“Frankly, working as a reporter outside of a major urban centre is no way to make a living. You can’t raise a family on a reporter’s salary. “

I know very little about working for a small-town newspaper, and less still about what that would be like in Nelson. But I do know this: this discussion matters. Small-town journalism matters.

Shepard goes into his own reasons why, some of which are disputed in his comments section, but here’s what I believe:

• as local government takes on an expanded role in everyday life (with a smaller budget), scrutiny and understanding of local politics is taking on an increasingly important role
• this goes double as aging infrastructure begins to challenge the abilities of local governments to meet even their basic duties
• and triple as we gear up for more and more conversations about how local resources should be used in a globalized economy
• the commercial model for comprehensive local news analysis in the modern age has yet to be developed, or at least widely distributed

I work for a northern B.C. current events show whose biggest target city is Prince George (which I’m not sure qualifies as a major center or not, but which at least currently supports one bi-weekly and one daily newspaper, one online-only news site, two radio-only newsrooms and one radio/television-news hybrid newsroom). But Prince George has by far the most robust news coverage of any of the other cities we reach and reflect. Most rely on a single weekly or bi-weekly paper, sometimes shared with multiple other cities, and perhaps a community radio station, and then us at a far more distant level. These papers are run by one to three people, and aside from reporting they are sometimes also responsible for lay-out, editorial, and advertising. Each of these takes away time for more in-depth analysis of issues.

Even on this shoestring of an operation, these outlets are an invaluable resource. I know because I read most of them on a regular basis in an attempt to keep a pulse on what’s happening throughout the north. Sometimes these stories get translated into an interview on Daybreak North. And sometimes those interviews get picked up by other outlets, and sometimes they even bubble up into the national news cycle, with coverage from the the Globe and the Post and others. But those stories may not have happened without that one reporter slogging away locally, single-handedly producing a paper and going to city council meetings or reading up on zoning disputes that no national outlet would bother with.

The irony of this is that the reporters often don’t get the credit for producing those original pieces of journalism that make their way into the provincial or national conversation, because the majority of people wind up hearing about them in the Vancouver Sun or on CBC without realizing where it originally came from. I know, because I’ve broken stories that got wider coverage without ever being credited at higher levels. That’s the nature of news– you can do all the work to break it, but once it’s out there anyone can go ahead and report on it.

Unfortunately, alarm-bells are being raised about the future of small-town journalism (or niche subject journalism, as the folding of Public Eye Online demonstrates).  I know very little about how they operate, but I know they are a rich part of our national conversation. And apparently, they are in trouble. And this is something that should matter to us all.

But one of the highlights for me is the local musicians who get to play. There’s always been a local music component to the festival, but this year the locals were promoted a bit more heavily than in previous years– and with good reason. The locals are just as good as any out-of-town act (and that’s not a knock to the out-of-town acts, it doesn’t matter who came in from outside, the locals would have matched them).

On night one of the locals shows, I caught two young musicians, Darby Yule and Isaac Smeele for the first time– and bought cds from each after fantastic sets. I’ve been a fan of Jamie Bell for a long time, and was happy to hear him please the crowd once again. Then a group of UNBC students playing a mix of bebop and ska under the monikor The Bricks took the stage and, I believe, got more encores than anyone else at the festival. Night two was one of my favourite live experiences, Doug Koyama looping his vocals over himself. Then a few more newbise for me– Mother Tareka, a hip-hop artist who self-accompanies using saxophone, flute, and beatboxing, Avid, a new mordern-rock act, and Dead Street, consisting of various veterans of the PG music scene experimenting with  psychedelic and grunge.

And that’s not all– Quesnel’s band reeves opened up for Whitehorse at the PG Playhouse, and as good as Whitehorse was (they are a huge act on the indie scene), I’ve had multiple people tell me reeves sort of upstaged them. Even Whitehorse gave them a shout-out. And there were workshops throughout town that let other burgeoning talents develop and test out their skills.

I’m making the same point I’ve made before– there is an awesome amount of talent in this city. It’s great that Coldsnap can be used to highlight the fun and importance of live music, but these talents should be supported year-round. Fortunately there’s no shortage of opportunities. I feel bad for not posting this yesterday before Jamie Bell opened for Lauren Mann and the Fairly Odd Folk, but yeah, that happened. Incidentally, Lauren Mann is the group that took reeves on a national tour this past summer.  And tomorrow Canadian Waste (possibly the most buzzed-about live act at the moment) are playing a benefit show for a downtown building that’s supported the arts scene. On any given weekend, there are shows at Nancy-O’s, Books and Company, and various other venues around town.

There should never be anyone complaining about a lack of places to go in town. My biggest problem is not having the energy to go to everything I’d like to on any given weekend. And that’s the way it should be.

1/5: GoC is committed to bringing Canadian elections into 21st century…

— Tim Uppal (@MinTimUppal) January 13, 2012

2/5: … by introducing legislation to get rid of the dated ban on early transmission of election results. #elxnresults

— Tim Uppal (@MinTimUppal) January 13, 2012

3/5: The ban, enctd in 1938, does not make sense with widespread use of social media and modern communications technology. #elxnresults

— Tim Uppal (@MinTimUppal) January 13, 2012

4/5: Canadians should have freedom to communicate about election results without fear of heavy penalty. #elxnresults

— Tim Uppal (@MinTimUppal) January 13, 2012

5/5: Paul Bryan should be acknowledged for his advocacy on this issue. #elxnresults

— Tim Uppal (@MinTimUppal) January 13, 2012

My question is: will anyone oppose this move?

Related: Did You #TweettheResults?

It comes from Jillian Merrick, president of the Prince George Cycling Club, and one of the people whose comments coloured my post, as well. You can read it here on page 7, but once again since the Free Press has no direct link I’m going to excerpt it wholesale, too. Here it is:

“Editor:

While I understand that Ms. Pilon’s ‘Life in the Fat Lane’ column is an opinion piece, I am deeply troubled by the attitude and lack of personal responsibility Ms. Pilon shows as a fellow road user.

In her article, Ms. Pilon wags her finger at winter cyclists, shaming them for scaring her as she nearly runs them over on several occasions. She unknowingly describes many dangerous aspects of her own driving, while blaming the cyclists for the near accidents. In her own words, she ‘was sliding through a yellow light on 15th Avenue’ and ‘waiting for the heater to defrost the paintings Jack Frost rippled all over my windows.’ As a responsible driver, Ms Pilon should be reducing her speed on icy days and braking well in advance of the intersections to avoid sliding through them. Even more frightening, she should not be driving if she cannot see out her windows.

Ms. Pilon also demonstrates the most common misconception drivers have about cyclists. She curses the cyclist for ‘taking up the middle of the street to avoid those nasty ruts,’ Ms Pilon, like many, is unaware that, by law, cyclists are vehicles that have the same right to the road as motorized traffic. Cyclists must use designated bike lanes and the right hand side of the lane when it is safe to do so, but cyclists are allowed to take the whole lane when a safe alternative is not available. Ms Pilon is also unaware that there are winter tires for bicycles and most winter cyclists use them, and that wearing winter boots to push pedals is no more dangerous that wearing winter boots to push gas (and brake) pedals.

Ms. Pilon admits to passing the same cyclist every day on her way to work, but fails to recognize that passing the same cyclists every day at the same time likely means that he is also on his way to work. Instead she depicts the cyclist as a leisurely gentleman causing trouble for the fun of it. I have no doubt that his morning commute is far more challenging and stressful than her own, and that he would take a viable alternative if available. Most winter cyclists imply do not have another means of getting to where they need to go. The lack of empathy shown is disheartening.

Finally, Ms. Pilon contributes to the false culture of fear around cycling that, as a cycling community, we work very had to dispel. She associates cycling with a death wish and makes much ado of the dangers. Little does she know there are a mere 65 cyclist fatalities in Canada each year, while a killer such as heart disease accounts for 650,000 fatalities. A hard look at the facts reveals that ‘Life in the Fat Lane’ is far more dangerous than life in the bike lane.

I would urge pedestrians, cyclists and motorists alike to use extra caution and understanding in these especially icy conditions.”

If I have one minor quibble with this reaction, it’s the statement that the gentleman’s commute is more stressful than Ms. Pylon’s and he would take a viable alternative if available. As frustrating as aspects of biking can be, I have to say I find that in many cases it’s less stressful than driving, even in winter (the one exception being when you encounter drivers like Ms. Pilon reports herself to be). I do have viable alternatives available yet I choose to bike because, on the whole, I think biking is the best alternative– economically, environmentally, and health-wise. That said, it is probably true that I’m the exception rather than the rule– people on bikes, especially in winter, may wish they were in a car (or a bus that ran a little more often/faster than they do in Prince George).

What I really appreciate about this is the statistic of 65 cyclist fatalities versus 650,000 heart disease fatalities. It’s fascinating that people would rather support a sedentary lifestyle that is far more likely to result in death than getting regular daily exercise to-and-from work. Statistically, the health benefits of biking far outweigh the risks associated with it– but that’s another post for another day.

From CKNW:

Vancouver is one step closer to having an online database for renters.
A motion is going before council next week calling for the creation of a searchable rental database.
Mayor Gregor Robertson calls it a necessary tool for Vancouver renters, adding it will them avoid negligent landlords.
Robertson says the city already collects data on the history and safety compliance of building owners, and the goal is to make that information more accessible.
The idea for the database comes from New York City, where a similar website was launched last year.

Based on Prince George having its own problems, I’m wondering if this is a model being examined.

In a recent issue of the Prince George Free Press, columnist Delynda Pilon writes a piece entitled “Snow Covered Roads No Place for Bikes.” I can’t link directly to the article, but it’s on page seven of this issue. The column title is “Life in the Fat Lane.”

Here is what I think is a fair summary of what she writes:

“I am thinking of leaving a note on a certain vehicle that I seem to pass each morning…

It would go something like this.

‘Dear bicycle-driving person. Please stop driving that bicycle all over the place during the winter time. You are scaring me. I almost ran over you several times.’

I am not sure who this crazy guy is, driving his blessed bike around Prince George in January, but he seems to be breeding. Yesterday I saw three more of his like while I was bumping over ruts onto Victoria Street, then when I was sliding through a yellow light on 15th Avenue. And I just don’t get it. There I am, waiting for the heater to defrost the paintings Jack Frost rippled all over my windows, and along comes a fellow wrapped head to heel in cushiony comfort seated pedal bike, eking his way downtown…

…getting run over is not a fun experience, and I am trying to avoid being the one to traumatize you by crushing you in the middle of the street, little bicycle man.”

Two disclaimers.

First, assuming her statements are correct, this is not me. She says the guy has winter boots on but not winter tires. I actually have winter bike tires and tend to wear sneakers. Also, she makes reference to riding around in January. Personally, I hadn’t ridden my bike in January until yesterday (the column is from January 4, today is the 10th). And, if we’re keeping count, I didn’t ride it in most of December, either.

Second, I will give her some fair points. He should have winter tires, for his own safety and those of others. She also references his tendency to “ignore all traffic as you bump and bumble along, taking up the middle of the street… You skitter over the ice, swerve for potholes, and generally ignore everyone.” Generally not good practice.

But.

As a bike rider, this column is all sorts of infuriating. I think I know what she’s trying to do here. I think she’s trying to be folksy, relatable, sharing her little annoyances in a humourous way. But as a bike rider, in winter and summer, I find very little funny about the callousness with which Ms. Pilon overlooks her shortcomings and attempts to blame the bike riders of the world for causing her problems.

Let’s take a few of her points step by step.

“Dear bicycle-driving person. Please stop driving that bicycle all over the place during the winter time. You are scaring me. I almost ran over you several times.”

Dear Ms. Pilon,

I am sorry I and my fellow bike-riders are scaring you. I can certainly relate to how frightening it must be to almost crush us to death. Awfully inconsiderate of us.

“Yesterday I saw three more of his like while I was bumping over ruts onto Victoria Street, then when I was sliding through a yellow light on 15th Avenue.”

Wait, what? Are you seriously complaining about bike riders while you are sliding through a yellow light? Put on your brakes, woman! Compensate for the slipperiness, drive slow, and stop early. I mean, good god, you’re sliding through a yellow light and you’re upset at someone on a bike!?

“There I am, waiting for the heater to defrost the paintings Jack Frost rippled all over my windows, and along comes a fellow wrapped head to heel in cushiony comfort seated pedal bike, eking his way downtown…”

Good lord, I hope that you are waiting for your car to defrost WHILE IN A PARKED POSITION. I really don’t know though, because you’re already talking about driving. So just to be sure, since we’re trading advice here: wait until AFTER you can see out the windshield to start driving.

