Tax Freeze & Local Services

With the matter of high municipal staff salaries in the news (read here) - the Columbia Institute looks at the topic of downloading to civic governments from Ottawa & Victoria - you can read that here

Now - a new civic political party in Kelowna called TaxPayersFirst.ca will be running 3 City Councillor candidates in the Kelowna local government election in November.  They talk to CBC Daybreak South about their platform which includes:

* To introduce a Zero Tax Increase Bylaw for each of the next four years.
* To return City Hall to the taxpaying public.
* Review of all of our bylaws with a goal to reduce red tape.
* To use the Public Private Partnership approach (P3's) for all large public expenditures.
* To allow for binding referendums at election time.

Read their full platform here and watch a video outlining TaxpayersFirst.ca below:



Listen to the CBC Daybreak South interview here

I wonder if we'll see candidates for Williams Lake City Council (Mayor or Councillor) campaign for something like this in November's civic election.  In the 2011 election - former Williams Lake Mayor Scott Nelson promised no tax hikes, if elected, however this was rejected by a majority of voters in that election...

~SF