Archive for the 'politics' Category

G20 Protests

Published on June 26, 2010 in canada, global and politics.

Today was an event­ful day in Canada. Canada hosted the G20 sum­mit in Toronto. Unfor­tu­nately, some pro­tes­tors were unhappy and that led them to com­mit chaos on our streets. These chaos resulted in mil­lions in repairable and non-repairable dam­age to our gov­ern­ment, small busi­nesses and corporations!

Con­tinue read­ing ‘G20 Protests’

UPASS for BC Colleges/Universities

Published on June 9, 2010 in ams, british columbia, sfss, sfu, translink and ubc.

The Upass pro­gram was started by VanCity and Translink in part­ner­ship with the UBC AMS and the Simon Fraser Stu­dent Soci­ety at SFU. The Upass pro­gram was later expanded to Capi­lano Uni­ver­sity and Lan­gara Col­lege. UBC stu­dents cur­rently pay $23.75 per month for the Upass. SFU stu­dents cur­rently pay $26.09 per month for the Upass. Capi­lano Uni­ver­sity stu­dents cur­rently pay $32.00 per month and Lan­gara Col­lege stu­dents pay $38.00 per month for the Upass. Stu­dents who attend other post sec­ondary insti­tu­tions pay $81.00 for a one-zone bus pass, which can be used in all zones with their stu­dent card.

In the 2009 provin­cial gen­eral elec­tion, the BCLib­eral Party promised to deliver the UPASS to all post-secondary stu­dents in British Colum­bia. The BCLib­eral Party will be deliv­er­ing their promise this September.

Gor­don Camp­bell made an impor­tant announce­ment at Van­cou­ver Com­mu­nity Col­lege (VCC) today — an announce­ment that pro­vides afford­able uni­ver­sal tran­sit to all post-secondary stu­dents in British Colum­bia. The pre­mier announced today that schools will be able to hold ref­er­en­dums to opt into the Upass program.

Your stu­dent union (ie, Dou­glas Stu­dent Union, Kwantlen Stu­dent Asso­ci­a­tion) will be able to hold ref­er­en­dums before Sep­tem­ber to opt into the upass pro­gram. Suc­cess­ful schools will be able to take advan­tage of the $30.00 per month Upass for all the students.

The Cana­dian Fed­er­a­tion of Stu­dents in BC have reacted to this announce­ment. This is likely the first time in years where the CFS-BC have praised the work­ing of Pre­mier Gor­don Camp­bell and his exec­u­tive min­is­ters. The CFS-BC chair­per­son Nimmi Takkar said“the province and TransLink are to be con­grat­u­lated for imple­ment­ing a com­mon U-Pass pro­gram at an attrac­tive price.”

This announce­ment affects stu­dents of SFU and UBC! The con­tract between UBC AMS and SFU SFSS will be expir­ing in Sep­tem­ber 2011. Instead of using the old pric­ing, stu­dents at both schools will be pay­ing $30.00 for the Upass as well. This means a total increase of $6.25 per month for stu­dents of UBC ($25 per term, $50 per semes­ter) and a total increase of $3.91 per month for SFU stu­dents ($15.64 per semes­ter). The prices will need to be passed through a ref­er­en­dum next Spring.

Your cur­rent UBC AMS and SFU SFSS rep­re­sen­ta­tives will most likely be nego­ti­at­ing with Translink and Translink is most likely going to offer stu­dents the $30 Upass. I encour­age stu­dents from SFU and UBC to email their exter­nal rep­re­sen­ta­tive (UBC AMS VP Exter­nal Jeremy McEl­roy and SFU SFSS Exter­nal Rela­tions Offi­cer Kyle Acerino) to tell them that you do not want a fare increase to hap­pen. I also rec­om­mend you to email your local MLA, the BC Min­is­ter of Trans­porta­tion Shirley Bond, and the BCNDP Trans­porta­tion Critic Harry Bains to tell them that you do not want your bus fares to increase!

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?

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.

RIP Polish President

Published on April 10, 2010 in global and politics.

Within sec­onds after the pass­ing away of Lech Kaczyński and his fam­ily, the Wikipedia arti­cle has changed the pres­i­den­tial infor­ma­tion of Poland to reflect the cur­rent affairs in Poland. Kaczyn­ski has been replaced by Bro­nisław Komorowski as the Act­ing Pres­i­dent of the Repub­lic of Poland.

Con­tinue read­ing ‘RIP Pol­ish President’

SFSS Election Results 2010

Published on March 19, 2010 in sfss.

The polls have closed for the Simon Fraser Stu­dent Soci­ety Elec­tions. The results are posted on the web­site. Con­grat­u­la­tions to the can­di­dates who ran in the elec­tion. You have took part in this elec­tion and showed SFU stu­dents that democ­racy is alive!

The term of the elected offi­cials will begin start­ing May 1. There will be a by-election hosted in the Fall 2010 semes­ter for the posi­tions of:

  • Fac­ulty of Applied Sciences
  • Fac­ulty of Arts and Social Sciences
  • Fac­ulty of Com­mu­ni­ca­tion, Art and Technology
  • Fac­ulty of Environment
  • Fac­ulty of Health Sciences

Sta­tis­tics

  • Most Voted Exec­u­tive Race: Pres­i­dent (1216)
  • Most Voted Ref­er­en­dum Race: Envi­ron­ment Tax (1323)
  • Most Voted Can­di­date (Votes): Diego Reyes
  • Most Voted Can­di­date (%): Todd MacDonald
  • Least Voted Can­di­date (Votes): Todd MacDonald
  • Least Voted Can­di­date (%): Richard Vickery

Voter Turnout

  • The most votes in the race is 1323.
  • There are around 27,500 under­grad­u­ate stu­dents at SFU.
  • Voter Turnout is 4.8%.

