Tag: Politics

Pier Park ad nauseum.

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 3 Comments.

Chris Bell’s ongoing criticism of the Pier Park has suffered a bit of a backlash in the local media, which has in turn resulted in Mr. Bell striking back with allegations of a personal vendetta. The drama…

Mr. Bell’s analysis of ad hominem was interesting, if slightly flawed. However, he may have a point. Little in Mrs. Jepser’s letter addressed the specific claims made by Mr. Bell. These are claims I am painfully familiar with, and have addressed specifically in the past. Mr. Bell has even offered to retort to my criticism of his specific claims, but so far, he has failed to do so.

So I will avoid ad hominem, and address Mr. Bell’s specific claims, as he presented them in his recent letter, and since he raised the spectre of Logical Fallacy, I will return the favour:

“I have claimed that the railroad lands north of the Westminster Pier Park are themselves a brownfield site…”

This is a factual error. For a piece of land to be a “brownfield”, it must be abandoned, or have lost its useful value due to actual or perceived contamination. The rail lines are far from abandoned, but are being used to move trains. They are an active contaminated site. To the best of my knowledge, there are no plans for them to be abandoned any time in the near future. (Logical Fallacy: incorrect use of terminology)

“…heavily contaminated…”

This phrase is kind of subjective, and judgmental in this setting. There is inferred contamination in the groundwater (and potentially the soil) under the tracks, but by what measure is contamination “heavy”? (Logical Fallacy: use of Weasel Words)

“…with hazardous levels of tetrachloroethylene, trichloroethylene and cichloroethylene,”(sic)

This assertion is not supported by the facts. There is some concentration of these three solvents (common in drycleaning solutions and things like brake cleaners or carburettor treatments you can buy at Canadian Tire) in the groundwater at the park. No-where in the reports is it suggested that these solvents are present in concentrations regulated under the Hazardous Waste Regulations. Therefore the use of “hazardous” in the strict sense of the Environmental Management Act is wrong, and (as we will see next) incorrect in the informal sense (Logical Fallacy: incorrect use of terminology).

“…and therefore must be avoided”.

This is a complete non-sequitor. I have explained this to Mr. Bell several times, but he continuously fails to acknowledge the fact. The identified contamination under the rails area is in groundwater 40 feet below the surface. It does not now, nor will conceivably ever, pose a health risk to people standing on the tracks. No matter how hard or how often he bangs this drum, it ain’t the truth (Logical Fallacy: Non-Sequitor).

“I have questioned why the City of New Westminster, having known about the toxic railway right-of-way (which it owns) for many months, has not posted signs alerting citizens to the toxic soils.”

And I suspect the answer he received was: there is no risk to people using the tracks from the soils, and the railway already has signs saying “Private Property: keep off”. Not because of the risk from soils, but because of the risk caused by onrushing trains!

“This claim is not in dispute…”

Yes it is, and I have disputed it with Mr. Bell repeatedly. (Logical Fallacy: this is a form of Begging the Question)

“as the City of New Westminster sent a report to the Ministry of Environment eight months ago outlining how the railway land soils are high risk for contamination.”

And, as has been explained to Mr. Bell several times, the “High Risk” designation under the Contaminated Sites Regulations has no relation whatsoever to actual hazard caused to people walking on the tracks or using the park (Logical Fallacy: incorrect use of terminology).

“ That same report outlines how the railway lands are more contaminated than the park soils were”

There is an interesting use of the phrase “more contaminated”. The Park soils had metals contamination in the surface soils (now removed), and small patches of near-surface light hydrocarbon contamination (now removed or treated), and low concentrations of the chlorinated solvents in groundwater at one location at great depth. The concentrations of the solvents at depth are likely higher under the tracks, but there is no indication the metals of light hydrocarbon contamination is present on the tracks.

“(that’s saying something considering how toxic the soils of the park were)”

No it isn’t. It isn’t saying anything, since the bulk of contamination in the Park lands was addressed and was in no way related to the contamination under the tracks. (Logical Fallacy: the Association Fallacy).

Another interesting Logical Fallacy has come up recently in the media discussion about the Pier Park. First the main argument was that there was something underhanded about how the park was purchased (secret deals, etc.), and those were well refuted. This was followed by the suggestion that there was a lack of environmental due diligence in the purchase (also refuted). Then the argument was that the contamination on the site was going to be a danger to park users (yes, refuted), which shifted slightly to an argument that the tracks adjacent to the Park were dangerous to trespassers (now, hopefully, completely refuted). Now the argument is arouynd a preceived inadequacy in the number of piles being used to stabilise the pier, as if the structural engineers, geotechnical engineers, and the City are conspiring together the endanger park users…

This technique is known as the “Gish Gallop”.

Meeting Candidates

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

Notice, this is one of those few posts I will do where I am essentially writing as President of the New Westminster Environmental Partners. I have not passed this by the membership, so the opinions expressed below are not necessarily those of the NWEP, but the event I am talking about is clearly an NWEP-led initiative. So: Facts theirs, opinions mine. Capice?

Last week, the New Westminster Environmental Partners did what they do best: partnered with other groups to bring people together and get them talking about solutions to problems. The only thing different this week was the people who got together: Members of Parliament and people seeking to become members of Parliament.

Partnering with NEXT New West (a group so secretive, they have meetings in public places every month, and commonly post video of them on YouTube), and Tenth to the Fraser (you know who they are…), we held a unique all-candidates event.

Now, the NWEP do not, as a general rule, shout and protest. More commonly, we try to educate ourselves about sustainability topics, seek to inform the public about issues, and engage the decision makers to try to find common interest towards positive outcomes. Most of the time, we find conversation much more productive if neither side is shouting. There may be a time and an issue that calls for protest, but in a community like New Westminster you can usually bend the ear of the people you need to reach without the need to yell.

With this in mind, we wanted to hold an event for the Federal Election, as we have organized traditional debate-style “all candidates meetings” in previous elections. But just another debate-style meeting, where candidates read the party script to an audience of already-decided people, with microphones and media all waiting for the gotcha-moment, that doesn’t seem like engaging conversation anymore. Maybe all we need to do is bring the local candidates into a room and let them have normal conversations with each other and their constituents.

It just so happens NWEP had a format in our back pocket: Green Drinks. Once a month for the last few years, NWEP types and others interested in environment and sustainability issues have gathered on the first Wednesday of the month to socialize and network for a few hours. No themes, no speeches, just a chance to get together and share ideas. We didn’t invent the idea: Green Drinks have happened for years around the world.

Of course “Green Drinks” is a pretty loaded idea, and although the environmental focus is an attractive idea to some parties, it may not appeal to a few others (remaining non-partisan, I’ll let you fill those categories yourself). So we asked NEXT – a group comprised of young business leaders and entrepreneurs in New Westminster, if they wanted to meet the candidates and they agreed it was a good idea. We hoped this would broaden the appeal somewhat. The good folks at Tenth to the Fraser also piped in to offer logistical and advertising support, and we now had everything…except a date or a location.

