 Local conversations over crime and safety increasingly a provincial issue | | |  | | | If you live in B.C., there’s a good chance your last local election was fought on issues of crime, safety, homelessness and housing the most vulnerable.
And there’s a good chance your next provincial election will be too.
“People don't feel safe in British Columbia today. That's because they aren't safe in our communities — certainly not like they used to be,” said B.C. Liberal MLA Todd Stone in the legislature on Wednesday.
The official Opposition asked 28 questions over the course of the week during question period, all on the aforementioned topics, saying the phrase “soft on crime” 19 times and “catch and release” another 17 times.
What the theme lacked in subtlety, it made up for in breadth, with Liberal MLAs presenting examples in several communities to try to illustrate the depth of the problem (even if some of them didn’t make too much sense).
It’s not without merit — this newsletter has noted these concerns in plenty of communities for many months — and given how new mayors got elected in Vancouver, Kelowna and Kamloops by campaigning on such issues, it’s understandable why the Opposition would see it as a winning strategy, in a way that focusing on local issues in a provincial election usually isn't.
But what was equally interesting was a repetitive phrase issued by the government in response.
“This isn't just a Vancouver problem. This is a problem North America wide,” said Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth on Wednesday.
“This is an issue we're seeing across North America,” said Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon on Tuesday.
“We joined ministers across this country to sit down with the federal government to talk about what we're all experiencing in cities across this country, which is an increase in violence,” said Attorney General Nikki Sharma on Thursday.
On one hand, the government has a fair point: a cursory look at local media will show these are the same arguments dominating local conversations right now in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
But as the last local election showed, telling people that the pandemic has changed things and that other places are also struggling doesn’t seem to sway many voters. | | |  | | | 1. When Government Goes Bad, Part 2 | | | Another week, another small town council behaving badly. This time, it was North Saanich, with Coun. Brett Smyth calling Mayor Peter Jones the one name even people on the internet know you’re not supposed to call someone. At least, Smyth was a councillor. He resigned shortly after the incident, and it bears mentioning this happened over something as small potatoes as whether biographies would be listed to people appointed to a non-binding committee.
Read more | | |  | | | 2. Send in the advisers | But these days, it seems a lot of people who disagree have a hard time doing so agreeably, which is part of the reason why the B.C. government is hiring two municipal advisers on a contract basis to help with the communities of Lions Bay and Harrison Hot Springs, where they are, um, currently having a rough time of it. The positions, in theory, will last for only 3-6 months, but they might be needed elsewhere if the last few months are any indication.
Read more | | | |  | | | 3. Money talks | Still, in most municipalities, the focus is on the sturm and drang of finishing off their fiscal requirements for the year, made all the more difficult by the federal government announcing it won’t be helping municipalities deal with the additional costs imposed on them from a retroactive RCMP contract. But while many property taxes are indeed high, Lantzville provided the rest of the province an example of what needed to be cut in order to freeze taxes. Read more in the Nanaimo News | | | | | |  | | | 4. Vancouver | Votes on the future of the Broadway Corridor weren’t necessarily surprising, but they did underline what will probably be a truth of this council: development will get a green light, but adding bike lanes will be something approached with not quite hostility, but a fair degree of skepticism. And speaking of skepticism! A council vote to explore forcing grant recipients to be “respectful” of city officials made some non-profits worry it was an attempt at stifling free speech.
Read more in the Vancouver Sun | | | |  | | | 5. West Vancouver | A 201-unit, all-rental building next to a major bus exchange and mall, in a community that has often shown fierce debates around both new developments and transit...it was an interesting debate in West Vancouver over this project, in part because of a change in leadership last year, but council ended up approving the proposal, despite plenty of community opposition. We’ll see if it’s a one-off or a change in expectations of how this council will approach such debates. Read more in the North Shore News | | | | | | Share this newsletter | | or subscribe if this was
forwarded to you. | | | A correction from last week: we quoted Vancouver councillor Rebecca Bligh as saying "we've got a rapid transit line along this corridor that's slated to open this year," when in fact, she said "in three years." Our apologies!
That's it for this this week! In the meantime, 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. | | | |
