We feel for Mayor Derek Corrigan, we really do.
He and his Burnaby Citizens’ Association colleagues, who fill up every spot on city council and school board, have a tough row to hoe.
They’re faced with a pile of problems, from fires at homeless camps to giant energy companies running roughshod over their park bylaws to push a pipeline through their backyard – and they’re not getting a lot of help from anyone.
A homeless shelter? Housing for Syrian refugees? We know housing isn’t a municipal responsibility.
Seismic upgrades to schools to keep kids safe from earthquakes? What can the school board do but wait on the province to pay for them?
The problem with local government is it’s local. Unlike the legislature and Parliament, city hall and the school board office are right here, and the public can get at councillors and trustees like no other politicians – and ask for things, unreasonable things, things the city and school board aren’t responsible for and don’t have the money to do.
In our mind’s eye, Corrigan and his BCA colleagues are pictured in an endless shrug, with empty pockets turned out.
“What can we do?” they ask. Who can argue with that?
The problem is, the local ruling party is also well aware many of those issues outside its bailiwick matter a lot to the public, and, come election season, they’ve been known to make some sweeping promises to go heroically above and beyond and step in where the province and federal government have failed.
They pledge to stand in front of bulldozers to stop pipelines, and they say they’re going to start tripling the city’s child-care spaces real soon.
Fine. But once you’ve talked the talk, once you’ve leveraged the public’s needs and concerns about issues outside your jurisdiction to get elected, we say you can’t go back.
If you’ve promised to go above and beyond during election time, you’ve given up your right to the that’s-not-a-municipal-responsibility get-out-of-jail-free card.
Put simply: put up or shut up.
