"The annual Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) Convention is always a great place to connect with other elected officials to listen and learn. I’m very proud to represent my community as their mayor at this convention. It was a busy week at UBCM, where mayor and council had several scheduled ministry meetings. Council met with the Minister of Municipal Affairs, the Parliamentary Secretary for Fisheries and Aquaculture and the Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General. These were all discussions about how they can assist us in our community, and they all went well. However, there is an election on the horizon, so time will tell.

The big take away for me at UBCM, and I cannot speak for all of council on this, was the slow recovery process for communities that have been devastated by fire or flood.

You would think it would be a fast process to get British Columbians back in their homes and moving forward, contributing and rebuilding communities.

We listened to how the province reached out to communities, homeowners and businesses to help, assist and fund. However, to listen to the stories last week from communities around B.C. that were destroyed, I was shocked.

I was shocked at the province’s willingness to help to get homeowners, business and communities back to a sense of normal, and then place expensive roadblocks in front of their rebuilding. The province is adding in so much bureaucracy, red tape and levels of government to these owners. Owners that are now trying to gain back, and basically must pay for permission to rebuild their homes on their land, in the same space it was before. Frankly, it’s sad that the province is driving this and, I don’t think I’m alone when I say, uncalled for.

We know replacing these kinds of loss is sad, but manageable.  However, the province is asking these homeowners and business for studies that will cost thousands of dollars before these owners and communities can rebuild on their own property.  Their homes have been destroyed, they are homeless and are dealing with one of the most traumatic events in their lives. The province is telling them to hire contractors to do studies on the land where their house once stood. The cost to a homeowner is unrealistic when asked to add a riparian area report and an archeologist study on their land that used to have their home on it: already disturbed land. Let’s put ourselves in their shoes.

Yes, we should care, and we need to be diligent on many environmental and cultural issues. We must especially protect our water and guard it from the quagga or zebra mussels that will cause future devastation and destroy so much. However, this unnecessary stress on British Columbians to pay to rebuild on their own property is not the solution to working together to build a better, all-inclusive, collaborative British Columbia."

- Mayor Colleen Anderson