Frankly Speaking

The SkyTrain system in Surrey will finally expand past King George Station, if the new Surrey council has its way. It voted Monday to scrap plans for LRT and put the money committed to it towards a SkyTrain line along Fraser Highway. Surrey has had no rapid transit extensions since 1994, despite a huge influx in its population since that time. Surrey council’s inaugural meeting Monday night was a very different type of meeting. While the usual formality was still part of the meeting, the most important part of the meeting came after the formal swearing in of council members. Council held a “special regular meeting,” where two motions were passed – one to begin the process of changing from the RCMP to a local Surrey police force, and another to scrap LRT in favour of SkyTrain. Both of these motions are a direct result of Mayor Doug McCallum’s successful campaign with the Safe Surrey Coalition. A new police force and a push for SkyTrain instead of LRT were the coalition’s two ...

Photo from @jwaldag Twitter account Ziggy Eckardt shows the massive ballot which German voters, who have proportional representation, have to fill out. He used it as a show-stopping visual aid at a town hall meeting on electoral reform in Cloverdale on Tuesday night. Eckardt has been active with the Conservative Party in Burnaby. It was fascinating to attend Cloverdale-Langley City MP John Aldag's town hall on electoral reform Tuesday night. The timing was questionable. Coming in the midst of the summer, when many people are away on vacation, and one day after a long weekend, it seemed very likely that it would be poorly-attended. Such was not the case. There were at least 130 people there, and several hundred more took part via Periscope and Twitter. The federal Liberals campaigned last year on changing the way Canadians elect MPs. Justin Trudeau declared that 2015 would be the last time MPs would be elected using the First Past the Post (FPTP) system. He said so when it s...