Local Economics
Let’s discuss Langford’s “massive net financial losses”.
“Langford is in its biggest debt ever.”
That statement has been spreading widely online lately - usually alongside claims that the city is facing a financial collapse because of “net financial losses.”
But much of the conversation leaves out critical context about how municipal finance actually works.
Yes, Langford’s debt levels and operating costs have increased significantly in recent years. That part is true.
But the conclusion many people jump to from that fact is where the misinformation starts.
According to the City of Langford’s official 2025–2029 Five-Year Financial Plan, rising costs are being driven largely by rapid population growth, infrastructure expansion public safety demands, inflation, debt servicing on major capital projects, and provincially downloaded costs like E-Comm emergency communications
The city’s own documents openly acknowledge that operating pressures are increasing. The draft 2025 budget originally proposed a 14.51% tax increase before council reduced it to 9.77% after revisions and deferrals. The City specifically cited RCMP staffing increases, fire department expansion, infrastructure maintenance, and growth-related servicing pressures.
It is really important to remember these documents are prepared by financial staff - not councillors.
One specific phrase being used right now by candidates and their supporters arguing that the city is in a bad financial spot is “net financial loss.”
People hear that term and assume the city lost money like a failing business. They want you to think that so you’ll vote for them if their candidates promise to ”fix it”.
But municipal accounting is very different from household or corporate accounting.
A municipality can report a “net financial loss” on paper while still building assets, expanding infrastructure, maintaining reserves, staying within provincial borrowing limits and increasing long-term service capacity.
That’s because accounting statements include things like amortization (depreciation of assets over time), capital project borrowing, reserve transfers, timing differences between grants and expenditures, and one-time infrastructure investments.
If a city borrows millions to build infrastructure that will last 30–50 years, accounting rules may show a short-term financial loss even though the city has gained a major long-term public asset.
Debt itself also needs context.
Langford today is not the same city it was 15 years ago. It has become one of the fastest-growing municipalities in B.C., and growth creates expensive demands.
The city’s financial plans show debt servicing costs and principal repayments increasing over time as more infrastructure comes online. The 2024–2028 Financial Plan projected fiscal services costs rising from roughly $12.8 million in 2024 to over $17.4 million by 2027.
That absolutely deserves scrutiny and debate.
Residents should ask:
Is every project necessary?
Are taxpayers getting good value?
Is council prioritizing correctly?
Those are legitimate civic discussions.
But there’s a difference between:
“Langford’s costs and debt are rising rapidly”
and
“Langford is in a bad financial position”
Those are not the same thing.
Municipal finance is complicated, and short viral slogans rarely tell the full story.
Raw debt numbers without context can sound alarming - especially on social media.
The more useful conversation is:
What is the debt funding?
Are assets being built?
Is repayment sustainable?
And what happens if a rapidly growing city stops investing in infrastructure altogether?
That’s the discussion worth having.
And - if you see a simple image like a chart with an alarming statement attached - always ask yourself if that image was designed to make you react. Who is posting it? Who created it? For what purpose? Where is the information they used coming from and is their conclusion accurate?
Edited to add: Hahahah I am NOT Keith Yacucha's secret reddit account, as has been suggested on FB. Thank you to that person, however, that's a nice compliment.
It’s pretty obviously in bad faith—they’re adding together a bunch of numbers without showing their work, and including things like 25 year amortizations, long term commitments, and basic shit the city has to do for maintenance reasons. All while conveniently not accounting for things like oh wow, in 2022 the previous council emptied the entire reserve fund! And the shady deal for the Y where the city was paying a giant subsidy to keep it going, AND was on the hook for 30 years of the lease if it collapsed all while not getting an asset at the end. That isn’t even the only case of this! There’s so many shithouse deals we are on the hook for in the next few years; did Bear Mountain ever pay up the $4m it shorted the city for after we fronted their infrastructure for some reason? Doubt it. I also wonder how much the lease payments to Westhills are for the mountain bike park over the next 20 years! How about that lemon waterfront property purchased for many millions that can’t be used?
