Local election results: a win for the coast, climate and communities

Election night 2014 was a great moment for all those in BC who want to stop pipeline and tanker projects that threaten our coast and our climate.

From big city mayors to small town councillors, communities up and down the coast elected local leaders who promised to work in office to stop the Enbridge and Kinder Morgan pipelines. Vancouver, Burnaby, Victoria, Esquimalt, Prince Rupert and Smithers all elected mayors who are opposed to tar sands pipelines.

In the Vancouver Island community of Sooke, 70% of residents voted YES to a referendum question that commits the district to opposing the Kinder Morgan pipeline.

Across the province, fossil fuel projects and community control over environmental decision-making proved to be a defining issue in many local races. Although traditionally considered federal and provincial matters, this year’s municipal election campaign saw many candidates speaking out about the risks oil, coal and LNG transport could bring to their area, and demanding a greater say in the decision-making process. It was a telling sign of how concerned communities are about this issue, and how ignored they feel by other levels of government.

At Georgia Strait Alliance, we contributed to the debate by working in selected strategic locations around the Strait: Nanaimo, Parksville, Gibsons and the Sunshine Coast. We sent questionnaires to all registered candidates in these locations – 125 in total – asking their views on the Kinder Morgan pipeline as well as oil spill risk and response capacity. We circulated candidates’ replies to our supporters via email and published them on our website and social media, encouraging people to get informed, ask questions at all-candidates’ meetings and above all, get out and vote. 

You can find the full survey results here. The vast majority of candidates who responded to our survey were opposed to the Kinder Morgan expansion project, did not feel their communities had adequate resources to prepare for an oil spill, and were concerned about the recent decision by the National Energy Board to overrule the City of Burnaby’s bylaws to allow Kinder Morgan to conduct surveying work on Burnaby Mountain. Most also said that if they were elected, they would work to ensure that residents’ views on Kinder Morgan are heard by the federal authorities who will ultimately decide the project’s outcome. 

We were thrilled that when the votes were counted, many of these candidates were chosen to lead in their communities – particularly on the Sunshine Coast, where 65% of those who completed our survey were elected – and we look forward to working with municipalities around the Salish Sea in the coming months to ensure that community needs and voices are not ignored in this historic debate.

As the dramatic events unfolding on Burnaby Mountain over the past few days have brought into sharp focus, we need local leaders who are willing to stand up for their communities now more than ever. How many municipalities need to say ‘no’; how many First Nations need to launch lawsuits; how many ordinary citizens need to get arrested before the federal government and Kinder Morgan get the message that this pipeline will never be built? Whatever the NEB and Cabinet decide, it is abundantly clear that Kinder Morgan will never gain social license in BC – and that the future we want will have to be created by the local communities showing such great leadership today.

It’s local election time!

On November 15th, British Columbians will go to the polls to vote for local leaders to represent their communities.

While local elections may not generate as much attention on the airwaves or around the water cooler as provincial and federal races, they are vitally important – and not only at the local level.  Newly elected mayors, councillors and regional representatives will not only make countless decisions that will affect daily life in our communities – they can also play a major role in a much wider political arena.

For many of us concerned about the local and global impacts of pipeline projects and other fossil fuel development in BC, it increasingly feels like the provincial and federal governments are simply not listening. But communities like Burnaby (which is using all the mechanisms at the city’s disposal to prevent the Kinder Morgan pipeline expansion, including a drawn-out legal battle to prevent the company from carrying out invasive surveying work on Burnaby Mountain conservation lands), or Kitimat (where last April, citizens rejected the Northern Gateway project in a plebiscite) are showing us how local governments can flex some serious political muscles and be influential players in this vital national conversation.

We need more local champions like these, and the upcoming municipal elections are an important opportunity to spark community debates about the risks and benefits of Kinder Morgan and other energy projects, and for citizens to choose representatives who will stand up for the rights of communities over fossil fuel companies.

Georgia Strait Alliance is working in strategic locations around the Strait to encourage such debates during the election period, and in particular to raise awareness among candidates and voters of the risks coastal municipalities would face in the event of an oil spill. 

If you live on the Sunshine Coast or the Nanaimo and Parksville areas,click here to find out where your candidates stand on these issues, and other useful information as you prepare to vote on November 15th.

Wherever you live, if you’d like to see your local government be a champion for the coast and the climate, here are three things you can do to make the most of the upcoming local elections

1. If you have five minutes: ready, set vote! Visit your municipality’s website and make sure you know when and how to vote.  Talk to your friends and family and make sure they’re ready to vote as well.
2.  If you have half an hour: write an email. Contact your candidates (see here for an email directory of candidates running across the province) and ask them their views on issues of concern to you (you can use our candidate survey as a guide). You could also consider writing a letter to the editor of your local paper – a great way to contribute to the debate in the wider community.
3.  If you have an evening to spare: attend an all-candidates’ meeting in your area to find out more about your candidates, and ask them questions about what matters to you (feel free to use ours). Your local newspaper or municipality’s website is the best place to find out dates for the meetings.

If you would like help with any of the above – who to contact, what to write, no question is too big or too small – we’re here to help! Contact alexandra@georgiastrait.org or call 604-633-0530.

Whether it’s pipeline and tanker projects that worry you, or other local environmental or community issues, November 15^th is too important an opportunity to miss – so mark your calendars, and get out and vote! 

Just asking for a little leadership

As I came out of a meeting today, I realized this mind-boggling fact - I’ve been involved in discussions, consultations and campaigns around wastewater treatment in the region for over 11 years.  I don’t remember seeing ‘advanced wastewater treatment advocate’ on my guidance councillor’s list of careers when I was in high school, but somehow I’ve ended up in this place where my knowledge of treatment technologies and processes is pretty deep – terrifyingly deep! 

Having been involved in public and community consultations in Metro Vancouver, the Capital Regional District of Victoria, the Regional District of Nanaimo, along with national level consultations, I could go on ad nauseum about biosolids, total suspended solids and fecal coliform levels – but who really wants to read about that over dinner?!

What I will say is that in my experience the best processes that I’ve been involved with are the ones where staff, politicians and those giving of their time on advisory committees all work together to create a vision for what wastewater treatment can bring to a community.  Not only is the conversation about deadlines, technology and cost, but about how this investment will make our waters cleaner, communities healthier and even produce resources that can provide a revenue stream.  I tip my hat to Metro Vancouver for their willingness to make their liquid resource management plan (yes, resource, not waste!) better by working with and listening to the Reference Panel that had been created to offer advice.  Thanks to the willingness of senior staff to put in the time with us, the plan is better – and that’s good for all of us.  Other regions could learn from this process and I hope they do.

Photo: Bryan Nordley

But there is one thing I would wish for all regional districts when it comes to building large infrastructure projects, and that is – trust your citizens.  Too often I see plans presented not built around a vision of benefits to a region or community, but starting with fear about the cost.  The public are not fools but if you don’t provide information for why you want to invest in better wastewater treatment – and that you feel forced to by national regulations is not a vision - a self-fulfilling prophecy of opposition will occur.  No one likes their taxes to go up, but most of us can be inspired to invest our hard earned money if we see that the project will, in the case of wastewater treatment, protect our coastal waters and wildlife and our communities.

We saw this in Vancouver when the community itself chose the plan for the Public Library, even though it was going to cost more than other plans.  Now we have a building that is iconic and provides a wonderful gathering place for its citizens.

So regional governments -- trust your citizens and help lead us towards a better future.  I know personally, it’s one I would be more than happy to build with you.