Some action on chronic, prolific offenders

Justice Minister Peter MacKay was busy today defending his victims'-rights legislation, which will give to crime victims some statutory rights in the criminal-justice system. With justice reform in the news, I thought it would be a good time to update my campaign seeking tougher laws against chronic, prolific offenders.

Photo: The Tri-Cities Now

As you might recall, council supported my motion last November asking the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the federal government to heed a request from the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police calling for such action. I drafted the motion after hearing repeatedly from our local detachment of the RCMP about the huge amount of time and expense the police have to devote to countering the criminal activities of just a handful of bad guys. Here's a link to a recent statement, from our detachment, about the problem.
Well, since then, we've heard from both the FCM and Mr. MacKay himself in response to the motion. First, on April 1, the city received a letter (dated March 17) from Mr. MacKay informing us that his office had received the motion, and that he had shared our correspondence with "appropriate departmental officials."
"I would like to take this opportunity to commend the Council for its efforts to help ensure the safety of residents in the Coquitlam community," Mr. MacKay continued. "Our government is committed to strengthening the criminal justice system. I can assure you that Department of Justice Canada officials work closely with their provincial and territorial counterparts, as well as municipalities and police services, to address the issue of chronic offenders."
He then went on to explain how Ottawa is currently reviewing the bail regime in Canada. However, he did not specifically say he would embark on any new initiative designed to define "chronic, prolific offender" in the Criminal Code so that the current revolving-door in the courtroom can be slammed shut. When a chronic, prolific offender with 100 theft convictions gets the same slap on the wrist that someone with half a dozen convictions receives, it's just not right. Let's hope that that tackling the chronic-, prolific-offender issue is high on Mr. MacKay's to-do list.
Meantime, on March 24 Coquitlam received an e-mail from Diane Belanger, the FCM's administrative and resolutions coordinator, who advised us that our resolution was considered by an unspecified FCM committee which, in turn, recommended to the board in March that the resolution be sent back to staff for further analysis. The board concurred, and the motion will now be brought back to the September board meeting.
All in all, it's about as much action as I would have expected at this point. I'm pleased that both the FCM and Mr. MacKay have considered the motion seriously and have responded to us. Frankly, I don't expect to hear much more from the federal government on this, but will keep my fingers crossed that, in September, the FCM's board will decide to move the motion to the floor of the next FCM convention.

Canada Post delivers some spin

I continue to be disappointed that something for which our Eagle Ridge neighbourhood fought with so much vigour three decades ago--door-to-door mail delivery--is being abandoned without any apparent effort to find a middle-ground solution, such as limiting door-to-door delivery to Mondays, Wednesday and Fridays only (and Tuesdays and Thursdays the following week).

Municipalities throughout Canada also continue to be upset, and have used the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to bring their concerns to Canada Post President and CEO Deepak Chopra. Mr. Chopra has now sent a letter to the FCM explaining Canada Post’s five-year phasing out of home delivery, starting in late 2014. Here is the text of that letter:

January 29, 2014

Dear Municipal Leader

Last month we announced a five-point plan to protect the postal service in a world in which digital communication is rapidly replacing traditional mail. In a key initiative, Canada Post will convert the remaining five million addresses that have door-to-door delivery to community mailbox delivery. This will occur over the next five years. I would like to assure you that the transition of delivery service in your community will be handled responsibly and with respect.

While the majority of Canadians will not see any change to how their mail is delivered, a fair number will be impacted. As we carefully plan our next steps, I would like to share with you the guiding principles that will govern our approach in the communities that are affected:

• We recognize that dense urban cores in our larger cities, with their older neighbourhoods and smaller lots, present different challenges for locating community mailboxes than suburban areas. With this in mind, we will leave the majority of these areas until the final stage of this multi-year project. We will take the necessary time to understand their unique needs and find solutions that work for these neighbourhoods.

• We will be sensitive to the needs of seniors and of disabled Canadians. We are developing alternative approaches for people with significant mobility challenges, who lack viable alternatives and upon whom delivery to a community mailbox would impose an unacceptable hardship.

• There will be no change in delivery to people living in apartment buildings, seniors’ buildings and condominiums who already have mail delivered in the building lobby. In addition, customers who have mail delivered to a rural mailbox (a customer-owned mailbox at the end of a driveway) will not be affected by this change.

• We will work with community leaders and municipal planning officials to choose safe and appropriate sites.

• We will seek the views of affected citizens directly, through multiple channels including surveys and online feedback tools.

• We will be as innovative and flexible as possible, while being responsible towards our goal to protect the financial sustainability of postal service for all Canadians. We will look at various solutions and different equipment, taking the necessary time to address any significant challenges in a given community.

• We will respect the needs of businesses to have mail delivered to their door. The vast majority of business addresses will continue to have mail and parcels delivered to their door and will experience no change.

The businesses that will continue to have delivery to the door are located in well-established business areas, such as main streets or “business corridors”; or receive a relatively large volume of mail or parcels.