“Finally, do you know how hard it is for motorized vehicles to stop this time of year? Especially those driven by cranky blondes?”

I can’t speak for you cranky blondes but, yes, I do have an idea of how hard it is for motorized vehicles to stop. That’s why, when I’m driving, I tend to go slow and stop early. Instead of, you know… sliding through yellow lights.

Let’s move on.

It’s telling that Ms. Pilon decides to lay all her blame on the people biking in winter. As a group, they are not well-treated in our society.

Let me make something clear. I do not ride my bike to work for political reasons. I started doing it to save money and get exercise. As time went on, I realized its practicality. I am not trying to be an activist.

Another disclaimer. Most of the drivers I encounter are great. They give me room. They slow down. A lot of time, they’ll stop to let me cross at an intersection even when they have right-of-way.

But as Ms. Pilon has reminded me, there is nothing neutral about riding your bike in most North American cities.

Bike riders challenge things simply by existing. I want to go to from point A to point B. For much of this route, there is a bike lane. But there are a couple of sections where that bike lane disappears, and I am suddenly at the mercy of Ms. Pilon. I have to hope that she’s paying sufficient attention to the road in front of her that she notices me, off to the side, often on a layer of gravel or mud or ice that has been swept there or ignored by the street cleaners.

I’m not allowed on the sidewalk, that much is clear. The rules are bikes are to be treated as vehicles. So there I am, maxing out at maybe 15 km/h while giant hunks of metal speed by at 50 or 60 or more. Hoping.

Like I said, most drivers are fine. But every once in a while you get that person who honks at you simply for existing, yells at you to get off the road even while you’re in your designated spot, narrowly avoids hitting you despite the clearly marked lanes. And you’re reminded that this is not your place. Even with all the courteous drivers, most North American roads are truly not the ideal location for a bike to be, little white line bike lane or no.

Ms. Pilon could direct her irk elsewhere. She could ask the city to change the rules, allowing bikes on the sidewalk when safety demands it. Or to clear the lanes in winter a little more so bikes have the room to ride in their spots. Or even create TRUE dedicated bike lanes, ones that would ACTUALLY separate the cyclists from the vehicles so that she would never have to worry about Mr. Bike Rider again, and he would not have to worry about her.

There’s reasons to encourage biking. Obesity and a lack of exercise are among the top public health concerns. Bikes reduce wear on roads. Bikes are less likely to kill someone if they get into an accident. Biking reduces pollution.

And yet. And yet, and yet, and yet, bike-riders continue to be treated as an irritant. An inconvenience. A special interest group. Whenever governments or businesses announce some “green” initiative, they measure it by saying how many cars it’s equivalent to taking off the road.

Guess what? Every time you ride a bike, you ACTUALLY take a car off the road. And every time you fail to make bike riding a safe experience for people, you put one more car back on.

But despite all this, we are still treated to newspaper columnist writing light-heartedly about how inconvenient it would be for her to run over someone on a bike and destroy their life. This in the same newspaper with an article about a driver hitting a teen pedestrian, yelling at him to get out of the way or he’d do it again, and then driving off. Seriously. Page 5.

Cars have made my life imminently easier. I’ve used one for the majority of my adult life, and I completely understand why the most of my fellow citizens choose them over bikes, especially in the winter.

But can we, as a society, get over the idea that anyone on a bike is just asking for trouble? The idea that they should get behind a wheel and a motor where they belong or else they deserve whatever’s coming to them? Because that is exactly the attitude Ms. Pilon is exuding in her column.

And then she has the audacity to suggest this person cab, bus, or walk.

Guess what, Ms. Pilon? You sliding through a yellow light is going to cause problems regardless of what you hit. Whether I’m in a bus, or a cab, or (especially) a pedestrian, you failing to stop at the designated time and sliding through a yellow light as your heater slowly removes the frost off of your windows– well, that’s causing an accident, possibly fatal.

And it’s your fault. Not mine.

So thank you for your note.

—

Thank you to the comments left by some Facebook friends where I originally posted Ms. Pilon’s article. Some of your points were used in this post. Photo by ohsweetie on Flickr.

2011: Back to Albums

Last year I formatted my list as my favourite songs of 2010. The reason I did this as songs last year was because that was basically what I listened to– songs, and very few actual albums. As I wrote at the time:

“If there’s one thing I can peg 2010 too, it’s the year I officially transitioned out of listening to albums. There were very clearly great albums this year… But the fact is that everything I listened to this year was in the form of singles. If I did listen to the full album, it was after noticing that I had liked three or more songs off of the album already …

I chalk this transition up to a number of factors. First, have you heard of the internet? It’s pretty cool. Sites like the Hype Machine, Soundcloud, CBC Radio 3, Stereogum, and Ex.fm combined with Tumblr all give me daily doses of new/interesting music. That’s not to mention all the other blogs out there. This year I just got really good at using them.”

But then a funny thing happened. Shortly after writing this, I started using a service Rdio. It, too, is an internet streaming service, but its emphasis on streaming full albums, rather than songs. It also has offline mode for listening on your phone, something I’ve taken advantage of on the majority of my commutes to work.

And a funny thing happened– as it became easier for me to listen to new albums, that’s exactly what I did. And so here we are, at the end of 2011, and I’m back to making a list of my favourite albums, rather than songs.

Less Professional Listening

The emphasis on albums over singles means I probably sampled less of what was on offer this year than last. The amount of sampling I did was also hurt by the fact that while last year I spent a lot of time listening to music for CFUR and CBC, this year I moved towards more of a management role at CFUR and more of a writing-actual-stories-vs-the-music-segments role at CBC. And I just found myself missing the old-fashioned getting-to-know-an-album thing.

Criteria

So, how did I choose the list. Here’s the criteria, rough as it is.

First, the album had to be released in 2011.

Second, this is MY list based on what I listened to. It’s not supposed to be a definitive list, because I didn’t listen to half of what came out. I probably didn’t even listen to half of what’s on a bunch of other best-of lists out there. I listened to what I listened to, which was a lot, but was by no means close to comprehensive.

And third, this is about the albums, but the songs have to work, too. There’s stuff out there that’s really interesting from start to finish as an album, but if there’s not at least one tune that gets stuck in my head, it’s not going to work for me. But as a caveat to that, there’s nothing on here that’s just based on a couple of good songs while the rest of the music falls flat. If I were to make my favourite songs list, it would probably look different, but those songs don’t come from strong albums. Conversely, what we have here  are all good listens from start to finish, with at least two or three stand-out tracks.

And finally, I’m doing this alphabetically by artist. Eleven albums are eleven albums and I don’t see a need to can’t rank them. Each of these is good music.

So, on to the music.

Adele – 21

Easily the most mainstream album on my list (given that it was the biggest album of the year– everywhere from commercials to Canucks games). But I’ve never liked or disliked music based on mass appeal. Good is good, and this is good. (adele.tv)

Beastie Boys – Hot Sauce Committee Part Two

The thing is, I’m not even a huge fan of the Beastie Boys. Yes, I enjoy their classic work, but I’m nowhere near liking them as much as many of my friends. And while this album doesn’t go anywhere dramatically different from where they’ve gone before, they go to their good stuff in an incredibly consistent and fresh-sounding way throughout. A worthy entrant into their canon, and onto this list. (beastieboys.com)

Dan Mangan – Oh Fortune

The first time I listened to this album as a whole was while I was mowing my lawn and doing yardwork towards the end of summer, when it felt more like fall. Leaves were turning, plants were dying, frost was coming. It was so perfect for that moment that I played it back-to-back three times. That’s good enough for me. (danmanganmusic.com)

Destroyer – Kaputt

I listened to this when it first came out in January, and knew then that it would place high in my year-end list. Even ignoring the masterpiece that is “Bay of Pigs” (previously released as a single and then tacked onto the end of this album), this is an amazing piece of work that manages to make some of the worst production aesthetics of the seventies/eighties sound beautiful. (destroyersongs.com)

Fucked Up – David Comes To Life

I didn’t really like these guys before. I could hear what was going on and what was exciting about it, but man, was it harsh. The addition of female vocalists to the screaming and instrumental assault is a stroke of genius, tempering things just enough without losing any of the power. I don’t know if this musical thing is happening or not, but it sure helped make a cohesive album. (lookingforgold.blogspot.com)

Handsome Furs – Sound Kapital

Seriously, as long as they don’t deliberately make a terrible album I think anything by this husband-wife duo will make my year-end list. Perfect blend of garage rock and electronic. (handsomefurs.com)

Mother Mother – Eureka

I am a big fan of Mother Mother, both as a live act and as a recording group, and I was really looking forward to this one. I’ll admit I was a little disappointed when it came out, but a few more listens and, well, here it is. (mothermothersite.com)

Rural Alberta Advantage – Departing

Another slow grower on me, but there’s just something so compelling about these songs– the urgency, despite the stripped-down nature. It’s lovely just getting lost in the instrumentation and the voices on this one. (theraa.com)

Smith Westerns – Dye It Blonde

From the first notes of “Weekend,” you know you’re in for a great time. I’m not sure why these guys are being ignored by the rock world, as they seem to be doing a blend of the Beatles and the Black Keys in a way that comes off as not being indebted to either. And hey, it’s fun. (smithwesternsmusic.com)

Timber Timbre – Black Water

What can I say? This fantastic blend of haunting swamp-rock with doo-wop style melodies just keeps me coming back for more. (timbertimbre.com)

The Weeknd – House of Balloons/Thursday/Echoes of Silence Trilogy

OK, I know I said I wasn’t going to rank these, but I think there’s a very strong case to be made for “House of Balloons” and its two sisters albums, “Thursday” and “Echoes of Silence” joining forces to be album of the year.

Like pretty much anything good in music these days, nothing is conventional about these. First, it wasn’t really an album or set of albums, it was mixtapes, released for free, on the internet, at first without anyone knowing who was behind it. Sonically, it’s unlike anything else– kind of R&B, kind of electronic, kind of indie. There’s getting to be more and more music that just defies classification as everything melds together in one big genre of “good”, and the Weeknd is part of that. And finally, it’s huge in the way things get huge in this day of the divided internet– it’s on all sorts of best-of lists, it was covered by all the music blogs and magazines– but I’ll bet most people have never heard of it, let alone heard it.

But, none of this would matter if the songs didn’t work. And they do– the whole mood of this album just floats into your head and stays there, in a way that hasn’t happened with music and me in a long time.

Earlier, I wrote about the concept of 2011 having “No Important Albums”, citing a lack of anything groundbreaking– sonically or otherwise. At the time I wrote that I had, for some reason, forgotten about the Weeknd. Then he released his third free mixtape in a year, completing a trilogy of spaced-out jams that sound unlike anything else going on, and everything clicked into place.

Like Kanye did last year, M.I.A. did from 2007-2009, and the White Stripes did from 2001-2003, the Weeknd has shifted the musical landscape completely in his direction. And like them, I predict there will be many imitations, but absolutely no one who comes close to what he does. A throwback to the past, a glimpse into the future, and something completely of and yet outside of the present– that’s what makes an Important Album, and that’s what the Weeknd has delivered. (the-weeknd.com)

—

For the record, I had a much longer set of albums on my longlist before winnowing things down. Here’s a picture of the notecard I wrote them all on– see if you can make out the names of any bands you love!

And as always, feel free to comment here or on on Twitter.

In a lot of ways, 2011 has been an anomaly. For just about every year of my adult or semi-adult life, there has been some major change. Starting university, starting a new semester, starting new jobs, travelling someplace new, buying a house– at least one of those things every year since 2003. 2011 had none. I lived in the same house, marking the longest stretch of time I’ve gone without moving in five years. I didn’t change jobs, meaning I’ve extended the longest I’ve ever gone without getting a new employer. I got married, yes, but I did that on a weekend where we still got up in the same house and went to bed in the same house. Not really a big change.

And that isn’t a bad thing. This has been a year of solidifying things. Seeing old friends get married, move into careers, get pregnant. Feeling more confident in my skills in radio, growing and developing into something a little (very little) beyond a complete amateur. Not doing any major renovations or repairs to the house, just making little changes here and there to make it more comfortable. Even travel was to familiar places, and more limited than normal.

But even in a year without as many Big Events as might be normal, it’s felt big. There are events that I will be able to pinpoint as being in 2011. There certainly hasn’t been too much downtime between this thing and that thing. If anything, I’m hoping 2012 will be even more uneventful. It’s nice to just sort of know what’s going to happen next– where you’ll be next month, what you’ll be doing on Wednesday night. And I’m learning that as time goes on, what’s important is less the big events and more the little ones. The regular happenings and routines and people that make up the daily flow of your life, not just the major milestones. If you can get that right, then you’re doing just fine.

