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GVPOD is the podcast of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade. President and CEO Bridgitte Anderson talks to leaders in the business community about the challenges and opportunities they experience, as well as issues impacting our region.
0:00:00.2 BRIDGITTE: Welcome to GVPOD, Greater Vancouver’s business podcast, unpacking the challenges and opportunities facing our region. I'm Bridgitte Anderson, President and CEO of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade. This is the third episode in our series with Vancouver mayoral candidates ahead of the election on October 15. And today, I'm speaking with Vancouver, mayor Kennedy, Stewart, Mayor Stewart, thanks so much for taking time for this discussion.
0:00:27.8 KENNEDY: Thanks a lot for having me. This is really important work you're doing here.
0:00:31.2 BRIDGITTE: So you have a bit of an advantage here, mayor, you are the incumbents, so you can point to your track record and you can talk to voters about that. So, when you look back over the last four years, what would you say are some of your biggest accomplishments?
0:00:46.6 KENNEDY: Well, really, my focus has been on housing, and this is a really personal issue for me, when I was a kid, my family went bankrupt when my dad lost his job and we lost our home, so housing insecurity and instability has been a big part of my life and too many people here in Vancouver have had the same experience, so that's why I've focused on housing, but it's not just a personal connection it’s actually with business. So I was at Abcellera opening the biggest biotech lab in Western Canada recently, and they told me their number one concern is housing for their employees. So housing is the biggest thing, and so I'm really proud of what we've been able to accomplish over the last four years. Just last year alone, we approved 9000 new homes, and people say, Well, what does that mean? That is double the number of homes we approved a decade ago, so that is a lot, and when you think about... We did this in the middle of covid 19 with a deeply divided council, I'm really proud that we were able to do that, but we also shifted the type of housing from a mainly building condos to much more on the rental and social housing side, which is also really good for employees and for the rest of the city, so building right across the housing spectrum, and again, almost hitting 10000 units in one year is the thing I'm proudest of.
0:02:10.3 BRIDGITTE: And the majority of our members, we have asked them this several times over the last many months, but a majority of our members say that the biggest challenge for attracting retaining talent is definitely housing affordability, so we know that you can't solve this problem overnight, so you have made steps to address the housing challenges in this region, in the city. There's still a heck of a lot more to do. So when you look ahead to what could be a second term, what would you do differently, what would you do more of to try and get more housing built quickly?
0:02:46.1 KENNEDY: Yeah, I mean, so I just had a housing announcement today, actually where it’s my first announcement of the campaign where after looking through the numbers and talking with the industry, we're going to triple our housing targets that are set into Vancouver housing strategy. Those are currently set at 72,000 units over 10 years. I'm confident that we can hit 220,000 units over the next 10 years, and that is by doing all kinds of things, from having specialized planning teams for big projects, to opening up parts of the city for stratification on single detached lots, moving from, say, one to six units, that's something that the city is already have passed, and so just bringing a lot more supply online and making sure it's for every sector of the economy, mostly rental, but also for market purchase homes and town homes, and lots of it kind of outside the core and in parts of the city where we already have lots of amenities, so that's on the approval side, again, tripling the amount of housing that we approve here in the city, but also on the permitting side, we've had a task force running now for about a year headed by our city manager, and we've had some great success.
0:04:10.1 KENNEDY: For example, for the very simple kind of repairs you might do in your home or you need a permit, we've cut that time down to two weeks, which is by a lot of adjustments and cutting red tape. So we wanna keep doing that. But secondly, when we pass the Broadway plan here in the City, council empowered me to start negotiating with the province to make adjustments to the Vancouver Charter to simplify our process, that there's been around since the 1950s, and I have been actively engaged in those negotiations, and I'm very optimistic about what I'm hearing from the province, that the Province will help us move ahead and bringing us in line, frankly, with what other municipalities have the ability to do. So, I think in combination, this will really help on both sides of the housing equation on the approvals and on the permitting side.
