Tag: Politics

Law of the Instrument

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 4 Comments.

This is similar in tone to an earlier post I wrote regarding the misapplication of technology. In that post, I questioned how “on-line voting” was going to fix the low turn-out rates in elections. The problem of low voter turn-out was not caused by the lack of options or access to polling booths, so increasing that access through the wonder of the Internet was not really a sensible solution. It was the wrong tool addressing the problem from the wrong direction.

This time, I hope to convince you that increasing the volume of traffic is not the solution to the problem of an aging bridge.

In earlier stages of my career, I had plenty of opportunities to work with drillers. Guys (and yes, they were all guys) who operate drilling equipment are a special breed. It is hard work, intensely physical, dirty, noisy, and you are doing it in the rain, the sleet, the snow, and any other unpleasant environment you are asked. Days are usually 12 hours, and you spend much of your off time living in flea-bag hotels on the outskirts of towns you wouldn’t otherwise visit.

I have drilled (actually, stood there watching other guys drill while I sketched on a clipboard and put samples into jars) in pounding down rain in February in Port Alice, in frozen sleet in September in Wells; In heavy snow in Anahim Lake, and on bright sunny warm days while standing on bulk sulphur storage piles. I have even stood on a small barge in Burrard Inlet in the middle of winter with drillers running a Pionjar off the side. With all of these conditions, they are operating a piece of equipment that can kill or maim them instantly if they lose attention. As a result, drillers are tough, skilled, determined, crude and practical: Every edge they have is rough. They all smoke every cigarette like it is their last; I have never seen a group of people so enthusiastic about smoking, and I grew up in a Pulp Mill town.

L to R: me, a notable bridge, a Sonic drill rig.

All that aside, one of the charming things about drillers is their tool kit. It contains two types of tools: hammers, and unused. There is nothing a driller cannot fix with a hammer. If there is, it needed replacing anyway. Every process in the instruction book “Drilling for Dummies” starts with these two steps: 1) Get a hammer; 2) No, a bigger hammer.

As a result, drillers generally have a lot of broken and bent equipment around. When something goes wrong on the drill rig there are two ways it can go: lots of banging and then back to work; or lots of banging then back to the shop. The only shocking past is how often it is the former.

There is a truism called the Law of the Instrument, which is colloquially “when all you have is hammers, every problem looks like a nail”.

When applied to how our province has been operating its roads, and overseeing Translink’s management of the Major Road Network (including the Pattullo Bridge), it could be said that there is no problem that cannot be fixed by building more roads. Never mind what the problem is, or whether this solution has worked in the past, building more roads seems to be the one thing upon which this government has no problem spending taxpayers money.

If the connection isn’t obvious, let me put it this way: At a time when they are cutting back on bus routes and are putting all transit expansion on hold, TransLink is fast-tracking the “consultation” on the Pattullo, saying they need a new 6-lane bridge PDQ. This seems to be the solution to some problem, but there problem isn’t “traffic” or “truck movement” or “growing communities” (the talking points used to justify a 6-lane bridge). Their problem is an aging bridge.

Look at the “Replacement Factors” listed on their website for the project, what do we find? An alliterative list: Safety, Structure, Seismic, and Scour.

“Safety” issues are related to traffic operations on the bridge: lanes too narrow, inadequate railings, too many accidents. If TransLink or the Government was really concerned about driver safety on the bridge, they would put four photo radar cameras on the bridge and enforce the 50km/h speed limit. A revenue-generating end of the problem.

“Structure” arguments are all about corrosion of steel components on the bridge and degradation of the bridge deck, so exactly the same factors that led to the extensive refurbishment of the Lions Gate Bridge. There, things were repaired at a much lower cost than replacing the bridge.

“Seismic” seems pretty straight forward: a 1938 bridge does not meet 2012 earthquake standards. The Sandwell Report done for TransLink in 2007 was pretty clear: “…the bridge is vulnerable to collapse even under moderate earthquakes and is in urgent need of retrofitting.” So what are we waiting for? Let’s get on with that retrofitting and make a safe bridge, at a fraction of the cost of building a new bridge.

“Scour” is the argument that after 75 years, the River is now starting to scour away the sand and silt around the foundations of the bridge. Give me a couple of barges of 1-tonne rip-rap, and we can take care of the scour issue. No need for two lanes of extra traffic to fix this one.

Notably, not one of these “Replacement Factors” justify increasing the number of lanes on the bridge, and most can actually be facilitated at much lower cost by reducing the lanes to three (with counter-flow) like the Lions Gate. As compelling an argument TransLink makes for extensive refurbishment of the Pattullo Bridge, nothing that says we need to accept the negative impacts on the City and the region of increasing road capacity, or the loss of the iconic steel arch span that is part of our City’s heritage and skyline for 75 years. Nor do they justify ramping up a $200 Million refurbishment project into a $1Billion bridge expansion project.

However, bridge replacement and expansion is the hammer that TransLink has. Collecting tolls on the bridge is the force behind that hammer. So no surprise when the problem is an aging bridge, the solution is not fixing it. The solution is to imagine other problems that may be solved by expanding it and slapping on tolls.

Simply put: the Province will not pay $200 Million to upkeep the infrastructure it has, but will throw a bunch of money building other infrastructure with no plan for long-term maintenance costs.

Hardly a model of fiscal prudence in my book.

