Daniel Fontaine, B.A., ICD.D

Can you believe it’s already been almost one month since I officially became a city councillor in New Westminster.  In the four weeks that followed the inaugural ceremony, I’ve had the opportunity to attend a significant number of briefings and one regular meeting of council.

Let me first clear up a misconception. The position of councillor in a city the size of New Westminster is not considered a full-time position. In fact, besides Vancouver and Surrey city representatives, most civic officials are considered to be contributing their efforts on a part-time basis.

So exactly what does a ‘normal’ week in the life of a rookie councillor look like? Well, besides all the Monday and Wednesday briefing sessions organized by city staff, there are a lot of citizen inquiries that have begun to flow in.

As an elected official, I’m expected to review all the correspondence that comes in to city hall each week – and in some cases provide a direct response.  I can assure those individuals and business owners who have submitted a letter or email to the mayor and council that they most definitely get forwarded to all of us for review.

On Monday, November 28th I attended my first regular meeting of council. This included a few staff reports and bylaws that required our approval. I took the opportunity to pull out of ‘consent agenda’ a report detailing our operating and capital expenditures.

What followed were a series of questions to staff about how we were investing your tax dollars. I want to applaud our Finance Department staff for the thoroughness of the report and their responses.

In my view, as expressed in council, I think these types of reports should not be included in a ‘consent agenda’. A ‘consent agenda’ is a bunch or reports that all get lumped together and voted upon at one time with no debate or discussion.  I think major financial reports should be pulled out – and perhaps also include a formal presentation from our staff.

After all the reports were completed and voted upon by council, we had open delegations from the community.  A total of 10 people were allowed to speak under our current Procedures By-Law. They spoke on a range of issues including crime and safety, bike lanes and the elimination of the Royal City moniker. If you want to read more about this, you can click on the Record stories here and here.

On a personal note, it was great to see so many passionate citizens taking the time out of their evening to come and speak to council. This is an important part of our civic democracy and it was definitely alive and well.

A day after our council meeting the snow began to fall. What ensued on the streets of our Metro Vancouver region was nothing short or horrific. There was massive traffic gridlock regarding what I refer to it as the ‘night of 100,000 stories.”

As a civic leader, I felt it was my responsibility to ask questions as to what happened and how we could have done better. That’s why this week Surrey Councillor Linda Annis and I called upon Minister Rob Fleming and Mayor George Harvie (Chair of Metro Vancouver) to host what we refer to as a ‘Snow Summit’

The Snow Summit is intended to pull all of the key stakeholders together under one roof to have a discussion on what happened and how we could have done better.

I’m hoping the Ministry of Transportation, Metro Vancouver, TransLink, Coast Mountain Bus, Mainland Contracting as well as representatives from our first responders will be there.  It is not a ‘blame game’ exercise, rather, I want it to be an opportunity for us to learn from what happened to ensure it is not repeated again anytime soon.

There was a lot of public and media interest in the summit, but to date I have not heard back from Mayor Harvie or Minister Fleming as to whether they have any interest in hosting this review. Both Cllr. Annis and I will keep up the pressure in the coming weeks and hopefully we can secure a date and venue! I’ll keep you posted of any new developments.

On that note, I want to say I’ve really enjoyed my first few weeks ‘on the job’ and I hope I’ve helped to make a difference. If you have any questions, comments or queries, don’t hesitate to contact me at dfontaine@newwestcity.ca. I’ll be back at the keyboard soon with my next blog entry…so stay tuned!

 

 

 

Well, after a number of months of intense campaigning, I’ll finally be sworn in as a city councillor in the Royal City tomorrow! I’m excited, nervous, honoured…and that’s just a few emotions I felt today as both Councillor-elect Paul Minhas and I count down the hours to the inaugural ceremony.

This political  journey all got started back in 2017 when I helped to found the New West Progressives. A year later I ran for council and came in 7th spot – just shy of securing a seat on council. Then earlier this year, after much consideration and encouragement from my friends and family, I decided to run again in this election.

Now I’m about to head into the chamber and I can’t help but think of all the people I spoke to on the doorsteps over the last 6 months. I’m reminded of all my colleagues who ran with me, but didn’t make it this time. I’m thinking of everyone who believed in our vision for the city and made a financial contribution. I’m forever grateful to everyone who voted for me, who volunteered and who believed in a better New West!

