A couple of reports of interest to Transition Kamloops supporters recently became available from the City of Kamloops: the Community Climate Action Plan (CCAP) 2023/2024 Implementation Report (the Report), which was presented to Council on January 14, 2025, and the 2024 Citizen Satisfaction Survey Report (the Survey), which the City announced via a news release on January 17. The City has also recently publicized the next community budget meeting date: February 13, 2025, 6 to 8 pm.
Could the tax be, well, axed?
You and I know the importance of doing all we can to proactively minimize the impacts of climate change—and that waiting longer will end up costing all of us more money. Unfortunately, the 2024 Citizen Satisfaction Survey reveals less support for increasing taxes than for funding services through user fees and/or cutting services. Councillors may be feeling pressure to think short-term. Several have already expressed reluctance to restore full funding to the Climate Action Levy, the primary funding tool for the CCAP, in this year’s budget. (See the City’s news release about the Survey, here.)
What you can do to support climate action funding
The most important thing you can do is attend the budget information session on February 13, 2025. After a staff update on the provisional budget, you’ll have the chance to comment on budget priorities, including the Climate Action Levy.
Date & time: Thursday, 13 February, 6 to 8 pm
Location: Sports Centre Lounge, McArthur Island Sport and Event Centre, 1655 Island Parkway
Secondly, if you’d like to prepare more, consider observing the Council Budget Workshop on Tuesday, January 21 at 10 am, either in person or via Zoom (Click here for links). This workshop is to review the 2025 Budget and 2025-2029 Five Year Financial Plan for potential tax reductions and their impact (presumably including on service levels, since they will also have results of the related survey for guidance; Transition Kamloops talked about this survey in the December 2024 newsletter).
Finally, read the handy summary we’ve prepared of climate action to date, below!
Climate action to date
According to the Report, 79% of the 48 short-term actions from the eight CCAP “Big Moves” are underway and on track. “Short-term” actions are those identified as achievable between 2021- 2024. They are also those that could be implemented using money from an existing Climate Action Fund reserve established by the City in 2008 with revenue from the Province of BC (from a program that has since been retired). In other words, implementing these initiatives didn’t depend on funding from the contentious Climate Action Levy, which has yet to be firmly established.
The Report describes a wide variety of actions—a few are listed here, in no particular order, and you may recognize some of them:
- 10 Repair Café events have been delivered locally since 2023, with 375 of the 550 items needing fixing being successfully repaired (yay team!)
- 909 tree coupons were redeemed by Kamloops residents in 2024.
- Overall, the City has completed 1.9 km of active transportation facilities for all ages and abilities in 2023 and 2024.
- The Council-approved Bike Valet pilot program provided free, secure parking for all active transportation devices Monday–Saturday, 7:00 am–7:00 pm, May 2– August 31, 2024, at the Kelson Hall parking lot, with over 2,000 bikes being parked.
- The Kamloops Community Land Trust Foundation was formed in July 2023 to provide and preserve housing opportunities for residents of low to moderate incomes.
- Purpose-Built Rental Revitalization Tax Exemption Bylaw No. 22-4-21 (adopted November 5, 2024) provides reduced municipal property taxes for 10 years on the increase in assessed value related to the construction of 10 or more new purpose-built rental housing units, which further supports complete, compact communities throughout the city.
- Through a funding partnership with BC Transit, 12 new shelters were installed in 2024, with three more planned before the year’s end.
- City staff are monitoring the progress of a local group developing its business case for a co-operative car share service in conjunction with a co-operative housing development (not yet initiated but worth mentioning: yay again!).
- 112 households have switched from natural gas heating to an air-sourced heat pump since March 2022.
- BC Hydro introduced new rebates in July 2024 for up to $5,000 on eligible grid- connected solar panels and up to an additional $5,000 for battery storage systems to qualifying residential customers. There is also up to $50,000 in solar and battery storage rebates for eligible business and multi-family buildings, and up to $150,000 for social housing providers. (Learn more about these rebates through Retrofit Assist.)
(See the Report for a complete description of the 48 short-term actions.)
Finally, a goal of the CCAP is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from municipal operations by 30% from a 2007 baseline by 2030. The Report confirms that improved energy efficiency in the City’s fleet and facilities has resulted in a 17% decrease for 2023 (or 7,498 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent; the 2007 baseline is 9,028). This is the biggest yearly decrease measured to date.
Going forward, in addition to ongoing initiatives already begun, there are sixteen mid-term (2025-2029) and two long-term (2030+) actions that will require significantly more funding from the Climate Action Levy, which is only just becoming established. The plan for CCAP funding proposed adding 0.35% annually to taxes in order to build the reserve; the levy was approved in 2022 but scaled back by Council to half that amount for 2024. While the Climate Action Levy is in the provisional budget for 2025, this budget is still going through the approval process.
Please tell City Council that you would like to see the Levy fully funded this year—and every year.