We interrupt this Public Affairs program… to bring you a Football Game!

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

With all due respect to Homer, this week’s televised coverage of the Council Working Session was pretty compelling. You can watch it here, by choosing the date (April 23) and selecting  “Regular Working Session of Council”

Most of it was spent talking about the upcoming Open Houses (May 3rd, have I mentioned those before?) on the Pattullo Bridge. It is interesting to hear Council work their way through the material, some of them clearly very up-to-date on the issues at hand, some not so much.

The Consultant does raise some interesting issues about the bridge itself (starting at around 23:00). He seems to spend a lot of time suggesting that the form of any replacement bridge is as important as the other aspects: as this is an iconic structure in the middle of a major urban Centre, do we want the simplest, cheapest, IKEA “Billy” bridge that is likely to result from a PPP? If the bridge is to be replaced, this is an opportunity to add to the value of our Community with a spectacular feature, perhaps one resulting from an international design competition. This is indeed an interesting idea, and one I have not heard used for major infrastructure projects sponsored by the Province. Unless people can play football under it.

But the Councillor’s differing ideas around the project are also interesting.

Starting at 30:00 Councillor Cote rightly suggests the one approach that few have discussed yet is the refurbishing of the existing bridge. This is the direction I am leaning right now ( he even mentions the similarities to the Lions Gate consultation process).

Starting at about 31:30, Councillor Puchmayr seems to be suggesting we are putting the cart ahead of the horse: why are we talking about the shape and form of the bridge, when we should be talking about the alleged need for a bridge? You don’t bring a puppy home to ask the family if they think the family should get a puppy – you make the choice before you go to the puppy mill to pick one up.

I am a little thick, but I think I finally get where Councillor Puchmayr has been going with his on-going diatribes about the lack of a connection between the new Port Mann and the SFPR. Up to now, I thought he was just pointing out an example of bad planning on the Provincial Government’s part (or shooting fish in barrels just for sport). I have now realized he seems to be suggesting that building that connection now might be a more cost-effective way to get trucks across the Fraser than re-furbishing the Pattullo. It couldn’t possibly be as expensive, and the truckers seem to think it’s a viable solution. I am liking this approach…

Starting at 34:30, Councillor McEvoy spares no love on TransLink and their “consultation” process. He is also clear that the City of New Westminster has not taken a strong position on Transportation Planning up to now, and with other communities making clear what their position is, the City needs to have their clear, sensible, and logical position prepared. (hopefully this is what comes out the MTP if we havea good turnout on May 3rd). 

Councillor Harper (@43:00) is also right to raise the central question about all of these options: the one question we are going to have to have a clear answer on before we make difficult choices around the bridge is the impact on our City of the different plans. I am especially glad to hear him suggesting the City may need to spend some money to do the traffic surveys and studies to get the hard numbers, and not rely on TransLink’s obviously-loaded numbers.

I think the block we needto watch out for here is that many people think the “Problem” that TransLink is trying to solve is traffic, and therefore the solution all involve moving lanes or bridges or onramps. However, TransLink’s Pattullo Bridge Consultation page is pretty clear: their “Problem” is an aging bridge, not traffic.

But that is the topic of another post.

The Lions Gate Solution (?) – Part 1

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

The more I discuss the Pattullo issue with people, the more I find myself referring to the Lions Gate Bridge.

There are significant similarities. Both bridges were built in the mid 30’s; both connected an established (now Historic) part of the Lower Mainland to an expanding suburb, leading to the expansion of suburbs; both are immediately adjacent to historic parks; both are iconic structures that define the skyline of their region; both were supplanted from being the main crossing of their respective waterways in the early 1960s with the completion of the Trans-Canada Highway; and both have suffered from enough short-term thinking and neglect that their immediate replacement became a high priority.

So while we discuss the potential replacement of the Pattullo, it might be useful to look back at the history of the proposed replacement for the Lions Gate.

Just for context, this was back in the heady days of 1993-1994. The NDP formed government after an upstart right-of-centre party split off votes from a scandal-plagued government with a hapless place-keeper Premier, The Canucks lost in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup playoffs and riots ensued, and in the USA, a popular Democrat President was going into the re-election campaign after spending most of his first term cleaning up after the economic havoc the previous Republican administration had wrecked, partially through an unfunded war in Iraq. Times change.

I found an interesting source of info when researching the history of the Lions Gate, it is this Masters Thesis from the SFU Department of Geography, completed in 1998 (notably, more than a year before the actual bridge refurbishment project commenced). Doubly cool for me, as I was a student in Geography at SFU up to 1997, so I probably met this guy (it was pretty small department), although he was clearly on the “Human Geography” side, and I was over hanging with the dirt-and-rocks “Physical Geography” types.

The Thesis provides an excellently-referenced timeline (and time capsule) of the consultation process that went into the decision to refurbish the Lions Gate as opposed to replacing it, twinning it, or building a tunnel under Burrard Inlet. [NOTE: all quotes below are from this thesis].

The one remarkable part is how wide-reaching the consultation was. In contrast to the Pattullo “consultations” where New Westminster and Surrey were asked to comment on which colour of onramp we prefer,the Lion’s Gate discussion started in 1993 with a public call for proposals and ideas.

