Vol. 22 Issue 30
November 12, 2014 to November 19, 2014
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NEWS
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca
Wi-fi woes
News
4
Opinion
6
Culture
28
Arts in Review
30
Doctor Who season finale
Sports & Health
32
Vitamins A to Z
Have you noticed problems with UFV’s wireless internet lately? We’ve got the latest on what’s going on, and an update from the IT department on how soon you can expect it to improve.
Writing against #womenagainstfeminism Do you cringe or get a passionate sense of liberation when you hear the word “feminism?” Are feminism’s negative connotations due to the term’s meaning being misconstrued? Vanessa has more to say on the topic.
A celebration of global indegeneity It’s International Education Week! Check out the upcoming events section for lectures, exhibits and events celebrating global indigeneity happening all week at UFV. Free food, discussion and celebration abound!
Did you catch Doctor Who’s final episode of the season? Check out Daniel Holmberg’s review — but beware, spoilers ahead!
What do you know about vitamins, other than you probably aren’t getting enough of them? Check out our health column!
Breaking the fourth wall of politics Sticking your hand out the window to shake hands isn’t engagement
KATIE STOBBART
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Once, I wanted to be a politician. I went far away to do it — after all, that’s where real politics happen: in officious brick buildings with perfectly sculpted shrubbery, ornate furniture, and men in shiny shoes or wearing suits that cost more than my rent. After the first year in Ottawa I took a plane back across the country for good, because that high-gloss, sharptongued, walled-in world was one I wanted no part of. I thought about the reasons I wanted to be a politician (to change things for the better, to bring power back to people, and other such ideals) and I thought, there’s no room for that to happen. There’s no room here for me. Maybe municipal politics aren’t quite Parliament, but there is still that feel of rigidity and façade. It’s an elaborate show in which only the actors really seem to know what’s going on, and many — not all — are unwilling to share. Many candidates for office can’t or won’t give a straight answer to a question, refuse to admit when they’ve forgotten a line, and especially refuse to ‘fess up when they’ve fucked up. Instead they resort to rambling on why we should care about politics. Why we should vote for them. They complain we’re not engaged, but are at a loss for real solutions. In an editorial two months ago, I wondered if students are part of student life here at UFV, lamenting the lack of engagement in campus community. A good friend reminded me this week that such plaintive missives are uncomfortably similar to what we heard from a lot of politicians. Journalists and politicians
have something in common: a concern with service of the public. Politicians govern and set societal directives; they move the plot forward. Journalists tell the story. This month, The Cascade cleared papers and half-full coffee mugs off our old Ikea furniture and sat down in our lunchroom with candidates from all over the Fraser Valley. At the end of one of those interviews, one candidate asked me: how do we engage students? It’s a question I’ve been asked before, and I still didn’t know how to answer. The same friend gave me a solution.
“Clearly we need to get out of the office more,” he said. It’s something I thought politicians needed to understand — why can’t they see how separate they are, or at least appear to be, from our everyday experience? Politicians will shake your hand at the grocery store or the movie theatre and introduce themselves, maybe even give a short speech or cut a ribbon, and then they call it an effort to engage the public. It’s acting, not action. There’s no room for the audience — for the public — in it. Engagement happens when the people have the power; elected officials are not to be
power-holders per se but act in service of the power-holders. To accomplish that, the walls have to come down. Real politics don’t happen behind a brick façade; they happen out in the open. As journalists, we need to step out of our office and engage students where the students are. Politicians need to step out of their offices and engage people where the people are. Otherwise we all risk falling out of touch with reality. This municipal election is an opportunity for change. It’s your chance to elect people who will act in your service, and not just put on a show.
Volume 22 · Issue 30 Room C1027 33844 King Road Abbotsford, BC V2S 7M8 604.854.4529 Editor-in-Chief katie@ufvcascade.ca Katie Stobbart Managing Editor valerie@ufvcascade.ca Valerie Franklin Director of Business Development joe@ufvcascade.ca Joe Johnson Webmaster ashley@ufvcascade.ca Ashley Mussbacher Copy Editor kodie@ufvcascade.ca Kodie Cherrille News Editor michael@ufvcascade.ca Michael Scoular Opinion Editor brittney@ufvcascade.ca Brittney Hensman Culture Editor nadine@ufvcascade.ca Nadine Moedt Arts in Review Editor sasha@ufvcascade.ca Sasha Moedt Sports Editor catherine@ufvcascade.ca Catherine Stewart Production and Design Editor stewart@ufvcascade.ca Stewart Seymour Art Director anthony@ufvcascade.ca Anthony Biondi Production Assistant shyanne@ufvcascade.ca Shyanne Schedel News Writer megan@ufvcascade.ca Megan Lambert Staff Writers alex@ufvcascade.ca Alex Rake vanessa@ufvcascade.ca Vanessa Broadbent Varsity Writer nathan@ufvcascade.ca Nathan Hutton Arts and Culture Writer martin@ufvcascade.ca Martin Castro Contributors Ryan Dhillon, Sandeep Dosanjh, Remington Fioraso, Jeremy Hannaford, Daniel Holmberg, Alex Jesus, Jasmin Sprangers Printed By International Web exPress The Cascade is UFV’s autonomous student newspaper. It provides a forum for UFV students to have their journalism published. It also acts as an alternative press for the Fraser Valley. The Cascade is funded with UFV student funds. The Cascade is published every Wednesday with a circulation of 1500 and is distributed at UFV campuses and throughout Abbotsford, Chilliwack, and Mission. The Cascade is a member of the Canadian University Press, a national cooperative of over 50 university and college newspapers from Victoria to St. John’s. The Cascade follows the CUP ethical policy concerning material of a prejudicial or oppressive nature. Submissions are preferred in electronic format through e-mail. Please send submissions in “.txt” or “.doc” format only. Articles and letters to the editor must be typed. The Cascade reserves the right to edit submissions for clarity and length. The Cascade will not print any articles that contain racist, sexist, homophobic or libellous content. The writer’s name and student number must be submitted with each submission. Letters to the editor must be under 250 words if intended for print. Only one letter to the editor per writer in any given edition. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect that of UFV, Cascade staff and collective, or associated members.
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NEWS
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca
SUS transit referendum passes to expand connectors between Chilliwack, Abbotsford, and Langley VANESSA BROADBENT
THE CASCADE
After a week-long referendum, Student Union Society (SUS) announced they will be increasing shuttle bus service between Chilliwack and Abbotsford as well as adding service between Langley and Abbotsford. Increased service between Chilliwack and Abbotsford received 70 per cent positive votes (312 yes, 136 no, 32 no opinion), and 53 per cent of voters were in favour of service between Abbotsford and Langley (220 yes, 196 no, 64 no opinion). The required amount of votes needed for referendum results to be valid is 450, and 480 students voted. The changes will be implemented this coming January. Students currently pay $17.75 each semester for the service. This will be changing to $26.70, with an additional $3.50 for Chilliwack service and $5.45 for Langley. SUS president Ryan Petersen explains that now that the results from the referendum are in, SUS can go ahead and implement the changes. The next step is to inform the university that there is a change. “Now we just tell them that it went through and we’ll have the money in January,” he says. “We’ll notify the Office
Image:: UFV flickr
High demand for the Chilliwack connector has left some students without a ride to school, making additional routes necessary. of the Registrar, because it has to be [added] on to people’s fees now. Then it will change for the winter semester.” The bus will transport students between Willowbrook Mall in Langley and the main UFV campus in Abbotsford. Petersen explains that the location was chosen because it is a central location, as well as a safe place to drop students off that is close to other transit. “It has the parking space to be able to put a bus, and there are always [city] buses running
to that particular mall, so it’s easy to transfer between different lines,” he says. This will be the second time in the past year SUS has passed a mid-semester referendum to increase service, a project that has required several levels of coordination. “Our services director [Shane Potter] is working with Impark, they’re the ones who are actually provided the buses and the drivers and everything. And then Impark works with the municipalities, that’s
how we got agreeance to be able to work within the mall space, because other buses already work there,” he says. Petersen explains that he expected the increased service between Chilliwack and Abbotsford to pass. “I was fairly certain that the Chilliwack one would pass. We were getting a lot of angry emails saying that people missed their bus and couldn’t get on the bus. I knew people wanted that,” he says. Petersen was surprised, however, with the results of the Langley bus question. “I was surprised about the Langley one ... I didn’t think it would go through, but we do it because that’s what our membership wanted, that’s what they asked us to do,” he says. “We’ve always had members coming from Langley saying that it’s great that [we] offered this for the Chilliwack students, but [that they] felt a little bit left out.” The referendum passed with a low number of voters, even compared to previous questions on the same topic. Last year’s service expansion was decided by 862 votes, almost double the count this time. “It’s always an ongoing conversation we’re trying to have,” Petersen says. “It’s not even at the university level
— you look at any level of election, you see pretty low turnout, be it municipal, provincial, federal. Before I got involved in this, I thought “Well, that’s just how things are,” but when you’re trying to effect change, you’re trying to look for people’s feedback, you’re like, “No! You should be participating in this, you should be letting us know that yes, you love this service, or no, you don’t think the service is a good idea.” SUS promotional staff have made more detailed posters for recent projects proposed to students, but has yet to see a positive change when it comes to turnout. “We do our best, we try to run advertisements, we throw up as many posters as we can on both campuses, we have information booths set up at high-traffic areas ... We’re almost at a loss at this point,” Petersen says. “It would be fun or interesting or beneficial if we could think of something else that could really get everyone’s attention. “But we all have a responsibility as well when we’re part of something to be aware of it and how we can better participate in it.” With files from Michael Scoular.
Police say body-cam technology not worth the risk MEGAN LAMBERT
THE CASCADE
With accounts of police brutality becoming more easily captured and spread through online media, citizens and police forces alike are attempting to adapt to new conditions of surveillance and mistrust. In particular, there is the ongoing story in Ferguson, Missouri, where some have wondered if details about the shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown might have been more easily presentable in court if police were fitted with video-capture equipment. In some American cities, police forces are adopting the technology in an attempt to monitor officer-citizen interaction, and other departments in North America are paying attention to these developments as well. However, Constable Ian
MacDonald from the Abbotsford Police Department (APD) says that just because the technology exists doesn’t mean the police force needs it. “We’re aware of the technology, we’re monitoring how other police departments are doing with [it], but we certainly not, at this point in time, are at the point where we’ve made any purchases,” he says. Maintaining the equipment, organizing the data, and managing a library of information would require a small team of people. In order to keep the budget balanced, MacDonald says that the department would need to cut existing resources in order to add in new ones. “If the cost of them and the maintenance of them is going to be taking ‘x’ number of officers off the street, is that going to enhance public safety?” The APD is present on social
media and has integrated texting into their emergency services. MacDonald notes they aren’t resistant to technology, but new gadgets may become obsolete with rapidly changing technology. “You don’t want to be buying a system that’s going to rely on today’s technology if you’re not going to be implementing it for two years,” he says, using other police departments’ VHS tapes in previous years as an example. Turning the camera on or off, who handles the footage, and capturing video of noncriminal activity in the community or of an officer’s lunch or restroom break are all questions of privacy — the terms of which are grey areas for police departments adopting the equipment. “There’s a whole bunch of questions that have to be dealt with,” MacDonald says, not-
ing that there is a balance between demonstrating the body camera’s value to public safety and the right to privacy. Video surveillance is already used in public spaces like grocery stores and malls, traffic intersections, government institutions, and some schools. A set of cameras was aimed at neighbourhood streets in West Abbotsford last year after suspected criminal activity, but MacDonald notes that it’s different when law enforcement is directly involved. “What’s interesting is when it comes to a discussion about police capturing your image, it becomes more contentious,” he says. However, MacDonald says the general public has access to surveillance via smartphones, noting that officers have been recorded by citizens using their devices. Regarding police brutal-
ity and miscommunication between officers, MacDonald says only that the police’s mandate is to represent the public. “When those two groups don’t work in partnership, the end result isn’t going to be positive,” he says, adding that any potential use of body cams would be discussed with the city. “It’s for the community and the society to decide,” he says. APD won’t be incorporating body cams in the near future. The decision, a combination of finances, public opinion, and the nature of a community’s crime situation, points clearly in one direction, according to MacDonald. “The benefit of deploying the cameras has to pay for itself in terms of public safety,” he says. “Otherwise it’s just a toy.”
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NEWS
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca
UFV’s wi-fi problems to improve by winter: IT department Campuses to switch from provincial to post-secondary institutional network MEGAN LAMBERT
THE CASCADE
According to UFV’s IT services, recent complaints about the university’s inconsistent wi-fi networks are mainly due to user settings and outdated infrastructure. UFV Secure and UFV Wireless are networks local to UFV, acting much like a personal wi-fi account you might set up at home. Eduroam, which first became available to students at the beginning of the semester, is a network in universities across Canada as well as in institutions abroad. It uses the same login information to automatically keep users connected if their devices power on or off, and allows them to log in at any other university that also carries Eduroam.
Many of the issues users report to IT services come from the initial confusion of logging on to the different networks — with UFV Wireless and UFV Secure, the two standard options before 2014-15, students simply use their student number as a username. When using Eduroam, users type their student numbers and add @ufv.ca, because every time a student uses it, the connection checks in with the server at each institution. “Apparently some people have had trouble getting onto the Eduroam network because it uses a different type of authentication,” says Bryan Daniel, manager of IT and infrastructure at UFV. Bryan Wilkinson, manager of IT and client support, explains that another possible reason for this could be a student’s firewall or anti-viral
programs. “A lot of the time these software packages are very intrusive and they won’t allow the certificate to be accepted properly,” he says. Changing DNS settings to work with proxy server software won’t let devices accept Eduroam’s certificate — so if you’re streaming American Netflix, you might run into some problems logging in. Daniel also noted IT replaced a wireless controller last week, causing outages in certain areas. Provincial Learning Network (PLNet), the current service provider, is managed by the provincial government and provides internet access to K-12 schools, government institutions, and post-secondary schools in BC. However, UFV is switching providers to BCNET, a service provider
LIBT professor speaks for continuing education ALEX RAKE THE CASCADE
A lack of voice and a focus on job-specific training are growing issues for library workers, says Christina Neigel, associate professor in the Library Information and Technology department at UFV. Neigel recently published an article on her blog discussing the current emphasis on skill-training for specific roles in the library, as opposed to “significant learning” for personal development. She explains that discussion about continuing education is “limited to a focus on skill development for the purpose of creating efficient organizations and employees.” Neigel says that “training is limited in that [while] it enables us to perform our jobs as they evolve ... [it] cannot empower us to speak up and it cannot act as the key that unlocks our passion to do better.” Elaborating on her post in an interview, Neigel suggests training and continuing education are separate tools; training is for improving job performance, while continuing education should involve “people coming forward and
identifying from their own situations what it is that they feel they need to grow as an individual.” She suggests providing opportunities to participate in meaningful discussion to help employees come closer to “self-actualization.” While Neigel acknowledges that there were not always “fantastic opportunities for [individual] growth and development,” she notices that the situation has become a lot worse in the last 15 years. Explaining that this situation is not unique to libraries, Neigel says that “employees are increasingly not given a voice to express their own interests, concerns, and observations about not just their own workplace but what’s happening beyond it.” This decreasing opportunity, Neigel argues, has also left workers with less “political and social capital” that would help them grow, particularly for those in lower-paying, more introductory positions. Such workers “perhaps have greater concerns about hanging on to their jobs,” which further “minimizes their ability to have a voice.” Along with the lack of opportunities for individual development, Neigel says that many workers are not paid
enough for the services they provide their communities. “The organizations aren’t willing to invest in these people to allow them to grow and [employees] can’t find the money in their own personal coffers, and so they become entrapped,” she says. “It’s a problem.” Neigel also senses problems with new public management, that “using rationalized systems to make [people] accountable for [their] actions so that [organizations] are — in theory — spending taxpayers’ money in the most knowledgeable and informed way” does not properly “take into account the kind of work that actually goes on when you work with other people.” Neigel concludes that while there are efforts being made to make libraries and employees better, “nobody is talking about how some of these things require a complete overhaul in the ways library professionals are educated and equipped to deal with these transformations.” She fears that this is “a huge problem that we’re unwilling to talk about openly.” Neigel has worked in the library industry for over 20 years. Her blog can be found at libitufv.blogspot.ca.
for post-secondary institutions operating in BC and connected to Canada’s National Research and Education Network (CANARIE). IT thinks this will improve connection at UFV. “We wouldn’t be seeing as many delays, especially with rich media content coming through,” Wilkinson says. “We’re looking at that implementation in the new year.” Daniel explains that if UFV switches to an independent service provider, it’ll most likely be faster, partly because it is separate from the 1,800 public buildings otherwise using the same service — freeing up bandwidth. Regarding the general slowness, Wilkinson notes that the existing equipment and infrastructure wasn’t initially designed for so much usage. Because of the technological
Correction
boom in the last few years, Canadian students carry more wireless devices with them at a time. Wilkinson notes that the technology and infrastructure UFV put in place a few years ago can’t keep up. “Students may have two or three wireless devices, and that sucks up a lot of bandwidth,” he says. The new service provider should be in place for the Winter 2015 semester, but Wilkinson notes that the physical upgrades will happen bit by bit. “We’re always putting proposals forth for capital funding that would hopefully cover the infrastructure upgrades,” he says. “So that’s a budgetary item that needs to be approved.”
In “Potential job openings discussed at SUS board meeting” published in Issue 29 on November 5, 2014 we said “SUS also passed motions to increase the funding that executives receive for food while on business trips and to update their ex-officio policy.” In actuality, SUS executives funding was decreased from $60 per day to $50 per day. The Cascade apologizes for any confusion caused by this error.
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OPINION
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca
SNAPSHOTS
Dear Mr. Monster Truck
Curtailed commentary on current conditions
“Elect-shuns”
Faith hate
Travelling local
Jasmine Sprangers
Megan Lambert
Ryan Dhillon
Remington Fioraso
You know how it is: you’re fresh out of class with a slight headache, and tired after a long day. The dread of having to drive home in the dark and pouring rain is probably running through your mind. Conditions this time of year are bad enough, but then you have Mr. Monster Truck driving behind you. And his bright lights are blinding and inches from your back bumper. Lovely, now you’re tired, blind, AND have a secret hate for the one behind you. We’re all guilty of tailgating occasionally, and blinding someone is sometimes unavoidable. But, Mr. Monster Truck, the next time you drive in horrible weather, try and keep your distance, and if tailgating is unavoidable then dimming the lights would be greatly appreciated. Sincerely, all smallcar drivers.
I’m not a Christian. But some people love to hate on Christianity without an open mind of what it is outside of the stories we read online, the punch-lines of our jokes at house parties, or perhaps our own bad experiences with the church. One bad experience doesn’t mean that “Christians are this” or “Christians are that” — in fact, Christians aren’t any one thing. They are just as diverse as everybody else. There are good and bad apples in every tree, so if you open your mind to the possibility of a non-judgemental and good-natured human, someone might surprise you.
It is rare to see long lines of eager young voters waiting to cast their ballots. In the 2011 civic election, 70 to 80 per cent of eligible voters refrained from casting a vote. This level of apathy may carry further into adulthood, as these nonvoters will inevitably join the multitudes of British Columbians who suffer from political lethargy. Perhaps it’s a lack of interest or knowledge pertaining to municipal politics? Or perhaps it is due to a lack of engaging, charismatic figures vying for mayor and other positions. Learning about politics and politicians in Abbotsford is like a hangover without the luxury of intoxication the night before — it is no wonder voting is met with apathy by young voters. A shift that not only engages the public, but is also conducive to their interests is needed. Maybe that’s what it will take to get young people to vote instead of posting a status.
On November 4, Destination BC released their new ad campaign to attract tourists to the province. From simply living here, I know the beauty of the natural landscape. One example is the top of the Fraser River by the Rocky Mountains. Yet while tourism is promoting what the province has to offer, it is not truly accessible for most of the people living here. Travelling within the province is expensive, and this is not simply because I’m on a student budget. When my family travelled to the mainland from Vancouver Island, we saw very clearly that costs have steadily increased. It easily costs almost $250 for a return trip on ferry alone. When I can travel to Ottawa for the same price as northern British Columbia, it makes little sense to travel within our own province.
Cat overpopulation is a serious problem; government should pitch in MARTIN CASTRO
THE CASCADE
Canada is facing a serious stray cat overpopulation problem, according to the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies (CFHS). This is partly due to the fact dogs are more commonly admitted to shelters than cats, as they’re easier to find families for. Dogs are relatively easy for people to adopt because they are usually good at interacting with people and form bonds quite quickly. Cats, on the other hand, are harder to find homes for. Cats are very independent animals — they don’t like as much direct physical contact as dogs, and a family with a young child looking to get a pet might be more inclined to adopt a dog or a kitten than an adult cat. Because of those reasons, there are far more cats in shelters than dogs. There are also a lot more stray cats in the streets. Unspayed and unneutered cats reproduce with as many partners as they can during their mating period, and unspayed and unneutered cats give birth to litters of kittens. And
Image: Open-arms/ flickr
“What’s new, pussycat? Whoa, whoa, whoa ... ” — Tom Jones as cute and adorable as kittens are, the supply of cats is rapidly surpassing the demand for them. Part of the problem is that shelters are not the last destination for stray cats, although that’s how they are seen. Cats should go from the street to a shelter where they are taken care of, treated for disease, and nursed back to health.
Then cats should go to a loving and caring home. But a lot of the time, especially for older cats, the third step is not fulfilled. Where does this leave us? It leaves us with a lot of cats on the streets, and a lot of cats in shelters, but none in homes. There are two ways of solving this problem: have the spaying
and neutering of cats be federally funded and carried out according to an acceptable standard, or have people start to adopt more cats in order to give these otherwise stray cats a home. However, it seems as if the adoption of cats isn’t getting any more popular, so the solution to the problem lies in the spaying and neutering of cats
backed financially by the federal government. The SPCA and CFHS, along with independent cat shelters, can only do so much with the resources they have. The government itself should help out with either funding or manpower to reduce the reproduction rate or find these stray cats a home. The SPCA is an organization that relies mainly on public funding to house and rehabilitate stray cats and kittens, and although they fundraise and accept donations from the public, most shelters are run by individuals and held to different standards. These shelters should be standardized in the way they’re run, and then become a federal government subsidy. When they mate, cats go everywhere and mate with as many others as they can, populating wherever, regardless of city or province boundaries — meaning the cat problem is not centralized. This is why the spaying and neutering of our feline friends should be on a federal level.
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OPINION
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca
Not all are #womenagainstfeminism VANESSA BROADBENT
THE CASCADE
“I don’t need feminism because I love men and a women-only world would be a nightmare.” “I don’t need feminism because I am not a delusional, disgusting, hypocritical man-hater!” “I don’t need feminism because I love my boyfriend and respect him, I make my own decisions without being pressured, I enjoy makeup and like feeling pretty, [and] also don’t need to be superior to men.” These are a few of the posts from the Women Against Feminism social media campaign, a project dedicated to belittling feminism and those identifying themselves as feminists. This campaign started in July 2013 and is still going strong. Females are encouraged to write down why they feel they don’t need feminism on a sheet of paper and post a picture of themselves holding it with the hashtag #womenagainstfeminism. What most of these women don’t know is the real definition of a feminist: someone who supports the rights and equality of women. I am proud to call myself a feminist, and last time I checked, I am not a man-hater trying to achieve
Image: Women Against Feminism/ Facebook
Do anti-feminists understand what feminism encompasses? a women-only world. I don’t hate makeup and feeling pretty, and I definitely don’t feel a need to be superior to men. All I want is equality for women. That’s it. Most women don’t realize how much feminism has actually accomplished. Thanks to feminism, women can now vote, own land,
UFV SPEAKS
run for public office, and be educated. These things we often take for granted. One of the arguments that antifeminists are making is that we don’t need feminism anymore because our society does not oppress women. If you feel that you don’t need feminism because
What does feminism mean to you?
