sword fern co-lead and Vancouver resident Paige Hunter spoke up at Vancouver City Hall tonight against the new proposed budget put forward by ABC Vancouver.
ABC Vancouver wants to freeze property taxes and increase funding to the police, while cutting funding towards arts, culture, climate, libraries, and other equity-focused programs.
The budget has been criticized for being vague and without details, with only 23 pages compared to 373 pages the year prior.
More than 600 people registered to address city council about the proposed budget. View the livestream here.
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Read Paige’s full statement at City Hall:
Hello, Mayor and Councillors. My name is Paige Hunter. I’m 26 years old and I co-lead the climate and arts and culture organization, sword fern collective, which has been based in this beautiful city since 2022. I’m a resident of Vancouver, and surprise, I oppose this budget.
As a young person in the city of Vancouver, it’s disappointing to see proposals that are set to cement Vancouver’s international reputation as no-fun city. What this budget lacks in both inflation and demand-adjusted funding for climate action, arts and culture, justice, access to nature, it makes up for in police who are no fun.
I understand, Mayor and Council, that you wanna save money and create a Vancouver that is affordable, and I completely agree. I want to live in a city where I can attend low-cost or free artistic events that pay artists, musicians, and actors a living wage in one of the world’s most expensive cities. I want to feel safe and secure in my city because we have saved money by maintaining a high-quality sustainability planning team that prepares us for our climate future, instead of reacting to extreme weather events that increase sudden costs to taxpayers.
I want to, one day, take my children to play in a beautiful park that is both a biodiversity and culture hub, and I think that is why I think that the programs facing cuts or insufficient funding need to see increases in funding in line with inflation and rising demand. I appreciated Councilor Bligh’s comments earlier that even a 1% increase to parks and a 0% increase to arts and culture and community grants, when our economy has an inflation rate of over 2% and our population in Vancouver is only growing, those numbers are just not adding up.
Visionary planning and sustainability goals have historically made Vancouver a leader in urban climate action that sets an example on the global stage. The planning department’s lack of clarity earlier on whether we’ll even have a sustainability team in 2026 is, to say the least, concerning. And we know from Statistics Canada that Vancouver’s arts and culture scene is generating $6 billion in GDP while receiving less than $93 million from City Hall, in addition to bringing a host of intangible benefits to our communities.
I appreciated Councilor Joe’s concerns earlier about efficiency in funding, and I think that that is an incredibly efficient use of funding by arts and culture in the city. For context, in comparison, the VPD receives currently more than five times the arts and culture budget at nearly half a billion dollars, or almost a quarter of the city’s total budget.
So I ask that Mayor and Council vote no on the proposed budget, and increase support for arts, culture, and community services, and direct city staff to maintain sustainability teams and initiatives, because funding these key areas is what makes Vancouver a vibrant, affordable, and truly safe city for all of us. Thank you.
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