Author: Patrick Johnstone

My first Council meeting!

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

Part of my plan for becoming a City Councillor, and one of my promises while campaigning, was that I was going to open up what takes place at Council, and communicate more directly from the Council Table. So this is the first of what I hope will be a 4-year series of blog posts following after Council meetings.

There are a number of things that will complicate this process. There are things we discuss in camera that I cannot report out on according to the Local Government Act, and there are projects that will go to Public Hearing that it would be in inappropriate for me to share opinions about prior to that hearing as per the same Act. However, Council does make decisions every meeting that cause people to wonder where the decision came from, and why we voted the way we do. It is reported out in Council Minutes, but I hope to cast a little light on that, from my personal viewpoint.

I cannot, of course speak on behalf of the other Council members, the Mayor, or the City as a legal entity – everything below are my opinions and observations only. So keep these caveats in mind, as we dive into the agenda of my first meeting. December 8, 2014. Most of these topics relate to reports provided in the Committee of the Whole earlier in the day, and can be read here.

I also apologize that this report took almost a week to get organized. Hopefully as I get more into the groove, I will figure out a more efficient way of writing these things while still making it understandable to people. Hey, I’m new at this!

I’m going to skip past the procedural stuff and delegations and get to the business part of the agenda, starting with recommendations from the Committee of the Whole meeting. You can follow along in video form here (select December 8 Regular Council Meeting)

Appointment of Chairs to Advisory Bodies:

This is the Mayor’s prerogative, but Councillors volunteer by listing our preferences, and he makes the final determination. I’m happy with the assignments I received. ACTBiPed has been a passion of mine for a number of years, Access Ability is a natural addition, as there is a lot of overlap, especially in the “Ped” part of Pedestrian. I am glad to be co-chairing Environment with Councillor McEvoy, who has been running that committee for the last few years, and there are few issues coming up where that committee will be front and centre (Urban Forest Management Plan, Kinder Morgan pipeline, etc.). The Youth Advisory Committee is new to me, but I am look forward to getting more involved in the youth programs in the City. I am also going to be involved in the Energy Management Committee, which should dovetail well with Environment, and will be interesting as the City further develops its CEEP and plans for a District Energy Utility.

Addition of Mayor’s Task Forces:

A new Mayor has a few complete powers, and one is the ability to set up new Committees and Task Forces, and these better than anything else so far demonstrate the Mayor’s priorities for the upcoming term (the difference is subtle: A Committee may sit forever to support policy goals in a specific area, whereas a Task Force is usually a temporary group, assembled to get a specific task done, then disband).

I’m really happy to be named to the Transportation Task Force, and the Public Engagement Committee. Both represent areas I talked extensively about during my campaign, and it looks like I will be talking about both of these at length over the next few years!

Municipal Government Campaign Reform:

We tabled this discussion out of respect for Councillor Harper, who could not attend this evening because of a family emergency. He had done a lot of work on this file, and we did not want to make a decision as a Council on this until he was able to provide some public input. Look for this to be a big topic of discussion in the New Year.

Modernization of Council Reports:

This is a bit of an adjustment of how we are going to structure Council meetings going forward. For those familiar with New Westminster Council, the end of the meetings often included a “Council Reports” section, which included announcements of upcoming events or items of community interests, and talked about events that councillors had attended, but often sounded more like an extended “social calendar report out” for the Council. That may be fine, but if it goes on to 45 minutes at the end of a long meeting, it is of dubious value to the community, and takes up a lot of staff time.

Mayor Coté suggested a better model, and after some discussion, we decided to adopt it. The existing “Council Reports” part of the agenda will be re-termed “announcements”, and will provide each Councillor an opportunity to add topic-specific announcements to the agenda, to be presented at that time (i.e. upcoming events). Councillors will still have the opportunity to provide reports on special topics, such as reporting on their attendance at a UBCM conference or providing details of a special project they are leading, but the detailed review of the Councillor’s social calendar since the previous meeting will (hopefully) become a thing of the past. We’ll see how this goes!

Request that Parks Canada designate Hyack Square a National Historic Site:

This is the start of a rather lengthy process to get the location where Wait for me Daddy (the event) occurred, and where Wait for me Daddy (the sculpture) is currently located, designated an Historic Site. There is more to the site than just that event, as this is a site where First Nations lived, it was the edge of the City’s original “Chinatown”, it was the place where troops assembled to be shipped east for WW1 and WW2. The photo is the most recognized historic event, but there is a long and complex history to the site, that Parks Canada may choose to officially recognize. This is the start of the conversation, not the end.

Queens Park Heritage Study:

This was a report received by Council reviewing the work done to date on this study. We received it for information, but no action was required at this time.

700 Sixth St. DVP for Signage:

There will be an opportunity to be heard on this issue on January 26, 2015.

404 Ash Street Development Permit:

This is the site of the fire last January, and I am glad to see that the redevelopment of the site is moving so quickly. Not much to report here, except that it will be a rental building to replace the rental building that was lost, and it will be built on the same footprint.

336 Agnes Street HRA Preliminary Report:

This is the preliminary report on a plan to renovate and preserve the historic Dontenwill Hall. This is a heritage preservation project that will be going to public consultation before coming back to Council, so I will hold comments for now.

Outstanding ACTBiPed Recommendations:

This came from a committee of which I was a part, so I know more about the history of the situation. The ACTBiPed has for several years raised concerns about the prioritization of pedestrian movements over “traffic flow”, especially in some key pedestrian areas like Uptown and Columbia Street. This isn’t just the whinging of a special interest group, this is supported both by the City’s Pedestrian Charter, and by language in the new Master Transportation Plan. There are two recommendations here: one emphasising the need to educate both pedestrians and other road users on pedestrian safety; the other to look at areas of the City where there needs to be more emphasis on the safe and efficient flow of pedestrians than on the less safe, less efficient flow of cars.

On Recommendation 1 there was no debate, and the City is already working with ICBC to provide improved pedestrian safety education. You have probably seen the recent ICBC ads talking about this issue, and the City is handing out reflective wristbands and danglers to encourage pedestrians to be more visible during the dreary winter days.

Recommendation 2 asked if more intersections in the City could adopt the pedestrian model of 6th and 6th – currently the only intersection in the City where the “walk” signal automatically activates every cycle, instead of requiring activation by a pedestrian. For this to prove more efficient (for foot and vehicle traffic), it requires a higher concentration of pedestrians vs. cars than occur anywhere else in the City other than 6th and 6th. The downside to this model is that the audio signal (the chirping you hear to alert the visually impaired about the signal activation) would cycle every time, 24 hours a day. This creates a bit of a noise nuisance for any residents who live near the intersection.

We discussed whether the audio signal alone could be activated by the push button (as it is now), leaving the lighted signal to turn automatically and letting the audio signal only sound where required. This might actually reduce the noise nuisance for these intersections. Staff will report back on whether this is viable.