Avery McGurk
“People are so quick to call themselves feminists when they aren’t really campaigning about anything. Actual feminism is when people go out of their way to help people in other countries where women aren’t able to go to school, rather than people who are getting catcalled in the streets.”
Tobi Jonathan
“Women are treated badly and I think feminism is an extreme way for women to cope with and deal with [the thought that] women should come together hate on men. Really it should be about women’s rights.”
Gary Dhadda
“I would say ... it is equality between men and women. That would mean every one is equal — there is no difference in pay, there’s no priority for a man or a woman. The [misconception] is that women should have more rights, and that is probably being pushed too much by a few extremists. “
Chris Brake
you’re not an oppressed woman, good for you. You are clearly not one of the one in four women who have been sexually abused; you probably don’t live in one of the 10 countries where women are legally bound to obey their husbands; you must be unaware 80 per cent of all slaves in the world
are female. Many of us have had the privilege of growing up in a country where we are lucky enough not to face gender discrimination on such a high level. There is the ever-present wage gap where Canadian women on average earn 26 per cent less than men, and you can’t open a magazine or watch a sports game on TV without seeing multiple ads using women’s bodies to sell their product. But for most of us, sexism is nothing more than being catcalled at or sarcastically told to get back in the kitchen and make a sandwich. If you don’t mind living with that, and don’t see a need for feminism in your day-to-day life, that’s okay. Though you may never personally face sexism or gender discrimination, the majority of women in the world do. So rather than sharing your hatred for feminism, think of what it has and is continuing to accomplish[ed]. Most of all, be thankful that you live in a society where you don’t feel discriminated against. Think twice before using the hashtag #womenagainstfeminism, because you are belittling those who still need it.
“The [negative] connotation makes sense; people are taking [feminism] too far. Instead of being equal they are wanting more [rights]. “
Seb Gibson
“I think the challenge with feminism is ... we are created differently and we are trying to create equal opportunities in an environment where there are specific needs that need to be met. I am all for equal rights, but it’s [about] maintaining the distinction between males and females.”
Kirsten Lee
“I think feminism is just having equality for both genders. It’s not just about having rights for women, it’s about having rights for men as well. It’s all under the same category of feminism. It’s getting rid of any stereotypes, like ‘women can’t be leaders,’ or ‘guys can’t be stay at home dads.’”
Ayla Hinds
“I believe it is equality. I think it’s viewed as a negative thing when it shouldn’t be.”
Bethany Gasser
“Feminism is about equality for men and women from a women’s perspective. ... Historically women have been the biggest threat to feminism; when we were arguing for the right to vote it was most women who were against it. Most of the fight right now is breaking down the social stigma attached to it.”
It’s dangerous to go alone, take this
A preface to The Cascade’s coverage of the 2014 municipal elections By Michael Scoular
“How can we desire truth if we have no prior knowledge of it? This is the mystery of all mysteries.” — Simone Weil “An interview is elusive because it is partly philosophical, partly biographical, partly theatrical.” — Geoff Hancock If it is possible to go through our lives — at home, work, and school; through art; with or apart from friends; unemployed or in the rush of dreamed-for careers — without ever caring about a municipal election, do they really matter? We asked every mayoral and city council candidate in Abbotsford, Chilliwack, and Mission about the role of municipal politics. Most of them answered: This is the level of government that matters. It is your daily life. You cannot live without touching it; you lose part of your voice as a citizen if you do not care about it. Yet here we are with an election coming up, and unless there is some invisible political momentum coming this Saturday, less than half the adults in the three cities will vote. Will they lead less full lives because of it? Many of the candidates pledging to give enormous amounts of time to the City say yes. The student with an already tight weekly timetable looks at a system characterized by financial reports and rezoning proposals, predominantly occupied by senior community members and call it incomprehensible. I live in Abbotsford, and the only time I’m aware there’s a local government doing things is when they prominently build something, or take something away. In the last three years, everyone heard about the Abbotsford Centre, many about the failed low-barrier housing project, and the local newspapers often use their front pages to talk about what the police have been doing lately. Everything else, it’s possible to miss. At The Cascade, we attempt to make it easier for students to know about the systems that determine much of what happens around them just by opening up a newspaper. There are a lot of ways we can do better, so we saw the upcoming local election as an opportunity: sure, we can do this. Then we realized we did not want to be Abbotsford-centric. Then we took a look at how many candidates there were. Then we literally died. We know now firsthand how convoluted and frustrating it is to find out what’s going on locally. At the same time, in the pages that follow, every candidate went on record to talk about what we asked them. The full interviews are available online, but we wanted you to be able to flip through a few pages, see each candidate’s own words, and choose whether you care based on how they actually communicate in person, rather than through a
perception that politics are just distant and compulsive and weird. Reading them, a few things become clear; others are just as confusing as the status quo I’ve tried to describe. So, a few notes to begin. Just what are you people anyway? Most election coverage by Fraser Valley newspapers is done by emailing out a short, simple questionnaire into which candidates can plug in their answers, often repeating their promotional statements with minor variations. Centralized information is nice to have, but we felt this kind of reporting, while easier to organize and less taxing on writers, allows politicians to do almost nothing and does not serve the public well. Interview transcripts are not perfect either, but provide key differences. In person, we could push for specific answers. Even with a platform script in mind, candidates could not predict questions in the interview. If not the whole truth, you get something closer to how a person expresses her or himself, reacts, and communicates. We asked questions that would be broad enough that candidates would not feel confronted, but pointed enough that it would be obvious if they weren’t actually listening or answering the question. This did happen; some simply repeated their stock campaign promises. • What is the role of municipal politics? Who do the candidates view as their constituents? This was an easy question, and most answered that it was everyone in their region. So we asked how they would communicate and engage with those constituents, and included this answer in print. • We asked how they plan to address student engagement specifically. Most answers were so similar and useless we didn’t include them in print. Many turned to social media, thinking this was the main way students communicate today, but most were at a loss, some apparently not having thought about this before the interview. Some answered that the interview itself was their method, but the paper has never interviewed every candidate before, and what would they have done if we hadn’t? The problem, it appears, is that since students are not a cohesive, issue-driven body of voters (like, say, seniors, or the arts community), showing up to talk to students does not guarantee votes. So it is not a priority. • If they were running to be elected into council, what would candidates do differently from the current council? Chilliwack candidates were reluctant to criticize council, Mission and Abbotsford less so. Incumbents were asked instead how their job or expectations have changed since the last campaign. Some tried to say it went
exactly as planned, which is believable only if you believe in platform rhetoric. Many used the question to talk about projects they would want to take on, which spurred our next question, but with an additional criterion: it had to be specific. • They could have talked about almost any specific project. The first thing they chose to talk about says something. We did not have the time to ask about every issue: the pipeline, the homeless, agriculture, transit, and so on. Organizing, interviewing, and writing this feature has taken hundreds of hours, even with just five questions each. It is imperfect, but we hope the first impulse, and how that is conveyed by each candidate, is helpful enough. • Mayoral candidates were asked additional questions about the nature of the job, the police board, provincial and corporate influence, and campaign promises. We also asked some candidates about significant positions they hold and plan to juggle if elected; Sandy Blue works with the City of Maple Ridge, Vince Dimanno runs a blog platform called Abbotsford Today, and Tina Stewart is president of the Abbotsford Downtown Business Association. Your name in print Our coverage also differs in appearance from city papers and your voting card. City papers are kept alive by advertising, so in addition to the studioshot, smiling profile pictures of each candidate, there are advertisements — also of candidates — on every page, crowding election information. Charisma plays a large role in candidates’ ability to get elected, but you’re coming here for something different. So we don’t have the exact same photos and haven’t tried to summarize their resumés. We also haven’t marked incumbents or featured slate identifiers prominently by the names above the fold. It should be acknowledged that incumbents are experienced and that some candidates are running as part of a group, but we think there is too much weight given when this is the first thing mentioned. You can tell who incumbents are by the different wording of the second question in print, and candidates from slates, in addition to being the most difficult to get interviews with, were always eager to mention their alliance in interviews. Tabula repleta We are not slates, they said repeatedly. We are a team, we are a group of like-minded individuals — not like-minded as in thought control, like we agree on a few key things. See, we don’t even use the word “slate” in our pamphlets, they said. Okay. Slates are primarily a force of branding. They choose names nobody
can disagree with. Would anyone in Abbotsford say that Abbotsford is not “first” in a theoretical political sliding scale of importance? In Mission, the Citizens for Responsible Municipal Government (CRMG) might be interested to know studies suggest few citizens are for irresponsible government. With five or so candidates and only one name to promote in each slate, advertising is also easier. In addition to the largest signs in the city, both groups have put out advert-newspapers with “articles” on “key issues” — the plan being presumably to reach voters who, because of the confusion and disorganization of campaign season, are thankful to have any information, no matter the source. The CRMG’s “Mission Messenger” was apparently, along with the group’s designation on the ballot, instrumental in its sweeping win in the last election. Other candidates are named, described, and sometimes discredited in its promotional material, which has caused some animosity, if not distaste for the whole political structure in Mission. Candidates have suggested slates are not the same as provincial or federal parties, since they will not be forced to always vote the same way. One thing is for sure: with the 2011 win in Mission, which could be seen as a model for the Abbotsford slate, there is the encouragement of municipal politics as an advertisement spending race, with borderline propaganda as the most valuable tool being used. A vote for mayor is not one for change Despite the prominence given to mayoral races in media coverage, the mayor has no more votes than any other city council member, and does not propose changes differently. The mayor can certainly attempt to sway other council members and is an influential voice in the community, but inside City Hall acts as merely one of a group. In Abbotsford, at least two council seats will be filled by new members; in Chilliwack at least one; and in Mission there is, with incumbents leaving the CRMG over contentious differences, the greatest possibility of changeover. Trust issues So we have the interviews. But are their words real? Are they making it up? Online, we will link to relevant stories in city papers that provide context for what candidates brought up: past council dealings, city developments in progress, and so on. There are two points brought up by nearly every candidate that I can briefly summarize. These are complex issues where the consensus is money needs to be saved and services improved, which is inherently fraught with contradiction. How the public chooses in this elec-
Interviewers and transcribers
tion will decide how these proceed. First is each city’s downtown core. Keeping crime away, attracting shoppers and new business, and making new business creation a relatively quick process are commitments in all three regions. The opposite poles of high business taxation and heavy process (which suggests a city “unwelcome” to business) versus a “welcoming” city with lower taxation and quick turnaround, both have their problems and reasons for existing. The current trend, at least according to candidates, is toward the latter. This relates to the second point: each city’s tax structure. Municipalities get most funding from citizen taxation, the largest one being property tax. One of the main dilemmas facing municipal politicians is weighing property tax increases with what could be paid for with additional funds. All three local governments, at the end of their terms, pride themselves on low property tax increases. All three must also consider debt. In Abbotsford, the largest contributor to debt was the construction of the Abbotsford Centre; in Mission, the Leisure Centre; and in Chilliwack, the Cultural Centre. Debt has been a particularly prominent issue in Mission; the CRMG has largely taken credit for efforts to pay it off, but plans for a debt retirement reserve predate the group’s election by a year. How could we forget the children? Unfortunately, we did not have enough people or time to include school trustee candidates in our coverage. Trustees appear to have little influence since it is the provincial government that sets curriculum, battles with teachers, and funds public schools. However, like city council, they work with infrastructure and planning, and can lobby the provincial government for change. We view our coverage as a first step into municipal politics. It is our hope that with this standard of political coverage set, the next group of students and student journalists will build on what we’ve started.
Note: In city council candidate for Mission Don Forsythe’s interview, he mentions a partnership between the District of Mission and the University of the Fraser Valley in relation to a building purchased by the district. UFV executive director of campus planning Craig Toews says this is not true. “UFV is aware that the District of Mission has purchased land in downtown Mission and that the district would like to see the land used for post-secondary education, but there are no plans currently underway to make that happen in partnership with UFV. There may be opportunities in the future for UFV to collaborate on this initiative,” he wrote in an email. Image: Purple Puppy / Flickr
Dessa Bayrock Vanessa Broadbent Kodie Cherrille Valerie Franklin Brittney Hensman Megan Lambert Aaron Levy Ashley Mussbacher Alex Rake Michael Scoular Katie Stobbart Illustrations by Anthony Biondi Conflict of interest Full disclosure: Katie Stobbart and Brittney Hensman have relatives running for city council in Mission. As such, they were excluded from conducting or transcribing interviews with candidates from that municipality. Business manager Joe Johnson managed the campaign of a Chilliwack school trustee, but had no input in our election coverage and wrote none of the words you see in this issue.
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CHILLIWACK CITY COUNCIL NEWS SUE ATTRILL
PHILL BRUCE
Engaging the public I attend about every event there is in town. I’m very social by nature, so I tend to talk to a lot of people out there that may not have any interest in municipal politics, but it’s amazing what they have to say when you approach them or see them at an event. I think I’m in a very good position because I ran the Chamber of Commerce in Chilliwack for a long time. I was on the radio and writing articles for the newspaper all of the time, so people know my name. They’re not afraid to approach me because a lot of them have met me or run into me at things. I think the most important thing is just to be open.
Engaging the public You have to engage people of all ages, all demographics. And part of my job as a long-term paramedic and a long-time fireman is I’ve always engaged people of different demographics and different age groups. From 18 to 94, whatever age we can get information back from helps. The problem with any part of government is we tend to lobby people just before an election: I want information, how do I get your vote? Really? You have to do that continuously. My father was a mayor in a small community, and one of the things he was really good at was engaging the people on the street and asking them what their opinion is, not just what their issues are but how to fix those issues.
What has changed? I’ve been a city councillor for six years. I remember when I first went into it I thought, “Wow, I’m going to change the world and I’m going to make silly rules go away and I’m going to provide this and that.” You realize really early on that ... [these] things happen really slowly, and you have to be patient. I’ve gotten a lot more involved in agriculture because it was one area that I didn’t really know that much about. I have a really strong business background, and one in five people working in Chilliwack are involved in agriculture, so to me it was really important to understand that segment. I have a much better understanding of some of the challenges that they face in agriculture here in Chilliwack [now] and the pressures that are on them as far as prices and competing with other areas that have a longer growing season.
What would you change? Sometimes true leadership has to do with stepping forward and saying, no, I disagree with that, and there’s a reason why I disagree with it. A good example: I think we had an issue with building on the hillside, which I think was an issue called Marble Hill, and the city was called a house of marbles. Right? So they built on that, but there was a lot of pressure at City Hall for people to put up their hands and say, let’s build this. The thing to do is to get enough information so people at the council level can make an informed decision. People — for example, developers — use a framing technique where they give you all the positives but they don’t give you all the negatives on that. So have all of the information brought forward.
New projects The basic thing is safety. Every time we go to fight for dollars for this type of thing I’m always working for more RCMP, but I’m also looking for better ways of spreading those resources around, for communities to be more aware of what’s going on in their own communities, and making ways for people to report crime and be responded to.
New projects I’m on a board with the mayor’s committee for crime and safety, and I would like to stick with a mandate like that. Fire departments and search and rescue have asked me to help them. Since I’ve worked as a unit chief in East Vancouver, I have a really good understanding of social issues. I’d probably, to start with, stick with my strengths.
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BRIGIDA CROSBIE
BRENDA CURRIE
GERRY GOOSEN
Engaging the public The majority of people have actually gone out and gotten signs; I haven’t. My thing has always been about going up to people and talking to people. That kind of stuff, introduce myself, I’ve always done that — I’ve worked at the hospital 28 years, a lot of people know me. So I’m definitely out in the community a lot.
Engaging the public I have been out and having people speak to me and they come to me with their concerns, and some are very small, some are very large, and I like to look at what they have to say because they can be very intelligent. I try to engage in conversation with everyone from all different walks of life and they actually speak to me and tell me how they view things. Once I think they feel that you are willing to listen, then they seem more open to being interested in what is going on in the municipality.
Engaging the public For myself, I have on my website, I am open for people to email me, to phone me on my cell phone, even, and I’m willing — like we meet now — I am willing to meet with people, hear the concerns, hear their ideas and get back to them. If it’s feasible I’ll bring it to the table and city council. I mean, I’ll be one vote of six, or with the mayor one of seven, so we still can bring proposals forward, and if the rest of council likes it too it’s a go.
What would you change? I think looking back at [city council’s] platform last time, three years ago, all of them talked about revitalizing the downtown, and I think a lot of it is the city’s bought up a lot of downtown, most of them are vacant, so we’re not paying any municipal tax on any of it, and that’s kind of harsh because we’re taking a huge financial hit that way. My plan would definitely be manageable housing. I would think that at this point you have the stores underneath and all the apartments or whatever on top, almost like a little mini-Garrison, that’s how the downtown should probably be. And it’s all facing the road, so it becomes more of a public safety thing — you’re all watching each other. It becomes a community again that way. New projects People from James Street and McNaught Road and Walden Street and that area [are] definitely on a low plain, like a floodplain. We’re about 100 km from the ocean, and Chilliwack is about 30 feet above sea level and that area is 8.7 feet, so what’s happening is [for] the last 10 years, it’s been flooding in their basements and they’re done. There’s building going on around there now and they don’t know if it’s going to continue and they want that taken care of. I’ve been around with the city engineer, we went up on the mountains, they taught me about where the sloping is. I think at this point, it’s great to keep building and building, but we also need to keep it safe.
What would you change? I think that I would like to encourage a little more input from the people of the community. That would be my big mission. Because I have a background in zoning and bylaws, I would be active in that area. New projects I have a few things that I would like to take a look at. You don’t know all of the ins and outs until you get in. I have some suggestions, and I only have one vote, so it would be up to what the people bring forward. I would like to look at quite a few of the bylaws actually. I’ve written bylaws and constitutions so I’m big at looking at that kind of thing.
What would you change? It’s a tough question because not being on there, I know maybe 10 per cent of what they’re all doing. It’s a learning curve for the first year basically — I’ve talked to the councillors. Some of the ideas I’d like to bring are from talking to people: the congestion we have here on Promontory Road with traffic, Yale Road railway crossing, the safety. Monday there was two break-ins like just after 8:00, broad daylight right downtown. These things have to be addressed, but they’re already being addressed, too. A lot of what the city is doing I think is excellent. But some new blood in there is always bringing different ideas. New projects One of the things I very much favour is, because I love cycling myself, I’d like to see some more — and I mean they’re working on it, it came out in the all-candidates meeting they had here the other day — so more safe bicycling paths through the city to connect Vedder Road with the downtown. Another one that should be addressed [is] that bridge going to Cultus Lake over the Vedder River there. There should be a wider new bridge with a cycling and pedestrian path beside it.
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CHILLIWACK CITY COUNCIL NEWS KIM HARDER Engaging the public Everybody that lives here is important to me. We have to consider points of view and we have to look at bringing people together to look at our disagreements or work together towards common goals. I’m adopting the word collaborative a lot as it applies [to] being able to listen and be open to an exchange of ideas ... really working together and having good discussion.
What would you change? I want to be able to guide decisionmaking and provide leadership as we go forward. At the same time, I’m not running with an axe to grind about city council. I’ve always thought that once a decision is made, if it’s not the right decision, then you have to work to make it right. For me, what I would do differently is provide a little more leadership and a little more inspiration, a little more enthusiasm for where we’re going and the bright future that Chilliwack has. New projects A specific project that I would like to see or provide leadership around is the idea around some youth initiatives. For example, Abbotsford has a youth healthcare centre. They just won a Premier’s Award for innovation for that. It’s in the works here but City Hall needs to provide some leadership around that and facilitate it happening. Those are the kinds of projects that I would really advocate. I’m not sure if the school division or the schools are actually involved, but the players that need to make it happen, the same groups that were involved in the Abbotsford one are involved here, but somehow in Abbotsford they were able to get it off the ground.
DICK HARRINGTON Engaging the public You have to put some real energy into it. It’s impossible to talk to 5060,000 people, but you have to gain a proper consensus. You have to talk to a wide range of people. For example, three years ago, I was concerned with 17 per cent voter turnout, so I carried a little notebook with me. You hear the same thing over and over again: decisions are made in the back rooms of Chilliwack City Hall and my (the individuals speaking) vote doesn’t count; no one listens to me; when we have concerns we’re not taken seriously because we’re not part of the power broker family in the community; there’s no public debate; when controversial issues are brought up, any debates that may have occurred occurred in the back room — it’s not public.
What would you change? I’ve already stated it, and the mayor doesn’t like me for this — every controversial issue that comes to city council should be debated in public, and it doesn’t happen. I would try to move a motion to enforce or mandate that we have public debate on all controversial issues. If there’s one member of the constituency there who wants to speak on an issue, they have a right. Throwing around the cliché “democracy,” we don’t have a democracy the way this council functions. New projects The first thing that comes to mind is that I’m calling for a city-wide wi-fi network. If it’s bought in on a large scale by a municipality, they can come up with rates that are very competitive. In 1998 [Fredericton] invested, at that time, $65,000 to bring in the network. They were criticized at the time. But [in Fredericton] it’s owned by the city, and it is offered to businesses at very competitive rates. It costs about $100,000 per year [for Fredericton] to maintain the network, but they make money on it.
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MICHAEL KHA
CHRIS KLOOT
Engaging the public You have to do a lot of campaigning. You have to reach out. I spend a lot of time going to various events. I don’t stick to one kind of event. I spend a lot of time here on campus talking to people. I spend a lot of time in senior homes talking to people. I spend a lot of time in the agricultural section talking to people. It’s all about spending time with people. The overall goal is to be present to people and to be easy to be contacted.
Engaging the public You know what, I’m an open guy and I’m out and about on the streets every day; I’m approachable; I’ve got an email and obviously I’d be happy to meet and answer questions to people. We’re a city but we’re still small enough to have interaction with people on a pretty good scale, I think. Out and about I’m selling Chilliwack as a realtor, so I’m an ambassador for the community bragging about how great it is to be here.
What would you change? I don’t have any big beef with what is going on in city council, I just think we need to get a little bit younger. I mean progressive. Crime is not an easy thing to tackle, there is crime happening downtown, and that’s scaring away investors from wanting to invest in businesses downtown. Our Crime Stoppers program is actually not funded by the City. I think by funding local programs like Crime Stoppers and engaging citizens to report smaller crimes, [that] will actually eliminate the bigger crimes from happening.
What would you change? At the end of the day, I honestly believe our city is being fairly wellrun; there’s things I’d like to see a little bit different, but that’s okay; that’s why we’re in a democracy; we can bring different ideas, and I think the youthful enthusiasm of myself ... I want to be part of that to make sure we continue to grow. Yes, we are to a certain extent a bit of a bedroom community, we’re an agriculture community, but I want to see growth up, not out, and see that we densify rather than urban sprawl, and I’m willing to work with a team and work hard to ensure Chilliwack remains a low tax base.
New projects We’re not taking care of things [such] as roads and infrastructures. A good example of that would be congested areas such as Promontory and Watson. If you’re around that area during rush hour, it’s impossible to make a left-hand turn to go to Promontory. Vice versa, there’s only two ways into Promontory. We have the building structures in place for that but we don’t have the infrastructures properly set. My goal, even though it is to move progressively into the future, I want to be mindful that we take care of some of the basics.
New projects I’ve mentioned there’s a few things I’d like to see happen regarding congestion; I’d like to see Promontory Road widened and have better access up to Promontory; I’d like to see more [all-weather] sports fields on the south side of the freeway ... I would like to see a trail network expanded in the community, whether it be for running or biking or walking. Ultimately my goal would be to see all of our communities connected by way of a trail or a bike system, and that means from Yarrow to Sardis to Greendale to Chilliwack into Rosedale.
