Cariboo Chilcotin MLA Donna Barnett says Skip Triplett really listened to the people during his review of gaming.
“I think Mr. Triplett did a good job. I went to all the meetings in Williams Lake that he was at and I think his report reflects what people told him,” Barnett says, adding while the amount being paid out in gaming grants will not restore it to that of historical levels, hopefully when the economy picks up and more revenue from resource industries, etc. is collected, the grant funds will go up.
Adult sports and arts groups, environmental and animal welfare agencies will once again be eligible to apply for grants from the B.C. government’s gambling revenues.
Those groups were made ineligible after the government cut the budget for community grants following the recession of 2008. They can again apply for grants, but the total fund remains at $135 million, where it was set by Premier Christy Clark last year.
Shortly after taking over as premier, Clark restored $15 million of the $36 million that was cut from the fund, and appointed former Kwantlen University president Skip Triplett to hold hearings around the province.
Clark and Community, Sport and Cultural Development Minister Ida Chong released Triplett’s report Wednesday, and promised to keep working on a way to provide multi-year funding for community groups instead of making them apply every year for grants. Clark said the financial pressure on the B.C. government made it difficult to maintain the grant budget at $135 million, and did not allow restoring it to its 2008 peak of $156 million.
“The costs of health care are accelerating faster than revenue sources can afford it, so the first priority is health and education,” Barnett says.
Cariboo North Independent MLA Bob Simpson’s staff have been touching base with local organizations and Simpson says the reactions are mixed.
He describes the announcement as “the glass half full.”
Conservation groups, adult sports, and arts groups are happy about being back and able to apply.
“That’s a good fix,” Simpson says. “I think that was an inappropriate decision on the part of the government and they’ve remedied that.”
He’s also happy Premier Christy Clark has committed to the increased funding that she made when she became leader, but it’s still under what the historic funding was.
The two critical issues or “courageous decisions” were not addressed, Simpson suggests.
“On long-term funding so that every year these groups are not forced to come back again and expend so much energy that should be put into their programs, rather than into the application process,” he says.
Secondly, he points out the government has not resolved the issue of a percentage of gaming money that should be going on an annual basis into the not-for-profit sector and other service organizations.
“That’s the critical one because the premier has rightly indicated that the government is dealing with significant shortfalls and revenue, struggling to balance the budget. They have a legal requirement to balance it in 2013. She’s absolutely correct that society needs to understand there’s not a lot of money in the coffers,” Simpson says.
He argues, however, where there’s a weakness in that argument is that gaming revenue has increased year over year and the original agreement was that a proportional percentage of that should flow to not-for-profit services to offset some of the implications that it’s gambling money that’s coming in.
“It’s not a fair argument to say that government is cash-strapped because in this particular case gaming revenues are increasing every year.”
He says there should at least be a continuation of that “status-quo funding” of around $160 million.
He adds the decisions were crucial and have been delayed again.
— With files from Tom Fletcher