Course:IGS585/OK2019WT2/SpeakerToddCashin

Todd Cashin - Regional District of Central Okanagan

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The following table are the pairings for commenting on each other's reflections. These pairings are unique for each reflection.

Author - Commenter Pairs

Nicole Bamber	Aditya Shingvi Chandrakanth	Maria Correia	Madeline Donald	Stephenie Hendricks
Ariele Parker	Ian Turner	Amarpreet Kaur	Nadia Mahmoudi	Jeffery Nishima-Miller

Ariele Parker

Reflective Thinking. While I enjoyed the field trip to the Regional District of the Central Okanagan, I was disappointed by the lack of focus on sustainability. I felt like the presenters did not create specific content to review with us as a class focused on sustainability so it was hard to remain focused and attentive during the field trip as it did not seem as relevant to the course learning objectives as I had hoped. However, I decided to take this as an opportunity to consider what each presenter was saying and how some of the challenges they brought up could be re-approached from a sustainability lens.

Analysis. I found it a bit hard to follow each of the different individuals as they talked about their specific fields. The woman who spoke about licensing and dogs seemed the furthest removed from the subject of sustainability. I did enjoy seeing the GIS mapping. It was very interesting yet also highly surprising that they don’t know how many users visit the website monthly. I think that if I were in the role of maintenance and creation of new maps it would be of high interest to know how many people were using the tools that I created and maintained as it would be a great way to ensure ongoing job security.

Making Connections. As I mention in each reflection, I am a Canadian citizen and grew up in Alberta till the age of 16 then moved to British Columbia. I strongly identify as a Western Canadian and I make connections to the course material through this lens. Furthermore, I have a bachelor’s degree in business management from UBC Okanagan and nine years working in the marketing industry prior to starting my masters. Based on both my cultural roots in Western Canada and my professional experience in marketing, I identified right away that some of the challenges that were mentioned could likely be addressed by having someone focused in a role of marketing and communications on staff. Both Stephanie and I commented to one another a few times throughout the afternoon that they really could use someone on staff with skills such as mine that could assist with bringing in feedback and getting ongoing participation from the community. Hopefully in the years to come this will be an avenue that they consider to further engage millennials and Gen Z.

Nicole Bamber

Ariele,

I completely agree that there was a disappointing lack of sustainability focus. Especially since our class is about sustainability policy, they should have focused more on sustainability. However, I fear that they may have presented all they have on sustainability, and that it actually is not a focus for them. Your idea for community participation is a good one, because it is often difficult to get the public engaged in policy. I am part of a group that tries to engage with political bodies on the topic of sustainability, so I would be thrilled to have more active engagement between concerned citizens and governing bodies.

Ian Turner

In our visit to the RDCO, I was particularly struck by something the second speaker said in response to my asking “what happens when different strategies have goals that butt up against one another”. Perhaps I was not completely clear in my question, as I meant what happens when these goals contradict one another or suggest different methods of action. I was left unsatisfied with the answer I received, that they work to make sure that the goals of different strategies either don’t overlap, or, if they do, only do so to address the same overarching issue.

This, to me, seems remarkably short-sighted. I struggle to see how anything meaningful can get done if you aren’t taking into account the different interactions between the goals of different strategies. I think this makes it likely that, upon accomplishing the goals of one strategy, the work must be completely undone a few years later as part of the goals of another strategy. For example, one strategy to reduce flooding hazards may be to decrease intensive agriculture on slopes in order to maintain the soils ability to assimilate rainwater. However, in the next agricultural strategy, it may be identified that a method for increasing agricultural productivity in the region may be to expand agriculture up slopes. Obviously, these goals directly contradict one another, but, based on the answer to the question I asked, it seems like they would not take this into account.

I must, therefore, return to the point that I made in my first reflection: the need to take a multi-criteria approach when dealing with issues of climate change and sustainability. As long as policy-makers continue to focus on single issues one at a time and independently of each other, it becomes increasingly likely that we will fall into a cycle of doing and undoing policy decisions indefinitely without making any real headway towards solving the issues.