In light of this, we also asked that staff again review a few of the intersections in the City that are now seeing increased pedestrian use (I picked out Columbia and 8th Street, 8th Street and Sixth Ave, and Begbie and Columbia; Councillor Puchmayr added Columbia and 6th and Columbia and 4th) to determine if making the intersection “pedestrian emphasised”.

This is rather preliminary. There will be a lot of talk about our pedestrian areas as we start to implement the Master Transportation Plan. We need to start thinking about our transportation space in a different way if we are going to protect the livability of our City while still managing the growth that the Regional Growth Strategy sees coming our way. Which brings us to:

BC on the Move – 10-year Transportation Plan Public Engagement:

This is a strange piece of public engagement by the Province, and strangely timed. That the Provincial Government would initiate a Transportation Plan consultation at the exact same time as the Translink Referendum details are being ironed out is strange. After doubting that the Mayors would be able to come together with a comprehensive plan for regional transportation investment, the Ministry is seemingly wanting to run it’s own process parallel to this. Meanwhile, several major transportation investments of dubious value have just been completed (PMH1, Sea-to-Sky) or have been promised come hell or high water (Massey tunnel replacement) without the approval of the Mayors and in contrast to the stated goals of the existing regional plans that impact transportation in our region – the Livable Region Strategy and Transport2040. Combined with the more integrated projects (such as the long-overdue Evergreen Line), we still don’t know what the effects of these major shifts in our City will be.

Regardless, the City’s response is pretty easy to put together. New Westminster provided comment drawn from its own Master Transportation Plan, and from our position of agreement with the existing regional transportation plans, and added a call for more consultation with the public and regional authorities prior to plan finalization.

The part I added was about starting the discussion on a costing mechanism for these works. Specifically, we need the province (who are the only jurisdiction with this power) to start discussing updated regional tolling policies. And that may take some background.

There is no doubt that the current ad-hoc tolling method is not serving New Westminster, or the region, fairly. The traffic impacts we have seen since the tolling of the Port Mann, and the Province’s insistence that the Pattullo (and New Westminster’s surface streets) are a “toll-free alternative” for regional traffic, are hurting the livability of our City. These problems will spread to other communities as new tolled infrastructure places loads on adjacent un-tolled structures, with predictable results for the region. Further, toll evasion is threatening the financial viability of the Golden Ears and Port Mann bridge projects. They are simply not meeting their targets, and will be an on-going financial burden for Translink and province (respectively).

Many have suggested a more equitable regional tolling policy would be fairer to communities, and would provide more stable funding for infrastructure improvements. I have suggested myself that the oft-cited $1 toll per crossing will not be sufficient to provide the funding we need if we are going to build more roads and bridges, nor do we know how that will impact regional driving patterns.

So I have asked out staff to develop a policy paper (much like the one they did for the Pattullo Bridge replacement discussion) that analyses regional tolling policies, where they work and where they don’t, and the impacts on the region and the City of New Westminster if a strategy like this was implemented by the province as part of the 10-year Plan. As a Council, I want to be able to comment to the province from a point of knowledge, and not just engage in the spit-balling guestimating about what should work, like has marked so much of our regional transportation discussion.

This Policy Paper development will be overseen by the new Transportation Taskforce, so I guess we have already started preparing the Terms of Reference!

Car Sharing Policy:

The Car-sharing co-op Modo already has several well-used cars in New Westminster, and there are two ZipCars at New Westminster SkyTtrain station. Car Sharing provides many potential benefits to residents who don’t necessarily want to own a car, but need one occasionally. I don’t see them as a “traffic reduction” solution so much as a space saving solution. The average car spends more than 90% of its time parked, and Cities need to provide between 2 and 3 parking spots for every car. That is wasted space that doesn’t really earn revenue and makes your city less livable. Shared cars reduce these impacts, and for many people, weekly or semi-monthly access to a reliable car can swing the difference between just giving up and leasing a Hyundai, or relying instead on more sustainable transportation in their everyday life, and only using a car when absolutely needed.

In light of new models of car-sharing coming around (ZipCars runs slightly differently than Modo, but both rely on fixed locations for their fleet, Car2Go is much more fluid, and their fleet can move around quite a bit), and with potential benefits to the City of encouraging Car Share, it is a good time to develop a policy about how the designated parking and other needs of the Car Share industry (yes, it is an industry, although Modo operates as a Co-op) will be managed in the City.

Intelligent City Initiative update:

This was an update report on the progress of the ICI, which is a great direction the City is pursuing, and I will talk more about it in a future blog post.

Temporary Borrowing:

This is a procedural Bylaw under the LGA that allows us to set up a Line of Credit, in case we need to draw from it to pay temporary bills. Staff indicated we have not had to draw from our LoC in many years, but it is good accounting practice to have it there in case you need it due to unforeseen events.

General Election Results:

Already covered in detail! This is just the Chief election Officers official report as per the Act.

Moody Park Playground redevelopment:

The plan for the somewhat-overdue revamp of the heavily-used children’s playground at Moody Park looks good! I don’t have kids, but the public consultation seems to have concentrated on getting out to the park in the summer when the people who use the park are there, and the design was somewhat re-shaped by those consultations. Several options were developed, and two final options were taken to the residents which provided this stunning piece of public consultation feedback:

Best I can tell, we have a 50% chance of getting this decision right, but a 100% chance of getting it wrong. Such is politics!

Preservation of West End Greenspace:

This topic came to council via the Parks and Recreation Committee, and sprung at least in part from the mind of pedestrian advocate, West end resident, and 2014 nominee for Citizen of the Year Mary Wilson. She was concerned by a plan to remove some green space in the City from the public realm to private through a local redevelopment, and more holistically about the erosion of public greenspace across the City.

When I was (coincidentally) at the open house this week for the City’s Urban Forest Management Plan, I noted this diagram that showed how our City’s green space is threatened by the gradual increase of built and paved space. This in spite of New Westminster already having a region-leading percentage of our land covered with roads.

The direction to staff is to plan an inventory of greenspace in the City, and to look for opportunities to protect and preserve it. I think this will end up dovetailing well with the City’s Urban Forest Management Strategy if we get far enough along that we are looking for planting areas to enhance the City’s forest. I am glad Mary brought this forward, and was very happy to support it.

Correspondence:

We have not taken action on these correspondence yet, but read ‘em and weep!

Anvil Centre Easement:

Apparently a small portion of Alexander Street extends under the cladding of the Anvil Centre/Merchant Square by something like 50cm. As the City is the owner of both the Street and the Anvil, we must, to be compliant with the Local Government Act, grant ourselves an easement over that road space. We are moving to give the Engineering department the rights to negotiate that easement with itself.Yes, you read that right.

…and that’s about it for my First Council Meeting (except for the singing).

Election Results – finally

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

No sign that I have been too busy to blog is more clear than the fact I have not had a chance to write about the election results yet. Things are settling a bit, and now that I can chew on the poll-by-poll results, I can start to throw some conjecture on top of my pre-conceived notions.