The original Green Drinks time and place did not work out for a variety of reasons, mostly conflicting schedules, and not enough lead time to get any Candidates. Long story short, Robert Tang from LaRustica stepped up and offered to host us in the Roma Room. We had little certainty to offer him: we didn’t know how many people would show up, nor did we know how much people would buy… so it must have been a challenge for him to organize staffing… but he was accommodating and in the end it worked out.

Of course, timing was also important: we had to compete with the all-candidates meetings being scheduled in other locations in both ridings (notably, none in New Westminster), with the Easter Long Weekend, with the short election cycle, and with Canucks Playoff games. Once a likely date was found, we sent invitations to all 8 candidates in the “main” parties for the two New West ridings, and were frankly shocked when 7 of the 8 agreed to show up.

To keep this from being just another debate, we decided to give each candidate a few minutes on a soap box to introduce themselves. Briana from Tenth to the Fraser took video of each speech (and mercifully avoided showing my ham-fisted announcements), so you can see they were short and the crowd was (for the most part) receptive. But outside of the 15 minutes or so of “soap box time” the rest of the evening was lively, with lots of conversation. The crowd was smaller than I expected, but we mostly filled the room, and there was unprecedented access to the candidates for those who did show up.

It was great to see such a mixed crowd: along with the usual NWEP rabble rousers, there was a popular former coffee-shop owner, to a local trucker well known for being politically outspoken, several young local proprietors, a young local realtor, a City councillor, and a well-known Quayside president, along with several people I met for the first time. Since there was little time wasted on speeches, I got to bend Diana Dilworth’s ear about the Fraser Basin Council, talk to Ken Beck Lee about his work on scrutinizing international GHG auditors, and chat with Paul Forseth about a common friend (a former Reform MP from my home town) and the adventure of flying into Castlegar airport. It was great to be able to chat with these “candidates” as people. Of course, I also discussed my vision of environmental responsibility with a couple of candidates, asked some questions about their vision, and made sure they knew what topics I thought were important this election.

I think it was a good event. The candidates seemed happy, and the crowd there had great access to the candidates. I think this is a model the NWEP will return to in future elections, now that we know it actually works. If nothing else, I now know who I am going to vote for, and feel good about the person I am giving my vote to.

In contrast, I attended the “traditional” all-candidates meeting put on the Burquitlam Community Association at Banting Middle School the following evening. This was very well attended, there were several hundred people, and there were 5 candidates there from the New Westminster-Coquitlam riding. And quite honestly, it was painful. In an echo-laden gym, the candidates sat behind a table with their policy books in front of them, and answered vapid or loaded questions as close to the party line as possible, with the same group of family and supporters cheering or jeering on cue. 

There were a few interesting moments (some NDP supporter asked Diana Dilworth about abortion, Fin Donnelly asked who we were going to attack with our F-35 Attack planes), but for the most part, the responses were dull, and varied little from the rhetoric of campaign-speak. When a question about voter apathy came up about an hour in, we had to leave for fear of narcolepsy.

With all required modesty, I think the NWEP/NEXT/TttF did it better.

Back to the Blob… ugh

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 4 Comments.

There is an ongoing dialogue about the Pier Park going on in the comments section of the News Leader. I have hit this topic several times, have blogged about this topic before, and have actually met Chris Bell to discuss his concerns. But since I opened my fat gob once again to comment online on some comments I see as scare-mongering in Mr. Bell’s letter to the leader, I am now stuck here, blogging on what I see as a non-topic again, just to correct some facts on what I said, and in what Mr. Bell read into it.

The standard caveat: this project is close enough to my professional area that I should probably start by making some sort of declaration of my lack of knowledge. I cannot give a “Professional Opinion” on this topic, mostly because I am not privy to all the information. Everything I know about this project is from the public reports released through City Council and the media. So although I have significant training and experience managing contaminated sites across BC, and a pretty solid understanding of the Contaminated Sites Regulation and the Environmental Management Act, what follows is a personal opinion worth exactly what you paid for it: nothing.

I will go through Mr. Bell’s last comment to me, topic by topic.

“Patrick, you argue that the city showed due diligence before they purchased the pier land.”

The term “due diligence” does not mean you do everything humanly possible to find all available information about a piece of land. The “Due” part means that you do everything that should be reasonably expected to be done, that the effort and resources used coincide with what would typically be done in the industry.

When taking milk out of the fridge, good “due diligence” before handing it to your child to drink would be to check the expiry date, or maybe sniff the open bottle to see if it is rank, and to inspect for signs of curdle as you pour it in the glass. Running a mass spectroscopy analysis or doing an LD50 test on rabbits would probably provide ever further reassurance that the milk was not rotten or tainted with botulism, and is safe to drink, but that would be costly and time consuming, and would exceed “due diligence”.

In a real estate purchase, what is too costly or too time consuming? There is no upper limit to the amount of time and money you could spend investigating a site. You can drill holes and install monitoring wells across every meter of the ground, and still miss a 90cm-across block of uranium. A good rule of thumb for costing out these exercises is that every single monitoring well you install, including drilling costs, sampling, analytical costs for soil and groundwater samples, and all the accessory costs of doing the investigation, costs $5,000. Sometimes you can drill 10 for $30,000, sometimes only 5 cost you $50,000. But $5,000 per hole is a good order-of magnitude back-of-the-envelope guess for investigation costs. So what constitutes “due diligence” at $5,000 a hole?

In reality, we don’t in the industry machine-gun a site with $5000 holes, as potentially profitable as that would be for consultants. Instead, we look at the site history and make some educated guesses about the likelihood of contamination in certain areas, and dedicate our resources to those areas. Prior to the purchase in 2009, the City’s consultant took existing reports on the site (back to 2005), and used those as a basis for further investigation. This launched what is called a Supplementary Phase 2 investigation. They probably could have relied on those existing reports, but instead, they did a little extra diligence and went back to the previously identified “hot spots” and installed more monitoring wells. This, in my personal opinion, represents a level of due diligence consummate with the purchase of former industrial land that would become a park. I might have saved some money and dug some test pits instead of so much drilling, and relied on the existing wells more, but I’m a cheap bastard. I work for government.

Again, in my personal opinion as a taxpayer in New Westminster, this report demonstrates due diligence was performed on the environmental risk prior to the purchase. The City knew, as best as they could with reasonable efforts, what was there, and could make an informed decision about the purchase. You can disagree about the decision they made, that is your right as a voter, but you cannot say they did not exercise due diligence.

“The City has stated that the land purchase cost was reduced by the expected costs of remediation ”about 1.5 million dollars” and yet they ignored their own experts observations that vapour and off-site investigation of the lands to the north of the park must occur before the investigations could be considered complete.”

Let’s look at what the Supplemental Phase 2 report said. They confirmed the soil metals contamination previously identified on site, and that there was no groundwater metals problem. They identified some PAHs that exceeded standards in groundwater. PAH is a catch-all term for a group of petroleum hydrocarbon substances that contain benzene rings (hence the “aromatic” in Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons). These are generally trace constituents or break-down products of oils or fuels, and are common in gas station-type contaminated sites. They are all LNAPLs, so they tend to float on top of (or concentrate towards the top of if dissolved) water. Again, no surprises here, they know they were there from the earlier reports, they were just confirming their concentrations and how things may have changed since the previous reporting time. These substances are also regulated as vapours, but assuming their remediation plan was scooping them up and trucking them away, there was no need to worry too much about the vapour concentrations: if you remove the PAHs, the vapours also go away.

