Survey says: Most New West residents are happy with the quality of life in the city – but many feel it’s deteriorated in recent years.
Ipsos recently provided council with an update on the results of a public survey that was done as part of the city’s work on the 2025 budget.
“The main purpose of the survey is to obtain public input on important community issues, city services and investment,” said Catherine Knaus, director at Ipsos. “The research was conducted as part of the budget development process for 2025, and the results will be used in the preparation of future budgets.”
Ipsos conducted a total of three online surveys – a resident survey that was mailed to 10,000 randomly selected households, an open-invitation survey that other residents could access if they wanted to participate, and a business survey.
Knaus said the “random resident survey” was completed by 721 residents, which was a response rate of around 7.2 per cent.
“The (random survey) results have been weighted by age, gender, and neighbourhood to ensure the characteristics of the sample met that of the actual population in New Westminster, according to the 2021 census. And results based on that sample size of 721 have a margin of error plus or minus 3.6 per cent 19 times at 20.”
Knaus said the open invitation survey was not a “representative survey” and was intended to provide everyone with an opportunity to participate and provide feedback on the same questions as the other survey, even if they had not been selected for that random survey. She said a total of 178 surveys were completed, with 163 meeting the same qualifying criteria as that random resident survey (including being over 18years of age).
In addition to residents, businesses were also given an opportunity to complete the survey.
Open-invitation survey
Knaus said the survey included a question regarding residents’ perceptions about the quality of life in New Westminster.
Perceptions of the overall quality of life in New Westminster today?
- Very good – 14 per cent
- Good – 73 per cent
- Poor – nine per cent
- Very poor – two per cent
- Don’t know – one per cent
View of change in quality of life in New West over the past three years?
- Improved – nine per cent
- Stayed the same – 42 per cent
- Worsened – 40 per cent
- Don’t know – eight per cent
“This tells us, on balance, while residents feel the quality of life is good overall, it's not as good as it once was,” Knaus said. “There is this negative momentum to the direction quality of life is taking.”
Knaus said she does a lot of surveys in different communities and was not surprised by this result.
“It seems, over the last few years, more and more residents are feeling the quality of life is getting worse,” she said. “It speaks to some of the challenges facing people today.”
Knaus said a follow-up open-ended question asked why residents think the quality of life in the city has changed.
- Homelessness/poverty – 29 per cent
- Crime/safety – 26 per cent
To avoid potentially biasing the results of the other questions or answers, Knaus said the first question on the survey was an open-ended question that asked residents about what they consider to be important local issues.
“Social issues are identified as the most important community issue, mentioned by 48 per cent of residents overall, and that includes a variety of mentions. So, it includes mentions around poverty and homelessness, housing affordability or availability, drugs and addiction, mental health support, childcare, care and support for vulnerable residents. So that's what's included in that social bucket,” she said. “I can say, we often see social issues these days come up as the top issue in a lot of the communities that we do research in.”
Next up was transportation, which was mentioned by 33 per cent of residents. Items mentioned included traffic congestion, the conditions of roads and sidewalks, general transportation, parking, and cycling infrastructure.
Rounding out the Top 5 issues cited by residents were: crime and public safety (20 per cent); municipal government services (16 per cent); and the economy (13 per cent).
Knaus said the majority (76 per cent) of residents are satisfied with city services in New Westminster:
- Very satisfied – 16 per cent
- Somewhat satisfied – 60 per cent
- Not very satisfied – 15 per cent
- Not at all satisfied – five per cent
- Don’t know – four per cent
Queried about 19 different services provided by the city, residents are most satisfied with fire and rescue services (97 per cent), clean water supply and wastewater treatment services (94 per cent), library services (92 per cent) and electrical services (91 per cent). At the bottom of the pack were services connecting vulnerable residents to support services (55 per cent), road maintenance (53 per cent), and traffic calming and traffic maintenance, (47 per cent).
When asked how important each of these services are to residents, Knaus said some of the core services are what’s most important to people – with clean water supply and wastewater services (99 per cent) and fire and rescue (98 per cent cent) coming out on top.
Money, money, money
Ipsos also surveyed residents about some questions related to finances, including their perceptions of value for money. Seventy-nine per cent of respondents think they’re getting good value for their tax dollars.
- Very good value – 21 per cent
- Fairly good value – 58 per cent
- Fairly poor values – 12 per cent
- Very poor value – five per cent
- Don’t know – four per cent
When it comes to balancing taxation and service delivery levels, Knaus said residents prefer tax increases over service reductions.
- Higher-than-inflation tax increases to enhance or expand services – 16 per cent
- Tax increases in line with inflation (to sustain current services levels) – 48 per cent
- Maintain current tax levels (reduction in services) – 19 per cent
- Reduce taxes (significant reduction in services) – 10 per cent
“They don't want to see their services cut. So, 64 per cent in total say increased taxes, compared to 29 per cent saying reduced services,” she said. “But look a little bit closer, and it's really residents saying (they support) tax increases in line with inflation to sustain current service levels; that's 48 per cent of residents. There's less of an appetite for higher-than-inflation tax increases to enhance or expand services.”
