Victoria trying to ram "Municipal Auditor-General" down local governments' throat??

Earlier this year - BC Premier Christy Clark committed to a Municipal Auditor-General for the roughly 159 local governments (municipalities/regional districts) throughout BC, during the BC Liberal Party Leadership Race

Earlier this month - Ida Chong, the Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development sent out a letter and survey to all local governments in BC on the idea around a Municipal Auditor General.  Read that letter here

As well - see the actual Government of BC survey to all local governments on a Municipal Auditor-General here.  The BC Government has asked the survey to be returned no later than September 9th.  Also find a statement from the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) to its' members' on this subject here along with a background paper on this topic, again from UBCM here

My Analysis:

1) The actual survey language suggests that Victoria has no real interest in consulting local governments in BC on a Municipal Auditor-General and in fact, they are going through this survey exercise to give the appearance of "consultation"

2) While I understand other provinces do in fact have an "Municipal Auditor-General", like Ontario and Nova Scotia and I fully appreciate that the BC Chamber of Commerce has specifically asked for a Municipal Auditor-General - I don't think that this idea is warranted at this time, given no consultation was done with UBCM beforehand and I think local spending issues are best addressed (similar to taxation issues) on a local level and not at the provincial level.  If spending or taxation is an issue with the public, then they'll use their power to replace (defeat) sitting politicians in favour of ones who in line with the public's view on spending/taxation issues

I'd like to see both the Cariboo Regional District and all of the municipal governments (Wells, Quesnel, Williams Lake, 100 Mile) to tell Victoria that the idea of a Municipal Auditor-General is misguided and other alternatives should be looked into, with regard to muncipal/regional district spending and taxation issues

Bottom Line - Victoria must withdraw this draconian idea for a Municipal Auditor-General, discuss with UBCM the possibility of extending the provincial recall legislation to municipal/regional district politicians and let the discussions around taxation/spending take place on a local level where it belongs.  And should a local council or regional district board want to do a "value for money" audit - either in Metro Vancouver or elsewhere in BC, then they can either hire a local Auditor for this purpose or even ask if the Auditor-General of BC is willing to take on this task him/herself

SBF