Vancouver’s new park board chairman is first Green in the job
The Green party’s Michael Wiebe was elected Vancouver park board chairman this week, after a split among the four Non-Partisan Association commissioners.
NPA commissioner Erin Shum broke with her party to nominate Wiebe as the board’s first Green party chairman, with Green commissioner Stuart Mackinnon and Vision commissioner Catherine Evans making up the required four out of seven votes at Monday night’s meeting.
Wiebe is a 35-year-old restaurant owner, consultant and zero-waste advocate who ran for the Greens in 2014, after earlier working for the park board himself as a lifeguard.
Q What happened Monday; was this something you saw coming?
A It was actually happening throughout the night. We were trying to figure out what was going to happen all the way to the very end. Erin (Shum)’s decision made the biggest difference.
Q You don’t really have a majority caucus; you have another Green commissioner, an independent and a Vision commissioner. What is that going to be like?
A Sarah (outgoing NPA board chairwoman Sarah Kirby-Yung) did a fantastic job as chair last year. I think we can really work well as a team. We aren’t on different sides on a lot of topics. I do like the composition of the board. We approved a biodiversity strategy, we’ve done one for transgender. All the positive things we all want to do are similar.
Q Kirby-Yung brought forward a motion to hold a referendum on whether to continue to allow the Vancouver Aquarium to keep cetaceans in captivity. Do you feel that whales should be held in captivity?
A This is going to be brought up at our next meeting. I’m going to listen to both sides, and we make decisions at the table. We haven’t had a lot of information from the aquarium. I would be making an uneducated decision, to give you an answer one way or the other.
Q What’s your experience with the aquarium?
A As a kid with a single mom, I was there for a lot of the births — two beluga births and one killer whale birth. My mom thought it was really interesting for me to see. One (calf ) passed away eight days later, and we were there for four of the eight days; I’d gone back because I was so excited. That was something that was tough to see.
But I understand the need for education. I like the fact that we can promote so much of what we have in our own waters.
Q What’s your favourite park?
A Charleson has been one I like, for an urban setting. It has water, it has a dog park, it’s got playing fields. It’s on the seawall, the older part of False Creek, and there’s also the pedestrian bridge that connects Fairview Slopes with that park. It brings in so many elements without feeling really designed.
That’s what we’re talking about — what makes a Vancouver park. For me, water quality is going to be a big one. We’ve got otters coming back; we’ve got beavers at Olympic Village. We have such an opportunity now; all this area around False Creek that we’re going to redo with parks, we can really do the biodiversity side of it. There’s a new salt marsh at New Brighton Park being built as we speak. We’re going to be daylighting Tatlow Creek.