2024 R39 – Provincial Core Funding for Evolving Public Libraries
- Year: 2024
- # R39
- # NR67
- Nanaimo, City, Oak Bay, Powell River, qathet RD
Whereas core funding for public libraries in British Columbia has remained unchanged since 2009, limiting their ability to expand and evolve their programming as demand for their services increases;
And whereas the operational requirements of public libraries increasingly require significant and diverse resources to provide front-line community services, including supporting patrons with mental health and addiction issues as well as barriers to housing, providing critical locations of refuge during extreme weather events, providing services to new Canadians, and supporting the process of reconciliation with Indigenous peoples:
Therefore be it resolved that UBCM call on the provincial government to recognize the evolving and challenging situation for public libraries as well as their unique role as community spaces by establishing an Advisory Body per section 52(1) of the Library Act, the objectives of which will be to:
1. Undertake a review of core annual provincial funding of public libraries in the Canadian context;
2. Make recommendations to the Minister with respect to core, sustainable funding approaches for BC’s public library sector.
- AVICC Decision: Endorsed
- Action: Conveyed to UBCM
- Provincial
- UBCM Number: NR67
- UBCM Decision: Endorsed as amended
- UBCM Amendment: Therefore be it resolved that UBCM call on the provincial government to recognize the evolving and challenging situation for public libraries as well as their unique role as community spaces, and increase annual core funding for libraries to $30 million in keeping with the request made by the BC Public Library Partners and the recommendation of the province’s Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services; And be it further resolved that this increase in core funding be increased on a yearly basis in keeping with cost of living and inflationary pressures. Therefore be it resolved that UBCM call on the provincial government to recognize the evolving and challenging situation for public libraries as well as their unique role as community spaces by establishing an Advisory Body per section 52(1) of the Library Act, the objectives of which will be to: 1. Undertake a review of core annual provincial funding of public libraries in the Canadian context; 2. Make recommendations to the Minister with respect to core, sustainable funding approaches for BC’s public library sector.
- UBCM Response link
The AVICC acknowledges that we are grateful to live, work, and play on the traditional territories of theCoast Salish, Nuu-Chah-Nulth and Kwak-Waka’wakw Peoples