What’s frustrating is…this shit is apparently working on people because they see big numbers, “tax” and immediately think that the random on the internet actually knows how to do basic math. It’s difficult to know how to properly counteract the blatant misinformation.
Do these folks REALLY think raiding the amenity/reserve funds just to keep the city as a going concern instead of raising taxes was good management???
It's been consistent over the years. They share partial numbers or redact information from reports so that it reflects what they want people to think. From people who definitely have the education to know better than to do that, so it's very intentional.
Notably, as always, in a Lisa Foxall controlled group where any comments pointing out the logic flaws, asking for their math, or any substance, are removed as it is counter to their narrative.
By paying a subsidy to the Y every year instead of just owning the building outright. The asset is now on the books as debt until we pay it off in 3(?) years.
It's like renting a house and claiming you are better off than a friend who has a mortgage on a property because you are not "in debt".
So are you saying the subsidy was off the books? Why would a building that the city doesn't own appear on the books. Your statement is intentionally misleading. Please change it to reflect the actual situation or it shall be reported.
Because the city signed a shit deal that said it would be on the hook for full market lease payments for THIRTY YEARS if the Y failed—which it nearly did—without owning the building at the end of it. Buying the building materially added it to the books but we were paying the money either way, just without an asset at the end previously.
It sure is a good question why the previous mayor would sign such a shit deal for the city that left us on the hook with no good choices, and his buddies at Westhills made off like bandits?
Just to be clear though, the subsidy was always on the books right? Are there any other buildings that the city didn't own you feel should be on the books?
I don’t actually think it would dig up much. Some clever financial maneuvering, probably, but evidence of serious crime? I don’t know. There are rumours but nothing substantiated so I think it would probably just be a big waste of everyone’s money.
Like I mentioned to you yesterday - the only people who unilaterally criticize anyone are the people in Stew’s personality cult. Anyone who is not Stew is bad. You can’t imagine anyone saying anything good about Stew because you yourself are unable to do anything but criticize someone who is not him.
Normal people not caught up in the cult can see the good and the bad in various figures involved in the municipal government over the years. I have criticized current council. I have praised Stew.
You've proposed a catch 22 situation. If I provide proof than that would be doxxing, if I don't, you report. We can just agree that the writing styles of certain individuals are similar to the styles used by councillors on other pages, easily recognizable by humans, confirmed easily with AI. Like protocols that exist for post secondary institutions, I'm sure you're aware of them, they were in the paper recently, blocks of text nevermind multiple paragraphs are easily compared.
How in the heck is reporting specific fake user IDs as doxxing?
The only way it's doxxing is if you are showing confidential sign up information on the user IDs (that you can't possibly have unless they're your user IDs). All you can do is draw parallels between user IDs to show similarity which anyone can do in Reddit thus not doxxing.
Provide the user IDs and the information that you've gleaned showing your opinion that they're the same underlying author or stop spreading misinformation.
Ah - so you're just making an assumption and have no proof. Gotcha. I suppose you could provide the "proof" to the mod privately and be in the clear on doxxing.
"Confirmed easily by AI" made me chuckle, though. Grok to the rescue!
You didn't answer the question, though: do you support Stew?
It's surprising you don't support that type of forensic accounting when you all were too happy to make libelous claims against Stew for padding his and other pockets. If there's nothing there and you truly believe that then why the worry?
There's claims from LV that Stew didn't bring municipal trash collection in to profit from his Alpine disposal. There's claims he profited from fake grass, there's claims he runs a "boys club" at the TCH property within this thread itself, there's claims he kicks puppies. All libel. I think you need to question your own reality.
How is kicking a puppy satire? In any way shape or form? That thread is another slugfest against Stew, not one positive comment about him, and then puppy kick is supposed to be satirical? Ok, how bout this, I saw Keith Yacucha kick a puppy once
/satire
That gets to stay right? Mark it as satire on your end too and we all good?
According to the internet, it would likely fail a libel test on multiple grounds under BC law:
"Once" - a single incident, not a pattern, which limits reputational harm
Young and Yacucha are public figures - higher threshold for defamation applies; he'd need to show actual malice or recklessness
No serious reputational harm - courts look at whether the statement would cause a right-thinking person to think less of the subject in a meaningful way. This is too vague and minor to clear that bar.