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JASON LUM Engaging the public When I ran in 2011, I did a concerted effort to focus on new voters and first time voters, but it goes beyond that. I think our poor voter turnout is an epidemic that starts a lot earlier than just your 18th birthday. I start with grade 10s sometimes in the civics classes and social studies classes. Some of the more enlightening things that you find out from talking to students and young people and trying to educate them and make them aware about their civic responsibility, is the fact that it’s not that they don’t care, it’s not ignorance, it’s that not many people are talking about it in a meaningful way.
What has changed? I was pretty realistic with the things that I wanted to achieve the last three years, and when I go through the list of things that I said back in 2011 I’ve been able to check a lot of those things off. I wanted to work to improve public transit; I wanted to work on a healthier environment community. We’ve done our healthier community partnerships. We made the largest public investment in transportation in the history of the city of Chilliwack. Pretty soon, we will connect Abbotsford, Chilliwack, and Langley with the regional transportation system. The most important thing that I committed to in 2011 that remains relevant going forward is that you can’t do it by yourself. You can come up with a lot of great ideas and a well-thoughtout platform, but you’re one person and to make any kind of headway in government you have to do it with a team, and you have to be a very good team player. New projects There are some priority areas that I think are going to remain relevant to the city of Chilliwack. I don’t believe that crime is simply a policing issue. I believe that it’s a community issue and as such, we need to all take ownership of the problems that are out there. When you flip it on its head, it can be very empowering [to] just start looking out for your neighbours, start looking out for your neighbourhood, start to reinvigorate neighbourhoods. I would like to focus on that kind of thing.
CHILLIWACK CITY COUNCIL NEWS PATTI MacAHONIC
PHILLIP MAXWELL
Engaging the public I think what I have a gift for is being able to identify, in really messy situations, what the key issues are and I am also able to bring people together to make change. I know most of the street people as well as the business people. I’m not a respecter of title, I’m a respecter of people, and I think that shows in what I do. Sometimes people don’t realize that they’re just a couple paycheques away from being one of what people call “those people.” I meet a lot of people in my job now at Ann Davis. I think our stats for people coming through the doors are about 2700 this year. Which in a small community like this is a lot.
Engaging the public Open forums. Even just things such as coffee meets. The main thing I see is people are not getting out enough, and councillor or not, doing enough to go out and see these people. There’s such a wealth of knowledge in the city. You know, they need to get out and city council needs to provide a forum for them to get their ideas ... if we don’t understand what they’ve done in the past, we’re just going to make the same mistakes again and again, and nothing’s going to get done. And the only other thing I see is that, students here for example, I’m betting probably 90 per cent of them, after they’re done, will leave Chilliwack and go [to] high-paying jobs in Vancouver or down in the States. We’ve got to look at ways to keep that talent here.
What would you change? What I hear a lot of is a lack of transparency. I think I’m kind of an open book. I think there’s going to be times when things have to be dealt with in private and then brought out, but I would like to work with as much transparency as possible and having as many people as makes sense [or] as possible in the decision-making process. With the Aevitas recycle plant next to the river, I wasn’t there, but it was said “We follow process,” and you know, if all we do is just follow process, that’s one thing, but I think when things are this important to the community, that we need to do more than just what we have to. We need to really take that extra step and have a little more public discussion and transparency before decisions are made. New projects One thing that I think is an oversight in Chilliwack is we don’t have a poverty elimination strategy. So if I’m chosen for city councillor, I think that’s something I would like to start working on right away. And I know we have some really good work done by the current city. But I think the root of a lot of our social issues, a big part of it is poverty. We have generational poverty, it sets people up for addictions, alcohol addiction, people get trapped, and how do they get out? We can put a lot of things underneath access to childcare, access to housing, nutritional food.
What would you change? I’m more the type of person that doesn’t try the quick fix. I like to find out what the root cause of the problem is, address that, then everything else falls into place. And I don’t see that happening with the current council. Crime rate, for example, especially in the downtown area. I live close to there, so I see a lot of that. I feel sorry for the police because they’re the last line, right? They’re trying to catch them, but I don’t see where anyone’s looking at what’s causing the problem. The first step would be more open forums with the people around that area. Find out what they see as the problems then address that with the police. Eventually if you get enough people talking about it, looking into what the problems are, you’re going to find a solution that’s going to work for everyone. New projects Maybe the election bylaw a little bit, get rid of all those nasty signs all over the place. I refuse to use them. You know, it’s a beautiful city. Why wreck it with a bunch of signs all over the place?
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca
STEWART McLEAN Engaging the public Well, I guess in a way I’m fortunate because of the nature of my business [McLean’s Funeral Services]. That, combined with being involved with Chamber of Commerce, with Rotary, I get to talk to a lot of different people in a lot of different situations and have those conversations. I’m involved with a number of not-for-profit organizations within the community itself so I get the opportunity to sit with planning teams from different groups and various organizations, and I hear what they have to say. And they have questions for me, so I’m feeling pretty connected within the community — just because I’m involved with so many things and so many different people at different levels.
What has changed? It hasn’t changed a lot to be perfectly honest, because we are accomplishing the things I had on my agenda, because what I had on my agenda was pretty similar to what other people had. We needed to address the social issues we’ve had in our community; we’re doing that; there’s been a lot of strides made in that area. We’re addressing the revitalization of our downtown core. We’re taking some really bold steps in that direction. Not everybody’s happy about it, and that’s the way it’s going to be, we know that. New projects We have been working on the social issues, but we’re not all the way there yet; I still believe there’s more work to do. We facilitated the health and housing contact centre; we really took the bull by the horns and pushed that forward to see that [it] got going. To work on the downtown revitalization you need to have those things first, because you need to have resources for people who need them so they can start recovering themselves and start becoming part of the community again, being able to be independent within the community again. So if you don’t put that social safety network in there, you’re not going to really succeed in all of the other projects you’re trying to work on.
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NEWS CHILLIWACK CITY COUNCIL KEN POPOVE
CHUCK STAM
Engaging the public You need to put yourself out there to really hear what’s going on. In those conversations that we have with people, that’s where you hear the views and “Why are you doing it this way, we think it’s right this way.” Communication is the key, and I’m very accessible to the general public; I’m right in downtown Chilliwack, so if a person has a problem, they come through my door, say “Ken, you got a minute?” and okay, let’s go talk. You just got to be out there and transparent and be available.
Engaging the public We have on a regular basis, usually in the spring and fall, a committee called the rural issues advisory committee. What we do is we go into the communities of neighbourhoods like Yarrow, Greendale, Rosedale, and Ryder Lake and we have town hall meetings. What we do is the various departments set up their display boards and talk about projects that they’re working on, things that they’re fixing, and things that they’re building in the upcoming years. We have a communications person at city hall who very actively engages people through social media and email. When there are issues, people let us know and it’s by phone or email. I feel we do a really good job of reaching out and drawing people in, not just the loud people with issues.
What has changed? Not much, because I knew pretty much going in what I was up against. My motto was “I’m going to work with a good team.” I’m not going to lower taxes and do things you can’t do, just work with a good team of people to move forward, so there were really no surprises for me. I knew going in what my challenges were, being that I had that past experiences in the BIA, I was a quasi-politician at that point. It was the next natural step for me. There’s always things that have a process and again with the downtown, we’ve taken on the challenge of purchasing properties, knocking down the buildings and making them shovel-ready. My kind of line there is doing nothing hasn’t worked. New projects Next challenge for me because I’m socially conscious is a low-barrier housing of some form of — there’s a place out of Vancouver, I believe it’s called RainCity, that has had a lowbarrier housing up and running for the last 20 years or so with success, so they’re coming out to talk to us and talk about what worked, what didn’t work. So that is something I want to see follow-through on. A three-year term just wasn’t enough. Now it’s going to be four, which is going to be great, it’s just going to get you that much more time to work with different agencies and stakeholders and just keep moving forward.
What has changed? Several goals have not been accomplished, they are long-term goals. One of my dream goals has been to create greater interconnection between pedestrian and bicycle routes to provide the options for people to get to their home to transit systems so they can take a bike or they can walk. Several years ago, we introduced bike racks. Simple little fix to our transit mess is that you can put your bike on the front of the bus. The take by the community has been tremendous. A lot of people are using that system. The other priority, one that is ongoing unfortunately, is crime and public safety. That seems like a project you’re never done. A lot of our youth are better educated and staying away from drugs and they’re not getting involved, so it’s a generational thing and we’re hoping that crime continues to go down. It’ll always be with us but it’s something that we have to chip away at. New projects The 2014-24 bicycle network plan, something that was approved on May of 2014 by council. It’s very aggressive. I’m referring to the pedestrian and bicycle pathways, that’s a plan that I would like to see advanced and funded so that can happen sooner rather than over ten years. If we have additional money coming in from new developments paying into the system, essentially more people paying taxes, we can advance some of those projects and prioritize that way
SAM WADDINGTON
RICHARD WILLIAMS
Engaging the public I think that’s a big part of what I’m standing for as a candidate: a different level of engagement. Right now I think City Hall, there’s definitely a philosophy where people come and speak to them about issues and bring their issues forward, but almost always those are interest groups, who either have financial interest or have the financial capacity to do that. So the city [needs to be] going out and seeking out interest groups, whether that’s student bodies at UFV or outdoor recreation groups or artist conglomerates. And I think that’s the new model of how a community needs to engage with their City Hall and vice versa … rather than asking them to come to our doors.
Engaging the public We always need to be receptive. And to me, the city website is not living up to its mandate. It doesn’t mean we still don’t need to get out there and speak to people in person one on one, but the city website should be a resource that we are putting out there for people to be able to go to, put their questions on there, get their answers. It’s got a lot of information, but that questions and answers part is a big one and it’s missing. We’ve got a basic search feature on the city website, but you can’t actually ask a question on the city website and then get someone from the city to give you an answer. You have to send an email. And it’s a dead-end on whether or not you’re sure you’re going to get a reply, and then no one else can see that someone else has asked a similar question and get an answer.
What would you change? We’re lucky we have a really good foundation in Chilliwack. We’re going to build on what’s already been done. There’s some decent new innovations to our transportation in Chilliwack. Bike lanes and some new busing routes, and we actually have more transit in our city than we ever have. New projects I would like to work directly with staff to make sure I’m not overstepping my bounds here. One of the interesting ones is there are greening bylaws for buildings. So if I want to develop a new building, I have to plant certain trees or make green spaces in and around my building to a certain percentage of the lot. But I don’t have to retain any of the old green. So if there’s beautiful old-growth firs and whatever else, I can cut those down and then plant some three-year-old maple trees in exchange for that. I think that needs to be looked at. There’s other municipalities that have retention bylaws, so you can’t cut down existing old growth and that kind of thing on your property, and I think it makes for a community that looks more lived-in, it gives it a heritage feel versus just a clear-cut and then we re-plant and hopefully in 50 years it looks nice again.
What would you change? Council, while they do a lot of good currently, is still behind the times. The City website, while it’s nice that we’ve got one — again, where’s the forum? Where’s the engagement through it? And another one was the City’s new sign when you go in and out of the city. Why couldn’t we have engaged the public on picking a design for that one, and decided whether or not we wanted advertising on it to help pay for the cost and help get revenue into the city? I’m not seeing a lot of questions like this being asked in council meetings, either. I know they don’t do a lot of debate during the meetings, and it’s done behind doors. Again, that needs to get changed and we need to see some of this debate going into the stuff, into the decisions, so that people see how the stuff got to where it did to get to the actual voting stage. New projects We need more referendums, and part of that to me is city council should not be able to give themselves pay raises without a referendum getting passed to do so. I believe city council pay should be based on minimum wage, and a perfect referendum item is “What should we start the Mayor’s wage at?” Why is that not a current bylaw, [something] that prevents certain bylaws being changed, like ones with financial policies, without a referendum specifically having to get passed to change them?
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NEWS MAYOR CHILLIWACK
RAYMOND CAUCHI
SHARON GAETZ
Engaging the public All right. So if I was mayor and I could do what I want, I would spend most of my time not in my office, right, because that would be problematic for me. For me the key function of a mayor would be to go – to not be in their office. So I would – hmmm. Star95 FM – is it Star 98.3? They have this kindness crew. And so I will steal that idea, if I could, in my fantasy world, and I’ll have the mayor crew. And what better way to find out what people think than to go and ask them? Right? So in my fantasy world I’d drive around with my mayor crew, and we’d set up shop randomly in Chilliwack and hang out for a while and chat people up and see how they’re doing.
Engaging the public We just finished a process of our official community plan. Our official community plan will guide us to the year 2040. We really tried to work hard with social media ... so we engage the community, talking about our future online, and got all kinds of information from people that we really treasured. We also took the show on the road. We went out to community cafes and we talked to people about their views. We also have a group that I have appointed called the rural advisory committee. That committee goes out and takes our staff with them to places like Rosedale, Greendale, Yarrow, Ryder Lake, Promontory, those areas that are a little bit outlying.
What would you change? In some sense, council has been doing a good job. In Chilliwack, we’re prospering. No one has publically embarrassed themselves grievously. So that’s nice. That’s good. So you can’t begrudge council for not doing their job. Of course the idea is we want to do a better job. So going back to the question about why do people not want to vote, or why are they disengaged – that’s a problem. Right? I sometimes get the impression that those people who are public servants sometimes forget the two key words in their title: public servant. So that would be one of the things that I would want to do better. I’m not interested in hiring, for example, a consultation organization or consultant experts to find out what people want when I could just walk outside my front door. For me the big theme would be getting more people involved in the actual government – restoring people’s faith that when they have an issue or when they’re given the opportunity to vote or to have input, that it matters.
New projects So [public] transportation. I’m a big fan of it. I think if we want more people to come out to Chilliwack or to hang out in Chilliwack, we need to kind of have more public transit. Particularly young people, and particularly for people who can’t drive. And it has to be safe, too. Right? That would be the other project – there’s a perception and a truth that Chilliwack’s a bit hard. If I were in a neighbourhood that was hard, I would want to participate in its revitalization, so to speak. And then protection of heritage cultures. Old Dutch culture, old Asian culture, old First Nations culture, all of these awesome, diverse cultures that the Fraser Valley has that we kind of forget about.
www.ufvcascade.ca
CAMERON HULL New projects We’re working right now on a shuttle called the Fraser Valley Express. We’ll be able to have transportation that goes from Chilliwack to Abbotsford and to Langley. A further thing is parks and trails. They’re so important as our life gets busier and busier. We know the importance of physical activity. We want to keep adding to the trails. The Rotary trail goes 8 km down through the great blue heron nature reserve and we want to hook it up to the other side, perhaps along the railway bridge. We’re buying property so they’ll have a nice loop there eventually. We also are planning to fix, as soon as money comes in from the province and the federal government, we put money aside to widen the Vedder bridge for people who are coming from Abbotsford through Yarrow.
Police board So the kind of relationship I would want to have with first responders in Chilliwack is a good one. And by good I mean one where we acknowledge that everybody’s expert at what they do – that police are good at policing, that fire people – firemen – are good at fire-putting-outing, and that paramedics are good at picking people up and patching them up. So if I start there I think I can have a pretty good relationship with these experts, and then when I make suggestions such as “Maybe you should do this,” they might actually listen to me. I would like to have a relationship of mutual respect, cooperation, collaboration, and ideally pleasant good relationships. Right? There.
Police board I have a wonderful relationship with the police department. First of all, being the mayor awards me a special privilege in that I talk directly to the superintendent of police. I have audiences with her usually once a month. I can pick up the phone and talk to her anytime there is a problem. We have a public safety advisory committee that I appointed chair and vice chair to and community members go in by application and the RCMP are part of that. Out communication with the RCMP is great.
Private vs. public interests Now private business versus public interest. That’s an interesting issue. I would remind people that every private business is owned by a public person. So rather than dealing with the private business, you should probably deal with the public person that runs, owns, or manages that business. Because the business is just a machine to make money, and doesn’t care where it gets its money from. The conscience of that business rests in the person, that public persona, that human being – so that’s how I would deal with that. [For example,] that hazardous waste plant that’s theoretically going to go beside the Fraser River because the city zoned that land. I don’t know what the public of Chilliwack’s concerns are. I don’t know why that plant has to be by that river yet. So that’s where the discussion, I think, should begin. The plant doesn’t get a voice. It’s just a thing. However, there are people who work at that plant, there are people who theoretically own that plant, and they have needs.
Private vs. public interests We’re the government closest to the people so people talk to us in the grocery store, the phone us, email us, Facebook me, Tweet me. We really do hear the view of the public. I think often times when people come to a public hearing at city hall, some of them do not understand the process. They don’t understand why if they have a room full of people and they say “we don’t like this project” why council would ever pass it because it seems like that is going against the people and voting in favour of the developer. When council comes to decide what should happen, whether they should approving zoning or not, or development, you weigh the information that staff have given you. They take in what the people have to say and often times people will bring historical knowledge that we may not have about a plan. They may bring other aspects for council to consider. Then we weigh what we believe to be true. I know that in any community people will say their council doesn’t listen to the public. That’s a huge accusation against council. Council does listen to the public.
What has changed? I don’t think it has changed to be honest. Our biggest focus in the city over the past while has been revitalization of our downtown. When I first came on as mayor ... we had a big hotel that was full of sex trade workers and drug dealers. We had a motel downtown where we had 360 RCMP calls every year from that building. Fifty 911 calls, which cost about $10,000 at that point. [Before] there used to be women’s fashions stores, and bakeries, and all kinds of things downtown. Of course that changed when malls came in and this can be changed again as online shopping is more and more popular for busy people. We’re making a concerted effort into buying property in downtown. We’ll be taking down some buildings, we’ll be building a neighbourhood, and we’re going to put residence in there.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014
Engaging the public There are two ways of doing that. One, we need to do a much better job of communicating our job and being open to the citizens. Right now there seems to be this kind of a bubble around city hall and you can’t talk to people, oddly enough until every third September. It’s breaking down those barriers. We have the tools, why not use them. Some people are afraid of using the tools, social media tools for example. You have the exact opposite extreme. We have people that are afraid of social media so it’s also helping those people to understand the message.
What would you change? First off, there are a number of things that I would see different. The first is in the downtown revitalization plan. I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but there are parts of that plan that I really have issues with. We have spent over two million dollars on purchasing land for speculation. It’s been suggested that they spend another 2.6 million on top of that. It’s doing those things prudently and in proper time so that we don’t waste our money essentially. The other thing is opening up communication to people so that we are fully accountable. New projects No I don’t. I do have a broader vision of the city. The first on is in fact getting our spending under control. We have the lowest tax rate in the region, but we are spending a lot of money and that concerns me.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca
I have some real concerns with how the city is dealing with agricultural land. We have so many jobs in this region that are directly or indirectly related to agriculture that we have to keep. It is such a fundamental part of who we are. One of the big problems with agriculture is the interface. My suggestion would be why is it that we can’t create an interface and have it so that we bring in an industry to process those products and use that as the interface. So you don’t have literally like you have on Evans road, farms on one side of the street and housing on the other. On the west side of Evans, we could set up that area for agriculture processing. You have groups that come in that want to create good, high paying jobs in Chilliwack, and also then the farmer doesn’t have to send their products miles away to get processed. The urban side of it is, they kind of play on one another a little bit. There is a revitalization plan right now to build more high density residential housing in downtown Chilliwack. However, what we’ve been doing is allowing land out of the ALR to build housing down the south side of the city, it suppressing prices elsewhere in the city. We’ve been playing with the market a little bit and when we stop doing that, then we’ll be able to build that housing downtown. Right now, I’m really concerned that if we do go ahead with the project as it sits, that what’s going to happen is going to be what happened at Newmarket and The Vibe. We weren’t ready for residential housing and it wasn’t people that were living here that were buying them. I’m concerned that we’re doing that again.
Police board A very productive one. Having a relationship is difficult sometimes for the mayor and I understand that because the inspector here In Chilliwack also has to report back to Ottawa. I’m a Canadian Forces reservist so I speak that language and it is a language unto itself. When I speak with them and we talk about security things, I understand what they mean, I understand what they get. That relationship I think will be one of trust, respect, and openness with our RCMP and our RCMP partners. Private vs. public interests Public comes first, number one, every time. It actually is law that that is what I am supposed to do. It actually is in the community charter that says that the action of council and the mayor are to be within the best interest of the city.
ABBOTSFORD NEWS MAYOR BRUCE BANMAN
HENRY BRAUN
Engaging the public I probably have been one of the most visible mayors out in the general public in probably decades. To me it just makes sense that if you bump into people out in the public, you’re going to get a good flavour as to how people think the city is being run, you also run into individual problems with people ... my job is not necessarily to solve the problem, but to help people, guide them to get their problems solved, if that makes sense. Now with social media, I will say, respectfully, Twitter is not the best place to have an intelligent discussion because it’s really tough to do that in 140 characters. But, “please provide me a link,” that’s a great idea. And it’s to let people know what the mayor’s doing, what’s going on, what the city’s doing.
Engaging the public I make it a habit to get out of City Hall because if you stay there long enough you have a skewed view of the city, and I make it a practice to get out in the community, to talk to people, to go to the highways and byways and coffee shops, to hang out with university students to get their input: what do you want your city to be and to look like? Then you take that information and you start to plan your city in a way that it will become livable and walkable, so people can ride bicycles around town without fear of getting run over. We’re currently not doing that, in my view. So a lot of our young people, when they graduate from university, they leave, because other cities have planned their core better than we have, and I want to change that as mayor.
What has changed? Surprisingly, I got most of what I wanted done. I thought that we were spending way too much money in taxes in the wrong places, we delivered a zero per cent tax increase. We were seen as being businessunfriendly. We wanted to find solutions for the Abbotsford Centre. We have saved the taxpayers between $2.2 and 2.7 million a year. We just signed a new contract with Global Spectrum that’s saving hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. And minor hockey actually gets to use the very building that taxpayers are paying for. You can always improve, but we’ve done things people said couldn’t be done, which is to turn things around in one term. New projects Words As we start to densify and go up, South Fraser Way for instance, I think today how it looks versus how it’ll look 20 years from now is going to be dramatically different. I think you’re going to see midrise condos there where you’ll have shops on the bottom floor and you’ll have, maybe on the second floor you might have professional offices, like lawyers and accountants and things like that, and then on the upper floors you’re going to have where people live, and I can see one day where there’ll be little restaurants for people to sit at, and sit out on the street on a beautiful day. I see it being a much different feel than it is currently. I see it with perhaps a trolley going up and down the middle of the street.
Take a look at Vancouver, take a look at what happened in Yaletown for instance, that used to be all factories. It was all trees 150 years ago. It’s not a really long time in the overall scheme of things. I see us in the next 50 years being a much more vibrant metropolitan area.
Police board We have a great communication now with the police department. I meet with the police chief on a regular basis. We have, I think, one of the most responsive police departments in British Columbia, if not in Canada. You can actually make a huge difference in crime if you focus on it. So communication is the easiest thing in the world to start. It’s also the most difficult to continue. So it’s something you constantly have to strive at to work at. Private vs. public interests Well, first off, just because you hear things coming from the public doesn’t mean that that’s what the silent majority think. That’s the tricky part in politics, is figuring out if this is what the public really thinks, or whether you just have some really vocal outspoken few that are just creating a bunch of noise. And then ... you have to take and balance what the current needs are, and I will vote for jobs almost every time. Sometimes you have to wait for the right solution, so I think rather than jumping at the quick fix because you have to. Man, every time I’ve made a lousy decision in my life it’s when I’ve felt as if I was being pressured and had no time to think about it, time and time again. So I’ve learned it’s better to have thoughtful deliberation and come up with an idea where you have consensus that works for everyone. I think getting a community to embrace something is way better method of going about it. Doesn’t always work.