Happy 2012.

With that, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at what the most popular posts of the year were. I don’t track this stuff on a regular basis, so I’m using what Google Analytics tells me.

1 and 4: Tumblr and ex.fm

My most read posts are probably not surprising– “how to” guides on internet stuff. It seems the guides I wrote this year that were the most useful were the two on Tumblr and ex.fm integration. How Do You Music Part Four: Tumblr/ex.fm was the most popular post I wrote this year, with 318 unique visitors, while How (And Why) To Start A Music Blog With Tumblr is fourth with 166 unique hits.

2. Our Surprise Wedding

A highly personal post was the second most-read. Our Surprise Wedding was sort of the official public announcement that I had married my longtime partner, so it’s not shocking to see it had a good number of hits (200), almost all of them on the day it was posted. Mostly friends and family, I’m guessing.

3. @hotmail.com

The third most popular is an interesting one. Simply titled @hotmail.com, this is a post asking the question of whether or not a @hotmail.com email address could look professional in 2011, or if it had too much baggage. It generated out of long Facebook discussion, so it’s a topic that people are interested in, but I wonder how many people stumbled on it simply looking for the actual hotmail website (there is a tendency to Google websites, rather than just look for the name). Still, the 183 unique visitors spent an average of 1:27 on the page, so it seems even if they found it by accident, they read what I had to say on the subject.

5. Stereotypes

And I’m really pleased with number five. When I wrote it, it was the post I was most proud of, and it stays that way. Stereotypes was about my take on the negative views held of Aboriginal Canadians in the modern world. At the time, it received a good number of retweets and popped up on Tumblr, as well, seemingly resonating with a few. It’s hit 152 unique visitors.

Actually, Stereotypes is tied with a later entry, also about Aboriginal issues, but this one more tangible. How Much Do You Cost the Government also has 152 visitors, and is simply asking in the midst of the Attawapiskat controversey over money spent and potentially misspent– how much is spent on non-Aboriginal-Canadians, on average.

—

So a pretty mixed bag, but one that I think sums up my blog well. I write about what’s on my mind. Sometimes it’s the internet and music, sometimes it’s my personal life, and sometimes it’s broader national discussions. The fact that each of these facets is resonating with even a few other people is gratifying. Thanks for reading.

Meanwhile, email remains andrew[at]kurjata.ca, and I’m still on Twitter and Tumblr.

The Onion A.V. writer summarizes what I’ve been thinking about 2011 in music for a couple months now:

“I think there’s another reason for the lack of consensus in 2011, and it goes beyond changes in technology.

There weren’t any Important Albums.

What’s an Important Album? It’s an album that is perceived to be a momentous work of ambition, invention, and high artistic credibility before it is released, and then proves to actually be so, planting itself in a highly visible place in the culture and acting as a signifier for the year in retrospect. It’s the one album you can’t avoid hearing about at the end of the year to an almost annoying degree; “Important” in this context can be taken to mean “legitimately great” or “incredibly gas-baggy.” But either way, an Important Album stands apart from the pack as a year-defining work.”

As Hyden says, last year’s Important Album was hands-down Kanye West’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Even if you didn’t like it, you knew it was a statement that was resonating with a lot of critics and would top year-end lists. And even if that hadn’t been released there was LCD Soundsystem’s This is Happening and Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs, both genuine events in themselves.

This year was much more low key. Even artists who were on lists last year who released albums this year (Kanye West, the Black Keys) seem to have put in solid, placeholding efforts, but nothing groundbreaking– not for their own career, and not for music as a whole. I’m sussing out my favourites, and while there’s plenty worthy of top ten (Adele, Destroyer, Fucked Up, Dan Managan, and Smith Westerns are probably my most listened albums), none of them lend themselves immediately to number one.

Like Kanye’s and the Key’s efforts, these are mostly solid- better than solid, even- albums that fail to be year-defining, or even career defining. Only Adele’s record, I think, really did anything for her career or legacy, and that was mostly making her a household name whose music is played at hockey games, rather than any amount of critical acclaim.

In late 2010, West’s release of Dark Twisted Fantasy solidified his place as a Great Artist of the age. 808′s and Heartbreaks had some people wondering if his was a career worth watching anymore. Fantasy shot him right back into the upward trajectory that leads you to believe his next album (after Watch the Throne) will be an Event Worth Hearing. I don’t think anyone else did that. Fucked Up and Destroyer are definitely the contenders for my Album of the Year, but neither of them really redefined their artistic legacy. They refined what each of these artists have done well, adding some new colours to their musical palette, but I don’t think they opened up any new doors, critically or commercially. Which is to say, I don’t think they opened them up to any new audiences. Fans they won over with previous efforts will be satisfied, but it’s not the White Stripes and Elephant which suddenly wins over whole swaths of new fans– critical and commercial.

Then again, who knows? As non-groundbreaking as 2011 may seen now, legacies are a long game. There could be some hidden gem out there that I haven’t heard yet– maybe even underground critics barely noticed. After all, I haven’t mentioned my FAVOURITE album of the year, the one that easily got the most spins and still makes me want to hear it again. It’s the Asteroids Galaxy Tour’s Fruit. It came out in 2009.

(More music mentioned in this article after the jump)

“Pierce said she’s also heard from tenants that the building’s owner has given tenants back their November rent and their damage deposits.”

Since I’ve done quite a bit of work on the Victoria Towers story for CBC, I was interested in this development, especially since as of last week none of my contacts among the ex-tenants had heard anything about getting that money back. So I called up Lisa Anne Pierce. She told me that she hadn’t actually heard from any residents, but she had heard from the building manager that the ball was rolling. She suggested I follow up with someone who was working directly with clients. I did, and she said she had not heard from the clients that they were getting money back.

I’m not blaming the Citizen or the Red Cross for this. It is far more likely that it was a misunderstanding, a mishearing, or a misprint than anything else. It happens. Everyone’s human. It is not a reflection on the overall work that either of these organizations do, organizations that I’m glad exist. But given that the building owners have been to court over 50 times for failing to pay money they were supposed to pay to tenants and contractors and are being taken to court by the city of Vancouver for failing to do what they were supposed to do, I would hesitate to report on that money being returned until it is actually, physically, in the possession of the tenants.

If This Then That (henceforth ifttt) is a simple tool that let’s you tell the internet “If this happens, then make that happen.” It’s really straight-forward and well-designed, and you can learn more about it here.

I’ve enabled a few tasks, including archiving my Tweets and Foursquare check-ins on my Google Calendar account, but I’m going to highlight two of the more useful ones I’m using that are a bit more of a hack then the rest. First:

Automatically retweet @(user) when they use a specific #hashtag

This one I actually enabled for Daybreak North. CBC is moving more and more to having Twitter take on a central role in communicating with listeners, and everyone in the office has been moving towards using Twitter with more frequency. The problem is that while I my Tweet from my account and other people who work on the show will Tweet from theirs, it’s a bit of a hassle to have to everyone logging in and out of @DaybreakNorth to share news there as well (particularly when Tweeting from in-the-field, something that will happen with breaking news).

So I’ve enabled ifttt to automatically retweet all of us when we use certain hashtags. For me, it’s #cbc. If that hashtag goes in one of Tweets, it will trigger ifttt, and retweet from the @DaybreakNorth account automatically. This lets me live-tweet things like press conferences from my own account, and append #cbc to key decisions that go out to the wider followers of @DaybreakNorth.

#PrinceGeorge is Canada’s most dangerous city for second year in a row according to @MacleansMag. Based on 2010 stats. #cbc

— Andrew Kurjata (@akurjata) December 14, 2011

RT @akurjata: #PrinceGeorge is Canada’s most dangerous city for second year in a row according to @MacleansMag. Based on 2010 stats. #cbc

— CBC Daybreak North (@daybreaknorth) December 14, 2011

There’s a bit of a hack to doing this, since the default choices within ifttt are to either retweet EVERYTHING a certain user says (which would lead to DaybreakNorth repeating my thoughts on waking up super early) or a certain hashtag (which would mean anyone could trigger DaybreakNorth), but not the more specific retweet SPECIFIC users WHEN they use a hashtag. To do this, we have to go to the RSS feed provided by Twitter for users, and use that as the trigger. You can see how it works in the picture below– just replace the part that says “akurjata” with whichever username you want to pull from in your own version.

I actually have this enabled for @PGTransitAlerts as well, though I make it so anyone tweeting at it can share tips.

Automatically repost pictures natively across platforms

The other set-up that I absolutely love this service for is pictures. I have an Android phone, which means no Instagram. This isn’t a big deal since I very much like the Picplz app, which does much the same thing as Instagram, including posting pictures to multiple photo services. I take a picture, I share it to Picplz, and Picplz sends it to Flickr, Tumblr, Facebook, and Twitter.

With Flickr and Tumblr this service works great. The pictures shows up exactly the same as it would if I were posting the picture directly to those services. But Facebook and Twitter leave something to be desired.

With Facebook, it’s the same problem facing Instagram and pretty much every third-party photo service. Instead of having the picture post to a Facebook album, it appears as a thumbnail with a link to the Picplz picture. This is fine, but Facebook recently enabled nice big displays of photos, and this gets lost using Picplz.

With Twitter, this is a problem specific to Picplz. Where Instagram and a number of other services will display directly within Twitter, Picplz (for some reason) does not– it’s just a link. If people want to see the picture, people have to leave Twitter.

Neither of these are a HUGE deal, but it would be nice to have the option of using Picplz to post photos as photos, rather than links. Enter ifttt.

You’ll notice here that we’ve go the Flickr logo going on, rather than Picplz. That’s because Picplz is not its own channel within ifttt (hopefully that will change). Not a big deal, though, because when Picplz posts to Flickr, it automatically tags the photo as “picplz”, and it’s that tag that we are using as the trigger. Whenever a new public photo tagged “picplz” is added to my Flickr account, it triggers Twitter to upload the same photo to its photo app, and Facebook to add the photo to one of its albums. I still only upload the photo once, but now rather than appearing on Facebook and Twitter as links to a photo, they appear as I want them to: as photos. You can see (and copy) the Facebook recipe here and the Twitter recipe here.

These two recipes are the killers for me– things that I’ve wanted to do for a while, but wasn’t able to until ifttt came along. There’s a ton of other recipes incorporating things like Tumblr, Craigslist, text, email, and weather forecasts, so I highly recommend you head over to the recipe-browsing section and check it out. It is a really, really cool service.

As I write this, the most prominent story on CBC’s B.C. website is about some Vancouver landlords who are being taken to court by the city for years of causing problems for their tenants and refusing to pay fines when ordered. A pretty big story from those Vancouver residents who’ve been dealing with these problems.

A pretty big deal for people in Prince George, too.

You see, the trajectory of this story has it origins in a November 3 fire at the Victoria Towers apartment building here in Prince George. Close to 100 residents were evacuated from the building, and it was too damaged for any to return.

A few weeks later, one of the former tenants invited me along as he cleaned his place out. That story aired on Daybreak North (you can find it here).

A portion of that story that didn’t go to air was this particular tenant relating to me the problems he’d had with the building in the past. He actually has had those problems documented by other media, like the Free Press and the Citizen. There just wasn’t room for it in that story.

But then things kept happening. I went to a tenant meeting, where evacuees were looking for money back since they paid November rent, and then were out on their own without word from the owners about getting compensated. Other former tenants started contacting CBC, relating their own problems with the building. I was directed to a website that documented problems people had with an apartment in Vancouver owned by the same people. A contractor got in touch, saying he’d dealt with the building owners and had trouble getting paid. I talked to people, and then started doing some searches for company registry and court documents. The results were surprising.

The Mehtas, a family named by everyone who contacted me as being the landlords/owners/managers of these various buildings, are officers of multiple companies around the province (officer being secretary, president, etc of the company). The main company is Zoro. There’s some other ones, including Pacific West (Group of Properties, Properties, Management, etc– the name changes), which is listed in the lobby of Victoria Towers as the owners and managers. I didn’t find this company registered anywhere, but it has a website and a phone listing, and it shares the same address as Zoro.

Simply having multiple companies isn’t necessarily newsworthy. What WAS was the court search. Over 50 small claims cases since 1991, from Prince Rupert to Prince George to Victoria to (mostly) Vancouver, primarily dealing with tenants wanting money owed or small contractors wanting money owed. Exactly what was going on in Prince George with Victoria Towers. Oh, and an arrest warrant for one of the Mehtas.

That was enough to do a story on, and so I did. On Monday of this week I went on Daybreak and outlined what I’d found. I should stress that a lot of this was thanks to help from people who’d already done some digging into this story on their own, and guidance from people throughout CBC. The story was fairly well received.