0:05:05.0 BRIDGITTE: So there's lots to dig into here. Let's start with lots of positive intention for what could be a second term, but that is going to require collaboration and some alignment on council, which has been pretty darn difficult in the past four years, a non-majority Council, so how much of being able to really accelerate your agenda requires to have a majority on council that agrees with you.
0:05:35.1 KENNEDY: Yeah, I was optimistic at the beginning of my term and things were... Well, probably until covid hit in 2020 and then things really fractured, we have I think six political parties and 10 Council positions, so it increasingly got divided, and if you've watched one council meeting, you'll know, it's very, very unpredictable, and many large investors and builders have come to me and said, It is costing them... The banks are looking at loaning them money to do these big housing projects, and they're saying, I'm sorry, on the council here is too unstable, it's too uncertain, and we're gonna actually increase the amount of equity that you need to put into this.
0:06:16.2 BRIDGITTE: A lot of frustrations on a number of council decisions that just could not get to an outcome.
0:06:23.0 KENNEDY: And I would say almost every big project, there's many big projects that are delayed. The St. Paul's Hospital site, the Molson Site South and North False Creek, many, many sites around the city that could be accelerated with a unified Council, and that's why I'm really proud to be running with six very high quality council candidates with a lot of experience in the housing sector so
0:06:45.3 BRIDGITTE: Civic Politics 101, what is the responsibility of the Mayor and trying to bring a council along?
0:06:53.2 KENNEDY: Yeah, again, I think it worked pretty well, and I point to the record of my focus on housing, getting 9000 units approved last year, homes approved last year, took a lot of effort, and getting four budgets passed, took a lot of effort. The thing is the time that it took a lot to negotiate and again, watch one council meeting, how many points of order, how many Council motions and amendments, that has to stop, and it's not just frustrating to watch, it's hurting us financially, it's hurting those folks that are trying to start businesses that are... The banks are saying, We're not gonna lend you money if you can't get things through council. So that's very serious and that that's why I need a team with me in Council next time around.
0:07:35.1 BRIDGITTE: So I'm hearing you say that there is only so much that could be done from the position of mayor or on Council.
0:07:47.9 KENNEDY: I have caucus meetings all the time with the council counselors. We list and respectful. I never attack anybody. Personally, that just makes things worse. So I did everything I could, I think to bring everybody together, but they're all in different parties, so they're all fractured...
0:08:04.1 BRIDGITTE: You mentioned permitting, and we recently surveyed our members and the top five issues facing municipalities at the very top of that is permitting licensing red tape reduction, and I will say that the city has done some work... The task force has made a difference, but we're clearly hearing from businesses that much more needs to be done to streamline permitting, licensing, red tape reduction overall because it does mean costs to business, so what more can the city do to accelerate timelines and to simplify processes.
0:09:36.6 KENNEDY: I hear the frustration like I walk around and take transit all the time, people do tell me their personal horror stories, I did get a great one at Abcellera today though, they said that they were getting ready for the permit to take too long. And they said, Oh no, it was great. And you actually accelerated it, so there are good stories out there, but I point to bringing the 800 temporary patios that are now permanent into the city, and what that took was a political intervention,
0:09:32.5 BRIDGITTE: but that wasn't without controversy, Mayor because it nearly went sideways for this past spring and summer, when the city thought about adding additional obstacles, I'll say for the for the pay was to come back in and it took a ground swell of opposition from businesses and from organizations like herself, which the city then realized that maybe we idn't need to put in a whole bunch more steps to make it permanent.
0:09:36.6 KENNEDY: Yeah, I didn't really see it that way, but I respect your position on that one, but I look at what we've accomplished and how we did it in the middle of covid and the depth of it, I called special council meetings. And we were able to push that through. And that's why I think that it is political leadership that can lead to these changes, I also brought in a new policy where developers who have been stuck in the process for years can now come directly to Council for approval. And that's already up and running. So if you feel like you're stuck in the bureaucracy, you can come directly to council and get a vote on your project, but that took intervention by me and listening to you and your members about what needs to change and then changing it, so... Again, it's not perfect, but as you say, it’s getting better, and I think we've got the approach now to really make some great steps forward.
