Convening for Action in British Columbia

CHRONICLE OF GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE INNOVATION: “Meeting Metro Vancouver’s urgent housing demand is exactly the sort of situation for which we developed the regional growth strategies legislation in the 1990s,” stated Mike Harcourt, former Premier of British Columbia whose leadership made possible the Growth Strategies Act (5th installment in a preview series)

November 26, 2024 - Posted in Chronicle of Green Infrastructure Innovation, Convening for Action in Lower Mainland

Note to Reader:

Published by the Partnership for Water Sustainability in British Columbia, Waterbucket eNews celebrates the leadership of individuals and organizations who are guided by the Living Water Smart vision. The edition published on November 12, 2024 featured Mike Harcourt. He was premier of British Columbia from 1991 until 1996. In the interview, he talked about the cross-border collaboration that was his bigger picture context for the Georgia Basin Initiative. In turn, the GBI provides relevant context for Metro Vancouver’s Livable Region Strategic Plan, deemed to be the region’s first regional growth strategy.

STORY BEHIND THE STORY: Understand why regional growth strategies matter – extracts from a conversation with Mike Harcourt, former premier of British Columbia

Mike Harcourt served as a Vancouver alderman from 1973 to 1980. He was Mayor of Vancouver from 1980 to 1986. As mayor, his term in office was dominated by planning for Expo 86, an event that saw many new developments come to the city. Elected premier of BC in 1991, he served until 1996.

Mike Harcourt and Ken Cameron co-authored with the late Sean Rossiter, City Making in Paradise: Nine Decisions That Saved Vancouver, published in 2007. The book details nine of the most important decisions the Vancouver region has faced since 1945.

Collaboration across boundaries begins with conversations about common interests

“The Georgia Basin Initiative had its origin in the cross-border Salish Sea Ecosystem Conferences. Beginning in the 1990s, conferences would alternate every two years or so between Vancouver and Seattle,” recalls Mike Harcourt.

“The conferences covered a whole range of growth management issues. How do we manage the number of people that are moving into the basin when we have a very tough geography where the urban space is pretty limited by the sea and the mountains, and by rivers and agricultural land and park wilderness.”

“When you take all that out, there is not a lot of land for urban development and an urban population. So, it is an area and ecosystem all on its own that deserves that kind of close attention.”

“At the end of 1986, I left the comfortable pew of the mayor’s chair in Vancouver to go into provincial politics because I wanted to change our relationship with First Nations. I figured that reconciliation was and still is the #1 issue in British Columbia. And so I wanted to deal with aboriginal rights and title and re-do the relationship.”

“It was a crazy era with the war in the woods and the fear that conservationists had of losing some key wilderness areas. When I was elected premier in 1991, I had a pretty clear set of priorities laid out in the election platform.”

“Among the priorities were: end the war in the woods; sustainable land use for cities and the natural resource areas; and land use planning processes like the Growth Strategies Act that Darlene Marzari, Joan Sawicki and I put together for the large urban areas that were fast growing,”

Georgia Basin Initiative: when the stars align anything is possible

“In 1992, I asked the BC Roundtable on the Economy and Environment to investigate the challenge of growth from a bioregional perspective. The idea for the Georgia Basin Initiative was seeded in their report titled Georgia Basin Initiative: Creating a Sustainable Future. The Roundtable findings were clear.”

Georgia Basin Initiative spawned a movement

“The 1990s was a very heady time in government in terms of land use planning and natural resource management. Because Mike Harcourt and Municipal Affairs Minister Darlene Marzari had come out of local government, they were very familiar with the urgent growth pressures and the ecological impacts that they were having,” adds Joan Sawicki.

Successor initiatives

Download Joint Statement of Cooperation on the Georgia Basin and Puget Sound Ecosystems

To learn more, visit Georgia Basin Inter-Regional Educational Initiative

Closing reflections on the passing of the intergenerational baton

“In 1991, I had some very specific things that I wanted to get done. This included dealing with the backlog of schools that needed to be built and health care facilities and transit and infrastructure that had fallen behind in the 1980s. We had a list of projects and we got them all done.”

“And when I think reflect on what we also achieved through cross-border collaboration, the good one was the park and wilderness joint commitment by BC and Washington State. Between the two governments, we put $130 million into protecting park and wilderness lands.”

Journey from then to now

“In my experience, ideas and initiatives ebb and flow. You just have to take the long view and remain committed to passing on the knowledge that comes from experience. That is why I still have the fire and am still involved. People say to me, when are you going to retire. And I reply, why would I do that?“

“Because the Partnership is the keeper of so much relevant history over the past three decades, publication of the Green Infrastructure Chronicle in 2025 will be timely. I believe people are ready to look over the tops of their foxholes and look further ahead over the horizon,” concludes Mike Harcourt.