Tree canopy on a Marpole residential street. The neighbourhood has a variety of commercial, industrial and residential land uses.

This year the City of Vancouver will be starting community plans for three neighbourhoods: Marpole, the West End and Grandview-Woodlands. In addition to the usual open houses and community meetings, the City has been using its new Public Engagement Division (within its Communications Department) in innovative outreach. This past weekend the City, local residents and designers coordinated walking tours of the three neighbourhoods as part of Jane’s Walk. The Marpole walk was hosted by Margot Long, landscape architect and urban designer, and local resident Jo-Anne Pringle. Lil Ronalds, the City planner working on the Marpole plan, and City Councillors Heather Deal and George Affleck also attended. For more info, check out my article “Get with the plan (Marpole edition!)” for Spacing Vancouver; others will be writing upcoming articles about the West End and Grandview-Woodlands walks, so stay tuned!

Premier Alison Redford. Photo: John Lehmann, The Globe and Mail

Some sources report that strategic voting played a major role: those who may have voted Liberal or NDP may have voted PC to keep Wildrose from power. Albertans seem to have shown a healthy skepticism for the Wildrose party, particularly issues of gay rights and racism raised by two Wildrose candidates (Allan Hunsperger and Ron Leech, neither of whom was elected). Other centrist and left voters may have disapproved of the party’s stance on the fundamental right to refuse a medical service–such as abortion–based on religious objections, and their refutation of climate change. But another interesting factor has emerged: the polls weren’t really that accurate. Only a few polls, such as that by Leger Marketing, asked voters whether they were undecided: they found that up to one-fifth of voters were undecided in the final week of the campaign. Despite technological advances, polling has not become more precise, and the margins of error are significant: lest we forget, not a single poll predicted Stephen Harper’s majority government in last year’s federal election.

Wildrose also had poor support in Alberta’s cities. PC support was strong in Edmonton and Calgary: the province’s two largest cities hold half of its seats, 44 in total. In Calgary, the Wildrose party took only 3 of 25 ridings while in Edmonton Wildrose failed to win a single one. Lethbridge, Red Deer, and Fort McMurray were also overwhelmingly PC. It seems that urban Albertans preferred Redford’s Joe Clark-style conservatism, while many rural residents considered the PCs too centrist. But many journalists are saying that the values, views and opinions of Alberta voters may have been too complex to capture using polls.

Alberta’s election pitting Redford and Smith against each other would have had a historic result no matter who won. Only nine women in Canadian history have ever served as provincial/territorial premier: five were elected leader of their party while it was in power, and four were elected premier in a general election. Redford became premier in October when she was elected leader of the party, and this win makes her the first female premier elected in Alberta. BC’s Christy Clark is in a similar position: she became premier after Gordon Campbell resigned in 2010 and narrowly won his seat in a by-election. If she were to win the general election next May, she would become the province’s first elected female premier (Rita Johnson briefly held the position of premier in 1991 after Bill Vander Zalm resigned and she was elected leader of the Social Credit Party, but she was defeated in the 1991 BC election). With this win, Redford also marks a second milestone: the PCs will become the longest-standing provincial government in Canadian history by the end of this term.

• Pre-1922 (born before 1922, aged 90+ in 2011)
• Baby Boomers’ Parents Generation (born 1922-1938, aged 73-89 in 2011)
• Second World War Generation (born 1939-1945, aged 66-72 in 2011)
• Baby-Boom Generation (born 1946-1965, aged 46-65 in 2011)
• Baby-Bust Generation (born 1966-1974, aged 37-45 in 2011)
• Echo Generation (born 1975-1995, aged 16-36 in 2011)
  

  Chart 1 from the report, a comparison of housing tenure across the generations

Rodriguez tends to focus on housing tenure and type; he is after all a retired senior researcher from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC). And these trends are interesting, for example the much higher rental rate among the oldest and youngest generations of women, and the fact that homeownership among women is approaching parity with men. The older generations’ desire to age in place will place a demand on renovations and community services that can meet their needs (including public transit and walking facilities), and some may move to condos or apartments if they can no longer remain in their homes. Those of the Bust and Echo Generations tend to want low-maintenance housing due to professional and family time constraints, and are less inclined to choose larger single-family homes.