I have my own ideas about what went well during my campaign and what didn’t. I also put a lot of effort in during the campaign to get out of my own bubble and talk to people who didn’t know who I was and didn’t already support me. Yes, the NWDLC endorsement helped, as did the Citizen of the Year legacy. However, even I was surprised at the doorstep how large a percentage of voters cared about environmental concerns – the coal terminal, Kinder Morgan pipeline, and tree protection in the City came up more often than I might have expected. This last one really buoyed my confidence as the campaign went on. I also had an extremely successful fundraising program, which allowed me to buy a lot of ad space on paper and on-line. This definitely showed during the last week of the campaign, as people at the doorstep really started to know my name before I could introduce myself. “Campaigning” is from the Latin for “shameless self-promotion”.

However, identifying “my constituency” was a tough job. I think my support in the social media audience in the City (the “Twitterati”) was as strong as anyone’s, but by its very nature, this is small, distributed, and nearly impossible group to identify in poll data. I felt much more confident in identifying my opponents’ constituencies (e.g.: She’s do well in Sapperton, He’ll do well in Queensborough, etc) than I was able to self-evaluate. So let’s look at the data and see what we can imagine we see:

This table shows (unofficial!)poll-by-poll results. The winner of the poll is marked in dark green; the 2nd to 6th place finishers (i.e. the rest of the imagined caucus for that poll) are shaded light green; the 7th to 12th place fishers (let’s call them the shadow cabinet) are marked in light yellow, and the 13th to 18th place finishers (the also-rans) are shaded pink. The last three place finishers in each poll are not shaded. The next table is better for looking at overall trends, but this is better for looking at anomalies.

you are going to want to click to make visible

It is clear the Puchmayr and Williams dominated this election. They led the total vote count by a handy margin, and won 9 polls between them. Of the 38 polls they were in (19 each), they were in the Top 6 in 37 of them. The anomaly being Williams finishing 7th at Herbert Spencer, apparently the victim of a surge in Kainth and Folka votes from that Queens Park/Glenbrook North catchment.
The other two Incumbents shared 4 poll wins, three for McEvoy and one for Harper. The former won three polls surrounding Queens Park, the latter we may start calling the “Mayor of Queensborough” with his solid win at Queen Elizabeth.

The Queensborough vote is also interesting in that only 3 of the people eventually elected finished in the Top 6 here, with Cartwright, Kainth, and (Queensborough resident) Palmer filling the top part of the poll. The other similar anomaly is F.W.Howay in Massey Heights, where again Cartwright, Kainth, and Donnelly finished toward the top. I can’t help but notice I was not in the top 6 in either of these polls. I read this as saying I got a push from being supported by the Incumbents, as the “protest vote” generally didn’t fall towards me. No surprise there, as I did not run a campaign of protest.
Speaking of protest, it appears the Great Sapperton Revolt promised by some during the lead-up to the campaign simply did not occur. Yes, Cartwright dominated the Pensioners Hall poll, and won the Richard McBride poll as well, but for the most part Incumbents did well in both of these polls, with almost all of them (4 for 4 in one, 3 for 4 in the other) finishing in the Top 6.

I have my own theory about the Cartwright result. She was a well-spoken and easy to like candidate who, in my opinion, sold well to the traditional Betty McIntosh voter. I suspect she drew much of the vote that Scott McIntosh was hoping to receive from the name recognition. This shows in Cartwright’s strong result in the polls where incumbents did less well, and in the two Sapperton polls where Betty usually did well. This may also be reflected in that McIntosh the Younger did not get a similar boost in those polls (his 10th and 11th place in those polls is where he finished in almost every poll).

Finally, I won a single poll – the one at the Shops at New West Station. I have no idea what that means – Who voted there? The residents of Plaza 88? SkyTrain users? People I met at SpudShack? If it was the Twitter/NEXTNewWest crowd, I would have expected Kainth to get a similar boost, but she finished pretty much at her average position in this poll. It’s a mystery to me what that poll means. Probably just another anomaly.

Another way to look at the numbers is to see what rank everyone finished in each poll; in this table, think of golf, as a low score is better:

yeah, click, in a second window, so you can refer back to it. 

At the right side, I added up every poll that the candidate won, and counted the number of polls in which they finished in the top 6. Then I calculated their average finish (which is only interesting in pointing out which polls the candidate finished higher or lower than their average), and the standard deviation (which showed some interesting results. The highlighted yellow squares are just numbers I wanted to draw attention to.

Again, the Puchmayr/Williams dominance is obvious. For us newbies, I won a poll, but Mary finished in the top 6 in one more poll than I did. It seems intuitive, but only those who got elected finished in the top 6 of more than ½ of the polls.

The Queen Elizabeth (Queensborough) poll isn’t as anomalous as one might expect, except that Palmer punched above his weight in his own neighbourhood, and Raj Gupta’s one-shot strategy of covering all of Queensborough with randomly-located signs definitely paid off, as he almost cracked the top 10, and wasn’t even close anywhere else.

Showing how important it is to get out of your “bubble” during the campaign, both Cartwright and Kainth won more polls than Harper, me, or Trentadue, but finished behind us because they had too many polls where they just didn’t show. The Standard Deviation column shows the consistency across polls. No surprise Kadioglu was the most consistent, finishing dead last in every single poll, but the consistency of Puchmayr is an example of what you need to do to win the election overall. I’m actually a little disappointed with my SD of 2.5, as I spent a lot of time every neighbourhood in the City. I spread my doorknocking around, especially early when I was purposefully trying to gauge and engage the populace in different parts of the City.

I think an interesting contrast is Kainth’s SD of 3.8 when compared to Brett’s notable 0.8, especially as I saw them as running very similar campaigns. They both had great sign strategies, spend a lot on newspaper and on-line ads, and had great social media presence. They also both have deep community roots and could conceivably draw from established constituencies. Despite these similarities, Kainth saw either very high or very low support where Brett was remarkably consistent, finishing pretty much 10th across the board.

Which proves, as I always expected, I know nothing at all about politics.

Inauguration

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

OK, we are a little more caught up now: on my sleep, on post-campaign tasks, on re-aligning lifestyles, and with the reality that my reality has now changed. I guess I should blog about what it is like to be a City Councillor, now that I have something like 24 hours of experience.

Yesterday’s inauguration was a good symbolic break from the many times I sat on the pews to the time I get the comfy seat. Without a “real business” agenda, it allowed me to get more comfortable with the new setting. So the strangeness of the experience wasn’t overcast by our need to get some work done. That’s next week’s story.

I’m not often one for pomp and ceremony, so some parts of the ritual seemed a little strange for me. The legal requirements for the oaths are understandable, but there are other parts of the tradition that I’m not too sure about. It was nice, however, to see so many faces in the crowd that were supportive during the campaign, and some I had only met during the campaign. I really appreciate people coming out to see us off on this new adventure.

