New living wage just rose (and property crime dropped)
And how did Prince George MLAs do in the shadow cabinet?
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives just dropped its new Living Wage report, which is the amount of money calculated that two parents working full-time would need to each make in order to support a family of four. Prince George was calculated at $22.93/hr, a 3.8 per cent increase from 2023 when it was $22.09/hr. That’s quite a bit less than Vancouver at $27.05 and about on par with other medium-sized cities like Kamloops ($23.69) and Nanaimo ($23.79). The report mostly focuses on Metro Vancouver, but does have a note about cities without good transit: “Transportation costs are higher in many smaller communities that have inadequate (or sometimes non-existent) public transit networks. In those communities, a family requires two cars to get around, which pushes up expenses and therefore increases the living wages in those communities.”
On a vaguely related note, I took the bus yesterday but the starting location was along 15th Ave. and the end location was downtown (and then back again later on) and I was reminded that as long as your along 15th Ave., it’s like we live in a real city in terms of transit because the bus was just available when I wanted it, and went straight to my destination without meandering side quests. Would be amazing to have more routes like this.
On a related note,
wrote a new newsletter about his plans to act locally and try to encourage urbanism within the city:The success of Bogotá’s Ciclovía wasn’t just about cycling—it was about showing people that small, consistent changes can transform a city’s culture. Prince George has its own examples of this, like the growth of the Saturday Farmers’ Market.
What used to be a few booths and a run down building beside The Keg now regularly shuts a piece of Quebec St. and stretches all the way down 3rd to Queensway.
…
The problem PG appears to be stuck in is that progressive candidates with strong urbanist and deeply progressive values rarely show up in the municipal election circuit and, truthfully, I can kind of understand why - the voters don’t really seem to turn out for them when they do.
….
All I can do is to tell you this is what I’m focusing on:
Writing this newsletter and trying to get more people on board with the densified PG and walkable downtown mission.
Chatting more with friends about good urban planning and the invisible forces that influence our perception of downtown.
Yelling at (kindly) people who think homelessness is the only reason our downtown is struggling.
Identifying friends/colleagues who I think could be interested in running for politics with progressive, urbanist values and helping them wrap their heads around it NOW as opposed to the 11th hour.
Reading more books, listening to more podcasts about urbanism.
Those are just excerpts. Read the whole thing here.
Crime drops
Property crime is down year-over-year in Prince George, RCMP say, with a 19 percent drop in vehicle theft, 18 percent drop in residential break and enters and a 24 per cent drop in break-ins at businesses, amomg other stats. Downtown business owners want to take it further and are talking about hiring private security to patrol the area.
Shadow cabinet
All three Prince George MLAs made it into John Rustad’s shadow cabinet, which is 39 people compared to 24 ministers in government, plus 4 ministers of state. With 44 members elected, one of whom is Rustad, that means only four Consevative MLAs didn’t get some sort of shadow cabinet position.
Sheldon Clare is deputy whip, a position I forgot existed, and Rosalyn Bird is critic for Citizen’s Services and Kiel Giddens is critic for Labour and I did have to look up what both of those ministries do. By comparison, in the last legislative session Shirley Bond was the critic for health and Mike Morris was critic for public safety and solicitor general.
Gieddens has his first article as critic, saying “will fight for workers’ rights and will pressure the provincial government to create a business-friendly environment that makes it easier for entrepreneurs and small business owners to thrive.”
News roundup:
A 14% wage increase over three years is on the way for city workers in Prince George.
Interview with councillor Trudy Klassen on her bid for more public washrooms.
Rare 95-million-year-old dinosaur tracks found near Tumbler Ridge.
Young Blizzard speed skater continues to shred her own record book.
National Youth Remembrance Contest winner reflects on experience in Ottawa.
Open Data site a useful tool on City of Prince George website.
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Send feedback by emailing northerncapitalnews@gmail.com. Find me online at akurjata.ca.
I think my main response is we now have evidence that there are people who want an urban lifestyle.... And as a result, they don't stay in Prince George. https://akurjata.substack.com/p/in-25-years-downtown-prince-george It's self-selecting. At a certain point, if the city wants to be sustainable it probably needs to deal with this
The densification topic as well as dropping crime rates and affordability are all seem to be driven by emotions instead of evidence based decision making. The recent dropping crime rates article in the PG Citizen for example, had the majority of its “usual suspect” commentators offering reasons why these stats were lying and why you shouldn’t trust them. The same thing happened when Ben Kenobi mentored Luke Skywalker to blindfold himself and trust his feelings against his enemies. That ended well…eventually. So maybe my bad feeling about this human dynamic is misplaced.