We have returned an additional $210 million to communities between 2004 and today by returning 100 per cent of traffic fine revenues. We have further provided an additional $63 million this year in advance payments of these revenues to allow for one-time or immediate investments in public safety.
We’ve committed $60 million in the Spirit Squares, and Local Motion programs to provide new and exciting infrastructure for communities.
Small community and regional district grants have doubled from $27 million in 2004 to $55 million in 2009, resulting in $178 million flowing to small communities over the last four years.
We promised and passed the Community Charter, giving local governments the most empowering local government legislation in Canada.
To honour BC’s 150th birthday, we created a new, $150 million BC150 Cultural Fund to support arts and culture across the province.
We won the bid and are hosting the 2010 Winter Olympic & Paralympic Games next year, bringing economic investment and legacy projects to communities throughout B.C.
We brought in new Resort Community legislation and Hotel Room Tax Transfers which recognize resort communities have unique revenue funding challenges when delivering services and ensures they now receive a share of hotel tax to develop local tourism economies.
We created WelcomeBC, a comprehensive approach to enhance settlement and integration services to help newcomers better adapt to life in their new communities and assist communities to be more welcoming.
We’ve expanded the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) , speeding up the process for skilled immigrants with job offers in BC, helping at least 2,000 highly skilled immigrants annually.
Through PNP, 2,332 skilled workers and entrepreneurs were accepted in 2007 – in 2001 there were just 88.
We created the Skills Connect for Immigrants Program – since 2006, we’ve helped 4,000 skilled immigrants move more quickly into jobs that match their qualifications, supporting our growing economy and helping to fill labour shortages.
Established NetworkBC to “bridge the digital divide” and connect 366 communities to the Internet; 320 have been connected to date.
Arts, Culture & Film We’re investing in arts & culture as their development is crucial to building strong, healthy and economically vibrant communities.
B.C.’s arts & culture sector employs more than 78,000 people and contributes more than $5 billion each year to our provincial economy.
In 2005, B.C. residents spent $3.6 billion on cultural activities and goods and equipment, showing the strength of the domestic arts and culture market. Click here to see a video of Premier Campbell honouring Aboriginal artists.
We established the B.C. Arts Renaissance Fund in 2005, an arts development fund created with $25 million. The three-year fund successfully leveraged over $52 million for arts endowment funds.
We have also committed to supporting a number of cultural heritage initiatives including:
As part B.C. Place’s redevelopment, we’re providing $50 million for a new Vancouver Art Gallery that will allow them to bring thousands of pieces out from the attic for public showing.
The Vancouver East Cultural Centre (the Cultch), which we have committed $9 million to restore and revitalize as well as establish an endowment to help with operating costs.
The National Maritime Centre for Pacific and Arctic, which we have provided $280,000 for the planning of plus committed $9 million for implementation of its next phase.
Since 2001, we’ve flowed over $116 million through the BC Arts Council to support local arts and culture activities.
We established a $20-million Spirit of BC Arts Fund to support increased arts and cultural activity leading up to the 2010 Winter Olympic & Paralympic Games.
We’ve provided $8.1 million this year to provincially-owned heritage sites, including Barkerville and Fort Steele, to provide more funding up-front during the global economic downturn.
The $8.1 million is on top of $1.7 million in capital upgrades provided last year to celebrate and recognize the significant role that heritage plays in the provincial economy.
We continue to support B.C.’s film production industry, where spending increased over $250 million in 2008 to $1.2 billion, solidifying B.C. as the third-largest production centre in North America, behind only L.A. and New York.
We’re helping to keep B.C. competitive by increasing the Film Incentives and B.C. Production Services Tax Credits, bringing them into line with tax credits in Ontario and Quebec, and removing the expiry dates for those increases in 2009.
Budget 2008 raised the tax credit rates, while Budget 2009 eliminated the expiry dates and expanded the eligibility for domestic credits allowing BC production companies more access to capital in other markets.
Budget 2008 also introduced a Distance Regional Tax Credit to encourage film production right across B.C.
BC150 We supported community celebrations and cultural legacies to celebrate B.C.’s 150th anniversary because it’s important to honour the shared history of our province and celebrate the opportunities of the next 150 years.
We created the BC150 program to ensure every British Columbian has the opportunity to learn, share and celebrate what it means to be a part of our heritage.
BC150 Spirit Squares are a legacy which creates gathering places in communities where people come together in the spirit of celebration.
BC150 supported programs include:
Cowichan 2008 Spirit Pole Tour.
Historic CP Spirit of 150 Rail Tour.
Rivermania & Festival 150.
Local museums and arts projects.
MOSAIC cultural diversity program.
Royal BC Museum Free Spirit Exhibit.
BC150 Commemorative Book – we’re distributing 5,000 free editions to schools, libraries and communities.
