A Capital Regional District (CRD) report has confirmed that CRD electoral area residents pay more taxes to fund some regional services than they get back.
Titled Regional Equity Investments (REI), the report arose from a request by Salt Spring electoral area director Gary Holman through the CRD Hospitals and Housing Committee. The resulting analysis found the three electoral areas provided 7.5 per cent of the requisition total and received two per cent in capital hospital funds and 1.5 per cent in housing over a 15-year period.
Now what’s needed is a similar study undertaken for the rest of the CRD’s regional service spending.
We might feel differently if the CRD Board had not rebuffed a formal request for Salt Spring to be excluded from a new region-wide transportation service last fall. Salt Spring residents already pay for their own transportation and transit service, Holman and Local Community Commissioner Brian Webster told the board, and are unlikely to benefit from contributing to another one. The cost is $26 per average-assessed household this year, but is expected to rise to $100 per year. Then-board-chair Colin Plant said if we wanted a Fulford Harbour to Vesuvius regional trail, this service would be the way to go, adding it would be “untenable” for Salt Spring to not participate. But guess what happened when the Salt Spring Island Regional Trail concept hit the CRD Transportation Committee agenda? Members suggested that already earmarked design funds for the same trail Plant cited might more appropriately come from the regional parks budget. This is after the proposal was originally punted from the CRD Regional Parks Committee to the Transportation Committee late last year. A report on the matter has been commissioned and is due in September of 2027. . . unbelievable!
We understand the tendency is to spend funds to benefit the largest number of people. Building an urban apartment building or spending money on upgrading the wildly popular Galloping Goose Trail makes more sense than providing significant funds to a 20-unit housing complex on, say, Pender Island, or an off-road trail on Salt Spring.
But it does beg the question of what we are paying for, exactly, and why, when moving off the islands may be the only clear way to benefit.