Questions on how municipalities in the territory can go about generating more revenue are closer to making their way to the Yukon government.

At Monday’s city council meeting, members voted in favour of putting forward a resolution to the Association of Yukon Communities (AYC) that would seek greater clarity from the territory on municipal revenue generation.

Municipalities are set to gather at the AYC’s annual meeting May 12-15 in Watson Lake.

There, the umbrella group for communities in the Yukon will adopt a number of resolutions for the organization to work on.

The city’s resolution asking for clarity is one of four it will bring forward.

The others are aimed at:

• encouraging the Yukon government to implement a territory-wide recycling program for electronics;

• working with the territory to ensure funding is provided to deal with any associated costs should municipalities be included under the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy (ATIPP) Act; and

• working with the territory to ensure that municipal priorities are reflected when infrastructure investments are being considered.

It was the issue of revenue generation that garnered the most discussion among council members Monday night.

City staff had initially proposed a resolution seeking clarity from the territory on whether Yukon municipalities have the authority to charge a hotel tax.

As Coun. Samson Hartland noted though, greater clarity is needed on the authority municipalities have in a variety of types of revenue generation.

“It’s incumbent upon us” to explore a variety of forms of revenue generation, rather than limiting it to one, he said.

Coun. Rob Fendrick echoed the sentiment. While municipalities may choose not to pursue additional streams of revenue, he pointed out, clarity is needed.

“Right now, unfortunately, it’s just not that clear,” Fendrick said.

With the issue being one that could affect all municipalities, he said, the AYC is the avenue to go in dealing with it.

The city can’t even begin to explore the possibilities until it knows what it is able to do, said Mayor Dan Curtis, who attended Monday’s session by conference call.

It’s an issue other municipal councils are also wondering about, Coun. Betty Irwin said.

As the AYC’s second vice-president, Irwin was at a board meeting last week. All municipalities in the territory seemed to want clarity on the matter, she said.

Council was unanimous in approving Hartland’s amendment before going on to adopt the resolutions.

The other one that drew some conversation among council members was the proposal on recycling electronics.

The resolution would see the AYC work to encourage the Yukon government – in co-operation with businesses and stakeholders – to establish recycling fees that would be paid at the time of purchase in the territory.

Those fees would be put into a fund that would go toward covering the cost of recycling.

As Curtis observed, electronics take up a lot of space in the landfill.

“We have to address this issue of how we can pay for it,” he said.

Irwin was also quick to note that the upfront fees would mean consumers would no longer have to pay tipping fees when they bring the waste to the landfill.

It would shift the cost of dealing with the waste to the actual users of the products when they buy the items, she said.

The resolutions will now make their way to the AYC gathering, where municipalities will vote on whether to pursue the issues.