Aditya Shingvi:

While I agree with Ian, that administration often times tend to be short-sighted when looking for solutions, I would at the same time like to point out it is not always possible to attribute a problem to a specific cause. There may be several forces in play that need to taken into consideration each and every time a decision is being made. I also agree that doing and undoing of policies are also leading us nowhere is assessing the severity of the issue of climate change.

Stephenie Hendricks

Todd Cashin was very interesting when telling us about very complex systems comprising local government. I especially liked being in the District conference room where decisions are made that impact so many people.  I appreciated how generous he was with his time and sharng of information.

Todd and his colleagues all seemed to me to be a bit overwhelmed and stressed. I came away from this experience thinking that Kelowna has grown so fast that the human systems infrastructure is being mightily challenged to keep up with it.

I was particularly struck by Todd’s comments about when new challenges arise, that they suddenly have to become experts, such as with climate change or 5G. While Todd mentioned 5G was a “federal issue,” his colleague explained that they have been taking comments from the community for sharing with the Directors. I got the impression that 5G is an issue Todd mainly deflects, not one that he wants to understand (or perhaps feels he does not have bandwidth) so effective decisions about cell tower radiation hazards in residential areas can be made.

The story about the measures Todd had to deploy to keep the hospital from flooding in 2017 demonstrated that he and his colleagues have lots of commitment and also have capacity to innovate solutions to the unexpected challenges.

We never got to hear about the water systems. I am interested in who manages the water systems. For those getting surface water, is it tested for perchlorate seeing as how there is an international airport with jet fuel emissions raining down every day? For treated sewage water that is released into the lakes, is this tested for endocrine disrupting chemicals from birth control chemicals in urine? Prozac derivatives, also, do not break down easily in water, do they test for that? Mercury? Lead? Neurotoxins in general? How about pesticides like glyphosate or chlorpyrifos (linked to lower IQs in children)? I taste chlorine in Kelowna water. The highly hazardous breakdown product from chlorine is dioxin, do they test the water for that?

I wanted to ask if there were ever any health surveys in the Okanagan. As a visitor, I feel I have run into a lot of people who have experienced cancer here.  Is there a link to the water?

I didn’t ask about these things because Todd seemed as though he might already feel under pressure from all the other many issues he has to juggle, and I am assuming he didn’t have answers for those questions. But they are important questions with perhaps no jurisdiction to address them.

I was glad Madeline asked about the “non-voting” First Nations’ Director. Todd’s explanation, while I am sure it is accurate, was disturbing. Is the Westbank Nation being punished with a barrier to participate in regional governance for not signing a federal government treaty?

In light of some of Maria’s area of focus, it seems that First Nations’ engagement on a voting level might offer innovative solutions that’ll be needed more and more as climate change speeds.

Jeff Nishima-Miller

I also left with the impression that the RDCO has a lot on their plate. I think this solidifies the importance of community engagement, as it offers the possibility for innovative solutions and load sharing to some degree (even if it is only ideas an opinions of community members that are being shared). While saying this, I was also impressed with the RDCO’s capacity for innovate solutions.

On the point of water contaminants/emerging issues (i.e. 5G), I share your concern. As the world population continues to grow, climate changes, and new problems arise; local governance structures will continue to be challenged by unexpected/new issues. The important and often difficult questions you mentioned should be asked now (given the appropriate opportunity and venue), as they are the first step in building resilient communities that are well adept to confronting these challenges.

I was also glad that Madeline addressed the “non-voting” First Nations representative. This is problematic, and I hope that there is resolution to this in the near future. The answers to resolving the British Columbia land claims negotiation process are both complicated and confusing. Solutions are needed that offer respectful and just outcomes.  

Nadia Mahmoudi

Being the Urban, rural, regional dynamics student, I found attending in the Regional District of Central Okanagan was interesting to me. In my own country, I used to work in the ministry of road and urban development, and in this session, I learned that all the government organizations in all levels function in the same way! There is not a clear line that defines the division of the responsibilities among different government organization and they are defined based on compromising and agreements. As a result, the policy making process would have a long bureaucracy, requiring too many meeting at different levels; and in the end, all the parties may think that the final decision is not exhaustive and well-focused.

