A Plan to Fix the Budget & Make Your Vote Matter

The City budget is a reflection of how we care for one another and invest in the next generation.  

ABC’s recent “Zero Means Zero” budget is nothing more than austere service cuts dressed up as a political gimmick. It’s not just cruel – it’s bad leadership on the basic services Vancouverites expect. 

The OneCity Team will move to make the budget something you can read, something you help write, and something that reflects what you actually believe our city owes its people. 

OneCity will budget with Vancouverites’ values through:

• Participatory Budgeting – Scale participatory budgeting citywide, giving residents real spending power and key information for the first time ever.

• A Readable Budget – Communicate the City’s budget in plain language and line by line accountability, so Vancouverites know what they’re getting from their government. 

• Balancing Revenues –  Explore a progressive property tax in Vancouver, so the wealthiest land owners who can afford it, contribute more.

• Cracking Down on Tax Dodgers – End the tax write offs for owners who turn their approved development lands into parks and gardens, and don’t build.  

• Fighting Austerity – Protect the services that keep our city running through fair property annual tax rates that make it possible to build new critical infrastructure like pipes, parks, and pools.

OneCity will put public dollars towards building thriving communities by: 

• Protecting Against Service Cuts – Adopt a Public Services Protection Test before cuts, contracting out, privatization, or service reductions so money delivers value to communities instead of hollowing them out. 

• Restoring the Living Wage – Recertify the City and School Board as living wage employers so the workers who keep our city running can be able to live in it. 

• Repairing Pipes & Potholes Before They Break – Save money by fixing and replacing old critical infrastructure early through preventative maintenance and transparent timelines so we borrow money cheaper and spend less down the road. 

• Making Waterhogs Pay – Introduce water meters to lower utility costs for average Vancouverites and make big users of water, like mansion owners, pay their fair share. 

• Aligning City Council, Park, and School Boards to Deliver Services – Coordinate Shared Services Agreements so key services can be supported by every board, run more efficiently, scale more effectively, and available to as many Vancouverites as possible.

What this means for you:

OneCity believes Vancouver is worth investing in. We can build new pools and parks in every neighbourhood and open them for longer hours. We can repair infrastructure early, so we spend less down the road. And we can deliver the services you count on across our schools, parks, and city services so they reach more people and our neighbourhoods flourish. OneCity believes we deserve better, and we have the team and a plan to deliver it. 

Democratic Reform 

If half of CitYour mayor and council shouldn’t live in just one neighbourhood, and every vote should count. 

Our system privileges political machines with massive amounts of money to win across the city leading to neighbourhoods like Chinatown and South Vancouver being used for their vote and ignored in the Council chambers. 

OneCity commits to an instant run off for mayor, ranked ballot for council, school board, and park board, and the use of new voting methods, like proportional representation, to ensure that your ballot actually reflects who your neighbourhood wants to lead the City, not just who has the best funded campaign.

We’ll get there by supporting a Peoples’ Commission on Electoral Reform and a plan to change the ballot ahead of 2030.

Parking Lot

Vancouver owns billions worth of infrastructure and public amenities, and they’re decaying, fast. This means that things are breaking faster, going longer without repair, costing us all more money due to delayed action. 

Vancouver can’t maintain the quality of life we have now, let alone build for the future, if we don’t pay attention to the basics. 

OneCity will fix them before they break by:

• Identifying aging infrastructure early

• Prioritizing maintenance and scheduled renewals 

OneCity will adopt a “Fix It Before It Breaks” mentality to city infrastructure, identifying aging infrastructure early, carrying out preventative maintenance, and scheduling renewal. This means that repairs happen before manageable problems become expensive failures. It’s a simple idea, spend money fixing things at the right time instead of paying more money to replace them when they fail. 

Real Participatory Budgeting

You should have a say in how the City spends its money. 

A OneCity Government will revive and scale participatory budgeting citywide, giving residents real spending power and key information for the first time backed by numbers, instead of assumptions. We will run an Infrastructure Liability Audit, showing the true deferred maintenance bill the City carries but currently doesn’t have to report. 

This has been done before, in 2021, where West End residents decided how to spend $100,000 in a pilot that was deemed a success but never expanded. We will extend the timeline through the summertime for the budget and use our Office of Community Engagement in order to do direct engagement with residents on what they want to see in their community. 

Commit to Shared Services Development across City, Park & Schools Boards

Every four years Vancouverites go to the polls to elect their local governments based on a promise of cooperation and coordination to deliver results.

But some of the biggest obstacles to improving the lives of everyday Vancouverites are overlap and conflict over jurisdiction and responsibility, people don’t care who’s job it is, they care that the job gets done.

OneCity is committed to being good neighbours, and that includes between Council, Park & School Boards, we’re going to work to align Shared Services Agreements so that parks, public spaces, and other key services can be supported by all of local government and available to as many Vancouverites as possible.

Protecting Public Services from Contracting Out and Austerity Cuts 

Running a city like a business doesn’t work. Cutting costs inevitably cuts programs and services — kids not getting ice time, your garbage not being picked up, and permits and approvals slowing to a crawl.

A OneCity Government will adopt a Public Services Protection Test before Council cuts, contracts out, privatizes, or reduces a municipal service. This test will require an analysis of service, workforce, and equity impacts, along with long-term costs to the City.

This will be done through a Council motion to amend budget and procurement reporting requirements so that any proposals that go out have this analysis and that in-house delivery is prioritized. 

Strengthening Safeguards Against Tax Avoidance for Unbuilt Housing Sites 

Vacant housing lots should be used for housing. 

A OneCity Government will introduce additional City level requirements to avoid the conversion of approved development lands into parks and gardens so that the owner of it gets a tax write off. 

Major projects that have been designed and promised to deliver thousands of homes have sat vacant so that owners can get a tax break, rather than fight the housing crisis. 

We’ll change that through directing staff to report back on new measures to implement an evaluation process for properties and establish a time limitation on vacant lands so that owners will have to pay a cost for not building. 

Recertify Vancouver as a Living Wage Employer 

Someone who serves our city should be able to live in it. Vancouver cannot credibly call itself a city for workers if the people who serve our neighbours cannot live here.

A OneCity Government will reverse ABC’s failure by bringing back the living wage and recertifying Vancouver as a living wage employer. Through a council motion or budget direction, a OneCity Government will focus on how recertification can happen, and apply this to new contracts and renewals in the next budget year. We will encourage staff to create a compliance report and plain language process so that workers can raise their concerns, without needing a lawyer to do it. 

When Vancouverites cast their ballot they expect their elected officials to show up and do their homework – but all too often local leaders rely on boring and bland documents to 

Vancouverites deserve transparency and accountability, in budgets and services that they can understand and rely on. 

OneCity will deliver predictable and participatory budgeting, a plan for shared services, and democratic reform so that your vote matters.