 | Friday, December 04, 2020
Reading this online? Sign up to get this delivered to your inbox every Friday. | | Surrey’s mayor fortunate to escape the same level of scrutiny as Vancouver’s | | |  | | | Here are a few things that happened to Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum in the last few weeks.
First, it was found that the city was providing him a $46,000 vehicle without any disclosure, a vehicle he got into a crash where he was found at-fault and then laughed when a reporter asked him about the ethics.
After laughing at the reporter’s question, he then talked about the transition to an independent police force, which is now costing $19 million more than originally anticipated, and will take years longer than he originally promised.
McCallum then introduced a budget that imposes an additional $200 parcel tax on every property in the city — one of the highest fee increases proposed by any government during this pandemic.
During council, McCallum cut off the microphones of several members of the public who criticized him, and he went on a 10 minute monologue at one point, even though councillors are only allowed to speak for four minutes, unless given prior permission.
At various points, McCallum said Surrey had consulted “the best experts in the world,” that Surrey was “the best city in Canada” in providing construction jobs, that Surrey was “the envy all across Canada right now” and that his budget “is the best budget I’ve ever seen put together by anybody” and “will go down in the records as an historic budget.”
If none of these things raise your eyebrows, that’s your right.
But McCallum is undeniably lucky that Surrey still exists in the shadow of Vancouver when it comes to political scrutiny. He’s also lucky that Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart has supported him on the TransLink Mayors’ Council, lucky that no further Safe Surrey Coalition councillors have deserted him after three did in his first year and lucky that the provincial government continues to support his police transition plans. In his second political act in B.C.’s second biggest city, McCallum is still moving forward on his priorities, in spite of everything.
Then again, you’ve got to be good to be lucky. | | |  | | | 1. Surrey | McCallum’s monologue came shortly before the finance committee voted 5-4 in favour of the budget, which looks to move forward on plenty of infrastructure projects while taking on minimal debt. A formal vote by council will be required before it can move forward — fairly likely, given the finance committee includes all members of council.
Read more | | | | |  | | | 2. Vancouver | Council had its own deliberations on its city budget this week, but in the middle of public consultations, a large wrench was thrown in, courtesy of the Vancouver Police Department not going along with previous requests by staff and council to cut costs by one per cent due to the pandemic. It could set up interesting choices for councillors in next week’s crucial vote, if they want to keep tax increases under five per cent.
Read more | | | |  | | | 3. Victoria | Advanced voting begins in the city’s byelection for council. Lest you think a single councillor doesn't matter, consider a 4-4 split that killed a four-storey condo development in Cook Street village this week — Mayor Lisa Helps and the councillors considered more centrist voting in favour, those further to the left voting against, because it didn't offer affordable units.
Read more in the Times Colonist | | | | | |  | | | 4. Conflicts of interest? | A couple of conflict of interest allegations that have long been percolating in Metro Vancouver moved forward this week. One in Vancouver concerns a single councillor and approving restaurant patio reforms when he owns a restaurant. As a reminder: judges generally have a high bar for disqualification.
Read more in the Langley Advance Times | | | |  | | | 5. Prayer in council | Finally, does your municipality begin council meetings with a prayer? According to the B.C. Humanist Association, around one in seven (23 to be exact) in this province do, contravening a 2015 Supreme Court decision that ruled it unconstitutional. Among those in apparent violation are Victoria, Saanich, both Langleys and Nanaimo.
Read more in the Victoria News | | | | | | Q & A with the new minister | | | | | | | | | Last week, we spoke about the new minister in charge of municipal affairs in B.C., former Tofino Mayor Josie Osborne. She wasn’t available to speak then, but the government made her available for a phone call on Tuesday — with the caveat that she wouldn’t have much specific to say about her files quite yet.
Below is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation.
Metro Matters: When you were offered the position of municipal affairs minister, what went through your mind?
Osborne: Just how honoured I was to have that kind of trust and confidence placed in me, and how excited I am to work to support local governments across B.C. You know that I'm a little bit of a local government geek, and I really enjoyed my time in local government. So, I'm really excited to bring that experience and that lens to the provincial level.
MM: Before you ran for office, you had been mayor under both a Liberal and NDP government. What sort of changes or differences in philosophy did they have when it came to local government?
Osborne: The NDP listens to local government and is really invested in the relationship, understanding that good ideas come from different levels of government and from all across B.C.
MM: You were the mayor of a relatively small community, but you also participated a lot in larger municipal issues. What sort of lens does that give you going into this job?
Osborne: It's always been really important to me to listen to and understand the needs of communities across B.C., even when I was the mayor of a small town. But then applying some of the lessons that we learn from larger, more urban centers to small town municipalities is also just as important. We need to relate to each other, no matter what size of municipality or local government, whether we're rural or urban, whether we're north or south. I think that's always been an important part of my philosophy and something that I will absolutely be bringing to my new role.
MM: One of the issues that came up in the last couple of years was the elimination of the Rural Dividend Fund. Some of that anger went away through the emergency funds that came into place for a lot of these municipalities. But is there anything from your time listening to those smaller communities over the last year that you think will help you?
Osborne: I do know how important rural communities like Tofino and others across B.C. are to our economy. I understand that, being from Mid Island-Pacific Rim. That's an area where forestry has provided some terrific jobs for families, for people. And I’ve understood how the province has needed to make difficult decisions … I think having that lens and and bringing that to cabinet is going to be a real value.
MM: The division of powers set up 100 years ago didn't anticipate cities being as important as they are today. They have limited taxing abilities and more issues on their doorstep than ever before. Do you foresee any discussions around things like the community charter? Or do you think it's more key to focus on listening to individual situations rather than systemic changes?
Osborne: I am doing a lot of homework, a lot of learning, a lot of briefings right now and getting prepared to have those kinds of conversations. One of the first things that's really important to me is to hear from local governments, and I'm looking forward to resuming the regular communications that the previous minister, Minister Robinson, had with local government. I anticipate that will come up and another piece of this that's really key is the relationship with the Union of B.C. Municipalities. So in time, working with its executive and its staff and understanding what the potential is, that's really important to me.
MM: The housing part of the portfolio that was under Minister Robinson is no longer part of your portfolio. She spent a lot of her time talking about the need for municipalities to speed up processes to speed rezoning, permitting processes and all the things needed to build more affordable housing. Will that still be something you expect to be talking about?
Osborne: Yes, absolutely. I'm looking forward to working, not only with Minister Robinson and her new portfolio, but with the new minister responsible for housing, Attorney General David Eby. So, we have many shared responsibilities between between those ministries, and we’ll be taking a deeper look into the development and permitting and approvals process and working with local government to help streamline and modernize that. | | | Share this newsletter | | or subscribe if this was
forwarded to you. | | | | That's it for us today! Check out the latest headlines at cbc.ca/bc and follow our municipal affairs reporter Justin McElroy on Twitter. And if you have any questions, you might want answered in a future mailbag, drop Justin a line at metromatters@cbc.ca. | | | |