What has changed? I’m running on the same platform I ran three years ago, I’ve been very engaged, I’ve lived here for 60 years, I’ve been involved with different committees (police board, airport authority, economic development — I chaired that for a number of years) so I didn’t come in naive or without any background and I just got to a place where I thought to effect change that I thought needed to happen, I needed to step up one level which was to go from the committee level to council. I ran on fiscal responsibility; open, transparent government; forward thinking in terms of planning our city in a way that is going to make this more attractive than it is today. I have made progress, but we have a long way to go and so I’m just continuing on with exactly where I started; my goals haven’t changed. I would say things within that have been tweaked because there were things I learned when I came to City Hall that I wasn’t aware of, because you don’t have the detail. When you get to the council table you get to look at everything and anything, which in some cases was a real eye-opener in some files. New projects I want to make everything at City Hall more user-friendly and open it to the public so they don’t have to do FOIs [Freedom if Information requests] every time they want to find out what we’re doing with their money. We should be telling our citizens what we’re doing with their money; we shouldn’t make them go through a process that costs them $500 and they get a halfinch binder full of pages, half of which are redacted — to me that’s just crazy.
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Police board As mayor I [would be] chair of the police board. I think the mayor, police chief, and the board have to have a very good relationship. They can’t be at odds with one another. Council has no interaction with the police at all other than once a year when it’s budget time, because the City funds — the budget is about $46 million now — and that is our chance to then ask the chief questions about whatever the priorities are in the budget and why he’s doing this as opposed to that, but you need to have with all of your [departments] (not just police [but] fire, engineering, parks) there’s got to be a team that’s working together and pulling in the same direction and that’s been my history building a corporation that became Canada’s largest privately owned railway construction; you don’t build a big company if you don’t know how to team-build and get everybody motivated to pull in the same direction.
Private vs. public interests I take the view that the shareholders of this community are its taxpayers and citizens and we need to listen to them more than we have. When it comes to planning and changing whole neighbourhoods by doing something, and the whole neighbourhood is opposed it, I think we need to take a step back and say, “Is this area really ready for this?” I don’t want to impose things on our citizens. The OCP review we’re going through and probably will be finalizing by sometime in September or October next year is a good time for people to get engaged, and I encourage especially university students to get engaged, because the decisions we make next year are going to impact this city for the next 10 to 20 years and I can’t stress it enough: get involved. Tell us how you want your city to look. I don’t want highrises all over Abbotsford—that’s just crazy. We need to develop a core so that we have people places where people young and old want to be and right now there aren’t that many places... I mean, historic downtown is to some degree one of those places but it is not our downtown.
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NEWS ABBOTSFORD CITY COUNCIL
LES BARKMAN
RICK BARKWELL
Engaging the public I strongly believe that I do the same thing on November 16 as I do on November 14. I spend a lot of time on the road going to people who have concerns. I want people to feel comfortable, and I think a person gets a lot more honest answers going on somebody else’s turf, and I have met with everybody and anybody. One thing that I pride myself in is that I’m — I’ve got three As: available, accessible, and accountable, and I think that makes me community connected.
Engaging the public Well, you can just look at the bigger picture, look at the fact that we have an entire voter [apathy] — nobody comes out to vote. It’s not just being involved at city hall or not being involved at city hall, it’s not being involved at all. And that’s got to change. I don’t know exactly how we direct our attention to the mass of people who don’t vote — if two out of three people don’t vote, there’s a problem. And unfortunately there’s no simple solution because it affects everybody.
What has changed? I think the most frustrating part for me is it seems we’re in a culture of, “If I’m not involved in it, there isn’t that big a value in it.” That’s one thing I really want to work at. I don’t have to convince you of my point of view; I have to give you all the facts and if you don’t support something then I still think I’ve done my job. But it irritates me that people don’t get engaged. But if it’s a money issue, then when it’s all said and done, then they’ll get engaged. I’ll use an example: our budget. We spend $250 million a year; we get no more than 10 people out of 140,000 people. Then when it’s all said and done ... well, if you’d come to council on all these budget items, we discuss them. So that’s the part I’m going to work the hardest on. New projects I have something I’ve been working on for six years. I’ve been trying to get a boat launch underneath the Mission bridge. So we have all these different levels and we’re really excited to have this in, it’s all ready to go and through the GVRD they go, “Well, should we really be in parks in Abbotsford, should we give it to somebody else, should we take it over?” I thought we had it going and the control we thought we had we didn’t. We have the best sturgeon fishing in the world, we can be in the river and underneath the bridge in Abbotsford in under 15 minutes, and that whole industry goes to Chilliwack. It’s not a big ticket issue but it brings in a lot of dollars to our city.
What would you change? On the current council, Henry Braun has a business background and whether he’s on the current council going forward will be yet to be seen, but there isn’t really any business voice on council. So I’d like to say that the fact that I run a small business and have for 15 years, that’s probably where I differ, is the fact that I want to be able to talk to the business owners and get their support and feel that we’re doing something that can encourage development here. New projects I think there’s two key things right now: we need a tenant for the Abbotsford Centre, obviously. The contract that came out and was announced this week, that reduces our expenditure by $300,000 a year, it’s a good first step. The only concern that I might have with it is whether that’s going to affect a long-term tenant, whether or not they could have their own contract management, but it’s a five-year commitment, so we’ll see how that plays out. Fraser Highway, something needs to be done. We own Fraser Highway, so we’re responsible for its upgrades, we can’t necessarily get a handout from the provincial government. So we need to address that. Every [minute] that trucks are sitting on roads costs money in some way. So we need to look at that, to get that expanded. And it’s an expensive price tag, it’s $30 to $40 million.
SANDY BLUE Engaging the public I think you have to reach out; we’ve had a couple of interesting opportunities so far; we were invited to go to Bradner Hall. We were also at the Hindu temple [one day] and various groups organize themselves either around business or a cultural or religious or other organizational affiliation [and] that’s often the way to get to them, to say bring out everybody you know and care about and we’ll listen to you. One of the ways we’re doing that is to have an advisory council [of people] who care about Abbotsford and are advising us as well. During this campaign period we’ve been meeting every week and after the election we’ll meet on an as-needed basis, but I’m hoping at least quarterly if not monthly.
What would you change? I’m for less government rather than more. I think municipal government in particular should stick to the things that they need to do, the things that are the right place for government to be, and other things should be left to the private sector — things where you’ve got either a business case for it or expertise or funding or whatever it might be — and just facilitate that happening. Taxpayers don’t need to pay for that, especially if it’s being funded by the provincial or federal governments. New projects I hear a lot of criticism about council being undecided and unwelcoming and businesses leaving town and just a lot of uncertainty and a lot of things that, as I said there are 30 people running for council — that’s got to be reflective of people pushing and saying, please make a difference out there, let this be a place that’s more welcoming. I think if you elect a group of like-minded individuals such as ourselves, we’ve got the background and the skillset, and together as a team we have the ability to deliver some things that will make an instant difference like being welcoming to business, and setting some ground rules so that when people come in they know what they can expect: some certainty and process.
JAMES BRECKENRIDGE Engaging the public I actually have a website, and have had it for years. One of these things I don’t want to do this year, and I’ve been trying to avoid, is filling out the specific questionnaires, because it becomes a political game. People can email — you can’t answer all your emails, but you can certainly go through and see what’s in there, and see if any of them strike you as good ideas or anything like that. People who disagree with my point of view or want to discuss something have never had any trouble finding me, and I’ve always been willing to discuss things with them. I’m a big fan of interaction with the public.
What would you change? Very different. First of all, I’m open to ideas. One of the biggest areas that I would be very different is about being fiscally and frugally responsible. I think this council has not done a good job of managing either the finances or the operations of the city. I think we may need to make a very big change in how the City does business, to make it fair. If you talk to people, Abbotsford has a terrible reputation as a place to do business. There’s a lot of things I’d like to see changed about the way the City Hall runs to make it more streamlined and to give the city a [reputation] as a place to do business, and fairness. And I’d also like to see City Hall promote community a lot better. New projects I’ve got two priorities I’d like to change. Well, as I said, I think we have to change the way we do our budgets. Budgeting should be an extremely good tool, [and] we don’t really make good use of that to keep our financial house in order. The big thing I’d like to see changed is how we approach homelessness. In a way, it needs a bit of a change in attitude. But I think it has — it needs more of a reflection of reality. We need to remember the goal is to help people become well enough that they can afford on their own to be housed. Otherwise, I’m totally against spending more money on shelters and things like that, because we only have a limited number of dollars.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca
DAN BUE Engaging the public Because I have been a businessman in [Downtown Abbotsford], I understand the needs of business — my business was a little different; it was focused on social services, so I also understand the needs of the disadvantaged, and I also, after selling that business, worked for a while as a prison chaplain, so that really got me in touch with even what we would look at as the low end of the spectrum: a lot of drug addicts and formerly homeless and the prison population, so I think I can reach into most communities.
What would you change? Well, I don’t want to be antagonistic with this statement, but one of the things that actually drove me to throw my hat in the ring was the homeless issue. You know, it’s just — how many years have we been talking about it? Can’t we act? Can’t we... you know, it’s like we get two factions that are fighting back and forth. Can’t we get the parties in a room, a cloister, shut the door, say “Okay, it’s not a matter of can we make it work, it’s how we’ll make it work” — can we get that determination, can we get that from the councillors? We don’t seem to have that right now; we don’t seem to have a willingness to work together to build a better community. New projects All we needed was one more vote to pass that homeless shelter. I’ll be that one more vote ... I worked for part of a year with Langley Salvation Army. There were a lot of homeless in Langley; there were a lot of objections (“not in my backyard”); there was a townhouse complex across the creek who goes, “oh, it’s going to be disastrous to us.” It hasn’t been. You drive by that on the bypass and I’ve never seen even anybody lounging outside who looks like a homeless person; it’s clean, it’s effective, it’s doing a great work, and it holds 60. We have a centre here that holds 38 — and we’re what, double the size? We need more, we need more of a response, and there are responses available, so why would we say no to a permanent housing solution for 22 — I know it’s a small part of the 130, but it’s a start. I’ve heard a proposal [the Dignity Village] and that would be okay as a first step, as long as you’re also providing counselling and services, so that they can move up.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca
RAJI BUTTAR Engaging the public It’s a matter of approaching these different groups and making it known that their concerns do matter. Sometimes people are, they have a concern, they have an issue in mind, but they’re either too afraid to say anything because they don’t think their concerns matter — they do, I mean we’re all living in this community together, everyone should have a say — I mean, as far as specifics on how to address people’s concerns, or how to get people’s concerns, I mean, social media is huge for youth. Sometimes they don’t want to actually approach a council member in person or actually knock on their door, but email, technology, there’s all sorts of ways. It’s very important to hear other peoples — I don’t know everything.
What would you change? I think we need to focus on long term growth economically. There have been a lot of issues related to spending. Bad decisions have been made, but you know, we learn from the past. It’s time to move forward and get a fresh perspective on things. New projects I think some of our bylaws do need to be amended. An issue that came up is realtors are concerned about high-density developments and lack of parking, and that’s partly due to old bylaws, they haven’t been updated or amended. So that’s one thing. Another big issue right now is the entertainment centre. We need to focus on bringing an anchor tenant that will be revenue-positive for Abbotsford. Obviously the Heat didn’t work out for good reasons; they should have known, I think, that bringing our rival farm team into Abbotsford. Anyone could have told them — that really bugged me, but it’s done now. Homelessness is another big issue. There’s a lot of people who don’t understand that it’s not just a housing issue; it also has to do with drug addiction and mental issues. It’s a very complex issue, and there is more to it than just housing … We have Kinghaven right now, however for that, in order for someone to be allowed access, is if they are absolutely clean. That’s hard to people to just go cold turkey. But low-barrier housing would be a step in the right direction, absolutely.
ABBOTSFORD CITY COUNCIL NEWS LYLE CALDWELL Engaging the public Without sounding too weird here, I’m a Christian, but I don’t necessarily go to church every week. I drink beer, I go to pubs, and I don’t care what colour your skin is. I don’t care. If you’re a legitimate person and you have the right ideas and you’re moving forward, great. So my constituents are everybody. I’m running as an independent. I’m not running on a slate because I think slates are, personally, I don’t — they cater to special interest groups. I feel they do. And I’m running as an independent and I will represent everybody.
What would you change? I am very focused, very determined. I’m a little bit like a dog with a bone. If it’s a good idea, I will just keep hammering it. You have to do that. Council is, if you’re mild-mannered and bring your idea up once, it’s gone. You need to keep pursuing it and pursuing it and pushing it and pushing it. And hopefully at some point they will start to listen. And you have to work with them, too. It sounds kind of funny and you wouldn’t think it goes on, but you do lobby other councillors. You go and you talk to your other councillors, and you say, okay, this was an idea that was brought up, and I think it’s a valid idea and here’s why it’s a valid idea and here are the benefits, let’s make it work. New projects What I have been doing in the last year and a half is meeting with people from Aerospace Canada. Because we need jobs here. And not just jobs, we need good paying jobs to keep the people here. So I’ve been talking to Aerospace Canada, the representative, about what can I do to help you bring those kind of high-tech industries here? There’s an organization in Kelowna called Accelerate Okanagan. An amazing, amazing organization. And it’s a non-profit, and it’s a group of people that get together, and they have a headhunter that goes to Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, Vancouver, and Seattle, Microsoft — and they try to pull high-tech gaming industries and all kinds of businesses into the community, which is good, because you need to headhunt. I mean, just to say, we’re going to pass these bylaws that are going to allow these businesses — that’s only part of the equation. You have to go out and headhunt.
KELLY CHAHAL Engaging the public I think that’s very important, and that’s how I actually live my life. I like to be informed. I like to take time out and not run to the shiny things all the time, but to actually listen. Sometimes you can’t wait for individuals to come knocking on your door, you should be present. You need to be aware of what kind of issues are going on in your community. I attend local events, gatherings, all the time, just so I have a better idea … It could be marginalized groups, vulnerable groups, those are the individuals that struggle most of the time and often don’t get a lot of attention, but it doesn’t mean their issues are less important.
What would you change? There needs to be more informed decision making. How did we get this colossal arena? If you’re going to buy a TV, you don’t just go out and buy it, you at least talk to people in your family, maybe even get three quotes. How does a council make such a big mistake and continues to keep getting voted in? That mistake is going to continue to cost us so much in the future. On top of that they were going to make another mistake with the YMCA. We don’t even have any money, yet they were going to give $17 million to something that wouldn’t even belong to Abbotsford. That’s not right. New projects We need revenue from tax base. Businesses are leaving, businesses are scared. We have lots of publications existing [saying] that Abbotsford has so much potential, but that it’s not business-friendly. So, I would advocate definitely for a ‘fast lane’ if you are a small-to-medium business. You shouldn’t have to wait 18 months to get a permit.
VINCE DIMANNO Engaging the public Staying engaged with the community is not the kind of thing you do “when you have time” as a city councillor. It actually is your primary function. When I was describing the role of municipal government, I said it was supposed to act as representative of the needs of its citizens. What that doesn’t mean is that you sit as a city councillor and you make up your own mind about what the community needs. We all have ideas, we all have our own observations, but, as an example, I don’t live on Sumas Mountain so for me to make a decision about Sumas Mountain, and for me to formulate an idea in my head about what Sumas Mountain needs or the way that it should grow would be very irresponsible.
What would you change? First, we’ve been without an official community plan for a long, long time. This is extremely rare — the last time our official community plan was updated was nine years ago. We need an updated official community plan so we can plan things like infrastructure, transportation, all of it starts from the official community plan. The effects of going without one are absolutely evident. The arena over by UFV was not in the official community plan, Highstreet wasn’t in the [plan], the YMCA proposal that came up last year that we were lucky enough to not give our money to wasn’t in the [plan]. [Now] all the plans that come underneath that (the infrastructure plan, transportation plan, etc) they all now need to be changed and updated to work with these existing projects that have been built. New projects A really big focus for us initially is the airport, and maximizing the economy that can be created around [it]. We have a very unique license at our airport for transshipment cargo aircraft. This has never been used. We are one of the few airports in Canada that has this license, this ability to bring cargo in from all over the world, and we have no business built around that at all. Cargo haulers are going to Pitt Meadows, and asking if they can fly into there and Pitt Meadows Airport doesn’t have this license. Abbotsford has this license, and those cargo carriers are not coming to us. So, we need to do a much better job of marketing that aspect.
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WARD DRAPER Engaging the public Demographics aren’t interacting enough with each other, so we need to find ways to bring those groups together so they can actually start deciding together amongst themselves what needs to be happening in this city. So bringing together, say seniors and the Indo-Canadian community, the churches, bringing together those sectors of Abbotsford to talk more readily, together, through events, arts, heritage events, different things, different venues, different ideas so those voices can start listening to each other and then maybe in the middle we can start finding out what everyone can share.
What would you change? I think the big difference is I’m coming from a different angle. Most folks are going in talking business, economic development, which is great and valuable and I know we need that area covered, I’m coming in on the social angle that we need to invest in people. Because if we invest in people, invest in community, the rest kind of follow suit. Abbotsford’s been called murder capital, boring, unemployment, all these things are a very unenjoyable space, so the angle that I’m coming at is: what will make the city fun? What will make it a place that you want to stay in and live in? New projects Well some of the stuff that I’m curious about exploring is definitely bylaws, like our good neighbour bylaw, which has got components that basically criminalize poverty. Those have to be dealt with. Things like, you can’t sleep in your car in Abbotsford? If you just lost your job and now you’ve got nowhere to go, you’re going to be fined for that difficulty that wasn’t your fault? So some of those aspects have to be changed. And other things I’ve been thinking about is getting creative with zoning for housing issues. So, looking at, say, places like a nonprofit who has a large parking lot … is there a way that we can create a variance in those sections to, say, pull out a dozen [parking stalls], and that non-profit could put in a trailer? Those are things that are practical and I think could be done with relative ease.
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NEWS ABBOTSFORD CITY COUNCIL
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca
RAYMOND KOBES
BRENDA FALK
TIM FELGER
AIRD FLAVELLE
MOE GILL
Engaging the public That’s going to take listening to different groups, obviously different issues are going to impact different people. So we really have to make a concerted effort to bring those voices together, whether that’s meetings on a UFV campus, or meetings out on ALR land, but it’s going to the places and creating the venues to actually find out who these decisions are going to impact. I think we actually have a student event Thursday night. We’re handing out hamburgers to UFV students, so it’s a great opportunity for the UFV students to hear what we have to say.
Engaging the public Well, you know with e-mail today, everybody’s local. I won’t use any special techniques, the only thing is that I will follow through on what I say. I would deal with the problems and solve them, rather than keep putting them off to the future like we’re doing now. Especially with an issue like the homelessness.
Engaging the public When City Hall doesn’t have a clue what to do next on a topic, they launch a task force to investigate it. And a rather interesting recent example of a task force was on homelessness. I’ve already done that once six, seven years ago, and a bunch of students came to me and said “Aird, we need a venue for our music.” We started meeting on Sunday afternoons and for about three months, we’d get together and we’d hash through what a youth music venue was. We didn’t, in fact, come up with solutions — I came up with a mathematical formula that proved that the whole project was impossible financially. But that’s how you deal with stuff like that.
Engaging the public We have a lot of committees set up in the city, and that involves people from all areas of our city. In the past, at one time, I was sitting on 19 different committees. So, if the committees have an issue in one area, we as councillors go out into that area. When there’s a function happening we go into the area, if there’s a sport happening in that area, we are there. So, we are speaking with the people in our [constituency] at all times.
Engaging the public I definitely would like to have some sort of tabling event or somewhere to interact with students face to face. I have a lot of classmates and friends who I talk to about what I stand for, not to mention I am doorknocking as well, which gives you a face-to-face approach with many people. Networking is one of the big ways I’m doing things, not to mention social media of course.
What has changed? In the last three years it was so easy for me to communicate with people, because, you know, I could come to the university and I could go right into the chancellor’s office and talk to him. We would go out have lunch and see what we could do within the university itself. I worked on bringing wrestling into the university.
What would you change? I’ll just jump into a specific. As someone who’s younger I definitely see the value in arts and culture. Interestingly, as a side note [in the all-candidates debate] there were a lot of answers that were very weak in this category. I’d be in favour of more events in which the artist, musicians, and actors of Abbotsford have a way to showcase themselves without having to go somewhere that’s fixed or for a full three weeks, but maybe for one day or a weekend: an art walk, for example. [And] streamlining the process and being there to help them out because as an organizer I realize there’s a lot of hoops you have to go through.
What would you change? I believe that we need some responsible decision-making concerning the spending in Abbotsford. I believe we spent it on the wrong things, at the sacrifice of things that our municipality really does need. This entertainment centre — great idea, but if you think of the money that was invested, that money could have been invested into our community in other ways that would have had a far great impact on our community for everybody. Certain people get to use it, but when you think of the amount of money we spent on that entertainment centre, individual citizens really get little value out of it. Right now our development cost charges are some of the highest in the Lower Mainland. And so what that’s done is it’s caused developers to go to other communities where they can build much cheaper, and so what’s happened is development has dropped off the map. We need to lower those DCCs, or do something to encourage, give them some value for those DCCs so that they come back. New projects I don’t have a specific one. I think there’s a whole lot of things that we need to look at. The Fraser Highway corridor is in bad shape and we need to deal with that issue. Land coming out of the ALR really has to be justifiable. When you talk to industry they say “I can’t use that land,” so the land sits. So now it’s speculators that buy it. The price of our land has gone up, but industry’s not taking it.
What would you change? I’d solve the problems. Some of the things I’d do is I’d put a cap on the city budget, and I wouldn’t vote for any new taxes at all. I would tax marijuana at three per cent and the money would go to the local government as opposed to the federal or provincial government. I would cut the police budget by $10 million a year and I would lower the bus fare to $1 because, you know, half the time the buses ride around empty. More than half the time they’re 90 per cent empty! And I would pass bylaws so that all police officers have to wear those cameras. And I would stop tax credits and other incentives to the churches and the Abbotsford Downtown Business Association because that’s just government welfare. And I would stop the city from paying advertising, like to the Abbotsford News. New projects I’d bring in harm reduction programs. Drug prohibition is the causation of all this homelessness and this violence and basically the social pollution of gangs and stuff like that. If we ended the drug war, that would solve a lot of problems, if we regulate these things and we bring in harm reduction programs. You know about the chicken manure incident in town. These are war crimes. These are crimes against humanity. Everybody thinks that they can just go and do whatever they want to the homeless people, and there’ll be no repercussions. You know, you can’t do this. What it is, is that if we don’t allow these people a place to say, you don’t allow yourself a place to stay.
What would you change? Dealing with the guys who are living in the street, they’re definitely not valued, like the same categories of other people would be valued in some sector in our city. I can’t believe the cost of daycare, there’s something wrong when we keep our moms from working because of the cost of daycare, all of that’s wacked and needs a pile of fixing, not necessarily at the municipal level, it’s just the social end we need to deal with. I am quite keen on balanced budgets — I don’t like borrowing money because it’s not a sustainable thought — you keep borrowing money, and you have to pay for it 20 years from now. New projects I think the biggest threat to our city is what we’ve been talking about, which is you know, the young people leaving. We need to move fast, too, and you know I don’t know how to do it fast because you need private enterprise to invest the money somehow. You know we’ve got the plan for U-district, but now we need it built.
