Tag: patrick johnstone

New West Progressives: Claiming Victory For Stuff They Voted Against

July 8, 2024. New Westminster Mayor Patrick Johnstone submits a motion to have staff update the City’s travel policies to make travel by members of Council more transparent, requiring them to write a summary of their travels, include the expenses incurred, describe their learnings, amongst other things. The motion passes, but Councillors Daniel Fontaine and Paul Minhas, both of the New West Progressives, oppose it.

January 27, 2025. New Westminster City staff return a report to Council describing proposed changes to the Council Travel and Expense Policy to make travel by members of Council more transparent, requiring them to write a summary of their travels, include the expenses incurred, describe their learnings, amongst other things. The motion passes, and this time Councillors Daniel Fontaine and Paul Minhas vote in favour, but the motion would have passed regardless of how they voted.

January 29, 2025: New West Progressives claim success, saying “thanks to your NWP representatives on Council, we’ve made some real ‘progress’!!”

Also January 29, 2025: I write a blog post pointing out how Patrick Johnstone brought forward the initial motion that got the ball rolling, how Daniel Fontaine and Paul Minhas of the New Westminster Progressives voted against the motion, how city staff did the work between July 2024 and January 2025, and how in January 2025 Daniel Fontaine and Paul Minhas of the New Westminster Progressives took credit for it despite doing nothing but vote at the last possible step.

Facebook Screenshot from the New Westminster Progressives claiming victory for work they played no part in other than voting in favour at the very end
Daniel Fontaine “I Made This” meme

Patrick Johnstone answered my questions!

Patrick Johnstone is running for Mayor of New Westminster, and he answered my questions! He started with this preamble, which was nice to set the context:

Dear constituent. Thank you for your thoughtful questions, I have endeavoured to answer them in the spirit with which they were intended. 

Given the amount of press Vancouver’s Stanley Park received when it had a bunch of coyotes roaming around it, do you support introducing more coyotes into New Westminster’s parks, potentially entering a Tourism / Parks partnership for tourist-coyote meet-and-greet programs?

Hear me out: the Queens Park Arena has essentially the same capacity as the arena the Phoenix Coyotes are playing in this year…

Improving connections between Queensborough and mainland New Westminster is important. Will you commit to exploring new options such as draining the Fraser, installing catapults (free branding advice: name them “Qatapults”, you’re welcome), or advocating for a gondola like stupid Burnaby is getting?

One word: Tunnels.

Speaking of stupid Burnaby, one of the darkest chapters in New Westminster’s history was when south Burnaby claimed independence and separated from New Westminster. As a result, New West lost nearly half of its land area and tax base. To what lengths are you willing to go to in order to take our land back and bring New Westminster back to its former glory?

You think adding more Burnaby results in a net increase in glory?

What is your favourite bubble tea shop and flavour?

Do they make one with Geritol in it? Because that’s probably the one I need.

Do you support hosting a local version of Burning Man in New West, culminating in the burning of a derelict building?

I may have dabbled in Burning Man fandom in the past, but my opinions on deserts, exhibitionism and fire have evolved over time, and I have been very public about this. Please see my Blog at patrickjohnstone.ca 

What is your favourite neighbourhood and why is it (still) Brow of the Hill?

We got rocks.

With New Westminster’s hills, and winters having longer cold spells, what is your position on improving transportation options between Downtown and Uptown by installing rope towlines on 6th, 8th, and 10th Streets between Carnarvon and 4th Ave during the winter months?

Two words: Tunnels & Elevator.

When will you bring metal to the Anvil Centre theatre?

With Number of the Beast now 40 years old, and Double Nickels on the Dime almost the same age, I am already planning the Century House Metal & Punk Club. I thought Anvil at the Anvil would be a good launch event, but Lips isn’t returning my emails.  

Thank you Patrick!

And don’t forget to go out and vote!

New West Record embraces recycling

The hottest story in New Westminster over the last few months has undoubtedly been the imminent closure of its only city-run recycling centre and the subsequent uproar from the neighbourhoods of Queens Park and Queens Park Lite. Never a stranger to running stories that’ll get the letters flowing, the New West Record has continued to pump the story with articles coming fast and furious. And of course, telling people to “stop with the hyperbole” always works well, right? If that’s not a clever way to get more people riled up, I don’t know what is.

Take this week’s front page article, for example. It’s not online but the title is “Depot closing date pushed into March”. An entire front page article about a simple date change! Clearly The Record is taking recycling seriously.

And there’s more proof of how much they’re getting into recycling with their story reporting on New West’s school board voting record in 2019, which is an obvious recycling of a blog post written by New West councillor Patrick Johnstone just a month earlier!

Congratulations to the New West Record for being a community leader in recycling! ♻️

Why Am I Seeing This Ad? An analysis of New West election ads on Facebook

If you’re on Facebook, you see ads. They slip into your feed with a little “sponsored” note underneath the ad author. Given it’s election season in New Westminster, if you’ve identified yourself as having anything to do with New Westminster you’ll get political ads for the various mayoral, city council, and school trustee candidates.