But then Natalie Clancy in Vancouver picked up on it. She’s a Vancouver-based investigative reporter. She rightly realized that this was a Vancouver story as much as it’s a Prince George one, and one with some fantastic visuals. She did some more research, got interviews, got tape, and turned the thing around for the TV newscast tonight. You can see the results here.

This story still isn’t done. Natalie’s story reveals that the City of Vancouver is now taking the Mehta family to court “allegations of failing to maintain the building and ignoring a string of orders to make repairs.” So perhaps something will happen there. But I would posit that it’s a bit of an issue that’s it’s taken this long for things to get to this point. I don’t know all the details, but 50 court cases over 20 years, plus who knows how many complaints with the Residential Tenancy Branch (they wouldn’t tell me), which is the first line of defence for wronged tenants, and it’s finally gotten to this point? It seems a bit long.

Not that I blame anyone in particular. It’s a complicated problem. Landlords are going to get complaints, and that alone isn’t enough to punish them. But there seems to be a lot of grey area in the landlord/tenant rules in the province. And as outlined by Prince George city councilor Murry Krause here, it’s not necessarily an easy fix. People need to know their rights. They need the resources to ask for them. The cities need the resources to enforce these rights. And ultimately, people need to live somewhere. If one of these places is all they can afford, what else are they supposed to do?

So I’m glad I was able to help get the message out there for some people who feel wronged by this whole situation. But I would be happier if this sparked a larger dialogue about finding a solution to this problem, and then putting it into place.

See also: No Magic Bullet: Tenant Rights in B.C.

“On behalf of the Gitxsan Hereditary Chiefs, Hereditary Chief Elmer Derrick today announced an agreement with Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipelines to become a partner in the ownership of the $5.5 billion project to export oil to the Pacific Rim.”

On the heels of an alliance of First Nations leaders signing an agreement  to block the project, this was reported as a modicum of support. Which it was, I suppose, but it quickly became more complicated than that.

On Twitter and Facebook, Gitxsan were quickly voicing their opposition to the project. And before long, a press release came out saying that the Gitxsan people were outraged by the decision. Who put it out? Gitxsan band leaders and Gitxsan hereditary chiefs.

Then things got more complicated. Elmer Derrick and two other employees of the Gitxsan Treaty Society were fired. Except they weren’t. And then there was a protest outside the treaty office. Which has now been ordered to be shut down. Except it isn’t.

So what’s going on here? Well, like anything involving deciding who is the voice of the people, it’s complicated.

****

A Bit of Background

Before going further, I want to stress that I am not an expert on the Gitxsan, and I don’t want to pretend to be one. Any information I pass here is completely as a lay-person, and the material I’m working with is very much up for interpretation. I only intend for it to be a starting point for a wider discussion. That said, I think it’s important to have at least a basic understanding of how things work in order to get to the heart of these recent events.

Until very recent times, the Gitxsan were governed by a matriarchal hereditary system. According to the Gitxsan Treaty Society’s website:

All Gitxsan belong to a Wilp, which is the basic unit for social, economic and political purposes. The Wilp is a collection of closely related people. It consists of one to several families and membership can number from 20 to more than 250 people. Each Wilp has a hereditary chief. A hereditary chief may have several wing chiefs who perform particular functions for House members such as planning and administering forestry work, tourism initiatives or commercial fishery undertakings.

There are more than 50 Wilps (House groups), each with their own territory within the Gitxsan nation.

That system continues to survive, and I understand that there are in the dozens, possibly over 100, hereditary chiefs today.

In parallel to this is the more recent band council system. This system was set up by the Canadian government, and involves a system of government more familiar to most Canadians: regular elections choosing leaders.

At least one of the issues is a conflict between whether the hereditary chief model or band council model winds up choosing the “legitimate” leaders of the Gitxsan. This came into play in a court case filed earlier this year. I am going to borrow wholesale now from the blog BC Treaty News, which outlines the issue thusly:

“Gitxsan treaty negotiations have taken a long time and cost a lot of money. However, the Gitxsan treaty negotiations are slow going, in part, because the Gitxsan are trying to create their own unique arrangements with BC and Canada. The concept they are pursuing is the Gitxsan Alternative Governance Model. It is characterized in four parts:

1. Taxes: the Gitxsan are prepared to pay income and sales taxes just as other Canadians.
2. Parallel society and Indian Status: the Gitxsan are not interested in the “parallel society” concept at the heart of (which drives) the standard treaty model.
3. Land and economic development: the Gitxsan are not interested in negotiating for “treaty settlement lands.”
4. Uniqueness: ratification requires explicit recognition that the concept of “Bands” and “Gitxsan” are not identical.

Essentially, Gitxsan negotiators want the Gitxsan to be equal but unique Canadians. The Indian Act is completely removed in exchange for a piece of the wealth generated on Gitxsan traditional territory. The wealth would go to the Gitxsan hereditary chiefs to be re-distributed through traditional practices.

The Gitxsan are not united on the issue. A group representing the status quo under the Indian Act are trying to stop the advancement of the Gitxsan Alternative Governance Model. They claim that the Gitxsan Treaty Negotiators are negotiating away their rights, including Indian Status. They also claim the Indian Act and reserve system is integral part of sustaining Gitxsan culture because the reserve system creates enclaves of Gitxsan speakers. The background information and Statement of Claim is here. In the ruling for Spookw v. Gitxsan Treaty Society, at line 47 the judge states the case “…is not a matter of aboriginal law”. Rather, it is a political matter internal to the Gitxsan.

The plaintiffs take issue with the mandating system. In Spookw v Gitxsan Treaty Society, the judge relates the Gitxsan case to a prior case,  Tsimshian Tribal Council v. British Columbia Treaty Commission. The prior case is cited at line 42. Quoting the prior ruling the judge implies the Gitxsan matter is a political one:

“The question of for what and how the Tsimshian community should be negotiating is an internal question to be decided collectively by its membership.  It cannot be decided by the BCTC or by the court.  The requirement of securing and advancing a mandate is an open one conducive to debate, persuasion, and resolution through ongoing processes.”"

What all this boils down to is one portion of Gitxsan leadership is trying to negotiate with the B.C. government. Another portion disagrees with what this first portion is trying to do and has taken them to court to argue they are unable to do this.

The divisions are not precisely the same ones that have come up in this Enbridge argument, but they are similar: a group claiming that the treaty society can make decisions on the one side, and a mixture of elected band leaders and hereditary chiefs on the other.

****

Not A Homogenous Unit

There was a mistake, I think, in the initial media coverage of the Gitxsan agreement. The press release said “Hereditary Chief Elmer Derrick” and an assumption was largely made that “hereditary chief = leader.” As we have seen, that is not the case. While the title of hereditary chief means something, it does not mean anyone who holds it speaks for the Gitxsan. We have multiple hereditary chiefs on opposite sides of this issue. The reason Elmer Derrick was making an announcement was because he was the lead negotiator, not a hereditary chief. Including the honorific in the coverage was akin to referring to someone as “alderman” or “Dr.” It designates their role in some aspect of society, but is not necessarily relevant to the matter at hand. It was not until competing press releases were put out that we even saw any sign that there might be some conflict in this seemingly simple manner.

What I take from all of this is the reminder that the “Gitxsan” or “First Nations” or “Aboriginal people” of Canada are not, and must not be treated as, a homogenous unit. If Stephen Harper makes an announcement, the media goes to the NDP for a reaction, because there is an assumption that there are competing viewpoints. When “Hereditary Chief Elmer Derrick” makes an announcement, it took a while before anyone went looking for that competing Gitxsan viewpoint.

****

So…. who speaks for First Nations?

But before anyone takes this as a good reason to do away with First Nations autonomy altogether in favour of a system more easily understood, I ask you this– who speaks for Canada?

Consider an issue in the news now, Canada’s withdrawal from the Kyoto protocol. The Conservatives were elected to a majority government. They went to negotiate with other nations. They chose to withdraw from this particular negotiation. Does that mean they speak for all Canadians? Based on the reaction, obviously not. We have elected leaders in the NDP and Liberal who are criticizing these moves. We have people protesting in Montreal saying the government does not speak for them.And we have the fact that the Canadian government, when the Liberals were in power, supported the protocol. The Conservatives are moving away from that commitment. But to an outsider not following the internal politics– Canada signed on, now Canada is signing off.

On other issues, such as the crime omnibus, we have a group of provinces led by Quebec and Ontario saying they will not enforce the rules passed by the federal government. Who legitimately speaks for Ontarians? Their elected leaders in Toronto, or those in Ottawa? Who speaks for British Columbians– the elected provincial government that signed up for HST, the small majority that chose to get rid of the HST, or the elected federal government that may or may not let B.C. back out of the deal without paying some significant coin?

My point being that even in a system more of the mainstream population understands, the question of “who speaks for x?” is not always easily answered.

****

But they were elected…

Then there’s the issue of whether or not hereditary chiefs can ever speak for a group of people better than elected band councils can. This is an issue with a long political, judicial, and moral history and one that I don’t have the capacity to delve into fully here. It is a multi-book length argument.

What I will say is this: there is a lengthy (and ongoing) political, judicial, and moral discussion tackling precisely this question. It is tackled to an extent in Delgamuukw, a landmark court case which the Gitxsan played a key role. It is tackled in multiple policy papers and university courses and academic treatises and ongoing community discussions around the country. And it is not as easy a question to answer as it might seem.

Governments only work if the people they purport to represent view them as legitimate. A minority government is able to “speak” for the Canadian people because enough Canadians view the way they were elected as legitimate to prevent the whole system from breaking down. If a government is democratically elected, but the people it wants to represent don’t think it got there by legitimate means, it cannot be effective.

There are members of Aboriginal people in this country who do not believe democratically elected band councils are legitimate. The system does not come from any pre-established methods of government, but rather the colonial Canadian government. They question how a system set up by colonizers can legitimately speak for them. As such, what to an outsider may look like a more legitimate form of government may look like a oppressive tool to them.

I’m not saying I take either of these viewpoints. I’m not saying this is a majority view, or even a widely-held view, because I legitimately have no idea how widespread it is. I do know it exists, because I’ve both heard and read it presented. I’m simply attempting to convey the way this seemingly simple question can become more complicated.

****

Conclusion

This is a messy post, without a well-formed argument. I’m not sure it successfully conveys what I’m trying to get across. What I do know is that throughout history and into the modern world, governments have struggled with the question of which other governments to recognize as legitimate: China or Taiwan? Quebec as nation or province? Palestine or Israel, or which combination of the two? And the question of who the people themselves view as their legitimate leaders is equally complex. Less people voted for the Conservatives than voted for someone else, and yet Harper is on the world stage, purportedly representing all Canadians. Whether any individual Canadian views him as their legitimate spokesperson or not falls on all points across the spectrum.

If I have any point, it’s this: in international issues, we expect some messiness, and some diversity of views. We expect the same when covering federal politics, provincial politics and municipal politics. We should expect no less- and equally important, no more– from First Nations governments, their leaders, and their citizens.

That said, any list that aims to cover the province is going to naturally exclude stories that were big, but only in certain regions. So I’m curious what a top ten list for northern B.C. would look like.

I think my only criteria would be that it’s a localized story. So while the Vancouver riots and the HST debate certainly had implications in the north, I would argue they aren’t top stories for northern B.C. because they are larger stories than the north. On the other hand, something like the gas fracking debate (one of the nominees for top story in B.C.) has implications beyond the north, but is very much localized in a northern B.C. context.

Off the top of my head, here’s what springs to mind:

• wet, cold summer leads to pretty much no forest fires
• Brian Skakun case sparks national debate
• the Peace job boom
• LNG in Kitimat
• housing shortages in industry towns across the north
• the Cohen Commission
• the Prince George ice rink debate
• 11-year-old boy tasered
• Prince George man accused in four murder cases
• Enbridge debate divides Gitxsan leaders

Anyone else? I’m sure I’m missing a few, especially in regions outside of Prince George. Leave a comment or tweet me, and I’ll post responses below.

Just curious: what would you say are the top news stories for northern B.C. in 2011? #princegeorge #yxs #yyj #ydq #terrace #northernbc

— Andrew Kurjata (@akurjata) December 15, 2011

@akurjata FSJ’s mayor sanctions, hwy 97 upgrades four laning , July floodings, prime minister visits peace region

— Brent Hodson (@brent_hodson) December 15, 2011

@akurjata Top News Stories? I’d say Dan Rogers being the first incumbent PG mayor to lose in 5 decades. Also Layton visit during election.

— Devan C. Tasa (@dctasa) December 15, 2011

On the surface, this seems like a pretty dismissable choice.  It’s Vancouver-centric. It’s flashy, rather than substantial. It’s just hockey.