In 1993, the provincial government began its public consultation process. This involved informing the public about the project and gathering feedback at a number of stakeholder roundtables, open houses, debate sessions and a proponents’ showcase. The meetings began with presentations from technical experts about the possible routes and alternatives under consideration, followed by question periods. Panels made up of representatives from stakeholder groups and technical experts answered questions from the public. Interested people could also submit their opinions on paper at the meetings or by mail to the Lion’s Gate Bridge Public Information Center, which was located in Denman Place Mall until early in 1997. In total more than 1000 submissions were received.

Note, this was all before they had even chosen a shortlist of approaches to the problem posed by an aging bridge. There were no less than 21 alternatives seriously evaluated (including such things as replacing the bridge with a gondola, improving ferry service, and commuter train options). By 1994, these proposals have been whittled down through technical, stakeholder, and public review, to 8 options, ranging from just repairing the existing bridge to refurbishing the bridge, replacing it, twinning it, and no less than 3 different tunnel options. It seems the only thing missing was a serious discourse about the colours of the on-ramps.

By 1995, these options had been reduced to the 4 most favoured, some for technical reasons, some simply due to cost, and on the basis that the Province, the City, and the Park had agreed that any new replacement would be a 4-lane option. No more, no less.

Then things got political.

The four-lane-refurbish option was the clear favourite out of the consultation process. It was determined by the engineering team* that the bridge could be rehabilitated to carry the loads of 3, 4, or 6 lanes of traffic, with increasing cost for reinforcement as proposed loads went up. There was a significant public resistance to the idea of having a large increase in capacity, due to impacts on the park and neighbourhoods (at the time it was felt the traffic on the bridge was so “peaky” around rush hour that 4 lanes did not represent a significant increase in capacity over the existing three-lane-counterflow design).

However, for reasons that became obvious, the decision was not announced prior to the 1996 Election. That was the election that saw the Glen Clark NDP re-elected, at least partially due to what would become known as the “Fudge-it Budget”. Not long after the election, money got very tight, and the government’s appetite for spending was curtailed. The Government released the decision to pursue the 4-lane refurbish option in 1997, but due to financial constraints, floated the idea of using the new-fangled “Public-Private Partnership” model to finance it.

In a news release the Minister of Transportation and Highways, Lois Boone, stated she was seeking bids for a crossing that met the following conditions:

  • The new crossing is to follow the existing First Narrows alignment from Marine Drive in North Vancouver to Georgia Street in Vancouver;
  • Four fanes of traffic, two northbound and two southbound, but with surface traffic through Stanley ark reduced or eliminated;
  • No net detrimental effect on Stanley Park;
  • A plan to reduce traffic impacts on the West End;
  • The province will invest up to $70 million over five years, which is the same amount as would be spent on a three-lane rehabilitation;
  • Additional costs are to be financed from tolling revenues. (BCTFA 1997a)

This clearly shows the government’s commitment to improve the Lion’s Gate Bridge but not to pay for it.

In the end, the tolling option was not acceptable to the North Shore communities, so the PPP model fell apart. The Province finally tendered the work for $66 million in 1999, and with no PPP partner or tolls to pay for the structural upgrades required to build a 4-lane bridge, they instead took the more affordable option of the three wider lanes that could be afforded, and kept the counter-flow. Essentiually, those chose the second place finisher, based on costs alone.

However, this does not take away from the point that the entire evaluation process was transparent and involved extensive input from stakeholders and the public along the way. The communities at each end and stakeholders such as the Vancouver Parks Board and the Friends of Stanley Park had a real say in how the final design was achieved, the last-minute cheap-out by the Provincial Government notwithstanding. This is important: the last minute cheap-out was and acceptable option to the stakeholders, if not the preferred one to many.

How does this compare to the experience that New Westminster and Surrey have had at the TransLink consultation table for the Pattullo Bridge?

*Reference:Lion’s gate crossing : bridge rehabilitation options report  by Bridge Expert Panel. [Victoria] : Province of British Columbia, Ministry of Transportation and Highways, Bridge Engineering Branch, 1994 1 v. (various pagings) : col. ill.  

When is a plan not a plan?

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

…and when is an announcement not an announcement?

It is pretty clear the BC Liberal brand is in a bit of trouble, and the new packaging is not working out as well as planned. Premier McSparkles’ telegenic smile has not been enough cover for the general lack of direction displayed by a Government that is looking a little past its due date.

I am not a member of any political party, and usually vote based on the value of the local candidate (although, I have to admit, the Federal Conservatives could run the resurrection of Mahatma Ghandi locally, and that wouldn’t be enough to win my vote at this point). I have met both Judy Darcy and Hector Bremner, the presumed local NDP and Liberal candidates in the next Provincial election, and they both seem like good people with their hearts in the right place; I have no reason to believe either wouldn’t serve our community well.

The new Premier was an unknown coming in. In contrast to Kevin “strip it down, pave it over, sell it off” Falcon and Rich “Darth” Coleman (both who give ample reason to vote the other way), there was not enough substance to Clark to make me want to vote for or against her, despite her merging skills. In the end, it appears that apparent lack of substance was masking a much deeper and more profound lack of substance.

Yet like most people in an abusive relationship with an authority figure, I keep waiting and hoping for the BC Liberals to come up with just one Really Big Good Idea (RGBI) that will put them back in this race. And I keep waiting.