Finally, they confirmed the presence of some DNAPL compounds: the dreaded “Toxic Blob” of Chris Bell’s nightmares. They found them because they knew they were there from the earlier reports. The news here looks good, though. The sampling indicated they were much lower concentration that the previous (2005) sampling, and in fact, they did not exceed the allowable standards. The concentrations were so low, that they did not constitute “contamination”.

The report did indeed say that new (in 2009) Ministry standards would mean that vapours would need to be investigated. However it was not noted as a flaw or a gap in the report, as Mr. Bell suggests, but as a heads-up. The consultant is saying “you had better plan to manage these vapours when you are planning to manage your soil and groundwater”. Removing the PAHs physically would constitute managing the vapours as I mentioned a couple of paragraphs ago. As far as the DNAPL solvents, the concentrations are so low in this report, that it is extremely unlikely that vapours will exceed any standards, But they still have to sample them by the regulations. Take a few samples, find acceptable concentrations, apply for a CofC, Bob’s your uncle. I suspect the main reason they threw that warning was that vapour sampling was new at the time, and is both expensive and was technically challenging in 2009 when the new standards had just been adopted (and there was little technical guidance from Ministry), so they had better budget time and money for collecting the samples. There is no suggestion from this report that active remediation or risk management on those DNAPLs would be required. The data just didn’t suggest that.

No-where does that report state that offsite investigation would be required or recommended. Here Mr. Bell is completely wrong. To do intrusive investigations like drilling and digging holes on a site you don’t own, but are considering buying, is a difficult enough legal process to go through (who owns the data? What are the rights and responsibilities of the parties in relation to the data? Who has liability for accidents or property damage? Who has responsibility for the monitoring wells if you decide not to buy?) But to try to secure access to a third-party piece of adjacent land, in which you have no commercial interest, only to prove they might be damaging a piece of land you do not own? That is a ridiculous request, unlikely to be agreed to by the best of neighbours (as they can only lose by allowing it), and I am afraid the Railways are not always the best of neighbours. Any attempt to collect data without their permission would constitute criminal trespass.

“It is the cost of these investigations that added another two to three million dollars to the remediation costs. ”

I don’t know where Mr. Bell’s numbers are coming from, so I cannot comment on them. The “investigations” certainly did not cost millions of dollars, but probably several hundred thousand. Apparently (based on Jim Lowrie’s recent comments) the overall remediation budget has gone over $2 million, and I imagine (but cannot confirm, as I do not have the information) that the engineering, hydrogeology and installation of the bentonite/concrete barrier wall is the majority of that cost. Considering that they had a $1.5 Million reduction on the purchase price because of the environmental concerns, it sounds like they are $500,000 down overall (within contingency according to Lowrie).

But let’s be clear, the DNAPL presence was known, it was investigated, and in 2005 and 2009 the best evidence was that the DNAPL was at a concentration that did not constitute “contamination”, and at the time, the idea that they would need to install a barrier wall was simply not on the table. Something changed in the nature of the contamination between 2009 and 2010, and along with this the standards and requirements for remediation changed. It is safe to say that those changes could not reasonably have been anticipated in 2009 when the due diligence was performed.

“How did ignoring the requirements for off-site and vapour testing show due diligence?”

Already discussed. There were no requirements ignored.

“ The environmental cleanup is over budget… by millions. The City advertised, “…a worst case scenario, all in cost of 1.5 million dollars on environmental cleanup” Millions not spent on cleanup could have been used to build more park infrastructure. “

No, the environmental cleanup is within the contingency budget. Remember, that $1.5 Million is the cost reduction that the City got on the purchase based on the known contamination. If the City did not have to spend that money on clean-up, they would have had to pay that much extra for the land purchase. Because the City did due diligence, it got that reduction in the purchase cost which covered most of the cost for remediation.

It’s your declaration Patrick that, “To make the more strident claim that the City is risking the health and well being of its Citizens and is somehow in cahoots with the Province to expose children and joggers to dangerous chemicals is absurd scare mongering.”
I’ll leave the attack on my character alone…”

And I stand by the statement that claims that the City is risking people’s health in their management of the chlorinated solvents are not only false, they represent fear-mongering. This is not a character attack, it is my assessment of the facts on the ground.

“… and stick to the known threats from the chlorinated solvents along the city owned land along the northern border of the park site. City reports to the Ministry Of Environment state the railway corridor soils are High Risk for chlorinated solvents.”

Here is where Mr. Bell is simply confusing his terms. There is an area of the park designated “High Risk”. That term is very strictly defined by the Ministry of Environment, and there are strict protocols about how it is used and what it means. The money quote from that protocol is this: “If mobile NAPL is present at a site, the site is considered a high risk site.”

The presence of mobile DNAPL at the pier park is what makes the site “High Risk”. Because it is “High Risk”, the City is under more strict reporting guidelines with the Ministry, and the Ministry will ultimately have final sign-off on the cleanup. This is the highest level of Provincial oversight one could hope for.

“People walk/run this corridor as a pathway across New Westminster thus exposing themselves to the toxic soils. “

This is simply untrue. “High Risk” in this case does not mean is that there is any immediate danger to anyone or to anything. It does not mean that the soils are emitting toxic fumes into the air, it does not mean that people are being harmed by the DNAPL.

In risk assessment, the term “pathway” refers to any route through which a contaminant can get to a receptor, be that a person or the environment. Hydrocarbon vapours coming off of soil and being breathed by joggers is a “pathway”. Arsenic in soil getting on your fingers then onto your lunch is a “pathway”. PCBs leaching through the ground and into grass, then being eaten by a cow is a “pathway”. For there to be any threat to a person, there has to be an “open pathway” from the contamination to the person. In the case of the Pier Park, there is no evidence that there is an open pathway. DNAPL dissolved in water 40 feet below the ground simply cannot get into the system of a jogger on the tracks. There is no pathway.

The “risk” here is not a threat to human health, it is the uncertainty related to mobility of the contaminants. Therefore there is now a positive onus on the City to stop that migration and keep track of the contamination, so that they and the Ministry will know if there is ever an “open pathway”, and an actual threat posed by this stuff.

DNAPL 40 feet down will never be a threat to humans, unless they sink a drinking water well at the park (an unlikely scenario). If allowed to migrate, it is possible the contamination will migrate to the bottom of the river (well away from the shore) and impact marine invertebrates, potentially causing a “dead zone” in the river, but unlikely to be harmful to even salmon, as these DNAPLs will be pretty diluted by the river and are not bio-accumulators. I’m not saying this would happen, I’m just trying to imagine a scenario where these things can cause harm to anything.

“The City is stating it has no plans to remediate the toxic railway corridor nor will it put up signs warning the public away from the High Risk contaminated lands. Are these non-actions not risking the health and well being of New Westminster citizens?”

Correct, these non-actions are not risking the health and well-being of New Westminster residents. See above.