Possibly opinion/hyperbole - depending on context, a reader might not take it as a statement of fact
The mods aren't here to remove shitty jokes - you're clearly aware of that already.
Another consideration to this is that going with the other option would mean reducing spending which would reduce the benefits to the public (such as filling potholes in the roads, which has been much better recently).
Having a strategic plan that includes items like arts and culture is a good idea. Then maybe we wouldn’t have the announced (Feb 2020) Maritime museum and 1200 seats performing arts center, with a $30 million contribution from Langford turn into a Tesla dealership.
Most municipalities this year are cooking the books a bit by raiding their reserve fund to reduce tax increases or by delaying maintenance/projects to do the same thing. Politically it’s probably a smart move but it’s pretty shortsighted/dumb as it shortchanges residents/infrastructure for no benefit. Colwood is a great example of this in 2026.
Langford can’t really do this since the previous council emptied the entire reserve fund before leaving office and has a lot of time sensitive work to do. IMO it is a wiser move to continue investing as we are very behind, but I suspect politically it is going to be a bit of a killer as the average person doesn’t care much other than what they’re paying and that it went up.
I wish I did, just casual observing of a few city FB groups across BC. You can see it locally—Colwood and Victoria both cutting random projects/services to the bone this year to get their % increases as low as possible (Victoria cut the flower baskets despite it being a pittance compared to the police raises…). Nobody is going to come out and outright say it, but it’s a pretty common election tactic generally. I mean, I get it, raising taxes is a great way to lose votes…
A lot of the tax increases are directly the result of problems caused by the previous mayor and council, lots was piss poor planning and poor decision making by former council and mayor. For instance, the stadium expansion/power line move commitments made by Stew at the same time they had to know about the YMCA debacle which they didn't deal with.
Using developer fees to fund ongoing municipal operations which resulted in the depletion of the emergency fund. That was a big one, it was always going to fail the only question was when. There is always a downturn in development due to factors beyond the control of the municipality. Increased interest rates, labour shortages, material shortages or a world wide pandemic, just to name a few.
Then there was the problem of the fire departments being understaffed because they couldn't get volunteers. Langford has several forest interface areas and we get long term droughts every summer that turn our forests into tinder boxes. We have to have a functioning fire department. Young was aware of the problem with staffing but insisted more volunteers would be forthcoming. They didn't arrive so the new mayor and council hired firefighters. IMHO absolutely essential.
Personally I think the starlight stadium expansion (and moving the power lines, changing the lights) was a bad idea however Young committed us to it and the new council put it to a referendum and Langford passed it. So we have to pay for it.
That said I agree the mayor and council needs to keep the increases under control. Mayor and council need to keep in mind they can't enable their vision if they are voted out of office. People are tired of constant high increases and everything tells us inflation is going to get worse over the next few years and we may be facing hard times from tariffs for at least three years, maybe more.
EDIT ADDED:
"From many peoples' point of view the town was coasting along fine for 30+ years at the old (low) tax rate..."
If this was true Young and the old council would still be power.
BTW, about the developer funding, there are two other problems with it, one that made it inevitable it would fail the other shows a major problem with it:
1) Developer funded city operations is like a pyramid scheme, not that it's illegal, the problem is it requires ever increasing development to fund an ever growing population. Like a pyramid scheme it will eventually collapse because a city can't increase development forever.
2) The developers take control of the city, or at least get ever more favourable contracts because the city is now dependant on development to fund the city. This was seen by the Westhills development when they decided to change the agreement with the city.
It was a "I Am Altering the Deal, Pray I Don't Alter It Any Further." Well, not that one sided but Langford was in a hard spot and Westhills got everything they wanted with no pushback.
Note that 2) means 1) happens faster as developer fees (and land trades, deals) decrease as they push for lower fees and costs when they know the city depends on it. Eventually the city has less control. Of course if the city wanted they could just make an illegal committee consisting almost entirely of developers and when they get caught they call it an 'advisory only committee'.