Regular reads here (Hi Mom!) will know that I am way more interested in transportation issues that is, frankly, healthy. So this week when the Premier rolled out her “Pacific Gateway Transportation Strategy” this week, with the by-line “Moving Goods and People”, I thought OK, maybe this is the RGBI. By the announcements, it sounded like they are committing a bunch of money, working with major partners, and are going to deal with the major transportation issues in our Province!

Surely (thinks I) this includes improvements to short-sea shipping, like suggested back in 2005 in a report prepared for Port Metro Vancouver, to finally remove some of the container traffic from our roads and reduce the unsustainable use of trucks to connect major trans-shipment locations. Maybe they will finally include a strategy for high-speed rail, to integrate with the west-coast high speed rail network our Southern Neighbours are planning? Maybe they will finally outline plans for rails to the valley, and upgrades to the Westminster Rail Bridge? Surely, it will include a review of TransLink governance, and a sustainable funding model for TransLink to meet its mandate outlined in Transport 2040. Maybe even (pinch me) an integrated Transportation Demand Management Strategy? A reasoned regional approach to tolls? Where is the Big Plan that shows leadership in Transportation?

Alas, like a Who on Christmas morning, I found nothing under the Christmas Tree that looked anything like Leadership. Even the lump of coal in all our stockings has already be been reduced to atmospheric greenhouse gas.

First off, there is the money committed. Transportation requires infrastructure, infrastructure costs. The plan offers “$25 Billion in total investment… by 2020, beyond the $22 Billion previously committed”. If you go the back pages of the plan document, where the numbers are, you can total up the money committed to $34.7 billion. That sounds like a lot of government investment in getting people and goods moving.

Except that more than $28 Billion (more than 80%) is private money, the lion’s share being a projected $18 Billion to be spent by mystery funders to build mythical LNG plants in Kitimat. The rest? $2.8 Billion in rail line growth by CN and CP, more than $4 Billion in Port Expansion in Vancouver and Prince Rupert, and $1.8Billion in Airport Improvements. All three of these, one should note, are federally-regulated lands and industries, so the Province has less than nothing to do with them. It couldn’t stop them if they tried. After that, private money will be used to build a smattering of privately-funded road works to improve access to mines and oil and gas fields.

OK , so what of the $6.7 Billion that is Government spending? Most of it is wrapped up in the Port Mann 2 and Hwy 1 Widening project ($3.3 Billion) and the South Fraser Perimeter Road project ($1.3 billion). Really, you are re-announcing, yet again, the PMH1 and the SFPR!? Again? This is meant to excite us? Throw in another $1-2 Billion on various ongoing already-announced and well underway highway projects (Kicking Horse Pass, etc.), and we are looking at a grand announcement of…no new investment in transportation.

Then we can look at the various uncosted parts of the announcement/plan. Things like “cap the property tax on designated ports”, and “eliminate jet-fuel tax for intern ational flights”. No indication what these moves are going to cost us, probably because cost accounting on tax cuts is really not this government’s strong suit.

Oh, and that other part of Transportation policy? The less feel-good parts about zooming trucks and vrooming planes? Strangely absent. This strategy is outlined in an 11,000-word document, but there are some words missing. Like “carbon”. In their defense, “climate” appears 7 times in the document. The only problem being that 6 of those times, it is used in the context of “building a climate for investment”. The time it is mentioned in the context of “change” is in the little sidebar about “the environment”, notable as it is also the only time the words “green house gas” and “emissions” are named. Here, they demonstrate their commitment by re-announcing, two years later, the Canada Line (a rapid transit system that was overcapacity the day it was built), and, yes, the Evergreen Line. No mention of a $30Million gap though. The word “Translink” is not raised.

But rest assured, the Environment is important. If you listen really carefully, you can hear the birds chirping over the mid-tempo rock with vrooming-and-zooming soundtrack of the splashy announcement video, right when the word environment appears. You can’t make this shit up:

Just like this big-images, low-content video, this government has once again displayed they are all about show, with no substance at all. Premier McSparkles appears to think re-announcing Kevin Falcon bad ideas and doubling down on the hating teachers is the path to success.

What should be telling is that neither John Cummins nor Adrian Dix are making too much of splash of opposing her ideas or announcements. When a government is sinking this fast and the Premier is busy bailing water onto the boat, you don’t want to risk distracting her from the task at hand

Short take on Minister Lake

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

For the most part BC Minister of Envrionment Terry Lake seems like a pretty good guy. He is smart, educated, says the right things, seems to have his head screwed on straight. One of the few “Good Guys” in the BC Liberals camp. I wanna believe.

Then I get a series of tweets from him, all talking about the great time he is having at the Vancouver Auto Show, shilling for the New Car Dealers of BC. 

Isn’t a sitting Minister of Environment providing hourly tweets promoting the Vancouver Auto Show a little… I dunno… unaware?

More Fishy Messaging

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

I’ve been on about the proposed changes in the Fisheries Act, as have several other people of higher intelligence and more importance than me. I cannot emphasize enough that this is a major shift in environmental policy in this country, not just some obscure change in language of some obscure act. It is worth noting that the threatened habitat provisions of the Fisheries Act were added in 1983 by that foreign (Irish?) environmental radical socialist Brian Mulroney.

