Getting Politicians Working for You Again

About a year ago, I got a ride to a SkyTrain station from a mayor of one of the larger municipalities in our region. He told me people need a roof over their heads and a good job. He said many politicians have forgotten that this is the most basic thing we must enable. I agreed, and this conversation has stuck with me.

While I’ve been actively involved in politics for some time now, that conversation got me thinking about what I believe the role of government should be. The results of various provincial and other elections over the last few months really got me thinking about this.

There are really five things that we, as politicians and government, need to enable for people.

• We need to ensure that people’s basic needs are met.
• We need to ensure that people have access to opportunity.
• We need to ensure that people feel safe.
• We need to ensure that when people need help, we are there.
• We need to ensure that people feel they are valued in our society.

While the federal and provincial governments and politicians have the most control over these five outcomes, local governments also have a role.

I created a Langley City Solutions Tracker 2.1, which outlines everything I promised over the years. Most of what I’ve promised fits within the five key outcomes, but I want to expand on this slightly.

We provide water and sewer services as local governments. It doesn’t get more basic than this.

Local governments play a prominent role in our transportation network. Roads and transit ensure that people have access to opportunities.

How we police our communities and design and operate our public spaces, libraries, and recreation centres contributes to people’s feeling of safety.

When people need help, sometimes it isn’t available or hard to know where to start. Some local governments, such as Langley City, have now taken on the role of advocate to get required services for a community and are working to reduce the barriers to accessing these services.

It is crucial to feel that society and, by extension, your government value you. As local government, we can meaningfully include people in our decisions as we serve a smaller area. I’m very excited about direct democracy systems, such as Citizens’ Assemblies and Citizens’ Budgets.

Many times, politicians forget who they should be serving. These five ideals have become a bit of a lighthouse for me.