New projects The main thing we are looking at are new official community plans that are coming. We have people asking what would you want your city to look like in the future? And the official community plan will be producing that for 10 to 15 years. Another issue we have, we have an issue of dikes on the riverside. So, I spoke up on that very strongly last time and we got some funding in and released the dikes, because my chair on the traffic safety committee, I’m very concerned about the safety of the city. And also, congestion and traffic is increasing, so we are looking at the provincial government to widen our freeway to six lanes. We’re also going to ask for funding to see if they will allow us to widen LeFeuvre Road or Station Road out to Mt. Lehman. That would alleviate the congestion that we have there now.
New projects I envision a sort of coordinator from the arts council — I’m not sure who that would be or what that would look like; even if this person exists [already], their job should be more structured, or a part of their job should be toward this specific cause. It would just look like having an outline of what it takes to run a series or an event, and have it very easy to follow, all the steps are there of what Abbotsford wants, so they’re never left wondering, “Oh, are we allowed to do this?” and they know what their boundaries are, and then from there they can do the event and not worry about so much.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca
DAVE LOEWEN Engaging the public Public hearings are the best way to listen to people, especially on the low-barrier housing. There’s a packed house, people had something to say on both sides, that to me is valuable. But when the audience is empty, there’s a public hearing and it’s two or three people, they’re opposed, and they’re vehemently opposed. And I think “Are they representative, likely not.” And then they say, “Why aren’t you listening to the people?” I just bite my tongue.
What has changed? Think of the social housing. [In 2005] I was on the initial [Abbotsford Social Development Advisory Committee], specifically with the purpose of addressing these social needs. Here we are in 2014 and we’ve yet to build a facility for homeless men. So this is my third term, going into a fourth hopefully, we’ll finally see it. Every year, [for] the public, it’s the property tax: “What are you going to do for us in terms of keeping it low?” And that seems to be the only focus [which] colours everything else we do, really. I know we spend $80/capita in Abbotsford on parks, recreation, and culture. And that’s $11 million every year, give or take. So I was thinking, if we committed to paying $40/capita every year for X number of years, that’d be $5 million, we could put a huge dent in the social housing, etc. I know it would take until the next election, four years hence, because ... it would be hard to justify having a referendum mid-term on something like that. New projects I’m thinking of this building here [Abbotsford Centre], it is just beginning with new management and a new contract with Global Spectrum. Hopefully next year we’ll have a tenant, I’m thinking Western Hockey League — we won’t go professional hockey, just too expensive. WHL, these are young guys who don’t get paid salaries, overhead would be a lot less. And I know [transit is] a topic that students would be keenly interested in seeing addressed. ... And as you know the UFV master plan has been adopted. I’m impatient for it to happen, to see the development of spaces where people like to congregate and hang out. That’s what I want to see for this district, for all the hubs in Abbotsford with a transit system that will link them all.
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ABBOTSFORD CITY COUNCIL NEWS NATHAN LOEWEN
BILL MacGREGOR
GERDA PEACHEY
MARLISA POWER
Engaging the public I’d of course represent constituents of all demographics, but I’m running because I want to get people interested in municipal politics that wouldn’t be otherwise, and by running I hope that my friends and colleagues, who are in their 30s or 20s, will have been more engaged in the process.
Engaging the public There’s times where you’ll go out, and now we have the advantage of having social media — I’ll pose a question, like the YMCA, which was very interesting, with the polarization. So you have this polarization, and when you have a polarization, you got to go back to your principles, centredness again. You have to be true to yourself, true to your principles, otherwise you won’t be able to live with yourself. And you won’t be able to fully, ultimately represent the people that sent you there because they’ll go “What was that about? I didn’t know he was like that. Why did I vote for him?”
Engaging the public Well, mayor and council should have telephone availability and email availability and so on. I know that there were a number of years in the past where there was a gatekeeper. He admitted that to me ... [but] I think that has changed, and none of their emails from the public are blocked now.
Engaging the public I think surveys are good, but also just going and connecting, partaking in community events. So events that would be happening at the university [for example] — I know once you’re a councillor your schedule’s a lot busier than before you were a councillor. I like talking to people one on one. But surveys are good as well, to get a slice of what the population is thinking.
What would you change? I would prioritize the values of my environmental ethic. I want to promote a sustainable city ahead of the priority of doing business at whatever the cost. I’m concerned about what is going to be sustainable in the next 10, 20, 50 years — I don’t want to make a “five-year plan,” which is typically how city council does things here. I want to concentrate all development within the core of Abbotsford, and not promote leap-frog development and urban sprawl. I’d also promote the green community plan that the City of Abbotsford has recently developed but hasn’t implemented, which is part of the Community Sustainabillity Initiative. I’m 100 per cent for a green community plan, but I feel that the city has not really put this plan into effect. Perhaps out of a timidity? It’s a touchy subject for some businesses. I’d also stand up, as much as I’d be able to, against prooposals such as the Kinder-Morgan pipeline proposal, which is also coming through Abbotsford. I know the majority of the council in City Hall now would be in favour of it. I don’t think it’s a wise decision, following a precautionary principle, seeing the damage it can cause Abbotsford through neighbourhoods and our sensitive watersheds. New projects New bylaws that promote densification. A new bylaw that requires developers to buy into green initiatives in an urban development project — the developers would be required to pay for some of the cost involved in making that development more sustainable, whether it’s using better rain water or storm systems, which would make less damage and water waste. Promoting new technology that isn’t so harsh to our watershed nearby.
What has changed? I came into this knowing nothing about city politics. Quite frankly, being disgusted by politics because of grandstanding, because of manipulation, because of etc. And political animals don’t have a very good reputation, and I’ve seen why. I’ve become wiser. I’m hopefully like a fine wine as I get older, getting wiser, and being able to do things that are constructive. That would be the summation of my journey: the acquisition of wisdom learned in the crucible. Nobody can know it until you’re in it. New projects If I was thinking about personal legacies, I think we could do a lot better in terms of our internal transportation. What about trolleys? But the time isn’t now. The time now is to manage. The time now is to continue to build our revenues and make sure that we look after what we have and then as the economy starts to change, then we can start to look at those projects that we might want to get involved in. I think you start to look at your physical resources like the river, like the mountain, like the university, like the airport, like the historic downtown. Sometimes envision the McCallum corridor and what’s happening with the uDistrict. You’ve got the uDistrict, you’ve got the Gateway, you’ve got the MSA hospital lands now that are owned by Fraser Health and that’s all going to be redeveloped.
What would you change? Our council has not just dabbled, but has taken a deep dive into areas that should never have been in their mandate. This white elephant sitting over here [Abbotsford Centre], it’s just a glamour project, it was just a way for mayor and council to go puffing out themselves up like we’re such big shots. We write these multi-million dollar contracts, and people are coming to us and fawning over us, like, please, let us in on the goodies here, give us this contract, let us — it’s appalling. The contract with the Abbotsford Heat, what a sham. Why were they dabbling in big name entertainment? That’s why you need eight individual leaders, so you have that diversity of talent and interest. New projects For at least two decades I’ve been after city council. You write those bylaws, you’re the bosses, so you’re the ones who write those laws, so one would assume that if you write them, you would enforce them. But they don’t, they noticeably don’t. So my standard line is, write bylaws that are reasonable, doable, and enforceable. And if you do not intend to enforce them equitably, across the board, a level playing field, then scrap them for all of us. This uneven playing field in Abbotsford is serious.
What would you change? I hope that I would bring a unique approach. My platform is compassion, community, commerce, and change — in that order. I feel approaching our policy, our city, our plans, the way we do things with compassion is extremely important. I’m hoping that looking at things through the veil of compassion, we [will] come up with policies and procedures that are empathetic to everyone, and that will improve quality of life. I’ve had my own experiences with homelessness — just bringing those things to the table give me more empathy and more compassion. New projects Homelessness is an issue I would like addressed immediately. They can’t wait; it’s wintertime. I’m seeing other cities are putting things into place that are working. The City has started on it and I would like to build on that. They proposed to hire a housing coordinator which I’m hoping would take the approach I’ve been talking about, which is getting all the stakeholders involved: Community Services, a student group, the Drug War Survivors who are fighting the bylaw, the police, Fraser Health — getting everyone together and creating opportunities to work with the homeless one-on-one so they can participate in their own recovery and solutions, and then providing housing that welcomes them in just as they are.
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ABBOTSFORD NEWS CITY COUNCIL PAUL REDEKOPP
Engaging the public You just have to make yourself presentable, you have to get out there to where the people are. I could be sitting at Starbucks or Wired Monk or House of James, get to know the people, hear their concerns, but you have to be approachable. If they don’t feel they can go up to you and share what’s going on in their community, then A) they might not vote for you the next time and B) it puts a tarnish on city hall. We need a council that people feel comfortable walking up to and talking to.
What would you change? For starts, we’re $100 million in debt. That’s not fair. We need to get rid of that. We need to be a city that’s friendly. People have to want to come to Abbotsford. Right now we’re the boring city. I have relatives back east that know Abbotsford as the crime capital of Canada. We never used to be like that. When you were younger, the city was the place to go to, like “Let’s go there, raise a family, start a business!” It was the place to go. We’re no longer like that, we have to get back to that. And our current city council, I can’t say all of them, but some of them their focus isn’t in that direction. I’m an approachable person, and I would like to see our city be the same way. New projects Our bus system, I’ve said this time and time again: we don’t need to raise fares, we don’t need to raise property taxes, we need to lobby BC Transit and get better buses here. Our current bus system, a conventional bus gets three miles to the gallon. If we go to a vicinity bus, they get 33% better fuel economy. If we go to a Mercedes shuttle bus, 22 miles to the gallon. The savings, just in the fuel alone, would make it feasible so that we don’t have to raise fares and then we can add more routes. You know, why do we have these huge buses driving around little tight streets like McKinley Drive. It’s hard enough getting two cars to pass each other in there let along a big bus. So if you can eliminate the big buses that are rarely full — use them maybe during peak times when they might be full — but right now they’re running around, two-three people on them, that’s ridiculous at three miles to the gallon.
DOUG REMPEL
HANK ROOS
Engagement the public. I think we actually have to go into the community. So, because I’m here, I’m going to direct it to this venue: I think we need to visit this venue and say “What do the students want?” When we do development here, we say “What do the students want to see,” not “What does a guy in a suit at city hall think should be put here?” I think we start at the grassroots, come to the students, and ask — we want your opinion, your opinion is valid, and we need to take that into consideration when we plan.
Engaging the public Apathy exists in the greater community ... It almost, I think, prompts politicians running for office to ignore those segments of society because they’re not going to vote anyway; why try and speak to their issues? That’s a tough one, unless somehow they get to see the decisions made today are impacting their future. I don’t know how you would pull them in. Perhaps council should hold its meetings here [at UFV]. I know that the provincial government will occasionally hold their meetings in Fort Langley. It’s only symbolic, but if you had a council meeting right here in a large enough venue that students could be there, I think that would be excellent, and you could have an open mic.
What would you change? I don’t think they’re really in touch with what is going on here, I don’t think they really know what students want, because I don’t think they’re asking them. I’ve been involved with youth all my life. So I’m not saying I’m the end-all be-all, but I can say that I actually enjoy sitting down, having a coffee, doing whatever and saying “What’s going on?” So my biggest thing is saying all of that is really to engage and see what we can do. I know students are always busy ... but I think that if we do our best to engage and [take] every opportunity when we get a chance to be invited down, that’s going to go a long way in the long run. New projects Transit, that’s my big thing, and I think it would actually be a benefit to the students here as well. We actually have good transit, but we don’t have good enough transit. People don’t use transit because it takes them two hours to go where they can drive in let’s say 20 minutes or half an hour. It’s absolutely ridiculous. So I think we need to again engage our students and say ... “How can we make it better?” It is a provincial matter as well, but we as council, a municipality, we have a voice, and our voice needs to be heard. So we need to lobby provincial government, and even federal for funds because this is an environmental issue as well. We need to incorporate better planning for transit stations, bus shelters, pull-out areas at the beginning of development and not as an afterthought.
What would you change? Planning has been haphazard. And that’s created problems. They’ve approved taking out of the ALR, the removal of a significant chunk of land out near Bradner. Which is so foolish. I mean, the ALR means it’s a land reserve, and even if it’s not adequately farmed today, future generations, and for that matter global situations might require that we grow food there. It’s short-sighted, and Abbotsford has adequate industrial land around the airport area. So I think council needs to be able to listen to the community, but at times they also have to be willing to say no, especially when it’s powerful, moneyed people that are doing the pushing. New projects The one issue that’s so in-our-face right now is the whole homelessness thing. And it’s not totally within the power of the municipal government to solve that problem, but everything we’ve done so far in Abbotsford, much of what we’ve done so far in Abbotsford, has been very badly thought out or not thought out at all. We’re currently fighting court cases over the way we’ve treated the homeless, and it’s costing us a lot of money. This plan that was in place to build a 22-unit low-barrier housing [unit] for downtown, which was opposed — the community services development would have cost us very little if anything, because they owned the land already. And this new development is closer to the downtown core by at least 200 metres than the one that was rejected.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca
PATRICIA ROSS
DAVID SAHLSTROM
Engaging the public When people aren’t eager to come to you, it is a lot harder to reach out, so I try to put questions out there, say on Facebook or Twitter, saying, “Here’s the issue today and how do you feel about it,” trying to get people engaged. I’ve come to do presentations at the university several times. Actually, any invitation that I get to talk to any community group, I’m in. If you ask me, I’m there, and even if you don’t, sometimes I will sort of invite myself when I’m on a cause.
Engaging the public You reach out to the community groups. It’s a black hole in City Hall, everything gets sucked into City Hall. My opinion is that instead of saying, “We’re City Hall and you’re the residents, and the only time you get to talk to us is at council,” is that “We are City Hall, we are here to serve you.” So when you speak to us, we sit up and listen. We consider your views. We don’t consider it within our context, we consider it within the context of the residents.
What has changed? One of the biggest disappointments, I’d have to say, was our Integrated Community Sustainability Plan. It had how we manage our energy, how we manage our economy, what we’re going to do to become a sustainable community in every single aspect, and I worked on that for two years and was so excited about it. I was so disappointed when it kind of got shot down by council. It was reconsidered, but the language was weakened so that it wasn’t very committal on the City’s part, and it wasn’t strong enough. The disappointing thing is that some people hear the word “sustainability” and they think that it’s all about the environment when that would actually defy the definition of the term. The biggest winner, ironically, in this whole plan, was going to be the economy. So I’m hoping in the next term that maybe that will be revisited and strengthened. One of my biggest disappointments, too, was not getting the Abbotsford Community Services lowbarrier housing facility approved.
What would you change? I would treat everyone with respect, including the homeless. I think the way we’ve been treating the homeless is a travesty. I don’t think it’s effective, and I think that there’s very few that don’t agree that the homeless people are the most marginalized and needy people around. So if we can’t provide as a society, if we can’t provide for their needs, we shouldn’t be discriminating against them. Now, do I condone all their actions? No, I don’t condone all their actions. Do I say that it’s their fault? Well, they made bad decisions and it’s their fault that they made these bad decisions. Why they made these bad decisions, I can never understand. There are a component of people who are not ready to be housed, and we have to accept that there are people who, their only place they can be is on the street. So we have to figure out how to deal with that portion of the population who are [past] that stage.
New projects I would like to see our tree protection bylaw strengthened; it’s one of the weakest in the Lower Mainland. Yet, here’s the thing: a tree protection bylaw doesn’t just protect trees. It protects all the biodiversity and ecosystems that surround it. We have a rich amount of biodiversity, of rare and endangered species, right in Abbotsford on Sumas Mountain, that need protection. Yet that area has been exempted from the tree protection bylaw. If someone is unethical, they can go in and clearcut, let it sit for a couple years, then come to the City and say, “I want to develop this.” Meanwhile all the trees are gone, all the biodiversity is gone because there’s no tree system to support it, the streams are probably destroyed.
New projects I think that what I would do is I would take and find a park or land, I would take and enable it to be isolated or separated, maybe separated from the surrounding residence. It needs to be in an area where the homeless find it desirable. One of the problems with Dignity Village is that it was way out in the middle of, on the other side of nowhere, and it’s probably a couple of kilometre walk to get to the meals at the Salvation Army. It’s Valley Road, out by the recycling houses. No, I don’t support that, because that’s building houses, little cabins. But I don’t know that for sure. They have a trust issue. Nobody cares for them. But there are care communities in our community, in our city, who care for these [individuals]. What we can do as a municipality is to support these organizations to come up with ideas.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca
DALJIT SINGH SIDHU Engaging the public Every single vote adds up. And people who have situations familywise, for example if they have three kids, the parents know the issues. I mean, if I only address the students, there’s a lot of kids who are over the age of 18 who are living single, separate. I’m trying to address everyone.
What would you change? My approach would be completely different, I’m not just going to sit on the table in the city hall, and I’m going to be connecting with people. I’m going to be going out there physically. I know there are a few issues with business licenses and the development process — it takes too long. These are kind of the things that if you try connecting to the people, you will know the feedback. When you get the feedback, that’s when I can work on it. New projects I think efficiency’s a really big problem. Since my candidate debate, I went to a few places, sitting there for 45 minutes, trying to see what kind of services we have. I’ve never travelled on a bus myself, but in Hong Kong the service is so efficient. You don’t even need a vehicle of your own. You don’t. In here, I think the problem is that everyone is rush, rush, rush, and when you’re doing this they want the efficiency, and when you don’t have the efficiency everyone wants to jump into their vehicle. I mean, from downtown to Highstreet it probably takes about an hour and a half. Who has that kind of time? Especially students. It’s just not convenient. I haven’t travelled on a bus, but I will be travelling on a bus in the next few days. I just want to find out what the situation is.
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ABBOTSFORD CITY COUNCIL NEWS ROSS SIEMENS
TINA STEWART
KEN WUSCHKE
Engaging the public Well, various [ways]. I’m on the board at Community Services [and] we offer 80 different programs from new immigrants to new mums (so, childcare issues) and seniors (Meals on Wheels). I think that sort of gives me a broad perspective, and [so does] my business — an automotive repair shop my family’s owned for 60 years — people who I do business with on a daily basis, I get a really broad perspective of people in that regard.
Engaging the public I think that you as a councillor need to be open to all possibilities of communication. People need to have access through telephone communication because you have different age groups … You can’t solely rely on your website or Facebook, you have to be able give people access through picking up a phone and just calling you. Also having the ability to drop by and be able to meet with you one-on-one. I believe that having that access to you whenever they need to meet with you, you need to be able to be open to that.
Engaging the public Several ways. One is online surveys. There should be the ability to go online, read about an issue, and then come and question the council or express their views directly. Another way is through applications on mobile phones. The city of Surrey is experimenting with this right now, where it can be a simple thing like fixing a pothole, or an issue there — you can record it and send it in. Or it can be a broader issue. One of the ideas I’d like to explore over the next four years if I am elected is having that at the recreation centres. Perhaps one night a week, or on Saturdays and Sundays, there are one or two staff from City Hall who are there to take basic questions and direct where you need to go, to find out more information for you.
What would you change? I think one of the main reasons I’m getting back involved is my role on Community Services; I got involved more from the perspective of trying to help the homeless and moving some of those issues forward, and I was a little surprised at how little they knew about what Community Services was doing. Abbotsford has shifted from a medium-sized city in the country to an economic hub or large city that has big city problems we need to address from more of a team approach. I guess when you ask how would we do things different: I think it would be stronger partnerships with senior levels of government and a governance model that looks at it as a board of directors and focuses on issues they have control over. New projects Economic development would be the area I’d like us to focus on because everything else spins out from that. We’ve got the agri-industry, the ability to grow a product, add value to that product, and transport it. Do we need to take a look at some industrial-agriculture mix as far as taxation? We’ll have processing plants on industrial land paying quite a bit higher taxation, yet they’re seasonal — half the year they’re not even being used. We’re making a huge shift from dairy; a lot of our dairy industry has left the valley, so our historic way of looking at agriculture is starting to change.
What would you change? I’d listen. People who know me personally are surprised that I’m doing this, because I’m just an average person, I’m far from a politician. People view a politician as a certain type of person — I’m not really sure what that type of person is, I guess, because I’m not that. I’ve lived through many struggles in my life [which] are not something I am ashamed of. [Learning from those struggles is] how I will try and make this a more progressive community. In the past year, everybody knows, I was told, “Don’t speak about social issues in this community, you’re a businessperson.” And because of my position in the ADBA, I was told, “Hush hush, you’re a business, don’t speak social.” Well, that’s why I’ll be on council, and nobody will be able to shut me up.
What would you change? I’d have to say, it’d be going back to community consultation. The public should be consulted before the first bylaw is even read. And then as you go through each stage, there should be two to three stages of going out to the public as you’re evolving through the project to consult with them. I think that’s the biggest problem in Abbotsford actually, is the fact that the public doesn’t have a clear way of talking to council until almost the last moment.
New projects We need to start thinking progressively about how business and social issues all are a very circular thing. We can’t ignore one and expect the other to work. Business thriving directly relates to whether or not our social issues could be affected in a positive way. We look at so much red tape in City Hall, allowing business to be able to thrive, allowing development to be able to grow. We need to put up high-density housing, but there also needs to be respect for the pockets of the city for the people who want to life in these beautiful old areas. You need to take into account that there are still people who still want to live in single-family dwellings. But I do believe ... we need to start building up so there’s high-density housing, multi-level apartments, so that families can actually afford to buy. Affordable housing has to be out there.
New projects I think my top priority is getting the committees in shape. Right now we have a bunch of committees that aren’t working effectively, and I think we need to overhaul the committee process. One of the things I’d like to see is a minimum of six neighbourhood committees that would be made of residents of that neighbourhood. Often I find people who live closest to the issue have the best ideas to solve the problem. I think the other thing with students is affordable housing. I think we have to take another look at the uDistrict plan, and bring that forward. And really think ahead 15 years where, what’s going to be around UFV? How do we want the community to be? Do we want to have, for example, a pedestrian bridge over the freeway on McKenzie, to make it shorter to get downtown?
KAREN YOUNG Engaging the public I think part of it is up to the people who want to engage. For example, I go to town hall meetings, I’m out and about in the community, my phone number is published, my email is published. People can write, e-mail, they can Facebook me and say “Hey, what about this or that,” have conversations — I’ve had coffee with people. So I can go out and about, but it’s up to them to take a step too, and also go out and about. And if we just run into somebody, that’s okay, we can take a few minutes or it can be a longer meeting. And I’d say that everybody on council or running for council would be the same.
What would you change? Until you’re on the inside, you don’t know what pressures or situations they’re faced with that are confidential, can’t be disclosed. So I wouldn’t say “Boy, what an awful job,” or “I would change all those things” or anything like that. I would say they’ve done the finest job they could under the circumstances, whatever those might be, and I applaud them for stepping up to the plate and doing something. New projects Some of the things I want to do are to address homelessness by encouraging the non-profits, because the city really isn’t in the business of providing service, but we do engage with non-profits. I think there’d have to be an education component, because, as I say, people are looking at a few street homeless people and saying “If we clean that up, then we’re fine,” and that’s really not what homelessness is about. If we can start to address the root causes: that means affordable homes. I mean there are working poor that have to decide: “Should we buy groceries, or should we pay the rent?” Then they get behind on their rent, then they can’t catch up. So we need to find some affordable homes, and the province has stepped up with a program announced just at the end of last week. We need to attract business that pays well. We have one of the highest unemployment rates in B.C., if not the highest, and we need to address that. ... We need a focus of attracting well-paying, clean, compatible businesses to Abbotsford. Professionals are looking for an airport, entertainment, nice homes, and we’ve got all that.
