Monthly Archive for May, 2010

Business Votes in BC Municipal Elections

Published on May 31, 2010 in british columbia, coquitlam and politics.

In Octo­ber 2009, Gor­don Camp­bell assem­bled a Local Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions Task Force con­sist­ing of mem­bers of the Leg­isla­tive Assem­bly and the Union of British Colum­bia Munic­i­pal­i­ties (UBCM). The mem­bers are UBCM Pres­i­dent Harry Nyce, MLA Bill Ben­nett, Sur­rey Coun­cil­lor Bar­bara Steele, Ques­nel Mayor Mary Sjos­torm, MLA Donna Bar­nett and MLA Dou­glas Horne. The pur­pose of the task force is to review the cur­rent munic­i­pal elec­tion process and rec­om­mend nec­es­sary reforms to the provin­cial government.

The task force are to review cam­paign financ­ing, enforce­ment processes and out­comes, role of the Chief Elec­toral Offi­cer in local gov­ern­ment elec­tions, the elec­tion cycle, the avail­abil­ity of cor­po­rate vote and other mat­ters that will be raised.

One of the minor top­ics that were dis­cussed dur­ing the Coquit­lam Munic­i­pal By-Elections were the avail­abil­ity of a cor­po­rate vote. Coun­cil­lor Linda Reimer is the only coun­cil­lor from Coquit­lam City Coun­cil who have came for­ward and expressed her sup­port for cor­po­rate votes. There are four other coun­cil­lors and four other may­ors in British Colum­bia who have sup­ported this cause.

The Tri-City News inter­viewed SFU Polit­i­cal Sci­ence Pro­fes­sor Patrick Smith. Through­out the inter­view, the mes­sage that Dr. Smith was try­ing to por­tray was clear — busi­nesses are well rep­re­sented and should not have a busi­ness vote.

Cur­rently, cor­po­ra­tions and small busi­ness can finance munic­i­pal elec­tion cam­paigns by donat­ing to the cam­paign. They are not able to vote for the can­di­date unless they own a house in the city.

I believe that hav­ing a busi­ness vote on a munic­i­pal level for small busi­ness own­ers who live out­side the city is legit­i­mate. In Coquit­lam, the taxes that a small busi­ness owner pays is 3–4 times higher than the taxes of a res­i­den­tial owner. Through­out my munic­i­pal cam­paign, busi­ness own­ers in Coquit­lam have com­plained about how much taxes have increased for their busi­nesses — but they do not get more ser­vices out of the taxes that they pay.

Busi­ness votes were legal in British Colum­bia prior to 1993. They were stopped by the Har­court New Demo­c­rat gov­ern­ment. The rea­sons for dis­con­tin­u­ing the cor­po­rate vote was because

  • Desire to apply ‘one per­son, one vote’ principle
  • Cri­te­ria for eli­gi­bil­ity for a busi­ness vote was com­plex and at times dif­fi­cult for local gov­ern­ments to verify
  • Poten­tial for abuse of the pro­vi­sions led to fair­ness con­cerns – e.g. cor­po­ra­tions were able to rent a park­ing space or stor­age locker and be eli­gi­ble for a vote; ten­ant in occu­pa­tion pro­vi­sions (applic­a­ble to both cor­po­ra­tions and indi­vid­u­als) allowed lessees of small frac­tions of prop­erty to vote (in one case, about 500 peo­ple reg­is­tered to vote in rela­tion to one par­cel of land)
  • Not many busi­nesses were eli­gi­ble to vote — the effec­tive­ness of the vote on address­ing busi­ness con­cerns was arguably minimal
  • UBCM sup­ported removal of the cor­po­rate vote

The respon­si­bil­i­ties of the munic­i­pal gov­ern­ment are not writ­ten into our Cana­dian Con­sti­tu­tion. The munic­i­pal gov­ern­ment is viewed as an exten­sion of the provin­cial gov­ern­ment. Munic­i­pal gov­ern­ments have the power to cre­ate by-laws (ie smok­ing ban), con­tract garbage pickup, residential/commercial zon­ing and others.

What is your opin­ion on cor­po­rate and small busi­ness votes in munic­i­pal elections?

iPad + Velcro = Love

Published on May 31, 2010 in apple and technology.

Accord­ing to Jesse Ros­ten, the iPad and Vel­cro are two of mankind’s great­est inven­tions. In the video, he explores what is pos­si­ble when you com­bine the two.

Community Sunday: May 31-June 6

Published on May 30, 2010 in community sunday.

