North Van Politics: Under New Management

Hello passionate people!  This a very short notice to tell you that  John Sharpe, our hard-working Admin of the last few years, is taking a well-deserved break from overseeing the North Vancouver Politics site.

I'll be stepping in, and hope to do a respectable job of filling his shoes.

You're absolutely invited to email me directly with any ideas or suggestions. I'm all ears.

In the meantime, I was intrigued to discover that, according to Google, more than half of the pageviews for the blog are coming from Japan.  Who knew?

Barry Rueger

Entry...............................  Pageviews
Japan................................  611
Canada.............................  275
United States.................... 107
Germany............................  56
China................................   28
Portugal............................   26
Moldova...........................   21
France..............................   15
Russia..............................   15
Ukraine..............................  6

There Will be Oil!

In celebration of one year as Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau has gone ahead and approved the expansion of the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain oil pipeline that runs into our fair ecosystem.

Once completed, the $.6.8 billion Trans Mountain expansion pipeline project will increase the capacity of existing infrastructure to 890,000 barrels per day, up from 300,000 bpd.  The 1,150 kilometre pipeline expansion would run from Edmonton to Burnaby, B.C., where it would pump Alberta-mined bitumen and synthetic product onto tankers which would sail through (local) waters for Asian markets.

There is no shortage of opinion out in the wilds of the Internet, and no doubt there are several court challenges to come, but at the end of the day our new eco-friendly PM has thrown in his lot with the petro producers of Alberta.

Several Lower Mainland municipal governments opposed this pipeline, as does our own local Tsleil-Waututh Nation, but it appears we're stuck with it anyhow.

At least the Premiers of Alberta and BC seem happy.

Local MP Jonathan Wilkinson, the parliamentary secretary to Environment Minister Catherine McKenna, was quoted by CBC as saying,

"Within my riding there is a group that is opposed, and opposed and opposed, and will always been opposed," he said. "And then there's a group who's in favour, and in favour and will always be in favour. And then there's the vast majority, in the middle, who have legitimate questions and concerns that they want to ensure are addressed."

I guess that I fall into the first group, and would have been happier if a our shiny happy new Federal government had decided to work to eliminate fossil fuels and global warming.

Oh well, as they might say in Westmount, "plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."

Too good not to add.

One Year Since Trudeau Elected

Wow how time flies! Recently the North Vancouver Liberal Constituency Association sent out reminders of a volunteer appreciation event in Lynn Valley to celebrate "one of the greatest victories in Canadian political history".

So how is our North Vancouver MP Jonathan Wilkinson doing for us anyway?

DNV Land Disposition for Affordable Housing Initiative

At the September 12th, 2016 Regular meeting of Council the disposition of 6 or 7 undeveloped lots in the DNV were on the table for discussion. These lots, if sold would be worth approximately 7 million dollars and the idea would be to use this money towards affordable housing. Being public information I had occasion to view several of the lots under question in the Lynn Valley area where the majority of them exist. I was quite interested that there were actually any undeveloped lots like these in Lynn Valley. As examples; One lot was on Kilmer, one on Hoskins, and another on Lynn Valley Road and Henderson. I did not venture out to view the other one or two lots that were I believe, in the Blue Ridge area. So the question becomes to sell or not to sell these lots for the aforementioned reason? Discussion at the council meeting on the 12th of September suggested this money could be used in transportation corridors 'in line' with the current OCP.

Election Anticipation!

An election is in the offing, and the floodgates are opening up as the ruling Liberals try to shift gears from being mean spirited Scrooges to become touchy-feely donors of all things that are good and true.

In the last week MSP premiums suddenly weren't being increased, and Christy announced a rather vague promise to build 2900 units of rental housing, at a cost of a cool half a billion.

At this point it even seems possible that she'll promise to give disabled people back their bus passes, and raise welfare rates to something approaching a livable level.

Meanwhile the NDP... um....

And the Greens are busy debating whether or not the Israeli government is good or bad.

The question today though, is "What does the North Shore need from whatever government is formed after the next election?

I'm partial to driving stake through the heart of that monster that is Translink, and just funding transit properly.  And killing off MSP premiums entirely, like most of the country. And writing off student debt, like in Newfoundland.

But that's just my dream.

What's yours?