Brad West proposes sweeping changes to Metro Vancouver Regional District | Daily Hive

Mayor Brad West proposes sweeping changes to Metro Vancouver Regional District

Metro Vancouver Regional District headquarters office at Metrotown in Burnaby. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

Amid increased media scrutiny and growing public pressure, sweeping changes are being proposed to overhaul the costs and governance of Metro Vancouver Regional District.

During this morning’s regional district board of directors meeting, Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West proposed a significant motion directing regional district staff and the board of directors to consider exploring a wide range of changes on how much elected officials receive in stipends to attend each regional district meeting, as well as a thorough review of the regional district’s mandate and responsibilities.

The motion also follows regional district staff’s new report on the governance review already underway and in response to a November 2024 memo by board director Surrey city councillor Pardeep Kooner that outlined concerns regarding the regional district’s high capital project costs, household fee hikes for critical utilities services provided by the regional district, the allocation of revenue from development cost charges, and governance.

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The regional district is effectively a regional government that coordinates all local governments within Metro Vancouver — including 21 municipal governments, Electoral Area A (mainly composed of UBC/UEL), and the Tsawwassen First Nation — and provides bulk and trunk services for solid waste disposal (landfills), sewerage treatment, and water supply. It also manages a vast area of regional parks, and in recent years, it has been making more inroads into building and operating more affordable housing.

Recently, the regional district launched Invest Vancouver — a regional economic investment and attraction agency. This effectively replaced the City of Vancouver-funded Vancouver Economic Commission, which was dissolved last year but had been the de facto investment attraction agency for the entire Metro Vancouver region for many years.

For 2025, the regional district will have a combined budget of $3.2 billion, including $1.464 billion for operating costs and $1.768 billion for capital project costs. The 2025 operating budget is more than double the 2015 operating budget of $657 million. In 2020, the operating budget was $1.02 billion.

The regional district has faced significant criticism over the rising costs of capital projects, particularly the long-delayed and over-budget North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant, now at $3.86 billion, and the high cost of the new Iona Island Wastewater Treatment Plant, estimated at $9.9 billion, which includes a $3.5 billion contingency fund and risk reserve.

north shore wastewater treatment plant construction january 29 2025

January 2025 construction progress on the North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant. (Metro Vancouver Regional District)

Through his motion, West, who is also a board director and the chair of TransLink’s Mayors’ Council, has proposed a “full-scale, external core service review” of the regional district, including its sewerage treatment and water supply services and its affordability housing efforts through the Metro Vancouver Housing Corporation.

Such a review would seek to “identify savings, efficiencies and reductions by examining all departments and service areas, staffing levels, use of contracted services and consultants and other areas as identified by the board,” reads the motion.

West also noted that these efforts include “reviewing Metro Vancouver’s role as a regulator, identifying areas of duplicatory or overlapping municipal, regional, provincial, and federal regulation, and delegated authorities from the provincial and federal governments, which may be uploaded back.”

Another direction of the motion proposes the reduction of the total number of governance committees, which is in addition to the regional district’s board of directors — the main authority of the regional district.

The membership of the 41 board of directors comprises the municipally elected officials across the region — mayors and city councillors. The number of seats allocated to each local government on the board is based on the population of the municipality or jurisdiction. Similarly, the decisions are based on weighted votes, with each director or member receiving voting power based on a formula that considers the jurisdiction’s residential population.

For the governance committees as of 2025, there are 16 governance committees covering a wide range of issues and matters, including the Air Quality and Climate Committee, Caucus of Committee Chairs, Electoral Area and Small Communities Committee, Finance Committee, Flood Resiliency Committee, Fraser River Crossing Task Force, Housing Committee, Indigenous Relations Committee, Invest Vancouver Management Board, Liquid Waste Committee, Mayors Committee, Regional Culture Committee, Regional Parks Committee, Regional Planning Committee, Water Committee, and Zero Waste Committee.

The membership of each committee is also based on appointments, but it is far less comprehensive than the board of directors, with only a select number of mayors and/or city councillors per committee.

Boardroom at Metro Vancouver Regional District’s headquarters office. (Metro Vancouver Regional District)

West’s motion proposes to reduce the total number of governance committees by a minimum of 50% — down from 16 to at least eight committees.

The meetings for the board of directors and the various governance committees happen regularly, including monthly meetings for the board.

For each meeting of the board of directors or governance committee attended by mayors and city councillors, they earn stipend pay per meeting funded by the regional district — in addition to the salaries funded by their respective municipal governments for their main role from being elected by their constituents.

Currently, the stipend rates are set at $547 per board/committee meeting up to four hours. This doubles to $1,094 per meeting for over four hours, with daily remuneration limited to $1,094.

Stipends are a longstanding practice for meeting attendance, but there is now some scrutiny as the rates have increased considerably in recent years. This means the full attendance of each board of directors meeting with all 41 members costs taxpayers over $22,000, which doubles to over $44,000 if the meeting lasts over four hours.

Richmond city councillor Kash Heed and Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim stirred attention this week when Heed announced he would no longer accept meeting stipends, and Sim declared he would effectively boycott the regional district.

“Metro Vancouver’s governance is broken. Moving forward, I will not be attending Metro meetings and supporting a system that lacks accountability,” said Sim in a statement to Daily Hive Urbanized on Thursday.

“Metro Vancouver’s lack of good governance and transparency needs to be addressed. I applaud Councillor Kash Heed’s principled stand in declining his meeting stipend. Metro Vancouver’s costs to taxpayers and Vancouverites are out of control. We need real, meaningful change more than ever.”

In his motion, West proposed reducing the total number of regional district meetings for which a stipend is paid by a minimum of 50% from 2024 totals.

Additionally, he has proposed changes to reduce the meeting stipend rates by 50% — from $547 to $274 per meeting. The additional stipend for meetings that last longer than four hours would be eliminated.

The motion also proposes a new total limit on the remuneration of the board of directors, the elimination of regional median-based automatic adjustments to meeting per diem and chair and vice chair remuneration, the elimination of additional meeting stipends to the chair and vice chair, and a consideration of alternatives to the meeting stipend model of remuneration and any further changes.

Currently, Burnaby Mayor Mike Hurley is the regional district’s board chair, while Anmore Mayor John McEwen is the board’s vice chair. They earn regional district salaries of $109,337 and $54,668 per year, respectively, in addition to what they earn as being the mayors of their jurisdictions.

“We still believe that Metro Vancouver at $875 [per year] per average household is still very good value for money and what we deliver for the region, the critical services we deliver day in and day out,” Hurley told media during an on-site construction tour of the North Shore plant on Wednesday.

“Metro Vancouver does an excellent job day in and day out delivering the critical services that are needed for this region.”

Construction progress on North Shore Wastewater Treatment Plant, as of January 29, 2025. (Kenneth Chan/Daily Hive)

It should be noted that a governance and cost review of the regional district is already underway.

This follows the regional district’s board of directors’ previous approval of a member motion from Hurley in late 2024 directing the regional district staff to report back in early 2025 on potential operational cost savings by department. This review will help make decisions for the 2026 budget and the next five-year financial plan.

Also, a governance review of how Metro Vancouver’s regional government operates is underway, including how the board — comprised of the region’s municipally elected mayors and city councillors — makes decisions and receives and shares information and the possibility of recommending provincial legislation changes to improve efficiencies.

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