluded under section 152.

Town planning boards are
to be replaced by advisory com-
mittees, with a new system of
“official plans” subject to pro-
vincial government. approval,
and establishing of regional
planning boards. This pro-
posal has merit, but legal teeth
for enforcement of urban plan-
ning will be essential (partic-
ularly in relation to land util-
ization) if planning or even
metropolitan administrations
are to mean anything.

The right of a municipality
to borrow up to $5 per capita
with a maximum of 100,000
without prior authorisation by
taxpayers is a dangerous and
wrong procedure.

*

Principal demands that need
to be made for improvement
of the present draft include:

+ Provisions to shift some
of the tax load from homes to
profit-making industries.

+ A graduated system of
exemptions for assessment, al-
lowing for both class and earn-
ing capacity of each property.

+ Replacement of business
licenses (which treat big and
small alike) by.a system of
business tax, related to gross
take.

+ Amendment of the utili-
ty tax proviso to base it on
gross income instead of new
income.

+ Outlawing of “fixed as-
sessments.”’

+ Granting of the franchise
at 18 years of age (in line with
the Provincial Elections Act).

+ Abolition of the “corpor-
ation” vote in order to provide
for one citizen, one vote.

+Elimination of the propo-
sal to abolish the elective prin-
ciple for parks boards and
police commissions.

+ Provision for a return
to the ward system of repre-
sentation, where voters so de-
sire.

+ Provision for an increas-
ed share of government rev-
enues at the municipal level
and for the provincial gov-
ernment to vay taxes on pro-
vincial government - owned
lands and buildings.

These are some of the
changes needed to overcome
the shortcomings that still re-
main im the new act and to
complete a democratic con-
stitution for our municipal
governments which will serve
the people’s interests.

MARCH 22, 1957 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE—PAGE ll