Asked about support for revenue-generating ideas, the highest support was for advertising in city facilities (79 per cent) and the lowest was for more parking meters or higher parking rates (less than half of respondents).
Residents were also asked to what extent they would support or oppose the city borrowing funds to deal with the backlog of capital replacement and upgrade projects on a more frequent basis.
- Strongly support – nine per cent
- Somewhat support – 34 per cent
- Oppose somewhat – 25 per cent
- Oppose strongly – 24 per cent
- Don’t know – seven per cent
“We have 43 per cent of residents saying this is something they would support, 49 per cent of residents saying they would oppose. So, on balance, opposition outweighs support, but neither of these reaches a majority level,” Knaus said. “I think it's also noteworthy that if you look at the intensity of these two attitudes, the intensity of opposition outweighs that of support by quite a large degree. So, we have 24 per cent saying this is something they would oppose strongly compared to nine per cent saying this is something they would strongly support.”
Open-invitation input
In addition to assessing the responses of residents contacted directly by Ipsos to complete the survey, Knaus also updated council in the results of the “open invitation” survey that other residents could complete.
“Overall, the results of the two surveys generally line in terms of direction; we see similar themes and sentiment coming out in both surveys,” she said. “However, those participating in the open invitation survey provides slightly lower ratings in several areas.”
Knaus said this was seen in response to questions about quality of life, perceptions of council’s strategic priorities, and value for money.
“Satisfaction with services is largely similar in both surveys. We have majority of residents saying they're satisfied with the services overall,” she said. “Satisfaction with specific services is also largely similar, but some differences. So those participating in the open invitation survey are less likely to say they're satisfied with public engagement, active transportation and road maintenance, but they're more likely to say they're satisfied with arts, cultural and heritage facilities and programs.”
Knaus said the Top 3 most important issues are the same in both surveys – social issues, transportation and crime/public safety.
“However, those participating in the open-invitation survey place a slightly higher emphasis on crime and public safety overall,” she said.
While most residents rate the quality of life in New Westminster positively, it was higher in the random survey (those contacted by Ipsos) than the “open invitation” survey.
“So, 88 per cent good in the random survey, compared to 81 per cent in the open invitation survey,” Knaus said.
Knaus said overall satisfaction with city services is the same in both surveys – with 77 per cent of respondents to both surveys saying they are satisfied. She noted that attitudes towards balancing taxation and service delivery levels also yielded “almost identical” results in both surveys.
“In both cases, residents would prefer to see taxes increased rather than services cut,” she said. “Again, it's really about maintaining service levels.”
What now?
At its Oct. 28 workshop, council received the 2025 budget survey responses from residents and businesses for information.
Shehzad Somji, the city’s director of finance, said the survey has closed but community members can still provide feedback directly to council or through the city’s budget email.
Coun. Daniel Fontaine welcomed having a survey done as part of the budget process.
“I think doing this type of survey is fantastic because it does get out there more broadly, it does kind of do a touch point, and it touches base in terms of where people's temperatures are at,” he said.
Fontaine said 16 per cent of residents who responded to the random survey stated they would support tax increases higher than the rate of inflation to enhance or expand services, but 48 per cent preferred tax increases in line with inflation, as well as maintenance of current services levels.
“Inflation is at two per cent and we're looking right now somewhere between six to seven per cent in terms of the potential tax increase,” he said.
Fontaine said the survey results are “incredibly helpful” for council’s budget deliberations.
“It's one of a whole bunch of data points, but it's an important one, because it is random, and it does, I think, accurately reflect the general public perception on a number of key items,” he said. “So, I appreciate that.
The surveys were conducted between Aug. 15 and Sept. 22.
Mayor Patrick Johnstone said the “quality of life questions is always a challenge” but wondered if the quality-of-life discussions taking place in the Oct. 19 provincial election campaign factored into the survey results.
“It looks like the results were pretty close to what the provincial election were, and how people sort of saw that,” he said.
Johnstone said the survey suggests there is “more resistance” to using debt to deal with infrastructure needs than in the past.
“My recollection of previous discussions that this is always seen as public was more tolerant of us using debt to address infrastructure challenges,” he said. “That's an interesting piece of information out of this. It may reflect where people's own lives are with debt and where interest rates are right now.”
Johnstone said he’s not sure the city can maintain current service levels and keep tax increases to rate of inflation. He noted that discussions about the police budget indicate a tax increase exceeding the rate of inflation would be required to maintain – not enhance – policing services.
“I do appreciate the survey,” he said. “It’s really useful for us as we go into our future discussions.”