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NEWS MISSION MAYOR
What has changed? I was elected [among] seven people, and our mandate was for change, and we delivered what our mandate was. Our mandate isn’t finished yet, we need to complete the process. We came in with the idea that we needed to recreate City Hall. We did a core service review, and we really did recreate City Hall to be more efficient. That process is still underway. The person who was the city manager, chief administrative officer of the district, retired after 25 years, so he was with us for the first six months and then we hired a new CAO, that’s my only employee. The city manager works for the mayor and council, everyone else in the district works for the CAO. There’s not only been a reorganizational change, but a philosophical change, because one guy’s been there for 25 years, a new guy comes in, there’s a difference, right, that’s human nature, that’s the way folks are. So I don’t see changing what I’m doing in terms of my philosophy to bring down taxes and pay down debt. Our biggest project is the redevelopment of our downtown, and that’s an ongoing thing that will be going on long after I’m gone. Assuming I’m re-elected for another four years, I see that as a 15-year project to come to fruition and really be successful, and we have taken on the job of redistributing where we’re spending money. The biggest issue for many communities in this country is aging infrastructure, and replacing it without a debt burden. We have a program now that we believe will be successful in order to replace infrastructure without having to borrow huge sums of money 10 to 15 years from now, and I would like to continue doing that.
www.ufvcascade.ca
WENDY BALES
TED ADLEM Engaging the public That’s a difficult and ongoing process. We have a manager of community relations, and it’s a relatively new position with the District of Mission. That person’s job is to be proactive and go out and get details from everyone, and we’re getting better at that. The mayor’s job is to be active in the community, and you’ll find me walking up to people and saying, “Hi, how are you doing?” That’s the most effective way of finding out what some of the issues are, to get out on the beaten track and talk to people, that’s a serious issue. There are always those that are always at City Hall and always have an issue, but the general citizen doesn’t have a lot of communication with us and that’s why it’s important to get out and talk to people.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014
New projects [Mission has] eliminated 60 per cent of [the district’s] debt in five years. There was a massive savings program to accomplish that. Cities borrow money from the municipal finance authority, and it’s a 20-year term. And the MFA will allow you to pay down without penalty at year 10. So there has been, over a period of time, a certain amount of money set aside so that in year 10 we can pay off our debt. We are in a stage of three to four payments, the end of this year we will have no water debt, no sewer debt, and will have gone from 19 million and a bit to just a little under six million, which I would like to eliminate over the next four years.
Police board We have RCMP, not a private department like Abbotsford. I have a good relationship with the RCMP. We received a new superintendent; our previous superintendent retired. Ted De Jager started a month ago. It’s a get-to-know-you kind of thing. I’ve always had a good relationship with the RCMP. We are a phone call away or an e-mail, that’s not an issue. Private vs. public interests In fairness to the province, they usually don’t come in and interfere with municipal affairs. There’s a separation between federal, provincial, and municipal responsibilities. so you don’t really have the province coming in and interfering with municipal responsibilities. So I don’t think I have to manage a difference with that as opposed to what the folks want. Clearly the provincial government can make decisions that the general folks don’t like, and you can lobby on behalf of them, but generally speaking it’s not just one municipality lobbying that gets anything done. The development community, if they come in and they want to put together a development, there’s a process, and part of that process is a public hearing. And if you do your job properly and you go into a public hearing, you actually listen to what the people are saying to you, and that is the most effective way of making sure that what the developer wants and what the public wants are equal.
Engaging the public I would be a lot more open to public community meetings and more town hall-kind of meetings. If I had my way, I would have a lot more referendums if it’s a really big issue like the P3 water issue. I would think that would be a good way to get people out to vote, if you did more referendums on important issues. I like that kind of thing where people really have a say in what’s going on, and if you talk to some of the people in rural areas where I’ve been elected, they will tell you pretty much that I stand up for the people as opposed to anything else. That’s general — my core is to stand up for the people.
What would you change? [The CRMG and I] have quite a different view on policy and issues and style of governing. Things are going more dictatorial and that started with the regional district, which I’ve been elected to twice. One of the things that they’ve done is taken away the ability to volunteer for committees. There were sweeping changes, and that was easy to do because there was a whole new slate of mayor and councillors that were new to politics and I don’t think they knew how to compare what was and what was coming. The first term I volunteered for a lot of things. Now I can’t volunteer for the things that I’m a good fit for. What happened with Ted Adlem, who is the mayor of Mission, I guess people like that style because he dictated that he would be the chair of all committees. The mayor is automatically the chair of council, but all the separate committees you [used to] vote for a chair. A lot of people just go with the flow because they are new. I guess it’s good to have some continuity, some people that knew what it was like. If you come in green, it’s easy to be swayed by new changes and policies. I’ve noticed recently as well that there is a lot more bureaucracy dictating things that you’re supposed to put to vote. They lack information on things that they want you to vote on and that’s just really bad politics. You need to do your research and you need the information.
KEVIN FRANCIS New projects There’s a lot of tourism interest in developing the waterfront as a little community market and living place. Kind of like a Granville Island thing. I think [the CRMG] is going in the direction of industrial over tourism and fishing. Fishing has been going on for thousands of years; it’s a good standby. It brings in millions of dollars in tourism. I think with the current council, they’ve been unanimous on the barging zones and in approving contaminated soil sites right in the floodplain. That was an environmentally extensive area or [it was] marked as one before. I think [it’s] bad planning. I don’t know if I can reverse all that, but that would be one thing.
Police board Every year I get a review from them for the position I am in right now. I do work with them a little bit. I would like to see more proactive measures for homelessness. You can save a lot in policing if you do a lot of proactive social programs. Different kinds of housing for different kinds of homeless [is important], because you got some with mental disabilities, you got some addicts, and you got some that just couldn’t afford their rent. You need to have a safe environment that they can lock their door and have their own room. There’s a new study out that shows that it’s much cheaper to house the homeless than to police them. I would like to work on those kind of initiatives with the police as well. Private vs. public interests I tend to run on consensus on a lot of things as long as they make sense. Generally, I find if the public is educated well enough ahead of time, they will tend to get involved in big issues that might affect them. That’s my way that I like to do things. That’s something that can be done easier if you’re in a leadership position because you’re working with the staff and you know what’s coming for the agenda. If you’re just a councillor or in my case, just elected director, you might not be as informed from staff what’s coming in the next agenda and how to set the agenda to make sure that there’s enough time to inform the people that they have a fair chance at input on anything that might have to do with corporations of industry. I think you need to balance that just to give people a fair shot.
Engaging the public The first thing I would do as mayor as my role as mayor is to listen. People have this erronious concept that you’re electing a leader. That’s not what the mayor is, or the councillors. They’re elected representatives. They’re not there to lead, they’re there to represent the people, and we’ve kind of moved away from that and I know I’m a long shot, I know I’m the underdog in this race, but you know I’m trying to bring apathy down and I’m trying to get people to realise that you don’t have to be a part of some kind of elite to run. You just have to be a guy who’s honest enough and cares. That’s my role, is to start by listening, and applying the will of the people.
What would you change? To be quite honest I’m not exactly sure how to answer that, because I’m not within City Hall, I haven’t seen the books, I don’t know. I’m not afraid to say that. Mission has this unique little identity, and unfortunately the powers that be are very much interested in only developing the place more and more and more. Now there’s nothing wrong with development if it’s done right. But, the way they’re doing it they’re essentially trying to make it into Abbotsford #2. That’s a problem, because you’re just another city. You’re much better to work off of what the city has. Mission is one of those last unspoiled bastions in the valley. If you build on the strength of the city, you make it proud of its own identity, then it doesn’t have to become just a paved shopping centre from as far as the eye can see. Which unfortunately seems to be happening in Abbotsford. Maybe you should be developing more like, touristy things, more environmental things, more science-based things. Education-based things. Not simply shopping.
NEWS MISSION MAYOR
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca
TONY LUCK
RANDY HAWES New projects The first thing I want to do is put a code of ethics, because I’m tired of seeing councillors and mayor bickering like children, you know, 65 and it’s like being back in high school with these people, just want to stuff them in a locker sometimes. I’m an ideas kind of guy. The problem is that I don’t have the resources or the know-how to apply them. So I need to surround myself with these kind of people, and you know if I become mayor that’s a chance for me to do that. One of the things for example is I want to bring internet and wi-fi to all of Mission. Instead of paying Shaw or Rogers or anything like that, Mission itself could become the provider. And by doing that you can get a great price because it’s almost like buying bulk in a way. But you can also make a bit of money off of it.
Police board I want to have a very open relationship with all of the departments, not just the police. I know dealing with the RCMP ... you’re dealing with kind of another level of government in a way, especially Mission, it’s not like the APD in Abbotsford. But you know the more open, the more transparent the communication the better. Private vs. public interests One of the first things I want to do that’s in my platform is propose a participatory budget, [where] you take a very small percentage of the budget, let’s say one per cent, or even less than that. It’s a substantial amount of money, you put that aside and instead of going behind closed doors and figuring out the ins and outs and feeding that to the public and saying, “You have to accept it, that’s how we voted, tax raise or not,” you take that one per cent and you say, “Okay let’s form a committee of citizens,” and you give them that money, and you say, “Okay, you guys are in charge of that money.” You get the citizens involved into their own budget, into their tax money. If you led the power into the population, they will balance the interest, the private interest, and province interest on their own. They will do that.
Engaging the public I have engaged in a pretty good social media campaign, I have a website, I am active on Facebook, I have a group that I’m working with to enhance my capability in social media. I have a newsletter that’s going to go out to every household by mail, and of course word of mouth, and I have supporters that also spread the message that I bring, so that’s kind of how you reach out. I mean, [in Mission] we don’t have radio or television and we don’t have the newspaper that reaches the broad masses.
What would you change? I would be looking to bring civility back to City Hall, that’s the first thing. The second thing I would be looking to bring back I guess I would call it a family-oriented style right now in Mission. What we have is a group that went on a zero-taxincrease binge and in doing so they cut some essential services: public safety, road maintenance, all kinds of things that I belive made Mission a meaner, tougher place and a place that is not as family friendly. And I believe that it’s the responsibility of a city council to make sure that they make decisions that make life better for families in the neighbourhood where they live today. What we see is spending concentrated in the downtown area in what they call a revitalization. Many many millions of dollars planned to be spent there, which, frankly, everydollar that you spend of a project like that is a dollar that’s not in a neighbourhood somewhere. And people don’t live downtown. And frankly the days of shopping downtown are almost gone. People don’t shop there now, they shop in big box supermarkets, shopping centres, you name it. The downtowns are more for, I guess I’ll call it destination shopping. It’s a gamble and I don’t like gambles with tax money. It’s probably about the sixth revitalization attempt, all have failed.
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New projects One of the problems we have is homeless, addicted, mentally ill people. I believe that the right approach is to first and foremost put the right kind of people on the street that basically learn who these people are as individuals. And when you have enough information on them as individuals, you can start to look at what they need for help to get them back into a productive lifestyle. I know that’s worked in some communities. I know that things like street police, which we don’t have now, quickly get to know these people and they [can] couple with some of the social workers that we have. Mental health works are probably needed. I’m not afraid to be looking at that, and if we need to put some money into it I’m not afraid to do that either, but I think we have now a situation where some of the people running say that the homeless problem is not our responsibility. It’s our problem and it’s getting worse and so I believe that we have to do something about it. You can’t talk about revitalizing downtown until you deal with that problem.
Police board There’s a perception of danger. Particularly a lot of women have that when you have scary-looking homeless people following you from the ATM for example, or in a shopping centre following you to your car. I think that the police and others can critically sort out who are the predators [and] who are the vulnerable. The predators I believe we need to have a little different method of dealing with. I think if nothing else, if they are unwilling to change ... homelessness, addiction, and mental illness is not an excuse for improper behaviour. If they want to continue ... we’ve got to deal with that harshly. Provincial, private, public The council has to sort through and try to gauge what their constituency is interested in seeing. There’s always public hearings, but City Halls get crammed with people who are opposed to things, and there’s a real danger with some councillors, particularly ones that don’t have a lot of experience, that begin to think because there is a very crowded council chamber with people very against something it must be a bad thing and they should oppose it. Usually on a lot of issues the opponents are the ones who are vocal, and the ones who are okay with it, they’re okay with it so they’re not going to show up at city hall and carry a placard. And I think you have to, through experience try to figure out what the majority really do want.
Engaging the public I’m proposing for when I become mayor to have a citizens advisory committee. I want to go into the community and pull regular citizens to come and sit on a council citizens advisory committee so we can start getting opinions out of the committee. I think that for too long we’re seen as isolated enough that we don’t listen to the people. And that’s happened, and we’ve got to change that. I think sometimes we like to think we know what’s going on, but that’s outdated thinking. I want to be a very open mayor, and I think that the other thing that we could be looking at is a referendum as well. That will help engage the people, because sometimes we have some big projects, a lot of controversy on that, or there’s things that the citizens want but they got to find out how to pay for that. And I’m proposing that by 2018, the next election, that Mission will be one of the first municipalities in British Columbia to be voting online. And we hope that that will increase voter turnout. There are a lot of the cities that have done that, they’ve gone on and they’ve increased their voter turnout.
What has changed? It’s very interesting when you’re a new councillor, you go in there full of vigour, and you’ve got all these ideas of what you’re going to do to improve the city and I think a lot of us, and I see some of the new councillors running, we’re naïve a lot of the times. We think we’re going to be able to come in there and charge like a bull through the china shop and everything, and we’re going to be fiscally responsible, and we’re going to do this, and we’re going to do [that]. The biggest challenge when you get in there is it’s not all about you, it’s about the citizens and the community and what they want a lot of the time too. Sometimes citizens do like to be told what to do, and need to do; otherwise we’d have every citizen running for council, no doubt. They do defer to you to make some of those responsibilities. So when we first ran, we ran as a slate back in 2011 and we came in with some very specific things we wanted to do. But I look now, you cannot sustain a city with zero tax increases. I’m running for mayor now because I think we’ve got to do differently as leaders in the community, be more open, be more respectful, be more dignified, be more professional. I’ve learned those things over the last three years, so I have learned a lot.
New projects I think that we’ve been looking at downtown revitalization as a big part of that. I think that we want to clean up the downtown, make it a jewel for the city. The other initiative that I have and I want to do is a mayor’s task force on homelessness and social issues. And that sounds really broad, but we get a lot of good people in our community with expertise from around and I want to pull that together. Some other candidates have suggested that I want to solve this problem in the four years. I’m going to tell you right now that it will not solve the problem in four years; it’s impossible to solve the homeless problem. Mayor Gregor Robinson in Vancouver said that by 2014 he would have solved the problem; he hasn’t. There are just too many variables — for example, funding from the provincial and federal government for housing. So I want to put together this task force together, somewhat similar to the one they had in Abbotsford, so they are able to look at how we can work on some of these issues. I’m not saying solutions in there, but certainly work and find ways to deal with the problem and the situation.
Police board We’ve got a new chief of police over there, so we need to speak with him and find out what our priorities are, and continue to have that good dialogue with him. One of the things we failed to do as a council when we were first elected is to go around and meet with all the heads of the departments as well as we could have, as well as the staff, so we’re going to speak to them and listen to them a lot more. Private vs. public interests Well, that’s always a challenge because we’re a smaller community. We need some growth, we need to get development, we need to get businesses and industry in our town. You have people that are really concerned about the environment, you have people who are worried about people with jobs, and you’re worried about most of our citizens’ commute for work, so you’ve got to figure out how to do that. And I’ve always erred on the side of listening more. Some people just wanted to discount things like a new subdivision or a new development and [CRMG] just said, “Nope, we’re not going to do that,” and I don’t want to do that, I want to sit down and talk a little bit more about it, involve the people, listen to what they have to say. Proper public hearing, proper information meetings, are really important for developers or anybody to come in and be able to present their idea and get info from the public.
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MISSION NEWS CITY COUNCIL
PAM ALEXIS
BOBBY BRAR
Engaging the public [It’s] really important, and I sense that we are not engaged at all. And I think this current council as a slate basically blind-sided the community when they were elected. It was a shock to the community, and consequently engagement has been extremely difficult for this particular council, because there wasn’t that backbone support. So the first order of business would be to make sure that there are mechanisms in place for people to feel that engagement. There is a recently hired community engagement officer at City Hall, and I would sit down with him and look at how we can get that support from the community on an ongoing basis. So that’s something that really needs some thought, because the traditional methods have not been terribly successful.
Engaging the public From my own experience, I use the transit system, so I can almost go around the whole of Mission and I can figure out where the needs and changes are to make our town universally accessible. At one time, I took the current mayor on a tour and showed him the city, where we need to be making changes. I have my own experience, so I can see where the changes need to be done. I’ll be connected. I want to listen. Then if there’s a good idea they can bring it up, and then the council will implement those ideas. But the main thing is we have to make a good relationship, encourage them, so they can come forward and talk and share their ideas.
What would you change? This current council is making a tremendous number of decisions in-camera. When I was a trustee, we rarely had in-camera meetings unless it was legal land or personnel issues, which are in the charter that we must follow. I believe that everything should be out in public and if you have the information that you need to discuss it in public, then you’re good to go. And I think the difference between this council and other councils is that many things are pre-determined at a pre-meeting prior to council. So we don’t get the crux, we only get a yes or a no vote in a council meeting. So the first thing that needs to be done is the public needs to be brought into the process of decision-making. New projects One thing that I, with respect to students, have felt a real need for a long time is … some kids take longer to launch than others. Some students don’t embrace everything that high school has to offer and consequently miss the boat. So I had this vision that I wanted to start a resource centre for students who finished high school who want perhaps some mentoring from professionals or some way to connect again, because they’re lost. So my idea was to match professionals with young people who may have an interest in [something], but really don’t have any connections. So it’s like a means to try that next step.
What would you change? I want to make a bridge between problems and solutions in a diverse community. Life gave me an opportunity to see life from a different angle, might be like an able-bodied person can’t see those things, but I can, the experience, right? So that’s my priority besides all the other goals, to make our town to be universally accessible. In the beginning, as an example, I shared that idea — I started to use the leisure centre. In family changerooms, they don’t have a push-door button. I saw lots of single moms with strollers, they can hold the door with the elbow and push the strollers — so it’s not the issues of people in wheelchairs, there’s lots of things that I can see and experience and make change. As part of the team, I will tell them more about what they don’t see. New projects The current CRMG team is working to be building, they bought an old building in the downtown, planned to be making a facility for the senior citizens. And the building right now we have, the old fire hall — so once the city builds the senior citizens’ facility, then we can use the old fire hall for all kinds of youth activities. That’s what I have vision for, to use that building for the youths, multi-purpose.
ATTILA DAVALOVSKY
DON FORSYTHE
Engaging the public Well, we have had open forums. [The CRMG] kept those promises that they said, and they’ve had open forums — for instance, the downtown revitalization, they had, if I remember correctly, three different open houses where they showed what the plan was, they brought in the gentleman and they, for the life of me I can’t remember his name, but he was involved in the restructure of Langley’s downtown. And you see what’s happened with their downtown, its business has improved exponentially, so that gentleman was here looking at our downtown and he was at these meetings and we were able to talk to him.
Engaging the public Well, we have our own platform on what we are intending on doing and how to accomplish it. So, along with the questions that come up at city hall, most of the people coming to the meetings are coming for some type of donations, which we try to help. But when we have the debt paid down to zero, and we have a plus factor in our budget account, then we’ll be able to help much more. But right now, we’re trying to look after the basic homeowners, and business and industrial people that are here paying the taxes.
What would you change? Basically as soon as I put my hat in the ring, the dynamics changed for this council. Like I said, there’s the eight items that I’m in total agreement with [CRMG], that I want to see something happen, but as far as the rest of it, there’s — each one of us has a different view on different things. We all bring something different to the table. I’m in the food and beverage industry with background in security. So as far as that goes I’m bringing business and a local business, because a good portion of my [food and beverage industry] experience is locally. New projects Our transit system is pretty poor out here, and we’ve got to find a way of getting people onto the buses. In the community, that’s quite rural, people rely on their vehicles and they have to, and it’s like pulling teeth, trying to get somebody out of their vehicle to get on the bus to travel. What have we got to do to get that happening? We have really no control over the transit. We pay [BC Transit] X amount of dollars year to have that here, and they decide on what buses, what routes, things like that. We have input, we can suggest, we really can’t tell them how to do it. So in order to get more buses out here, we have to find ways of getting people to stop taking their vehicles, so bring business to town, bring schools to town where kids, adults, seniors can hop on a bus and get to where they’re going without using a vehicle.
What would you change? Well, we would work as a team. Basically, the people that are not going to be involved this time that were with CRMG before, they were all part of the team making these decisions previously. One of them has decided to try to run as a mayor himself, and there’s another two want to become independent councillors. They think their ideas are better than a team’s concept — anyways, we don’t agree with that. New projects Well, we’re developing a high-tech centre downtown and I think it’s already attracted something like 200 jobs, and there’ll be many more coming in. And we’re also working with the provincial government to establish a university in Mission, and we hope it will get funded. With the help of the university we’ve already bought the property and the building for $1.9 million. And we’re working on having it funded so that there will be a university for the youth as well. As part of that there is the high tech centre which is already established, and is starting to grow very rapidly. So, we’re trying to build Mission into a high tech centre as well as a university centre for the students.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca
TERRY GIDDA Engaging the public This is the responsibility of the council, to see what are the needs of the constituents. Not what the activists want. Activists want certain things done, and maybe you can look at it, but the council’s responsibility is to make sure that all kinds of services, public safety, policing, the whole community is protected.
What would you change? [What] the council is doing now, they haven’t done any projects. Mission is a very small community, not maybe like Abbotsford or Chilliwack, so you need to improve your tax base. How do you improve your tax base? You need to attract, we have quite a few businesses in Mission, but we need to attract industry, or look for other sources of revenue so that the tax burden on the residential people is lowered. That’s what I will do. The current council, actually, has cut a lot of services — they have cut fire department services, and Mission, actually, is approved for 52 police officers, but we have only 47, a shortage of 5 police officers, so public safety is at risk. That’s what’s happening with the current council, so I will work towards restoring some of the services so that the citizens of Mission are safe. New projects What I think I’d like to work towards is we have a problem with a lot of homeless people, and when I was on council we had approved one project for housing some of the people, but we still have the problem, and a drug problem, so we need to do something so that we can help those people. We need several agencies, you need police, you need community services, Fraser Health, and the council, they should all get together and try to do something to solve this problem.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca
CAROL HAMILTON Engaging the public I’m a great one for having little task forces to involve the community, because I believe we need to listen to what the community has to say. I really feel it’s important to reach out to the younger generations, because they’re going to be shaping Mission going forward, not my generation — it’s going to be the younger generation, 18 and up, who are going to shape the future of Mission, so I want to hear from them. How do we do that? Do we have little internet cafés? Do we have opportunities through our leadership at the high schools to reach out to the younger generation? That’s what I would like to do across the generations.
What would you change? I think what’s lacking a little bit is the connection to the community. I’m not here to say anything really against our current council — I don’t run that type of campaign, but I do feel like we could be better connected to the community, which means reaching out to the different non-profit groups, the school system. I know council and the school board needs to be more connected. I’m just coming off nine years as a school trustee, so we need to keep those connections, and we need to foster them. New projects I’ve got a lot to learn — I’m not going to say I know all the issues, and I don’t. But I’m really interested in the revitalization of downtown. What that’s going to look like, I’m not sure, because that’s targeting the downtown core when we’ve got the greater good of Mission. My priorities would be fiscal responsibility, public safety — I think that’s important for people to feel like they can walk around our town and feel safe, whatever time of day that is. And we need to bring back some trust and rebuild — there is a morale problem at City Hall. That needs to be addressed. I think one of the first things: gain the trust of the employees, because we’re not going to rebuild if we don’t have the trust.