However, he doesn’t address recent trends such as the tendency of the Baby-Bust and Echo generations to choose housing that is close to public transit rather than car-dependent locations; fitting as they have much higher rates of public transit use than older generations. He touches on this and the desire for mixed-used residential options in the section on the Echo Generation, but I believe this extends to the Baby Busters as well. These generations also will have significantly bleaker employment prospects despite having higher educational attainment, and will receive less support from government sources such as the Canada Pension Plan by virtue of the economic trends that have followed them. This will likely have a significant effect on housing tenure, particularly extending the period of renting and delaying home ownership, and housing type (more condos and townhouses, fewer detached houses). This will be even more apparent among those living in Canada’s largest CMAs where housing is less affordable. Nevertheless, the paper offers an interesting perspective on generational trends and preferences among women in Canada.

This January, Amigo wrote a now-famous article in Vancouver Magazine entitled, “Do Vancouver women suck?” in response to Katherine Ashenberg’s “Do Vancouver men suck?” These and other writers (including myself) have noted a distinctly tepid social climate in this city that leads to lonely singles, particularly men of the failure-to-launch type and women of the cold-shoulder type. Outside of the dating scene, it also seems to lead to the formation of cliques and the social exclusion of those of us who weren’t lucky enough to be born and raised in Lotusland (see Jesse Donaldson’s “Three Customs of the West Coast Friend” in The Tyee, April 14th, 2012). After a tremendous response to his VanMag article, Amigo decided to do something about it: he started #bemyamigo, a social club that dares Vancouverites to “chat with strangers and help make this city friendlier.”

Since February, Amigo has held a regular social event every two weeks at The Union Bar (check out the latest event on eventbrite). Participants buy tickets that entitle them to a drink, browse a menu of appetizers created for the event, and chat with twenty or so strangers at a long table. Having found out about tonight’s event fairly last-minute, I decided to check it out.

I spent much of my time chatting with a woman who has just moved here from Dublin for work, a geologist working for a mining company, a musician friend of Jorge’s, and a multilingual woman who recently spent six months in Rome learning Italian. Most of these folks weren’t from Vancouver (which all of us felt was pretty typical) and most had come to the event on their own. Jorge himself was the perfect host, circulating among the participants and chatting with everyone. He was pleased with this evening’s turnout, which was a good mix of men and women (apparently the first event drew 22 women and only 3 men!) The conversations began with what people did for a living and how long they’d been in Vancouver and progressed to insights we’d picked up travelling in different countries and the social faux-pas committed daily on Facebook. Hilarious stories were told, and proto-friendships were forged–when we left, several of us made plans to attend a future #bemyamigo event and keep in touch online.

It’s too early to tell whether this little social experiment will make a difference in Vancouver’s chilly social scene, but several folks at the table seemed to think a critical mass of more sociable types has been reached in this city. While an event like #bemyamigo might terrify an introvert or one accustomed to their own little clique, sitting down with a table full of strangers who were honestly interested in meeting new people was a breath of fresh air in a city where even the weather patterns refuse to budge. Could you do it?

I dare you, Vancouver.

Although rumours of odd phone calls surfaced just after the election, with voters in highly-contested ridings claiming they’d been directed to vote at non-existent polling stations, it’s taken ten months for the story to surface. It’s now been alleged that in up to 70 ridings across the country, automated “robocalls” were made, with Elections Canada registering more than 31,000 complaints before the scandal hit. In some cases, voters changed their votes as a result of the calls; in others, they gave up when they arrived at the polling place they were incorrectly directed to. Oddly enough, one of the Conservative staffers linked to the robo-calls is Michael Sona, the same person who walked into a University of Guelph special ballot station during the election and tried to steal the ballot box to prevent students from voting. Sona resigned but denies any link to the robocalls. A voter suppression scandal with a culprit named Pierre Poutine, who is being hunted down by forcing information out of PayPal and RackNine? Something stinks.

Image from a Wired magazine story about robocalls aimed at voter suppression in Los Angeles www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/11/robocalls/

Sean Devlin of Truthfool Communications, who founded the ShitHarperdid.ca campaign, said recently that he didn’t trust Elections Canada to get to the bottom of the robocalls. He points out that the Conservative party was recently required to pay a paltry $52,000 fine and four of its senior officials were cleared of all charges when Elections Canada determined it had vastly overspent on its 2006 campaign: this for improperly reporting $1.3 million in advertising expenses, offenses that the judge said were “of a regulatory nature but significant to the democratic process.” Those following the youth VoteMobs last year might recall that after Sona alleged that the University of Guelph special ballot was not legitimate, Elections Canada cancelled all special ballots at universities. Not all special ballots, just those at universities. At the time, Michael Ignatieff criticized the Tories’ move to have the 700 student votes annulled as “another example of the [Conservative] party’s contempt for democracy”. The whole time the VoteMobs were surging, youth bloggers and activists noted that the Liberals, NDP and Green parties made small overtures to the growing student vote, but the phenomenon drew little response from the Conservative party…so why would they bother with 700 votes?