Not much mention of it in today’s “Penny Smart – Dollar Dumb” budget, but this issue is not going away. The Cons are still messaging what a major inconvenience the Federal Fisheries Act is to all who care to hear, and they are now resorting to printing silly half-truths in local newspapers. I present as evidence a letter written by Conservative MP, former professional voodoo back-cracker, and denier of evolution James Lunny, to the Nanaimo Daily News just a few days ago, the link to which I have provided, but the full text I also offer below:

.
We need reasonable fisheries regulations
Nanaimo
Published: Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Re: ‘Feds should listen to critics’ (Daily News, March 26)

There are very few political issues that stir up more rhetoric than fish management or quota allocation. This article does your readers a disservice by inflating reactionary alarms based on speculation.

As one former minister admitted, managing fish, fish habitat and economic development is a balancing act. Many Canadians are unaware of the unreasonable decisions in the name of “habitat protection.”

For example, in Richelieu, overzealous officials blocked a farmer from draining his flooded property. The farmer was fined $1,000 in 1993 for dewatering his fields simply because a couple of fish found their way in with the flood. Believe it or not, he had to buy a fishing permit in the last flood otherwise he would have been subject to a $100,000 fine.

Abbotsford, which maintains flood control ditches, can’t meet its legal obligations to clear waterways due to DFO rules.

We have many such examples on Vancouver Island. When I was first elected I spent months bringing together land owners, provincial authorities and DFO to resolve a recurrent flooding problem at West Glade Creek that had turned a farmer’s field into a fish habitat and threatened to flood neighbouring Island Scallops’ facilities. The problem was resolved by building a groyne to prevent the mouth of the creek from plugging up with gravel.

The B.C. government has long complained about DFO enforcement policies that make it impossible to clear drainage ditches or clogged streams that threaten to flood properties. The federal government is reviewing fish and fish habitat protection policies to ensure they do not go beyond their intended conservation goals and that they reflect Canadians’ priorities.

Let’s not throw reason under the bus because the government is reviewing policy to improve management outcomes; that is the role of responsible government.

James Lunney, MP Nanaimo-Alberni

The silly half-truths are found in the examples provided.

The Richelieu example is drawn from an expose in one of Canada’s greatest bastion of journalistic integrity, the “Weird News” page of the Toronto Sun. Even then, they had to go back to 1993, 19 years ago, for this example of a Farmer being fined for a violation under the Act. Even then (read the story, you can’t make this stuff up), it wasn’t overzealous officials that triggered the fine, but his farming neighbours complaining he was shredding up fish in his pumps and polluting the watercourse with fish offal!

The Abbotsford example is complete, 100% unadulterated bullshit. According the Minister of Fisheries, they are referring to an article in Abbotsford Times from nine years ago. We can assume is that this was an instance of disagreement between the Province and the Federal government over flood control management, long since dealt with.

I can say with confidence that it was dealt with, because Abbotsford, like every other Municipality with man-made ditches draining the Lower Fraser River flood plain (including Chilliwack, Pitt Meadows, Surrey, Langley and Richmond) have developed ways to efficiently manage their drainage systems while staying in compliance with the habitat provisions of the Fisheries Act. I’m not sure what the dispute was in 2003 (the 2003 article is not on the net), but of you look at the Abbotsford City website, you find this guideline used by the City to coordinate their instream works around the appropriate fisheries windows. This is just good environmental practice, with little or no budget implications, and easily managed by professional City Staff. I actually deal with this stuff on a day-by-day basis in my job. Like most Municipalities, the one where I work finds the habitat protection measures of the Fisheries Act are a simple, easy to apply, and effective tool for assuring the health of drainage network and the Fraser River.

The Scallops on West Glade Creek story is a mystery, as there is no mention of it on the internets, nor does Lunney provide any references or details that may allow us to trace the story. It is not mentioned on his website, nor is West Glade Creek easy to find on any map. But again, it sounds like habitat alteration was required to facilitate drainage and to support a local business, and DFO assisted in seeing that the habitat alteration was done in a way that complied with the law. We have no idea what role DFO or the Fisheries Act played in this, but the point is that the habitat alterations were needed, and DFO allowed them to happen. Is this not an example of an envrionmental law working to support both fisheries habitat and businesses?

Finally, there is a very clear process to instream works for drainage and flood control, and if the BC Government has long complained about it, they have been doing so very quietly to us who work in Environment. Actually, the DFO produces a series of Operation Statements, Guidelines and Best Practices, specifically for the unique situation in British Columbia. In fact, the BC Government’s own Riparian Area Regulations extend the exact same protections above the waterline, and are designed to specifically dovetail with the habitat protections under the Fisheries Act. It seems strange that the BC Government would complain about a Federal Law, then extend the exact same protections onto lands not covered by the Federal Law they so loudly disagree with…

So Lunney has no idea what he is talking about. In his defence, he is not there to think, but to parrot the message from the PMO office, as related through the Minister of Fisheries, and sign his name on the bottom. That’s how you get a Senate Seat. This is why the exact same language and underwhelming examples are being trotted out over the signatures of other God-Fearing Harperites, like the Conservative MP for Kelowna has rolled out to demonstrate the importance of this issue to Sportsfishermen. Expect more to come soon.

And, unfortunately, there is probably nothing we can do to stop them.