0:10:36.6 BRIDGITTE: One of the top priorities in the minds of both businesses and residents is public safety and crime, and it certainly has been higher ranked in recent months than it ever has before with our members, and even this past week thinking about that very tragic alarming attack on the fellow who arrived recently from Afghanistan, I think everybody is alarmed and horrified, and so looking at your message to voters about this, how do you address, what is a complex myriad of issues, Homelessness, the opioid crisis, mental health issues, clearly. Something needs to be done, something different needs to be done, a lot of small businesses are struggling to bring in customers 'cause they're just not safe, their windows are being smashed and average citizens aren't safe on the streets either. This is, I think, becoming such a crucial issue for this campaign...
0:11:36.6 KENNEDY: Sure, and let me start, of course, by expressing my deep sympathy for the gentleman you were speaking about who was hurt, and the VPD has such a good solve rate on these cases that I know that the person will be brought to justice if they haven't already been... So that is... And what this comes down to is a core principle that everybody has to feel safe in Vancouver, that really has to underline every candidates platform in this election, and it definitely is the key to mine and how I've tried to operate in the last four years, but you're right on many of the public safety issues that we're seeing in Vancouver stem from mental health and addiction issues, and so we have to fully fund the police so they can do their job that we've done that we're currently spending a million dollars a day on policing, but everyone agrees, including the police, that we're not gonna arrest your way out of this, and the only way out is to provide more supportive housing, more harm reduction and treatment options, more mental health support to get people off the street and the care that they need.
0:12:42.2 KENNEDY: So we've been working well with the police, really grateful the Chief Palmer for his support on the safe supply, and he was a key part of getting drugs decriminalized across the province that takes effect in January, so I think that is really gonna help. But what we need is just more... Last year alone, we opened 1600 units of social housing in the city with many with wrap-around services and complex care, but I do think that you're right, your members are totally right, there are gaps in the current system, and I have a new program that I will be announcing in the coming days.
0:13:32.5 BRIDGITTE: Some of those initiatives, it's the business improvement associations recently have come out and said increased lighting, a number of other kinds of things that help businesses and individuals feel more safe. What are your thoughts around some of those initiatives and how quickly could they be implemented?
0:13:49.8 KENNEDY: Yeah, if I can move to graffiti, like many folks in Chinatown, and Gastown are saying graffiti was really off the charts with the council, and I said, We need to get $500,000 to the BIAs so they can do the good work and work with local businesses that was approved, we got that in right away. So those are the types of things we hear from the community what they need, and then try to try to find the money to make that happen, but lighting is essential, especially for women. We hear this and we are investing in new lighting around the city, but I know that the Downtown Business Improvement Association wants a whole new lighting program, which we'll try to work into our capital budget in the coming year.
0:14:33.6 BRIDGITTE: We’ll come back and talk about that after the election. One issue I would be remiss if I did not raise it, I've spoken to you about this before, is mobility pricing, and the Board of Trade is on the record, we were opposed to the approach that was considered, we urged a holistic regional approach and raised concern about the cost, which we had estimated and heard about approximately $250 million to set up, so city council and yourself approved the climate emergency action plan in 2020. Part of that plan includes an amendment to have city staff report back in two years with a feasibility plan on road pricing, and one of the mayoral candidates in the election campaign claims that if you're re-elected, you will move ahead with mobility pricing. I wanna give you a chance to respond to this.
0:15:20.9 KENNEDY: Thanks so much, let me be clear right now that I do not support this tax, and it's because it's inequitable, I would never support it, and the city doesn't have the authority to do that. Now, you mentioned my opponent Ken Sim who keeps running ads about this, but he's... This road tax campaign is fake, he's simply misleading the voters, and what I want him to do is to come clean and pull this misleading advertising campaign. I don't support the tax... City of Vancouver does not have the authority to do it. And frankly, what the study showed it is that the public hates it business hate it, and again, that we can't do it.