In this session, they introduced some of their ongoing projects, among which STPCO (Sustainable Transportation Partnership of the Central Okanagan) was the most related project to my focus. I went through their website to learn more about this project. I learned that it used to be active since 2002, and their latest plan in this regard was a 3-year transportation plan for 2018 to 2020. However, browsing in the website, I realized that the Transportation Committee is no longer active and transportation is now under Governance and Services Committee all of the responsibilities that the Transportation committee used to have including,

·     Regional Transportation Planning

·     Transportation Demand Management

·     Regional Trans

it Services, including handyDART

·     Cycling Network

·     Urban Trails

is now under the first role of the Governance and Services committee responsibilities:

• Air Quality, Engineering, Parks, Planning, Environment and Transportation
• Regional Service Review
• Fiscal Capacity
• Governance Issues involving the Regional Board
• 9-1-1 Service
• Emergency Planning
• Financing

In my perspective, regional transportation in Okanagan valley is not sustainable and needs a good focused development, as the only available regional-scale transportation means other than car is bus, which is not as sustainable, regular, frequent, and facilitated, as it is desired.

The other part that was relevant to my focus was the GIS maps. I work with maps often, and these maps are very detailed and useful. What I do in my transportation planning is to extract data from these maps, use them in excel/SPSS, compare the status quo with the standard indexed in find some alternative solution, change the numbers in the excel sheet, analyze again find the results, in case one or two alternatives is desirable, I attempt to apply it on the map to build my model and find the best short term and long term plan for transportation.

The problem is that not good GIS maps are available for us to work on, and most of the students tend to use US maps for their studies, as they are publicly accessible (and then claim that Seattle is similar to Kelowna in terms of size and construction). I was unaware that such maps exist in Canada, and they do not give access to the students in here to work with these maps.

Madeline Donald

In light of Nadia's above reflection and following comments in class I look forward to hearing what she thinks of the upcoming city council meeting, during which the councilors will discuss the results of the city's recent transport survey: "Survey says build roads but reduce vehicle dependency". I find myself wondering if, and if so in what way, a municipal government might conduct such a survey in Iran.

I agree whole-heatedly with Nadia that regional transport in the Okanagan is not sustainable and needs help. And, while it is certainly the case that the bureaucracy involved in changing transport in the Okanagan is thick and murky, I also believe individualist values and the comfort of the personal passenger vehicle has lead to many residents in the valley, specifically those with political sway, prioritizing that comfort to the detriment of the the air quality and potentially "greener" transport infrastructure.

Maria Correia

I very much enjoyed our first city visit to RDCO, as it reminded me of the challenges in operating in the real world and introduced me to a new level of local government of which I was generally unfamiliar.  I also recalled my own experience at the World Bank when having to justify our strategies, approaches and actions to visitors with difficult questions.  

Overall, I was struck by the fact that sustainability and climate change were not explicitly mentioned in RDCO’s work and the Regional Growth Strategy priority projects 5-year plan.  It was promising that the regional districts have come together to prepare a (forthcoming) climate report.  But I was dismayed that the theme did not figure prominently in RDCO’s work.  The Regional Flood Management Plan was the exception, but this is related to adaptation, not mitigation.  What about water sustainability in a region that is the driest in terms of water availability and the highest in water consumption per capita in Canada?   And this is only one of the challenges the region is facing.  Todd’s reference to the engineers working at RDCO, who with their conventional training are ill prepared to work on wicked climate change issues, reminded me of how difficult institutional change can be.

I got the sense from the meeting that the public has limited awareness of the work of RDCO, as well as its potential.  The fact that RDCO is addressing relevant issues such as poverty reduction is a case in point.  This is a significant issue, and one that the general public should be aware of and engaged in.  Tod’s response that the public does not display much interest in RDCO is surely a constraint.  But given that the regional district offices play an important role in holistic challenges facing the valley such as climate change, the RDCO should consider a more effective outreach strategy, including for example applying social marketing strategies.

Like others in the class, the fact that First Nations do not have a vote caught my attention, however, it reminds us that indigenous rights are still being negotiated in BC and in Canada. What is important at this juncture is that Syilx representatives are at the table and that they are prominent in regional activities, as the RDCO website suggests.

All in all, the visit to the regional district was a bit of an eye-opener.  I was aware of RDCO’s existence and somewhat conscious of their work but had no idea of the changing nature of their work (poverty reduction - very interesting indeed).  As for my own research, RDCO and its counterparts in the valley, are clearly a key stakeholder in addressing social-ecological issues in the Okanagan, which I need to engage in my work.

