Frankly Speaking

Tom Gill, who has been a member of Surrey council since 2005, is the Surrey First candidate for mayor in the October civic election. Surrey residents who pay even minimal attention to city politics must have been scratching their heads in recent weeks. One-term mayor Linda Hepner was retiring, but nobody was stepping up to the plate to take her place. This in the second-biggest city in B.C., where there are a host of serious issues facing the next council. It also occurred at a time when mayoral candidates in other cities, among them Vancouver and Delta, were coming out of the woodwork. There was a reason for the silence. No one was going to step up until the Surrey First slate, which has held every seat on council for the past seven years, said what it was going to do. The first hint came on Wednesday, when Surrey First Coun. Bruce Hayne announced he was leaving the slate. Clearly, some sort of backroom struggle had taken place, and he had lost out. Then on Friday, thre...

Rich Coleman's new responsibilities for BC Hydro, which he assumed in today's cabinet shuffle, are a signal that the BC Liberals want to deepen the fissure between the NDP and the Greens over the Site C dam project. The objective is another election, as soon as possible. Most people may think the revised cabinet announced by Premier Christy Clark on Monday is simply rearranging the deck chairs on the rapidly-sinking Titanic. On the surface, that is absolutely correct. However, a closer look at the new cabinet could lead to the conclusion that Clark is outfitting them with life preservers, in the strong hope that this new cabinet will all board life boats, and make their way aboard a new ship. The new responsibilities given to Langley East MLA Rich Coleman illustrate this point perfectly. He has been named minister of energy and mines, with responsibility for BC Hydro. He is still deputy premier, even though that fact was left out of the news release announcing th...

One night after the B.C. party leaders’ debate, the four candidates in the new Langley East riding gathered Thursday to give their positions on a large number of issues, at an all-candidates’ meeting sponsored by Greater Langley Chamber of Commerce and the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board. The candidates are Rich Coleman of the BC Liberals, who has represented Fort Langley-Aldergrove in the B.C. legislature since 1996; Inder Johal of the NDP; Bill Masse of the Green Party and Alex Joehl of the Libertarians. The former Fort Langley-Aldergrove riding was renamed because it no longer includes Aldergrove – that portion of Langley is now in the Abbotsford South riding. Inder Johal is the daughter of Amrik Mahil, who ran for the NDP in the Surrey-Panorama riding in 2013, placing second to Marvin Hunt of the BC Liberals. He told me his daughter was determined to represent the NDP as a candidate in this election. Moderator Scott Johnston, president of the chamber, asked all the quest...

One of these three people will serve as B.C.'s next premier. We will likely know which one has won the voters' approval for the job sometime late in the evening on Tuesday, May 9. At top is BC Liberal leader Christy Clark, who has been premier since 2011. In the middle is NDP leader John Horgan. At the bottom is Green Party leader Andrew Weaver. I was privileged to be asked to moderate an all-candidates' meeting for candidates in the two main Langley ridings, sponsored by Langley Seniors Community Action Table. It was organized by Marilyn Fischer and other memers of the round table. They did a superb job. It took place today (April 19) at St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in Langley City. About 90 seniors, plus two members each of Langley City and Langley Township councils, were on hand. Eight of the nine candidates in the Langley and Langley East ridings were on hand. Inder Johal, the NDP candidate in Langley East, was sick and unable to attend. Unlike m...

Martini Film Studios puts Langley up there with some big players in the fast-expanding world of made-in-B.C. entertainment projects. The new facility in the former Starline Windows plant on 96 Avenue in Port Kells features no less than eight sound stages. It is the brainchild of Gemma Martini, and almost literally happened overnight because the Martini family also owns Starline. They already owned the land and the building, and they saw a good business opportunity. With some renovations, they are now in business. The studio was shown off to guests at a special opening event on Tuesday. As the North Langley community director for the Greater Langley Chamber of Commerce, I was pleased to be invited to attend and am very excited to see firsthand this major boost to the Langley and B.C. economy. The B.C. film industry is responsible for a full 60 per cent of all such work in Canada - a figure considerably higher than I would have believed. The Martini studio itself is expected to creat...

Premier Christy Clark's job is on the line. Voters in 87 B.C. ridings will decide on May 9 if her government deserves another term. The 2017 provincial election takes place on May 9 – less than three months from now. Yet in Langley, the level of political activity thus far has been quite subdued. Perhaps the biggest change is that one of the two Langley ridings has been renamed, and significant portions of eastern Langley are no longer part of the former Fort Langley-Aldergrove riding. The riding, in place since 1991, has been renamed Langley East. All of Langley Township east of 248 Street and south of Highway 1 is now located in the Abbotsford South riding, while the portion east of 264 Street and north of Highway 1 is in the Abbotsford West riding. This effectively takes Aldergrove out of Langley, for provincial purposes. While this seems strange, considering that the two Langleys have been served by two ridings continuously since the 1991 election, it is not with...