Voters want candidates to be clear over Ajax
KAMLOOPS – The votes are in and of the 200 people who responded to a Kamloops Voters Society survey, 72 per cent want city council candidates to take a clear stance on the proposed Ajax Mine.
The Society has released the results of the online poll conducted earlier this month and on many questions there was a clear consensus among those surveyed.
When it comes to elections more than 85 per cent want to see a cap on financial contributions, more than 58 per cent want to see a limit of two terms on council for both mayor or councillors and 96 per cent want to see increased voter engagement and turnout for municipal elections.
The survey also tackled issue-specific items such as the proposed Ajax Mine, a tax increase to cover the costs of a performing arts centre, better pedestrian and bicycle networks and food security enhancements.
In total 144 of the 200 people who took the survey want to see candidates take a clear position on the proposed mine, 150 want to see enhancements to food security and more than 70 per cent want improvements to make Kamloops more pedestrian and bicycle friendly.
The only question to see a split down the middle was whether there should a tax increase of $25-50 per household to cover the costs of a performing arts centre — 88 people said no, 86 said yes and another 25 gave no opinion.
The survey grabbed a cross section of the population, with the number of men and women who took the survey evenly split and the largest age group to respond being those aged 50-69-years-old. Only 19 respondents were in the age range of 18-29. Respondents also came from all over the city, with just over 25 per cent living in the South Kamloops-Downtown area.
Questions born out of the survey will now be forwarded to council candidates and their responses will be made public on Nov. 3.
More than half of those surveyed also posed questions to candidates in an ‘open question’ at the end of the survey. Questions varied from public education and park space, to snow removal and policing. Many questions revolved around those already covered in the survey as well, mostly with term length and Ajax.
“Make a bloody decision on Ajax. I am so sick of hearing about it,” one respondent noted.
The society hopes to use the survey to work with the Kamloops Vote 50 campaign to increase voter turnout to 50 per cent.
In 2011 only 29 per cent of eligible voters took part in the municipal elections. Kamloops Vote 50 is also working with multiple groups to host candidate forums and mixers to help increase voter engagement prior to the Nov. 15 election.
To contact a reporter for this story, email Jennifer Stahn at jstahn@infonews.ca or call 250-819-3723. To contact an editor, email mjones@infonews.ca or call 250-718-2724.
— This story was updated 5:53 p.m., Nov. 8. An earlier version incorrectly reported the number of responses to one question.
12 responses
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Susan Athena Kerek Seel yes, they’ve subsequently fixed the typo/error that appeared in the first edition
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Just to be clear Peter Kerek, none of your comments posted to this story have been deleted.
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Thanks for pointing out the typo in the story Peter Kerek. It has been corrected. As to you’re query about a post being deleted, I believe if you refresh the page on your browser it will be there.
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Hi Bobby, I spent quite a while submitting a lengthy reply on this page this afternoon only to find that it was deleted soon thereafter. Hopefully that doesn’t happen again.There are a number of services that we currently enjoy that are paid through taxes and are then not charged a user fee, such as hospitals, libraries, parks, roads, schools, so I’m advocating to treat public transit in the same manner. There are dozens of cities around the world that have free transit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_public_transport . The most recent example of the elimination of a user fee is when they took down the toll booths on the Coquihalla and now we all pay a share whether or not we use it.I’m not sure which part of my article seems like a “conspiracy theory” – that’s simply the way many corporations operate, and mining companies are amongst the worst in the world, especially when operating in third-world countries. But you don’t need to take my word for it, you can ask the Steelworker’s local President that represents the Highland Valley Copper workers about the gross violations of worker’s and indigenous people’s rights in other countries, as well as their terrible environmental record – the Steelworkers have a healthy international solidarity program with miners around the world and they have been a valuable resource to me over the years. Or refer to consumer rights advocate/laywer/author Ralph Nader who has many decades’ experience exposing gross misconduct by some of the world’s biggest and most “reputable” corporations. Or look at the continuing use of sweatshops for garment workers where just last year over a thousand workers in Rana Plaza perished in a totally preventable building collapse; the issues around sweatshops are not difficult to address except that they will affect profitability, and that’s not something corporations will submit to voluntarily. It’ll also be interesting to see what becomes of the recent revelations around the 29 – 150 deaths caused by GM Canada’s decision not to recall thousands of vehicles even though they already knew in 2005 that the ignition switch was faulty – we don’t need to go all the way back to my specific example about the Ford Pinto, but I like that example because many people remember it, it has been well-documented, and we can see what the consequences were regarding that cost-benefit analysis that Ford conducted as it took over a decade for all the information to be made public and the court cases to be settled.The miners I’ve spoken with have also said there’s a copper belt that runs roughly from Princeton to the Cariboo. There’s plenty of copper around, but one needs to have the rights to that copper, and right now, unless they’re hiding more information than I thought, the AJAX site is the only profitable site KGHM has rights to.This mine is way too close to a populated area – even Indonesia doesn’t allow mines to be developed within 50 kilometres of an urban centre – and that’s a third-world country that’s surely more desperate for good paying jobs than British Columbians. There aren’t a lot of studies about large open pit mines that were built close to already existing cities because it’s almost never done, but of the studies out there they indicate that there’s actually a long-term negative economic impact on the communities they’re built near for a variety of reasons: some industries are negatively impacted but most importantly the negative health impacts and long-term degradation of the local environment which does not recover or severely limits future potential uses for the land.There are winners and losers with every governmental decision, but ultimately decisions should be made for the greater good by weighing all the long-term pros and cons. Regarding AJAX the long-term risks outweigh whatever short-term gains that might be made by a few who gain. There are many other factors that I’ve drawn out in my campaign statements that folks can refer to as I’m pretty sure I’ve taken up enough space on this page.
