BC Today – Daily Report February 26, 2020 Quotation of the day “We want our share.” Sooke Mayor and Union of B.C. Municipalities president Maja Tait says local governments are ​ ​ frustrated they haven’t received any provincial money to cover costs related to cannabis legalization. Today in B.C. On the schedule The house will convene at 1:30 p.m. for question period. The government will hold its weekly cabinet meeting in the morning. Tuesday’s debates and proceedings Liberal Municipal Affairs and Housing critic Todd Stone introduced private member’s bill M202, ​ ​ ​ ​ Strata Property Amendment Act, which would make changes aimed at mitigating the impacts of steep increases in strata insurance premiums in the province. MLAs spent the day debating the budget bill. At the legislature Liberal Jobs critic Greg Kyllo (Shuswap) welcomed members of the BC Log and Timber ​ ​ ​ Building Association to the house. Delta Hospice Society will lose provincial funding next year over refusal to provide medical assistance in dying The Delta Hospice Society has been given a year’s notice that its service agreement with the province is being cancelled over its board’s refusal to allow hospice patients to access medical assistance in dying (MAID) at the facility. The Irene Thomas Hospice, which the board oversees, has 10 beds and, under its current contract, receives $1.5 million in provincial funding each year — 94 per cent of its total annual ​ budget. B.C.’s policy on MAID requires any non-religious health-care facility that receives more than half of its funding from public coffers to provide patients with access to MAID. The society was ​ ordered to come up with a plan to comply with the provincial policy in December 2019. ​ "We have made every effort to support the board to come into compliance and they have been clear that they have no intention to," said Health Minister Adrian Dix. "We are taking this action ​ ​ reluctantly, and when the role of the Delta Hospice Society concludes, patients in publicly funded hospice care will again be able to fully access their medical rights." The government will spend the next year figuring out what to do with the hospice itself, which was built with community funding but resides on provincially owned land. The province leases the land to the hospice society for $1 per year, according to Dix. “We may take over the existing site, we may find another site — these beds will not move out of Delta,” he promised. “Ultimately, our number one priority is hospice care. Our focus on people and the rights that they have to access the service is paramount.” Liberal MLA Ian Paton, who represents Delta, called the province’s decision “unfortunate.” ​ ​ “What I see is government swooping in to take over this hospice,” he told reporters. “What I see is government literally stealing assets of the people of Delta who worked so hard, for so many years, to raise eight and a half million dollars for this facility.” Asked whether he supports the society’s stance on MAID, Paton said Delta is in the midst of “a very heated debate” on the issue. “I don’t want to get involved [in that],” he said. Poor cannabis sales leads to drop in provincial revenues, angry municipalities The amount the province expects in transfers from the federal excise tax on cannabis plummeted by 92 per cent in Budget 2020. In 2018, the government projected it would receive $75 million in excise tax transfers from Ottawa in 2019-20, but now it is expecting just $6 million. While the budget did not provide a breakdown of cannabis sales revenues — as with previous provincial documents released since legalization — federal excise tax projections provide a window into the amount of cannabis being sold in the province. The tax, which is paid by cannabis producers, is doled out to provinces on a monthly basis by Ottawa, depending on how ​ much product is sold in their jurisdiction. ​ Meanwhile, weak cannabis sales are dragging down the revenues of the Liquor Distribution Branch (LDB), which has enjoyed high profitability on booze sales alone. In 2018-19, the LDB fell $2 million short of its revenue projections despite recording “record growth” in liquor sales. This means the province, which uses LDB revenues to fund service delivery, ended up with less in its coffers than projected. In its annual report, the LDB said the revenue shortfall was “due in large part to the upfront costs” related to legal cannabis. Its cannabis division posted an operating loss of $5.6 million despite selling nearly 2,100 kilograms of cannabis products for a total of $18 million. Combined, the reduced excise tax projections and reduced revenue at the LDB represent a $71-million hit to