It’s also not lost on me the special role both Paul and I must play at city hall to not only bring forward good policies and ideas, but also to hold the majority of council accountable for their actions.

Preparing to Enter the Chamber

The last couple of weeks have been extremely busy as I brush up on the City’s procedures by-law, Robert’s Rules of Order and get caught up on the latest initiatives of the various city departments. Both Paul and I have been meeting almost daily as we prepare to introduce a series of important motions tomorrow night. We hope they can be debated at the November 28th regular council meeting.

The motions we’ll be introducing support the development of new committees, increase public access to city hall and request the BC Government increase mental health supports in our region.

We’ve also been busy meeting with staff and getting a basic orientation regarding the equipment in the chamber as well as meeting some of the senior management staff.

I’m hoping to have the opportunity to get back to writing more regularly and report out on some of the more interesting highlights of city council. There will no doubt be some late nights and interesting debates in the coming weeks as we kick the whole process off by approving the 2023 budget. While we didn’t have much opportunity to help shape it, there is still time to amend the budget before the final vote is tallied up.

National Aboriginal Veterans Day

On November 8th I will have  the honour of joining Christina Coolige, Manager of Indigenous Relations for the City of New Wesminster, to lay a cedar wreath at the cenotaph in commemoration of National Aboriginal Veterans Day. Coolidge,  is from the Tsleil-Waututh Nation on her father’s side and Cree and Scottish Métis from Treaty Six territory on her mother’s side of the family.

A close friend lent me a beautiful beaded poppy from Metis artist Sandra Dennett who resides in Beauval, Saskatchewan. I will be wearing it this week at both the Aboriginal Veterans Day and Remembrance Day events which will be taking place at city hall.

I’ll be back here later this week and report out on ‘week one’ in council.

A recent poll released by Leger reveals that a number of British Columbians are very concerned about the state of their downtown core. In fact, when compared to the rest of Canada, BC stands out regarding how they feel about this issue.

When asked “over the past year, would you say the state of the downtown core of the closest major city to where you live has…” either significantly declined or somewhat declined, 54% of those surveyed responded yes to those questions.  Breaking that down further, 31% said it has declined significantly.

What is important in this poll is that the issue of the decline of downtown cores like New Westminster is not solely considered one of policing. The issue of mental illness and a lack of supports (including housing) featured prominently.

When the pollster further asked “how much have the following factors contributed to the decline in the state of the downtown core in the closest major city to where you live…” a whopping 89% of respondents noted mental health issues for vulnerable populations. This was followed closely behind at 88% for those who indicated housing was an issue.

It’s clear to anyone who walks in the downtown cores of our cities throughout British Columbia, we have a major problem. We didn’t need a survey to tell us that. I just had the opportunity to visit a number of smaller communities and mid-sized cities in BC this month and the issue of homelessness and mental illness is noticeably worse than it was only a few years ago.

The bigger problem here is the lack of government response when it comes to providing adequate mental health supports and housing. Despite Victoria saying all the right things, in the summer of 2022 countless British Columbians are still living on the streets – many of whom are clearly suffering from mental illness, brain injuries and drug addiction.

It’s important to note that when it comes to drug addiction, this often can be directly linked back to the issue of mental illness and a lack of treatments.

That’s why when I was asked by Global TV to be interviewed regarding this survey I gladly accepted. I did it in the hope we can have a respectful and meaningful discussion leading up to the civic election about the important need for the provincial and federal governments to provide adequate mental health supports.

I think the time has also come whereby we should be discussing the important need to invest in a modern, compassionate and community-based mental health facility that is capable of providing large scale support. It is sorely needed in the Lower Mainland and the time to enter this discussion is now.

Nobody wants to rebuild another Riverview.  In 2022 we have the opportunity to use modern building practices to construct a facility that will provide compassionate treatment models. It will also help to house and provide the clinically necessary treatments for those who are currently wandering our streets. That approach should be considered as progressive.

I’m glad to see the issue is slowly appearing on the radar of our provincial politicians and local media. It gives me hope we are one step closer to helping those most in need.