The mayor of Kamloops says time is running out for the province to reach a revenue sharing agreement with local governments to share legal cannabis tax monies.
Ken Christian says municipalities including Kamloops have incurred real costs in dealing with the legal cannabis regime and those costs need to be covered.
“These costs are real. Policing, planning, zoning, and those kinds of things have been expensed already. We will be preparing our next budget and we would welcome the opportunity to have some cannabis revenue in that mix so that we can show our taxpayers in Kamloops that the money we have already expended has been reimbursed in good faith.”
Christian says with a new municipal budget process creeping closer if there is no deal it will be civic taxpayers paying the bill.
“Time is running out on two fronts. I think the local government community is really anxious for this to occur. we have been at the government for almost a year on this file and we still haven’t gone anywhere. We are going into convention in September and I suspect it will be a rough ride for government if they have not got something in place by then.”
What would be the cost on local taxpayers if a deal is not reached by municipal budget time?
“It would certainly be under a point. I think the more important piece is there are a lot of social costs that we anticipated and a lot of education costs in terms of responsible cannabis use that we are engaging in and we are not being reimbursed for that. Somebody is collecting the money and is just not giving it out. I get it that they want to make this thing right but the fact is that they are sitting on a pool of money now that properly belongs in part to municipalities in this province.”
Last fall the federal government agreed to give the provinces and territories 75% of cannabis tax revenues.
The B.C. government has been negotiating with the Union of BC Municipalities over a revenue sharing formula for local governments since the beginning of the year.