But think back to when those riots started. Think back to the moment that you realized that the core of B.C.’s biggest city, a city widely viewed as one of the best in the world, in one of the most peaceful countries to ever exist, was descending into chaos. Short-lived as it wound up being, it raised some pertinent questions.

This was a look ahead at what a surveillance society of the 21st century might be. Rather than government monitoring us from security cameras and satellites, we monitor each other from Facebook and YouTube. Rioters happily filmed their actions. Immediately following, fellow citizens began identifying those they could, and turning them into police. Online lynch mobs sprang up. The consequences of this are still not clear.

Also at play was the role of the citizen journalist. Police asked non-rioters who were nonetheless in the midst of the riots to stop filming, stop Tweeting, and go home. Meanwhile, news organizations encouraged people to send in their pictures and observations. The lines of this sort of participatory coverage are still being drawn.

But deeper than this is the question of how this could happen. Is it hockey? Is it young men? Is it capitalism eating itself? (an interesting observation was that retail outlets were attacked while other buildings in the same neighbourhood were left basically unscathed). I remember in the days and weeks afterwards reading the Tweets of Vancouverites talking about the fear they now had of large public gatherings, and of the suspicion with which they now viewed the stranger on the bus, the barista at the coffee shop. How could so many people descend into this so quickly? Not to overstate the point, but this event touched on questions of order, man’s inhumanity to man, and how tenuous our grips on civilized society actually are. As I wrote immediately following the riots:

“If these people, minority though they may be, turned that dark that quickly over something so trivial, what do you suppose the odds are they would keep their heads in the event of a real disaster? Or in the face of a prolonged period of chaos? These people were doing this while they  (presumably) had homes to go to, jobs to attend, ready access to food and fresh water, and the visible presence of law enforcement. How would they behave in a darker situation? How many others would join them?”

The two runner-ups to this story were a kidnapping and the HST referendum. The latter is about what the people of this province can do if they ignore their leaders and rise up on their own. The former is about what can happen when a person, for whatever reason, skirts the rules of society and causes great damage to a fellow human being. The Stanely Cup riots are about what happens when you combine both these: a mass of people giving in to their dark side. I still don’t think we’ve fully tackled what happened, why, what should be done about it, and whether it could happen again.

And that’s about much more than just hockey.

****

See also:

Vancouver Riots (thoughts immediately following)

Social Media, Crowd-Sourced Justice and the Vancouver Riots (delving into the mob justice/surveillance society of all this, plus a good list of other articles on the subject)

From the National Post:

“Kenney said the move follows complaints from citizenship judges, MPs and others who’ve participated in citizenship ceremonies who have argued it’s hard to tell whether veiled individuals are actually reciting the oath.”

From the Globe and Mail:

“He (Kenney) said he spoke with citizenship judges who told him they are concerned that they can’t tell whether some people are actually reciting the oath during the ceremony because of the garments.”

From CBC:

“Kenney said he’s had complaints from MPs and citizenship court judges that it’s hard to tell whether people with their faces covered are actually reciting the oath of citizenship, which he says is a requirement to become Canadian.”

When I posted this on Twitter, someone who recently took the oath was surprised for the stated reason, saying, “from experience nobody checked that we were speaking at all.”

@akurjata from experience nobody checked that we were speaking at all.More likely it’s for ID purposes.

— Jon Campbell (@RandomActPG) December 12, 2011

I’ve never taken the citizenship oath, so I’ll have to take his word for it. The Globe and Mail editorial board backs him up, though:

“At some ceremonies, everyone present (including current citizens) is invited to step forward and recite the oath with the newcomers, en masse. Who can be sure who is saying what?

In practice, citizenship ceremonies are treated less as a solemn oath-taking of individuals and more as a celebration of diversity, of multiculturalism, of the world’s different peoples coming together as Canadians.”

So there’s that. And even if the oath-taking was being more closely monitored, the idea that people were having trouble telling what the women wearing burkas are saying is confusing. Surely there is some mode of allowing people who can’t speak to become citizens without someone closely monitoring every syllable passing through their lips? Or are mutes precluded from becoming citizens?

No, I’m going to guess that burkas and the like are being banned because of their association with certain strains of Islam more than any practical needs to tell if someone is taking the oath. It’s part of the same line of thinking that’s wanted to ban the burka while voting or in other spheres of public life.

And I won’t deny that some women are forced to wear burkas by their families or culture. But that doesn’t mean all women who wear them are doing so against their will, nor does it make banning them the best solution. If there is a women who fears for her safety if she removes her burka, does preventing her from becoming a citizen really help protect her?

Besides, you know what else is derived from a patriarchal and sexist society? Men being allowed to go topless at beaches while women are forced to cover up based on cultural ideas of decency. In an fair and equal society, both men and women should be allowed to be topless while swimming. I’m still not going to support a bylaw that bans bathing suit tops for women. I’m not sure what Mr. Kenney would think of a society that required citizens to strip naked in public in order to vote, because it removed any notions of gender or class inequality.

Let’s apply the same notions of “protecting women” from patriarchy to another item of clothing: spaghetti strap tank tops. From the point of view of some people of certain cultural or religious backgrounds, it is inappropriate for women to wear them. There are girls whose families ban them from wearing spaghetti strap tank tops. This ban is purely cultural, largely based on patriarchal norms. From the point of view of some, these girls are being repressed. Does it follow that shirts that cover women’s shoulders should be banned?

The burka and other coverings have a lot of misunderstanding and fear surrounding them. And again, I won’t deny that there are instances where women are forced to wear them against their will. But in a reasoned debate around its use,  it is important to understand that this is not always the case. My wife comes from a Muslim background. More to the point, she studied International Studies and engaged in multiple studies of feminism and Islam. I’m going to quote from her here surrounding women who choose to wear the burka:

“some choose to wear the burqa not because it makes them lesser in any way, but rather because it transforms them from a sexual object which can be judged based on outward appearances to an equal to a man – someone who is taken seriously because of what they say and do, as well as how they act rather than how they look. Men are not gawking at their physique and so must listen to their words and watch their actions. Some choose to wear a burqa or niquab as a symbol of their faith; they do not see it as much different than a Christian choosing to symbolize their fate by wearing… a cross.”

There are some instances where the need to see a person’s face trumps any religious rights. Passport photos and driver’s licences spring to mind.  That said, in those cases I don’t think it’s too much to ask of an inclusive society that you be given the option of revealing your face in private to a person of a gender that you feel comfortable with, if that can be reasonably accommodated.

The public taking of the citizenship oath, though? I don’t see any compelling reason burkas should be banned there.

Since this lack of knowledge is one of the main reasons I heard given for people not voting, I figured I would put together a little city council 101 piece for CBC. For help, I went to Walter Babicz, manager of legislative services for the city of Prince George. I simplified the very complicated processes he took me through– some of these processes are a little less simple than I make them sound, this is through me simplifying them, not him.

You can listen to the full item on the Daybreak North website.

I should mention that these rules, while specific to Prince George, can be broadly applied to councils across B.C. Some things differ (for example, whether the mayor votes every time or not), but other things, like how you get something onto a council agenda, are pretty much the same.

The gap between readings applies primarily to things like bylaws affecting property, for less consequential agenda items, the first three readings will sometimes take place in one go.

So now that you’re primed, you can follow me on Twitter as I cover tonight’s council meeting. Or you can follow Daybreak North, the more consequential observations will be tweeted from there.

“The point of Meisenzahl and Mokyr’s argument is that this sort of tweaking is essential to progress. James Watt invented the modern steam engine, doubling the efficiency of the engines that had come before. But when the tweakers took over the efficiency of the steam engine swiftly quadrupled. Samuel Crompton was responsible for what Meisenzahl and Mokyr call “arguably the most productive invention” of the industrial revolution. But the key moment, in the history of the mule, came a few years later, when there was a strike of cotton workers. The mill owners were looking for a way to replace the workers with unskilled labor, and needed an automatic mule, which did not need to be controlled by the spinner. Who solved the problem? Not Crompton, an unambitious man who regretted only that public interest would not leave him to his seclusion, so that he might “earn undisturbed the fruits of his ingenuity and perseverance.” It was the tweaker’s tweaker, Richard Roberts, who saved the day, producing a prototype, in 1825, and then an even better solution in 1830. Before long, the number of spindles on a typical mule jumped from four hundred to a thousand. The visionary starts with a clean sheet of paper, and re-imagines the world. The tweaker inherits things as they are, and has to push and pull them toward some more nearly perfect solution. That is not a lesser task.”

This is the power of the modern era. The best, most innovative ideas can come from anywhere, because we can constantly tweak the systems put into place somewhere else. Governments in Prince George can study housing strategies in Portland and see what works and tweak what doesn’t. I can read about the transit system in Fort St John and make suggestions on how lessons there might be applied here. Local newspapers can learn lessons from around the world about how to better manage their online comments sections. Or we can try to make a better cola.

The point is, we have access to so many data points, so much information, that there is absolutely no reason that we cannot constantly strive to find ways to tweak things to make them better. Whether it’s music or writing or voting systems, there is nothing stopping you from coming up with a better solution than what’s already been done. You don’t have to re-invent the wheel. Just make it better.

I’ve only been sort-of following the Attawapiskat housing crisis story, but my favourite thing I’ve read on it is the blog post called “Dealing with comments about Attawapiskat.” It is excellent, and I will place a link to it at the bottom of this post so you can finish reading what I have here and then move on to it.

Though there are many parts of said post that are insightful and thought-provoking, there is one portion that made me want to do a bit of research of my own. The author links to a Canadian Press article in which Stephen Harper tells the Commons:

“This government has spent some $90 million since coming to office just on Attawapiskat… That’s over $50,000 for every man, woman and child in the community.”

And then she rightly points out:

“First, please note that $90 million is a deceptive number.  It refers to federal funding received since Harper’s government came into power in 2006.  In the 2010-2011 fiscal year, Attawapiskat received $17.6 million in federal funds (PDF).  The document linked to shows the breakdown of federal funds in case you wanted to know how much is allocated to things like medical transportation, education, maternal health care and so on.

Thus, $90 million refers to the total of an average of about $18 million per year in federal funding since 2006. (emphasis mine)“

So $90 million over five years gets you about $18 million per year. That means Harper’s reference to $50,000 for “every man, woman, and child” becomes $10,000 per person per year. Which still seems like a lot, but it got me wondering– is it? After all, do you know how much the government’s spent on you?

The big ones: health care, education, and social services

I’m not going to go into things that municipalities would normally pay for (water, garbage collection, etc). Instead, I’m going to focus on money that would come from the provincial and federal government to serve “every man, woman, and child.” The reason I’m doing this is because Attawapiskat, being a reserve, derives most of its external government funding from the feds. Non-reserves get money from the province for things like health care and education, but under the Indian Act those items are to come to reserves directly from the federal government. So Attawapiskat would be using the money it gets from the federal government to fund items that, in cities, would be funded by both the provincial AND the federal governments.

So let’s take just three of those items that the provincial government provides for in B.C. and the federal government provides for in Attawapiskat– health care, education, and social services– and break them down.

I’m going to use numbers provided in B.C.’s 2011 budget to rough out these amounts. Right in there, the province brags about having the second lowest per-capita spending on health care in the country- $3,925. This is the biggest item, and it comes to $17.5 billion total. If I divide that 17.5 billion by 3,925, I can guesstimate they’re working with about 4.5 million people. I’m actually rounding that number up so the per-person spending estimates I come up with are low-balled.

Next: education. B.C. is proudly spending over $8,000 per student grades K-12. Total amount is $11.3 billion. Divided amongst 4.5 million people– $2,511.11. Let’s call it an even $2,500.

Finally, social services. Total cost in B.C. is $3.4 billion, or about $755 a person.

Now let’s add it up

To recap: Stephen Harper is disappointed the $10,000 per person the federal government sends to Attawapiskat every year isn’t solving the housing crisis. So upset, in fact, that the federal government has put finances under 3rd party control and ordered an audit. Meanwhile, in B.C. the government is spending roughly $7,100 per person on just three items: education, health care, and social services. That’s before the $2100/person the province spends on “all other items” and money that comes in from the feds.

So as far as I can tell looking at the numbers, that $90 million in Attawapiskat isn’t an excessive amount. In fact, it seems to be about on par with what Canadians everywhere (or at least in B.C.) have “spent” on them by the appropriate levels of government. I’m assuming, of course, that Attawapiskat receives roughly an equivalent amount in infrastructure grants for roads and the like from the federal government that other communities do– that is, I’m assuming that $90 million refers only to normal funding, and that the federal government has given one or two infrastructure grants over the past six years, as well. If they haven’t, then Attawapiskat could well be below average. I’m also comparing to B.C. Ontario spends considerably more per person on health care. So there could be differences there. But again, these are rough numbers, but looking at them, $10,000 per person a year doesn’t (to me) appear to out-of-line.

