Maxwell Lai

Advocating climate action has always been a part of my life, especially in my volunteer experience.

From a federal level volunteering, I have experience on the federal NDP level volunteering as a research, data, and debate analyst for Justine Bell (2019) and Tammy Bentz (2021 and 2025) who were loud advocates for more climate action.

Municipally, in the City of North Vancouver, I serve on the Integrated Transportation Committee (2021-2023) to develop an understanding of current policy and the effects of new development on traffic flow. One of the things I tried to advocate on this committee was a greater focus on the holisitic impact that developments had on the entire traffic grid.

Born and raised on the North Shore, I have also volunteered for 5 to 6 years at the Cheakamus Centre, which is an overnight field and environmental studies facility located on 165 ha of ecological preserve in Paradise Valley which promotes a learning towards environmental and Indigenous culutral education.

I have always tried to be more environmentally conscious, as I am also a new father of a 3 week (when this questionnaire is completed and sent) daughter and I fully understand the ramifications of simplying kicking the can down the road whenever the environment gets brought up. For myself, I have always tried to ask the question of what can we do to consume less, whether it is consuming less carbon to consuming less products like tearing a house down vs. renovation.

The first step for anyone that wants to ensure a carbon neutral pathway is consistent, continual advocacy to ensure that the report is clear, concise, and is able to showcase both short-term and long-term metrics and tangibles of how we are going to slowly reduce our carbon footprint to zero by 2050.

If we are wanting to be serious about reducing our carbon footprint, it cannot be just stated long-term goals, but also a series of short-term metrics that look into how the current LEC is being powered and what ways can we take to wean ourselves further and further towards consistent and sustainable policies that lead toward green energy.

Net-Zero shouldn't just be hitting a number, it is planned policy to ensure sustainability and environmental consciousness are forefront when taking into consideration present policy decisions and if we are looking at current policy decisions from LEC which is a 40% increase in low-carbo and renewable energy share by 2027 but only having 15% of it's total portofolio currently based on renewable sources, that is what we should be focusing on.

I think the questions for RNG should be more focused on if the current way we are utilizing RNG is being used acceptively as a way to slowly transition from natural gases towards renewable energy.

If the RNG that we are using it in a way to convert biogas such as organic waste to landfill to using argicultural and livestock operations like animal manure, then I think it's an acceptable step that we are taking that slowly uses the waste around us in a sustainable and environmentally-conscious way to ensure we are not being dependent on fossil fuels or 'clean fuels' like LNG

That being said, if the goal is to use RNG as a measure to simply lower GHG emissions then i would be against its usage based on the poremise that such resources should be a transitional fuel to move current carbon power to be more enviromentally friendly

I will be honest and front-facing when I say I do not know what steps can we reasonable take to correct what has been done to correct the taxes, as it is a fact that the North Shore will still take 37% of the current cost, regardless of how any one of us feels about how the handling of the Wastewater Treatment Plant went down.

However, fiscal responsibility should be about clarity. As tax increases go up, Council should be prepared in discussing and being discussed on why taxes are increasing as they are.

Questions such as;
Why is tax increase the number it is?
Where is your money being spent?
How is being spent and why is it being spent?

Furthermore, if we are to come back to the the handling from Metro Van, I do fully believe that councillors should loudly challenge that Metro Van should be completely overhauled as the majority of issues that stem from Metro Van which is most major infrastructure projects are never finished on time and / or project are always over-budget.

How can we demand greater accountability if no one is willing to to challenge the organization that is Metro Vancouver itself on the premise that is too large, unwiedly, and slow to manage any region's growth due to how it was originally created. In the beginning, I can understand its original purpose but its current purpose is dilapidated and outdated and needs to adapt to the current times.

Living on 3rd and Ridgeway (Moodyville area), where my place of residence is right next was a giant beautiful tree that had been there ever since I had moved in 2019 and was healthy at that time.

I saw was because the tree is effectively dead at this point, due to the lack of upkeep, actual retention of keeping the tree alive, and due to the constant construction work on the roads to development around my area.

I think the major issue with the current City's way of thinking of retention of mature trees through land use planning is based around one thing, preservation. Now, when it comes to that, it isn't something long-term, but something more short-term such as "Hey, we have this mature tree, let's make sure we don't cut it down."

But if you look into what is passed that, then we find that there is an actual lack of policy when it comes to consistent, continual care of these mature trees. One could even argue that current policy is like the saying of a college's first try - We try once, and that's good enough.

I believe that the steps needed to be taken are based around this;

What more do we need to do to actually retain the health of these trees?
What can be done to protect such trees if they are in high development areas?
What more can be done to ensure proper upkeep is both consistent and continual?

I would amend the Tree Bylaw to include single-lot and duplex homes, so long as it harmonizes and doesn't become another bureaucratic process obstacle.

I would add the following;

1) The City should be one to host and pay for a certified Arborist for two reasons; the first is to reduce the stress of the homeowner. The second is for the reason of consistency; if the city wants to play a critical role in the protection of our trees, it's a bit strange (to me) that it is on the onus of the homeowner rather than the City that proper steps are taken.

2) The 'required fee' should be optional only for homeowners that are zoning single-family or duplexes as I believe we can use the fee as an incentive. If the homeowner wishes to remove said tree because they choose to, they should be required to pay both the tree removal and the arborist fee. If the homeowner decides against the tree and makes changes to their zoning to keep the tree, the fee for both the tree removal and arborist is waived.

3) In the case of the 'required fee' for Tree Removal without development, I think it is fair that the homeowner 'deposits' the Arborist fee and if they wish to go ahead with the tree removal, that they pay the additional amount to remove the tree. If they re-consider, the deposit would be given back to them.