Maita Santiago

During my first term, I proposed the motion for Burnaby to join the Sue Big Oil campaign. I also co-proposed a motion with other BCA Councillors for Burnaby to plan for and mitigate the risk of extreme weather events, such as flooding and wildfire, in our Official Community Plan. Both were approved.

I also helped coordinate a delegation of Philippine government officials to City Hall to exchange learnings about how our different governments work to address climate change and its impacts.

I am also Vice-Chair of Burnaby’s Environment Committee, member of Metro Vancouver’s Regional Planning Committee and a member of the Executive Board of the Lower Mainland Local Government Association. In these roles, I support and speak to initiatives that address climate change and mitigate its impacts on residents, especially those most vulnerable, in our city and across the region.

As a member of a community group, I participated in clean-up drives and when possible, I try to use public transit.

This term I participated in the BC Climate Leaders Coaching Program to learn ways to advocate for and advance policies that address and mitigate climate change in Burnaby. I also joined the Climate Caucus to be part of a national network of local leaders also committed to this urgent issue. And to access resources to help us in our work.

I will continue to build on what I learned this term and seek to develop relationships to help Burnaby move towards meaningful action. And I will also continue to work with local non-profits to find ways to support and amplify their work.

As a BCA Council Candidate, I am committed to building more sidewalks and street lights and prioritizing safe routes to schools, parks, and community centres. I will also continue to invest in active transportation, including multi-use pathways that connect parks, schools, and town centres and seek to expand the “School Streets” pilot we held at Gilmore Elementary to even more Burnaby schools.

We need to make it easier for buses to get around our city to help encourage more folks to ride them.

I would seek to improve public transit by looking at additional locations where we can install initiatives like bus queue jump lanes and transit priority signals. By having more transit priority measures like this, we can help reduce congestion and delays to hopefully increase ridership.

Continuing to have more bus shelters is also a measure that can help improve the transit experience for residents.

Another tool we have is to advocate to other orders of government around public transit. This term, I passed two measures on this issue which were both approved. The first called on the provincial and federal government to establish a permanent and stable source of funding for public transit. And the second called for the creation of a low-income transit pass for folks in this region.

As Chair of the Mayor's Task Force on Unsheltered Community Members, I learned homelessness is a complex issue and that it is important to have both pathways that prevent homeless as well as pathways out of it.

I would continue the work of the Burnaby Housing Authority which we established to create affordable homes for rent and ownership. And I would support the direction of our current effort to ensure that by 2030 or earlier, most new buildings in Burnaby are net-zero emissions at occupancy. This is in addition to continuing our Zero Emission Building Retrofit Strategy.

To address unsafe temperatures inside homes, I would look at a "right to cool bylaw" to protect tenants and study what other nearby jurisdictions may have implemented so we can have something similar in Burnaby.

As a BCA Council Candidate, I am committed to growing our urban canopy, planting where tree cover is lowest and choosing drought-tolerant, climate-adapted species that can handle a hotter, drier Burnaby. I also support biodiversity with native planting, and ban the sale of invasive species. We also need to accelerate community gardens, and develop a community farm and food-systems strategy on city-owned agricultural land.

This is in addition to passing a green roofs policy so new buildings become carbon sinks that hold water and reduce heat.

This term, we passed an Urban Forest Strategy that provides a 15 year action plan with 60 actions under five key goals: Plan, Grow, Protect, Manage and Engage. I am committed to this strategy and will work to ensure the actions are implemented.

We also spoke many times at Council about the need to also look at natural assets at the same level as engineered assets. And our new strategy reflects this by calling for our city-managed natural assets to be embedded into our asset management plans.

Previous BCA-led councils passed policies which intentionally sought to preserve our riparian corridors, parks and forests. They worked to rehabilitate and enhance various creeks in the city and long-recognized the important role the environment plays in our lives.

I will continue this work to ensure that as our city grows - it does in a way that maximizes our natural resources so that our future is sustainable and liveable. Much has been accomplished but more to do.