Tax Season Debate is upon us!

Dec 3rd Cowichan Community Centre - 4:30 PM

Go have your say on the budget, and have your questions heard before North Cowichan Council in one of two open houses:

“NOTICE IS GIVEN that the District of North Cowichan will be hosting Open Houses at 4:30 p.m. followed by Special Committee of the Whole meetings at 6:00 p.m. on the following dates: Tuesday, December 3, 2024 - at the Heritage Hall at the Cowichan Community Centre (2687 James Street), in Duncan BC 3. Tuesday, December 10, 2024 - at the Chemainus Fire Hall (9901 Chemainus Road), in Chemainus, BC.

North Cowichan Council will consider at each meeting, a formal presentation on the budget process, operational and capital discussion and Council and community priorities. These open houses and meetings will be held in person, and the public is encouraged to attend.” [ official notice ]

Last year North Cowichan patted themselves on the back for not having as large a tax hike as some other municipalities, however their removal of the utility bills from the annual tax bill created a slight of hand, and financial hardship for many with this extra bill to their households, which if not paid, is added to your taxes creating a drastic increase that they tried to burry. Additionally, removing the utilities from the annual taxes gives the municipality leverage to increase the bills based on usages at a whim.

Municipalities are having many more extra costs passed down to them by the province, which one can tell by watching Directors at the CVRD and Council members at NCs’ frustration in many meetings. For instance; one such extra cost handed down could increase our tax rate by .5% - you can read here pt1 Province targeting south island pt2 Reply from the staff at NC

The Province has pressured the Muni. with quotas on buildings/units, and has downloaded the building and implementation of a daycare as a new jurisdictional duty to local governments (ie your property tax).

The Province also put in the safe injection site and two transition houses (called by many as ‘wet houses’ as drugs are allowed on site) - which has now forced local governments (your taxes) to pay for more policing and bylaw officers, as well as citizen clean up crews.

So what does North Cowichan have the power over in their budgets, especially becoming less and less self sufficient as the industries that built this town are either being shuttered by foreign owners (mills) or are in years of ‘talks’ with First Nations such as with the municipal forest reserve. A reserve that used to cost tax payers nothing, as it was run self-sustainably, generated more than enough revenue to sustain the maintenance as well as add monies into a reserve fund. That fund is diminished, from lack of use, now costs the tax payers aprox 500k a year to maintain. As Munis become less reliant on local economies that once boomed, they become more and more dependent on Provincial and Federal grants - which in turn means, they must comply with agendas such as the ‘climate’ one, in order to get funding.

The ‘climate’ plan is estimated at todays costs to cost N.C. tax payers aprox 500 million to implement - apparently to help stop the climate from changing (as it has since the dawn of time). [ https://wwind.ca/picking-apart-north-cowichans-climate-change-risk-assessment-and-adaptation-strategy/ ]

Many of us went and spoke last year to the budget (videos can be found on coap.ca)

But what will it mean to you? Vast increases in taxes, lack of energy choices driving up costs of energy (one of the biggest factors of poverty are shown to be energy costs), slowly driving you out of your home with things such as forced retrofitting of homes (Already in their plans) [https://wwind.ca/demonizing-single-family-homes/ and more restrictions/and frustrating measures for drivers in their attempts to nudge people into walking and ‘active transportation’.

Feedback last year on the Climate Action Plan and its affects on our taxes:

Joseph speaks on the fact that the ‘climate emergency’ was never defined:

This is the correspondence with the highly paid climate specialist Joseph is referring to in his speech

What else does North Cowichan have power over in their budget?

Grants to local non-profits, which they have been in discussions to cap.

Contactors/vendor payments, park acquisition, climate mitigation infrastructure, staff costs etc

….and more such as ( from the 2023 budget review paper) :

General government services 7,458,538 (2022: 6,860,885).

Protective services 13,206,802 (2022: 12,411,129)

Engineering and public works 13,102,715 (2022: 12,660,741)

Environmental health services 2,813,217 (2022: 2,509,014)

Forestry 708,551 (2022: 568,976)

Community development 1,596,649 (2022: 1,424,693)

Recreation and cultural services 13,689,445 (2022: 12,753,804)

Water 5,786,918 (2022: 5,054,610). Sewer 5,974,431 (2022: 3,825,056)

Have your voices heard, as local governments are more and more turning to listening to outside entities (UBCM, PCP, ICLEI, etc) than their own constituents.

And if you need a reminder as to where your voice is not welcome (ie climate agenda) here is Mayor Douglas reminding the packed room that their opinions on the matter are neither here nor there and that constituents should vote differently next time ( Good reminder for the new bi-election coming to N.C.)

Happy weekend!

Team COAP