The City not only has no responsibility to clean up the Railway lands, I suspect they would not legally be able to. It isn’t their land. Unless it could be demonstrated that the contamination migrated from City land to the railway land, then the Ministry might compel the City to clean up the Railway land, but it would be extremely unusual for the Ministry to do this when there is no human health risk. More likely, the railway would clean up its own land and take the City to court to make them pay for it. Which is exactly what I think the City should do to the railways.

“How you came to the conclusion that I think lowly of the Ministry Of Environment is truly puzzling to me. I praise the Lord for the MOE’S involvement and look forward to their scrutiny of the City’s cleanup efforts if, and when, the City ever sends the required documents to Victoria for review. Why did you state that I have a pitiful view of the MOE when the complete opposite is true?”

Chris, I suspect you misinterpreted my comments, or I gave you a false impression though bad wordsmithing. You stated clearly that you have more faith in MoE than you do the City, and I previously stated that you should therefore feel better about the High Risk determination, as that will result in a higher level of scrutiny from the Ministry.

“I agree with you, Patrick, that the current Mayor and council have invested a lot of political capital on this Pier Park and the Realpolitik negotiations (between the need for complete environmental investigation/remediation and opening the park before the November elections) must be brutal. “

Again, I am not privy to the negotiations going on, but they are going to have to hustle their asses to get a CofC from the Province before November. They may be able to get a release letter that limits how they use the Park and sets strict conditions on the management of soils on the park prior to getting a CofC, the Ministry is starting to get pretty proactive with those. That would essentially allow them to open and use the park without a CofC. But again, I don’t know much about their strategy with managing the site, and the High Risk designation may make that a non-starter.

“The City’s environmental management of the Westminster Pier Park Brownfield has been neither consistent, nor transparent, nor responsible. “

I have seen literally hundreds of these types of projects. In my experience, the City has been consistent and responsible, and have frankly been much more transparent about the process than any corporate client I ever had, and at least as transparent as any government client I ever had. Frankly, I was a little shocked about how much info on this site I could get with few hours on Google. Try that with a Port Metro Vancouver or Kinder Morgan contaminated site…. I do not share Mr. Bell’s criticism here.

“Thankfully, it will be up to the highly skilled Ministry of Environment to decide when the environmental investigations/cleanup are complete although I pray that political deadlines do not trump an in-depth remediation process.”

I’m not a praying type, but I have faith in the professionals doing the work.

Guys for whom I cannot vote (yet)

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

This just in: now there are 4.

 Just watched the BC NDP leadership debate on the Environment and Sustainability, and I have made my decision about who I want to lead the NDP, and to lead the Province after Christy calls the snap election in June.

I have not seen them talk in the other debates, but they are all available here. I can’t sit through that much NDP bafflegab, so I decided to bet all my chips on the one subject where I have a lot of knowledge, Environmental Sustainability is right up my alley.

Not that I have a vote on the leader of the NDP, I’m not a member of the party. But I will have a vote in the election, and if John Horgan is leading the NDP, they will likely get my vote. This is my summary of how the candidates fared in this debate, and as unbiased as I was going in, I was pretty biased by the end.

First off, as far as battles of white guys in dark grey suits goes, they had the white guys and the dark suits, but it wasn’t much of a battle. This is a party that just eviscerated itself over the departure of the least leader, but it seems to all be peace and love here, no sign that any one of these guys disagrees with any other of these guys on any point whatsoever (although I don’t think any of them take Dana Larsen seriously). I would have liked to have heard “I respectfully disagree with my opponent on this point” just once, to make this seem like a battle of ideas, but that never happened.

Part of that was the nature of the format, but I guess being a third-place party in a two-party province begets a need for open unity. My only complaint overall with the format was having to hear Andrea Reimer’s voice scrape across the blackboard of my eardrums. Painful.

Mike Farnsworth is, apparently, the front runner. He has Jenny Kwan on his side, so what else could he want? Farnsworth hits all the right notes, and shows more nuance than you would expect from a n NDP front-runner, by alternately praising a good decision by WAC Bennett to build BC Hydro, and recognizing that the NDP missed the boat on the Carbon Tax. He also gets bonus points for mentioning the Evergreen Line and a Provincial approach to the control of cosmetic pesticide use (two issues that municipalities would like the Province to take more leadership on). however, in the end, he is a little too NDP, and will not sell well to the fence-sitters, as he may be a little too Mike Harcourt 2.0. If I am not voting NDP party line, I have no compelling reason to vote for him.

Dana Larsen is well-meaning, mentions one of my favourite ideas (fare-free transit), and makes a specific point to irritate AM radio fans and National Post readers by suggesting BC needs “Progressive, Visionary, Socialist” governance (the new right hates those three words the most). I give the former leader of the Marijuana Party kudos for waiting a full 40 minutes before the first mention of hemp as the solution to all of society’s problems. He also makes an interesting comparison between the Carbon Tax and Gambling which i will have to spend more time thinking about. Still, the lack of depth in his approach is reflected by the rather flaccid applause he receives from the audience. Is there any such thing as “former Pot activist”? I guess until we leagalize the stuff, we won’t know.

Nicolas Simons is quite likely the best possible choice, but – as he admits himself – he could never be elected. Although he has experience dealing with some of the most difficult parts of the civil service – children in need and First Nations consultation – he come across as a smarter Mr. Bean. The fact he is not a serious candidate for the leadership should be seen as a condemnation of 21st Century democracy, not of him. When I hear him talk about taking a science-based approach to policy; when he admits there are few “easy answers” and instead we need to understand the deep implications of our decisions; when he suggests the public have to have confidence that Government is working in good faith for the betterment of society; I nod my head in agreement, but at the same time recognize these are completely unreasonable requests in the politics of 2011. Kevin Falcon would cover this guy with a dressing of equal parts vinegar and bad ideas, and eat him for lunch. I hope whoever is leader recognizes that Simons should be up towards the top of the government making the hard choices that need to be made by government, I have that much faith in his ability to make intelligent policy, but don’t put him down in the trenches trying to defend them. He is above being leader.

But Adrian Dix isn’t. I almost couldn’t get past Adrian’s shiny, fat, orange tie. He makes some solid points, and at least one is close to my heart – making the environment the centre of the NDP platform will hit the Clark Liberals where they are embarrassingly weak. The problem is that the NDP doesn’t have the environmental cred to do the job, and they have (up to now at least) not had a green set of policies. As long as they are beholden to Big Labour’s perception that environmentalism is counter to Workers Rights, the NDP will not be able to fight from that position (one of the reasons I have never yet voted for an NDP candidate). Adrian made good points about the Environmental Assessment process (going through one right now at work, I am suddenly very aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the current EA system). But in the end Adrian is worse than Mike Harcourt 2.0, he is Glen Clarke 2.0.

Which brings us to John Horgan. At the first blush, John is an aw-shucks nice guy, and this is a serious value for people sitting on the fence of what might be a three-way battle for the next government of the Province. His main opposition will be the queen of aw-shucks nice, and you need to get on the same field as her to win that battle. He is a party insider from way back, but one who took at rather principled stand when the party started to eat itself last year. He seems to take a common-sense, and science-based approach to many issues, and is very well versed in the energy sector, where BC is going to need to make some tough choices in the next decade. He shares my concern that the public service at the Ministry of Environment, and organizations like the Geological Survey have been gutted, leaving little ability for enforcement of environmental laws, and little science to support policy decisions.

