While the October 19 anniversary of Justin Trudeau’s election will be noted, there is another election date to bear in mind the following day, October 20. Two years hence, we face a municipal election.
Our local government is in its third term, this one four years in duration, and its eight years have featured much transition. In its mandate’s two remaining years there are some tasks that would fulfil its promises and demonstrate competence worthy of re-election.
Here are 10 of them.
1) In the final days of the last campaign, the mayor promised a more open government. By any objective measure, the city is no more transparent now than it was then. The range of available public data remains restricted, the accessibility of the city administrators to media remains limited, and the culture of freedom of information remains cloaked.
2) In those final days, too, the administration acknowledged a lack of appropriate consultation with the community. In this term, nothing has been done to alter the process so ideas are discussed in their formative stage with the affected neighbourhoods and interests. Consultation is perceived as validation of decisions not technically approved formally. A more credible process is needed.
3) Land use is a city government’s largest role, and the ad hoc incongruence is criticized widely, from the neighbourhood groups to the top developers. This is not a matter of hiring a city planner to concoct our new vision but a matter of working with the community to develop a city plan that serves as the new voice.
4) While the city needs to stop the top-down approach of communicating and consulting, it needs to better manage up and sideways. History shows that cities never accomplish big things themselves – they need helpers – but Vancouver doesn’t typically play well with others. The dialogue with the provincial government is beyond strained. That has to be fixed mostly by Vancouver, not by Victoria, and crossing fingers for a regime change is not a plan. Until the Trudeau government, the city had lost seven years of momentum around federal-municipal collaboration by kicking Ottawa in the shins. The pent-up demands now outweigh federal capacity to fulfil. More locally, Vancouver does not take any leadership role in the region, although this is by no means its problem alone.
5) The city’s budget remains opaque, principally needing a line-item approach that would tell taxpayers much more specifically how Vancouver spends.
6) The park board is beholden to the council. The leash needs to be loosened and a long-term, stable source of funds identified to permit a larger proportion of city funds to the board and an expansion and renewal of our recreational facilities to make an unaffordable city more livable.
7) The community centres under the park board – but really, under City Hall – continue without a necessary joint operating agreement or sufficient transparency about the process to negotiate one. A new deal is necessary that decentralizes city control and permits greater autonomy for the volunteers who run them.
8) The city has not found ways to embrace the innovative sharing economy technologies of Uber and Airbnb – it’s the same indifference that lends legitimacy to the criminality associated with some marijuana dispensaries – and requires a strategy to avoid being left behind.
9) While it is true that many dollars are at stake for the Internet providers, it is ludicrous that in 2016 there is not a basic level of citywide Wi-Fi freely available.
10) The ideological war and identity politics that consume our school board masks a significant problem for our children: too many of them arrive for school hungry and head home for the weekends and holidays without adequate food, and the city focuses on more costly, unionized methods to address a quiet but widespread distress in a wealthy community. If it’s serious about doing what’s best for children, it’s capable of remedying this issue with leadership.
This is a tall order and we have reason to be pessimistic about its accomplishment. After all, most of it was pledged two years ago. •
Kirk LaPointe is Business in Vancouver’s vice-president of audience and business development.