I’m a little disappointed that we didn’t have an opportunity to introduce “new business” to the agenda, as I would have called for an emergency motion to strike the word “pecuniary” from all future oaths. Surely “financial or monetary” would suffice, no? (sorry, not an inside joke, but you need to watch the video if you weren’t there!)  Funny thing is we had not seen the oath before it was handed to us, but heard it the first time when Mayor Cote said it, and a few of my council colleagues could be heard faintly whispering “peck-EWE-nee-airy”” before their turn came up, it was clearly the word of concern. Once reading, I ran into it so quickly I didn’t even see it coming – jokes on me. All said, considering we were reading something unrehearsed into a microphone in front of cameras and a packed house, I guess we got away with it pretty well…

Less said about the Parcel Tax Roll Review Oath the better. Clearly the voters can elect a Council, but they can’t be trusted to elect a Choir.

So, aside from yesterday’s Inauguration Meeting, I have had an opportunity last week to sit down with a few senior staff in the City and start my training. I have had a lot of interaction with Staff and Council in New West in my volunteer life, so I have some basic understanding of how New Westminster operates at the superficial level. I have also worked in a City Hall, so I have some understand of the major day-to-day operational parts of a local government. However, none of that is useful without understanding the cultural and organizational differences between the two workplaces, and seeing how the operation is viewed from inside, which is inevitably different than the view from outside. I have another all-day session planned before Christmas with senior staff from each department to drill down a little deeper into existing operational plans, strategies, and outlooks. I am definitely on the steep part of the learning curve, but that where I love to be.

I also filled out a bunch of HR paperwork. So it wasn’t all fun and giggles.

Finally, I have had some discussions with the new Mayor about strategic planning for the upcoming term. As disclosed during his Inaugural Speech, there are no real surprises: his priorities are clear (transportation, economic development, leveraging the RCH expansion, community engagement) and I look forward to working with him and the rest of my Council team to see those visions realized. In the short term, Council has our first “real” meeting next week, then some time over the Christmas break to get our Committees and Task Forces organized. The members of Council have provided the Mayor our “preferred” list of committees, and I think I know where I will be most useful, but ultimately it is one of His Worship’s supreme powers to decide who chairs which committees. As soon as I know for sure where I will be assigned, I’ll let you know.

Pipelines and Strawmen – UPDATED!

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Sorry to be out of touch, I’m still on the steep part of the learning curve, and have a variety of tasks to get done, while trying to recover from one of the busier months of my life. All good stuff, just time consuming. Also still working on the post-got-elected plan a far as social media, and will have that worked out by the new year. Until then, I will still be writing occasional rants here as things bug me enough that I stay up late writing about them. Like this one.  

In rhetoric, there is an argument technique called “the strawman”. This is a logical fallacy where one reduces one’s opponents’ argument to a single ridiculously simple argument, then beats that argument to death. This is meant to make it appear that you have beaten your opponent’s actual argument, which might not be so weak. Except you are not beating your opponent, you are beating a weak and easily defeated parody of them; hence “strawman”.

There are a myriad of examples of this technique; if you at all pay attention to modern media-driven politics, it is hard to go through a day without hearing someone beating down the strawman version of their opposition. Unfortunately, the dumbing down of journalism, driven by the one-two punch of cost reduction (so fewer traditional media can afford to pay highly skilled professional journalists to do a proper job) and social media dominance (where the narrative is often reduced to a compelling photo and 140-character missives) only serve to push strawmen to the front of the argument. It is much easier and cheaper to push forward the extremists and their strawman arguments and feed the conflict that attracts eyeballs than it is to tell the full complex story of conflict that underlies so much of today’s political landscape.

As a consumer of media, and a person interested in politics as a solution to conflict, I find it useful as a first step to determine if the rhetoric you are hearing is an extreme position. All political arguments have extreme positions, and rarely (never?) is the solution found at those extremes. However, it is important to understand where those extremes are, if only so one can work their way between them, and see where in the vast field of grey between the black and white the solutions may be found.

So I went to Burnaby Mountain last week.I talked to people standing at the line, demonstrating their concern about the introduction of a crude oil pipeline to the Burnaby Mountain Conservation Area. I talked to one person I know well, who was arrested a few days previously for crossing the arbitrary court-ordered “line”, because (and I am paraphrasing based on previous discussions I have had with him) he feels that it is his moral imperative to protect his children’s future by taking whatever action he can to slow anthropogenic climate change. I also talked to a few other people of varying walks of life who showed up, some to see what was going on, some who were opposed to this project in particular, and some who had wider-ranging opposition to the political direction of the country, with this project being a local manifestation of this. There was a lot of variety of ideas in that crowd.

(disclosure: I actually know the scientists overseeing this drilling investigation on Burnaby Mountain from my time at SFU; we worked together, and I consider them friends, so I effectively knew people on both sides of the police tape!).

I found that visit more informative than reading the silly extreme arguments you might normally be exposed to by “responsible journalists” like those at the Vancouver Sun or Black Press. So I thought, just for fun, I could outline strawmen being deployed in the biggest political story in British Columbia right now, one from each side of the debate, so we can be clear on what the “extreme” position is, and waste less time arguing against those strawmen and instead spend our time more usefully mucking about in the grey in between.

Extreme Position #1: We need to immediately end all use of hydrocarbons, and natural resources extraction in general.

Extreme Position #2: Any act that curtails or slows Canada’s expansion of natural resource extraction and export using the current model will destroy our fragile economy.

These arguments are both, unfortunately, commonly used in “opinions” expressed by such mainstream media as our local PostMedia Newspapers of Note(tm).

The first may be held by a vanishingly small number of environmental activists, but it is implied in every social media (or other) comment that says (I paraphrase) “the protesters use nylon tents made from petroleum – therefore they are hypocrites”, or more subtly when one opines “the world needs oil, therefore we need to build this pipeline”.

The second is the natural counterpoint to the first, and is commonly expressed, sometimes rather indirectly, by varied groups from the Dan Miller to the Fraser Institute. In social media comments, this manifests as something along the lines of “BC’s economy has always relied on resource extraction” (which is not the least bit apropos to this pipeline project, but I digress).

I think (hope?) we can agree that these are the extreme outer points of the argument, and there is a world of grey where solutions will be found, and where the useful politics are. I see the middle ground as including a discussion of national goals are as far as energy and resource extraction, especially considering we only have one chance to take this stuff out of the ground and make money from it. We need to figure out how we are going to catch up to our major trading partners, the United Nations, the World Bank, etc. in our approach to Climate Change policy. We need to figure out what type of growth is sustainable, when the current pace is creating both labour shortages and ginormous profits, while corporate taxation hits an all-time low and basic services of government suffer for funding. I would even love for us to have a discussion about a national energy policy, just to find out if the approach taken by Norway, Iceland, or even the UAE, makes better long-term sense for the citizens of Canada than our current course. I suspect we would be well served to better isolate our economy from volatile hydrocarbon price shocks, and increase, not reduce, or energy sovereignty. I would also like to be confident that the long-term environmental consequences of these large and unprecedented projects are considered, that protections are in place where needed, and that the revenue generated by these project will fund these protections.