Of course, some deny that there’s a robocall scandal at all. Margaret Wente wrote that, “It’s ridiculous to think there was some massive cheating scheme engineered by higher-ups. We’re not Russia after all. It’s unpopular to say so, but we’re just a boring little democracy that usually functions pretty well.” (“Robo-calls? Get a grip, we’re Canadian”, The Globe and Mail, March 6). Voter turnout was higher than average in the disputed ridings, and these ridings definitely saw competitive races (“If robo-calls were designed to keep voters away, they failed miserably”, Eric Grenier, The Globe and Mail, March 5). I’d be interested in how things played out in ridings with high populations of students; I’ll bet things are anything but boring and well-functioning there. Critics like Antony Hodgson of Fair Voting BC say that the current first-past-the-post system encourages candidates to focus on only a few swing ridings, ignoring the majority of voters; given the surge of student activity, some of those ridings could have been targeted. Undeterred, Truthfool and the folks at LeadNow.ca have already assembled a petition with over 40,000 names calling for a full public inquiry and real consequences.

This week the Prime Minister stated that the Conservative Party supports stronger investigative powers for Elections Canada, but there has been a lot of debate over the extent of those powers: would the chief electoral officer be able to force parties to produce proof of their campaign spending, as the provincial counterparts would? So far, the Conservative party seems unaffected by the scandal; election fraud or wrongdoing has not been proven. Things could change drastically if an investigation digs up concrete proof like tampering with voter registration or paying for mysterious services on election day. It’s one thing to do shit, as TruthFool knows, but it’s another thing to do illegal shit.

Update:  Protesters in several cities, including Halifax, Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto, took to the streets yesterday (Sunday, March 11) demanding a public inquiry into the robocalls.

The City produced a Budget Basics booklet available online and distributed it to all city libraries, created a web portal at www.talkvancouver.com, introduced an online budgeting tool, and advertised in local newspapers, on the radio, and on Twitter. A total of 1221 residents and businesses completed the phone or online survey. Although people were also encouraged to comment by email or the City’s 3-1-1- phone services, most chose to do the surveys. A surprising 31% of respondents to the online survey were 25-34 years old; while the response rate for 18-24 year olds was only 7%. Thirty-seven participants used the online budget allocator tool. This is a vast improvement on public meetings on the budget (at a public meeting held this year, only 13 people attended).

The proposed 2012 Operating Budget details the City’s commitment to fund critical programs, increase productivity and make strategic adjustments to programs and services, while increasing property taxes by 2.5%. Several improvements in efficiency have already been made: the City introduced a bylaw adjudication model to deal with unpaid parking tickets quickly, expanded their electronic pay notices to include 97% of City employees, and streamlined sanitation services. The City also increased its utility revenues from sewer, solid waste and water utility rates by 7.9%. In the 2012 Operating Budget, there are increases in the policing and utilities budgets, and small increases to libraries, parks and recreation, and engineering services. The other areas remain the same as in 2011.

There were some other interesting findings for planners. The top three local issues were identified as social (homelessness, affordable housing), transportation (public transit, congestion and bike lanes), and taxation. Several of these issues are federal or provincial responsibilities, illustrating the challenges municipalities face in responding to critical priorities among residents. Crime and personal safety were lower priorities less than ever before; only 10% of residents and 8% of businesses identified this as a major issue. The vast majority of citizens and business were satisfied with city services, but felt that property taxes were too high. However, when asked specifically about the 2012 budget, 80% of residents and 65% of businesses indicated a willingness to accept up to a 3% property tax increase; in fact, most people (81%) were unwilling to reduce city services, preferring a property tax increase or increase in efficiencies instead. Half of homeowners were willing to pay a tax increase of 9% and 59% were willing to pay an increase of 6%, which the report states is “quite typical” (I found this surprising). Among renters, 77% were willing to pay $5 more in rent per month to maintain current service levels. Businesses are far less supportive of these higher tax levels. Some initiatives to lower costs had strong support from the public: using green techniques and less mowing to manage open spaces, offering more city services online rather than in person, and reducing garbage pickup frequency while increasing the ability to recycle food waste.

