It’s gonna be a party!
Victoria will make up the shortfall in Canada Day policing costs.
While the decision won’t be ratified until next week, Victoria councillors agreed Thursday to make up to $135,300 available from its contingency fund to pay for Canada Day expenses, non-profit-run community events and military events.
The move came after Victoria police advised in a letter that budget cuts made by council had left the department $78,400 short of funds needed to cover costs of policing this year’s Canada Day celebrations.
In a separate report to council, Victoria director of finance Susanne Thompson said the police department had advised it could not afford to absorb $135,000 worth expenditures, including $78,400 for Canada Day, $41,700 for the first three officers provided at special events run by non-profits and an estimated $15,200 for policing military-related events.
The $135,000 line item for policing special events was one of the cuts made by councillors to the police budget this year, Mayor Lisa Helps, co-chair of the police board, reminded councillors.
“We’re the capital city and being a capital city comes responsibility," she said. "Saanich isn’t the capital city. Oak Bay is not the capital city. Esquimalt is not the capital city. We’re the capital city so I think there are costs that are borne because we’re the capital city and there are also benefits because we’re the capital city.”
The proposed funding would cover policing costs not just for Canada Day “but this also includes things like Car Free Day and Pride and all of the other things that we want people to come into our downtown for,” Helps said.
Helps said she carefully worded the funding resolution so that the money would flow through the city’s arts, culture and events office and not to the police. “For those people who don’t like to fund police I specifically left it out of the motion,” she said.
It was a comment that did not sit well with Coun. Sarah Potts, who called the mayor’s comment “problematic.”
“The question around police funding wasn’t about not funding policing because we don’t like to fund the police. It’s about looking at our community and looking at ways that we can better serve our community through a variety of actions,” Potts said.
Helps apologized.
Some councillors complained they were being asked to approve the funding on short notice with limited detail.
“If this was a staff report it would have a lot more information than a one-page letter requesting funds,” said Coun. Jeremy Loveday. "It’s just not acceptable to have us have to make the decision without the information with a level of urgency."
Councillors gave their OK contingent on city staff contacting the Department of National Defence and the Department of Veterans Affairs to discuss recovering costs associated with military events.
That condition, made on D-Day, set off an avalanche of scorn on social media Thursday night. Writing on Twitter, Brad West, mayor of Port Coquitlam, called it a “classless, shameful move.”
“Wow! How ungrateful and on the 75th Anniversary of D day,” Dave Glancie posted.
“That council is a disgrace and should be replaced,” said a post from Brad Zubyk.
Other conditions included instructing Helps to work with other mayors in Greater Victoria to secure funding for policing of regional events, and that a report be made on projected police overtime costs for 2019.
The average cost of policing Canada Day has been $122,000, of which the city contributes $12,000. Victoria and Esquimalt provideadditional funding for special duties, of which $31,000 goes to Canada Day.
That leaves the Victoria Police Department responsible to cover $78,400 a year in unfunded expenditures, said Sean Powell, finance chairman of the Victoria and Esquimalt police board.