Amarpreet Kaur:

Hi Maria,

Firstly, I always enjoy and learn new things from you discussions, questions and the way you think critically. I really appreciate that you captured the points that were missing somewhere in RDCO talk and articulated it very well. I agree with you that RDCO did not seem to be very much concerned for sustainability and climate change. They should take into consideration sustainability of water as water is a basic need. For sure, RDCO has a lots of work to do which people are not much aware of. I believe community engagement with RDCO would help to implement strategies and policies more smoothly and efficiently. Furthermore, your concern about First Nation's rights is admirable.

Jeff Nishima-Miller

Our class visit to the RDCO office was an interesting opportunity to learn about local governance structure and operations. I was particularly interested in the strategic priorities outlined by the RDCO and how/if these strategic priorities will be achieved more easily by enhancing community engagement.

In particular, the RDCO strategic priorities of ‘environment’ and ‘sustainable communities’ were of particular interest to me and related to this course’s topic. As explained on the RDCO website, the strategic priority of ‘environment’ is in place to “initiate and support efforts to reduce our environmental footprint, adapt to climate change and connect with nature”. Strategic priority of ‘sustainable communities’ is in place to “initiate and support efforts to create a healthy built environment in which all people throughout the region enjoy access to a diverse range of housing options, remain safe in the face of emergencies and experience a high quality of life”.

Goals of reducing our environmental footprint, adapting to climate change, and supporting a healthy built environment both require collective action. Without the support of community members (i.e. community engagement) and collaborative governance, these goals becomes seemingly impossible; as traditional executive led initiatives will not cut it. I see increased community engagement as an opportunity for achieving the strategic goals by aligning with community concerns, aspirations, values, and by inspiring collective action.

As discussed with Todd Cashin, facilitating meaningful community engagement is becoming more difficult. People are generally perceived as ‘busier’, priorities are changing, and as a result, community engagement has decreased. I left our time with Todd impacted by this, as I consider myself someone who is genuinely concerned about issues surrounding the environment and sustainability- but I have never participated in community engagement forums on local topics. Reflecting on my own lack of engagement, I can narrow some of the barriers and reasons being: accessibility (i.e. lack of relevant information regarding engagement opportunities), lack of incentives (i.e. will my engagement make a difference?), lack of time (hard to fit in time to participate into work/life/school schedule).

I am left wondering how community engagement can be increased in Kelowna so that the productivity of environmental and sustainability goals can be achieved? Could it be incentivized? Operationally, perhaps online community engagement forums might offer an effective means of engaging community members within a modernized society? With new forms of community engagement still come questions of inclusiveness and representation from community members across socio-demographics.

I don’t see a clear one size fits all answer to this. This will be an interesting topic that I look forward to exploring throughout the semester.

Stephenie Hendricks

I agree with you, Jeff, about how important community engagement is to insure the effectiveness of solutions for the challenges of sustainability. I appreciate that you broke down some of the issues with getting community engagement from your perspective. Not having enough time and not knowing if it makes a difference are difficult to maneuver. But connecting to people and getting the word out – in this day and age of social media and so much connectivity, there is a pretty big opportunity to get community engagement happening. The question is, is there an infrastructure to handle it? Seems to me that Todd is already handling so much way beyond what might be considered community engagement. If the city were an NGO, I might suggest that they hire a professional “membership coordinator” just to do outreach and handle some sort of process for engagement, for making this known on a URL of some sort (Facebook, a Wiki, ?), and then design a path from all of that to the City Council. Maybe there could be some sort of “citizen incentive” to become involved – tax break? Free membership to H2O? Town donation to your charity of choice for every X amount of hours engaged?