So why the audit?

I’m curious what the reaction from the general public would be if the federal government seized financial control from any form of government other than a reserve. I know for sure it wouldn’t stand for a province. But what if the federal or provincial government tried to take control of a city’s finances? Of your city’s finances? And then started throwing out numbers about how much they’ve already spent on you as justificiation. I mean, it’s not as if there are that many levels of government out there that aren’t running deficits of some form or another. Should they be allowed to be in charge of themselves? Why the different standards?

I’d also love it if anyone had some better numbers to work with. I’m really roughing out per person costs here, but there could well be more reliable statistics. How much public money does the average Canadian get for healthcare? For roads? For arts and culture and tourism grants? If you’ve found any of these statistics, please do let me know. Comments are below, and here I am on Twitter.

Oh, and as promised, here’s that link again. I highly recommend you read it:

Dealing With Comments About Attawapiskat

See also: Stereotypes

————————————————————————————————————–

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION AS I FIND IT:

Update 1:

Maclean’s Aaron Wherry posts this exchange from the Commons between the NDP’s Nicole Turmel and Stephen Harper:

“Turmel. … Outside of first nations, social standing in Canada is about $18,000 per year per person (emphasis mine). According to his own numbers, federal spending in Attawapiskat per person per year is about half of this amount. How is that possible? Why is he blaming the community?

Harper. … this government has made tens of millions of dollars of investments in this community, infrastructure investments of over $50,000 for every man, woman and child.”

Wherry adds:

“In using the phrase “infrastructure investments,” the Prime Minister overreached. As the government’s own numbers show, the total infrastructure spending in Attawapiskat is about $28.6 million. Divided by a population of 1,700, that’s just under $17,000 per person (emphasis mine).”

So I’m again not seeing where the people of Attawapiskat are getting any more government money than your average Canadian.

Update 2:

A pretty good article by Kathryn Blaze Carlson in the National Post gets into the debate over how or whether it will be possible for Attawapiskat to be economically viable in the long term. It also contains this:

“The province also invests more than $4-million each year, and the community earned more than $3-million from the First Nations-run Casino Rama, according to a federal audit.”

So another $4 million from the province divided by 1,700 makes an extra $2300 a person (again rounding down). I’m not sure if the casino should count towards money “given” by government, though. If it’s run by the reserve and generates its own profits, I’m guessing it shouldn’t. I’m only looking at money gives the people of Attawapiskat versus the money it gives any other Canadian.

the Victoria Towers apartment, still damaged

Summary: Even though the province of B.C. has a branch that can order landlords to repair or upgrade their rental units, it’s up to municipalities to make sure the work gets done. And many cities, including Prince George, have no mechanism to do this. So what are renters supposed to do when they have a problem? And who can fix it?

Local government doesn’t matter?

I’ve been working on the story of the Victoria Towers fire for the last while. About 100 residents were displaced when an early-morning fire forced their evacuation on November 3. I didn’t do the initial coverage (that goes to intrepid news report Betsy Trumpener), but I’ve been working on the follow-up. It’s nearly a month a later, and residents have been living in hotels and are moving on to other, more permanent re-locations. Here’s what I’ve done so far:

• gone with resident Tony Wedzinga as he packed up his belongings
• gone to a meeting of residents discussing what course of action to take since they have been unable to find out whether or not they’ll be getting their damage deposits and November rent refunded
• spoken with and set up an interview with city councillor Murry Krause on the city’s role in helping tenants deal with landlords

Out of this, I’ve had a few former tenants tell me that they felt like the maintenance of the Victoria Towers was less than stellar. I must stress here that as I write this that no official cause of the fire has been released. Anything you might hear is pure speculation. I have no idea what caused this fire, and I wouldn’t hazard a guess. This blog post is not about what caused the fire, the fire is just what brought me to what this blog post is about: inspection and maintenance of rental units.

I wanted to look into the complaints, and I wanted something official, not just people telling me they didn’t like the way things looked. Tony told me that he had, in fact, filed complaints with the Residential Tenancy Branch about the building. Indeed, both the Prince George Free Press and the Prince George Citizen reported on these complaints. For the Citizen, Arthur Williams reported:

“Residential Tenancy Branch officer T.A. Evans ruled that Victoria Towers owner Pacific West Properties failed to meet its obligations.

Evans ordered Pacific West Properties to complete 15 repairs on the unit to the bathroom, plumbing, ceilings and rest of the unit.”

I contacted the Residential Tenancy Branch on behalf of CBC, and received an email that included this information:

“· The Residential Tenancy Act requires landlords maintain a rental property in a state that is suitable for occupancy – and meets all health, safety and building standards required by law. · However, the province has no jurisdiction to force property owners to fix-up their buildings – that responsibility lies with local government.

· Municipalities establish standards of maintenance that are enforced through the local government’s own by-law enforcement procedures.

· We can’t comment on who applied to RTB, but we can tell you that a dispute was heard and RTB ordered repairs to be made to the building and provided monetary compensation to the tenant applicant.

· There was no further application, so we don’t know if the landlord complied with the repairs. Again, enforcement of safety codes is the responsibility of local by-law enforcement officers.”

This is where the story stops being about the Victoria Towers altogether.

It surprised me that even though the province has a mechanism that rules on tenant-landlord disputes, it’s up to local governments to enforce them. How do they do this?

As part of my research, I spoke with Tom Durning of the Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre. He suggested one of the better mechanisms is a Standards of Maintenance Bylaw. From the TRAC site:

“Municipal Standards of Maintenance (SoM) Bylaws allow local government to force landlords to keep their rental buildings in good repair. Although not all municipalities have SoM bylaws, TRAC strongly encourages all municipalities to not only pass these bylaws but strictly enforce them.”

And from the province:

“A standards of maintenance bylaw provides local government with the ability to meet the needs of tenants who live in unsafe and unhealthy accommodation due to poor building maintenance. The province has heard from many tenants who are frustrated by the sub-standard and deteriorating housing conditions in which they find themselves. The 1992 report of the Provincial Commission on Housing Options noted that while the location and extent of poor housing was generally well known to community organizations and local government officials, there was no mechanism to allow local officials to require improvements. Local governments also indicated an interest in using a standards of maintenance bylaw to expand their authority to maintain the affordable housing stock in their community and protect it from premature demolition. The Commissioners concluded that most municipalities would be willing to enact minimum maintenance standards bylaws if they had the authority to do so.

Now that the authority to adopt a standards of maintenance bylaw exists, a model bylaw has been provided to serve as a starting point for use in drafting a bylaw suited to local conditions.”

So I contacted bylaw services in Prince George. Turns out there is no Standards of Maintenance Bylaw here.

There is, however, a Standing Committee on Homelessness that has been looking into the issue. City councilor Murry Krause is on that committee, so we called him.

And here’s the thing. Even though the Standards of Maintenance Bylaw seems like a solution, Krause says their research says otherwise. There’s a few issues. First is the issue that comes along seemingly every city policy these days: cost. You can have this rule, but what will it cost to enforce it? How many extra staff will you have to hire to make it effective?

The second big issue he raised is that of whether or not it would be effective. Like other bylaws, it would be complaints-driven (ie the city would look into things if someone complained, not just by randomly inspecting apartments and other rental units). The problem? Most people living in units that would need to be upgraded are those living in the cheap places. And people who live in the cheap places are usually living there because they are poor, on some form of income assistance, or otherwise vulnerable and marginalized. They are in these places because they don’t feel like they have any other options. They don’t want to run the risk of being out on the street because they start complaining.

There’s other problems, too. From a Tyee article on landlord problems in Vancouver, speaking with then-mayoral candidate Peter Ladner:

“There is some difficult history in enforcing the Standards of Maintenance bylaw,” said Ladner, “where we’ve been challenged in courts and tied up in legal cases and wasted a lot of resources not achieving what we wanted to achieve. It’s inexcusable that people should be living in these kinds of conditions, but the city’s actual powers to change that are not clear.”"

Murry Krause is of a similar opinion. In his interview on Daybreak, he said, “It’s about us not passing feel-good legislation, it’s about us making sure that we put mechanisms in place that work.” What that is isn’t clear.

In my conversation with him, Krause seemed to be of the opinion that it involved improving access to affordable housing through the city and/or government so that low-income people aren’t at the mercy of low-cost-but-not-great-to-live-in rental units. But it’s still under investigation. As he said:

“I certainly don’t have a magic bullet.”

Indeed.

See also:

• CBC interview with Murry Krause
• The Tyee: A City Soft on Slumlords?
• housing.gov.bc: Standards of Maintenance Bylaw

Visiting any of their paper’s websites this morning, you will see that comments are closed as they prepare to make the switchover. This affects a number of Black Press-owned publications in northern B.C., including the Lakes District News, Caledonia Courier, Houston Today, Terrace Standard, Northern View, Omineca Express, and the non-Black Press-owned-but-still-affiliated-online Prince George Free Press. This change was announced about a week ago in a post entitled “An End to Anonymous Comments,” in which online manager for the publisher Rob DeMone wrote:

“Our community newspapers don’t print anonymous letters, yet we’ve allowed our websites to become a place where people can hide their identity while occasionally taking shots at one another.

 Starting Dec. 1, that policy will change.

People will only be able to comment by using their Facebook account, which means their name, often even their photograph, will be linked to the statements they post.”

While I sympathize with their desire to remove vitriolic comments (the comments section on that story gave me enough evidence that they have their fair share of pot-shot takers on the main site), I feel like they’re confusing the cause and the cure.

First of all, it’s misleading to write a post called “An End to Anonymous Comments” and then act as if they had no choice but to go to Facebook. The Black Press currently uses the wonderful (my opinion, obviously) Disqus system to power comments. I use the same system on this blog, and a number of other sites do, too, including the Prince George Citizen, AVC, and Macleans.ca (for my money, the place that has the best comments of any national news source). And using Disqus, you definitely don’t have to allow anonymous commentators. I logged into my account and within 30 seconds got here:

As you can see, while you can allow anonymous comments, you can also set it so you require a verified email address before saying anything.

Do you know what it takes to sign up for a Facebook account?

An email address.

So I don’t really see how requiring people to have a Facebook account will achieve anything more than requiring people to verify their Disqus account with an email would. And if you think people can’t use Facebook with fake names, I suggest you take a look at my news feed, full of people with names that include things like “Gonzo” and “—”. Trolls will figure this out. In fact, they’re already saying as much on the Black Press story.

But what’s wrong with Facebook?

But you may continue to wonder why I have a problem with Facebook comments. And if pressed, I have nothing that I feel is a completely air-tight argument against using them, but there are a number of factors that make me dislike them:

1. Aesthetics.

I’m beating an old horse, but Facebook is ugly. Facebook comments are ugly. The text is too small, it’s boxy– it looks exactly like commenting on something on Facebook. When you’re in a site with larger text and nice graphics, Facebook comments just look out of place.

2. Conversation threads.

Disqus has the wonderful ability to reply to replies in comment threads. This may seem like a small thing, but when it comes long conversations with multiple points (the sort of thing you may well get on a news story), this is great.

Facebook doesn’t have this ability. And it’s annoying as heck. If I comment on someone’s post, I get notified when anyone else comments on it as well. Which is awesome, if it’s relevant to my point or the first person’s point, but when they’ve high-jacked the conversation to be about something else, then it’s the worst. If they had these threaded conversations, then only the people who are involved in that portion of the comments thread get notified, while the rest of us can get on with our day. Disqus has this.

3. I never want to comment on stories using Facebook.

I’m not the most active internet-commentator. But when I feel like I contribute to the story in some way, I like to. But I have never, ever done this on a site that requires Facebook comments. Maybe it’s just me, but I still tend to treat Facebook like a bit of a walled-garden. Not because I’m really posting things on Facebook that I wouldn’t on Twitter or Tumblr, but more because I’m on Facebook out of the necessity that everyone else is on Facebook than I am because it’s my favourite social network. And since it’s NOT my favourite social network… I don’t really like using it as my public online persona.

You’ll notice that on my start page for this site (a site designed to be the first thing that comes up when people Google my name) I direct people to my blog, my Tumblr, and my Twitter. These are my public online personas. If people read one of my comments somewhere, and click on my name to see what else I’m about, I’d prefer they go to one of those places than to my Facebook. By saying to me “you’re Facebook Andrew on this site, or you’re nothing”, I’m going to go with nothing.

