Just moved to Greater Victoria? Just saw your latest tax bill and are gobsmacked? Just coming out of hiding after suffering an existential crisis because of the pandemic and climate change?
This quiz on local government will help you survive if you end up grasping in a municipal twilight zone.
1. How many souls live on the South Island:
a) 368,000
b) about 900,000 if you’re talking about shoes
c) about 450,000 people
2. The purposes of a municipality include:
a) suing Big Oil for climate change
b) providing for good government of its community
c) building two-way bicycle paths on one-way streets
3. Elected local politicians on the South Island number:
a) 16
b) 100
c) 67
d) more than MLAs in the BC legislature
4. The acronym CRD stands for:
a) a desktop software allowing remote computer access
b) a cleaning fluid found exclusively at Canadian Tire
c) an international human rights organization
d) none of the above
5. The voting system at the CRD is:
a) regularly changing as the population increases
b) based on either unweighted 24 votes or 92 weighted votes based on population
c) indecipherable to Frontier, the U.S.’s most powerful supercomputer on TOP500, reaching 1102 petaFlops (1.102 exaFlops) on the LINPACK benchmarks
6. Which of these statements about the CRD are true:
a) it has no taxing powers
b) employs about 1,050 staff
c) delivers services through a mind-numbing 200-plus service agreements between municipalities
d) it’s largely an unelected body
e) all of the above
7. The largest group of rookie local politicians are:
a) the BC Youth Parliament
b) all but one of the Langford city council
c) the four residents elected to the Local Community Commission in Salt Spring
8. New municipal codes of conduct allow you to complain to your:
a) barber
b) hairdresser
c) barista
d) cabbie
e) neighbour
f) all of the above
9. Which municipal expenditures are fictitious:
a) a $6,000 ping pong table
b) a musical staircase
c) weed-filled wooden planter sidewalk boxes
d) an on-street phone charger using pedal power
e) none of the above
10. Major infrastructure projects typically go over budget by:
a) 45 per cent
b) 86 per cent
c) 45 to 86 per cent
11. Transportation policy decisions on the South Island are made by:
a) the feds
b) the cyclist lobby
c) the province
d) the CRD
e) Caddy, the mythical green creature at Cadboro Bay
f) none of the above
12. Amalgamation is:
a) a word with six vowels
b) something Victoria and Saanich are considering
c) an obscenity used by sushi chefs
13. If an emergency happens like an earthquake:
a) stay under the desk
b) there’s no overriding regional command structure
c) start an intermittent diet
14. Local politicians get these freebies every month:
a) a federal tax deduction
b) a latte allowance
c) an earful
Now that you’ve carefully considered your answers to every question, see how you scored. There are 14 responses, which just happens to be the number of local governments south of the Malahat including the CRD.
Quiz Answers: 1-C, 2-B, 3-B or D, 4-D or C, 5-A,B or C, 6-E, 7-B, 8-F, 9-E, 10-C, 11-E, 12-A or B, 13-A or B, 14-C.
Stan Bartlett, vice-chair
Grumpy Taxpayer$ of Greater Victoria