First Nations play a critical role in BC150; it was a forum for Aboriginal people to tell their stories and share their heritage and culture with others across the BC and around the world.
Bountiful We believe the practice of polygamy damages lives and leads to abuse. We are taking concrete action to successfully prosecute the offenders in the community. Fears of constitutional challenges should not stop us from pursuing offenders and protecting further victimization.
Allegations of misconduct including sexual abuse and polygamy have been ongoing for 17 years in the community of Bountiful.
Legal analyses in the past concluded that if pursued, the offenders would likely be protected under the religious freedoms provisions of the Charter of Rights, and that witnesses would be afraid to testify as a result. We concluded that these legal assumptions need to be tested.
Two legal opinions were sought and both concluded that criminal charges were unlikely to be successful as there are no witnesses that will come forward to testify. The latter recommended a “reference case” to the Supreme Court to test the Charter argument on polygamy.
Under Attorney General Oppal, the government decided that direct action against the offenders is required, and retained a special prosecutor (Terrence Robertson) to conduct a further charge assessment against individuals in Bountiful.
As a result of these decisions, on January 7, 2009 the RCMP announced they had arrested two individuals – James Oler and Winston Blackmore -- on charges of polygamy pursuant to the Criminal Code (s. 293).
It is our firm belief that women and children must not be victimized purely because of fears of constitutional challenges.
Bridging the Digital Divide We’ve worked to connect all communities with high speed broadband internet access, which is essential to building a strong economy and opening up new opportunities for rural communities and First Nations.
We introduced the Premier's Technology Council (PTC) in 2001 to examine technology-related issues facing British Columbians.
The PTC identified 366 communities (communities are defined as a place with a public school, library or healthcare facility) in the province. 151 of those communities did not have access to the Internet in 2001.
To help connect the 151 communities without access to the intent we launched Network BC.
As a result of this initiative, 99 per cent of communities (362 of 366) now have access to the internet.
This year alone we’re investing over $20 million to help connect rural and remote communities to the Internet.
Today over 92 per cent of British Columbians have access to high speed Internet making us one of the most connected jurisdictions in the world.
We’re now working to bridge ‘last mile’ Internet connections in B.C.’s rural and remote communities through the $5.2-million Connecting Citizens Grant Program. Click to see Premier Gordon Campbell announcing ‘last mile’ connections
We’ve provided $2.28 billion in new funding to local governments since 2001 - when combined with federal resources, we’ve seen $3.43 billion in new money flow to local governments. View Premier Gordon Campbell’s speech at the UBCM announcing a new streamlined application process for local governments wanting to access provincial funding programs.
We return 100 per cent of all traffic fine revenue (included in $3.4 billion above) which has totalled over $210 million in new revenue since 2004. We have also advanced an additional $63 million in those revenues this year to allow for one-time or immediate investments in public safety.
As part of our $14-billion infrastructure plan for economic stimulus, $1.4 billion is going directly to local infrastructure. This is in addition to new roads, schools and housing across the province.
In prior years, we've made significant investments in local water, sewer and community infrastructure, including:
Canada-B.C. Infrastructure Grants - $267 million
Municipal-Rural Infrastructure Fund (matched by federal and local governments) - $75 million
B.C. Community Water Improvement Program (matched by local governments) - $80 million
We’ve provided $285 million for the Northern Development Trust, Southern Interior Development Trust and the North Island–Coast Development Trust funds, governed by local government representatives and aimed at fostering economic development in every region.
We created and funded the $40-million LocalMotion program for projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve the accessibility of communities.
We created and funded the $20-million Spirit Squares program to create local celebration sites in communities.
We’ve committed $100 million over 10 years to fund local flood protection projects.
We established a new one-stop Rural Secretariat to assist municipalities and regional districts in applying for provincial and federal government infrastructure funding programs.
We promised and passed the Community Charter giving local governments the most empowering local government legislation in Canada.
We brought in new Resort Community legislation and Hotel Room Tax Transfers which recognize resort communities have unique revenue funding challenges when delivering services and ensures they now receive a share of hotel tax to develop local tourism economies.
More than one quarter of British Columbians, and more than a third of people in Vancouver, were born outside Canada, and we welcome more than 40,000 newcomers every year.
We funded 17 projects in 2008/09 promoting multiculturalism and anti-racism in places like Duncan, Abbotsford, Powell River, Terrace, Mission, Kamloops and Prince George.
We created the $350,000 Mosaic Grant program as part of BC150. The grants support communities in telling stories of Aboriginal and immigrant pioneers’ contributions to B.C.
16 Multiculturalism Dialogues in communities across B.C. have been held since 2005, including the Premier’s Dialogue on Multiculturalism. These dialogues bring together diverse voices, ideas, perceptions, and understandings about what it means to live in harmony in a multicultural society.