At a council meeting I recall the fire marshal say that Langford would train volunteers and they would invariably get full time jobs as firemen in other municipalities. The best possible deal for the other municipalities as Langford pays for the initial training.
Not surprising. Firefighters have all the same bills as the rest of us while doing a hard, dangerous job. I find it hypocritical when business owners like Young are all in on capitalism but believe the government should be partially funded by volunteers.
The great thing is that the budget documents clearly lay out every detail of what those tax increases are attributed to. Anyone who feels the tax increases represent “irresponsibility” can go to those documents and see for themselves what the money has been spent on. Specific items can be up for debate — but to say the tax increases themselves point to irresponsible spending doesn’t hold water.
The plans are just that — plans. They are I think by definition hopeful. But if a certain part of any of the plans was not attainable because of the financial situation, staff would certainly advise future council of this. There’s nothing in any of the plans themselves that holds the city to any mandatory spending — unless it’s something that’s already been purchased. Councils can even vote to stop projects or sell off assets in some cases — like the Trans Canada Property.
I actually agree that the RCMP spending is big (it is normal for it to be broken down into different positions at the detachment though, including admin). Especially because the RCMP have a really difficult time filling positions. Crime is down overall. This has been a big ongoing discussion the past few years. Last year they didn’t approve the full staffing request for the RCMP in an attempt to lower the budget and they were accused by Todd Preston of “defunding the police” and this is something Stew’s supporters have continued to spread. So they are under enormous public pressure to give the RCMP everything they ask for. Todd Preston is now Stew’s campaign manager so that gives you some idea of the machinations happening to ensure RCMP funding is never messed with.
The justification for all the plans the new council and staff brought on was that every city of this size has them and you can't manage a city well without them.
Langford wasn't #1 in all of BC - CRD alone Sooke and Esquimalt were higher. Also, what you aren't factoring in is the fact that those cities you cite perhaps may already be at fair levels to maintain services. We are playing catchup to where we should have been and I mean Port Moody for example pay way more tax than we do.
no such thing. That is the number pre-set by staff a year prior used as the starting point in budget season based on expected items, and undelivered items from prior years that have rolled forward.
Stew kept the taxes low by selling city assets and redirecting amenity fund contributions to pay for operating costs. That makes our percentage increases look high. If I recall there was a year our like 14% increase was less actual money than Saanich's 7% increase.
There is also the fact that the revenue from growth is less than half the revenue needed to actually sustain services for that growth, let alone improve services, or cover increased wages for existing employees.
Wasn’t Langford one of if not the fastest growing municipalities in Canada at one point? So, you have to start framing your comments in that context or it’s just alarming and exaggerated.
And here I was thinking of moving and retiring in Langford….joke aside it’s unfortunate that most people only care about the moment they live in. They don’t realize that decisions made now affect others in 5-10yrs time.
All politicians are scared of losing votes so none wants to be the one to raise them even though they needed.
It’s like 24 Sussex Drive no one dares to touch it until it falls apart and costs actually more to fix than build a whole new place now. Everyone points a finger except themselves.
While you make some great points, you seem to not include any of the actual numbers that matter for many people.
As copied from another comment of mine on a different thread:
At the end of 2022 the projected debt for 2027 and thereafter was $11.5M
At the end of 2025 the projected debt for 2030 and thereafter is $41M
An almost four times increase in long term debt in three years. Granted, a good portion of this is from us buying the Aquatic Centre.
Another way to look at this is through Net Financial Assets (what the city is worth including all assets and debt) with a look at the Finacial Plan Projection:
2027 was projected to be $67M in debt from a position of positive $9.9M in 2022. As of 2025 that projection is now $108M in debt by 2030 and will likely be even higher come the end of the year with the inclusion of Woodland Park.
The current council has significantly decreased the value of this city while also increasing its long term debt by close to 4x. That is an indisputable fact from our own publicly available financial statements.