4. People may have legitimate reasons for using pseudonyms.

There’s a difference between anonymous and pseudonymous. I follow plenty of real people on Twitter who don’t use their real name. And I’ve seen plenty of legitimate and thought-provoking comments from people not using their real names. There can be any number of reasons they don’t use their real name. Maybe they are in government or political work and shouldn’t be expressing opinions about sensitive topics under their “true” identity. Maybe they want to comment on a story about being a closet homosexual, but don’t want all their Facebook friends to know that they are, indeed, a closet homosexual. Who knows? The question Black Press should ask itself is do they really want to exclude these people from the conversation?

(and yes, these people could sign up for a fake Facebook account, but then so can the trolls, so what’s the point of the Facebook thing, anyways, and on and on and on…).

Let people choose which face they put forward, Facebook isn’t the only legitimate online identity.

5. Real names do not mean better comments (and fake names don’t mean worse ones).

The question of what makes good online comments is the subject of countless blog posts and online discussions. As someone fascinated by this topic, I’ve read my share  of opinions on this front, and I think it’s fair to say that the comment system alone has very little to do with the tone of the comments.

More important is how the site’s owners interact with their commentators. Macleans uses Disqus, but it also regularly sees its writers jumping into the comments section to engage with readers. So do the personalities behind CBC Radio 3 and the program Spark. Not surprisingly, these are two of the most robust and insightful comments sections anywhere on CBC.

But Black Press sites aren’t national shows with a mostly young, tech-savvy audience. They’re much more like something like… well, Opinion250, a news site serving Prince George run by veteran broadcaster Ben Meisner and his partner Elaine. They regularly draw a huge number of comments, rarely from people using their real names. Here’s what Ben had to say on Black Press’ move:

“We also have agonized over some of the posters who take perhaps far more liberties than they should be allowed to take, take cheap shots at one another, and on the odd occasion cross the line of what we think is appropriate comment about an issue or person…

In the end, we have over 17,000 people who have registered to make comments on Opinion250 since its beginning. Just over fifty have been a problem and of that number we have had to cut privileges to them on more than one occasion, suggesting that they don’t learn easily.  Fifty out of 17,000 suggests to us that the people want to have the right to post while maintaining  their privacy. We insist that when we go the ballot box that we have the right to privacy and so it should lend that we also would want the same in our writing.

Trying to censure who writes what and when is a slippery slope. What you and I might deem as in poor taste may seem perfectly alright to someone else. What is an issue to someone may not necessarily be an issue to another poster. Everyone should have the right no matter what level of intelligence we think they possess to be able to have their thoughts known. We try as best to not interfere with that freedom of speech unless you have crossed the boundaries of the items I mentioned earlier.”

The comments on Opinion250 are not always inspiring. But they are rarely anything that would make me think “OK, time to shut this whole thing down!”, either. They are what they should be– people, talking about things they care about, using whatever public persona they choose.

Conclusion

Black Press doesn’t have to allow anonymous comments. It doesn’t have to allow comments at all, actually. A number of sites have chosen not to. But I get the impression from this move that they want comments, they just don’t want the sort of comments they’ve been getting. And they think switching to Facebook will fix that.

I disagree. There are a number of people who won’t take part in a discussion that doesn’t allow fake names, and not all of them are people you necessarily want to exclude.

Further, there are no shortage of examples of websites with a decent commenting community that allow fake names. If Black Press finds they aren’t getting this, these other sites are proof it’s not just because they allow anonymous comments. It’s something else. And if they are committed to fostering a robust online community, they may want to figure out what that is rather than putting all their eggs in Facebook’s basket.

Have a thought? Leave an anonymous, trolling comment below!

rush{hour} by DJHuber

I’m going to take this one as vindication.

The city of Fort St. John has reported a 29.9% increase in ridership over the past year (the highest for BC Transit which serves Prince George, Victoria, and most other major B.C. cities outside Vancouver). The main reason, according to Victor Shopland, Director of Infrastructure and Capital Works?

“The big thing is that we changed the routes and we put the transfer station back down at the Cultural Centre. All the buses now meet together at the same time in half hour routes that are more convenient (emphasis mine).”

Earlier this year I wrote an overly-complicated post that basically says that the number one problem with Prince George’s transit service is it’s just too complicated. Trying to figure out how to get from point A to point B cannot be done quickly or intuitively, in part because there is no main hub, and also because they don’t leave with any consistency– you could be waiting at any given stop for any length of time between 15 minutes and an hour. From that post:

“I’d argue that if you were to worry less about hitting every side street as effectively as possible and instead focus on main roads and more frequent departures, you’d see a big uptick in people using this system…  This might not be the MOST EFFICIENT route to take, but it is the MOST CONSISTENT. It would be easier to understand. If you know which main roads your destination is near, you know, roughly, how to get there. And you know how long you have to wait, transfers and all, because EVERYTHING leaves every fifteen minutes. Or half an hour, if that’s too often for the system to bear. But at least YOU KNOW.”

Fort St. John did this, and they’re seeing results. In fact, my central word (consistent) is attributed to Shopland in the article:

“He pointed out that having the buses all come together at one location creates consistency so people know exactly where and when they can always get on the bus.”

I even had the opportunity to interview Mr. Shopland in preparation for his appearance on CBC, discussing Fort St. John’s success. I asked him whether the increase might be attributed to other factors– more elderly, more students, more temporary workers, less gas money. He said it was possible, but was adamant that the consistent departure times of half-an-hour and central hub were the number one factor, to the point that there was a measurable uptick in use almost from day one these changes were implemented.

I’m glad Fort St. John is having this success. And I truly hope that other cities are paying attention.

See also: What Bus Systems Could Learn From the iPhone

Yesterday’s Citizen featured an opinion piece by Todd Whitcombe, UNBC science professor and past provincial NDP candidate. It’s behind a paywall, so here’s the portion that I’ll be commenting on:

“None of these economic opportunities are going to generate the thousands of jobs that we need in this town in order to prosper and grow. And in order to enhance the tax base so that we can afford the services that we hold near and dear.”

This is an article entitled “Stagnant city needs more than review.”

I’ve already expressed by suspicion of the growth gospel in a previous post. In it, I wrote:

“Maybe we need growth in the short term, and even in the medium term. We’re in a relatively sparsely populated part of  a relatively sparsely populated country. But I’d feel more comfortable if there was some conversation about what our target population is. What do we need to enjoy a comfortable level of living, have various services provided, and avoid a crushing mass of people everywhere? How do we hit our target and then plateau?”

That’s a question I’d like to see Mr. Whitcombe and the other politicians/commentators who’ve raised this stagnancy point answer. What is the guarantee that population growth will lead to a better overall city? Mr. Whitcombe is calling for thousands of new jobs. I’m going to assume this includes a few thousand new residents. And I don’t begrudge anyone who wants to live here the opportunity. But once again I would like to ask– why pursue this above all else? Why growth as an end unto itself?

I have been squeezing some research on this subject into my reading. The best argument I’ve seen in favor of growth comes from “urban physicist” Geoffrey West. He’s been studying the mathematics of cities and has found that every time a city doubles in population, it only requires an 85% increase in infrastructure, energy, etc. As a New York Times profile on him suggests:

“This straightforward observation has some surprising implications. It suggests, for instance, that modern cities are the real centers of sustainability. According to the data, people who live in densely populated places require less heat in the winter and need fewer miles of asphalt per capita. (A recent analysis by economists at Harvard and U.C.L.A. demonstrated that the average Manhattanite emits 14,127 fewer pounds of carbon dioxide annually than someone living in the New York suburbs.) Small communities might look green, but they consume a disproportionate amount of everything. As a result, West argues, creating a more sustainable society will require our big cities to get even bigger. We need more megalopolises.”

Which is fine, up to a point. Even West acknowledges that our current lifestyle and growth rate is unsustainable, short of some remarkable innovations. Countering this urban optimism is another bit of math that comes from investor Jeremy Grantham. I’m quoting wholesale from the Business Insider column I read this in, in which Grantham writes (emphasis is mine):

“Four years ago I was talking to a group of super quants, mostly PhDs in mathematics, about finance and the environment. I used the growth rate of the global economy back then – 4.5% for two years, back to back – and I argued that it was the growth rate to which we now aspired.

To point to the ludicrous unsustainability of this compound growth I suggested that we imagine the Ancient Egyptians, whose gods, pharaohs, language, and general culture lasted for well over 3,000 years.

Starting with only a cubic meter of physical possessions (to make calculations easy), I asked how much physical wealth they would have had 3,000 years later at 4.5% compounded growth. Now, these were trained mathematicians, so I teased them: “Come on, make a guess. Internalize the general idea. You know it’s a very big number.”

And the answers came back: “Miles deep around the planet,” “No, it’s much bigger than that, from here to the moon.”

Big quantities to be sure, but no one came close.

In fact, not one of these potential experts came within one billionth of 1% of the actual number, which is approximately 10 raised to the 57th power, a number so vast that it could not be squeezed into a billion of our Solar Systems.”

Now, I know he’s talking physical wealth here but he goes on to write about population sizes:

“So, I then went on. “Let’s try 1% compound growth in either their wealth or their population,” (for comparison, 1% since Malthus’ time is less than the population growth in England). In 3,000 years the original population of Egypt – let’s say 3 million – would have been multiplied 9 trillion times! There would be nowhere to park the people, let alone the wealth.”

Would you like to know the world’s current growth rate? 1.14% per year. We are straight up shooting for something that would result in no physical space left on the earth’s surface.

So I repeat my questions. Why growth? To what end? When Mr. Whitcombe and others speak of the need for growth, are they planning for stagnancy at some point, either in this generation or in some future one?

Further: Why is a city of 70 to 80 thousand considered a failure? What are these services that we desperately need that we cannot possibly achieve without a few extra thousand people? Should every small community that hasn’t hit this magical number be aiming for growth on an even larger/faster scale than Prince George? And given that Toronto, Montreal, and Edmonton– Canadian cities with much larger tax bases– are struggling with their infrastructure, would Mr. Whitcombe prescribe a larger tax base (ie. a larger population) to solve all their woes as well?

The pursuit of growth, in both population and in wealth, is an incredibly pervasive goal– one that I rarely see questioned anywhere in the political or theoretical spectrum. And I would really like to know why this is. Because I don’t see us getting the technology to populate a billion solar systems– not now, and not in 3,000 years. At some point, this conversation is going to have to shift.

photo: The Smithsonian/Flickr Commons

Prince George has a new mayor, and a mix of old and new on city council.

As has become customary for election campaigns over the past few years, there were a number of candidates running on the idea of re-connecting with voters, being more accessible and transparent, and having a two-way conversation with citizens.

I’m curious if this will match up with another election theme: having a presence on social media.

In the United States, both the Republicans and the Democrats have caught onto using Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr et al to get their message out there.

In Canada, the federal election featured politicians on all sides Tweeting, and even an NDP iPhone app.

Most candidates in this past city campaign had at least a rudimentary presence online. Let’s see how they were used by those who were elected:

Frank Everitt

Everitt is a new face on council. He had no official website, but he did have a fairly robust Facebook page. He started with a post in early October introducing himself and posted with increasing frequency as time went on. Posts included explanations of his inability to attend one of the all-candidates’ debates, photos, and links to articles about the election. His most recent post as of this morning is an enthusiastic thank-you for his election.

He was on Twitter significantly less, and with far less conversation. In fact, his four most recent Tweets seem to be mistakes, with his latest (from election day) being the somewhat baffling statement “Could be sure taken their sweet time.”

34 “likes” on Facebook, 7 followers on Twitter, following 1, 5638 votes.

Garth Frizzell

Frizzell is returning to council, and is no stranger to the world of social media. He has had a robust Twitter presence for years, engaging in conversation multiple times a day, and he has opened up his personal Facebook page to subscribers, as well. He also has a blog, Google Plus, and LinkedIn accounts. Given that he reportedly found out he was re-elected via Twitter while at a Tweet-up, he odds of him connecting online are pretty much 100%.

1,296 followers, following 1,561, 830 friends, 6189 votes.

Dave Wilbur

A veteran of council, Wilbur ran a decidedly non-social media oriented campaign. As best I can tell, he has no presence on Twitter. He has the word “councilor” on his personal Facebook url which may be an effort to identify himself as a politician, or might just be him identifying his job. His wall is public, and the last few posts include a campaign sign and him touting his efforts to bring 911 to the Bulkley Nechako. Prior to his October announcement of running for re-election, though, the most recent posts were a few from July, and then a few from April. During the course of the campaign he posted six times.

116 friends, 6932 votes.

