By Rob Wipond, February 2012

Not many people know that local police and the RCMP have already begun building a massive public traffic surveillance system. And no one knows how they’re going to use it.

The A News reporter and Nanaimo constable interwove: “amazing,” “blown away,” “overwhelming.” “This will revolutionize the way we police,” proclaimed Vancouver police in The Province.

Both media and police across North America have engaged in such trumpeting about Automatic Licence Plate Recognition (ALPR). The RCMP and BC government piloted ALPR in 2006 and have expanded it rapidly. BC now has 42 police cruisers equipped with the technology, including one with the Victoria Police Department (VicPD), one in Saanich, and two in our regional Integrated Road Safety Unit.  

By Katherine Gordon, January 2012

Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Ah-in-chut Atleo thinks the situation at Attawapiskat is one of many signs Canada is at a tipping point in its relationship with First Nations. The system has failed, says Atleo: it’s time to “smash the status quo” and start over again.

National Chief Ah-in-chut Atleo was speaking at a philanthropy conference in Toronto last October when stark images of families in Attawapiskat, Ontario, living in uninsulated tents without power or running water, started flashing across Canadian television screens. 

By Rob Wipond, January 2012

On January 31, a panel of local experts will talk about new ways to ensure your savings, RRSPs, and investment dollars help strengthen our community sustainability and resilience. We offer a preview of some of the ideas they’ll address.

During her presentation at the Community Social Planning Council of Greater Victoria’s recent annual general meeting, economic development expert Nicole Chaland brought out a perspective-shifting number: $360 million. 

That’s how much Greater Victoria residents invested last year in Registered Retirement Savings Plans (RRSPs)—enough to effectively double last year’s growth in Greater Victoria’s entire gross domestic product. Yet instead of boosting our economy or helping improve our community, most of that enormous wealth of ours was simply drained away into globalized mutual funds.

By Ross Crockford, January 2012

What happened to the plans for commuter rail?

For a few hours in 2008 and 2009, residents got an idea of what it would be like to take a commuter train between Langford and Victoria. 

One Saturday in August, in both those years, Jim Sturgill ran a 70-passenger VIA Rail “Budd” car back and forth between Goldstream Avenue and the old CPR roundhouse in Vic West, as part of E&N Days, a summer celebration of the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway. “It worked very well,” says Sturgill, a veteran trainman who operated locomotives on the E&N for 30 years. During 2008’s one-day test, he made six round trips, taking about 25 minutes each way—a challenge for any car driver trying to reach the same destination by navigating the stop-and-go traffic on Douglas Street or Craigflower Road. 

By David Broadland, January 2012

Two competing visions emerge on how to mitigate climate change at the regional level.

This community’s most notable response to the threat of climate change—BC Transit’s proposal to spend $1 billion on light rail transit (LRT) from Downtown to Langford—has been guided by the belief that the bulk of population growth in the CRD over the next several decades will inevitably occur in Langford and Colwood. The idea is that LRT will lower the carbon emissions associated with more people travelling between Langford-Colwood and the core municipalities (Saanich, Victoria, Oak Bay, Esquimalt, View Royal).