Being an effective local government politician has three broad requirements.
One requirement is to represent your community at City Hall and around town. It means bringing policies, plans, and ideas that you believe will cause the most good for your community to City Hall. It also means helping people find the right person to talk to or process to follow when engaging with their municipal government.
Another requirement is to know how to govern effectively. This means working with others at City Hall and the region to turn policies, plans, and ideas into actions that provide the most good for your community. It also means working to ensure the municipality remains focused on delivering the most value for the community.
The third requirement is to advocate for your community, especially to the provincial and federal government, as many of the most significant challenges communities face require the support of those orders of government.
This blog began 17 years ago, when I was part of VALTAC, which advocated for the restoration of the Interurban train. I learned that the most effective way to advocate is to build genuine relationships with people, including those who have the ability to further what you’d like to see accomplished. You don’t build relationships with emails, letters, or Zoom calls. Relationships are built face-to-face and in person.
Langley City Council has done a pretty good job of building relationships with folks in the provincial government. Individually and as a group, we’ve met and chatted with many people, including by sending envoys to the Vancouver Provincial Cabinet office. Building these relationships has helped secure provincial funding and services for our community.
One area where we need to improve our advocacy efforts is at the federal level. Quite frankly, the lack of advocacy is likely why our community was passed up many times for federal funding programs. To establish relationships with federal government officials, we conducted our first mission to Ottawa in April 2024. You can read more about this on Langley City’s website. What really stood out to me is that many in Ottawa had no idea that Langley even existed (City or Township), so we had our work cut out for us.
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| Lunch Meeting with MPs during 2024 Ottawa Mission. Select image to enlarge. |
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| Meeting with MPs during 2024 Ottawa Mission. Select image to enlarge. |
Building on our last mission, we are planning another trip to Ottawa this fall. Councillor Albrecht, Wallace, Leith, White, and our CAO, Francis Cheung, and I will be building relationships and advocating for our community. Some specific advocacy topics include:
- Increasing immigration and settlement support for Langley
- Renewing the Building Safer Communities Fund
- Funding Langley City’s infrastructure needs
- Updating the building height restrictions within the Langley air zone
As I did last time, I will keep you updated on the progress of the mission
Like a three-legged stool, if one of the legs is missing, it's just not going to work. I believe that Langley City Council is representing, governing, and advocating for our community to the best of our ability.
1 comment:
Keep up the great work Nathan!
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