At a real gut-level, though, there were two things that won me over. First, he said that as leader, he would not allow any NDP candidate show up at a constituent’s door with a pamphlet featuring a photo of Christie Clark. In other words, let’s bring fresh, new, better ideas instead of wasting our time arguing against the ideas of the other team. Second, as an MLA, he holds an informal Town Hall on the #61 bus from the Legislature to his home in Sooke. He uses this opportunity, on public transit, to find out what is really happening in his community. He started doing it informally, but now the constituents expect it.

From that, I get the impression that John Horgan “gets it”. We elect people to represent us, and take our ideas and desires to the halls of government, and we elect people to find solutions, though a well trained and well supported public service, for the problems we encounter. He also had the funniest joke of the night: “We’re the NDP. Bill Good calls us up every three years to ask us why we suck so much”.

So anyone out there who is a member of the NDP (especially Dawn Black, my local MLA), vote for John Horgan, and you have my vote next election.

Just to be as fair and non-partisan as possible, I have also included a video that summarizes the complete BC Liberal discussion on the environment from their leadership race.

Election Day 1

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

As you can read here, I am not a member of any political party, and my votes in the past have gone to candidates from all over the political spectrum. I am political, but pretty non-partisan. Good ideas can come from anyone, just as bad ideas can.

But I am not without biases. I really don’t like Harper’s Conservatives, for several reasons. A good recent example arrived in my electronic mailbox on Thursday.

I am on an Environment Canada mail list for both work and personal interest reasons, mostly because I like to know what my “open and accountable” government is up to. So when this notice arrived in my mailbox (and mailboxes across Canada) at 12:25 PDT on Thursday, I was naturally excited. Apparently the Government was finally going to do something about the damning report they themselves commissioned, then tried to bury, only releasing it a couple of days before Christmas, when everyone is paying attention. I was looking forward to calling in for the announcement, until I realized the actual announcement was in less than 20 minutes, and I would have to “pre-register” by calling the handy number they provided. So they are giving a press conference to no-one, at 3:45 EDT, the day before the Government Falls. Why do I think this is not going to be good news? Open and accountable government? those bastards. Ends up they came up with a “plan” to start monitoring the Tar Sands impacts on the Assiniboine River. No actual timing is mentioned, no actual funding is suggested. Really, there is no evidence they plan to actually do anything, but they have a plan. To start monitoring. Some time. Later. Maybe.

Apparently, I am supposed to vote Liberal, but tomorrow I will be out pounding signs into lawns for a friend representing another party. Not that it matters in this riding, as someone representing yet a third party is the foregone winner. Dilworth’s pre-recorded voice already called me today, and she gave me the canned Party Line. The message offered to hear my questions of I pressed 1, which I dutifully did. They hung up on me. but a pre-recorded message that lies about allowing you to interact: that is pretty much the Conservative Party Line, isn’t it?

So I can sit back and enjoy the election with a slight detachment. 24 hours in to the election, and Ignatieff has already made a strategic blunder.

This coalition thing is a smokescreen, it is just more of the Politics of Fear that Steve learned from his Southern Friends. As long as they are trying to paint a coalition as the Worst Possible Thing That Could Happen™, none of the real issues are going to come to the forefront.

So to deny that a coalition is up for consideration serves three purposes: It reinforces the false notion that it is the Worst Possible Thing That Could Happen™; it limits his options if the polls don’t start improving soon; and it lets Harper control the conversation.

The only appropriate response to this type of bullshit is to turn it around on him. Say something like:

“I am campaigning for a Liberal Majority Government, because I think that would be the best result for all Canadians. That said, Mr. Harper is going to have to explain to Canada why a stable coalition of willing Parliamentarians, working together to represent the interests of the majority of Canadians is somehow “less stable” than yet another fragile minority government, unwilling to work with anyone or hear any diversity of voices, desperate enough to hold on to the reigns of power that they would rather prorogue Parliament that listen to the will of the people.”

Boom.

Water fight!

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. Leave a comment.

I’m getting a little tired and punchy over The story that just won’t die. What started as an effort to reduce the environmental impact of bottled water in our schools has turned into one of the silliest political debates in the city since… hmmm… I can’t think of sillier one.

I should declare my bias here, since conflict of interest is such a big part of this. I have already publicly declared my opinion that bottled water is one of the most egregious examples of the victory of cleaver marketing over common sense, good economics, and sustainability. Not on par with smoking in the personal-health-risk department, but probably more damaging on a global heath risk, and no less stupid. So my bias is that I agree with the students on this one, not the Board of Education.

I don’t know Lori Watt, I had never met her before the infamous school board meeting where the latest motion on bottled water was discussed. Frankly, I was not impressed with her unprofessional manner at the meeting, but it is not like being unprofessional stood out in that completely dysfunctional organization, where most if not all of the members have lost touch with what they are there to do. Speaking as an adult, I was embarrassed to have the students in the audience watch their elected representatives act like that. So for the two “slates” on the board, I say a pox on all your houses.

However, the claims of “conflict of interest” in this case seem a bizarre stretch, legal opinion notwithstanding. During the last election for Board of Education, Lori Watt worked as a staffer for CUPE, and was a member of COPE, and CUPE contributed to her campaign (as they did to Trustee Ewen and Trustee Janzen). These are not secrets, nor do they preclude her for running for the Board. People voted for her in spite of (or in some cases, I am sure, because of) these associations. Labour Unions are political organizations, just as multinational corporations are. They have political interests, and put their support behind those that reflect them. Watt is a member of a labour union (like about 30% of Canada’s working population), and quite possibly shares some of the same political ideas as the Union does. It is possible she even goes to Union Meetings and takes part in the democratic process of setting those policies. Of course, she can’t vote one CUPE policies, only COPE ones.

Note also that New Westminster is a “union-friendly” City. There are numerous union offices in town, the population mix is decidedly working class, and it is a longstanding labour-NDP stronghold since before the days when Tommy Douglas represented New Westminster in Ottawa. It is entirely possible that Lori Watt’s labour connection helped her get elected: that people voted for her because of her union affiliation. These people are her constituency: like it or not, that is representative democracy.

So a member of the Board of Education, elected as a union member, put forward a motion for a policy change, seconded by Trustee Graham (who did not receive CUPE funding) and supported by all members of the board, that happened to reflect the expressed interests of her constituency. That is the conflict of interest? Conflict of interest is now putting forward a motion reflecting the interests of her constituency that was immediately supported by the rest of the board? Huh? Is there any suspicion that she personally gained financially from this? Did she short-sell her PepsiCo stocks prior to this motion coming forward? If she didn’t bring the motion forward, would she be fired from her union job? Where was her gain here? Excuse the French, but this is so much ado about sweet fuck all.

