Understanding local government

British Columbia is the only province with a two-level civic government system in Canada.

All areas of the province have both a regional board to govern over areas outside city boundaries, and city councils, with a jurisdiction that falls within a given zone within the region. Powell River region has only one city in it.

This structure was set up in the mid-1960s when there was a large influx of people moving into the province. As the population grew it was quickly apparent that there were not the proper services in place to accommodate outlying communities. Though basic services were covered within the city itself, vital services—water, fire departments, waste collection infrastructure and more—and policies and regulations to manage them, were required to meet the needs of communities outside city boundaries. The regional district system of government was created to serve this need.

“The provincial government realized that a large population base was moving outside city limits and into the provincial resource areas,” said Colin Palmer,  Powell River Regional District board chair. “The regional district has a lot to do with the provincial government. Rather than give them city status, the province gave them the ability to govern themselves. They would decide upon which services they wanted to be governed; they would decide where and on what they wanted to spend their taxes. The regional district is directly accountable to the people.”

In total there are five levels of government operating in the region: federal, provincial, the regional district, City of Powell River and Tla’amin (Sliammon) First Nation. Every level of government is responsible for a different set of regulations and services.

“The responsibilities between governments are pretty well defined, but there are times when the provincial and federal governments download services to the regional district,” Palmer said. “For example, both the Savary Island dock and the Van Anda dock were downloaded. They said ‘we’re not going to run these services any longer’ and they were left to us to take over. The money to administrate comes directly from taxes within the respective zones where the docks are located.” The regional district can control how much it contributes and in some cases what services it contributes to, and it is all based upon populations within the individual regions. Palmer said the city and the electoral areas own all the assets within the electoral areas. The regional district has 34 budgets, each one with its own revenue, its own income, its own expenses.

The district falls under the Local Government Act. The city operates under the Community Charter. Palmer has directors in charge of each of five local districts and is himself director of Electoral Area C. The city has a mayor and councillors. “The city also has the option of deciding which services they want to share. We have a choice as to whether we want to share in it with them. At the moment they’ve agreed they want to share eight services with the regional district. After that your services are coming solely from the regional district.”

Palmer acknowledged that it wasn’t a perfect system, pointing out that there is often question as to who should pay for what. When a decision must be made there is a voting system in place whereby the city has seven votes compared to the votes given to all of the other regions combined, because there is a higher number of people living within the city limits.

Residents from respective areas within the district have their say over which services their tax dollars will go to. Major decisions are put to referendum. With respect to how decisions are made in regional district board meetings, each director is in charge of a committee. Committees review proposals and requests and pass on their recommendation to the regional board that will then decide what course of action to take.

Despite the challenges, the relationship between the city and the district is evolving, explained Palmer. Over the last six years both have converged to find new ways of cooperating to streamline operations and efficiencies. “We try to cooperate as much as we can based on our legislation,” he said. “We have regular quarterly meetings with the council, with Tla’amin First Nation and the board. That’s never happened before. We have the three corporate executive officers meeting every month. We have the planners meeting. That’s the kind of thing that’s starting to happen.”