Vernon councillor’s proposal to ban fossil fuel funds for municipal meetings gets update

Apr 15, 2024 | 5:00 AM

A proposal by a Vernon councillor to not allow the fossil fuel industry to sponsor municipal meetings in B.C. will get some adjustments.

The proposal, introduced by Brian Guy during a Vernon city council meeting in February, would call on the Southern Interior Local Government Association (SILGA) and the Union of B.C. Municipalities (UBCM) to stop accepting money from fossil fuel companies to sponsor the meetings.

Guy argues governments around the world, including Vernon, are transitioning away from carbon-based energy and towards renewables, but “the fossil-fuel industry and its lobby groups fund UBCM and SILGA events to influence decision-makers to slow and prolong the decarbonization process and the transition to renewable energy.”

At council’s meeting April 8, Councillor Kari Gares stated an email from SILGA was received that stated it would not endorse Guy’s proposal.

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In response to the news, Gares stated that while more needs to be done, fossil fuels are still a big part of people’s lives, especially with so many people employed in the oil and energy sector, and the switch to green technologies is not realistic, particularly with the large amount of mining operations needed to make electric vehicle batteries. She added the work needing to support 100 per cent of electrification of the grid would require 10 projects like the Site C dam, which took nearly 50 years to establish.

Guy said he would still be bringing the motion forward to SILGA, stating the organization’s resolution committee chose not to endorse it as it did not have a region-wide context to justify its support.

“All we’ve done is respond to a request from SILGA to provide a more SILGA-focused background or document, and that’s what the mayor is adjusting and considering sending to SILGA,” Guy said.

“Because SILGA requested that. They noticed that our background under the context document was overly Vernon-centric, and so this [updated] version of it achieves that while remaining true to the original backgrounder that we all saw at council, and it accommodates comments provided by councillors, particularly Councillor [Akbal] Mund and Councillor Gares, as well as comments from councillors during the debate here.”

Guy stated the proposal, the motion in which remained unchanged, would still be included in the SILGA resolutions list and he would bring it forward at the upcoming conference.

Gares had previously endorsed the motion, so she did vote in favour with the rest of council for the adjustment to the rationale for the proposal.

The annual SILGA conference will be held in Kamloops from April 30 to May 3. In addition to Guy, it will be attended by Mayor Victor Cumming and Councillors Gares, Mund, and Teresa Durning.

by Liam Verster

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