Planners and planning theorists take note: both residents and businesses were in favour of decreasing the number of public hearings and meetings, reduced enforcement of nuisance and minor City by-laws, and reduced land-use planning as cost saving measures. Other forms of feedback (phone/online surveys, mail-back and email methods) were preferred over public hearings/meetings. This is a sign of the times, and a confirmation of Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi’s comment that town halls and public meetings were the most expensive and least useful engagement methods in their budget planning process last year. I’ve never been a fan of these types of open forums, and I’d love to see more targeted outreach to demographic groups such as youth and young adults (e.g. Facebook surveys, continued advertising of planning processes on Twitter).

The City of Vancouver will hold a public hearing on February 29th to allow citizens to respond the proposed budget, and then deliberate on the Final Budget Report, which will presented March 5th.

Mayor Rob Ford, his brother Councillor Doug Ford, and other supporters like Councillor George Mammoliti have been saying for a year that “people want subways.” But consider the momentum on this issue in the past year, from shock and confusion when Ford cancelled Transit City on his first day in office, to hope this January 29th when Councillor Joe Mihevc produced a lawyers’ report saying Ford overstepped his legal rights and council would have to vote on the issue. Last Sunday 120 prominent academics, transportation planners and civic leaders sent a letter to city councillors urging them to overturn the Mayor’s transportation plan or risk impeding transit initiatives in Toronto for the next century. Cities Centre director Eric Miller, planning consultant Ken Greenberg, former Toronto chief planner Paul Bedford and former Mayor David Crombie, among others, called for an end to “the war on common sense.” The Pembina Institute weighed in on the issue, also in favour of LRT construction. And yesterday, while councillors debated and decided the issue, The Toronto Star conducted a [statistically questionable] public opinion poll asking what they thought council should do: 87 voted for “build more subways”, 332 for “build a Light Rapid Transit system”, 2 for “don’t do anything” and 15 had other ideas.

Just over a week ago, I intimated that most of us needed to learn more about municipal governance, and that without this ignorance Ford could never have cancelled transit city or signed an MOU with the province based on his own Sheppard subway strategy. I assumed that Ford knew exactly what his legal rights were, but was banking on councillors and the public being unsure that the Transit City issue had been approved by council and therefore had to be voted on. But last night at the end of the council meeting, Ford expressed his frustration with the results, saying, “Technically speaking, that whole meeting was irrelevant. The premier, I’m very confident, is going to continue building subways.” While it is true that the Transit City plan (like any major transit infrastructure in Canada) hinges upon provincial funding, the MOU that Ford and Premier McGuinty signed was only an agreement in principle until council voted on the issue. Indeed, the Premier confirmed this today: “I’ve also been very clear with the mayor from day one. At the time the memorandum of understanding was entered into, there was a specific provision that he’s got to seek the support of the council.” (“Premier Dalton McGuinty says he is obligated to consider council’s transit decision”, The Toronto Star, February 9, 2012). McGuinty said he reiterated this to Ford last week.

It is telling that it was the legal argument, not the transit experts’ advice or the cost projections, that allowed Transit City’s resurrection. Kudos to Stintz for putting her job on the line: she went public with her opposition to Ford’s transit plan two weeks ago and could easily be unseated a few months from now by the Mayor’s allies on the TTC board, along with TTC chief general manager Gary Webster. And to those who fought the legal battle, including Mihevc and the legal firm of Cavalluzzo, Hayes, Shilton, McIntyre & Cornish. That is one legal report that will go down in history.

Participatory budgeting originated in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 1989. It’s driven by core principles such as democracy, equity, community, education, and transparency. Thousands of citizens assemble in Porto Alegre each year to elect delegates to represent each city district, prioritize demands, serve on the Municipal Council of the Budget, and produce a binding municipal budget. Proponents of participatory budgeting say that because people with the greatest needs play a larger role in the decision-making process, spending decisions tend to redistribute resources to communities in need. In Porto Alegre, for example, there has been a marked increase in funding for badly-needed sanitary sewer projects and schools. Participatory budgeting is used in about 140 municipalities in Brazil as well as towns and cities in France, Italy, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, India and Africa. It is used for municipal school, university, and public housing budgets.

The process has also been used in several Canadian municipalities: Toronto Community Housing Corporation (TCHC) allows its tenants to participate in decision-making on local, neighbourhood and city-wide spending priorities. TCHC’s participatory budgeting process first took place in 2001, when tenants were asked to help decide how to spend $9 million per year (13.5% of TCHC’s budget); 237 local capital projects were funded. In Guelph, residents allocate a small portion of the City’s budget through the Guelph Neighbourhood Support Coalition. Since 1999, neighbourhood groups have been sharing and redistributing resources for local community projects, including recreation programs, youth centres, and physical improvements to community facilities. In 2005 some 10,000 people participated in the process and 460 events and programs were funded.