Mon­day, May 31

  • None Reported

Tues­day, June 1

  • None Reported

Wednes­day, June 2

  • None Reported

Thurs­day, June 3

  • Port Coquit­lam Farmer’s Mar­ket
    Fruit and veg­eta­bles, gar­den fresh and in sea­son, locally raised beef and lamb, seafood, bread and all the good things you want to find at a farm­ers’ mar­ket will be there, every Thurs­day, until Sep­tem­ber 16th in Leigh Square in the Com­mu­nity Arts Vil­lage by City Hall. Children’s arts & crafts activ­i­ties will be avail­able every week. The Leigh Square Com­mu­nity Arts Vil­lage is ded­i­cated to encour­ag­ing and facil­i­tat­ing com­mu­nity devel­op­ment through arts, cul­ture and her­itage by cre­at­ing a vis­i­ble pres­ence for com­mu­nity cul­tural activ­i­ties within Port Coquit­lam and con­tribut­ing to the enliven­ing of the down­town core. For more infor­ma­tion please call 604–927-8400 or their web­site.Time: 3pm to 7pm
    Loca­tion: 2253 Leigh Square, Port Coquit­lam, BC
    Admis­sion: Free

Fri­day, June 4

  • None Reported

Sat­ur­day, June 5

  • Cana­dian Can­cer Soci­ety Relay for Life
    The Cana­dian Can­cer Soci­ety Relay For Life is more than just a fundraiser. It is an oppor­tu­nity to get together with fam­ily and friends and cel­e­brate can­cer sur­vivors, remem­ber loved ones lost to can­cer, and fight back in the hope of find­ing a cure for this ter­ri­ble dis­ease. Relay is fun, ful­fill­ing, and your par­tic­i­pa­tion gives strength to our mis­sion to erad­i­cate can­cer. Walk with us in this inspi­ra­tional 12-hour overnight event as we come together and fight to make can­cer history.

    Time: 10am
    Loca­tion: Percy Perry Sta­dium (1299 Pipeline Road)
    Admis­sion: Reg­is­ter online by May 7 at http://www.cancer.ca/relay/

Sun­day, June 6

  • None Reported

Tech Tuesday: WhatsApp!

Published on May 25, 2010 in technology tuesday.

What­sApp Mes­sen­ger is a smart­phone appli­ca­tion that allows you to mes­sage other What­sApp users, sim­i­lar to Black­berry Mes­sen­ger on Black­berry. What­sApp Mes­sen­ger is avail­able for Black­berry and iPhone (and the iPod Touch). It will be avail­able for Android and Nokia Sym­bian very soon.

After you down­load What­sApp from the iPhone App Store or the Black­berry App World, What­sApp will look at your iPhone/Blackberry con­tacts for other users who also use What­sApp. It will auto­mat­i­cally add those users to your con­tact lists. You do not have to waste time adding your friends one by one.

The func­tion­al­ity of What­sApp Mes­sen­ger is very sim­i­lar to SMS/MMS. You can send mes­sages to your friends. You can share images, videos and audio mes­sages to your friends as well. There are no bor­ders between the mes­sages that you send. In other words, you can send your What­sApp mes­sage from Canada to your friends in Hong Kong, Aus­tralia and South Africa for just the cost of your data plan.

With this app, you will get push noti­fi­ca­tions when you receive a mes­sage. You can see if your friend is online (hav­ing the appli­ca­tion open) and it will tell you when they were last online if they are not online. You can also see if your friends are typ­ing a mes­sage. You can see if your mes­sages have been deliv­ered (one check mark beside the mes­sage) or read (two check marks beside the message).

You can find more infor­ma­tion on their web­site or at the App­Store! The App was for­merly free, but it is now $0.99.

Music Monday: Faber Drive

Published on May 24, 2010 in music monday.

Faber Drive will be com­ing to the Lower Main­land this week. They will be pre­form­ing on May 28 at the Clarke The­atre Foun­da­tion in Mis­sion, BC and May 29 at the Vogue The­atre in Van­cou­ver, BC. You may pur­chase tick­ets at Tick­et­mas­ter while sup­plies last.

Faber Drive is a Cana­dian rock band from Mis­sion, British Colum­bia. They cur­rently have four mem­bers — Dave Faber, Jeremy Lid­dle, Jor­dan Pritch­ett, and Andrew Stricko.

The group won the SOCAN Num­ber 1 song award for “Tongue Tied”, won Cana­dian Radio Music Awards for Best New Group of the Year and was nom­i­nated for Best New Group of the Year for the Juno Awards for “Sec­ond Chance.”

The top song of the group is “G-Get Up and Dance” from the album can’T keEp A SecrEt by Cana­dian Hot 100, which was ranked at posi­tion 6. They also have many other songs that was ranked on Cana­dian Hot 100.

Here’s a sam­ple of “G-Get Up and Dance”:

Summer 2010 To-Do List

Published on May 23, 2010 in life.

