That’s right, I’m running! Without further ado, here’s my platform. I hope you vote for me for New Westminster City Council!
Housing
Housing is obviously the number one issue in New Westminster. There are people who would say yes to everything and people who are concerned about overdevelopment. Obviously the people who say yes are right, and I’m hoping that you’ll say yes to Brad in New West with my fantastic housing platform.
First, some people are concerned about too many towers in New Westminster. They block views, they throw too much shade, they create concrete canyons. I totally sympathize. There’s nothing I would want more than to walk down a street and not be shaded from the blazing sun. I hear skin cancer is a myth anyhow. And that’s why the first plank in my housing platform is to do away with towers. No new towers in New Westminster! And especially no more towers downtown where they can block views! Instead I propose a single six-hundred storey tower to be built at the top of New Westminster at the Westburnco Sports Courts. It’ll be perfect! Because it’s at New West’s highest point there aren’t any views to block! It’s not downtown!
Now I’m sure that some of you are going to poo-poo that idea. That’s okay, disagreement is fantastic, and that’s why I’m willing to compromise. Instead of a single six-hundred storey building, and in keeping with my NO NEW TOWERS theme, I propose a series of underground buildings. That’s right, instead of going up let’s go down! You can’t block a view with a hole in the ground! I affectionately call this one my “Morlock Manors” plan. These underground buildings will also be cool in the summer and warm in the winter, as the ground acts as a natural thermal regulator. That means less electricity used on heating and cooling, which means they’re better for the environment!
Now I’m sure some of you are going to poo-poo that idea too. And that’s why I have a third idea. I propose giving a series of grants to Douglas College to found a Materials Science department, and direct them towards innovating a cost-effective replacement for cement and steel that is also transparent. This new material will be used in all new builds taller than three stories. That’s right, with transparent towers you don’t have to worry about blocking a view, you can just look right through to the mountains and the Riverfront!
Transportation
Transportation is obviously the number one issue in New Westminster. Traffic is a nightmare, and most of it is caused by people from outside of New West driving through New West. My first transportation proposal is therefore to ban private motor vehicles from crossing New Westminster’s borders. Whoever’s in is in, whoever’s out is out. No more through-traffic means no more traffic! New Westminster’s streets will be for New Westminster’s residents! Oh and of course because transit is the best we will let every SkyTrain and bus cross into and out of New Westminster however they please.
But what about getting goods into New Westminster? Astute readers will note that I didn’t ban trains or bicycles, which gives industry a choice of transportation options. I look forward to the fleet of electric cargo bikes being used for deliveries within New West! But wait, there’s another option, and it ties into the current Q2Q ferry and my proposal for replacing this service.
The Q2Q ferry pollutes and it’s relatively slow. That’s why I propose replacing it with the Q2Q Qatapult. Bonus: turn it around and you have a quick and effective way to get people from Downtown to Uptown! And with a series of Qatapults around town we can use them for delivering goods to all of New Westminster’s neighbourhoods!
Obviously the Q2Q Qatapult will be fully accessible from the very start. What kind of city implements a transportation project that doesn’t accommodate all of its citizens? A crazy city, that’s what kind of city.
Tying into my Westburnco Estates proposal, we will obviously need some way to get all those people around. And let’s face it, some people are not too keen on traveling by Qatapult. That’s why I’m proposing high-speed rail between the six-hundred storey tower and the Braid SkyTrain station. At a modest 300kph the travel time will be a zippy 26 seconds!
I was going to propose a tunnel underneath New Westminster from Sapperton through to the Queensborough Bridge (but definitely not the Stormont Connector, that’s crazy) but that’s already in the Master Transportation Plan. Ah well, it’s not like other New West political parties aren’t proposing things that are already in the works, so what the hell! Let’s put a tunnel underneath New Westminster!
Note that I have no idea how much this will cost in materials and labour and whatnot, but it’s not like proposing these things without figuring that out has stopped anybody before!