Aditya Shingvi With the need to satisfy the varying expectations of soo many stakeholders I think the only way to go ahead would be for our leader to take firm decisions. This week's reflection is based on our visit to the Regional District of Central Okanagan's (RDCO) offices here in Kelowna. Something that really bothered me was what I interpreted as the lack of fully defined responsibilities and accountabilities between the regional district and the city. The line becomes even more blur when you are actually want to rally the administration to make decisions for something as controversial as climate change. With the need to satisfy the varying expectations of soo many stakeholders I think the only way to go ahead would be for our leader to take firm decisions. Regional districts are not required to plan for climate change ( probably because of their limited resources or lack of knowledge) I am still not fully sure as to who is actually responsible to mitigate events that can be attributed to climate change such flooding of the lake, excess rainfall or snow etc. I remember how Todd mentioned how a resident uphill decided to empty the pool water recklessly on to the roads leading to a landslide on a property downlhill. Its true that human activities can directly result in events such as landslides like Todd mentioned or simply as a result of climate change which is more of gradual irreversible process. While there were considerable efforts in the area of mitigating the effects of climate change such as the "Regional Flood Management Plan" I feel the people in power are deliberately avoiding to attribute events like the flood in the valley in 2017 to climate change. It was rather surprising that there are no current standards for accounting for investments made by regional districts, the city or even the provincial and federal government to even set policies for climate change.

Ian Turner

Aditya, I could not agree with you more about the lack of defined responsibilities for each level of government. The number of times it was brought up that the regional district was a child of the provincial government and therefore has to get permission from the provincial government to do things was shocking to me. How such a system can actually get anything done is a mystery to me, considering there are 29 regional districts across the province that presumably all have to follow the same procedure. To expect even semi-quick turnaround on permission from the provincial government when 29 districts are all doing the same thing, plus all the other responsibilities a provincial government has, seems almost foolish to me at this point.

Amarpreet Kaur

This week's visit to RDCO was very interesting and knowledgeable for me. It made me learn about the structure of the local government, its working process, strategies and how they work on ground level that I was not aware of. Todd and his team briefly discussed their responsibilities and ongoing projects in a well precised manner. Due to short time span, I believe it was not be possible for them to discuss every aspect in deep details. To scrutinize more, I also visited the RDCO website and found it very informative. As my research majorly focuses on the drinking water systems, I specifically examined the water management system and realized that their water systems information attributes (water system distribution, bylaws, wastewater management plan, water bill calculator tool etc.) were very useful for public concerns i.e. if they want to know the details of their water provider. like, what is the source of water they consume? how water is treated? how water bills are generated? how do they manage the waste water? etc.

However, the thing which made me more anxious was the sustainable use water; what does not seem to be a matter of concern for them. As I could not find anything related to "sustainability" on their website and in their discussions as well. Moreover, I remember Todd telling about the responsibilities to manage the assets by answering five major question (about developing, operating, maintaining, upgrading, and disposing of assets in the most cost-effective manner), It was a technical perspective to look at assets. Nevertheless, I was able to connect with it very well ,thanks to the asset management course I took last year, so I was pretty familiar with engineering perspective of managing the assets.

The best part that i really enjoyed was GIS maps. I am also working on GIS maps in my research, these maps nicely present the views and the topography of the region. There are some source files that are public on their website but not all. I think they should make it open to all if possible so that students can use them in their research.

Maria Correia

Thanks Amar for your perspective. I too enjoyed the section on the GIS maps, and found myself immediately familiarizing myself with the websites and searching for maps and information of particular interest to me. I am sure I will use the GIS resources for both personal and professional purposes in the future.

As for the discussion on water, knowing your research topic as I do, I can see how water management would catch your attention. And I share your concerns about the lack of discussion on water sustainability. As I indicated in my own reflection, this should be an issue of interest to all of us in the Okanagan, and particularly to our public officials. The fact that water management is a collective resource spanning communities and regional districts in the watershed, makes it particularly relevant for RDCO. But in the end, it is our responsibility as citizens to make sure that the regional district and other levels of government respond to this critical sustainability issue and others.

Nicole Bamber

At our meeting with Todd Cashin and various other members of the Regional District of Central Okanagan (RDCO), I gained a better understanding of what the RDCO does, as well as their views on sustainability. Particularly, I was struck by the fact that many classmates were asking the presenters specific questions about sustainability, and they did not seem to have much in the way of specific sustainability policies. Similarly to how I felt after the first lecture by Dr. Garrard, I left this meeting with a sense that the RDCO does not focus on “sustainability” as a goal, rather they addressed threats to society and wildlife. Based on the insights from my first reflection, it is possible to view sustainability as simply protecting the things that are emotionally, spiritually or culturally important to sentient beings. This is exactly what the RDCO aims to do, with activities such as fire and flood mitigation.

