By Dan Johnston

I would like to begin by thanking the Georgia Straight for the opportunity to reintroduce myself.  My name is Dan Johnston. Since 1993, I have had the honor of serving the citizens of Burnaby as a city councillor. I am running for reelection with Mayor Derek Corrigan and the Burnaby Citizens. I am 57 years old, a 53-year Burnaby resident, a homeowner in the Lakeview-Mayview neighbourhood, a chartered professional accountant (CGA), and a married father of a grown son.

As a city councillor, my focus has been in areas of the environment and services for youth. As an accountant I strive to ensure Burnaby remains technologically and financially strong; I enjoy working with citizens, assisting them with the challenges of city government.

I am a strong advocate of citizen involvement and participation, having recently chaired the city’s environmental sustainability task force and worked with our LGBT community to establish the city’s first rainbow crosswalk and Pride street fair.

Over the past couple of years, I have been proud to stand with Mayor Corrigan and the Coast Salish peoples (Tsleil-Waututh, Musqueum, and Squamish) in opposition to Kinder Morgan. I will continue to fight the construction of increased pipeline capacity, which provides no measurable benefit to Burnaby citizens. What it offers is a potential mega disaster, which will place Burnaby citizens and neighborhoods at risk, as well as potentially destroying the environment of Burnaby Mountain, SFU, and the Salish Sea.

Burnaby, like most other major cities in Canada, faces a series of housing issues. Our booming economy and our geographic location have presented challenges over the past couple of years. We have been responding by addressing the need for housing as our population grows by legalizing secondary suites and concentrating the city’s new high-rise growth in our town centres. What we’ve been lacking is the authority to protect and regenerate our aging rental stock, and thus protect the most vulnerable in our community.

Thanks to legislation passed by our NDP provincial government in just the past few weeks, we are now able to properly zone our rental stock in such a way we can protect it as rental. We can now require developers to replace existing affordable rental stock as part of a new building. We wish we had been given this power sooner, as it would have avoided some grief. 

The Burnaby Citizens’ council has just introduced a bylaw to start the protective rezoning process and are committed to ensuring we protect the ability to affordably rent in Burnaby. When a Burnaby Citizens' council can work with a like-minded provincial government, we can do all sorts of creative things to assist our citizens.

One of the perks of a growing city is that development can assist in funding the infrastructure and help offset the impacts of increased population. A reelected Burnaby Citizens’ mayor and council promise to add to our community amenities in the next term.  We are committed to two new recreation centres in the North Burnaby area at Burnaby Heights, and Willingdon Park.  A new recreation centre, swimming pool, and public library are planned for Cameron Park.

Once the new South Burnaby arena is completed, we plan to replace the aging CG Brown Memorial Pool and Burnaby Lake Arena. Not to forget the growing Metrotown area, plans are underway for enhanced capacity or replacement at Bonsor. Thanks to the amenity bonusing funds collected from developers, a reelected Burnaby Citizens Council can see these become a reality with no impact on Burnaby taxpayers.

I am proud to serve the citizens of Burnaby as a city councillor. Working under the great leadership of Mayor Derek Corrigan and with my BCA colleagues, I believe I have a strong record of getting things done for Burnaby citizens. I have lived in Burnaby for most of my life so understand our community and how it’s changing. My training as an accountant gives me the financial skills to keep taxes low, and yet build a financially strong city that's prepared for the challenges of the future. 

Thank you for letting me serve you in the past. On October 20, please re-elect Mayor Derek Corrigan, Dan Johnston for city councillor, and the whole Burnaby Citizens team for council and school board.