There are many things to do this sum­mer in Van­cou­ver. I always wanted to go places but I don’t end up on going, and as a result I have decided to make a list to keep me on track.

To Do List:

  • Visit the Rich­mond Night Market!
  • Visit Stan­ley Park!
  • Visit Lynn Canyon Park!
  • Visit Granville Pub­lic Market!
  • Go to HSBC Cel­e­bra­tion of Lights!
  • Go to Playland!
  • Go to every McDon­alds in Metro Van­cou­ver at least once!

Foursquare List:

  • Playa Please
  • Don’t Stop Believin’

Any other places or things to do that you rec­om­mend? Please feel free to com­ment on this page!

Community Sunday: May 24-May 30

Published on May 23, 2010 in community sunday.

Mon­day, May 24

  • None Reported

Tues­day, May 25

  • None Reported

Wednes­day, May 26

  • Wel­come to the Cham­ber
    Are you a new mem­ber inter­ested in find­ing out more about the many ben­e­fits of Cham­ber mem­ber­ship? Or are you a long time mem­ber who would like a refresher course on the advan­tages of being a Cham­ber mem­ber? Join us at our office as we review what’s included in your mem­ber­ship, the many pro­grams avail­able to you as a Cham­ber mem­ber and how your Cham­ber mem­ber­ship can ben­e­fit your busi­ness. Please call the Cham­ber to reserve your spot. Loca­tion: Tri-Cities Cham­ber of Com­merce, Board­room 1209 Pine­tree Way, Coquit­lam Cost: Free to mem­bers, RSVP required Com­pli­men­tary park­ing Reg­is­ter for event here.
    Time: 4pm to 5pm
    Loca­tion: 1209 Pine­tree Way, Coquit­lam, BC
    Admis­sion: Free to members

Thurs­day, May 27

  • Port Coquit­lam Farmer’s Mar­ket
    Fruit and veg­eta­bles, gar­den fresh and in sea­son, locally raised beef and lamb, seafood, bread and all the good things you want to find at a farm­ers’ mar­ket will be there, every Thurs­day, until Sep­tem­ber 16th in Leigh Square in the Com­mu­nity Arts Vil­lage by City Hall. Children’s arts & crafts activ­i­ties will be avail­able every week. The Leigh Square Com­mu­nity Arts Vil­lage is ded­i­cated to encour­ag­ing and facil­i­tat­ing com­mu­nity devel­op­ment through arts, cul­ture and her­itage by cre­at­ing a vis­i­ble pres­ence for com­mu­nity cul­tural activ­i­ties within Port Coquit­lam and con­tribut­ing to the enliven­ing of the down­town core. For more infor­ma­tion please call 604–927-8400 or their web­site.

    Time: 3pm to 7pm
    Loca­tion: 2253 Leigh Square, Port Coquit­lam, BC
    Admis­sion: Free

Fri­day, May 28

  • The Best of BC Wines Uncorked
    The Port Moody Arts Cen­tre and West Coast Wine Edu­ca­tion will be host­ing a semi-annual Spring Fes­ti­val. This event offers unique wine tast­ing that show­cases new and cur­rent releases from BC winer­ies and raises funds for the Port Moody Arts Centre.

    Time: 700pm to 930pm
    Loca­tion: Port Moody City Hall Gal­le­ria
    Admis­sion: $45 at BC Uncorked

Sat­ur­day, May 29

  • None Reported

Sun­day, May 30

  • Como Lake Fish­ing Derby
    The Como Lake Fish­ing Derby is a free event for youth under six­teen years of age. There are prizes for almost every­one and a pan­cake break­fast is avail­able for a charge. The event is hosted by the Coquit­lam Kins­men Club, Coquit­lam Fes­ti­val Soci­ety and the Port Coquit­lam Rod and Gun Club.

    Time: 7am-12pm
    Loca­tion: Como Lake Park
    Admis­sion: Free

Daily Specials

Published on May 22, 2010 in daily special.

I noticed that I do not have much con­tent on my web­site. Start­ing tomor­row, I will begin adding con­tents to my blog in a struc­tural way.

