Partnership for Water Sustainability in BC

We share our world view through our stories and storytelling This is how we pass on our oral history. Storytelling is the way we share intergenerational knowledge, experience and wisdom. “Storytelling is the commonality of all human beings, in all places, in all times,” stated Professor Rives Collins, Northwestern University, author of “The Power of Story: Teaching Through Storytelling”.

“On election day in British Columbia, an atmospheric river deluged Metro Vancouver and parts of the province’s south coast. Flooding was widespread across the Lower Mainland. The storm caused more than $110 million in insured damaged according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada, reported the Canadian Press on November 15, 2024. On top of this are the flood costs incurred by local governments. Timing is everything. When Metro Vancouver’s Liquid Waste Committee met in October and again in November, the Election Day Flood was top of mind,” stated Kim Stephens.

“Food security, land security and water security are not separate issues. They are one and the same. But agricultural land is being lost bit by bit. 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. The Lower Mainland region is losing food land each year. That is just from making houses and yards bigger and adding amenities such as pools and tennis courts. This accumulating impact will have consequences for our food security,” stated Ted van der Gulik.

“A key purpose of the regional growth strategies legislation our government introduced in 1995 was to enable local government to respond to housing needs. It provided a basis for regional districts and their member communities to support adequate, affordable, and appropriate housing in places where the necessary facilities exist or can be provided. 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.

“When we initiated EAP in 2015, it was almost intuitive to pick up on where things were after a decade of riparian area regulation, and then recognize local governments need a number if they want to get natural assets into their management plans on a regular basis. The question we asked was, how do you find that number? Well, we can treat a stream as a land use because we have RAPR and BC Assessment. The rest of it is the methodology that does the right calculation. EAP finds a financial value for the streamside protection and enhancement area prescribed by RAPR,” stated Tim Pringle.

“When I was manager of policy and planning at the Greater Vancouver Regional District, I would tell my staff that we have been put in charge of the planning for the life support system for this region. We cannot own it but we can leave it to our children. And to build a better place, we need people who are interested enough to understand the state of mind that lay behind the success of the Livable Region Strategic Plan. It had four pillars: a Green Zone, complete communities, a compact region, and increased transportation choice ,” stated Ken Cameron.

“You have to de-silo. You cannot operate in silos where everyone is trying to grab more turf all the time. You need to operate in an environment where people are not afraid to go talk and tell you what they are doing and what they want to help with. We cannot always help them and they cannot always help us either. But we are talking about it these days. Internal collaboration does not happen overnight. You must have initial successes to build relationships. That is what the French Creek EAP project represents. It will feed into other studies,” stated Murray Walters.

“In the background, we are having our conversations about asset management in general. Conversations about how we keep it going for gray infrastructure and bring in natural assets. Our parks group is doing land inventories. All of this can be presented as a package. The EAP program is embedded in our Integrated Action Plan. This supports City Plan: Nanaimo Reimagined which provides direction for the coming 25 years on everything…land use, transportation, climate adaptation, etc. We made sure EAP is part of that. It is firmly rooted,” stated Bill Sims.

“My career in local government began in era when money was really tight and we had to fight so hard for every nickel. We have to return to the ethic of solutions being affordable and effective. Otherwise, a seismic shift will occur in local government because of overall politics. The mood in society has changed and blunt instruments are going to come down. That is my fear. Now more than ever communities need to learn from past experience. And society needs balanced perspectives and alternate viewpoints,” stated Pete Steblin.

“Politicians know how to get elected. But do they know all that other stuff that they need to know? Once upon a time, you had well-respected community leaders who everybody trusted,” stated Darrell Mussatto. “In the old days, voters elected community leaders to municipal council because those people brought certain skillsets with them. Today, the people getting elected know how to use social media to get people to vote for them. But do they know and care about what matters in local government? To ask the tough questions, you must be informed and educated about what matters.”