municipal governments accumulated about $6.5 billion in spending beyond a benchmark tied to population growth and inflation between 2010 and 2024. “Population growth and inflation naturally increase the cost of delivering municipal services,” said Jairo Yunis, BCBC’s director of policy and a co-author of the report. In 84 municipal governments, the annual gap between real spending growth and population growth was at least one per cent. The City of Surrey recorded annual real spending growth of four per cent and population growth of 2.8 per cent, while the City of Burnaby saw annual real spending growth of 3.2 per cent and population growth of 1.9 per cent. The City of Richmond recorded real spending growth of 2.4 per cent annually, compared with population growth of 1.6 per cent.