These are not “extreme” ideas, but are instead rational approaches that should inform good governance. But it is hard to fit those in a tweet, and short of the very few longer-form examples of journalism still around in Canada (mostly easily dismissed as the ramblings of intellectual elitists), these discussions are hardly occurring in the public realm. God forbid anyone raise them during an election.

Now, go back and read the two “extreme” arguments above, and ask yourself who is making those extreme claims? Note than one is being made by a small fringe of the environmental movement. The other is being made, today, by the government ruling Canada. You should be scared of both, but only one is a clear and imminent threat to good governance in this country.

Or maybe I’m just beating on a strawman.

UPDATE – There is nothing else to say about this long piece by one of our Province’s most unimaginative climate-change-denying industry apologists except to say it demonstrates clearly my point about the ubiquity of the silly “you need oil, therefore this pipeline” line of reasoning. Thanks Keith, I knew I could count on you to pull out a strawman and give it a good old fashioned thrashing!

10 things I learned.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

As the campaign wraps up (I’m going to be way too busy to blog Friday, and a regulated communications blackout occurs Saturday), I thought I would wrap up by talking about the things I have learned this election. Some I knew already, but learned to view a different way, others were complete surprises. It was a great learning experience, and for the most part positive. I hope I did enough work to get it done, but the people will decide.

With no further ado, the Top 10 Things I learned this campaign.

1: You can’t do it all: I had dreams of what I would do this election. On-line interactivity (I could hardly keep up with the e-mail!), an “Ask Pat” booth (when did I have time?), weekly strategy sessions with my A-team (I ended up only having 3), pro-active issue management (ended up more reactive that I would have liked), practiced and smoothly delivered speeches (ugh). None of this took place.

The 4-month campaign time was a flurry of activity, early to rise to get to work, home from work, door-knock for a couple of hours, do some writing or planning, to bed very late, turn it on again tomorrow. I got to take some vacation time in the last two weeks, but there was still more than one night I went to bed a zombie. As a first-time candidate, the effort might not have been as directed as possible- there was a lot of learn-as-you go. I am happy with the way the campaign unfolded, but I will do it better next time, because I will have a better understanding of what is coming, allowing better planning.

2: People just want to be heard: Sometimes people just need to vent, and a politician arriving is a great opportunity for them. Especially when they have a gripe with the City (Pro tip: use caution when door knocking at a house with Stop Work Order taped to the door) they don’t care that you are not on Council now. Sometimes you don’t have the answer, but just as important, trying to make them happy by talking about solutions to their gripe may just irritate them. Instead you need to empathise with them. You need listen, and try to understand the core unfairness they are griping about. If you can demonstrate that you hear them, that is 90% of what they want.

3: People want answers: Notwithstanding the above, some people really want concrete answers. In the media or at the all-candidates events, you can sometimes talk around issues (“we have to do better at X”), but on the doorstep, people push you to provide tangible examples of what can be done, or clear explanations of why the simple answer isn’t so simple. People who know me know I love this stuff; hashing out ideas, sharing experiences, learning and teaching, listening and responding. These are the skills a Councillor needs, and the last 4 months on the doorstep have been great training.

4: Door-knocking is fun: This was very much my favourite time of the campaign. It is a bit of a hassle to set up with volunteers, weather, route planning, data collection, etc., and sometimes knocking on that first door is the last thing you want to do during a busy week or on a rainy night. But once you start knocking and talking to people, it is a lot of fun.

There are practical applications to door-knocking – you want to get sign locations; you also want to identify who your supporters are so you can get them our on E-day. Problem is I loved the conversation so much, those parts often suffered. I had a great 2-hour doorknocking session on Alberta Street in early November where I only hit 20 doors. For data collection, that is brutal (usually you can hit 60 to 80 in that time), but for my spirits it was my best day at the doors. At 20 doors I met 15 people who really wanted to talk about issues, and a half a dozen who were super engaged, and made me want to go for beers with them! My poor, bored volunteer was the only thing that made me move on to the next step!

5: Signs need a strategy: Yeah, I might have done this better. I have put a lot of signs out, but I have definitely not won the “sign war”. I spent my door-knocking time listening and learning in a variety of neighbourhoods, when I probably should have been what some other candidates clearly did: concentrate on the major streets hard-selling for sign locations. There are a few quiet streets where I had really good feedback, and the sign locations came to me, and I was appreciative of this support. However, as I saw the major streets filled with the signs of others, the three magic words of real estate (location, location, and location) came to mind.  I bought the right amount of signs, and I got them all out there, but I probably should have been more strategic with their location.

6: Teams are great: I was lucky enough to surround myself with incredibly talented and dedicated people this election, and many hands made for light work. They know who they are, and I have tried to express my appreciation as often and as sincerely as I could, but it won’t be enough. My campaign manager is genius, my graphics guy is a whiz, my financial agent is precise and dedicated, my data manager loves data, my dozens of door-knocking volunteers were cheerful and patient, the campaign office coordinators were hardworking, dedicated, and always on. They let me concentrate on connecting with people and developing ideas that I heard at the doorstep into policy concepts. They kept me connected and grounded. They kept their eye on the prize, and me pointed in the right direction. I hope I don’t let them down!

7: Stuff costs money: I have a really well financed campaign. It is actually a little surprising how much my budget was exceeded. All of the in-kinds and spending isn’t over, but I will spend about $20,000 this election (!), which is $5,000 more than I expected. Again, all of the totals are not in and these numbers are subject to change on the official declaration, but it looks like about $5000 of that will come from various CUPE locals and committees, $2000 will come from businesses in town, and the other $13,000 from individual donations from people across the City.

This means I was able to buy bigger ads in the local papers than I expected, I was able to buy a lot of lawn signs, I was able to do some web advertising, have a good web presence and set up a data collection back-end from my door-knocking to help get my vote out on E-day. I was also able to hire a great photographer and a great video editor, and other professionals to do things I would not have been able to do myself. As a first time candidate, it was unfortunately expensive and difficult to get my name out, I couldn’t rely on the type of name recognition that some long-standing candidates have. However, being recognized at the doorstep in November tells me it worked. In any election, those selling advertizing are the real winners.

8: The media control the message: I have been advised by a wise campaigner to never anger people who buy ink by the barrel. One must approaching criticism of the media with great caution. However, it is clear during this election one of the two local papers took an editorial position early and ran with it. In my opinion, they did so unfairly. They took an issue that no-one in my three months of door-knocking raised, and created a narrative where voters were warned about alleged “undermining of democracy”. For about week and a half, that discussion started to appear at the doorstep, unfortunately crowding out issues people were talking about before – traffic, the high school, spending, business development, the pace of growth and density. Fortunately, the allegations were easy to refute on the doorstep and on-line, people were quick to understand that some windmills were being tilted at, and discussion soon returned to issues impacting the future of the City. However, it was a powerful reminder that a local paper, even one who explicitly won’t endorse candidates, can shift the narrative with a single editorial decision.