coffers as the NDP government struggles to stay in the black moving into the next election cycle. At the same time, the budget included $30 million in new spending over three years on public safety measures related to cannabis and to crack down on illegal sales — in addition to approximately $50 million that had already been on the books ‘We can’t afford it anymore’: Municipalities want province to pay out local share of cannabis excise tax revenue Municipalities, which had been promised a portion of the federal excise task, have yet to see that materialize. In its 2019 report on the survey, the Union of B.C. Municipalities (UBCM) projected that the ​ ​ average municipality would spend $11.5 million per year on cannabis over the first three years of legalization — roughly 30 per cent of the excise tax the province previously expected to receive. Post-budget, Finance Minister Carole James told BC Today the province is still looking to cover ​ ​ ​ ​ its own costs before forking over any funding to help municipalities cover theirs. “We’re not there yet,” James said. But that’s not how things were supposed to work, according to Sooke Mayor Maja Tait, who ​ ​ ​ also chairs UBCM. “My understanding was that the federal government increased [the provincial] share from 50 ​ [per cent of the excise tax] to 75 ... with the understanding that the 25 per cent would flow ​ ​ through to local governments,” she said. “The messaging [from the province] has sort of been that it's still new, [they] don't know what the revenue is going to be, and we appreciate that. However, the federal government never ... based their decision on the allocation to the province based on what the revenue projection was.” If the province is unwilling to redirect 25 per cent of its excise tax revenues to towns and cities, Tait says Ottawa should do itself, especially since the NDP government continues to download costs. “We are willing to do the work — all of this is still unfolding,” she said. “But as we continue to do ​ ​ that, that's more of our time and costs that are coming up. And all we can do is raise money through property taxes, and through development fees, but we're trying to remain affordable for everyone.” Tait said her own community ended up dedicating an entire year to land-use planning, related to the zoning for cannabis retail shops, at a cost of approximately $80,000. “It’s a complete download to us,” Tait said. “We have done our part — we're being ignored.” ​ ​ Today’s events February 26 at 12:15 p.m. — Victoria ​ ​ Education Minister Rob Fleming will lead the legislature’s Pink Shirt Day in the Hall of Honour. ​ ​ Topics of conversation ● It’s time to get rid of the Lower Mainland’s “archaic rules” around where taxis can and cannot pick up and drop off passengers, according to the Surrey Board of Trade. The ​ ​ board has started a petition to get rid of taxi boundaries in the name of fairness for the industry, which is now competing with ride-hailing companies for rides. “We’re proponents of ride-sharing, but we’ve always said that the taxi industry, also, must engage and compete on a level playing field without any boundaries,” board CEO Anita ​ Huberman told News1130. ​ ○ Transportation Minister Claire Trevena said the decision is up to the Passenger ​ ​ Transportation Board. “They are the ones who make decisions on boundaries,” she told reporters, adding that the board of trade’s stance is not universal. “[The PTB] have indicated they're going to be looking at boundaries, but I think everybody knows that the issue of boundaries is divisive — there are some parts of the taxi industry that want to keep boundaries and other parts want to have boundaries removed, so it's something that the passenger transportation board will be taking a good look at.” ● B.C.’s Auditor General for Local Government office will be shuttered “in a couple of years,” Municipal Affairs and Housing Minister Selina Robinson told the Vancouver ​ ​ ​ ​ Sun. Budget 2020 reduced the local auditor general’s budget by 31 per cent, and the ​ Union of B.C. Municipalities supports the province’s plan to phase it out — something ​ the NDP promised to do during the 2017 election campaign. ● The fight over whether private medical clinics have a role to play in B.C.’s health-care system is back in court this week. B.C. government lawyers began their arguments in ​ ​ B.C. Supreme Court yesterday. ● A B.C. woman received just $70,000 from an ICBC settlement of more than $240,000 with the rest eaten up by lawyer fee, Global News reports. The woman, whose name is ​ ​ being withheld because she fears being sued by her lawyers, was involved in a crash in 2008 and her injuries left her unable to work.