Disclosures part 3

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

In the third part of my ongoing “ending any hope of ever raising funds from anyone to run for anything” series on the New West Municipal 2011 election, we can now cast our skeptical eye towards the election of City Councillors. There were 16 candidates for 6 positions, and it appears the one trend that favours election more than any other is incumbency. Even the new guy elected was a bit of an incumbent. However, if any single race makes the case that Labour Council support is fundamental to securing a seat, this is it.

click to make bigger…

Here, once again, are the candidates’ disclosed financing sources by category, reading from left to right by the number of votes received. It is notable that all 6 elected candidates received financial backing from one or more labour unions, and only one of the non-elected 10 did. Also, the top 5 candidates are those that received the most financial support from labour.

In contrast the other “controversial” contribution source, the Development community, provided significant support to two losing candidates, and less substantial support to all but one elected candidate. But as we can see, in total, the amount donated by the Development community is less than half of that from organized labour, and both of those pale in comparison with the amount spent by the Candidates themselves:

A couple of other anomalies we can note: Ashdown and Palmer were no doubt more open about “In Kind” support provided to their campaign than the others. The rules about what represents true “in kind” contribution are rather fuzzy, especially when a volunteer relies on a “professional skill”. If a teenage volunteer sets you up a webpage as a volunteer, it is probably not declarable, but if a Professional Web designer does so as a volunteer, that should probably be declared, but there is a lot of room for grey zone between those extremes.

On a completely unrelated note, what the hell is up with Jaimie McEvoy? $28,000? How does one candidate spend more than three times the average, and about 40% more than the second place spender? Notably, the big anomaly is the amount of his personal money that went into the campaign, so I suppose if he wants to re-invest so much of his Council Stipend on campaigning, then all the power to him, but yikes! He more than doubled the amount spent per vote for any winning candidate, and was well ahead of a couple of per-vote big spenders on the losing side. Maybe he overestimated the challenge that Chuck Puchmayr posed (ultimately, his well-founded support came at the expense of Long-serving councillor Bob Osterman).

Jonathan Cote receives a lot of support from the Labour Council, but he is more notable for the amount of fundraising he received from private donors (disclosure: this includes me). I think this simply comes down to Jonathan’s curb appeal. He is young, bright, and isn’t afraid to speak out on issues important to the community. While working, serving the community, and raising a young family, he is taking courses at SFU towards a certificate in Urban Planning – actually learning about the intricacies of running a City instead of assuming he knows it all. It is hard to walk away unimpressed when talking to Jonathan on a variety of subjects, from breed-specific dog bylaws to infilling ditches in Queensborough, with his knowledge (or at least acknowledgement) of both sides of the issue. The fact he receives such strong support for the community, and the most votes from the community, is enough to prove to a cynic like me that local democracy can actually work.

So I am far from worried about where the money is coming from. I actually think the support that the top 5 candidates get from labour comes more from the DLC’s acknowledged support than the money. Out door-knocking with one candidate this year, I was surprised to hear how many people in Sapperton asked the candidate right out front: “Are you supported by the Labour Council?” Like it or not, New Westminster is a Labour Town, and Labour manages to get the vote out enough that it counts in Municipal elections. Much like support from the business and developer community, the disclosure is more important than the actual money.

This brings me to the issue I actually worry more about: the horrible state of disclosure. Simply put, many of the disclosure forms are either incomplete or factually wrong.

Quick Quiz: how much did Jaimie McEvoy actual raise? Here is the link to his disclosure form. According to Schedule A, he received $6001 from businesses and labour, and $20,276 from Individuals, and no anonymous donations. By my math, that is $26,277, which is not the same as the $25,765 he put on the top of page 4. Add $2,898 (donations under $99) to the $26,277, and you get $29,174. Somewhere, someone forgot to carry a 1, and the disclosure is off by $1000. If $28,176 was spent, where is that $1000 now?

Wayne Wright’s declaration is a mathematical mess. There are very few columns that add up. The number $61301 is apparently the sum of all the numbers in his Schedule A disclosures, including the $10876 from his own campaign fund, but NOT the twe $50 donations that he nonetheless included in the Schedule A2 forms and included in the subtotals, but I suspect those are the same two $50 donations that appear on line B of Schedule A1.

Hanlon’s Razor cuts pretty sharp here.

Chuck Puckmayr’s contributions magically go from $12,095 on Schedule A2 to $12,695 on Schedule A1, with no indication where the extra $600 came from. Bill Harper also gets his math wrong, as his list of Class 1 contributors adds up to $6425, not $6,350, and he offers total contributions (including those under $100) as both $19,814 (Schedule A2) and $20,264 (Schedule A1), although adding it all up, the number seems to total $19,888. Oh, and he had 9 contributions of under $100 each, but they somehow add up to $2651.

It’s not just Councillors. Apparently, the problem with School board is not too many teachers, but too few Math teachers. According to Michael Ewen’s Schedules A1 and A2, $6082+$4080 = $10,862. In Jim Goring math, $3008 = $2938.

Some may see this as nit-picking, but the idea behind disclosure is to create transparency. Bad math can be just that, a simple mistake, but it creates the perception that something fishy is going on, and this is all about perception. I don’t think this is corruption (see Hanlons Razor again), nor do I think failing to carry a 1 on a financial disclosure form is a particularly clever way to get away with something untoward, I think it is just sloppy, and doesnt instill confidence. Sloppy should not be acceptable at this level. It seems petty to worry about a $3000 School board campaign, but now that the Mayoral race is approaching 6 digits, and there are councillors willing to drop nearly $30K for a campaign, things need to be clearly, visibly above board.

