Thoughts on BC Politics and More

Because we keep hearing about "echo chambers" I feel I need to talk about pie. A specific event I attended with pie in fact. When I lived in Calgary my area of the city had a tradition at election time of having an all-candidates meeting where the candidates would bring pie, enough pie for all. During the event there was the normal answering questions asked of everyone, or of specific candidates, but then there would be a break, and the attendees would try all the pies and judge who brought the best pie. It was a fun event and helped everyone see that no matter how different, we all liked pie. One year we had six parties there - this is central Calgary, so we all know that only two of them really have a shot at winning - but for that night it doesn't matter, we'll get to hear everyone's platform. As I'm looking around the room, I realize one of the parties didn't bring pie. The pie stations are all stet up at the back for during the first break when we...

Although official confirmation has not yet been provided, the federal government has indicated its willingness to re-negotiate the 20-year RCMP Police Service Agreements (PSA) that are set to expire in 2032. This comes as local governments, including UBCM, continue to call on the federal government to directly involve local governments as part of any negotiations.  Following the federal government’s 2022-2024 assessment of RCMP contract policing, the Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs advised of the intention to work with provinces and territories on the renegotiation of the PSAs. However, a March 2025 white paper by former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, which recommended that the federal government end its contract policing program, combined with the subsequent federal election, re-introduced uncertainty. In October, as part of the Federal-Provincial-Territorial Meeting of Ministers Responsible for Justice and Public S...

Ho-ho-ho, Merry Christmas! Who-who-who, deserves a candy cane or a lump of coal for 2025? The MMA Panel -- host Bob Mackin and Mario Canseco of Research Co and Andy Yan of the Simon Fraser University City Program -- made a list and checked it twice. Watch to find out who was naughty and who was nice ... CLICK HERE for the full story 

The limitation in any seat projection model is that it is impossible to predict how voters will behave in each individual riding with a great degree of confidence. Even though a national poll of 1,500 Canadians can only hint at the broader shifts in public opinion, for the most part ridings generally swing according to those broader shifts. But there’s always some variation from one riding to the next. Granted, some of that variation will always be unpredictable without more granular data, such as riding-level polling. But the rest of that variation can be predicted to some degree by analyzing what impact certain types of candidates have had in the past. When they matter at all, that is ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Metro Vancouver politicians spent their last week in meetings before the holidays doing what politicians often do — blaming other politicians at other levels of government. “To some people watching this, it's going to look like we are actually the third Spiderman in that meme: we're also the ones pointing fingers at senior government," said New Westminster Mayor Patrick Johnstone at a Mayors' Council meeting last week. He made the comments after a staff presentation that outlined new difficulties in getting expected funding for TransLink due to changes to how the federal government is funding transit. Later that day, other Metro Vancouver mayors signed a letter criticizing a different level of government — the provincial one — for their housing policies ... CLICK HERE for the full story 

IMAGE CREDIT:   Scholars Portal I didn't grow up with politics. Unlike so many Canadian families, my family didn't debate political issues around the supper table, it was more about the Canuck's latest loss and which child was hiding peas in their napkin.  Consequently when I left high school, political jargon was foreign, social studies was my toughest subject, and I'd taken zero part in municipal, provincial or federal political movements.  I went into forestry. First college and then years spent in the bush learning more about communal living, teamwork, and after drawing the short straw, how to build shitters.  Eventually I had to come back to society to raise a daughter which I wasn't very good at and try to figure out how to be a 'school mom.' Instead of doing homework every night we were doing crazy eights in the snow in the backyard on a Baha Minibike. I kept up the  writing I'd done my whole life, had a blog, did a column for Castanet and wrote s...

  We're learning some stunning news about Metro Vancouver's leadership team. Catherine Urquhart has the exclusive details ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Sixteen mayors from Metro Vancouver have penned an open letter to BC Premier David Eby, outlining concerns with bills 44 and 47 and provincial overreach into municipal decision-making. “The letter… expresses our collective concerns with the limited coordination and consultation by the province with local governments in developing Bills 44 and 47 (2023), the misalignment of province-wide requirements with the Metro Vancouver region’s land use and infrastructure context and regional planning frameworks,” the letter states. “We’re just writing to the premier appealing to them to roll back this legislation, allow local governments to do what they were elected to do,” Burnaby Mayor Mike Hurley said at a press conference on Thursday ... CLICK HERE for the full story 

With the NDP’s track record of opacity and non-disclosure when it comes to First Nations land use agreements, this bill needs some scrutiny.   ... “These changes give First Nations and local governments the space to discuss culturally sensitive and confidential information related to government-to-government negotiations without fear of harm,” was the government’s rationale. But any move to make in-camera meetings easier to conduct than they already are needs a hard look. With the NDP’s track record of ­opacity and non-disclosure when it comes to First Nations land-use agreements, this bill needs some scrutiny ... CLICK HERE for the full story

The head of a large shelter on Pandora Avenue in Victoria — in the midst of the street disorder of the city's most high-profile homeless encampment — told delegates at the Union of B.C. Municipalities (UBCM) conference that the province needs to shift its focus on homelessness. Our Place CEO Julian Daly said BC must treat it as a health issue, and that the most compassionate way forward may be involuntary treatment for some. "That is controversial, I know," Daly said, "but if someone is so unwell that they cannot make informed decisions about their health care, then leaving them to die on the sidewalk with little but their liberties intact is not compassion. It is abandonment" ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Municipal politicians used the first day of the Union of BC Municipalities convention in Victoria to push the BC government to do more to curb ongoing street disorder in their downtown cores, saying the addictions, crime and mental health issues have grown far beyond their ability to control. A collection of urban mayors representing cities with 60 per cent of the province’s population said the government has left thousands of housing units that could address homelessness unfunded. Victoria mayor Marianne Alto said cities are overwhelmed trying to handle the social services, shelters, housing services, transportation and other upstream costs needed to slow the demand on policing and public works budgets that respond to the disorder ... CLICK HERE for the full story 

