Friday, July 11, 2008

Woman blasts mayor on crime

Backrooms column by Dan Hilborn
Published Nov. 5, 2005


There was a decidedly more serene Mayor Derek Corrigan on the podium at the Edmonds school all-candidate meeting on Tuesday night.

Corrigan, who is best known for his firebrand version of politics and sometimes ribald commentary, sat politely while several speakers ripped into him on the subjects of crime and safety.

"Burnaby has gone to hell in a handbasket," proclaimed one anonymous woman in a red dress. "I've never been so scared as I have been lately. You have not done enough for us."

The woman said she has been pushed aside by transients and bullies who ride the SkyTrain before finishing her two-minute speech with the words: "I don't want you as my mayor any more."

Corrigan, in as mild a voice as I've ever heard, then asked the woman if she supported the Team Burnaby plan to open a homeless shelter in the community - a facility he believes will attract more social problems into the neighbourhood.

"I admit for people like you who grew up in Burnaby, urbanization has been a serious problem," Corrigan said. "Hundreds of thousands of people have moved here and with them come difficulties.

"It takes a community to fight crime, but paranoia won't help," he said.

It appears the mayor is learning how to listen. Whether this lesson comes in time to hold onto his party's overwhelming majority on council and school board is yet to be seen.

CHINA ON AGENDA

A small group of Falun Dafa activists tried to get the candidates to take a strong stand against China on Tuesday night at the Edmonds meeting, with only varying degrees of success.

Garth Evans, a Team Burnaby candidate, acknowledged that the most populated country in the world has a bad record on human rights, but said "It's important for us to do business with China."

Evans noted that Prime Minister Paul Martin has already spoken up against human rights abuses in China and said such debates are more of a federal manner.

BCA councillors Dan Johnston and Colleen Jordan pointed at each other when it was their party's turn to field the question, before Jordan reluctantly agreed to provide an answer.

Jordan said that Burnaby council has been severely criticized for speaking up on international matters in the past, but her party has indeed written letters of support on Falun Dafa's behalf.

THE TRAVELS OF TOM TAO

Independent mayoral candidate Tom Tao is styling himself as the most experienced of the three candidates in this year's race, thanks to his age and international travels.

The 61-year-old Chinese-born businessman, who once lived in Taiwan and studied at the University of California, Berkeley, is all over the map when it comes to his platform. His campaign is calling for more police, more education and a review of the city's capital reserve funds.

"We have $430 million. Is that in one bank or various banks? Is there any way to use just the interest? We know that Burnaby property prices are going up," he said.

Tao also said that one solution to the city's social problems is to "have the homeless people retrain themselves. We need better education and free everything is not a solution," he said.

To complete his political adventure, Tao also opined on the state of politics in the U.S.A. "Looking at Bush down south, we can see that absolute power leads to absolute corruption," he said. One can only wonder if that was an allusion to the BCA's current domination of 14 out of 16 seats on city council and school board.

HARRIS SPEAKS UP

Former BVNPA councillor Nancy Harris, who is running as an independent candidate in this election, got a few chuckles and raised some hackles during the Tuesday night all-candidates meeting.

During her opening remarks, she said the reason she's running as an independent is the same reason why she's a single mom. "Nobody asked me," she said.

But then she surprised many when she took exception to Team Burnaby's plan to hire a dozen more police officers in each of the next three years. "It's not appropriate, in my mind, to look at policing increases as a response to social problems," Harris said.

She also lambasted Mayor Derek Corrigan for shutting down the family court and youth justice committee after the B.C. Liberals closed the old Burnaby courthouse. Harris, who used to chair the committee, is still hopeful that Burnaby will adopt the restorative justice program she touted during her earlier tenure at city hall.

RUNNING ON ITS RECORD

The Burnaby Citizens Association is running on its record in this election, as evidenced by the fact that it sent nothing but incumbents on the stage during the first of only three all- candidate meetings planned for this campaign.

Kathy Corrigan, Diana Mumford and Larry Hayes were the three BCA school board candidates who fielded questions during the Edmonds school debate.

During the city council portion of the debate, the BCA sent only two candidates on stage - incumbents Colleen Jordan and Dan Johnston.

Team Burnaby also played it safe with its council candidates, putting two of its heavy-hitters on stage - veteran politicos Gary Begin and former school trustee Barbara Spitz - alongside newcomer Garth Evans, a lawyer who is described as an environmental health expert.

And there were noticeable absences from both of the main parties. Paul McDonell, the rookie BCA candidate with strong roots in the Edmonds neighbourhood, was not in attendance, nor was Team's lone council incumbent, Lee Rankin, who apparently has been working late into the night drafting the policy statements for his new political compatriots.

Surprisingly, independent candidates Parvin Chami, who is running for city council, and Rubin Prince, who is running for school board, also failed to make the meeting.

SEE HOW STV WORKS IN CITY

The folks who brought you the single transferable vote system of balloting have created a website that applies their system to the current Burnaby city council election.

Do yourself a favour and check it out to see if you can figure out how the system works.

Find the site at http://bc.demochoice.org/bcballot.php?poll=bur.

There is also a test run of what last spring's provincial election night have looked like under an STV system, with the four Burnaby ridings included on the same ballot as New Westminster and two East Vancouver ridings.

But be prepared for a shock.

As of last Thursday, only one Burnaby candidate would have been elected out of the seven ridings, and that is Patty Sahota, the only Liberal in the city who in fact lost the election.

For the record, my initial enthusiasm for the STV system has been steadily dimming, and the results of the website voting are not making me any more predisposed toward the plan.

As of this writing, I'm leaning more toward the Australian rules that require citizens to vote or else face a fine.

I still believe the most fundamental problem in our current system is lack of voter participation, and what I'm seeing from STV does nothing to alleviate those concerns.

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