BRIDGITTE: So why our city staff coming back with a feasibility report then?
KENNEDY: The amendment that you mentioned at the beginning of your statement was put forward by an ABC councillor, Ken Sim’s own councillor put this forward to look at, and again, on the night that vote happened, I was prepared to vote down road tax and this, the mobility pricing study, or the mobility pricing right away to put nails in its coffin, because again, I don't agree with it, just like I did with the permitting, the Parking permitting program where I was the deciding vote that shut that down because I thought it was inequitable, I feel the same way about mobility pricing.
0:16:37.4 BRIDGITTE: But it a feasibility study, going ahead and will that come back to Council in well it said two years, so I guess probably sometime in 2022 or 2023.
0:16:47.8 KENNEDY: Yeah, so Councillor Rebecca Bligh put that forward as an amendment, it was supported and then it came to the entire council and it was... The funding for that study was supported by the entire council 'cause it's in the capital plan, so that study will come forward and come back because that's what council endorsed for the budgeting process. All councillors, but again, I don't support this tax, it's inequitable, and I would never support it, so I think people have to know that. The other thing that's crucial, and then what we learn through this discussion is that the city does not have the authority to do this.
0:17:23.7 BRIDGITTE: We did discuss that actually you were on our stage and you can say the city doesn't have the authority, so... I don't... It probably makes many of our members wonder why there's a feasibility plan under way if the city doesn't have the authority.
0:17:37.3 KENNEDY: And this is the problem with only having one, vote in council for the last four years is that this was a Council endorsed, the funding for this was endorsed by council. If I had my way on the night, all this came forward, and I was prepared to do it on the night, was just to kill this off once and for all, unfortunately Rebecca Bligh put forward or motion. And here we are.
0:17:58.9 BRIDGITTE: And you voted for it though...
0:18:01.5 KENNEDY: Sure, 'cause I support being a Chair of council when councillors are putting things for it, I tend to not enter in debate as you'll notice if you watch, and I tend to support most things that come forward, so it's more of a road thing, it wasn't something that I put forward myself and again, in the capital... In the capital budget, it was supported by all councillors who supported the capital budget, so for me, I'd rather this thing just not be discussed anymore, but that's what councils decided, and as in the millions of votes that we go through, you'll see that's a pretty set pattern
0:18:36.8 BRIDGITTE: It will be a hot topic for some time yet, I know we're almost at time here, and we've talked a fair bit about the challenges facing the city, but I do wanna end with some of your vision and optimism for the future. Our city has a great deal of potential, and so what are you seeing as the greatest potential and what excites you about a potential second term?
0:19:03.0 KENNEDY: Yeah, I mean, I think we all know that Vancouver is the best place in the world to live, and we know that here because we live here, but actually through covid I've been able to speak to many, many mayors around the world, and most of them point back to how well we've done through covid, because we all stuck together as a community, one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, some of the shortest periods for lock down many, many, many of our businesses surviving, so that points to how much people care about the city and how great it is, the other thing I'm very optimistic about is we’re the third fastest growing tech hub in North America... So business is booming here, and we're just trying to build enough office and lab space and transit and housing to really meet the demands of the business that's coming to the city. So I'm very optimistic about our future, and I think everybody should be... And that's everybody from young people, working families, women, seniors, businesses, I hear the stories about people's hopes and dreams, and I'm very optimistic about our future, so I really want to have a second term to complete, unfinished business, just announced a very ambitious housing plan, 220,000 units over the next 10 years, triple the current target, and I know we can deliver this and we can reduce the housing stress that people feel in the city.
0:20:40.5 BRIDGITTE: Mayor Stewart, thank you for taking the time to discuss policy and a number of the challenges and opportunities facing our region as well. I want to encourage everyone to make sure they get out and vote, municipal election turnout is often quite low, and I think there's an opportunity here and a lot of interest in this election, so... Voting day is Saturday, October 15. So get out and vote. Thank you so much, Mayor Stewart.
0:21:05.9 KENNEDY: Thanks very much.