Watch: Should provincial government share revenues with cities in good years?

When the Socreds were in power in the 80s, they shared surplus revenue with municipalities. But when the NDP came into power, they killed it.

Now, two B.C. mayors want a return to those generous ways.

Saanich mayor Frank Leonard and Port Coquitlam mayor Greg Moore were behind the proposal for the province to share some of its revenues in good years  at the Union of B.C. Municipalities Wednesday, and spoke on Unfiltered with Jill Krop tonight.

“We put a lot of work and effort into this report over the last year or two,” said Moore. “Really taking a concrete and objective look at how local government is funded and what is a better way to fund a local government going forward.”

Moore says they have already met with Premier Christy Clark to brief her on the concept.

“I think she is open to the conversation,” says Moore. “We want to grow the economy together, and we think we should receive some of that revenue when the economy grows.”

Saanich mayor Frank Leonard says while it is impossible to predict when revenues will be higher than average, he thinks municipalities deserve a share of them when times are better.

“History does show us that provincial governments of all stripes have good years and soft years, and what we want to do is tell them — let’s work together so that we have more good years than bad, and when we succeed at having a growing economy, let us share in some of the revenue that comes with it,” says Leonard.

However, Jordan Bateman with the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation told Jill Krop it is an interesting concept, but it should only come with strings attached.

But Moore says British Columbia municipalities have the second lowest per capita spending of municipal governments across the country.

“We are on the low end of it. Can we do better? Sure. And that is why in the report we said — we need to look at how we can do things better, we need to work with the local government auditor general, we need to have best practices and share how we can do things better,” says Moore.