This initiative is a crucial aspect of our plan to protect and sustain postal service for Canadians, both today and for tomorrow. As we execute it, I intend to see that we live up to our special responsibility to serve every Canadian and every community. We are committed to doing this in a thoughtful way, and to keeping you informed as this initiative unfolds.

Yours sincerely,

Deepak Chopra

President and CEO

Canada Post Corporation

Still thinking of the Philippines

After Typhoon Haiyan tore through the Philippines last November, I learned that the City of Coquitlam had a special relationship with a one of the hardest-hit cities, Ormoc, and I immediately started wondering whether we here could do anything, on a city-to-city basis, to assist in Ormoc's recovery. I am pleased to report that I have now received word from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM) that discussion has started at the national level that may see some relief being offered.

Photo from: storify.com/ZackStieber/

First, some background. Coquitlam's relationship with Ormoc was not a "sister city" type one, but is better characterized as an "adopted little sister" type. Specifically, under a program funded by the FCM, Coquitlam shared some of its administrative expertise with Ormoc to assist it in modernizing city management. It's my understanding that some Coquitlam officials travelled to Ormoc several years ago to give first-hand instruction. And that's where the relationship ended.

Regardless of whether Ormoc is our "sister city" or merely an "adopted little sister," I still thought it was worthwhile exploring whether Coquitlam could do anything to help the city of 191,000 in its time of crisis. I learned that, under B.C.'s Community Charter, we are not allowed to provide any direct financial assistance, even a token amount.

However, I was pleased when Mayor Richard Stewart ended a council meeting late last year with a fine speech outlining our relationship with Ormoc and urging everyone to consider donating to a relief organization, such as the Red Cross.

Following all that, I contacted the FCM before the Christmas holidays to enquire about the possibility of it restarting the program that allowed Coquitlam to help Ormoc several years ago. I didn't hear back, so I sent another email this month, this time to a different address at the FCM, repeating my earlier question.

This week, I finally heard back. Here is the partial text of the response I received from Pascal Lavoie, Program Manager for Asia with FCM International:

First of all, I’d like to thank you for contacting us. The devastating event that occurred in the Philippines last October [sic] drew a lot of attention from our members. We appreciate your interest and support in seeking ways to provide assistance to the reconstruction effort that affected communities are facing.

At the moment, we don’t have programming in the Philippines anymore hence our capacity to get involved has been limited. We’ve expressed our support to national politicians and met with staff at DFATD (formerly CIDA) to offer our assistance and discuss opportunities to get involved in the reconstruction effort.

FCM is considering a program to help with the reconstruction phase. However it is unclear if will consider funding such an initiative. Our experience (with similar natural catastrophes in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and Haiti) is that it takes some time to put such a program in place (12-18 months). At the moment, we are still at the stage of preliminary discussions.

And there you have it. It's certainly something to keep our eyes on throughout the year.

Some perspective on the FCM

One of my colleagues on Coquitlam Council is in the news today, complaining that he was the only Coquitlam Councillor, who attended the big Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference in Vancouver that has just wrapped up, who chose to commute to the event rather than stay in a hotel downtown.
His complaint is getting a lot of traction, judging by the comments that follow this story on CKNW's website.

Since I am one of the five Council members who chose to stay downtown for three nights, I feel I must get several things on the record and provide some context.

First: this is the second such conference I have attended in a month. A few weeks ago, I travelled to Harrison to attend the Lower Mainland Local Government Association's annual convention. As well, I did not attend last year's FCM conference in Saskatchewan, and so this was my first FCM convention.

Second: Since it was taking place in Vancouver, I considered it my public duty to attend this conference, to attend the speeches, to study the resolutions, to vote on the resolutions, to attend as many of the seminars as I could, to vote for delegates and representatives, and to attend the many evening receptions that are hosted by industry representatives and other cities.

Third: Given that attendance at these conventions is not mandatory, I suppose I could have acted selfishly and or lazily and chosen not to attend--spending my time at home to work on my own personal business, visit friends and family, or simply relax and recreate. This past weekend would have been a great one for a walk in Mundy Park or a ride along the PoCo trail, but I spent it indoors, instead, at the FCM.
I could have also chosen not to stay for the evenings, but I was told (correctly, as it turned out) that these evening gatherings were important. My colleague who is complaining has been in public life for 40 years, and so most likely has all the political insights and acquaintances he will ever need, but this is just my second year in office, so I am still attempting to soak in as much information as I can.
Again, as I said above, I considered it my duty to fully participate in this conference. I will share, below, some of my notes from the FCM.

Fourth: As Mayor Richard Stewart has suggested in the CKNW story, it is next to impossible, from a physical stamina point of view, to attend all aspects of conference and also commute early in the morning and late at night. The agenda is simply exhausting. The official, working part of the events at the FCM typically started at 8 a.m. and concluded in the late afternoon. The receptions, social, and formal dinners took up the evenings well into the night. I found the networking and casual, unplanned discussions to be very important to the whole experience, providing new contacts, new insights and fresh ideas.

