Victoria property owners and other donors voluntarily contributed just over $36,000 to the city’s new Reconciliation Contribution Fund this year.
City taxpayers were given the option to make a monetary contribution for Lekwungen communities — the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations — based on a percentage of their 2022 property taxes.
Residents could choose a contribution equal to five or 10 per cent of their property taxes, or select an amount of their choice. Non-taxpayers could also make donations.
In all, 161 donations came in totalling $36,153.44. Tax notices went out to 32,800 properties for 2022.
Mayor Lisa Helps said the program will likely grow over time, “as most programs do.”
“I think for the first year, without too much notice, it’s a good start,” she said. “To see that many people step forward and say: ‘This is something that is important to me and I’m going to make a contribution in this first year’ is encouraging.”
Helps called the fund “a joint project between the city and the two nations.”
“All of the lands the city is built on — and Esquimalt, Oak Bay — are all lands of the Lekwungen-speaking people,” she said. “They signed the Douglas Treaty but it was never meant to give away their land, to have it permanently taken and have a city built on it. It was always meant to be: ‘We’re going to share our wealth and we’re going to share this land with you.’ ”
But that agreement wasn’t honoured, Helps said. Indigenous communities were pushed onto reserves as the city was built. “The reconciliation fund is a very small way … to begin to recognize that the wealth we have in our city is literally wealth that was generated from lands that essentially don’t belong to us.”
The funding comes in addition to the City of Victoria’s $200,000 reconciliation grant, which came from its 2021 surplus.
In March, when the fund was proposed, Coun. Stephen Andrew was the only councillor who didn’t approve, saying the project was a foray into provincial and federal jurisdiction.
The Grumpy Taxpayers of Greater Victoria were highly critical of both the grant and the fund, claiming it costs $10,000 to produce the reconciliation contribution insert sent to taxpayers with their tax notices.
But Helps said “there is absolutely no truth to that whatsoever.”
It costs the city about $9,600 per year to send out property tax notices, she said.
“This year, we put in an extra piece of paper.”
Colleen Mycroft, manager of executive operations for the city, said overall administrative and staff costs were nominal and the transactions were set up though e-transfer.
“The city gets an electronic file from the bank that is simply uploaded and very minimal staff time is required,” she said.
Anyone who lives in Greater Victoria, or on Lekwungen territory, can still contribute to the Reconciliation Contribution Fund by e-transfer to [email protected].
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