Archive:

2025

CONFRONT THE PROBLEMS, OPERATIONALIZE SUSTAINABLE SERVICE DELIVERY: “We have no more excuses. We need to move past our anxiety, confront the problems, and operationalize asset management for sustainable service delivery!” – Arnold Schwabe, Executive Director, Asset Management BC


“I would like to say taxpayers are unhappy but that would be an understatement. They are angry! Everywhere there is distrust due to failure to communicate the purposes of local government as defined in the Community Charter for municipalities and in the Local Government Act for regional districts. So, what do we do? We reset. It is clearly a time of change. I think it is an appropriate time for local governments to reflect and self-evaluate the services they provide and how they provide them. This isn’t about blame. It is about putting pieces together,” stated Arnold Schwabe.

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COUNTERBALANCE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE WITH NATURAL INTELLIGENCE! – “I am worried about youth because they are going into these artificial worlds and may never experience the natural world,” stated Michael Blackstock, co-founder of the Blue Ecology Institute, and ambassador of the Partnership for Water Sustainability in BC


“Natural Intelligence is an idea that resonates because it is intuitively obvious. I believe it is that simple. Natural Intelligence is another angle on interweaving Western science and Indigenous knowledge because it explores what Indigenous knowledge is based on. Blue Ecology is a Natural Intelligence approach. Natural Intelligence is a form of Indigenous wisdom…which is knowledge of Natural Intelligence and how to live with it and how to be harmonious with it,” stated Michael Blackstock.

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REMEMBERING BARRY JANYK, POLITICAL CHAMPION FOR SMART DEVELOPMENT: “Barry Janyk could take up a lot of space in a room. He was a really fierce advocate for his town. I don’t know many mayors that care so visibly about their town,” stated Bruce Milne, former mayor of Sechelt


Bruce Milne was elected mayor of Sechelt the same year Janyk was first elected to council, in 1996. “He held us all to account for the next three years, to make sure we really did make some change,” said Bruce Milne. “Elected officials who weren’t as confident sometimes found a lack of space left over for less confident people to be difficult for them, but it was never a problem when he was actually advocating for Gibsons or the Sunshine Coast.” Barry Janyk’s environmentalism was a pillar not only of his life, but his time in office.

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WILL 2025 BE THE YEAR OF THE RE-SET? “I think that you will all agree that we are living in most interesting times.” – from a speech by British politician Joseph Chamberlain in 1898


The “may you live in interesting times” quote has an interesting history. The first documented use of the quote was in a 1898 speech by Joseph Chamberlain, British politician and social reformer. “I never remember myself a time in which our history was so full, in which day by day brought us new objects of interest, and, let me say also, new objects for anxiety,” he stated. Despite being so common in English as to be known as the “Chinese curse”, the saying is apocryphal, and no actual Chinese source has ever been produced.

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