Con­tinue read­ing ‘SFSS Elec­tion Results 2010′

My SFSS Endorsements

Published on March 13, 2010 in sfss.

The polling for the Simon Fraser Stu­dent Soci­ety will begin on March 16 and will end on March 18. Vot­ing will be con­ducted elec­tron­i­cally. All the can­di­dates have worked very hard and I applaud them.

After look­ing at the posters, read­ing the plat­forms and watch­ing the debates, I have made up my final mind on who I sup­port for most of the positions.

Con­tinue read­ing ‘My SFSS Endorsements’

SFSS 2010 Election FAQ

Published on February 28, 2010 in sfss.

In order to under­stand the elec­tions of the Simon Fraser Stu­dent Soci­ety (SFSS), you will first have to under­stand what the it is.  Simon Fraser Stu­dent Soci­ety is an orga­ni­za­tion reg­is­tered under the BC Soci­eties Act that you auto­mat­i­cally become a mem­ber of if you are an under­grad­u­ate stu­dent at Simon Fraser Uni­ver­sity. Mem­bers of the Soci­ety (those tak­ing at least 1 credit dur­ing the semes­ter) will need to pay mem­ber­ship dues. Mem­bers will be able to take advan­tage of many of the ser­vices such as cam­pus clubs, free agen­das, U-Passes and etc. Con­tinue read­ing ‘SFSS 2010 Elec­tion FAQ’

Smoking By-Law

Published on February 1, 2010 in coquitlam, council and politics.

At the last Coquit­lam coun­cil meet­ing, Coun­cil­lor Robin­son motioned to con­sider a smok­ing by-law for the City of Coquit­lam.  Here is the full text of the motion from Jan­u­ary 18, 2010:

Whereas 82% of Cana­di­ans do not smoke;

And whereas it has long been rec­og­nized that sec­ond hand smoke con­tains over 4000 chem­i­cals includ­ing 50 known chem­i­cals to cause cancer;

And whereas senior lev­els of gov­ern­ment have taken actions under their respec­tive juris­dic­tions to pro­tect cit­i­zens from sec­ond hand smoke such as the Fed­eral gov­ern­ments Non-Smokers Health Act passed in 1988 and recently strength­ened in 2007 ban­ning smok­ing and more recently smok­ing rooms from their work­places and the Provin­cial gov­ern­ment recently amended the Motor Vehi­cle Act to ban smok­ing in vehi­cles where a minor (under 16 years of age) is present;

And whereas the Fraser Health Author­ity sup­ports lim­it­ing expo­sure to sec­ond hand smoke;

And whereas smok­ing restric­tions increase the moti­va­tion for smok­ers to quit or cut­back, decreases neg­a­tive role mod­el­ing for chil­dren, pro­tects the envi­ron­ment and reduces litter;

And whereas direct enforce­ment from the munic­i­pal­ity may not be nec­es­sary as expe­ri­ence with out­door and indoor smoke-free laws has shown that the by-law itself is enough to deter most peo­ple from smok­ing. In addi­tion, peer pres­sure aris­ing from the com­mon under­stand­ing that the space is smoke-free also deters peo­ple from smoking:

There­fore be it resolved that the City of Coquit­lam develop a ban on smok­ing on pub­lic patios and spaces where minors (under 16 years of age) might be present;

And that the City of Coquit­lam invite munic­i­pal­i­ties in Metro Van­cou­ver that have yet to develop smok­ing bans to con­sider such a ban;

And that the City of Coquit­lam ask the Province to con­sider a ban on smok­ing in all pub­lic spaces.

As much as I do not like peo­ple who smoke in pub­lic places, I believe that this by-law will (a) drive con­sumers away; and (b) limit the rights and free­doms that are guar­an­teed under the con­sti­tu­tion.  I believe that instead of ban­ning smok­ing from our city, our city coun­cil should get the pub­lic aware that smok­ing is bad and try to dis­cour­age it.

Although it is going to be dis­cussed today at the Coquit­lam Coun­cil meet­ing, please com­ment what you think about this by-law.

2009: A Year in Review

Published on December 31, 2009 in life and politics.

Here is a list of sig­nif­i­cant events that hap­pened in 2009 that I have put together. If I am miss­ing any impor­tant events, please feel free to com­ment here.

Jan­u­ary

Barack Obama was inau­gu­rated as the 44th Pres­i­dent of the United States.

Oppo­si­tion Leader Michael Ignati­eff sup­ports the Minor­ity Con­ser­v­a­tive Party Fed­eral Budget.

The Cana­dian Econ­omy lost 129,000 jobs in Jan­u­ary 2009 with unem­ploy­ment ris­ing to 7.2%. It was an all-time record in Canada. Despite it being a record, it is lower than the unem­ploy­ment rate in the United States (7.6%). Con­tinue read­ing ‘2009: A Year in Review’