9: People say untrue things: During a campaign people will stand up on a stage and say something to a crowd that is not true. Whether they are lending themselves a bit too much to hyperbole, or whether they are unable or refuse to accept reality, I cannot speak to their motivation. There are times during an event (and almost every hour on social media) one wants to hop up and say “Actually, that is not the truth”, or stronger language involving “bullcrap”. But you can’t, because it just looks terrible. It becomes a he-said she-said jumble that draws you down to their level. So you bite you lip, and stick to your own positive message, and you trust the voter to see through it all. Frankly it would be helpful if the media did the fact checking for you, but with 40 candidates spouting off for hours on end, that task would be monumental, and the burden of proof would fall on the media, not the generator of the terminological inexactitudes.

10: Keep it positive: Those last two points sounded like gripes, so the final lesson is that you cannot react to negativity. There were candidates this election who did nothing but point out the flaws of others, instead of giving people a good reason to vote for them. I think voters will see through that. When you dwell on the negative, you are not just telling people not to vote for a particular person, you are telling people not to vote, and that truly undermines democracy.Voting is a hopeful activity – it is something you do with a hope that it will make a positive difference, that the future will in some small way be better because you spent 2 minutes in a booth filling in circles.

So go vote, be positive about it, and know it will make a positive difference.

Remembering what I haven’t known

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

I have always had that strangely-Canadian Generation X respectful detachment from Remembrance Day. I proudly wear a poppy, I go to a Cenotaph or Memorial on November 11th, I show respect to the women and men in full uniform, but I recognize I don’t know what is in their head, and I’m cautious to include myself in their personal experience.

What I find most amazing about Canada at Remembrance Day is that these veterans and those we lost, fought and died overseas. Canada didn’t fight a revolution to become a free nation, and in almost 150 years of being a nation, we have never faced a serious threat of invasion (Fenian Raids notwithstanding). However, we have forged strong alliances with other nations across the border and across the oceans, and we have been quick to engage in the fight when we see our allies being attacked, their right to self-determination or the rights of their citizens being undermined. Sometimes because we knew we may be next if we didn’t take the fight to them, but more commonly because it was the right thing to do. Two World Wars, Korea, Cypress, Croatia, Rwanda, Afghanistan… the list is long of places Canadians went to protect people under threat, or simply to stand between belligerents while peaceful resolutions were sought.

I try to understand these conflicts, and the sacrifices made by individuals for the greater cause, but it was never personal for me. I have an uncle who served in Vietnam and some more distant cousins with military careers, and when I lived in the Mid-West, I made friends with a few people who eventually got called up and served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Thankfully, they all got back alive and well. So I have been, through luck and happenstance, distanced from the real impacts of war.

I never knew my Grandfathers, both died before I was born and I have very little knowledge about them. Writing this, it occurs to me I don’t even know their full names. It’s not that they were not mentioned in my household, but more that when I was growing up, my extended family was stretched all over Canada and the United States, so occasions to spend time together were limited, and talk of my Parent’s childhood was not a common subject around the house. I know both of my parents had difficult relationships with their fathers, but those are their stories to tell, not mine.

I knew my Mom was born just after her sister, at the beginning of WW2, and that their brothers were born well after; the narrative in my family was that gap was the time when my grandfather “went off to war”. I also know he struggled in his later life with things that sound much like what we would currently attribute to PTSD, but I am too far removed from that reality to know what the story really is.

What I never knew until this summer was his father’s fate. My parents spent some time in Europe this summer, their first time touring the continent, and my Mom sent us back this picture.

I now know my Great Grandfather was named Henry James Leavitt, he is one of the 11,285 people commemorated at the Vimy Memorial, and he never met his son who eventually went on to fight in the Artillery for the length of WW2, and came home changed.

This year, on Remembrance Day, I will be thinking about those who served to bring the freedoms we enjoy as Canadians to people they didn’t know. I will think about people who came back changed, those who did not come back, and the families that love them. May they all find peace.

Labour Council

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

As I made clear in my previous post, my “machine” comprises volunteers, friends, donors, and a diverse group of supporters who have made this campaign fun. I really hope I have the stuff to make it successful. But what about the New Westminster and District Labour Council? If it isn’t a “slate”, it isn’t a “party”, it isn’t an all-powerful shadowy cabal bent on power, what is it? 

*I need to emphasise here, I am not speaking on behalf of the Labour Council, nor have I asked their permission to print this or asked them to review this. Everything below is what I have learned from my experience as a first time candidate that has been endorsed by the Labour Council. Other candidates may have different views and different experiences, and I can’t speak for them.*

When I started thinking about running for City Council in the spring, I reached out to several people for advice, including my immediate support group, a few prominent local business people, some volunteers on boards around town that I’ve worked with, and some of the current Council. I also went to City Hall and had a meeting with the Mayor.

I asked basic questions: what’s it like? Is my understanding of the job accurate? Am I electable? Through all of these conversations, I received nothing but encouragement, and more than a little advice.

Several people advised me to send a note to the Labour Council to let them know I was considering running, and so I did. A few weeks later they sent me an application for endorsement. It was a survey similar to the ones I have filled out with the NewsLeader, Record, Vancouver Sun, Dogwood Initiative, Alliance for the Arts, etc., and not unlike the questions I am being asked at the doorstep: Why are you running? What is your history in the City? Why should people vote for you? What do you think are the City’s biggest issues? I thoughtfully filled it out, and a few weeks later I received an invitation for an interview. 

At the interview, it was more of the same. I was asked questions about the Pattullo Bridge (something I was happy to talk about!), about solid waste management (another topic I was comfortable with), about examples of my community service (an easy one), and about what my plan was to get elected- did I have a support team? Did I have any idea how to fundraise? Did I have any name recognition in the City? It was a friendly and non-confrontational discussion, and my impression coming out of it was they were mostly interested to see if I knew my stuff, was able to present myself as a rational and reasonable individual.

A month or more later, I was informed that I should anticipate receiving NWDLC endorsement, and that I should contact the other endorsed candidates to determine if we wanted to work together. I noted at the time that there are people that are endorsed by the Labour Council that are not members of labour unions, and there are people running in the election that are in labour unions but were not endorsed. Clearly, “membership” was not a primary selection criteria.

The other candidates and I arranged a meeting sometime in September, and discussed if there was anything we wanted to share resources on. I had already been out on the trail for about two months, and had already done a lot of the prep work, so it was an interesting discussion.

Did we want to share design services? (No, I have my own skilled volunteer). Do we want to share pamphlet printing costs? (No, I already have that worked out). Do we want to share the cost of an office? (Sounds like a good idea). Do we want to pool sign printing costs? (Yes! Darn things are expensive!) Do we want to run a phone bank for Election Day? (yeah, I’ll share that cost), Do we want to hire a staff for the phone bank? (No, I have enough volunteers). Etc. etc. At no step was I pressured to buy into anything I didn’t want to buy, participation was voluntary at every step, and the discussion was between me and the other candidates, no puppet-masters pulling strings here.