Simple solution: that $500 fine for not filing your form before the deadline? The ineligibility repercussions for not completing a form? These should be extended to include forms where the math simply doesn’t work out, because a false declaration, even by mistake, is no declaration at all.

Muni Election Disclosures – Part 2

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

The School Board Trustee election is sometimes the most “local” of all local elections. The 2011 edition in New West comes on the heels of some pretty ugly politicking around the previous board. A vocal DPAC has accused the Board of everything short of fraud, and seems to see Conflict of Interest luring behind every corner (a battle that seems to be ongoing).

I don’t have any kids, and don’t plan to, so my interest in the School Board is completely from the taxpayer side. I pay school taxes every year, and don’t really begrudge it: a well-educated populace benefits society, so paying my part for the education of other people’s kids doesn’t really offend me too much, much like I don’t mind my taxes going to a hospital that I have never needed the services of…

However, after attending a Board Meeting last year to talk on what I thought was a well-intentioned student-led project, I watched the silly partisan bickering taking place, and walked out embarrassed for the entire adult population of the School system (The students in attendance were the models of reason and decorum: stunning in contrast). So I went into this election with a bit of a “pox on both their houses” mentality, and decided to support a couple of new candidates who seemed to have their heads screwed on right. They both finished well atop the popular vote, but I suspect it had less to do with my support than the support of the District Labour Council. I’m just not sure the financial support from Labour is really that meaningful.

Click to make bigger

Look at the money raised by the candidates (order from left to right by the number of votes, Mortenson crossed the elected threshold, Goring did not):

Of course, the outstanding numbers here are the money provided by “Labour” to four of the candidates, all elected. At and average of $4,800 per candidate, this clearly puts those four candidate way above the rest of the field in spending. Actually, without the money from Labour, they would have still been the top four spenders in the election by a healthy margin. So the utility of having all that extra cash is suspect. Especially if you plot the number of votes vs. the amount of spending:

Note those 4 circled outliers: that is the strange result of the labour funding.

There are other trends to take note of. Jonina Campbell was the most effective fundraiser (even discounting the Labour money) by far. I suspect that had much to do with her rather refreshing approach and her very effective public speaking during the campaign. The amount of personal money that most candidates sunk into the election was also significant. Spending by the candidates themselves totalled almost $40,000 and almost twice as much as Organized Labour spent on the School Board campaign in New Westminster.

Finally, a bi-modal distribution shows up again when you plot the amount of money spent by candidates per vote.

The Labour Council-backed candidates all spent a little more than $2 per vote, where the non-affiliated candidates all spent less than $1. More remarkable is that, outside of the vetted 4, there is little correlation between spending and the vote received. In the non-labour affiliated subgroup, the value of the candidate seems more important than the money spent.

Municipal Election Disclosures – Part 1

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.
All of the Campaign finance disclosures from the New West Municipal election have been released by the City. There is lots of interesting information there, most of it completely supporting every complaint and conspiracy theory about how municipal politics is financed: those who spent more got more votes; Labour money makes a big difference; Developers are as heavily invested in politicians as they are in land, etc. etc. It is worth taking a closer look at these numbers though, to find the stories behind the stories. 
 
Since this is all about disclosure, I should go first. I gave three candidates money this election. Two of them I voted for, one I didn’t. One of them I just headed a cheque to, two others I contributed through attendance at fundraisers. I also spent a few hours volunteering with one candidate, just accompanying him during some door-knocking. I had two lawn signs in my front yard. For the most part, though, I wore the Referee shirt, literally and figuratively, during the election. 
 
 
The Mayors race was a run-away for incumbent Wayne Wright, in votes, and in spending. Not only did he garner 61% of the vote, more than twice second-place finisher James Crosty, but he outspent the rest of the field by a wide margin. That Wright’s $61,000 campaign budget was more than three times Crosty’s should be a surprise, considering how Crosty’s campaign was ubiquitous during the election; and Wright’s was rather, um,  understated in comparison.  
 
Another way to look at those numbers is that Wayne Wright spent $9.24 for every single vote he received. Crosty’s 3000-odd votes cost him about $6 each, which was even less than distant-third Vance McFadyen paid per vote. 
 
 
(“private” means declared donations over $100 from private citizens. “Personal” is the Candidate’s own money)
The other side of the coin (pun?) is where the money came from. McFadyen and back-marker Francois Nantel self-financed their campaigns, where neither the Wright nor Crosty spent any of their own money in the race (with the exception of the $10,000 war chest the Mayor had accumulated from last campaign leftovers, but that’s not really his money). 
 
Wright was the only candidate to receive any money from organized labour: $1000 from the Engineers Union. We can save the discussions of Labour Money for the other races. 
 
Both candidates did a good job fundraising from the citizenry: Wright raising more than $9,000 from individuals, and Crosty almost $13,000 between private donations and anonymous fundraising. The sometimes-mocked “Friends of Crosty” definitely put some money where their mouth was. This also puts some truth to Crosty’s “man of the people” campaign rhetoric. It is an impressive fundraising achievement in a City where only 11,000 people voted.
 
The big difference, of course, was the business donations. Wayne Wright received $40,000 in dontations from the business community (compared to the $6,000 Crosty was able to raise). About 75% of that money came from developers. The biggest single donation was $10,000 from Aragon, developers of Port Royal, but all the big players were there: Westgroup, Balenas, etc. A smattering of local bars, restaurants, and law firms also contributed to one or both candidates, but it is the Developer cash that really stands out. 
 