Cameron Stolz

Another incumbent, Stolz also ran a (failed) campaign to be the Conservative candidate for Prince George – Peace River while sitting on council. Did this extra campaign beef up his social media presence? Not on Twitter, where he has 32 followers, is following five, and has no Tweets. CameronStolz.ca does show a link to his Facebook page, and he has been pretty active on there: mp3s of his radio appearances, videos from candidate forums, links to articles about the election, and status updates.

Go back, though, and you’ll notice a complete absence of posts between March (when he lost in his Conservative nomination to Bob Zimmer) and September, when he announces his re-run for city council. We’ll see if he goes equally silent now that he’s no longer campaigning.

It’s also worth mentioning he seems to be more active on his personal Facebook page, which is open but I’m not linking to since he has fan page. I was only able to go back as far as October, when the page was overrun by happy birthday wishes.

32 followers, following 5, 109 “likes,” 542 friends, 7146 votes.

Albert Koehler

Albert Koehler is the second new face we’re talking about, and he seems to have a pretty firm grasp of the two-way conversation to be had on Twitter. If you visit his page this morning, it’s full of him replying to people congratulating him on his win. During the campaign, his messages showed him actively following people and replying to ideas  and questions they were providing. His Facebook page was regularly updated, including with links to his blog expanding on and explaining his positions. He has a YouTube channel, too. If I were a betting man I’d say that aside from Frizzell, he has the best chance of maintaining a presence online now that’s been elected.

130 followers, following 111, 92 “likes,” 7324 votes.

Murry Krause

There’s a Facebook page, but I’m fairly certain Murry doesn’t run it (unless he has a propensity for speaking in the third person that I haven’t observed in any other venue).  It is official, though, since MurryKrause.ca links to it, and run by a very enthusiastic fan who posted links, appearances, etc. Given that the page was “re-elect Murry Krause to council” I don’t know how much life it will have outside of the election campaign. No Twitter that I could find.

52 “likes,” 7976 votes.

Brian Skakun

Skakun was in and out of the Twitter world during his last term on council– mentioning the occasional concert he went to or observation about the city. He became much more active during the campaign, talking about politics and non-politics with others, and continues to be active today responding to congratulations and offering his own. He created an official Facebook page in early October and has been fairly present on there, as well. Again, if I were to guess I’d say we’ll see him intermittently on these platforms, but not with the regularity of Frizzell or Koehler.

235 followers, following 432, 168 “likes”, 9040 votes.

Lyn Hall

A newbie to council (though veteran of school board), and top of the pack for council votes. He has a Facebook account that was created in late September, shortly before his council run, but it’s speculative to say the two are related (though not illogical).  I see two or three posts that Lyn made, both mentioning that he’s running for council,  then a bunch of activity and messages from friends. If there’s a Twitter, I’m not finding it.

154 friends, 9529 votes.

Shari Green

The new mayor of Prince George has forayed into Twitter in the past, apparently under the example of Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi and the advice of Garth Frizzell. She made two Tweets– one in June announcing she was on Twitter, a second in September expressing her shock that her dad was on Twitter, then nothing. What did surface was the @ShariGreen4Mayr account (the misspelling of which I’m a bit baffled by since “sharigreen4mayor” was available). It made one Tweet with her slogan “Let’s Get Moving!”, followed one inactive account and went silent.

Perhaps this silence was due to all the activity on Facebook. Actually, probably not, since there were only a few posts there, though there were replies to pretty much everyone who wrote on the wall (and there continue to be, as congratulations go up). That said, I’m not expecting her to have a bunch of time to learn and use social media now if she didn’t see it as a useful tool of the campaign. Again, just a prediction.

21 followers, following 1, 146 “likes,” 6969 votes.

Stray Observations

We are obviously not at a point where social media is an essential component of a campaign, especially given that two of the least active users got some of the highest vote counts. Nor is social media an essential component of being an open, accessible leader– most of the candidates listed phone numbers and email addresses where they could be reached, and perhaps were spending so much time using those forms of communication broadcasting to the minority of people on Twitter seemed less essential.  After all, if you only have 27 followers but 60 unread messages, where might you spend your time?

Further, while much of the focus in the tech and media world is on Twitter, based on this cursory glance you’re going to see more activity from local politicians on Facebook. This is reflective of the population at large– there are still far more people on Facebook than on Twitter (and far more actively using phones and email than on either of those platforms, particularly when it comes to the age groups that vote).

That said, the next campaign is three years away. Three years ago, I don’t know that any of the candidates used Twitter. Maybe a few were on Facebook. Municipal candidates, at least here, seems to be some distance from keying in on the social media demographic compared to federal and even provincial politicians. But that’s their base. The Twitter community in Prince George now is still not as robust as the one in Vancouver was two years ago. So you’re not going to see people chasing votes there.

But that Twitter base is growing. And the whole “mobilize your base online” thing really started with Barack Obama, and then trickled outwards. With that team gearing up for another run, it will be interesting to see what, if anything, trickles down here.

Ultimately, it’s up to you. Would you like your new mayor and council to interact with you online? Or by some other method. I’m guessing this is the time to let them know.

See also: Prince George Election 2011 Informal Recap

The votes are in, and Prince George has a new mayor and a few new faces on council. From the start, pundits were saying the race between Green and Rogers would be a close one, and the fact that Green ousted the incumbent is a surprise, perhaps, only because it is notoriously difficult to oust an incumbent mayor (this is only the second time in the city’s history). On council, everyone running for re-election made it with the exception of Deborah Munoz, and the three newcomers (Lynn Hall, Frank Everitt, and Albert Koehler) are all established names in the city. On school board, a couple of incumbents were ousted, and look to be joined by five new faces.

The following is a few observations that I’m making after a brief glance around on Sunday morning:

Slates and Endorsements

It’s a bit of a hunt to find endorsements this time around, but there were a few (if I’m missing any, I’d appreciate you letting me know). The one that is likely the happiest this morning is the Prince George Recreational Hockey League, who had all of their endorsements (Green, Everitt, Koehler, Hall, Stolz and Skakun) get in.

Cope 378 had some endorsements, too, and came up about 50-50. Rogers is out, on council Munoz failed to get re-elected but Krause, Everitt, and Skakun all got in, and of their two choices for school board, Bekkering is in while Crawford is out.

The People’s Action Committee for Clean Air didn’t run endorsements so much as they graded candidates based on a questionnaire, however knowledge on the subject of clean air didn’t seem to be much help in getting elected. While Hall received an “A+” and topped the council race, the “A”‘s received by Dan Rogers, Deborah Munoz and Brad Gagnon didn’t seem to help much. Nor, for that matter did the fact that Shari Green and Brian Skakun received a “C+” seem to hurt. Of the remaining elected council members, Wilbur, Koehler, Everitt, Krause, and Stolz received a “B” grade while Frizzell was not graded as his form was submitted late. However, you can read his (and all the other candidates) answers here.

Absent from this year’s race, at least publicly, was anything resembling the “Let’s Go PG” movement of business owners endorsing candidates. Ben Meisner, however, reported on their absence earlier this year with a look at their past set of endorsements. As of nomination papers being filed, he had had no luck finding any slate from this group.

How much any of this mattered in how people voted, of course, is anyone’s guess.

Diversity

This is an interesting one. It is being widely reported that this is the first time Prince George has had a female mayor since Carrie Jane Gray left office in 1969, but it’s also a pretty male dominated council. This may not be surprising since only four women even ran for a seat (out of a total of 19). In terms of visible minorities, a group that the Globe and Mail reports is vastly underrepresented in local government in Canada– well, I wouldn’t exactly say those elected reflects the diversity I see when going about my day. Perhaps this is because there weren’t a lot of visible minorities running. The issue of why this might be, or if it even matters, could be an interesting discussion.

The World Is Run By Those Who Show Up

We had an open line for candidate’s to make their pitch to voters at CBC. A candidate from another city opened by saying “The world is run by those who show up.” If you take the world to be run by elected officials and/or the people who vote for them, then this certainly holds. Early numbers say that 15,266 people bothered to vote, in a city of close to 80,000. That puts total numbers at something like 18%, give or take a few, which is hardly a ringing endorsement for anyone. UPDATE: HQ Prince George says there are 53,000 eligible voters, putting turnout at 29%, though those numbers are still far from impressive.

I hesitate to speculate but I would guess that low turn-out in city elections is less people saying “it doesn’t matter who I vote for because my vote doesn’t count” than it is “it doesn’t matter who I vote for because city elections don’t matter.” But again, who knows? Either way, I’d argue they’re wrong because city’s are under increasing pressure to do more with less, and the next decade or so is going to see significant strain on budgets and infrastructure. Whether that contributes to increased turn out next time around– well, we’ll see in three years.

image via Opinion250

It’s local government/school board voting day in B.C., and if history tells us anything, it’s that turnout is going to be fairly low– 50% is, perhaps, optimistic.

I think this is too bad since in a lot of ways, civic government is the best example of “direct democracy” we have. Unlike federal or provincial elections where you only get to vote for one representative who may or may not wind up in the governing party and who, even if they do, may or may not be a cabinet member, in municipal elections you vote for every open seat. Maybe not every one of your choices will get in, but the odds are a lot better. And if they don’t, it’s not because of regional weighting or first-past-the-post– it’s because more people voted for everyone else. You even get to vote directly for the city’s “leader” (mayor), although it is worth noting that mayor’s don’t have the amount of executive decision-making power that many people seem to think.

For another thing, city issues are extremely concrete and direct. Water supply. Roads and snow clearing. Garbage collection, parks, and building licences. The look and feel of your community is directly affected by decisions made by city council. They may not have the taxing power and/or financial means to do everything they’d like to do, but lots of this is fundamental stuff. Federal and provincial governments manage important things, too, but I think not enough weight is put on the importance of local government.

To that end, yesterday on Daybreak we had two guests who broke down whythey think municipal elections important. Former school district trustee Lois Boone pointed out that school boards have a larger budget than city councils do, and have a direct effect on the education of children. Hear her interview here.

Likewise, UNBC professor Jason Morris was equally adamant that people should get themselves informed about the people wanting to run the city, and there is no shortage of ways to do so and reasons why you should. That can be heard here.

However, you may be reading this having no idea about where, how, and who to vote for. I’m not going to tell you (particularly on that last choice), but I am going go give you a quick break-down of where you can get some last-minute information for the Prince George area:

Where Do I Vote?

The City of Prince George has an elections page. It includes  a list of places where you can vote, and links to other information. I’ll even make it easier on you– you can vote at Kelly Road, Vanway, John McInnis, DP Todd, Malaspina, Rob Brent, Edgewood, and Blackburn.

Do I Need ID?

The provincial government has a list of election rules. Key information:

 ” you must have two pieces of identification that prove who you are and where you live. One piece of identification must have your signature on it. If your identification does not show your residential address, you can make what is called a “solemn declaration” as to your place of residence. The voting clerk at the voting place will have the form you need to use to make that declaration.” If you need to know more than that, go here.

Who Should I Vote For?

Hahaha, I’m not going to tell you that. But I will give you a list of places where you can get some of that information.

• The City of Prince George has a list of candidates, including some contact information and websites, if they were provided.
• The Prince George Free Press website has an election section. They even have a YouTube video where you can watch the entirety of one of the all-candidates debates. Social media!
• Also from the Prince George Free Press, a special online issue about mayoral candidates and issues. They also had one about councilors, but for some reason it’s no longer online. However, it was published in Wednesday’s paper, and it’s free, so head to a coffee shop or something and find it there.
• The Prince George Citizen also has an elections section– one for coverage, and one for candidates. Catch up on what you’ve been missing.
• Hey, you know who else has been doing candidate coverage? CKPG! Unfortunately, their candidate profile page seems to be broken. Here’s the link, just in case it comes back.
• However, CFIS’s Ben Meisner has been interviewing candidates on his show. You can get the podcast here.
• CBC has been doing coverage of the full northern BC region, so there’s not as much on councilors. You can hear from the mayoral candidates, though.
• HQPrinceGeorge has all their coverage here.
• Kevin Creamore is the man behind pgelxn.com, a blog focused on sharing information about the elections. It includes links to various media coverage and candidate profiles.

So there you are. You have until 8 pm tonight to do this, so you should, at the very least, be able to find a couple of people you like and vote for them– no obligation to vote for a full slate. But it is worth it to try and find people who you think can make your city a better place.

And as an aside, I’ll be working tonight on the CBC election special for northern BC. Starting at 8 we’ll have coverage of the full northern region, with punditry from UNBC professors Jason Morris and Jason Lacharite, former MLA/deputy premier and former school district trustee Lois Boone. We’ll have live coverage of the results, so tune in.

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For those interested, my original post provides information on how I made this.