But what of the legal opinion, you ask? Given sufficient money, I could have a legal opinion drafted up that says the sky is not blue and the ocean is not wet. When one of the world’s largest bottled-water selling multinational corporations (Nestle) pays for a legal opinion from the same law firm that represents another one of the world’s largest bottled-water-selling multinational corporations (PepsiCo), and that opinion comes back in favour of the position of the bottled-water-selling multinational corporations, are we to be surprised? We should be no less surprised that the Board’s own legal opinion said there was not conflict. Legal opinions are like children: there is no limit to how many you can have, even if you can’t afford them, and everyone thinks their own is the best.

Since we are on the topic of conflict of interest: we know O’Connor received some financial assistance from Nestle for his supposedly one-man grassroots campaign against Watt. We know there were other, so far unnamed, financial contributors, willing to spend money to support one failed Board of Education candidate, as the “public face” of the fight. Receiving secret funding to wage a personal campaign? No possibility of conflict there. If O’Connor was really concerned about openness and accountability, he would declare just how many people contributed to his “grassroots” campaign, and how he got the address of PepsiCo’s favourite law firm. Still, I have yet to hear Patrick O’Connor mention anything about the interests of students (remember them?) in this entire debate. It is pretty ugly on the face of it.

I am afraid the local “Voice for openness and accountability” is on the wrong side of this fight. They threw another shot across the bow last week in the form of a letter from the President to the News Leader, praising the Board for making a “balanced and thoughtful” decision on this matter. It is clear Neil was not in the room witnessing those discussions, as there was clearly little thought put into the fall-back position this board came to.

However, there are two things I think get lost in the language, but not the spirit, of Neil’s letter, and I hope to clarify them: the health concerns of NWSS water, and “freedom of choice”, two arguments used by Voice Board of Education Members, and reinforced by the Gentleman™ from Nestle™ at that board meeting.

During the meeting, there were three people expressing the opinion that the water at NWSS was not safe: Trustee Cook, whose nuanced argument included reference to a video he apparently saw on YouTube and a headline from the Vancouver Sun that he took out of context to create the perception that school water was laden with killer lead; The Gentleman™ from Nestle™ who made vague references to “immune-deficient people”; and some guy named “Paul” from the DPAC, who I didn’t know, but I seem to recall him saying something about commies and our precious bodily fluids:

But the funniest moment was shortly after this when Trustee Goring suggested (without a hint of irony) we need to educate the youth better, because he didn’t know where these rumours were coming from amongst the students that the water was unsafe…when there were numerous youth in the room arguing for a ban on bottled water, and it was only a few misinformed (or misinforming?) adults making these ridiculous claims…

For the record, the public health officer did not say the tap water at the school was unsafe. She suggested that a ban on bottled water should be applied concurrently with a ban on all single-serving drinks, including juices and sodas. Note, she was not arguing to maintain “freedom of choice”, but to remove all choices, leaving the school with only tap water, as this would be the healthiest alternative.

Which brings us to freedom of choice. This was big part of the Gentleman™ from Nestle™ argument, and something Trustee Cook was all over: give the students choice, and educate them to make the right choice. The false choice thing aside (with no facilities to easily fill refillable bottles, and big, glowing, pop machines everywhere you look in the school, just what is the message students are being given?) why would we give the students a choice that is the opposite of the recommendation of the public health officer? I am sure the public health officer would not suggest we install cigarette machines, then let the students “choose” not to smoke. Part of an education system is empowering the students to make the right choice by providing respite from the constant media bombardment to do the wrong thing. How do we effectively teach them to make the rational choice when we turn around and take money from a global multinational to advertise the irrational choice in the teaching environment?

On an almost completely unrelated note, you might have noticed this story about how Pepsi has slipped to #3 in the “Cola Wars”. Frankly, I don’t care what brand of malted battery acid you drink, but one number popped out to me: the United States annually consumes 1.6 billion cases of Coke. A “case” is an industry measure, equal to 24 x 8-oz containers, or 192 oz. That means the USof freaking A consumes 9.1 Billion Litres of Coke a year. To put this number in perspective, if you were to fill a 10-foot-deep swimming pool with this volume of Coke, the pool would need to be as wide as a CFL Football Field, and more than 100 km long! And that is just Coke Classic, we haven’t even thought about the Dr. Pepper effect. Freedom of choice indeed.

So, if the Board of Education was really concerned about the student’s health, they would immediately adopt the public health officer’ recommendation (see the recommendation here, on page 20) and begin the phasing out of vending machines in the schools. It is clear that the public health officer thinks tap water, supplied by Metro Vancouver and regulated by Vancouver Coastal Health is the helathiest, safest alternative. If Patrick O’Connor is really interested in cultivating his position as “maverick community activist” and not a bought-and-paid hack for Multinational Corporations, then he should stop taking their shadowy money, and if Voice is really interested in open and accountable governance, they should probably be backing away from this issue and Mr. O’Connor completely.

Oh, and everybody: apologise to the damn students for being such idiots.

News update…

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 8 Comments.

So much going on, so little time to write about it.

First off, Christie Clark announces her Cabinet. To her credit, I think it is a good mix of old and new, evidenced in how Moe Sihota was stuck on CBC concurrently complaining about the lack of some new members’ experience and the fact there was no evidence of change! No problem: that kind of cognitive dissonance is nothing new for Moe. There is no local angle here (New West is a long way from any Liberals of note, figuratively, if not literally), but there is an environment angle. The new Minister of Environment is some guy no-one outside of Kamloops has ever heard of. That said, he is genuinely educated (a Veterinarian), has executive experience (Mayor of Kamloops), and seems a generally nice guy (including doing a lot of overseas development work for a non-religious organization), so I am hopeful.

However, Clark’s biggest concern should not be her cabinet selection, or Moe Sihota, it should be the three high-profile, right-of-centre-right BC MPs who have just announced they are leaving federal politics . In Stockwell Day, John Cummings, and Chuck Strahl, the BC Conservatives suddenly have an electable core, and they they won’t have to dip into the Randy White pool o’ crazy for a leader. The landscape of BC politics is about the change: you read it here first.

Now getting more local, The UBE open house on Saturday was apparently well attended and well organized. I was out of town for a curling bonspiel, and could not go, but from the reports I have heard, any topics I would have covered were covered very well by others. I am actually at a committee meeting at the same time as the Wednesday consultation, so I will not be able to attend, but I recommend all with any interest do so!

The “water bottle in the school” issue will not be going away any time soon. With the President of Voice writing an opinion piece supporting the School board (while getting some of the facts wrong), on the same day we find out that the pro-water bottle “legal opinion” was actually financed by the Gentleman™ from Nestle™. I think Voice’s best tactic now is to back slowly away from this issue. Secretive corporate financing of Mr. O’Connor’s “grassroots” anti-labour rhetoric is not really the kind of thing people commonly associate with the “accountable, transparent, democratic” ideas Voice usually represents. O’Connor is not, to the best of my knowledge, a Voice member, nor does he speak for them, but this is probably something they don’t want to be too close to when it crashes and burns.

Finally, rumour has it that the City is looking at fortnight trash delivery. Good news.

Pinch me, I’m famous – Updated!

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 4 Comments.

I Finally made it.