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Is there a reason the host deleted my long comprehensive reply to Mr. Iio’s question?
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Is there a reason the host deleted my long comprehensive reply to Mr. Iio’s question?
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Please also note an apparent typo: 164 out of 200 means that 82% want to see candidates state their position on AJAX. The story’s first paragraph incorrectly states 72%.
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Bobby Iio Hi Bobby, regarding transit, it’s really no different than having free roads, hospitals and schools. The entire cost is provided through the tax base rather than charging user fees. The most recent example of an elimination of such a user fee was when they took down the toll booths on the Coquihalla.Regarding corporations, there’s no conspiracy about it, that’s just how many corporations operate. And mining corporations are amongst the worst in the world but you could probably do some digging on your own like I’ve been doing for many years, or just talk to the Steelworkers local that represents the workers at Highland Valley and they’ll tell you of the gross human rights violations conducted against miners, indigenous groups and the environment in, mostly, third world countries like Chile; of course you can look at how many corporations profit from sweatshop labour when they could, knowingly, stop sweatshop practices, however, they couldn’t do it without affecting profitability – and that’s more important.The Steelworkers have a strong international solidarity component of their union and the fact that their Local’s Executive are personally opposed to AJAX speaks volumes. The President of the Local, Richard Boyce, recently said, “…mining companies will say ANYTHING to get approval for their project.” – there’s no reason to believe that their commitment to anything will actually be followed through with – “managers don’t get bonuses for making sure the air is clean, they get bonuses for getting product out of the ground.”Miners tell me there’s a copper belt that runs, roughly, from Princeton to the Cariboo. Companies can mine along there, but, you first need the rights, and KGHM has the rights to this mine right next to Kamloops: they’re not pushing it because it’s the only place one can get copper – they need to push it because it’s the most profitable place where THEY can get copper.I discuss the Ford Pinto in my article because it’s a memorable example for many folks and it happened long ago so we can see what, if any, were the long-term consequences. But one can look at more recent events like the GM ignition/key issue reported last week that is estimated to have killed at least 29 Canadians and possibly up to 150 over the last decade; there’s still lots of fallout to occur over that but the preliminary investigation indicates that they fixed the problem in models made after 2005 without ever ordering a recall to fix earlier models; it thus far looks like the same scenario that Ford created with the Pinto deaths. Ralph Nader is a decades long consumer rights advocate/lawyer that is a good resource for more in-depth analysis regarding corporate malfeasance.Regarding my commentary about the National Post and Conrad Black, that came straight from Conrad Black’s writings and interview talking about the need to develop and promote a neo-liberal ideology through the media and the best way for him to achieve that was to create a whole newspaper that would give those ideas greater credibility in Canada.
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Please also note an apparent typo: 164 out of 200 means that 82% want to see candidates state their position on AJAX. The story’s first paragraph incorrectly states 72%.
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I had a lot of hesitation about writing this because anytime you say anything these days your chastised out the yin-yang, but here goes… I’m neither for or against the mine and one of the people that believes in the environment, but also in due process. I want progress, but not at an unreasonable cost to my families health or their comfortable way of life in our beautiful City. I just don’t understand how you expect to provide free public transportation to the citizens of Kamloops while being against a project like AJAX for what it sounds like is not dissimilar to a good old fashioned conspiracy theory? I like you Peter, but I’m confused how this is supposed to work.
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Here’s the link to an article I wrote last year regarding AJAX: I continue to stand in opposition to the proposal.http://www.kdlc.ca/the-big-gamble-ajax-mine-and-the-corporate-model/
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I a more than happy to be clear on with regards to the Ajax Mine, or any other industry looking at Kamloops as a location… I support strong — and responsible — exploration, mining and mineral processing industry in BC – and that includes right here in Kamloops.http://sharp4kamloopscouncil.blogspot.ca/2014/10/i-support-strong-and-responsible.html
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