UBC Professor Patrick Condon used Facebook to circulate an opinion from former NDP Minister of Municipal Affairs, Darlene Marzari. It had been published in BC Orders of the Day, a journal for BC MLAs.
I FEARED THIS DAY IN 1990. NOW IT HAS ARRIVED
When | served as British Columbia’s Minister of Municipal Affairs, I believed – deeply – that strong cities were essential to a healthy province. I also believed that local governments, imperfect as they are, must retain primary responsibility for city planning. Since 1990, I have worried that this principle would one day be set aside in the name of expediency. With the passage of Bills 44, 46, and 47 in 2023, and now Bill M216 in 2025, that fear has been realized.
These bills mark a profound shift in the balance of power between the province and local governments. They strip municipalities of long-standing planning authority – authority that has been carefully built over decades – and replace it with a centralized, one-size-fits-all approach to land use. This is not reform. It is a repudiation of local democracy.
I understand the urgency of the housing crisis. I also understand the frustration with slow approvals and uneven outcomes. But it is a mistake to conclude that the problem is local planning itself, or that the solution is to override it. Cities are not the cause of high housing prices. Land speculation, global capital flows, and decades of policy choices that inflated land values are far more powerful forces. Weakening local planning will not tame those forces; it will simply make cities less able to manage their consequences.
For generations, municipalities in British Columbia nave balanced growth with livability – negotiating community amenities, protecting neighbourhood character, integrating infrastructure, and responding to local conditions. This work is complex and necessarily contextual. A coastal city is not an interior town; a transit- rich urban neighbourhood is not a rural community.
Planning cannot be reduced to provincial mandates without losing what makes places function well.
What troubles me most is not just the erosion of local authority, but the abandonment of a hard-earned understanding: that good planning is about more than housing counts. It is about schools and parks, childcare and public space, streets that are safe to walk, and neighbourhoods that foster social connection. When the province removes local governments’ ability to negotiate these outcomes, it also removes their capacity to make density livable and durable.
I feared this moment in 1990 because I saw how fragile the partnership between the province and municipalities could be. That partnership depended on mutual respect and on the recognition that local governments are closest to the people they serve. Today’s legislation signals a loss of faith in that idea – and that is deeply regrettable.
History shows that when planning authority is centralized, accountability weakens. Decisions become more abstract, less responsive, and more vulnerable to short-term political pressure. Ironically, this can slow housing delivery rather than speed it, as local trust erodes and opposition hardens.
British Columbia needs housing, urgently. But it also needs cities that work – socially, economically, and environmentally. We will not achieve that by sidelining local governments. We will achieve it by restoring collaboration, strengthening planning capacity, and addressing the real drivers of unaffordability.
I regret that we have come to this point. I fear we will regret it even more if we do not change course.
(Editor’s note: In December, the town of View Royal put out an invitation to all BC municipalities to take part in a potential judicial review of the province’s housing policies, including Bills 44, 47, 13, 15 and M216. View Royal’s Mayor Sid Tobias said in an interview with the Capital Daily that these policies “raise serious questions about whether local governments can continue to operate as accountable democratic institutions.” UBCM members raised similar concerns, in particular, about Bill M216.)
Categories: Housing, Local Government
in-sights.ca 
What is it about independent oversight that offends the BC NDP? Why cancel a unit whose budget was already approved?
https://thetyee.ca/News/2026/02/19/BC-Quietly-Kills-Office-Merit-Based-Hiring/
BC Quietly Kills an Office That Ensured Merit-Based Hiring
The finance minister says it wasn’t needed. The numbers say she’s wrong.
Deep in Tuesday’s budget documents, the B.C. government quietly scrapped the independent office of the legislature responsible for making sure public service hirings are based on merit.
The office of the merit commissioner is no longer needed because the Public Service Agency in the Finance Ministry has evolved to fill the same function, said Finance Minister Brenda Bailey.
“Since this office came into play, the concept of merit has really been culturally adopted throughout the PSA and as part of our efficiency review we’re moving that work fully into the [agency],” Bailey said.
The B.C. government created the office of the merit commissioner in 2001. Its role is to “make sure appointments to and within the BC Public Service are fair and based on merit,” which it does by auditing appointments as well as reviewing staffing decisions at the request of applicants who weren’t hired.
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https://www.richmond-news.com/economy-law-politics/rob-shaw-tax-hikes-record-debt-leave-no-winners-in-bc-budget-11892666
Rob Shaw: Tax hikes, record debt leave no winners in B.C. budget
‘This is a very deep hole and, sadly, I’m not sure how British Columbia gets out of it,’ says GVBOT president
It’s quite an accomplishment to produce a provincial budget that nobody likes. But the B.C. government managed to pull it off Tuesday, with its 2026-27 fiscal plan.
At the centre of this rare feat is the double whammy of hiking taxes by almost $1 billion next year while still posting record deficit and debt levels.
It means voters get all the annoyance of watching more of their hard-earned money siphoned away to government, but none of the benefit of it actually meaning anything in the wake of a historic $13.3-billion deficit.
It’s all pain, no gain budgeting.
Finance Minister Brenda Bailey was unapologetic about this latest strategy. She said the budget is “about stepping back from many of the things we’d like to do and focusing on what we have to do.”
Except for spending at a rate that far exceeds growth in revenue and the economy. New Democrats have been doing that since David Eby took power in 2022, and it continued Tuesday with government expenses budgeted to rise almost four per cent while revenue flatlines at 0.5 per cent and the economy slumps to 1.3 per cent.
In other words, the NDP is still growing government three times faster than the private sector that funds it.
Not all the changes Tuesday were confined to the budget itself.
Quietly in the legislature, buried within one of its budget bills, New Democrats moved to shut down the independent Office of the Merit Commissioner, as they seek to cut back the public service by 15,000 full-time employees (FTE) and start shuffling people around to save money.
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https://globalnews.ca/news/10989641/metro-spending-auditor-general/
Former B.C. auditor general for municipalities weighs in on Metro Vancouver spending
British Columbia’s former auditor general for local governments, whose office was disbanded by the BC NDP government, says recent controversy around spending at Metro Vancouver shows the value his office brought to the province.
Gordon Ruth’s comments come amid controversy over the ballooning costs of the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant and Global News reporting on Metro Vancouver travel and event spending, along with politician pay for serving on the regional district’s boards.
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https://www.timescolonist.com/economy-law-politics/carson-binda-bc-should-bring-back-an-auditor-general-for-local-governments-8694811
Carson Binda: B.C. should bring back an auditor general for local governments
With just one spending scandal, Metro Vancouver added an average of $725 to every North Shore family’s property tax bills.
Local governments have a major problem with wasting taxpayer dollars and the province has made it even easier for mayors and councils to avoid tough questions.
Taxpayers deserve better.
Premier David Eby needs to bring back an Auditor General for Local Governments (AGLG) so taxpayers know when their cities or towns are trying to pull the wool over their eyes.
Local governments in B.C. used to have an auditor general as their watchdog. An AGLG which was established in 2013 by the Christy Clark government, and the position existed to provide municipalities with “objective information and relevant advice that will assist them in their accountability to their communities.”
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