{"id":35505,"date":"2020-10-09T03:59:44","date_gmt":"2020-10-09T10:59:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=35505"},"modified":"2020-10-08T12:37:47","modified_gmt":"2020-10-08T19:37:47","slug":"ndp-proud-of-their-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2020\/10\/09\/ndp-proud-of-their-record\/","title":{"rendered":"NDP proud of their record"},"content":{"rendered":"

Selina Robinson\u00a0<\/strong>(photo from Selina Robinson)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Premier John Horgan sent Selina Robinson a message: \u201cA mensch is a good thing, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

Robinson, the NDP government\u2019s minister of municipal affairs and housing, is seeking reelection in the riding of Coquitlam-Maillardville. She sees herself as the Jewish maven around the cabinet table.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said yes, who called you a mensch?\u201d Robinson recalled. \u201cHe just wanted to double-check.\u201d<\/p>\n

As she and other New Democrats campaign toward the Oct. 24 provincial election, Robinson and fellow cabinet member George Heyman spoke with the Jewish Independent<\/em>. (In this issue, we also speak with Jewish candidates and spokespeople for other parties.)<\/p>\n

As minister of housing, Robinson takes pride in the development of a major initiative called Homes for B.C.: A 30-Point Plan for Housing Affordability in British Columbia. Her ministry engaged with housing groups, renters, developers, economists, local government officials, planners and other thinkers. Then they convened people in a \u201cWorld Caf\u00e9,\u201d an engagement exercise in which people from different perspectives sit at a table and must come to agreed-upon recommendations on a topic.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was from that that we picked the best ideas and so it really came from all sides of the housing sector rather than pitting them against each other,\u201d she said, acknowledging that she had to convince some to buy into the process because bureaucracy is not always amenable to novel approaches.<\/p>\n

She cited two particular areas that she wants to \u201ckvell about.\u201d BC Housing, the agency that develops, manages and administers a range of subsidized housing in the province, is building housing on First Nations land.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe feds, I don\u2019t think, are building a lot of Indigenous housing and they\u2019re supposed to,\u201d she said. \u201cNo other province has stepped up to do that.\u2026 You\u2019re a British Columbian and you need housing \u2026 if it\u2019s land on reserve, it\u2019s land on reserve \u2013 we\u2019ll build housing.\u201d<\/p>\n

By providing housing in First Nations communities, it also helps people remain at home, rather than moving to the city, where housing is even more expensive and possibly precarious, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very proud of that,\u201d Robinson said.<\/p>\n

The other point of pride is, Robinson admitted, \u201ca geeky piece of legislation.\u201d When she stepped into the role as the government\u2019s lead on housing availability and affordability, she recognized that there is no data on what kind of housing exists and what\u2019s needed.<\/p>\n

\u201cLocal governments are responsible for land-use planning and deciding what kind of housing goes where \u2013 this is going to be multifamily, this is going to be single-family \u2013 but, if you were to ask them, how much do you have, how much more multifamily do you need, they couldn\u2019t tell you, because nobody was collecting the data.\u201d<\/p>\n

She brought forward legislation that mandated local governments to do a housing needs assessment every five years to identify whether more housing options are needed for different age groups and types of families.<\/p>\n

She also cited the government\u2019s development of social housing, through the allocation of $7 billion over 10 years to build 39,000 units. So far, 25,000 units are either open, in construction or going through the municipal development process.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy biggest worry is that the Liberals [if they are elected] will cancel all of those that are still in the development stage because they did that in 2001 when they formed government,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re so far behind the eight ball because they did that. I\u2019m not saying it would have fixed everything, but, if there were another 5,000 units of housing out there, it wouldn\u2019t be as bad as it is because there would be another 5,000 units.\u201d<\/p>\n

Every Friday, Robinson lights Shabbat candles and then shares a reflection on social media about her week.<\/p>\n

\u201cLighting the Shabbat candles just grounds me in my identity,\u201d she said. \u201cI make myself take 10 minutes on a Friday at sundown to stop and to clear my head and to remind myself why I do the work. It\u2019s not for the pay. It\u2019s not for any of that; it\u2019s not worth it. It\u2019s who I am, what are my values and what\u2019s important to me? What did I hear this week that reminds me of why this work is important?\u201d<\/p>\n