We created WelcomeBC in 2007, a comprehensive approach to enhance settlement and immigration services under one umbrella to help newcomers better adapt to life in their new communities.
WelcomeBC represents a total investment of $272 million since 2006.
We recently piloted the early childhood development refugee project in Surrey to support settlement, early childhood development and learning needs of refugee children 0-6 years of age and their families.
We expanded the Community Adult Literacy Program to train volunteers to provide language skills to immigrants living in communities outside the Lower Mainland.
We’ve expanded the Provincial Nominee Program (PNP), speeding up the process for skilled immigrants with job offers in B.C., helping at least 2,000 highly skilled immigrants annually.
We’ve introduced a PNP pilot project making it available for entry level and semi-skilled immigrants in tourism, hospitality and long-haul trucking sectors to address acute shortages.
The PNP pilot has since opened up to include food processing industries to offset labour shortages in that sector.
Created Skills Connect for Immigrants Program to help highly-skilled immigrants move more quickly into jobs that match their qualifications.
Since Skills Connect services began in July 2006, over 4,000 skilled immigrants have found jobs in key industry sectors including transportation, energy, tourism and hospitality more quickly.
Skills Connect has consistently exceeded its targets, helped 1,587 skilled immigrants find work in B.C. in 2007/08, including 226 in the health sector. Over 1,600 clients participated between April 2008 and January 2009 and this year it’s expected to increase further.
We provide over $40 million annually encouraging British Columbians to be more physically active and to support our ‘performance pathway’ for athletes, coaches and the practitioners that support them.
We’ve developed an international reputation for sport hosting and have attracted, among other events:
2011 Grey Cup Championship
2010 World Wheelchair Rugby Championships
2009 World Police & Fire Games (Burnaby)
2008 North American Indigenous Games (Cowichan)
2008 World Women’s Curling Championships
2007 FIFA Under 20 World Cup Soccer
2006 World Junior Hockey Championships (Kamloops, Kelowna, Victoria & Vancouver)
2005 Grey Cup Championship
As VANOC tests venues for the 2010 Games, we’ve hosted numerous World Cup and world championship events, such as the figure skating 2009 Four Continents Championship, the IBU World Cup Biathlon and the ISU World Single Distances Speed Skating Championship 2009.
Since 2004, we’ve distributed $2.6 million through HostingBC and 2010 Legacies Now, to support 188 events in 34 communities.
We put $10 million into Canada’s Own the Podium and Road to Excellence initiatives to assist B.C. and Canada’s high-performance athletes in achieving personal bests and podium performances, including $1 million specifically for Paralympic athlete support.
We provide $1.4 million in annual funding to the B.C. Athletes Assistance program to assist high performance athletes in provincial sport organizations and post-secondary institutions.
We provide support to KidSport to remove financial obstacles that prevent under-privileged children from playing sports.
We distribute about $20 million annually to sport and recreation groups with grants from gaming revenues.
We provide funding to initiatives that help increase physical activity rates of Aboriginal populations:
North American Indigenous Games - $3.5 million
Creation of Canada’s first Aboriginal Sport Hall of Fame - $50,000
Sport, Recreation and Wellness Aboriginal Youth Conference 2008 - $50,000
Aboriginal FIRST Program - $200,000 annually
Aboriginal Sport & Recreation Association of B.C. - $100,000 annually
Vancouver is internationally recognized as the Ultimate Sport City in North America and the fifth best location in the world to host sport events.
Volunteers We are supporting volunteers and recognizing their contribution to our society, because volunteers play a critical role building strong, caring communities.
There are about 845,000 volunteers filling over 1.5 million volunteer positions in BC who contribute 114 million hours a year across B.C. - that’s equivalent to 60,000 full-time jobs.
There are 20,000 registered not-for-profit or voluntary organizations in B.C.
The sector is one of the largest social and economic drivers in the province, generating $11 billion in annual revenues.
To celebrate this sector, we created the $1.5 million BC150 Volunteer Incentive Program one that will reward 30,000 eligible B.C. volunteers who donate their time to a charitable event with a $50 charitable donation in their name.
We have over 30 volunteer centres in B.C., with several others in the development stage, playing a key role in promoting and supporting effective volunteering in communities.
As an initiative of 2010 Legacies Now, we helped create VolWeb.ca to encourage and connect volunteers across the B.C., helping ensure there are thousands of experienced and enthusiastic volunteers for 2010.
In 2007, VolWeb.ca filled 1,600 event volunteer positions throughout B.C. and has registered over 4,000 volunteers and over 1,000 event organizations.
We passed the School (Protection of Parent Volunteers) Amendment Act, 2001 guaranteeing in law a parent’s right to volunteer in their children's schools – the NDP spoke against it.