Parks and Recreation
Parks and recreation are obviously the number one issue in New Westminster. Some people want to make sure that the Canada Games Pool keeps its ten lanes when it gets rebuilt despite it only having eight now, and some people want to make sure that sports like trampoline and gymnastics that don’t involve buying a shit-ton of equipment each year are killed by postponing the Arenex replacement construction. These are crazy ideas. Mine are much more sane.
My first proposal for parks and recreation builds upon the city’s recent parklet projects. I feel that this is too slow. One parklet per 
neighbourhood per year is just too darned slow. And that’s why I am proposing a parklini project, where unused tires are filled with dirt and have a tree planted in them. We can easily put down twenty parklinis a year and scatter them around the city, beautifying every neighbourhood equally!
And for the kids, some of the parklinis can be filled with sand and turned into sandboxinis! Wow, this is a sure-fire way to get the toddler vote, it’s almost like I put a little thought into this!
And let’s be fair, hockey and lacrosse are Canada’s national sports, so it only makes sense to invest in and promote them. Luckily we don’t need to do anything stupid like build yet another arena because with the drastic reduction in vehicles on the street we have acres and acres of pavement for street hockey and street lacrosse!
Continuing with the outdoor theme, I propose what I like to call the “JJ Lee Expedition”. Every Friday at noon a random selection of New Westminster residents will portage to Downtown Vancouver and hunt businessmen for their pelts, which will be brought back to New Westminster to turn into new clothing. Hey, JJ Lee didn’t call his book “The Measure of a Man” for nothing!
Economics
Economics is obviously the number one issue in New Westminster. With no businesses how do people live here?
The answer is simple. New Westminster is embracing various economic clusters. We have the health care cluster, other people have proposed a bridal shop cluster, and I’d like to hereby announce a bagel shop economic cluster. This will be centered in Victoria Hill, and all commercial shops in Victoria Hill will be required to sell locally-made bagels. Now you too can have your daily bagel, New West! The only restriction for this will be around naming: no naming your company “Royal City Bagels” or “Hyack Bagels”. Think up something original for a change, people!
Miscellaneous
Miscellaneous is obviously the number one issue in New Westminster. I have a number of proposed policies to deal with this contentious issue.
Voter turnout in New Westminster is woeful. Some people say the way to help increase turnout is to engage the youth. I totally agree, but I don’t agree with who they target — people between 18 and 35. Who cares about millennials anyhow? They’re too busy eating avocado toast to worry about civic politics. That’s why I’m proud to be the first to announce a tween platform to try to improve the turnout for the all-too-important 10 to 12 age group. New Westminster needs an anthem, and who better to write and perform the anthem than Beyoncé? I hear she’s called Queen Bey and who better than a Queen to write the Royal City’s anthem? All official communications will be done via FaceTime. Council meetings will be held on a public Minecraft server, and all committee meetings will be held in Roblox. Flossing will not only be encouraged, it will be mandatory. And no I’m not talking about dental hygiene, old people, I’m talking about the dance! Geeze, dad!
Amalgamation seems to be all the rage these days, with Toronto going completely ape-shit and taking over half of Ontario, and the North Vancouvers taking a look into merging (yeah, I didn’t know there were two North Vancouvers either!). New Westminster needs to buck the trend and anti-amalgamate. Each neighbourhood will become its own city! And because of this we’ll have more mayors and therefore have a stronger voice in Metro Vancouver! Take that, Vancouver! You can’t push around all ten or twelve or thirteen or god knows how many of us there’ll be!
I also propose an official commission into finally figuring out just how many neighbourhoods New Westminster has.
Some people say New Westminster is Vancouver’s Brooklyn. While I don’t agree, I do think that we need to explore this idea further. That’s why I’m proposing razing New Westminster to the ground and rebuilding it to be exactly like Brooklyn. After this grand project is complete, New Westminster’s film industry will flourish as all of those films set in Brooklyn can now be filmed in New Westminster!
And I would like to finish with my most serious platform plank. Politics has been dominated by white men for too long, so I’m not actually running. Surprise! I bet I had you all fooled there!
So instead of voting for me, go out and support women and people of colour and people from other underrepresented groups who are taking the brave step in running for public office. And most importantly go vote!