After 6 months of blogging, 70 posts and with 5000 hits on this blog, four years with the NWEP, and 2 years as President, a half dozen delegations to council, many more letters to various editors, working on City committees, working on various political campaigns, attending countless public meetings and generally ranting and raving about politics and the environment for too many years to keep track of…I finally broke through.

Nobel Prize? Koufax Award? Book deal? Kudos from P.Z. Myers? No, better than all of these:

Paul Forseth knows I exist.

Paul Forseth 2005
I’m either standing in your shadow, or blocking your light…

We all know Paul as former MP, Conservative roustabout, and purveyor of the least local of all local blogs. His dot-com presence is more a conduit for missives from the Prime Minister’s Office than a blog, displayed in the way most posts are written by actual members of the Conservative Government, and read word-for-word like press releases in local papers nationwide.

I call it the most “non-local” local blog, as the words “New Westminster” have not appeared in a single post on the site over the last two years. Not once.

His latest post is a source of great hilarity, though. He purportedly asks people to send him their feelings about having an election, which he will dutifully post for you. Apparently, he is unaware that the whole “mail it to me and I will post it” thing isn’t needed in a Blog, as there is a “comment” thing down there at the bottom. He even has moderation turned on, which means he can filter out all those uncomfortable mentions of in-and-out scandals, Bev Oda’s inability to remember “not”s, illegal campaigning in Ministers offices, recent speaker censures, jet plane budget misestimates, or…well, you get the point.

It also went up with a dozen “opinions” that presumably already arrived, with semi-anonymous people falling into two camps: 1) No election now, Harper is doing a great job! and 2) Call an election now! Harper will sweep to majority! Of course, they all arrived with the original post asking for comments, and he hasn’t updated since, so they do smack of…I dunno, not being 100% genuine? Astroturf much?

Then I notice that one of the posts from Camp 2 is from none other than “P. Johnstone”.

O.K., so I have been a Johnstone all my life. And surprisingly, there are not that many of us. Something about the Campbells sweeping into the borderlands 400 years ago and marrying all our women. “Johnson”s out the ying-yang, “Johnston”s a dime a dozen, but “Johnstone”? Not too common. Telus White Pages list no Johnstones in New Westminster at all, and only 8 in all of Burnaby. I guess it is possible that there is another P. Johnstone in New West without a listed phone number like me, who happened upon Paul Forseth’s blog on the day he posted a request for comments, who rushed to comment. Hey, some coincidence, but stranger things happen.

Or, Maybe Paul saw my dig at his blog on another much, much more local blog and took notice. That means he knows I exist, and has been paying attention enough that this slightly uncommon but totally random name appeared in his “pseudo-comments”. I leave it up to Occam to decide.

Too bad he didn’t take my gentle jibes for what they were: advice to use his burgeoning web presence to try to connect with the people in New Westminster. That is the power of social media, it isn’t just an advertising platform, it is an opportunity to engage in conversation. For example, one local MP has been vocal about the transportation issues affecting New Westminster (those projects receiving federal funds, so therefore relevant to the federal file). Where is Paul on the UBE? Where is Paul on anything?

Maybe he need to think about taking a workshop on how Social Media is supposed to work…

Update: March 14:
In what I am sure is a complete coincidence, Paul’s website now has a post talking about a local event, and all the older missives from the PMO posts have gone down the memory hole. It’s a fundraiser, but at least it’s local!

Good to have another active voice added to the local blogosphere… I don’t know if anyone else has noticed, but we need a little more active input from the Right side of the political spectrum around here.

Clark and the Zipper

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

So we have a new Premier.

I am pretty non-partisan. I think more on issues than I do on party affiliation. I had quite a few discussions around the Liberal Leadership Race with friends over the last few weeks, and as it became more and more a two-horse race, the question to me always came down to: is the Devil you know better or worse than the devil you don’t?

Kevin Falcon is a free-market ideologue who loved to build highways like that was some sort of transportation policy. I disagree with Falcon on almost every single policy issue, but at least I know where he is coming from. As Hunter Thompson once said of Nixon: “As long as Nixon was politically alive… we could always be sure of finding the enemy on the Low Road. There was no need to look anywhere else for the evil bastard.”

But Christy Clark is a different animal. It isn’t the lack of caucus support of the lack of a seat in the house that make he similar to Vander Zalm, it is the poorly defined populist agenda that makes her essentially a random-number generator on policy. She is the devil few of us really know.

He campaign never resulted in a clear picture where she saw the province going. The only strong policy positions she put out she almost immediately backed away from at the first hint if discord. Even her major pledge, to “support Families” is so pragmatically unspecific as to be irrelevant. Does supporting families mean encouraging responsible family planning through sex education in schools and support for Planned Parenthood, or does it mean letting parents decide when and how their kids learn about sex, and the prevention of all abortions? To know what “supporting Families” means, you have to look through your own filter. That is what makes it such good campaign rhetoric, but completely meaningless. It is like “supporting Healthcare” or, dare I say, “Sustainability”.

It suits, though. She has a record of pissing off teachers, which (by some definitions), is supporting families. She ostensibly left politics (coincidentally as the BC Rail scandal was scooping up those closest to her) to “be with her family”, then less than 6 months later decided to run for Mayor of a City in which she didn’t live. She just doesn’t seem to be consistent on anything.

I can’t help but think she is a lightweight . Her resume doesn’t mention if she has ever had a job that required her to balance a budget, or even run a payroll. There are mentions of three universities, but no evidence she got a degree from any of them. Take it from someone who served two contentious years on the Simon Fraser Student Society: the only thing you learn there is how to make a meeting go as slowly as possible while avoiding actually saying anything, or how you should never cross David Bowie Fans . Other than being the 5th or 6th most popular radio host in Vancouver, and the afore-mentioned pissing off teachers, what experience does she have in an executive position?

If she is trying to shake the Vander Zalm / Sarah Palin comparisons (looks good, not too smart, populist), it was probably not too wise to have her first post-convention press appearance, the day after being declared Premier Elect, while doing the “Hockey Mom” thing at her Kid’s game.

Rafe Mair (once again) summed up the Liberal Convention speeches this morning on CBC Radio: Abbot looked like a doctor delivering some bad news, DeJong like a lawyer for the defence, arguing a case he knew was already lost, Falcon like a guy selling a really good used car, and Clark like the lady from the Welcome Wagon. Zing.

Anyway, all of this is a lead-up to a co-worker’s story I heard today. He is an extremely reliable source. He drives in every day from North Vancouver, and has to manage the “zipper” at the north end of the Lions Gate. In the morning, that means the two lanes from West Van merge in to the right lane, and the two lanes from North Van merge into the centre lane. Never the twain do meet. But this morning, a silver Jetta did the unthinkable: coming up the left of the two lanes from West Van, it got to the merge zone, and instead of merging right…it stuck on it’s left signal and forced itself, illogically, into the centre lane! My co-worker was considering giving the driver the bird (as Zipper decorum would require), but couldn’t see through the back window as the Jetta’s back seat was full or cello-wrapped humungous flower arrangements. Once the Jetta got caught behind a bus on Georgia, my friend pulled up beside to throw a now-belated stink-eye, only to see Christy Clark! Once he regained his composure, he was going to wave at the next stoplight, but she was busy applying her eye makeup. Whether she was driving with a trunk full of gifts from well-wishers, or dropping gifts to those who supported her is unknown… but she has to think about delegating the running-around-with-flowers tasks if she is going to run the province.