For every ad that’s on Facebook you can find out why you’re being shown the ad. Click on the three dots at the top right, then select “Why Am I Seeing This Ad?” and you’ll see the demographics that are being targeted with that specific ad.

I’ve done this for the New West political ads I’ve been shown, and here’s what I’ve seen:

Jonathan X. Cote

A couple of weeks ago I saw some of Jonathan Cote’s ads targeting people living in New Westminster who are older than 25. Unfortunately I neglected to get a screenshot. Since then it appears that he’s broadened his target demographic to people who are older than 18 who live in British Columbia.

New West Progressives

The New West Progressives are consistently targeting people near their business, and those who are older than 30 and live near New Westminster.

Chinu Das

Chinu Das’ ad campaigns are focused on people who like their page people aged 18 and older who live near New Westminster.

Patrick Johnstone

Patrick Johnstone’s campaigns target people aged 19 and older who live near New Westminster.

Nadine Nakagawa

Nadine Nakagawa’s campaigns focus on people aged 18 and older who live near New Westminster.

Mark Gifford

Mark Gifford’s campaigns focus on people interested in Education and (and I seem to be repeating myself here) people aged 18 and older who live near New Westminster.

Gurveen Dhaliwal

Gurveen Dhaliwal’s ads are being shown to, you guessed it, people aged 18 and older who live near New Westminster.

Caveats and Notes

I’m 42 and I live in New Westminster. I fall in all of the demographics listed, which is kind of obvious or else I wouldn’t be seeing the ads. There may be other more specific targeted campaigns that aren’t listed here (like the New West Progressives might have one targeting people younger than 30).

The voting age in British Columbia municipal elections is 18.

Patrick Johnstone answered my questions!

Patrick Johnstone is running for New Westminster City Council, and he answered my questions!

1. There are two types of people in the world: people who like simple pop-culture “what type of cheese are you” quizzes that they can then share on Facebook, and people who don’t. Sadly, I don’t have a quiz for you but this is close enough: are you an order muppet or a chaos muppet? Which muppet are you?

Patrick: I used to think I was an order muppet, then I met Antigone, which convinced me I am the chaos muppet, until I got elected to Council, when I was re-convinced that I am an order muppet, though the answer to this question may indicate otherwise.

2. When was the last time you visited City Hall? What changes would you propose to make City Hall more welcoming? When was the last time you attended a City Council meeting? What changes would you propose to make City Council meetings more welcoming? Sorry, I guess that was kind of four questions.

Today. (Editor’s note: Patrick sent me the answers on September 21 and this post is being published on September 22.)

I think it is welcoming, though we have some accessibility issues that only an expensive major renovation will fix.

Last Monday.

I have several ideas in my Engaged City platform about shifting how public engagement and Public Hearings work, but I think Council needs to be more diverse, we need to work more on speaking in plain language in both council and in our official communications. And freezies. (That was 4 questions).

3. Buy Low Foods recently shut its store in Uptown, leaving a hole in the market for grocery stores. What will you do to ensure that there is proper competition among grocery stores and a Save-On Foods opens in that location, restoring the competitive marketplace that the Competition Bureau foisted upon us in 2014?

There will be no rest until every building in New Westminster contains a Save on Foods. Yes, including your house. Resistance is futile.

4. New Westminster has a number of advisory committees, task forces, and working groups. Upon being elected, which one would you like to chair the most and why? No need to restrict yourself to an existing one either, if you feel strongly that a new one needs to be formed (that you’d obviously chair) feel free to answer that!

ACTBiPed. We are making progress on active transportation policy, but we need to keep pushing to get more of our budget directed towards modernizing our transportation network. Building infrastructure for pedestrians, cyclists, and transit users (and emergent technologies like electric scooters) need to be a top priority for the City.

5. What is your favourite neighbourhood, and why is it Brow of the Hill?

Because I live in the Brow. I love being a 5 minute walk to everywhere (shopping, SkyTrain, City Hall), and I love the variety of housing and my diverse neighbours!

6. The process leading up to and including the public hearing for the temporary modular housing in Queensborough was… challenging, to say the least. This question is only for the non-incumbent candidates: on the final motion to amend the OCP and rezone the property to allow the temporary modular housing, how would you have voted? Please note that you may describe why you would have voted a particular way, but you must say whether you would have voted in favour of or against the motion on the table.

I voted for it.

7. Who would be on your sasquatch hunting team?

Steve Austin, Raoul Duke, and Carl Sagan. And Peter Sagan.

8. How do you propose engaging with renters, new immigrants, and youth?

By creating space and opportunities for them to engage, by meeting them on their own turf, and by seeking out and eliminating the barriers to their participation in civic affairs. For example, I think we need a Renters Association in the City on the same model as Residents’ Associations.

9. With absolutely no apologies to Chris Campbell, what would your entrance music be? Please note that if you dare pick We Built This City by Starship you are hereby banned from ever running for public office ever again.

The National Anthem by Radiohead. I’m back to being a chaos muppet I think.

Thank you Patrick!