Of course, the endorsement meant that labour unions were more likely to provide funds to my campaign. As a proud member of CUPE, I primarily had access to CUPE funding, and up to now, that is the only union that has cut me a cheque. Fundraising is not completely over, but I estimate somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of my funding will come from Labour, the rest from individual donations. Did that money help? Absolutely. Was it essential to my running a strong campaign? Probably not. Besides, non-endorsed candidates had received money from labour in previous elections.

The third leg of the “Labour Slate” bogeyman is that somehow my independence as a Councillor is sacrificed by that endorsement. I can unequivocally say no member of the Labour Council has ever told me what to say on this campaign, nor have they told me how I will be expected to vote at the Council table. If anyone thinks Chuck Puchmayr,  Bill Harper and I are going to agree on everything at the Council Table because of our shared endorsement, they don’t know any of us very well. We all have our own ideas, and our own passions about the City, and I look forward to debating with them. Further, I have a five year legacy of writing my opinions, my ideas, and my vision for this City, long before I sought or received endorsement, and I stand by that record.

As for the fear that “Labour dominated” councils are monolithic and all powerful, pushing taxes up while writing sweet union deals? The evidence just doesn’t reflect that. Here is a table that shows the total Municipal tax paid per resident in the 17 Municipalities in the Lower Mainland, according to those radical lefties at the Fraser Institute. The red bars represent Municipalities where a majority of City Council was endorsed by their District Labour Council last election. I’m sorry, the correlation just isn’t there:

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So instead of tilting at the windmill of “Labour Slates”, I encourage you to go to this page, and see what your neighbours in New Westminster are saying about my candidacy. I have always challenged people in this City to look past the rhetoric and the silliness, and look at the facts. I plan to bring that fact-based straight-forward approach to City Council. That is who I am, and that is why I have received endorsements from many people across New Westminster. I am proud that the Labour Council thinks I am a candidate worthy of endorsement, and I am proud of the other endorsements I have received from people I respect in the City’s volunteer, public service, and business communities.

The Machine

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

I’m surprised this is the story: that some portion of the 21 independent candidates running for council received endorsement from the New Westminster District Labour Council, like they have in every City in the Lower Mainland for decades. I’m surprised that for some reason this requires three stories and an Editorial in the same edition of a newspaper, all with rather sideways assertions of something untoward, from being unfair to undermining democracy, complete with a nefarious-sounding expression: “the Machine”. Everyone should, apparently, fear “the Machine”.

For a subject that is allegedly “front and centre in the community”, it has hardly been raised at the 1,500+ doors I have knocked on since August. Instead, people want to talk about the Pattullo Bridge and truck traffic; condo development, high rises, and attracting businesses to New Westminster; taxes, spending, and wages; community amenities like Canada Games Pool; and when we will see that high school. You know, actual issues facing our community.

However, as a candidate, it isn’t enough to say “that doesn’t matter”. It is my job to share my view of the issue with you. This is going to take two blog posts, because there is so much wrong in what is being inferred around the NWDLC endorsement. I am first going to talk about my campaign.

Disclosure: Is my campaign backed by a “Machine”? Absolutely! Let me describe this Machine to you:

I have an amazing Campaign Manager (not a member of a labour union, not a member of any political party), who understands how to get my name out, has a keen sense for the mood of the City, knows a lot of people in the City, and has earned (through decades of community service) the respect of the community. She has provided unbelievably good guidance, advice, and planning, and has been quick to call me out when I might be headed in the wrong direction. She is brilliant, dedicated, and effective – a serious “Machine”.

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I have a great Graphic Designer who has taken my pencil sketches and vague ideas and created a clean, crisp, effective look for my signs, ads, webpage and pamphlets. A stay-at-home-dad and freelancer, he is not a member of a labour union, is not a member of any political party, is volunteering at strange hours to meet various deadlines, and has an amazing eye for design. The guy is a total Machine.

 

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I have a sign coordination volunteer (a Machine with a portable drill!), an ad coordinator to keep up with sometimes-frustrating newspaper standards and guidelines (another organizational Machine), a data-management person who is helping with the management of my door knocking (a real database and census Machine). All of them volunteers, one of them is a member of a labour union (I think – I actually never thought to ask), and I have no idea if any of them are members of political parties. Same goes for the guy who took my photos and edited my video, and the great people who volunteered to take part in the video. Add to that the amazingly cool couple who made me neat little buttons as conversation starters, and people who have called me up and asked for signs on their yard. 

I have been door knocking since August, and every two-hour shift I have done includes a volunteer. I have had more than a dozen volunteers stand up and volunteer to go hit doorsteps with me, every single one of them a person I respect and want to have standing beside me at the doorstep, and every one of them has wanted to stand beside me on the doorstep and tell their neighbours that they support me. I set up a Doodle poll, sent out a call for volunteers, and I’m amazed how quickly people step up to fill the roles. Machines, all.

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I had a fundraiser, and had more than 100 people show up on a Sunday evening to show support to my campaign. That room was an amazing cross section of New Westminster: labour activists, environmentalists, business owners, professionals, retired people and students, and yes, there were a lot of NDP supporters, but there were also Liberals and a few true-blue Conservatives. More than a dozen small business owners in New Westminster donated door prizes to make the fundraiser more successful, and local businesses provided the food and drink. Everyone had fun, and we exceeded our fundraising goals. Thanks to a team of 10 volunteers, it ran like a finely-tuned Machine.

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Speaking of fundraising, I have had almost 100 different individual people donate to my campaign. Individuals from across the community: small business operators, union workers and non-union workers, managers, scientists, students, retired people, parents.

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None of them asked for a benefit for donating to my campaign, except that I do everything I can to win, and keep being the person I am. Some people gave $20, some gave a few hundreds, but the amount doesn’t matter as much as their expression of belief in what I stand for and that I can do a good job. These “cogs” allowed me to have a well-financed campaign, better than I thought I might have. This allowed me to buy signs with a little colour splash, to buy ads in the local papers, to make my pamphlets two-sided and colour: the things that make a campaign look professional. I couldn’t have done any of this without them.

None of them donated to me because I was part of a “Machine”. They donated to me because I have interacted with them over the last decade as a volunteer, a community activist, and a vocal advocate for sustainable development and our community. 

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In fact, every person I listed above has donated money or provided volunteer effort to my campaign for the same reason – they know me, and they believe in me. They have seen the work I have done over the last decade in New Westminster, from organizing Community Groups like the NWEP to delegating to Council on important issues and leading conversations about important topics on-line and in print. They started reading my Blog or following me on Twitter, and liked what they read. They saw me seek out and secure grants to help raise the new roof on the Curling Club, and they saw me show up on event day and help set up tables, then show up at the end to take tables down again. They saw me across the committee table at another meeting we were both suffering through because we knew we could make a difference in the City. They know I have been busting my ass for the last decade in this City, and they want to support me. Their support is incredibly humbling, and fills me with a desire to do right by them.