(Incidentally, while many out-of-town delegates took advantage of "study tours" throughout the convention, it is my understanding that our Coquitlam delegation did not enroll in any of the tours--such as "New Urbanism Bike Tour;" "Vancouver Heritage Tour;" "Housing Tour," "Port Metro Operations Centre Tour," etc.--but chose instead to attend the less-exciting my substantially more important working sessions.)

On Sunday, for example, I was at the convention hall at 7:45 a.m. for Green Party leader Elizabeth May's speech at 8:05 a.m. (on which I commented on my Facebook page). The day continued with a speech by Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, an award ceremony, the AGM (I lost count of the speeches) and election of officers of the FCM, then election of regional chairs; these tedious but necessary elections (complete with speeches from eight candidates and then a long delay because of a mechanical problem with a voting machine) lasted until well in the afternoon. I was very happy to have a hotel room to repair to, to allow me to refresh myself, change my clothes, and get ready to attend the final dinner, at which Councillor Craig Hodge played formal hosts to a table that attracted representatives from Winnipeg, Nakusp, and Saanich.

Yes, it was a lovely night, but it was yet another extremely long day that ended at 11 p.m. If I had started the day with a commute from Coquitlam, I don't think an exhausted, grumpy Terry O'Neill would have made a very good impression on my new acquaintances from the three aforementioned communities.

So, what benefit did my attendance at the FCM have? I will conclude this posting by sharing some of my rough notes from Friday and Saturday's events:

Friday
Extractive industries workshop
First presenter is from Teck, David Parker.
Mining operations have to earn and maintain a Social Licence, not just a legal permit
Issues of trust and Transparency .
Have to plan for end of project.
Six key sustainability focus areas: materials stewardship, water, biodiversity, energy, people at centre, community overall.
Re community: focus on community benefit.

Corporate sponsorship presentation
Www.sponsorshipcongress.ca is October in Calgary. Also look to sponsorshipgroup.ca which specializes in linking  up minis and sponsors. Brent@sponsorshipgroup.ca.

Munis account for one third of their business now. They are consultants. Not doing the sale.
In one building there can be hundreds of assets to sell rights to. U can raise money without selling outright naming rights. Have to show value to the buyers.

New stats: since 2006, the industry has grown 43percent. Even thru recession.
A$1.6 billion industry in Canada. 20percent is spent locally.  The big boys may have one thousand properties. 70percent is cash. 30percent of brand marketing is in sponsorship or experiential marketing.
Greatest growth has been in fairs festivals and annual events. Sports is declining.
Don't do it ad hoc. Go All the way or not. Make sure you know what constituents want. In Edmonton, eg, they were not OK with selling naming rights to exterior of park or building, but OK with selling off inside bits and pieces... Procurement can be integrated with sponsorship
U have to be in true partnership...be concerned that the companies make their money.
The centre for excellence for public sector marketing, exists.

One. Build case external and internal
Two. Develop policy
Three. Asset I'd and valuation
Four. Procurement policy
Five. Sales team external or internal? External to start, then internal... All professionally

Rick Hansen speech
Check into Planat app to rate facilities for accessibility.

James Moore speech
 95percent of Nat Museum material is not on display. Moore wants to allow local museums to borrow and get access! Maybe Coquitlam can get fed help for an actual museum!

Saturday

Delivering Smart Services session
Services and citizen interaction seminar sponsored by CISCO. Ned is speaker, from Cisco.
How to put technology to use to achieve public policy objectives.
two big ideas: a. the Internet of everything; b. ubiquity of video
A. 99percent of things still aren't connected. But people, process, data and things can be. IE process, delivering the right info to make right decisions.
Even connecting tree to Internet so u can monitor output of oxygen, need for water..
B. video changes the game re how we interact with each other. Can we add Skype to town hall meetings?
Cisco sponsors the video networking index. In Canada there will be 33million Internet users in four years.
We are using video at home. People are going to start to expect same video in city services.
It's no longer going to be enough to simply set up a website without a face to face video.
There's no reason our staff can't meet with citizens, etc, using video, if quality is outstanding and the security has to be outstanding.
Cisco has remote site box that can be set up to provide face to face video. Printer sign dox. Scan it and send it back. "you can consume a govt service without having to go to a govt office."

Mayor of Newmarket
The city tweets.
They have produced several videos, avlb on Internet website, to explain and promote the city. (Coquitlam could do more or this). They reached out and communicated on budget. Feedback from 1000 people thru social media.
Problem is how to many multiple points of entry.
Also, customers are expecting 24 hr service.

Info officer from Newmarket appears be video linkup
They have a centralized customer service call centre. Service requests can be sent to crews in the field, and they can msj back. System allows for a full start to finish tracking. The original call receiver owns the call start to finish. Thru this customer service initiative, front counter positions were eliminated-shifted to customer service centre.

Idea for Coquitlam: A direct one line connection to a city number, from which caller could select numbers one to eight to select one councillor. It will connect directly to the councillors cell phone.