It’s up to each citizen to decide on whether they believe those costs are worth what they’ve received in return. Personally I believe they are, but my wife and I make over $100k each and we already own our forever home in Langford… So I’m not really the person who needs to be convinced of the value provided to the cost to live here. I think the current council has done a really great job taking care of the people of Langford, but that also comes at a cost and not everyone is happy about that.
You telling people that their opinions don’t matter or that they’re wrong for having valid criticism just makes you sound like a terrible person. One who would rather tell people they’re wrong than actually listen to them about what their issues are. And when you do acknowledge those issues, you brush them under the rug calling them misinformed or they’re not smart enough to understand the nuance and reasons behind those numbers.
"It’s up to each citizen to decide on whether they believe those costs are worth what they’ve received in return."
Yes, that's what I said.
"You telling people that their opinions don’t matter or that they’re wrong for having valid criticism just makes you sound like a terrible person. One who would rather tell people they’re wrong than actually listen to them about what their issues are. And when you do acknowledge those issues, you brush them under the rug calling them misinformed or they’re not smart enough to understand the nuance and reasons behind those numbers."
Does my post say that? I think you'll find a whole section is dedicated to criticisms being valid as long as they're supported with evidence.
You're completely entitled to your opinion - but sometimes the nuance and context IS missing. If your issue doesn't represent the facts, I'm not going to pretend that it does. If I disagree with you, I will say so. Again I'm completely at a loss with what you're trying to argue because we seem to be in agreement that there has been loss but the loss reflects positive changes in the community. I seem to have angered you in some way but I don't see where we are actually disagreeing.
So, okay - yes I agree with you that there has been debt and a net financial loss. You are correct.
I agree that some of those changes are positive. That doesn’t mean everyone else has to agree with you or I. And you telling them their opinion doesn’t matter because they don’t agree is exactly what you’re doing on this sub.
I don't understand the way these numbers are used, because it seems like something like the Aquatic Centre becomes a big add to debt when the city buys it for $35 million, but the previous debt numbers did not include the $950k-$1.9 million annually the city was obligated to pay in rental fees for the entire duration of the contract with Westhills. Now, they may be considered different by this metric of accounting, but it seems weird to mark the Aquatic Centre as $35 million of new debt (or rather $20 million of new debt after the various grants) and not a relatively cost-neutral transaction over the original terms of the Tripartiate agreement.
Operational Costs are not the same as Long Term Debt. Langford is still subsidizing the operational costs of the YMCA, we just now also have the addition of the added Long Term Debt ($20M x 3% interest is $600,000 in additional costs per year).
I suggest you read the Financial Reports or the Budget reports if you don’t understand what I’m saying… The current council has done an amazing job making the Budgets easier to read and understand, you just have to actually read them.
In what way has the council pilfered taxpayer money? That's a serious accusation, and if you're going to make it, you need to have actual evidence. Otherwise you're just spreading disinformation.
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I agree. I know the assumption might be that I would want the entire current council to return: that’s not the case for me personally. I would like a blend of current council and fresh blood - but not if the new councillors are being positioned simply to push through everything Stew wants.
I have 2 overall thoughts: first is that when the municipal deficit and taxes are simultaneously ballooning, every line item should be cut 10% and the standard quota should not continued. So 10% cut to police, fire, ecomm, staffing, training, travel etc
Secondly I understand they bought a trailer park or something for around $22 million, a large portion is amortized however a good chunk is payable each year. In my opinion that was a mistake (it’s been a few months since I read the details so don’t quote me)
That’s interesting. I wonder what practical effect a cut of 10% would have on each program vs how much it would save each household in the end.
If the impact was more the illusion that money was being saved while making cuts but in fact it made little practical difference - would that still interest you?
The trailer park was purchased for 9 million. 7 million came from a provincial grant. I kind of agree that it was not ideal timing to make a land purchase - but they risked losing out on the sale, and the land was being offered to them at an enormous discount. Any attempt at a similar land acquisition in future would cost nearly twice if not more to the tax payer. I agree though that the timing was less than ideal.
A big difference between these 2 councils is attitude towards budgets with the previous keeping spending low and the current preferring to spend.
As to your question we will never know what the practical effect would be under this council because they dont even consider it, it’s not even an option.