In a review of participatory budgeting efforts in Canadian cities, Josh Lerner and Estair Van Wagner outline several challenges for participatory budgeting in Canada: the fact that Canadians are extremely diverse in language and culture, the small scale of these efforts so far, the limited power of citizens in the process, the fact that none of them have fundamentally changed their cities’ political systems or created a more progressive social agenda, and the potential for the process to become co-opted by politicians.

City of Calgary "Our City. Our Budget. Our Future."

In February 2011, Calgary Mayor Naheed Nehshi opened up the budget planning process to the public through a citywide engagement process. In “Our City. Our Budget. Our Future.” the City aimed to help people feel like they were part of the process, make the budgetary process clearer by simplifying communication from city staff, and gather ideas on the budget. Their online budgeting tool allowed users to see how much each department currently spent, and what an increase or decrease in areas like transportation or safety would look like. The City heard from 24,000 people during this process. Again, citizens’ ideas were considered in drafting the budget, which was adopted in November 2011. The new three-year budget resulted in property tax rate increases of 6.0% in 2012, 5.7% in 2013 and 6.1% in 2014 and included (among other things) additional funding of $1 million for Calgary Transit, a reserve fund of $3.5 million for snow clearing in 2013 and 2014, a $225,000 increase to the Calgary Arts Development Authority.

“We used to do things like open houses and town halls when we had those discussions. And what we learned this time around is that the open houses and the town halls are the most expensive and least successful part of the process.”– Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi

A screen shot from the City of Vancouver Budget Allocator

The City of Vancouver followed suit this year, encouraging citizens to get involved in the 2012 budget process. In addition to attending public meetings and completing an online survey on budget priorities, a section of the City’s website lets users to download a primer explaining how the budget works (how the city raises funds, what percentage of taxes goes to pay for utilities, fire and police services, etc.). The interactive tool lets them “be Councillor for a day, see what it costs to run a city.” This simple tool gives you options to remain at the current level of funding or to increase or decrease funding levels in each area. When you’ve finished making your budget, the Budget Allocator tells you whether you have a surplus or a deficit, and how much you would have to raise taxes to cover the increased costs. You can submit your budget, along with the reasons for your choices, directly to city staff: if you’re a local, go to www.talkvancouver.com/Budget 2012 before February 10th to have your say.

In short, there are varying levels of participation in budget processes, from consultation to surveys to participatory budgeting. In addition to various levels of power for the participants, the educational aspects differ as well: one could argue that while Toronto, Calgary and Vancouver have made strides in educating the public on the budgetary process, they stop short of allowing residents to learn how to prioritize spending objectives and vote on them. Nevertheless, Canadians in other municipalities might want to find out how their budget works, when their budget is up for adoption and what the process is for citizen involvement. With so many online and interactive ways to get involved, there seem to be many opportunities to inform and involve communities that may not participate otherwise: young adults, immigrant groups, seniors living in facilities, etc. High school teachers, college and university professor could use the online budgeting tools in civics, planning, political science, or urban studies courses. Immigrant groups could organize online participation at a community event. Residents and health care support workers could help seniors participate. If your municipality doesn’t currently encourage participation in the city budget process, ask your councillor to suggest the idea.

Update: check out the latest national issue of Spacing magazine for integrated approaches to public engagement in Saskatoon, Vancouver, and Halifax (“Speaking with Your City” by Rachel Caroline Derrah).

“Rumours of the death of Transit City have been greatly exaggerated.” –Toronto Councillor Joe Mihevc, former vice-chair of the TTC

According to lawyer Freya Kristjanson, an expert in municipal governance, Mayor Rob Ford did not have the right to cancel the Transit City plan without council approval. In an article in today’s Toronto Star, Kristjanson says that generally, executive and legislative powers rest with full council, in a “weak mayor-strong council” system. The City of Toronto Act (2007) requires that any act approved by council must be rescinded or amended by a subsequent vote of council. That includes Transit City. The legal firm of Cavalluzzo, Hayes, Shilton, McIntyre & Cornish, who produced the report, says Transit City was approved by council in 2007 as part of the Climate Change, Clean Air and Sustainable Energy Action Plan. “After that, City Council considered and voted on the necessary elements of the program as they came before council.” So when Mayor Ford signed an MOU with the province pursuing his “subways only” alternative plan, he was acting without legal authority. The lawyers’ report says that council must vote on the MOU for it to be valid; until then, it is only an agreement in principle.