Each day of the week will have their own daily spe­cials fea­tur­ing a dif­fer­ent sub­ject on each day. The sub­jects will cycle every week. The sub­jects are as follows:

  • Music Mon­day — I will write about a song, an album, an artist or a upcom­ing con­cert in the enter­tain­ment industry.
  • Tech­nol­ogy Tues­day — I will write about tips, tricks, or new releases in the tech­no­log­i­cal world. These will include spot­lights in new soft­ware that are released for your com­puter, iPhone, Black­berry or Android.
  • Wis­dom Wednes­day — I will post an arti­cle about an aca­d­e­mic topic that will help you gain new knowledge.
  • Travel Thurs­day — I will post an arti­cle about a city or town in British Colum­bia that is worth see­ing, or hot des­ti­na­tions around the world.
  • Fol­low Fri­day — I will post an arti­cle about some­one or an orga­ni­za­tion from Twit­ter, Face­book or any other social media net­work who is worth men­tion­ing and is not a celebrity that is cov­ered on main­stream media.
  • Sports Sat­ur­day — I will post an arti­cle about sports, whether its ama­teur or professional.
  • Com­mu­nity Sun­day — I will post a list of events that are upcom­ing in the Metro Vancouver.

If you have any ques­tions or com­ments regard­ing the daily spe­cials, please feel free to con­tact me using the meth­ods here. I hope you enjoy them!

Blind Journalism in Municipal Elections

Published on May 13, 2010 in coquitlam and elections.

On Sat­ur­day, the vot­ers of Coquit­lam will be head­ing towards the polls. One of the can­di­dates, Terry O’Neill, is so des­per­ate about win­ning the elec­tion that he is attack­ing his oppo­nents in every sin­gle way.

Terry O’Neill attacked every sin­gle can­di­date in his recent blog post on Tues­day sim­i­lar to what Car­ole James did to Gor­don Camp­bell in the 2009 elections.

On Neal Nicholson:

Ter­rys Claim: “My lead­ing rival, Neal Nichol­son, appar­ently thinks TheV3H.com is impor­tant enough to adver­tise on it, but not impor­tant enough to give it (and the vot­ers of Coquit­lam) the cour­tesy of answer­ing its questions.”

On Brian Babcock:

Ter­rys Claim: “Brian Bab­cock did not attend a sin­gle all-candidates meet­ing, and didn’t answer ques­tions for V3H. His excuse for miss­ing the meet­ings? He was out of town on a sport-fishing trip.”

On Mas­simo:

Ter­rys Claim: “Mas­simo ‘the mys­tery man’ Man­darino has also been a com­plete no-show, with no expla­na­tion, and has writ­ten nothing.”

Truth: Mas­simo has writ­ten for the Tri-City News.

On Owen Coomer:

Ter­rys Claim: “Owen Coomer, a 20-something bar man­ager, admits he ran for mayor in the last gen­eral elec­tion merely to get his name better-known. He attended two of three meet­ings before say­ing he was too ill to appear at the third. He seems to be seri­ous in his can­di­dacy this time out, yet he didn’t respond to TheV3H’s invitation.”

On Ralph Banni:

Ter­rys Claim: “Ralph Banni attended all three meet­ings, responded to the Geor­gia Straight, but appar­ently ignored TheV3H.com request.”

On Andy Wickey:

Ter­rys Claim: “Andy Wickey … [was] at all three meet­ings but wrote noth­ing for V3H.”

And Finally, On Andy Shen:

Ter­rys Claim: “Andy Shen, the very young SFU stu­dent, appears to be run­ning for the sport of it and to brag about his 2,000-plus Face­book friends. He attended the meet­ings, but didn’t write for V3H.”

Andy Shen on Terry O’Neill:

Terry O’Neill says that I appear to be run­ning for the sport of it and to brag about my 2,000-plus Face­book friends. My mes­sage through­out the cam­paign was clear. We need bet­ter trans­porta­tion in the area. We need to attract Green-Industry jobs in Coquit­lam. We need to decrease green­house gas emis­sions, just like what Port Coquit­lam is doing. I brought up my 2,000-plus Face­book friends at an all-candidates meet­ing to show other can­di­dates and the par­tic­i­pants of the all-candidates meet­ing that I am easy to access.

O’Neill also claimed that I did not write for the V3H. The dead­line for the sub­mis­sion was on Tues­day, and the arti­cles were sub­mit­ted prior to that dead­line. It was posted recently on the web­site. I may not have fin­ished it before Terry, but I got it done. I have been com­mu­ni­cat­ing with theV3H on Twit­ter not just dur­ing the elec­tion, but prior to the elec­tion. There would be no rea­son why I would not write for them.

O’Neill also stated that “being a good city coun­cil mem­ber means being … hon­est and will­ing to com­mu­ni­cate with vot­ers.” By attack­ing me with false infor­ma­tion, he is not hon­est. He is spread­ing lies — just like what the social per­cep­tion of a politi­cian is. He brings up the ques­tion, “what does this say about what sort of coun­cil mem­bers they will be?” after attack­ing all the can­di­dates. Per­haps, he should be the one ask­ing him­self that.

Report: April 2010

Published on May 7, 2010 in life.

This report shows the sta­tis­tics between April 1 and April 30. Con­tinue read­ing ‘Report: April 2010′