Vancouver Island Water

“After their re-election in 2005, the Gordon Campbell government created a Water Stewardship Division in the Ministry of Environment. That had never been done before. It was a single division with headquarters staff in Victoria and regional staff throughout BC. This brought water together organizationally and operationally. The premier appointed John Slater as Parliamentary Secretary for Water Supply and Allocation. The premier said to us…we want a water plan that shows we are leading the world in water management, bar none,” stated Lynn Kriwoken.

The vision for an ecosystem-based approach to land use originated with the Georgia Basin Initiative, a call to action in 1994 to achieve settlement, economy and ecology in balance. This was the context when Mike Tanner brought together a consortium of provincial and regional organizations and federal agencies to form a partnership to fund development of waterbucket.ca as the communication platform for the Water Sustainability Action Plan. “We profile those who do good work in the spirit of Living Water Smart.This validates what they do,” says Mike Tanner.

“Urban streams are rarely managed as ecological systems or as municipal assets. Rather, they are sliced and diced to suit land development objectives. And this has consequences. When local governments obtain a financial value for streams as spatial assets, however, they can include them in their asset management plans and budgets. We are moving EAP from a primary emphasis on Asset Management to use by planners for spatial analysis related to streams and trees,” stated Tim Pringle.

“The issues today in the Georgia Basin region are no different than they were 30 years ago. They are just more complex and more urgent. Will historical precedent provide communities and decision makers with inspiration in 2025? Writing the ‘Chronicle of Green Infrastructure Innovation’ is my way of giving back. It brings to life an exciting period in local government ‘convening for action’ history. Part A is a sweeping narrative. It introduces defining milestones and key players that shaped a movement in Metro Vancouver and on Vancouver Island,” stated Kim Stephens.

“I see myself as merely a narrator speaking about a shared experience that we all had in planning the Cowichan Region Climate Gathering. We just know that ultimately, the network of networks can help us to work together towards a common vision,” stated Keith Lawrence. “It was recognized from the beginning how important it would be to ground the event in the traditional ways of the local First Nations communities and people in the region. And we recognized that we needed to have this big space discussion about climate action to connect a network of networks within the region.”

Arnold Schwabe’s focus is on what local governments are supposed to do. Too often, he observes, councils do not understand the purposes and function of local government. “When I receive requests to talk to elected officials,” he says, “that opens the door for me to help them understand that their job is about the service not the assets. Downloading is a real issue and local governments are frustrated with the Province. I say that from the perspective of someone whose career experience over 35 years includes working for and with all three levels of government.”

The context for the Partnership for Water Sustainability celebrating the life of Barry Janyk is the Smartstorm Forum Series. This transformational series fueled a movement and galvanized an ecosystem-based approach to rainwater management and green infrastructure within the Georgia Basin bioregion of southwestern British Columbia. Barry Janyk, who was then mayor of Gibsons, infused the SmartStorm Forum Series with his passion. He was the political champion who carried the green infrastructure torch to the Metro Vancouver Regional Board and then to UBCM.

Nine cascading factors that must be in alignment to implement a course correction. At the top of the list of cascading factors is political leadership and commitment to the shared vision. Leadership boils down to a willingness to act and bring together other champions willing to provide the type of energy and organizational drive that overcomes inertia. “You have to build new political commitment and basically start all over again in a new crucible phase…where you coalition-build to develop a new shared vision, etc.,” stated Ray Fung.

“The fertile Fraser Valley is some of the best farmland in Canada and can grow a lot of the food that we need. To get to food security in BC, we need to increase the irrigated area from 200,000 to 300,000 hectares. If we invest in the infrastructure needed to supply water from the Fraser River, one-third of the additional 100,000 could be provided in the Fraser Valley. But we are slowly losing our land base for growing food. And it is not because land is coming out of the Agricultural Land Reserve. Rather, it is all about what is happening on the land within the ALR,” stated Ted van der Gulik.

“How do we manage the number of people that are moving into the Georgia 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. We need to act quickly to avoid the situation faced by other large urbanizing regions,” stated Mike Harcourt.