Todd also mentioned that expressing concern for sustainability issues has not always been viewed favourably in institutions such as the RDCO. However, it is clearly a priority of theirs to maintain natural resources and protect citizens from natural disasters. To me, those things are a part of sustainability. However, to others, “sustainability” may have negative connotations such as reducing economic prosperity, and sacrificing quality of life. Tying back to last week’s discussions on communication across differing opinions on climate change, the RDCO’s actions may provide some insights. Instead of focusing on sustainability policies, they focus on protecting the natural and man-made environment in the regional district, both in the present and in the future (i.e. sustaining the environment and our activities in it). In this way, they can please both climate change believers and deniers.

However, my fear with policies like this is that there may be trade-offs between our society’s current desires, and actions that would be beneficial for long-term sustainability. In fact, when Ian asked one of the presenters at the RDCO what they would do if different objectives conflicted with each other, she either did not understand or tried to evade the topic. To me, this indicates that they are not considering trade-offs between their different objectives, including between satisfying society’s desires now and protecting the long-term sustainability of our environment. I believe that the RDCO should put more of a focus on sustainability, because it can often get overlooked when prioritizing current needs. I also believe there is a large enough proportion of society that cares about the environment, that government bodies would get a good amount of support from an action like this.

Ariele Parker

Nicole,

Many of the points in our reflections mirror each others in terms of takeaways. I appreciate your mention of a definition of sustainability as "protecting the things that are emotionally, spiritually or culturally important to sentient beings. It is interesting to me that Todd mentioned an area of sustainability that is important in the future is emergency disaster relief yet addressing larger issues such as how Kelowna can do its part to assist in lessening impacts to the environment that cause climate change were not high priority. I think a really good takeaway for us to keep in mind is that this is the "Regional" District and there is only so much power a region holds compared to provincial policy or national policy. Until budgets are allocated to lessen climate change at the regional level it is unlikely it will be prioritized unless activists get more involved locally.

Madeline Donald

All week the words "non-voting member from Westbank First Nation" have wandered around in the front of my mind. I learned a lot last Thursday, and am grateful for having had the opportunity to sit in that room and ask questions to Tod Cashin and his colleagues. My primary take away though was those words, "non-voting member from Westbank First Nation." What do those words, and the associated reality, imply about the priorities of the Regional District of the Central Okanagan?

Tod explained, when I blurted out my first question about the phrase and the people and structures upholding its validity, that it was a provincial matter. Westbank First Nation (WFN) would have to sign a treaty first if they wanted voting rights a the regional district level. So they are twelve voting bodies, plus one. I find myself wondering whether or not they actually must report back to the provincial government after voting on any given motion: "We've voted 6 for and 6 against. Stalemate." Might they have the power to say, "We will vote as thirteen, and make our decisions accordingly, for what we decide here is relevant here, and to all the people within the geographic bounds of the regional district."? And if they do have that power, whether or not they know it, is it not the responsibility of the board to execute, to push back on the forces acting to perpetuate patterns that lead to cession of land to imperial powers?

If the presently non-voting member from WFN would be uninterested in voting even if given the opportunity, that is quite another matter, which was not discussed, and over which I cannot speculate.

Jeannette Armstrong, an influential Syilx elder and UBC Okanagan professor, has written on the subject of what it means to be a sustainable community. Included in that piece is the following statement, "To the Okanagan People, as to all peoples practicing bio-regionally self-sufficient economies, the knowledge that the total community must be engaged in order to attain sustainability is the result of a natural process of survival." If sustainability is a goal for the regional district, which it may not be, but if it is, there will have to be some fundamental restructuring of their democratic process and principles.

Nadia

Madeline,

I am glad that you pointed out this matter. For me, it is no easy task to add a comment to your reflection. For me, a woman who has fought for her rights in a man-oriented community for 30 years and eventually leaving her country seeking better life opportunities, realizing that the inequality also exists here in Canada was not at all interesting. In my perspective, not only for a sustainability goal but also for any form of a healthy community goal, this fundamental restructuring of the democratic process is vital.