MISSION NEWS CITY COUNCIL RONN HARRIS
DAVE HENSMAN
Engaging the public In American town hall meetings, what they’re doing with apps and involving people — wow. I mean, given the polarization and all that kind of stuff, thirty-second soundbites, wait a minute — arming the population out there with, “You have a voice,” and, “Yes, it is important that you know what’s going on in this discussion.” “Well I haven’t got time,” well who does have the time? Who is responsible for putting it out in a matter that you can understand, or make a decision on your behalf if you haven’t got time? I don’t know how far we’re going to get, but we’re definitely gonna push this as far as we can. It’s the wave you haven’t seen yet.
Engaging the public That’s why I’m excited about talking with you guys today because, for many of your readers, this is their first time to vote, maybe, or second time to vote depending on how old they are, and so they’re gonna make decisions, either educated decisions based on the research they do and they’re gonna either not vote because they don’t care yet, or if they do care and they’re not educated in how this works, they may make a vote that is simply just a wild stab in the dark. So I encourage young people to get educated and find out which candidates are looking for the best outcomes for the future, which is what I believe we’re doing at the CRMG team.
What would you change? Having been on a council once before, with six, seven new people, you have all the human dynamics that are going on, you’re trying to find out where everybody’s coming from, where they want to go, what their agendas are, on and on like that. And right out of the gate, you’re faced with a budget. Who’s in control of this? People say, well term limits. Term limits are going to reduce the capacity of the new people coming in because they’ll only start to learn the ropes, and then they have to go. The nice thing about CRMG is we’ve had some ongoing conversations. I mean differ, of course we do, but we’ve all sat down at the kitchen table and figured out what the economics are of our own households and how important it is to put our own household in order New projects Childhood development is absolutely mandatory. Anybody that’s ever made a dollar in this world knows that a dollar spent in childhood development saves a bundle over time. Childhood development is probably the biggest social issue out there ... because if you don’t, Johnny’s a delinquent, and is costing social costs here, he’s costing the police, the prisons, the courts. If we could only have solved his little problem when he was five. It just mushrooms. This is where we want to put our dollars and cents. Take a look at a lot of social problems today — homelessness for instance. We’re dealing with people that are primarily over 20 years old. I mean, wouldn’t it have been better had we dealt with that drug problem, that mental illness problem way back then — we wouldn’t have that now.
What has changed? Because we were elected as a slate, as a team of people, we had seven votes. So everything that we promised the community we were going to do, we actually did, because we had the votes to do it. New projects Well, we’ve done some bylaw adjustments for the downtown. We’ve basically been working on relaxing parking requirements for new construction, density improvements, so we’ve actually done quite a bit of work on bylaws for our downtown revitalization program. You know, bylaws are only as good as you enforce them, and so we’ve got a few bylaw issues that obviously we want to keep working on. Downtown parking is one of them, where some folks are not adhering to some of the parking rules and regs, but that’s something we have to deal with in the next term. The downtown revitalization is a tenstep program, and we’ve just started it. We just got funding from the provincial government for a road change in Mission, so that’ll turn First Avenue into what we believe is going to be the Robson Street of the Fraser Valley. And it’ll keep truck traffic off it, logging trucks, they’ll be diverted onto Railway. And so that’s the first of the big moves.
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JIM HINDS
BARRY JESKE
Engaging the public You need to get out there in a proper way. There hasn’t been a town hall meeting in over a year — the council didn’t like what they were hearing, and quit doing them. People said to members, “Change your attitude,” and they didn’t. They simply changed the meetings. From what I’m hearing out there, [citizens] want more interaction, they want them to discuss issues and come to a consensus as to what the best way is to do something in this community, whether it’s cleaning up downtown, helping the homeless, or better public safety. But there is no discussion. The way it goes now, an item comes up, the council votes and blocks, and that’s it. It’s been described as a benevolent dictatorship, because you have no say. “You know nothing, we know everything.” A councillor needs to be out there in the community, talk to people, and discuss issues — not hide them. If you get comments that are unfavourable, look at them, see if they are legitimate, and work with them.
Engaging the public Mission’s small enough that fortunately if you go down Main Street and have lunch or go down Main Street and have dinner, you should be able to talk to people on a daily basis. I want to be the type of councillor that when I’m driving down the street and I see two city trucks doing work, I’d love to be able to pull over and see, not what they’re doing, but how as a councillor I can help them do a better job — because I think so much of the disconnect between the politician and people and also district employees results from not knowing the people that are out there with the boots on the ground on a daily basis doing the work. Sometimes they have the best ideas on how to do the simple things done, but it gets convoluted in paperwork and process, and then they get frustrated. So that’s what I want to do, I want to be out and meeting people.
What would you change? My first priority would be to hold council more accountable than it has been. The community needs to know what’s going on. If you know where the money is coming from for the downtown core project, and you’re not telling people, or when you have a fire inspector who is overloaded with work because a fire inspector was laid off to “save money” for the sake of keeping taxes down, the community needs to know. New projects My first point is public safety. The current council is bragging about how they saved $800,000 on public safety. In my mind, you shouldn’t be bragging about that. Where do those savings come from? From not hiring police officers, from turning a fire inspector into a bylaw officer. Yeah, you save lots of money, but is your community safe? Spending eight to 10 million dollars cleaning up downtown by planting trees and putting in fancy benches is not going to clean it up. It’s just going to make it a nicer place for the drug addicts down there. You have to get rid of the drug problem. We have a strong social issue here — the same thing Abbotsford has with the homeless, Mission has with drug addicts. I’ve never been afraid to live in Mission, and I’m not afraid myself of downtown Mission now, but I’ve seen things that should not be happening in any town.
What would you change? I don’t know what hours councillors keep within an office within the city hall itself, but I would like to know that if I’m a councillor I would have for sure a set time when I’m in that office that the general public could come and visit that office. New projects One thing I am a little disappointed with is, I do go through the history of some of things that the district has done and I see RFP after RFP after RFP [Request for Proposal] being awarded to out-of-the-province firms, which I think is somewhat disappointing. It’d be nice to keep the business local, at least within the province. We might not have expertise within the district, but you would think within the Lower Mainland or the whole province we would have the expertise. And study after study, yet not a lot seems to get done. So rather than trying to accomplish everything, try and focus on a few issues that the community wants to get dealt with and concentrate on those, and those would be the things we would work on for the four years.
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JEFF JEWELL Engaging the public We have a manager of citizen engagement and corporate initiatives, a position that was created on the past council which I served. It came about partly as a recommendation from a core service review that we initiated as a campaign promise in the last election. This position is intended to have a two-way dialogue with the community, and it’s in an early stage of roll-out, so to speak. The community hasn’t yet really plugged into it and their response level is not what we were hoping it would be, but I think it’s been a good start and it has a good potential. But the issue of citizen engagement is a huge issue, which is wrong. It applies pretty much around the world. There’ve been a lot of people who have done a lot of research into that.
What has changed? Not a lot. The whole council, even those who resigned, remain true to our promises. That was the core of our agenda. The other thing to say is any elected body finds the agenda changes to face the issues that come before them. We did have as an item the downtown revitalization initiative, and that became a much bigger part of our activity through the course of the term of council. I also had a personal focus of attention on the whole issue of a new water source, and I played a major initiative on that, which took a lot of my attention, and produced a lot of very positive results. When I looked at the data for the water usage over the last 10 years it only took me about 10 minutes to realize that there was no imminent problem of shortage that would justify a new water source, even though that was the belief of the Abbotsford staff. New projects A task force initiated a study and produced a very fine report which our council adopted and put forward to the Abbotsford-Mission water-sewer commission. It took about six months for them to finally agree that we have no need … We would have been looking at a borrowing of $50 to 60 million for our part of the project. If we are elected and then have the support to move forward with this referendum, I volunteered to be the chair of the task force that would work with others to see what’s possible and how best to do it.
MISSION NEWS CITY COUNCIL
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca
MICHAEL NENN
RHETT NICHOLSON
LARRY NUNDAL
Engaging the public I think it’s engagement past the campaign — campaigns happen and all of these people come out of the woodwork, door-knocking, going, “Hey, vote for me,” they promise you the world. But when the election’s over and the dust has settled they all disappear, other than your letter in the mail saying, “Hey, we’re doing a great job,” or perhaps something you read in the paper, municipal rezoning or an application — you never really hear from them. There’s town hall meetings, but people don’t have the time to get out. I think once you’re in, yes, you’re busy, but I think, still, why not door-knock or have community hall events? So if it means you actually have to go out and bang on some doors — maybe you don’t care, but do you know that this is going on? Then people can respond in kind, or they can shut the door in your face.
Engaging the public The problem, I think, with apathy is that people don’t talk about politics. They’re afraid of it — like in my generation, I’m 34, and my parents never talked about — they were like, oh, you never talk about politics! And I think that’s where apathy — you don’t understand how you can actually help to vote. But education from the beginning would be key, I think, in anything. The teenage years are the years that build up what you think of the world.
Engaging the public Well, I don’t know why there’s a lack of student interest in politics. I don’t see the students attending any council meetings or any committee of the home meetings. What they should do is, it starts with the classroom. Make arrangements so they can go tour various meetings, right? And interviews! The mayor’s phone number, his office is open all the time. You can phone the mayor any time. He’ll talk to you. But, you know you have to have a basic understanding ... If you don’t have a basic understanding of how the municipality runs, it could be different for you. It’s a learning exercise. Students should get involved. It’s their future. One thing you might know: in a municipality, the taxpayer’s the guy who pays the bill. That sometimes gets lost in the big picture. So, we’re looking after the taxpayer’s interest.
What would you change? I think in municipal politics you need to have that diverse opinion — that’s why I fully support minority governments to be honest. I think a majority government, especially in this day and age with voter turnout, just doesn’t work. I’ve always believed that I will listen to anybody’s opinion, and I’m never going to be one of those who go, “No, I don’t agree with you.” That to me is not common sense. Government should represent society as a whole, and is not society made up of a diverse group of people? The CRMG certainly as a slate, I don’t agree with that. Why don’t — you may as well get rid of the six councillors and have the mayor as a dictator and he’ll run the show.
What would you change? I notice the direction that the current council is going is not really related to families, even though Mission’s average age is 38. There’s a lot of young families out there and they don’t put the focus into the important things like parks. Most of Mission’s parks are pretty much dilapidated, falling apart, and there’s just no budget for it. They’re not seeing the importance of treating kids with respect. Safety is another big issue for me. Our emergency staff, I’ve met with them, and they’re adequate but they’re not where they would like to be. I talked to the fire chief, and he says, you know, the city’s safe, but ... in Mission, there’s no firemen after 6 p.m. [at the hall]. There’s always a 10-minute delay, 20-minute delay before they can even get down there … our current council, they’re zero per cent tax, they’re all about taxes and nothing else. They’ve cut everything back.
New projects Right now, I don’t agree with the downtown revitalization project. I agree that a downtown is essential, a healthy and vibrant downtown, it’s the pulse of any community. I don’t understand why, in this day and age, why they want to run a highway through the middle of a downtown. I think it should be bypassed, and I think the feds and the province need to pick up the tab on that, being under the ministry of highways and the province. Both Railway and First then come under the control of the municipality, keep it as a one-way street. I’ve talked to business owners on them making it a two-way street and then pushing all of Lougheed onto North Railway. I think the businesses on North Railway are going to suffer.
New projects Recently we had a meth lab in Mission, and it was so big it would have blown up a whole city block. When the current council got in, their main reason of getting in last time was to get rid of this thing called Public Safety Inspection Team. They thought it was unlawful, so they got in, they deleted everything to do with that, and in there, there was a bylaw that put all the costs incurred to the property owner of any illegal activity. That meth lab, if it blew up, the city would have been liable because they didn’t have that bylaw in. And we had to hire hazmat people round the clock. I don’t know why those guys would never put a new bylaw in place at least to protect the city, but that’s just one thing of the whole safety, right?
What has changed? The main roles of municipalities have changed over the years. We’re governed by what you call a “community charter” now, and we’re a version like any other version of law. Our core services: provide police, fire, public works — roads, sewers, and such, okay? And recreation, I would say. That’s the core! There are a lot of other things we get involved with, like animal control. It goes on forever. I could spend three hours with you on that. But there’s core services you have to provide, are mandated to provide under the community charter. New projects We’ve got eight issues that are dear to our hearts, and the rest — we’re on our own. Have you read one of these [CRMG pamphlets]? That’s right. It’s all in there, actually. My main goal right now is to look after the taxpayer’s wallet. Make sure we maintain our infrastructure and those items on here. That’s the main goal. Then there’s also the other goals that come. There’s a day-today operation on the municipality you got to run which is aside from this.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca
DANNY PLECAS Engaging the public I’m trying to engage the school district that gets the kids together and ask them, “How do you see this community?” They’re going to be the ones seeing the implications of changes 20 years from now. We need to make them feel like, not only that we’re listening to them, but also we’re actually taking their ideas and planting them into the community. People in politics are often afraid to give the townspeople a chance to get into it, and we hire consultants and outside people all the time. Even though there might be a mistake, having someone actually getting their idea realized will inspire others to start coming up with ideas themselves. It gets other people thinking.
What would you change? People look at politics with a negative tone. But really, it’s about how you build a neighbourhood. We do have surveys that we send out, but it’s always the same people who respond to it, so we don’t really know how effective they are. We’re a community that has a lot of activities, we have a lot of events, and I think we need to connect with people at these public events, and get them to feel like they have something to contribute. New projects The first thing people see when they come across the river is this eyesore. We need to develop a waterfront that reflects what Mission wants to be. There are good models that are out there — there’s a place in Vancouver just built called Riverfront. I like the idea of urban planning. Every community needs some kind of iconic structure, right? [CRMG] talks about developing downtown into this high-tech industry thing. It’s not very fluid, and it’s not that great a business model. You need to build a residential model around it. Successful retail stores, like local coffee shops, all run on the premise of good densification, so people can walk to that local coffee shop. You look around West 4th Ave and Broadway [in Vancouver], and you see people everywhere. Where do they come from? They live in the immediate area, and they’re going to the flower shop, the grocery store, the bakery. You want that sort of densification in Mission. And you can do it; it’s not impossible. You just need the leadership to pull it off, and we don’t have that right now.
MISSION NEWS CITY COUNCIL SHAZAD SHAH Engaging the public We forget a lot about politics as not only representing the people — we’re also participating in places where they feel comfortable approaching you and talking about their issues. Because there has been and there is that tendency of building walls around politics and kind of building that ivory tower concept which disenfranchises people. They think their voice doesn’t matter because they don’t have the education or the knowledge to pursue it.
What would you change? Ask those questions that aren’t being asked. So like when the OCP [Official Community Plan] is coming out — how cities are designed in the future — businesses look at OCP and see where the council and the city wants to grow and see if their business can work within that. But not only is it important for the business sector, but it’s also important for how we design cities, whether we design it to be more sustainable, whether we design it around not having the car, because so much of our planning is designed around the automobile and 2.5 children. We need to start looking at singleparent families, what do people that don’t want to get married, that live singly. We want to look at how far away grocery stores are for people that can use public transit or people that need to walk. And those are the questions that I want to not only bring to the table, but help bring forward and represent those people. New projects There’s a lot. [Starting] from having a clothesline restriction in the major cities. When you have a clothesline bylaw, [it] means that you can’t have a clothesline outside of your house. It was originally created to kind of pretty up the neighbourhood, but at whose cost? People that are concerned about the environment, about using electricity, those people are falling under the table because they can’t put up a clothesline. People that can’t afford to dry their clothes also require clotheslines. So simple things like that. Having chickens in rural, municipal areas is another thing. Long time ago, they decided, “Well, we’re building a city, we need to make it pretty, so let’s not have micro-agriculture in cities.” So it’s looking at all of those and addressing them and asking the questions: “Is this valid for us to move forward with?”
JENNY STEVENS
TERRY STOBBART
Engaging the public Whenever I go downtown shopping for things, people always stop me say, “Hey Jenny, have you got a minute?” And I always make sure I have got a minute. And again, my phone number is out there, my email is out there, and I have a rule that I always respond within 24 hours if I get a message. So really it’s just having a pair of ears open, and being ready to listen. It’s a full-time job.
Engaging the public Well, there’s a point of reaching out to people and being seen, and I think current council doesn’t do enough on that front, and it involves being out there and being available. Because I’m retired, I can do this as a full-time job, and so I would be available Mondays to Fridays, sometimes weekends if it’s an emergency. I’m certainly open to talking with anyone, and I will make that gesture. I do that regularly now.
What has changed? I wanted to do much more helping people to enjoy life. There is a group still there within CRMG that believes that the municipal business is doing our roads and fire safety and sewers and we shouldn’t be mixed up with any sort of social services. Well, I’m sorry, but that’s what it’s really all about, isn’t it? I mean, yes we need roads, we need sewers, etc. but what is the good of having a perfectly built city if the people are not living full lives. I’m interested in, it sounds like a cliché, but bettering the lives of our citizens. New projects I want us to be doing a lot more for youth. While I don’t grudge anything we are doing for seniors, and I’m certainly going to be supporting a seniors’ centre, the growth point in Mission is young, I think it’s 19 per cent of our citizens are under 14. So now we should be really looking, if I look at the municipal grant package, we are doing much more for seniors than we are for the young, and I think we should be levelling that out. And there are a number of things — young people need a safe, attractive hang-out place. They shouldn’t be hanging out on corners and on sets of stairs, right? I have 18 grandchildren — they very often just want somewhere to go and hang out with other teenagers. We do have the drop-in lounge at the leisure centre, but it’s not adequate, it’s not enough, it may not be the sort of ambience our young people actually want.
What would you change? Well in Mission especially we need youth representation. And I really want to push for a council seat for a youth person. And youth, to me, is under 25, although it’s defined as under 35 for a lot of people. I think what the difficulty that young people have in getting on council is they’re viewed by the seniors as inexperienced. And so I believe that mentorship and working alongside and collaborating with a young council, so you could have representation from different schools, from different universities, come and sit together, and then perhaps have a representation from that group come and sit with council. And I think that kind of mentoring [is important] so that the youth gains experience so that they can’t say, “Well, you don’t have any experience.” “Well, I spent the last four years on youth council.” New projects There isn’t any one specific bylaw that I’m focusing on. I think that in the first six months to a year would be familiarizing myself with all of the bylaws and narrowing down so that in year two, three, and four I would have a much clearer idea of what I’m focusing on.
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RICH VIGURS Engaging the public City councillors need to make themselves more available to the public. I’ve talked to youth workers in parks and recreation, and they’ve invited councillors to sit in at youth groups. From what I’ve heard, there hasn’t even been a single response, let alone any actual visits. You [need to] let staff know that you’re available — this is UFV staff, this is city staff, this is local business — and let them know they can contact you. Letting them know you’re there, and allowing yourself to be accessible.
What would you change? If I were voted in, I’d love to be part of committees that bring youth together, and stay in contact with them. Give me four years, and I bet we’d have the highest number of young people voting that we’ve seen in a long time. It’s hard to do that in 30 days, but to empower our youth over the course of four years, that would be amazing. It would be a personal highlight. New projects There are a lot of community parks in Mission that are just grass. There’s 900 registered dogs, there’s probably 3000 dogs in Mission, but there are two dog parks. One’s a really long drive, and then a 10-minute walk to get there from the parking lot — Hayward Lake. And there’s a split fence; any dog can get in and out of it. So if there’s an area that doesn’t have a dog park, let’s put one in there. If there’s a bunch of kids in that immediate area, let’s put in a pump track or a small skate park. When I worked for parks and recreation, and when I worked in a union position, we were just told what to do; we didn’t have any input. Even though we ran the teen centres, and saw the problems that were occurring, and had solutions, we were never asked. I mean, we can ask city staff that are already hired, that are probably really good at what they do, how to make things better.
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca
UFV students help pass Child’s Play goal with game party JEREMY HANNAFORD CONTRIBUTOR
The morning of November 7 found a series of chalk arrows directing students to the UHouse. Those who followed them would have found themselves among a plethora of games and good company at the Computer Student Association (CSA)’s Child’s Play event. Child’s Play is a worldwide charity event in which toys, games, and cash donations are given to children in hospitals. As a bonus, gamers are encouraged to game with others throughout the day. The list of games to play was extensive: board games, card games, a sea of Nintendo consoles, Minecraft, and even a classic Atari 2600. Along with them, tonnes of friendly and excited gamers were present to play and chat with. I took part in a game of Cards Against Humanity for the first time ever and it lasted three wonderful hours. The entire event was reminiscent of a classic LAN party from back in my days at high school. UFV business student Milan Grewal, who had turned up just to see what the event was about,
Image: Jeremy Hannaford
Things got exciting at CSA’s fundraiser Friday night, especially when attendees won prizes like a retro 3DS. found the whole occasion to be beyond her expectations. “It’s the best way to spend a Friday evening,” Grewal said. At the centre of the event was the raffle and donation system dedicated to Child’s Play. Gamers were able to donate money in exchange for food and drinks, or a full dinner from AfterMath for those who contributed $15. They also received tickets for one of several draws that were held that night. The various prizes included a novelty Titan sword, a collector ’s edition of Watch Dogs, gamer clothing and accesso-
ries, and more. In addition to the several draws, prizes were awarded to the winners of Magic, Smash Bros for 3DS, and Minecraft tournaments. Good humour and fun was a constant theme of the event, especially when the contestant with the lowest Minecraft score was rewarded with a Minecraft howto construction book. The prizes were donated from fellow students and several retailers, including Toy Traders, Willow Games, and Mike’s Computer Shop. One of the draw’s highlights was when UFV student Liam
Cook chose a mystery box prize which included a Retro 3DS. “When I opened it, I thought it was impossible. I just about exploded with happiness. I thought it was going to be a box of potatoes,” Cook commented. Not only was the event a night of good times and prizes, but also one of achieving longtime goals. CSA vice president John Knightingale was thrilled with the received donations. “We had the goal to break $10,000 since we’ve started running this event at UFV, which started about seven years ago. We started at around $160-200 a year. Tonight we have made $3,200, and that’s just from university students.” The event broke the original goal of $10,000. Knightingale expressed his gratitude towards all those who helped with the event. “We do have a number of volunteers not [directly] associated with the organization and they simply wanted to help,” he said. The event, in all, was a massive success for CSA and the Child’s Play charity. It was a night of laughs and nostalgia, as fellow UFV students collected together for games and fun in the name of a good cause.
Fashion
Which kind of jacket or coat should you reach for this winter? MARTIN CASTRO THE CASCADE
We’ve all noticed it — the weather’s been getting colder by the week. So which coat of the many stuffed away in our closets should we reach for? A lined trench? A wool pea coat? Students who are investing in a winter jacket have to consider the benefits and drawbacks of different types of coats. Parkas are heavy winter jackets that are usually quite warm and insulated. They’re thick, densely built jackets that do a great job of keeping you cozy and shielding you from the wind. Parkas are generally longer than other types of jackets, so they offer you more warmth and coverage from the wind, wrapping up your body like a burrito. Pea coats and other woolbased coats offer several benefits in the winter weather, but they also have some drawbacks. Wool coats work well at keeping the user warm, especially since they are thick enough to insulate you from the wind. However, wool coats don’t do a very good job when it starts to rain, and the weather late-
ly has been quite wet. Wool coats don’t usually have hoods, nor are they water-proof — so if it starts to rain and you don’t have an umbrella, a wool coat isn’t going to help you very much. In this respect, parkas have the wool coats beat. However, wool coats are usually the more stylish option. Heavy winter jackets are great if it’s snowing or raining heavily. These jackets are usually
pretty bulky, however, so one has to ask oneself: do I want warmth or convenience? Having said that, there’s always the possibility of adding multiple layers of clothing to any outfit for warmth, thereby avoiding a really bulky jacket or coat. However, again it’s
a hassle to deal with a bunch of layers during the day, so be prepared to navigate that hurdle should you choose this option. Ski and snowboard jackets are what you might see people wearing on the slopes of Whistler. But every now and then during the winter you also see people don their ski jackets to brave the cold while running errands or going to school. Now, these jackets don’t look particularly professional, or even all that fashionable; they’re pretty amorphous in shape. Avoid having to wear this type of jacket unless it’s really cold and the weather calls for it. Whichever type of coat you do choose to wear throughout the winter months, make sure that it’s warm, keeps you dry, and isn’t a hassle to deal with in between classes. This way you’ll have one less thing to worry about as you prepare for finals and the coming semester.
