Gas ban proves it’s time to tear up Vancouver charter
Vision Vancouver has slammed through another ridiculous, expensive green policy, effectively banning the use of affordable natural gas in most new construction.
On Saturday, Andrew Wilkinson, Liberal candidate for Vancouver-Quilchena, vowed that a Liberal provincial government, if re-elected, would amend the Vancouver charter to remove city hall’s ability to ban natural gas or restrict the use of other fossil fuels.
While this is welcome news for the many people in the city upset with Vision’s further intrusion into their lives — in this case one that will make living in Vancouver even more staggeringly expensive — to my mind the Liberals’ promise doesn’t go far enough. They should eliminate the Vancouver charter altogether.
Without getting into a too detailed history of the charter, its origins can be found in the Vancouver Incorporation Act, which became law on April 6, 1886, and officially created the city. The act was in reaction to a decision by the provincial government to grant Canadian Pacific Railway just over 2,500 hectares of land which, according to the Vancouver Historical Society, “included the original downtown (government reserve) area and a vast area south of False Creek, thereby laying the foundation for a real city.”
The new city, according to the society, “included the old bricklayers’ claim, the downtown CPR land grant, the townsite of Granville and CPR land across False Creek up to 16th Avenue.” This new community had to be governed, especially a month later when it burned to the ground.
In 1953, the Vancouver charter superseded the Vancouver Incorporation Act and, according to the city’s website, “grants the city different powers than other communities have under B.C.’s Municipalities Act (sic).” (The legislation is actually called the Municipal Act.)
When Vancouver was the most important community in a province largely consisting of forests, I can see why it deserved special legislation, especially as the terminus of the CPR. But why does it deserve a higher status now? Why should Vancouver City Hall have greater powers than other cities in the region or province such as Surrey, Burnaby, Victoria, Kelowna or Prince George? It shouldn’t. Vancouver’s needs are no longer different than other communities, making the Vancouver charter an anachronism.
This is important because the continued existence of the charter means that Vancouver residents are treated differently that those in other B.C. communities, which makes the Vancouver charter undemocratic and possibly a breach in the broadest sense of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms’ equality and free-movement provisions. In short, why should Vancouverites be treated differently in law than other British Columbians?
Most of the oppressive, intrusive nonsense perpetrated on the citizens of Vancouver by Vision, for instance, does not occur in other B.C. communities because they are governed under the Municipal Act, which limits what their councils can do and leaves the provincial government in charge, where greater sanity usually prevails.
Among the additional powers, the charter gives Vancouver the right to have a park board and control of the Vancouver building code. It is through its unique control of the code that Vision has been able to impose a lot of expensive green rules onto construction that doesn’t occur in other communities.
The natural gas ban is only the most recent example, which includes new and expensive rules for insulation, energy use, windows and even a silly ban on doorknobs. This kind of nanny state overreach by Vancouver City Hall removes what should be the right of property owners to use their property as they wish — within reason, of course.
Like all municipal governments, Vancouver is really just a department of the provincial government. If the Vancouver charter were eliminated and Vancouver were forced, like all other large B.C. cities, to operate under the Municipal Act, Vancouver residents and taxpayers would be treated the same as other British Columbians. The number of zany, expensive notions of current and future Vancouver politicians with agendas would be curtailed.
Having given Vancouver City Hall special powers under the Vancouver charter, the provincial government shouldn’t just pick away at the legislation by eliminating one or two unpopular policies such as the new natural gas ban. The province should eliminate the unfair Vancouver charter completely.