Government Accountability on

Fee & Tax Hikes?

Meanwhile, those government-managed infrastructure projects like Metro Vancouver's sewage plant in North Vancouver (pictured), are now billions over budget, originally a $700 million cost and delayed by years while their CEO has earned approximately $700,000 a year, more than a US President! "To pay for their ineptitude, Metro Vancouver has passed a levy that local taxpayers will have to pay for decades to come," wrote Chris Gardner, Independent Contractors and Businesses CEO. The size and scope of the Metro Regional Government salaries, travel and meeting costs were profiled on Global News.

An audit of where growing property tax and homebuilder fee funds went was shelved despite loud calls for spending transparency. Current and future homeowner and business property taxpayers will pay hundreds more dollars annually from this boondoggle.
A Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) study in the Victoria News found BC's regional district spending rose faster than “population, inflation, and property taxes," meaning higher taxes for small businesses (and homeowners).

“Regional districts are massively overspending and deserve more scrutiny,” Ryan Mitton, the CFIB’s director of legislative affairs for the province, said in a news release. “Small businesses tell us they aren’t seeing value for their tax money from their regional districts and are left with higher tax bills at a time where they can barely afford to keep their doors open, especially as we face U.S. tariffs.”
Similarly, in Ontario, Marlon Bray, a VP of Clark Construction points out to Storeys: "Feds and provincial governments already receive a source of housing-based income in the form of HST on home purchases. They mismanage it. “They take all that cash but they don’t actually give it back down to the municipalities for infrastructure, they only give less than a third of that money back,” says Bray. “They just keep the rest and put it into the general kitty."
Funds collected via DC (Development Charges on homebuilders) are equally mismanaged, Bray adds. “The challenge I have with the City’s reserves is they keep it in a bank account and get interest on it,” he explains. “We’ve got a housing crisis, we’ve got infrastructure challenges, and these municipalities are sitting upon billions of dollars.”

All levels of government are milking housing like a cash cow with no accountability on how money is spent. Taxpayers deserve to know where all their taxes are going. So far, it appears most of it has gone into growing bureaucracies and government bank accounts with little improvement in services or community amenities (like schools, hospitals, transit, swimming pools, etc.). The majority of Vancouver's rec centres, pools and ice rinks are in "poor condition."
British Columbia, for example received about 1% per year over a decade of the billions allocated for infrastructure federally. Since 2015, the federal government has granted $29.1 billion nationally, with $3.1 billion of that in B.C. Most stays back east, even though Metro Vancouver is one of the top three destinations for new immigrants, the other two being Toronto and Montreal.
Vancouver city's financial statements reveal they're sitting on 3.9 Billion in cash/investments, much of that from developer fees that are passed onto renters and buyers. The City's Annual Budget (2024) confirms nearly half a billion dollars was collected from builders. Now that homebuilding has slowed severely, how will the city replace that revenue source? Other BC city financial assets and bank balances can be found here, compiled by the province.
Provincially, however, BC's financial situation has become so dire the Globe and Mail recently flagged its troubling economic outlook and doubled debt.