Upcoming
Events
November 12-14 Global indigeneity at UFV A series of events celebrating global indigeneity will take place this week at UFV, starting with the opening of the new Global Lounge from 12 to 1 p.m. on Wednesday, an area dedicated to learning that relates to global competencies and connections. At 2:30, there will be a talk and discussion hosted by UFV’s global development studies in B101 on “exploring indigeneity through internships.” Also present to share his experiences will be Arthur Blackstar, co-ordinator of aboriginal programs with Canada World Youth. Then, at 6 p.m., head over to Baker House for a international food sampling event. The week will wrap up on Friday at noon with a cultural garden which will explore UFV’s diversity, featuring food, games, and prizes!
November 13 Métis Awareness Day Come out to U-House and learn about Métis culture! The event starts at 11:00 a.m. and will feature an exhibit on the importance of the Métis’ role in shaping Canada. At 3:30 p.m., Spirit of our Communities, a group of First Nations youth from the Fraser Valley, will present a series of cultural performances as part of the International Education Week.
November 15 Quintessential Jazz at Sippchai Café
Come out for a night of “jazz with a classic twist” hosted by Sippchai Café on Maclure Road. Quintessential Jazz will play a wide variety of jazz favourites, including ballads, bebop, and fusion tunes, as well as some original pieces. The band incorporates a keyboard, electric bass, saxophone, and drums. The night starts at 7:30 p.m. and is part of the Envision Coffee House Concert Series.
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WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 12, 2014 www.ufvcascade.ca
12 Years a Slave screening at UFV evokes discussion of civil rights and slavery MARTIN CASTRO THE CASCADE
On Thursday November 26, 12 Years a Slave was shown in B101 as part of a series of film screenings at UFV titled Slavery, Race, and Civil Rights in the Americas. The program, organized by history professors Geoffrey Spurling and Ian Rocksborough-Smith, focuses on the portrayal and history of civil rights-related topics in both North and South America, as well as the narratives told through film as they relate to slavery and civil rights. The film is also linked to two courses currently being offered, History 358 on African slavery in the Americas, and History 370, on the civil rights movement. Spurling said another goal of
The screening is part of series organized by UFV faculty. the film screenings was to “foster events at [UFV].” He noted that having a commuter campus can
lead to a less involved student body, and that one of the purposes of this event was to “try and get
From Punjab to Paris: remembering India’s participation in the Great War ALEX JESUS
CONTRIBUTOR
UFV instructor Prabhjot Parmar gave a lecture titled “Dark Skinned Warriors: India and the Great War” on November 5 in B101 as part of UFV’s Research Lecture Series. The lecture was given alongside a slideshow of images that mapped out what it may have been like to be an Indian youth thrust into the Great War. In August 1914, Britain joined the Great War. Almost all of Europe and parts of Asia were plunged into a new kind of warfare that would shake the foundation of history, and end with well over 35 million casualties. During this initial mobilizing period, the British Empire called upon its colonies and territories to rise up and aid it in the defeat of Germany and the central powers. One of the largest of these colonies was India, Parmar explained. There were vast recruitment drives across the colonies pressuring people to fight for the Empire. A large number of these were held in Punjab, specifically in the rural regions where many people agreed to fight. India had a substantial army already, which prompted Britain to send its British-Indian army to Europe. “During the First World War, close to one and a quarter million Indians took part in the war as soldiers or non-combatants,” she said. These soldiers were positioned primarily in France and what is modern day Iraq and Syria (Mesopotamia). Their contribution not only enforced the fight-
Image: Bharat Rakshak / Indian Army Images
Almost one and a quarter million Indians took part in WWI. ing in France, but also played nothing short of a primary role in the battles of the east. It is also important to note that a large number of soldiers who fought and died came from Pakistani Punjab, many of whom were Muslim. “Punjab became a home front from which the British Empire could recruit soldiers,” Parmar said. When the Imperial Indian contingents first marched the streets of Marseilles in France, there was a lot of interest and intrigue as to who they were. “Some of them had never seen Sikhs, some of them had never seen Indians, and some of the men, not all of them, were very handsome ... so women showed great interest,” she added. This was of concern to administrators, who feared miscegenation. The first Indian troops arrived
in Marseilles on September 25 and were welcomed by the local people. A postcard of the times with a picture of fifteen Sikh troops read: “Gentlemen of India, marching to chase German hooligans.” It is evident that the presence of Indian soldiers coming to the aid of the French in Marseilles was considered a blessing, and the interactions between the soldiers and the locals were said to be good and of good spirit. One particularly resonant story was that of a young Indian soldier who was staying with a family in France; he eventually had to leave to fight. and when he did so the woman living there howled and cried in his departure. It’s important to remember that it wasn’t only Canadians, but many people around the world who gave their lives for us in the name of peace.
people to [watch] films and engage in discussions about them.” 12 Years a Slave focuses on the story of Solomon Northup, a free African-American man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery despite living in New York, a state where slavery had been made illegal — an occurrence which, Spurling said, wasn’t uncommon at the time. The film, directed by Steve McQueen, graphically portrays the depravity of the slave trade while still telling a compelling story. One aspect which Spurling thought was particularly accurate was the portrayal of slave culture in plantations. The bonding together of human beings in conditions as adverse as slavery was another point the film managed to communicate very strongly, as well as depicting the horror of
slavery in a stark and unflinching manner. Although the subject matter was difficult to watch at points, the audience was engrossed in the story, perhaps because of how dire Solomon Northup’s situation was, as well as the way in which it was portrayed. The film also spurned some brief discussion after its screening, as several students and Spurling spoke on the evolution of the civil rights movement and the nature of slave ownership, as well as Solomon’s life after he regained his freedom. As part of the film series, two more films will be shown, on February 22, and March 19.
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Film
Interstellar explores humanity’s endless survival instinct JEREMY HANNAFORD CONTRIBUTOR
Last year ’s Gravity made space out to be an endless void of emptiness and terror, but Interstellar reignites the thrill of the space exploration genre. In Interstellar, space represents humanity’s next frontier; despite the indefinite isolation of space travel, the prospect of salvation drives the characters into the vastness of space to find a new, habitable planet after Earth can no longer sustain life. One of the most distinct and admirable qualities of Interstellar is its determination to remind us of the “fiction” aspect of science fiction. Director Christopher Nolan creates multiple compelling worlds that are both otherworldly and reminiscent of our own planet. He weaves a narrative that extrapolates multitudes of scientific studies and theories, and combines them into a tale of humanity facing the great unknown. Dylan Thomas’ poem “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night” is a recurring motif throughout the film, representing the underlying theme of humanity’s unstoppable will to survive, even amongst the dust clouds and dying crops. But the constantly blowing dust is a reminder that their existence is limited. Humanity must be willing to make great sacrifices
Interstellar is a visual treat, but it’s not without its narrative faults. to save itself. Nolan’s focal point of humanity is the relationship between Matthew McConaughey’s character Cooper and his daughter, Murph. Their bond is one of the most critical and well-executed parts of this film. Ironically, the sense of humanity has always been somewhat absent in Nolan’s previous films; however, McConaughey creates a character motivated by an unwavering emotional connection to his daughter. His development of Cooper is fantastic to watch as he is torn between his duty to
humanity and his position as a father. As the mission wears on, Cooper encounters humanity’s will to survive again and again, and reflects on his own condition. His performance is real, unnerving, and a key element of what makes Interstellar so entertaining. But, being a Nolan film, there are the usual drawbacks. It’s a film so heavily layered in science that exposition has to be present in almost every major conversation. This unfortunately results in plot devices taking precedence over char-
acter development. While McConaughey’s performance is a great step forward, the supporting cast is another step back. The A-list roster ’s talent is never totally utilized, and is relegated to simply moving the plot along. The two other major issues are the score and the editing. When they work, they do so marvelously and help build Nolan’s universe. But, when they don’t, it shows — arrogantly. Due to some downright lazy sound mixing, Hans Zimmer ’s bombastic score buries dialogue
in key moments. Also, there are times when the film’s length is noticeable. Most of the time, everything shown is compelling and feels warranted, but when certain scenes aren’t, they strain the audience’s connection with the constantly evolving narrative. Although the film has its flaws, they don’t hinder the overall scope of Interstellar. The film’s exploration of the “unknown” is a welcome aspect that isn’t often explored in the film industry. Nolan and his brother Jonathan also collaborated with theoretical physicist Kip Thorne to create a narrative based strongly on science, which adds to the already-intriguing narrative. Due to the grandiose scale, Interstellar isn’t without its faults. But its strengths push themselves to the very limits of imagination and wonder. Its astonishing visuals and cinematography write a love letter to the essence of space and the explorers of old. While Interstellar may not have the critical elements that would make it equal to 2001: A Space Odyssey, it holds enough to rightfully own a distinct spot in the history of science fiction films. It is not only an inspiring creation, but also an homage to 2001 and the other greats that came before.
TV
Doctor Who’s eighth season wraps up masterfully DANIEL HOLMBERG CONTRIBUTOR
Warning: the following review contains spoilers. The newest season of Doctor Who has been interesting in a number of unexpected ways. We’ve got a new Doctor; he’s Scottish, and a little bit manic. Not that the two are related at all. He continues to travel with Clara Oswald, who has got to be one of the least interesting companions since the days of Rose Tyler. The Doctor, on the other hand, is incredibly interesting this season. Capaldi really brings some heart and attitude to the character, with no small amount of insanity. This series really seemed to build the connection between the newer Doctor Who and the classic iteration that aired from the ’60s to the ’80s. The obliga-
Peter Capaldi plays the 12th incarnation of the Doctor. tory connection to some of the Doctor ’s oldest enemies — the Daleks and the Cybermen — are present in this season but also a foe that we have not seen since series four: the Master. Now the Master no longer uses that name, for after his
most recent regeneration, the Master came back as a woman. Thus “Master” is inaccurate, so now she is referred to as the Mistress, or Missy, as wonderfully revealed in the penultimate episode of the season. Michelle Gomez plays the Mistress
masterfully, if you will pardon the pun, and fits as a perfect counterpoint to Capaldi; the two of them click extraordinarily well. Unfortunately, the Mistress was only revealed at the end of the season, so we will have to wait and see what she has in store for the Doctor in the future. However, his foes were not the only connection to the classic series. When Matt Smith regenerated into Peter Capaldi, it was only because the Time Lords granted him another set of regenerations, something that is rare in the mythos of the show, and it is suggested that regenerations past the first set may be unstable. Capaldi has been unstable, very unstable, but I think that his Doctor is the first to truly embody every version of the Doctor that came before him. The short temper of the first, the playfulness of the second, the wit of the third,
and so on; all are represented in Capaldi. Maybe (hopefully) the show will go somewhere with this. Considering the season as a whole, I would generally rate it positive. Although some of the supporting cast were lacklustre at times, it is more the fault of the writers than that of the actors. The writers did, however, deliver on some excellent adventures, and three especially exciting new monsters, one of which may not have even existed at all. The true prize of this season was seeing Capaldi in his glory, and I cannot wait until next season. Clara has said her goodbye, the Doctor knows where Gallifrey is, and Capaldi and Gomez have established their characters extraordinarily well. The future of time and space looks bright.
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Swift bares pop chops
Concert
Hip-hop supergroup Clockwork Indigo lights up the Vogue
Shuffle AARON LEVY
CIVL STATION MANAGER
CIVL Station Manager Aaron Levy wants you to vote on November 15 in BC municipal elections!
Hues Corporation “Rock the Boat” How is this song not a more famous play on words synonymously identified with rocking the vote like Bill Clinton wanted us to do in the ‘90s? It seems like a perfect connection. Except that they’re telling people not to. “Don’t tip the vote over?” It does sound kinda fascist. The Smiths “Panic” “Panic on the streets of London and Birmingham,” Morrisey wonders to himself. Abbotsfordians, to say nothing of the other valley municipalities like Mission or Chilliwack, will certainly wonder what kind of an impact the various city escapades with individuals living on the streets will have on this particular municipal election. TV on the Radio “Wrong Way” “When I realized where I was did I stand up and testify / Oh fist up signify ...” “Oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, new negro politician is stirring inside of me ...” “I’m gonna take liberty, cause it’s right there in front of me ...” A song about political opportunity. The Clash “Rock the Casbah” Not only is this song about a dictatorial regime and an entire religious nation’s efforts to overthrow it, but it also rhymes the word “Boogie SOUND” with “Crazy Casbah SOUND.” Really? Shareef don’t like it, and we’re not talking about former Vancouver Grizzly Abdur-Rahim, who could run for council some day. Radiohead “Electioneering” Possibly Radiohead’s most highbrow reference in any song, “Voodoo economics” refers to a Reaganomic philosophy also brought up in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off by none other than Ben Stein, whose money you used to be able to win. That film also featured convicted pedophile Jeffrey Jones as Principal Rooney.
BRITTNEY HENSMAN THE CASCADE
Taylor Swift has officially turned from country cutie into pop queen with her new album 1989 (titled after the year of her birth — the significance, I would speculate, is rooted in her ’90s childhood). Props to Swift for preparing her beloved fans for this significant sound change by releasing “Shake it Off,” accompanied with the humourous music video. It ensured us all that, behind the highly EQed vocals and snappy beats, is still everyone’s beloved Swift — not afraid to make fun of herself. It’s the reason why her fan-base is so huge — she’s so relatable! I was caught off-guard with “Out of the Woods.” I was instantly met with vocals that reminded me of Avril Lavigne. The sound was earthy and gritty with pounding, spacey drums — very fitting for the title. Swift did her due diligence in covering various pop sounds. “Bad Blood” resembles Iggy Azalea’s “Fancy,” and there are streaks of Lorde littered throughout the album. The album also carries a ’90s new-age vibe to it (especially “All You Had To Do Was Stay,” “Wildest Dreams,” and “This Love”), with airy and breathy vocals like Enya, and Donna Lewis’ “I Love You Always, Forever.” Growing up in the ’90s obviously had a heavy influence on the sounds Taylor Swift produced in this album. Lyrically, Taylor is still battling all the woes of a young lover: heartache, dealing with people’s critiques and judgments, fear of loss, infatuation, and all the other worries that come with being in your 20s (minus the adult things like taxes, budgeting, and rent). Between the all-too-frequent times she mentions boys in cars and her red lipstick, the real Taylor is still under all the pop production, and I’m not sad to see the country twang go.
Clockwork Indigo performed all five songs from their recent mixtape.
MARTIN CASTRO THE CASCADE / IMAGES
Clockwork Indigo’s Vancouver stop surpassed all expectations. On Saturday, November 1, the hip-hop supergroup comprised of Flatbush Zombies and the Underachievers graced the Vogue to perform a sold-out show. There were no opening acts other than a small DJ set from Powers Pleasant, producer and founding member of Pro Era. The concert proper began with Issa and AK of Underachievers performing songs off of their two mixtapes, Indigoism and Lords of Flatbush, as well as their LP The Cellar Door. It took a while for the crowd to warm up to Underachievers, as it seemed as though most of the people present were there for Flatbush Zombies and were a little unfamiliar with Underachievers, but after one or two tracks, the crowd began to visibly enjoy Issa and AK’s performance. After Underachievers’ initial set finished, there was a bit of a lull as the stage was prepared for Flatbush Zombies. Zombie Juice (of Flatbush Zombies) emerged from the shadows as “Thugnificense”
began playing. Immediately the crowd began to sing along. As the song ended, the synth soundtrack from A Clockwork Orange began playing, and Juice introduced Erick “Arc” Elliott and Meechy Darko, a.k.a. Meech, a.k.a. Fleezus Christ, who came out on stage wearing a Canucks jersey, prompting cheering. “I got a question for y’all,” announced Meech. “Are y’all ready to turn up or what?” He proceeded to perform “Face-Off” a capella, flexing his talent. After this, in a flash of lights and music, FBZ performed “MRAZ,” imbuing the crowd with an enormous amount of energy as soon as Meech began his opening verse: “I am like Randy Savage on acid, that’s very vibrant and classic, a walking disaster, hazard to any rapper that’s rapping, we the underground killers, but globally they feel us ‘cause we restoring the feeling.” This was followed by “Bliss,” on which Erick flawlessly replicated his verse, while Juice and Meech spat verses while giving fist-bumps to the crowd. A brief pause in the action — punctuated by the blaring of Nirvana over the house speak-
ers — was instituted, but not before Meech told the crowd to stay put and not go anywhere. Ten minutes later, all five rappers came onstage in all-white. Starting the second half of the show was the Underachievers’ “Gold Soul Theory,” which was received with cheers, and was followed by interchanging tracks from both groups. A fan tried to pass Meech an unlit joint; hilarity ensued as Juice hummed a quiz show jingle while Meech urged, “Light it up! Spark it up!” Afterwards, Meech gave the fan a handshake, accepted the joint, and began to perform “Palm Trees,” the highlight of which was his verse, “Lions don’t lose sleep / Over the opinion of sheep / On the road to the riches, money sticking to my cleats / I am moi, magnifique, skin noir, darky Meeck / Niggas with the most opinion usually have the least.” The track was followed by all five songs from Clockwork Indigo’s recent mixtape, which had the crowd enthusiastically dancing and rapping along all the way to the end of the concert, around midnight.
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Cascades women’s soccer: so close, yet so far away NATHAN HUTTON THE CASCADE
There is nothing bigger in Canadian collegiate sports than the CIS national championship tournament, which presents the best of the best from the biggest schools in Canada. The Cascades women’s soccer team got the chance to represent Abbotsford in the tournament this weekend when they travelled to Quebec City to take part. It has been a drama-filled season, with the team coming up just short of winning the Canada West championship last weekend. The Cascades faced three teams from the East Coast against whom they had little experience. The inexperience presented its challenges for the Cascades, who needed to rely on the study of game tape and overall skill, and not so much on game planning against a team of unknowns. The first game came against Memorial University from Newfoundland. Although it seemed to all in attendance that the Cascades were the better team, they struggled to get chances at the net, and failed to convert the limited number of chances they did get. The Sea-Hawks forced overtime but eventually fell to the Cascades, who scored the second of their two in the overtime period off the strong leg of Carley Radomski. “I love the character of my
Image: UFV Flickr
The women’s soccer team fell just short of matching the results of their 2010 trip to the nationals. team. There’s a lot of emotions involved in a national tournament,” coach Rob Giesbrecht remarked to CIS Media. “Mistakes like that can lead to future mistakes. But we were the better team in overtime. I’m very proud of the girls.” The win propelled the Cascades to the national semi-final against the host, Laval’s Rouge et Or. The Rouge et Or entered the tournament with a significant advantage against every other team, that being the fact that they were at home, playing on their field in front of their fans. Against the Rouge et Or, the
Cascades faltered. Perhaps it was the fact that the Cascades had played so much soccer over the past couple months and were finally starting to tire out, or because the Rouge et Or just figured out the Cascades’ attack that had proved so difficult for so many other teams. In the end, the Cascades failed to contend with the Rouge et Or, giving up three goals and not scoring any — relegating them to the bronze medal game. Sunday morning was the morning of the national bronze medal game, and the Cascades were matched up with the number one nationally ranked
soccer team, the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees, who had also lost 3-0 in their semi-final to the TWU Spartans. It was the best game of the tournament for the Cascades, who battled hard against the Gee-Gees. The Cascades dominated early and were rewarded in the 19th minute. Tristan Corneil placed a corner kick perfectly for fourth-year Jade Palm, who shot the ball into the back of the net with her forehead, giving the Cascades a 1-0 lead. Maybe the rest of the game would have gone differently if what happened next was some-
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how avoided. Monika Levarsky went down with an injury and missed the majority of the first half and a small period of the second. However, the loss of Levarsky didn’t plague the Cascades too badly. They didn’t give up a goal for the rest of the half, and remained at 1-0. Although the Gee-Gees started pressing in the second half, they were unable to get past Kayla Klim and the Cascades’ defence. They broke through shortly after the 70th minute, and were awarded a penalty kick that was banged home off the foot of Pilar Khoury. The last moments of the game were probably seen in slow motion by Giesbrecht, hoping to either score a quick goal or prolong the game to penalty kicks. It was in the 88th minute when the official CIS Twitter account tweeted the 1-1 score still being a tie game. Almost right after, the Gee-Gees converted their second of the game, to give them the 2-1 lead and the national bronze medal. It was heartbreaking for the Cascades squad, who had controlled the game for such a large portion and dominated the action. The Cascades goalkeeper Kayla Klim was named player of the game for the Cascades. The loss marks the end of the Cascades’ season with heartbreak, falling just short of equalling their result in 2010 (the only other national appearance in school history).
The ABCs of vitamins: what exactly do they do? ishing every day. But since fatA vitamin is an “organic com- s o l u b l e s pound” required in the diet are stored to ensure normal health and for so long, body function, according to the small doses MerriamWebster dictionary. In everyday will short, we need them — but not make your too much of certain vitamins, body happy. or they could have adverse efScientists are fects on our bodies. intrigued by viBut which vitamins do what? tamin C’s ability to How much do you need? How act as an antioxidant in much is too much? The best healthy cells while simulway to answer these questions taneously over oxidating tuis to just jump in. mour cells to the point of death. There are two main kinds of WebMD.com recommends 200 vitamins: fat - soluble vitamins milligrams a day; that’s equiva(A, D, E, K) which are stored lent to eight oranges a day, one in our bodies for anywhere and a half red bell peppers, from a few days to six months, three cups of strawberries, or according to Livestrong.com; two cups of chopped broccoli. and water-soluble vitamins (B- And don’t worry about going complex and C), which are ex- overboard on the vitamin C; creted quickly and need replen- in fact, you’re more likely to
SANDEEP DOSANJH CONTRIBUTOR
overdose on water. The worst thing to deal with after gorging on this cancerkiller is a case of the runs. Enjoy! Do you see it? Do you? No? Well, Image: mehradhm/flickr if you don’t, you should probably invest in some sweet potatoes, because they contain enough vitamin A for a lifetime. Again, don’t worry about overdosing, because the worst the vitamin A found in sweet potatoes and carrots will do is leave your skin with a sweet orange tint. Be careful with vitamin A supplements,
however, because too much (more than 2000 - 3000 IU) can cause liver damage. On the other hand, too little vitamin A is linked to blindness. Just one carrot or one cup of spinach, kale, or blueberries can meet your body’s needs. Get delicious canker sores? You’re probably deficient in vitamin B- c omplex. Take a supplement if you’ve got indigestion or heartburn. And remember, B-c omplex is a water soluble vitamin that’ll need daily replacing. Vitamin D is the most versatile vitamin on this list. How can you get it? Two days a week of five- to 30-minute sun exposure on your arms and legs would be ideal, or you can skip the sun to eat fish and drink milk. All milks sold in Canada, including almond and soy, are vitamin D-fortified. Mushrooms and cheese also contain
vitamin D; however, supplements may be the most practical way to acquire your D fix. Some studies have shown the vitamin’s ability to treat type-2 diabetes and cancer in the lung, breast, and prostate. It can even help with neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Vitamin D puts calcium into your bones, making them stronger. The National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Disease reports that correct amounts of vitamin A and D work together to help you avoid osteoporosis and hip fractures. There are so many benefits to eating fruits and vegetables that we could research it forever. Hopefully, you’ll start to rethink your bodily needs and nourish it with what it really wants.