However, perhaps we should take this as an omen. Given the option of safely staying in the right position, Clark chose to veer left, taking a risk to bully her way to the middle. She even ran a higher risk of a head-on collision over there in the middle, but she boldly blasted on, and never looked back. Or maybe I am reading too much into it.

Bottled Water, and the Gentleman™ from Nestle™

Posted on . by Patrick Johnstone. 1 Comment.

The Board of Education meeting Tuesday was strange, fascinating, frustrating, and educational. None of those in a good way.

This story gives the headline, but instead of actually discussing the issue, or talking about what happened at the board, it ends up being an advertisement for Nestle water. Rather lazy reporting, I’m afraid.

It is telling that Nestle™ , one of the largest multi-national food conglomerates in the world (2010 revenues: $113 Billion CDN) flew a director in from Toronto to take on two local Grade 11 students. With his 24 years of corporate and marketing communications experience, I’m thinking he doesn’t fly Coach. Near as I can tell, Nestle is in direct competition with PepsiCo, the makers of Aquafina, which is the exclusive brand of water offered at NWSS, so one has to wonder what Nestle’s horse was in this race…

After the Students from the NWSS Environmental Club gave a presentation to Board, reiterating their earlier request that the board take a principled environmental stand here, there were several addresses from the audience on the issue, and some discussion amongst the board members. To protect the innocent, I will not paraphrase any audience members except myself and the Gentleman™ form Nestle™.

Having endured the earlier hour of partisan bickering and procedural minute of the first part of the Board meeting, I decided not to bore the audience with meaningless environmental statistics. The environmental argument against bottle water is pretty cut and dried: bottled water represents a ridiculous victory of clever marketing over common sense, economics, environmental science, and sustainability. Large Multi-Nationals like Nestle take tap water, run it through a filter and maybe add some salt (the benefits of either dubious), stick it in a foul-tasting disposable plastic bottle, chill it (to reduce the plastic flavour), and sell it for 2000x to 3000x the value they pay for the water. The more remarkable part is that we fall for it. But that is where the clever marketing comes in.

We all know who clever marketers like the Gentleman™ from Nestle™ covets the most: teenagers. There is a reason they invest so much time and energy into getting at the captive audiences in high schools. This is where life-long habits are formed the most. Like toothpaste brands, cigarettes and religions: if they get you by 18, they probably have you for life. A high school full of bottled water drinkers will “normalize” paying that 3000x mark-up for a completely unnecessary product. Since all bottled water (labels aside) are exactly the same product, it doesn’t matter if students get hooked on Aquafina, Dasani, or Nestle water: if you get hoodwinked onto buying one, you will be a customer of them all. Enter the Gentleman™ form Nestle™, with no products on NWSS, fighting to keep his competitors products on the shelf there. That’s the FreeMarket® 2.0.

The real story here should be the group of students who identified an environmental, social and moral issue. They educated themselves about the issue, they talked to their peers, they got a petition signed, they presented a report to the Board. This is how Representative Democracy should work. I hope they were not too discouraged by what happened next.

The Gentleman™ from Nestle™ read a prepared statement, using baffling statistics (apparently not as concerned about keeping peoples interest) such as “almost 75% of water bottles in Canada are recycled” (with the other 25% being, presumably, of no concern to anyone, and completely oblivious to the issue of downcycling that the students had already covered in their presentation), made it clear Nestle supported people drinking tap water at home (!?!), made vague suggestions that tap water was less safe, or even an imminent threat to immune deficient people (demonstrably not true) and claimed that all water extraction and bulk sale in Canada is tightly regulated (simply utterly false: there is no regulation on groundwater extraction in British Columbia). But the main point he wanted to make: this was about freedom of choice.

Of course, our students make lots of choices. They may choose to work hard at school and get better grades, they may choose to play video games all night. They may choose to join an environmental club. They choose their friends, and their clothes, and their extra-curricular activities. They may even choose to smoke, or do drugs. Of course, not all choices are equal, and one of the roles if the Education system is help them sift through these choices they are offered. The school system can help make some choices, or they can confuse the issue by allowing the aggressive marketing of the wrong choice to the captive audience of students on school. There is a reason we don’t have cigarette machines in schools, to have them would be to tacitly encourage that choice.

Once the Trustees started the discussion, it was clear the divide was already well drawn. Most seemed to like the recommendation on the table: that bottled water be phased out, along with sugared and caffeinated drinks, and this would not take place until the capitol plans (e.g. three new schools) are completed.

Seeing that this is a rather silly and arbitrary timeline (“we are able to do two things at once”), Trustee Watt attempted to amended the plan to remove the phrase linking the phased plan to the capitol projects. Atkinson, Graham and Cook paradoxically voted against this amendment, without providing good reasons for it, and the two other members abstained (thanks for coming out students, welcome to democracy). Trustee Ewen brought another amendment that water bottle filler fountains be brought to all schools: this received more support, but was accepted only after being watered down (pun?) by Goring asking for “costing” first. In the end, bottled water is leaving the schools, but not for at least another 6 years. Ugh.

The conversation around this was even more telling than the vote or the decision. Trustee Cook mis-quoted a newspaper article and used that as a suggestion that NWSS’s schools water was laced with lead. This sounded especially rich 5 minutes later when Trustee Goring asked (and not rhetorically) where the students ever got the idea that the water wasn’t safe. He suggested that more education about the water was needed (but presumably not from Cook). Of course, Cook thought the water bottle machines were fine, and that instead of getting rid of them, we should educate the students about making the right choice: he even used the successful advertising and social marketing campaigns against smoking as an example. As ridiculous as it sounds, Cook just made a compelling case for bringing cigarette machines back into high schools. The entire conversation was Hellerian .

If the purpose of the Board of Education is to educate, then they have succeeded: I learned a lot going to my first Board meeting. However, I fear I learned more about the Peter Principle than I did about Roberts Rules. As another audience member commented to me after: “If only these meetings were televised, none of these people would ever get re-elected”. On display were not only variations on Roberts Rules, but of basic decorum and respect one would learn in a Grade 2 class. People talked out of order to make cheap shots, people on the left side of the table shared whispered secrets while a person on the other side we talking, and vice versa. I watched one Trustee abstain from a vote on an amendment (causing it to fail), only 5 minutes later to argue a point that the amendment would have supported, leading one to assume he abstained not because he didn’t support the motion, but because of who moved it, or more accurately, which side of the table it came from. There didn’t seem to be any other logical reason for it. One 25-year trustee appeared to be comatose for most of the meeting. Neither people acting as chair (one was challenged successfully at one point) effectively managed the debate, evidenced best by the first half hour where everyone was arguing over some procedural issue relating to the minutes or previous meetings, with there being no motion on the floor to even discuss. After a half hour of unorganized bickering, it ended with no resolution. I felt sorry for the students who were present and had to see that.