Mayors and councillors from across BC head to Victoria this week to try and squeeze help for health care, crime, street disorder and infrastructure out of a provincial NDP government that’s dead broke and in a political tailspin. The Union of BC Municipalities convention occurs right across the street from the legislature, but the gap between the two sides in terms of demand and delivery is more like a chasm. For many communities, the top issue oscillates between health-care shortages and public safety—both of which fall squarely in the lap of the provincial government ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Before he made the jump to politics, BC real estate developer Eric Woodward announced a plan to transfer $55 million worth of property to a new charity. All profits from developing or renting that land, he said, would go toward local causes. The 2018 municipal election was in sight for the Township of Langley in BC’s Fraser Valley, and Woodward told a local newspaper the move could help him avoid conflict-of-interest allegations if he decided to run. Two months later, Woodward was elected to council. By 2022, he was mayor.  Seven years have passed since that pledge. The Eric Woodward Foundation (EWF) was established as a non-profit in 2019, announced some donations in its first few years and then took over management of the annual Fort Langley Cranberry Festival in 2020 ... CLICK HERE for the full story 

Former Conservative MP Kerry-Lynne Findlay   The Conservative Electors Association, British Columbia’s Conservative municipal party, is pleased to announce the appointment of the Hon. Kerry-Lynne Findlay, P.C. K.C. as Chair of the Advisory Board, and Elaine Allan as Vice-Chair. Findlay brings extensive experience in public service and leadership. She is a former Chief Opposition Whip, Minister of National Revenue, Associate Minister of National Defence, and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice. She represented South Surrey–White Rock (2019–2025) and Delta–Richmond East (2011–2015) as a Member of Parliament and has also held senior leadership positions within Canada’s legal community. “Local government is where affordability, safety, and competence are felt most directly,” said Hon. Kerry-Lynne Findlay. “As Advisory Board Chair, my focus will be on strategy, as well as recruiting and mentoring Conservative candidates for mayor and council across British Columbia. Conse...

I wonder why, in today’s world, we continue with the rhetoric that public participation and our voting are hallmarks of our democracy? Today at our municipal, school board, provincial and federal levels, those who are elected most often succeed based on political party affiliation/support, or slates and willingness to bloc vote – to hell with independent critical thinking, common sense, accountability, and transparency – and heaven forbid real public input! So, in politics, we see avoidance of real issues, no real tangible solutions, adherence to some minority view or ideology to address or avoid addressing real problems. We regularly witness minority supported projects and dutiful virtue signaling and benefit to political supporters ... CLICK HERE for the full story

The BC government says it will consider mandatory codes of conduct for municipal governments after years of calls to strengthen the ad hoc approach that has long been criticized as ineffective. Article content The province did not commit to a schedule for implementing mandatory codes or provide details on how they might be administered and enforced. It will discuss the subject with municipal staff and elected officials in the coming months and aims to have some kind of new measures in place before next year’s municipal elections, a BC Ministry of Municipal Affairs spokesperson said in a statement on Tuesday  ... CLICK HERE for the full story

There were always supposed to be two parts to BC’s municipal housing strategy: the carrot and the stick. The stick has been in wide use since 2023, when the province began whacking municipalities with binding targets and deadlines on housing construction. But the carrot? Well, that promised financial aid for roads, water, sewers, transit and other critical infrastructure never quite materialized. The latest to express frustration at the BC NDP’s ‘beatings will continue until morale improves’ municipal housing strategy is Coquitlam Mayor Richard Stewart ... CLICK HERE for the full story 

Conservative MLAs say the NDP government has lost control of the healthcare crisis in British Columbia, as local governments from Merritt to Nanaimo are now escalating mental health and addictions issues to Ottawa out of sheer desperation. IMAGE CREDIT : Neuroscience Institute “When mayors start writing to federal MPs instead of the Health Minister, it just proves the provincial government’s inability to deal with the crisis,” said  Claire Rattée , MLA for Skeena and Critic for Mental Health and Addictions. “Addictions, poverty, and mental illness are colliding across this province. The system is underfunded, unaffordable, and dangerously inaccessible,” Rattée continued.  “Experts say mental health should make up 12% of the health budget, BC isn’t even close. And now Merritt’s mayor is appealing to Ottawa because the province won’t act. This is all happening amidst a larger healthcare crisis in BC. We don’t just have gaps, we have total breakdowns.” In Merritt, ...

As the Alberta Christian Municipal Rally tour moved through the province this week, the tired old complaint of politically-active Christians “violating the separation of church and state” once again reared its ugly head. Whenever conservative Christians bring their beliefs into their politics, the church is allegedly influencing the state and thereby forcing those beliefs on unwilling citizens. This violates the vital “separation of church and state” of our secular society, it is said. Christians should keep their religion to themselves and not bring it into the public square. This old canard needs to be put to rest ... CLICK HERE for the full story 

Bike lanes and tracks are a scourge on the roads of Canadian cities. They tie up traffic, steal parking from suffering urban businesses and are barely used for half of the year. The underlying reason for expanding bicycle infrastructure has nothing to do with bicycle commuters. Years of studies have shown that despite the addition of countless kilometers of new bike lanes, the number of people who commute daily by bicycle remains a tiny minority of citizens. So why are bike lanes expanding so much when there is no real demand for them? It’s due to density-obsessed urban planners who have infested city bureaucracies. They tend to be downtown living hipsters who believe that if they can live without a personal automobile, everybody should be able to do the same ... CLICK HERE for the full story