The chair of the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation is sounding the alarm over what she’s calling unprecedented cuts, following Vancouver City Council’s direction to staff to freeze property tax increases in next year’s draft budget. Independent Commissioner Laura Christensen said the park board needs to trim at least $15 million dollars from its budget, due to Mayor Ken Sim’s successful “Zero Means Zero” motion. “I’m trying to raise the alarm that the scale of these cuts is really unprecedented,” she said. “We have never seen cuts of this scale that will reduce our tax funding to the lowest levels ever.” Tax-funded departments could be cut Christensen said additionally, the board needs to come up with $8.9 million in revenues for 2026. “So really, we’re looking at almost $24 million in reductions to our budget,” she said. Christensen added the park board is about 53 per cent tax-funded and received just under $98 million in taxpayer funding. She said if the zero per cent property tax increase is adopted, tax-funded departments would receive less than 47 per cent. “That’s a huge change from our historic work that we’ve done. Community centres, pools at risk The cuts, she said, could result in reductions to frontline services like community centres, pools, ice rinks, and field maintenance. “Either it’s going to be cuts, or it’s going to be user fees, and it’s a big change to be moving from something that is tax-funded, like our pools and rinks that are partially funded by taxes, and being pushed very much onto user fees,” she said. Christensen said she felt it was important to publicize this information prior to city council’s vote on the draft budget. “There wouldn’t have been a ton of time for the public to really digest and understand what these cuts would mean.” she said. Not an austerity motion On Oct. 8, when Sim tabled the “Zero Means Zero” motion, it drew criticism from opposition councilors. At the meeting, One City Coun. Lucy Maloney asked, “Did I hear that right? That we’re not going to have a line-by-line budget by November or December to make a decision on, and the public won’t have access to it?” To which City Manager Donny van Dyk, said staff would not be able to do so in that time frame, but could commit to regular updates to council. Through his motion, Sim was adamant that core services like community centres and libraries would be protected, adding it was not about austerity. “Austerity means cutting services, so let me say that definitively, once and for all, this motion will deliver a zero per cent property tax increase this year while prioritizing the delivery of services, maintaining and in some cases expanding public services across the City of Vancouver,” Sim said at the meeting. Carson Binda, the British Columbia director with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, supports the zero per cent property tax increase. “Taxpayers can’t afford any more tax hikes from the city and every department needs to be looking for meaningful savings,” he said. Preliminary budget not yet submitted In a statement to CTV News, the City of Vancouver said the park board has not yet submitted a preliminary budget for council’s consideration. The statement added, “as part of the 2026 budget planning process, all boards have been asked to prioritize core services in line with council’s Oct. 8 direction and focus efforts on areas that do not result in reductions to frontline services, through increased efficiency, removal of duplication and de-prioritization of non-core work.”
