Tamiko Suzuki
Park Board · Vancouver
vancouver 40 yrs
About
30+ years in health care. Currently a forest therapy guide. 2 adult children who were into hockey, soccer, snow sports. Lifelong volunteer with community groups, advocacy work for environment and social justice.
Policy commitments
Buildings
We all want healthy, affordable, and comfortable homes. These policies will help to lower energy bills, cut pollution, and improve indoor air quality.
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Support electrification of new buildings.
Supportive
✓
Incentivize electric heat pumps and air filtration systems.
Supportive
✓
Scale up energy retrofits for existing homes, businesses, and public buildings.
Supportive
✓
Implement a 'right to cool' bylaw to protect tenants during extreme heat events.
Supportive
Climate Justice
Our community is already experiencing the harmful impacts of climate change caused by fossil fuel pollution, and taxpayers are on the hook to upgrade and repair critical infrastructure.
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Pursue available legal options to recover a fair share of the climate costs facing our community from fossil fuel companies and other big polluters.
Supportive
✓
Collaborate with Indigenous peoples as partners in the stewardship of the land, air, and water, and work towards reconciliation.
Supportive
Ecosystems
The air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat all rely on healthy ecosystems. Nature can also help protect our community from extreme weather by controlling floods, protecting shorelines, and cooling neighbourhoods. Access to nature improves the health and well-being of residents, and supports biodiversity.
✓
Expand and protect tree canopy, parks, and green infrastructure to cool neighbourhoods, clean air, and manage stormwater.
Supportive
✓
Prioritize native tree planting in all areas, especially those with low tree cover, higher population densities, and more vulnerable residents.
Supportive
✓
Create connected urban greenways for people and wildlife.
Supportive
Land Use
We envision vibrant, walkable communities that protect nature and improve food security.
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Build affordable homes near jobs, schools, shops, and transit.
Supportive
✓
Upgrade critical infrastructure for heat, fire, flood, and storm resilience.
Supportive
✓
Increase food security by supporting local agriculture and community gardens.
Supportive
Transport
Connecting neighbourhoods through public transit and active transportation networks will cut pollution, improve public health, and make our communities more affordable (and fun!).
✓
Deliver reliable, frequent, affordable local transit.
Supportive
✓
Advocate to improve regional public transit between communities.
Supportive
✓
Build bike and roll networks that are safe for everyone.
Supportive
Zero Waste
Zero waste policies reduce pollution, keep waste out of landfills, build resilient local economies, and safeguard public health by shifting society away from a disposable culture toward a sustainable circular economy.
✓
Support the development of a circular economy to eliminate waste and improve resilience.
Supportive
✓
Implement bylaws to eliminate waste from new buildings, renovation, and demolition projects and to use existing buildings as efficiently as possible.
Supportive
✓ Supportive
~ Neutral
× Opposed
– No response
Climate action
How have you contributed to climate action in your community through advocacy, past work, advisory committees, volunteer work, and/or reducing your personal carbon footprint?
Organized educational forums, services, rallies, and other events with the Vancouver Unitarians' Environment Team and other spiritual groups, as well as RAVEN, and Sierra Club. Worked on the board of the Wild Bird Trust and with Tsleil Waututh Nation to oppose pipelines, tankers, and dredging of Burrard Inlet. Was arrested up on Burnaby Mountain protesting the Kinder Morgan pipeline. With the Vancouver Aquarium spoke against deforestation of the Amazon rainforest and NW Coastal rainforests and the effects of climate change on marine environments. I personally have reduced my carbon footprint by doing most of my trips by bike and transit. I shop locally and buy local produce.
Questions for Vancouver
What is your position on gas hookups for new buildings?
We should be moving away from using fossil fuels for heating. No new hookups in new buildings.
Will you vote to restore full funding for the Sustainability Office? In your view, what is the role of the Sustainability Office?
Yes! The Sustainability Office provided Strategies and official guidance to developers and planners in the city. Without it, cutting greenhouse gas emissions, improving sustainable purchasing, and having a reporting system for increasing energy efficiency becomes dependant on individuals and is deprioritized in developers' budgets.
What is your view on a moratorium on AI data centres, given the natural resources they require?
Yes to a moratorium on AI data centres especially in the city. We are just coming out of a drought with high level water restrictions and we want to put in these centres which use massive amounts of water for cooling? They are a huge drain on power as well. Just the proposed downtown centre would use 100MW, enough to power 80,000 homes.
Given the “controversy” of the Villages Plan, how do you envision accommodating the population growth of the City while dealing with the impacts of climate change?
The Villages plan did not consult with the neighbourhoods where it was being proposed and did not answer concerns about loss of tree canopy, and fears about increased traffic. I am not against increasing density if there is social housing, affordable rents, accessible transit, and no renovictions, but I do not agree with top down decision making with no input allowed from those most affected.
What is your plan to create climate safeguards for all of Vancouver’s inhabitants, including the unhoused population?
Part of my platform is about the need to replace or renovate our aging community facilities. The AG has reported that 72% of our community centres are in"poor" or "very poor" condition. How will this help in the case of an earthquake? We know there will be more heat domes and our community centres are supposed to be cooling centres? Vancouverites are increasingly living in highness and smaller and smaller dwellings as housing costs continue to stay high. Loneliness is epidemic. Community centres are the place that people, regardless of age or financial ability, can gather, exercise, and feel a sense of safety and community.
Increasing green space, in particular tree canopy, is also part of my platform. In the last heat dome, people in the DTES and parts of East Van were particularly impacted. I want to push for 30% canopy and put the focus on the underserved/unprotected areas.
Increasing green space, in particular tree canopy, is also part of my platform. In the last heat dome, people in the DTES and parts of East Van were particularly impacted. I want to push for 30% canopy and put the focus on the underserved/unprotected areas.
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