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CORTES TOGETHER
How have your tax dollars
been spent over the last four years?
Your property tax bill helps pay for local government services through the Strathcona Regional District (SRD), as well as schools, hospitals, and waste management. Municipalities collect these taxes in cities and towns, while the Province collects them in rural areas like Cortes Island.
Each year the SRD Board determines the funding required for each service and requests that money from the Provincial Surveyor of Taxes.
Cortes Island property owners pay the SRD portion of their tax bill for services that Electoral Area B (Cortes) participates in, calculated by assessed property value. For the 2026 tax year, the average property value on Cortes is $699,776.
Shared services that Cortes participates in with all areas of the SRD include:
911 Answering Service
Regional Broadband
Just Like Home
Strathcona Emergency Program
Administration - General Government
Vancouver Island Public Library
Regional Housing
There are four Electoral Areas in the SRD - Area A (Kyuquot/Nootka-Sayward), Area B (Cortes), Area C (Quadra & Discovery Islands), Area D (Oyster Bay-Buttle Lake). Some services are shared with all four Electoral Areas:
Electoral Area Administration
Planning (Land Use Planning)
Other services are single participant services - where Cortes is the only participant in the service:
Parks
Grant in Aid
Feasibility Studies
Cortes Island First Responder
Fire Protection
Community Halls
Refuse Disposal
How do Cortes property taxes compare to other communities in the SRD?
For the average residential property, 2026 taxes are in the lower half of SRD communities even after the significant investment required to stabilize and strengthen our fire department in 2023 and changes to administration costs for Electoral Areas in 2025.
Taxes should never be treated casually. Every increase affects household affordability and my responsibility as Regional Director is to be transparent about where the money goes, question costs, seek outside funding, and ensure that the services we pay for provide genuine value. The goal is not simply to spend more or less - it is to make responsible decisions that represent the will of the community and keeps Cortes safe, prepared for the future, and a place we are proud to call home.
2026
Source: Page 153 of SRD 2026 Financial Plan:
https://www.srd.ca/media/file/2026-2030-financial-plan
Cortes Island was one of the only communities in BC to have the average property taxes decrease in 2026. This $34 average decrease happened through allocating additional gas tax funding to capital costs in our fire protection and parks services and the relative change in the assessed values of properties on Cortes compared to other Electoral Areas and municipalities in the SRD.
2025
Source: Page 149 of SRD 2025 Financial Plan:
https://www.srd.ca/media/file/2025-2029-financial-plan-strathcona-regional-district
In 2025 there was a $188 increase in costs associated with 'Electoral Areas Administration'. This is the second largest service cost increase over the last four years (next to the fire department) and was due to a cost allocation review led by Campbell River, who have a weighted majority vote on all financial matters at the SRD.
This admin cost formula allocation shift also created a $21 decrease in our 'Administration - General Government' (our shared admin cost with every municipality and electoral area at the SRD Board). Cortes also benefited from the changes in our property values relative to other parts of the SRD which contributed to a $16.90 saving per average property.
Using some of Cortes Island's allocation of the Build Communities Strong fund (gas tax) for our Parks and Fire Protection services allowed the admin cost increases to be smoothed out so that the requisition increase for 2025 was $64/avg property.
This shift in admin costs also changed the cost allocation to our garbage pick up fees, which decreased by $26.32 (not shown in the above graph).
2024
Source: Page 127 of SRD 2024 Financial Plan:
https://www.srd.ca/media/file/2024-2028-financial-plan-final
The amount you pay for shared services within the SRD changes based on the relative changes between the assessed values of all the property on Cortes compared to the assessed values of all the properties in each municipality and Electoral Areas in the SRD.
The grey bars on the right side of the graphic above indicate that in 2024 property values on Cortes increased more than the other municipalities in the SRD and that increase reflects the additional cost ($29.90) each Cortes property pays for shared services.
The remaining changes came primarily from increased library costs, operating costs at the community halls, Electoral Area administration, and our parks.
2023
Source: Page 115 of SRD 2023 Financial Plan:
https://www.srd.ca/media/file/2023-2027-financial-plan-v3
The tax requisition for our fire department in 2023 increased by $245 for the average property, marking it the single biggest increase to property taxes over the last four years.
Our fire department plays a key part in public safety. When I became Regional Director in 2022 it had been running at approximately half the cost of comparable fire departments in the region (Quadra Island's fire department costs the avg home approx $585). At the same time, new BC government regulations were coming into effect that required more work and training for our fire department, and the SRD was considering taking over the governance and running it centrally from Campbell River. Our fire protection service had reached a peak crisis moment as reported by Cortes Currents here:
https://cortescurrents.ca/ciffa-will-cortes-island-lose-its-volunteer-fire-department/
Increasing the fire deparment's budget by $245/avg property on Cortes was necessary and that investment has paid off in multiple ways.
On Sept 14, 2026 our Fire Chief reported that the Fire Department successfully passed the tests for Superior Tanker Shuttle Service accreditation and Cortes Islanders, whose properties are within range of the large tanks (5 kilometres) and in range of the fire halls (8 kilometres), could see their home insurance bills reduced significantly. Some early inquiries to insurance companies have homeowners saving more on home insurance then the total cost of the fire protection service.
https://cortescurrents.ca/fire-department-superior-tanker-shuttle-service/
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