Now, I am not in this campaign to run other people down. I don’t have to, because I would rather run on my positive contributions, my work ethic, my commitment, and my ideas. But a few candidates in this election who have nothing positive to talk about as far as their vision for the City wish to reduce all of what I have said here to a meme about me being supported by a mysterious and shadowy “Machine”. Frankly, I find that insulting. Not just to me and my demonstrated dedication to this City, but to all of those people I’ve described who have volunteered and contributed to my campaign because they know who I am and what I stand for. Those people, they are my Machine.

As for receiving a Labour endorsement? I’m damn proud that the Labour Council also recognized the good work I have been doing in this City, and saw me as someone they could recommend to their members as a good candidate for Council. I will discuss that more in Part 2 of this blog post, in the next few days.

 

Media, Social and Coroplast

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

There have been a few stories in the extant media about how this fancy new “Social Media” works, and what it means in the election. Speaking as either the local expert in social media, or the third best so far depending on which paper you read, I thought I would talk about the media, aside from the message…

I love social media, because it has been good to me. I enjoy writing, and it gives me an outlet. I love conversations and debates, and one is always available on-line. I have also met many great people through social media connections. Pretty much my entire campaign team (aside from my long-suffering partner and Financial Agent) are people I met in some way through social media, from the cool couple who make my “P@J” buttons to my exceptional graphic designer and the best darn Campaign Manager money can’t buy.  

But if there is one thing I have learned on the doorstep (and there is more than one, but let’s avoid that tangent just for now) it’s that our hyper-connected social media worlds can give us a false sense of connection to our physical neighbours. Many people I meet on the doorstep have never heard of @NWimby, never mind the blog I have spent 5 years stuffing with words. To get those people connected, even in this on-line age, requires traditional media. You need to buy ads in the local newspapers (which is why we candidates sometimes beg for money), and you need to do the oldest form of advertizing ever: hanging out the shingle. 

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The shingle we hang out today is made of Coroplast (corrugated plastic), and we don’t just stick it in front of our own homes, but hope others will hang it in front of theirs, to get the name out into the wild. In a local election, when the TV and Radio exposure is nearly non-existent, this is still the most effective way to get your name out. Of course, I put my website URL on there, hoping to send folks to my website and other social media so they can find out who I am, but the Coroplast still rules. 

So if you “like” me on Facebook, if you “follow” me on Twitter, if you read and enjoyed a “NWimby.blogspot.ca” blog post, then please spread the word, not just through the social media, but by contacting me at info@patrickjohnstone.ca or calling me at 778-791-1002, so I can hang a shingle in your yard and spread the good news.

Thanks!   

Trees and asphalt

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 2 Comments.

Allow me to start with the obligatory apology for not writing more frequently. I’m busy.

This story in the NewsLeader caught my attention, though, because it demonstrates a failure at many levels. That we would cut down mature trees in our City to make it easier for a few cars to move a few hundred metres to the next traffic constriction is an example of a planning process gone wrong.

Where to begin?

The City has recently outlined its consultations on an Urban Forest Management Strategy. At the open house last month at Century House (about 300m from where these trees are slated to be removed), staff and consultants talked about how important a healthy tree inventory is to our City – providing shade to reduce energy costs, evapotranspiration to reduce utility costs and improve rainwater quality, noise baffling, light pollution reduction, critical habitat for pollinators and songbirds, etc. etc. At the same time, the city’s tree inventory is being reduced at a faster rate than population growth, and although our current inventory (as percentage of land cover) is similar o other cities in the region, it lags far behind the North American average and the level identified as desirable to receive all of the benefits that healthy urban forest can provide.

We don’t yet know where the Urban Forest Management Strategy is going yet, but the goal is pretty clear: lets stop cutting down mature tress for bad reasons, so when we have to cut them down for good reasons, it has less impact, and we don’t have to spend so much replacing them.

The story above is an example of cutting down mature trees for bad reasons.

The first-level reason for removing the trees sounds OK – they want to make a bus stop more accessible and functional. I’m all for it, accessibility at that stop is really important, as it is commonly used by seniors to access the nearby Century House and the Massey Theatre, and by students accessing the High School. Constant improvement of our sustainable transportation network is something I have been calling for in my many years on the Advisory Committee for transit, Bicycles and Pedestrians.

However, improving the accessibility of this stop does not require the removal of any trees. What does require the removal of the trees is protecting two parking spots and creating the illusion of “getting cars moving”.

Allow me to explain.

The current bus stop is at a spot on 8th Avenue where there is only one east-bound lane, the rest of the road width being eaten up by a westbound lane and a south-turning left turn bay.

Looking east on 8th Ave, at where The City wants to remove trees and
grass to add more asphalt. Google Maps image.

 One allegation made by the City’s transportation department is that the bus here “holds cars up” and creates congestion, so they want to remove the greenspace of the boulevard to make a “bus stop lane”. This is absurd for two reasons. That bus stop is currently used by the 128 and the C4. The 128 is normally a 30-minute service, but bumps up to 20 minutes during rush hour. The C4 is a half-hour service. That means up to 5 times an hour, for 20 seconds, a bus blocks the lane. A lane that has a stop light that is red for half of every minute 24 hours a day, all day. Today I dropped by the site and noted th 128 was 300 metres east of the bus stop – stopped by the line of cars waiting to get through the light at 6th. Removing the busses completely on this route will do absolutely nothing to reduce the congestion on 8th in the afternoon rush (the only time it is congested in any meaningful way).

I need to be clear here: they don’t want to remove the trees and green space to accommodate the bus, they want to do it to accommodate the cars allegedly “congested” by the bus – to get the bus out of the cars’ way. As a reason to remove healthy mature trees, this argument is silly.

The suggested (and blithely discounted) option is to move the bus stop 100m to the east, where the road expands out to 2 lanes.

100m to the east, where the road expands  to accommodate parking.
This Google Maps thing is pretty cool. 

No-one is saying so, but it is clear that the reason this is being discounted is the need to remove two on-street parking spots. The idea that this spot being 100 m further east will “provide incentive to jaywalk” is ridiculous, as there are bus stops across the City that are located 100m from an intersection, and the City is already resistant to calls from the Students at NWSS for a mid-block crosswalk on 8th Ave to alleviate sidewalk congestion on 8th and stop jaywalking. The loss of parking spots is most likely why they can state “We don’t have consensus in the building”. So to reiterate: we are talking about removing greenspace and trees to accommodate occasional parking needs, not to accommodate a bus.

In summary, the thinking by the City is wrong here, and this is why we need an Urban Forest Management Strategy, and why we need to change our planning of roadspace to reflect the priorities set by the new Master Transportation Plan.

There are often good reasons to remove trees, but none can be found here. Instead, we are given a series of bad planning compromises and post-hoc rationalization that results in the removal of perfectly healthy mature trees. And all the benefits of a healthy tree canopy that were discussed in the Open House? They sound exactly like what Ms. Broad is describing she and her neighbours receive from these trees. The ones the City would not allow them to cut down two years ago.