The legal ramifications of Ford’s decision, made on his first day of office in December 2010, are yet to be seen, as are the economic costs (the unofficial estimate is $65 million). When Ford announced his intention to cancel Transit City, city councillors asked the Mayor to put the matter before council, but he refused, denying that the plan ever had council approval. My Toronto readers surely remember that Ford rode a wave of local support to victory, and a provincial election was to be held a mere 10 months after the municipal election; there was significant momentum, legal issues notwithstanding, propelling Ford’s rash decision.

Transit advocates like myself are interested in any policy or procedure that might restore a more balanced transit plan to the City of Toronto (kudos to Marcus Gee at The Globe and Mail, whose frustration at the City of Toronto’s lack of transit infrastructure foresight was unmistakable in “Toronto’s transit planning: No way to run a railway”, Saturday, January 27, 2012).

“Transit planning in Toronto is a colossal, humiliating failure. It is hard to imagine how any city could make a better hash of it…A city cannot act like this and expect to build a decent transit system. Rapid transit requires long-term planning, firm, consistent leadership and huge amounts of money. Cities that do it properly come up with a plan looking decades into the future and stick to it. Toronto? Toronto plays politics, cancels projects in midstream, draws up plans only to rip them up and delays, delays, delays.”–Marcus Gee, The Globe and Mail

But at the heart of this procedural debate is how little most of us know about municipal governance in Canadian cities. All of us, whether we are city councillors, planners, electricians, teachers, service workers, or students, need to familiarize ourselves with municipal and regional governance as it concerns service provision, local by-laws, and local budgetary decisions. Without a certain level of ignorance of our most basic legal principles (or an unwilingness to defend them, take your pick) Ford would never have been able to sign the fated MOU. Yes, legal principles on governance seem dry and uninteresting, and to be fair, the City of Toronto Act is only a few years old, so residents might be forgiven for not knowing all the details. But almost every aspect of our lives, from whether we can get our children into day care centres to whether our snow gets plowed on schedule, depends upon the division of powers between municipalities, the provinces, and the federal government. While Ford’s supporters allege that the defense of weak policy is a reliance on legal procedure, the office of Mayor compels adherence to specific legal procedures. Ford knows that, which is why his decision to cancel the Transit City plan hinged on his denial of its approval by council. Presumably, provincial Premier Dalton McGuinty is also familiar with these procedures from his career as a lawyer; yet, the MOU remains.

Maybe we need a new CBC series on the soap opera that has ensued since Ford took office. “…after DaVinci’s City Hall, tune in for Ford Twinmayor: Riding the Gravy Train.”

Update: Toronto City Council will vote at a special meeting on Wednesday, February 8th on whether to tunnel the entire Eglington line or bring the eastern end to the surface, using the savings to introduce light rail on Finch and Sheppard Avenues.

Two weeks from today, SCARP students will be running their Symposium, a great event that tends to draw a crowd of current students, alumni, and planning professionals of all sorts. This year’s Keynote Speakers are Tony Dorcey (SCARP professor emeritus), Bill Rees (SCARP professor emeritus and co-creator of the Ecological Footprint), Richard Heinberg (author of The End of Growth: Adapting to our New Economic Reality), and Mike Harcourt (Premier of British Columbia, 1991-1996).

As a SCARP alumni, I’m putting together an alumni panel for students to learn about careers in planning, which will feature Deana Grinnell (Parklane Homes), Michelle Babiuk (TransLink), Lil Ronalds (City of Vancouver), Sawngjai Manityakul (Halcrow), and Diana Leung (City of Vancouver). Current students are encouraged to come out and ask these accomplished planners all about their career paths. Other panels include “Occupy Planning: The Future of the 99%”, “Stranger to Supper: Building Community Through Local Food Networks”, and “Beyond Just Asking Questions: Engaging Youth in Community Planning.” Every one of these is chock-full of planning experts who will tell you all about their initiatives, policies and programs.

All you SCARP alumni out there, come and join us for a fantastic day and meet up with old and new friends! SCARP now has an official designation as part of the UBC Alumni network, with a president and everything (thanks Adam Cooper for taking on this role!) Registration ends Feb. 6th, so make sure to sign up at www.scarpsymposium.ca.