Robinson admitted she\u2019s being partisan in saying that she believes NDP values are Jewish values.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom my perspective, taking care of the world \u2013 whether it\u2019s the environment, the people and all that\u2019s within it \u2013 is our collective responsibility,\u201d she said, adding with a laugh: \u201cI think all Jews are New Democrats who just don\u2019t know it yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

George Heyman, minister of environment and climate change strategy, is seeking reelection in the riding of Vancouver-Fairview. He is a son of Holocaust refugees, who escaped the Nazis with the help of Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese diplomat in Lithuania who illegally issued visas to about 6,000 Jews, many of whose descendants now live in Vancouver.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
George Heyman\u00a0(photo from George Heyman)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In 2019, Heyman took a family trip to Poland, which broadened his awareness of his family\u2019s history and where he met family members he never knew he had. The Independent<\/em> will run that story in an upcoming issue.<\/p>\n

Speaking of his record in government, Heyman expressed pride in bringing in CleanBC, which he calls \u201ca very detailed, independently modeled set of measures to get us to our 2030 target and beyond.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also said the government \u201ccompletely revamped the province\u2019s Environmental Assessment Act, incorporating the principles of the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collaborating with the First Nations Leadership Council, the government adapted the legislation to bring in affected local communities at the beginning of a project, before a proponent spends millions of dollars then has to go back to the drawing board due to local concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been investing in clean technology, we\u2019ve approved transit plans that were stalled for years that the mayors of Metro Vancouver thought were critically important,\u201d Heyman added. \u201cWe\u2019re going to see the Broadway [SkyTrain] line commence to relieve the tremendous congestion on the Broadway corridor, both on buses and on the roads. And we\u2019ll be working on ultimately being able to work with UBC and the city and the federal government to extend that to UBC.\u201d<\/p>\n

The government, he said, updated the Residential Tenancy Act to address tenants who were being threatened with eviction for suspect renovations and that saw people getting notices of rent increases as high as 40% because of loopholes in the act.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe closed those loopholes, we held rent increases to the cost of living unless there is a legitimate demonstrated need to do renovation and repair and it\u2019s fair to receive some compensation rent to pay for that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Like Robinson, Heyman cited the construction of affordable housing, as well as supportive housing, to get homeless people off the street and provide them with services they need. He said the government has created 20,000 childcare spaces in the province \u201cwith significant fee reductions for families as we work our way toward a $10-a-day program.\u201d Increased staffing in schools, mandated by a Supreme Court decision during the previous regime, is also an accomplishment, he said, as well as adding more investments in new schools for seismic upgrades, fire safety and heating and ventilation systems.<\/p>\n

On the opioid crisis, Heyman acknowledged a surge in deaths since the beginning of the pandemic. \u201cWhile there is much more to do, we managed to flatten the level of deaths up until COVID hit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Also parallel to the pandemic was a realization of \u201cthe terrible state of many of our long-term-care homes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe saw that deteriorate under the previous government,\u201d he said. \u201cWith COVID, we saw the results of that. We saw people dying because workers were having to go to two or three different care homes, increasing the risk of infection, simply to cobble together a living. We took measures to allow our healthcare workers to work in one institution without suffering the loss of pay and we\u2019re also investing in more beds and more equipment for long-term-care homes.\u201d<\/p>\n

New Democrats have been governing in a minority situation with the support of the Green party since 2017. Horgan called the snap election on Sept. 21, facing criticism for breaking fixed election date legislation and going to the polls during a state of emergency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Selina Robinson\u00a0(photo from Selina Robinson) Premier John Horgan sent Selina Robinson a message: \u201cA mensch is a good thing, right?\u201d Robinson, the NDP government\u2019s minister of municipal affairs and housing, is seeking reelection in the riding of Coquitlam-Maillardville. She sees herself as the Jewish maven around the cabinet table. \u201cI said yes, who called you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":35507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6422,9784,4304,3200,3249,2845,6944,6312,6977,1677,5665,7824,7008],"class_list":["post-35505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-british-columbia","tag-covid-19","tag-democracy","tag-economics","tag-elections","tag-environment","tag-george-heyman","tag-governance","tag-healthcare","tag-ndp","tag-new-democrats","tag-policy","tag-selina-robinson"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}