Which makes you wonder what they are buying. 

Fishy Fishing with the Fisheries Act

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

You know, I have been railing against the Harper Government for so long that it is even boring for me. I was one of those people after the last election thinking: well, how bad could their majority really be? Sure, he will continue to harm the economy by throwing more eggs in the Oil basket, and cutting taxes on the wealthy to create false crises as an excuse for future gutting of social programs, but he is a cagey politician and pretty shrewd, so he won’t go too far, lest Canadians get itchy and dispatch him next election. Maybe in the meantime, he will actually bring on some promised Senate or electoral reform or cut those MP Pensions. Remember Steve, your Reform Party mantra? that could be helpful in the long-term. I mean, it is only 4 years. How much harm can he do?

Then this story comes along.

To the uninformed, this seems rather innocuous to remove “habitat language” from the Federal Fisheries Act. To people who work in the Environment field, this is a huge thing.

Simply put, the Fisheries Act is the strongest piece of environmental legislation we have in Canada. It overrides all Provincial and Municipal legislation, it is so powerful that even the railways have to follow it – yes, even the Railways! It serves as the primary protection of fresh and marine water quality and aquatic habitat in the Country. From filling ditches in Queensborough to building the Site C Dam, the Fisheries Act is involved. The potential replacement of the Pattullo Bridge, and even the spill response measures for maintaining the bridge, invokes the Fisheries Act. Don’t take me word for it, ask any Envrionmental Professional you know – P.Geo., P.Eng., R.P.Bio, ask then what Canadas most important Environmental Legislation is, 80% will say “Fisheries Act”. (Most of the other 20% will say Species at Risk Act, until you suggest the Fisheries Act, then they will correct themselves. Go shead, try it. If I’m lying, I’ll buy you a pint.)

Because of the Fisheries Act, there are two terms that are ubiquitous in environmental protection in Canada: “deleterious substance” and “HADD”.

The first is what I deal with primarily. According to Section 36(3) of the Fisheries Act, no-one can deposit or allow to be deposited any “deleterious substance” into waters frequented by fish or in any place where the substance may enter water frequented by fish. As for what constitutes a “deleterious substance”, that relies on a pile of guidelines, standards, and reports backed by a huge pile or scientific research on different materials. I deal with this section of the Fisheries Act every day of my working life.

The second part is clearly an acronym: Harmful Alteration, Disruption, or Destruction. Section 35(1) of the Fisheries Act says:

No person shall carry on any work or undertaking that results in the harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat.

Basically, everything you do in or near an open watercourse that has fish in it, you need to be mindful that there may be fish present, and not harm the environment in a way that harms fish. This provided defacto protection to aquatic birds, invertebrates, amphibians and countless important plant species, while providing an extra level of protection to the quality of the water in our lakes, rivers, and oceans.

You know, that foundations of the ecosystem stuff.

Section 35(2) says that the Minister (or a Governor in Council under any other Act) may grant approval for a HADD. So even this hard and fast rule is really nothing more than an “irritant” for most. It doesn’t stop oil and gas or pipeline development (at least it never has up to now). In essence, every bridge is a HADD, but you don’t see us not building bridges. However, if your works create a HADD you must compensate for that lost habitat, and that almost always means by improving the quality of some nearby adjacent habitat so there is “no net loss” of habitat.

You want to build a ferry slip on this 20m of pristine foreshore? Then spend some money restoring that 20m of hardscape shore over there, and we’ll call it even. Want to put a span bridge across this ditch? Then do a little invasive species management in the riparian area beside the bridge and there will be no net loss. All very reasonable: do your business while protecting habitat. Win-win. These terms are negotiable, and are negotiated every day across the country by fish protection officers. Fish habitat compensation is rarely a significant portion of the capitol cost of a development. If it is, then there is usually a problem with development that needs to be fixed (see Prosperity Mine example).

Of all legislation to protect the environment in Canada, this one is the most straight-forward, the most protective, the most firmly established, and the easiest to understand. Like few things in Government (especially around the environment file), it works! Every Environmental Scientist working in Canada, and most Professional Geoscientists and Engineers who work in or near water, know the words “deleterious substance” and “HADD” and know how to apply them, they have been the law of the land for something like 30 years. Why change it? Is no net loss too much to ask for the Billions of dollars that oil sands development are exporting every year? And why fillet the most important peice of Envrionmental Legislation in the country as part of an Omnibus Budget Bill? How cynical do you have to be to catch these guys?

This laws is so fundamental that most Provincial and Municipal regulation protecting the local environment are designed to specifically dovetail with it, as are Acts regulating farming, forestry, marine navigation, Environmental Assessment… Changing the Fisheries Act language on Habitat may throw all of this other legislation into chaos.

And it may spell the end to our already threatened natural salmon stocks.

…would distract from those “fishy” phonecalls, though.

Elizabeth May tweeted from the House of Commons (at 2:43PDT this afternoon) that rumours have this coming from the PMO, not DFO. That seems obvious, because no-one with a passing knowledge of Fisheries legislation or fisheries science would suggest such a ridiculous change. This is dumb, irresponsible, thick-headed, a really, really bad thing. I have to admit, I never imagined they would do this much harm. I still don’t.