Langley City Council’s Ottawa Advocacy Mission: Transit Funding, Reducing Gang Violence, and Infrastructure Funding

Over the past two days, I’ve been posting about Langley City Council’s second advocacy mission to Ottawa. Our first mission was in April 2024. You can read more about our advocacy efforts to update airport regulations, allowing for more housing options near Willowbrook Mall, and to transform Langley City into a Food Tech hub, supporting good jobs and a Canada-first supply chain, in previous posts. Today, I will focus on the remaining meeting we had while in Ottawa last week.

As you know, Canada has several regions, including BC, the Prairies, Ontario, Quebec, Atlantic, and the North. At the federal level, government MPs also have regional caucuses that bring regional matters to the attention of their fellow MPs, with the hope of prompting action. We met with Taleeb Noormohamed, who is Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation and is also the Chair of the Pacific Caucus. There were two regional matters that we want to bring to his attention.

Councillors Paul Albrecht, Rosemary Wallace, Leith White, and I talking with MP Noormohamed. Select the image to enlarge.

The first item we talked about was transit funding in Metro Vancouver. Langley City’s Official Community Plan is built around transit and providing people with travel choices; expanding transit service is critically important not just for Langley City, but for the whole region. During the meeting, MP Noormohamed noted a misalignment among local leaders, the province, and the federal government regarding transit funding. As a next step, he offered to bring local leaders, provincial government leaders, and Metro Vancouver MPs together in a room to drive alignment. Interestingly, I don’t believe this has ever happened before. I thought this was an excellent next step.

Many municipalities in Metro Vancouver, including Langley City and Township, received funding from the federal government to reduce gun crime and gang violence. Langley City and Township partnered with the Langley District to deliver a program to school students called Project Black Feather. This funding is coming to an end, and we have requested that the Pacific Caucus ask for the funding to be extended to continue supporting programs like Project Black Feather.

We also met with MP Scott Aitchison, who is the Shadow Critic for Housing for the Conservatives. He was also the former Mayor of Huntsville, Ontario. We talked about the need for the federal government to invest more in replacing aging water and sewer infrastructure. MP Aitchison believes that the federal government should be doing more to fund housing-enabling infrastructure, and he suggested that, as a next step, he come and visit Langley City to learn more. I will be working on making that happen.

Members of Langley City Council meeting with MP Scott Aitchison. Select the image to enlarge.

While in Ottawa, we of course met with our MP Tamara Jansen. We provided her with an update on our advocacy efforts and the folks we met with. We had a very good discussion about the need to update the airport regulations to allow more housing options near Willowbrook Mall and around other members of the Shadow Cabinet we should connect with.

A photo with MP Jansen after our meeting with her. Select the image to enlarge.

Over the course of two days, we attended seven meetings. While exhaulting, it was a productive two days, and we have a lot of follow-ups to make in the coming weeks and months based on the connections that we made to support our community.