In every serious political debate, no matter how nasty it gets, a little humour is a welcome relief.
Consider Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan and the TransLink vote. He is the most outspoken among the few elected officials (three out of 23 mayors) opposed to the regional proposal to increase sales tax by 0.5 per cent to fund future TransLink infrastructure. He will be voting “No.” And he is nothing if not cranky when he is criticized. (See his letter to the editor in the Courier Jan. 12.)
Now consider his wife Kathy Corrigan, the NDP MLA for Burnaby-Deer Lake. She is one member of the NDP caucus committed to campaign in favour of the “Yes” side and to convince her constituents to do the same.
When I asked her about the mayor of Burnaby earlier this week, I swear I could see her smiling over the phone when she said: “He is not my constituent.”
Turns out Chateau Corrigan is two blocks beyond her boundary line. “He is Raj’s” to deal with. That would be Raj Chouhan, the NDP MLA for Burnaby-Edmonds. And “this is not the first time Derek and I have disagreed.”
And it is certainly not the first time Corrigan has been disagreeable. But before I get to that, it is worth noting one thing about this vote.
If it fails, according to the North Vancouver District Mayor Richard Walton who chairs the TransLink Mayor’s Committee, if TransLink is unable to fund the projects proposed under this plan, “It will be felt less in Burnaby than anywhere else.”
Corrigan’s opposition to the vote is based primarily on his criticism, not of the planned improvements, but of the TransLink governance structure and questions about TransLink’s management capabilities.
While few would disagree with the points he makes, that is not the issue as the overwhelming majority of regional leaders know. The issue is to find a way to reduce desperate deficiencies. But Corrigan can and will selfishly hold his position with little or no political risk.
That’s because Burnaby is particularly well endowed, certainly when compared with municipalities like Surrey, when it comes to transit infrastructure. Nor does he have to share a front row seat with Vancouver watching the congestion down the Broadway corridor every week day.
Two of the region’s three SkyTrain lines run through Burnaby. When the Evergreen Line is completed that will be a third. And they just got a new highway with the widening of the TransCanada.
It is a credit to Corrigan and his council (where his party holds every single seat) that they brought in massive density around transit stations. That helped fill the city coffers with funds from development levies to say nothing of increased property tax revenues.
But it also brought criticism from housing specialists like Alice Sundberg. She points out that while Burnaby has created more housing around transit hubs, it did so at the expense of affordable rental housing.
Nothing, however, not even Corrigan’s rejection of the TransLink vote, quite compares with his dogged refusal to deal with issue of homelessness. While virtually every other municipality makes accommodation in the form of shelters or subsidized housing, Corrigan says it is not his problem.
So it just gets pushed off to other jurisdictions.
Remarkably, for a person who considers himself progressive, Corrigan holds the homeless in total contempt, as he explained to Chris Bryan, editor of the Burnaby NewsLeader, who reported a year ago:
“As he told me, many are the type of folks who, if they found you dying on the sidewalk, would pull out your gold fillings.”
There is nothing humorous in that.
•••
I am reliably informed that Mayor Gregor Robertson intends to knock off Richard Walton as chair of the TransLink Mayors Committee at a meeting planned for this morning (Jan. 16). Now that much of the TransLink vote’s heavy lifting of dealing with the province over a revenue source and the ballot question, bringing a remarkable 20 of the 23 mayors on side and assembling an unprecedented coalition of supporters behind the plan, has been done by Walton and Port Coquitlam Mayor Greg Moore, Robertson apparently wants the profile that will come with bringing it across the finish line.
agarr@vancourier.com
twitter.com/allengarr
.
twitter.com/leyneles