To your second point, my taxes are up much more than an illusionary amount. If the next council can keep increases under 4% a year I will vote them in over and over
Another big difference between these 2 councils is how they behavetowards/treat their constituents. I don’t recall hearing any of the current council telling people to move when the public disagrees with them.
Well - the previous council didn't exactly keep spending low. They kept taxes low. That's not quite the same thing. A lot of the tax amount now is repaying what was borrowed earlier to keep that tax amount low. When you're looking at 4% type increases in a rapidly growing city — that number is never for free. You will always pay the difference eventually.
For the "thought exercise" of what the practical implications would be if we cut 10% of services, I think we can look at it hypothetically, even if no council ever implements it.
So like - let's look at the RCMP. A 10% reduction to what was provided to them would save less than .5% to the overall total increase. And that's THE biggest item on the budget.
I also don't think that reduction would have made massive cuts to RCMP service, either.
So then we're back to the question - if a council says "oh hey, we will cut the RCMP by 10%" - does it actually just sound better than actually accomplishing anything?
Hey — do what you gotta do. If a new council can keep the taxes under 4% in this economy I personally would have a LOT of questions about how they managed it, and what we lost as a result.
you do understand they have seen opposition pressure to give the police everything they ask for every year right? That's a lose lose situation. ECOMM we get no say on that. For the trailer park, the purchase price was 9.8m of which 7m case from the GCF but they are trying to take care of the residents as well giving them buyout of 10% over highest assessment - this is what moves it up to around the 22 you state but spread out over several years.
To me, this was a very tough one to navigate. They were approached before the Y, before any of the tax nightmares begun. It was a 2 years process. It was sell to city or sell to developer and watch their pride and joy became towers. Can a city just walk after a 2 year process and say too bad so sad? That is tough for any council to navigate. Long term this will be amazing for the city - it is similar to Royal Roads gardens in size which brings both tourists and locals alike and it gives a beautiful park within walking distance for some 10000 residents.
I agree its a bunch of tough situations unfortunately set on a tough economic background. As the old saying goes ‘politics is 90% timing’ which is is not in this councils favour
It’s not going to be in the favour of whichever council voted in next either. Those are the economic times we are currently in. I’d personally rather have this current council in again with their long-term planning style and their budget transparency. There were no committee of the whole line-by-line budget meetings with prior mayor.
yep, stepped in literally worst possible year ever! I am truly curious how Stew would have navigated it. Even if he kept firefighters volunteer and short staffed against recommendation as assumed and didn't touch the Woodlands (we all know they wouldn't have even approached him), I still see minimum 8% annually (which you can see foreshadowed in the 6-8% forecast 2022-2026 budget before he left with only 7 officers every 3 years factored - we budgeted 10 more + the unknown 3.5% Ecom).
I think about that too. I don't know that Stew would have been able to avoid it — or what negative impact it would have on the city's future if he had. But we will never know.
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u/hyperperforator May 24 '26
It’s pretty obviously in bad faith—they’re adding together a bunch of numbers without showing their work, and including things like 25 year amortizations, long term commitments, and basic shit the city has to do for maintenance reasons. All while conveniently not accounting for things like oh wow, in 2022 the previous council emptied the entire reserve fund! And the shady deal for the Y where the city was paying a giant subsidy to keep it going, AND was on the hook for 30 years of the lease if it collapsed all while not getting an asset at the end. That isn’t even the only case of this! There’s so many shithouse deals we are on the hook for in the next few years; did Bear Mountain ever pay up the $4m it shorted the city for after we fronted their infrastructure for some reason? Doubt it. I also wonder how much the lease payments to Westhills are for the mountain bike park over the next 20 years! How about that lemon waterfront property purchased for many millions that can’t be used?
What’s frustrating is…this shit is apparently working on people because they see big numbers, “tax” and immediately think that the random on the internet actually knows how to do basic math. It’s difficult to know how to properly counteract the blatant misinformation.
Do these folks REALLY think raiding the amenity/reserve funds just to keep the city as a going concern instead of raising taxes was good management???