You have known her as an avid environmentalist, as a member of the Squamish Chamber of Commerce, and a writer for local publications. Now, Ana Santos is trying to cast herself in a new light. An interview with the NDP candidate for the Sea to Sky West Vancouver-Sea to Sky riding.
Ana, why did you decide to run as an NDP MLA candidate in this region?
Because the NDP have hit the nail on the head with their number one priority: education and skills training. Education is key; it’s like manure in the soil of a farm.
It leads to better jobs, better management in business, better care for the environment, and down at the individual level, it leads to better choices, including better lifestyle and food choices, which lead to better health, which leads to savings in healthcare…
If elected, what would you bring to the table?
Freshness; no baggage; limitless enthusiasm; a wide open mind; an innate collaborative spirit; thirst for knowledge; hunger for positive action, and a very colourful attitude.
Why should people in Squamish vote for you ?
Because it is time to change the camera angle. This riding has been looked at from the same perspective for far too long, so the same cracks are missed time and time again.
It is time to look at it from the perspective of those who struggle to make ends meet, from the perspective of small businesses who don’t know if they will be able to open their doors next month, from the perspective of those who need transit to go to work or simply to go out and enjoy themselves, from the perspective of the families who cannot afford childcare…
What are some of the issues facing Squamish, in your view, the top three issues ?
-Local jobs shortage and small business viability.
-The ability to put the pieces of the puzzle together to create a socially and economically vibrant community.
-Connectivity.
Since we are a commuter town, what would you do to enhance transit?
-To begin with, I’d step up efforts that I have already been engaged in during the past few years. I’d bring all the stakeholders to the table, but this time, I’d lock the door and keep everybody hostage until we find the solution to this problem.
-I’ll be attending a Transportation Forum in Vancouver next week – I’ll start exploring the possibilities right there!
-I’m also looking forward to working with local governments in the riding to spend carbon tax revenues (yes, we are keeping the carbon tax!) on our transit systems.
How can a provincial MLA help in creating jobs in our town ?
I’ll be able to help create jobs in the entire riding by making sure education and skills training remain our first priorities and receive the much needed resources that they have been gradually starved of for so long.
Good education and skills availability are the foundations of a sustainable economy which will attract meaningful investment.
If the NDP comes into power and you are elected, what are some of the things you can achieve for Squamish ?
There are two things in particular that I’d like to engage the whole riding in;
Creating cohesion and opportunities for collaboration amongst the communities, so that each one benefits from the uniqueness and strengths of the others.
Increasing regional resilience. Again, this has a lot to do with education, as it brings better economic opportunities for people, who will depend less on services that we all have to pay for.
But it also has to do with things like looking after our waterways, and producing (and consuming!) more of our own food.
For instance, introducing our fresh locally grown food in government-funded institutions can lead to healthier people (reduced healthcare costs!), a stronger regional economy, and a more sustainable agriculture sector.
Some people feel that as an environmentalist, you might be opposed to industry or development; what is your view
My view is that the label “environmentalist” is outdated. Everything is interrelated.
I am pro industry and pro development, but I expect them to be socially and environmentally responsible.
Those are the same expectations I have of each and every one of us; why should it be any different when it comes to the other aspects of our lives?
How will you ensure there will be a right balance between protecting the environment and creating job ?
I don’t see that protecting the environment and creating jobs are two mutually exclusive things. It’s actually quite the opposite, because an unhealthy environment equals unhealthy people, and this equals an unhealthy economy, as these people will not be able to contribute positively in our communities.
Besides, watch this space, because the new jobs will be created precisely in sectors related to environmental protection.
heather gee says
The BC Govt has funds available and has encouraged Squamish Muni. to install a fully-functioning siren system to warn residents of impending disasters. Many residents seem unaware that all the low-lying areas will be prone to liquefaction in the event of an earthquake.
When we were involved in Earthquake Preparedness training at the Seniors’ Centre – the exercise ended with the group of people waiting for “a bus to rescue them.” That’s just not realistic. Liquefaction was not on anyone’s mind.
Perhaps Ana could help with implementing plans for the long-awaited warning siren.
Dave says
This candidate is just what we need at this time:
Someone who is extremely informed, dedicated, honest and enthusiastic in a focused way. She has done so much already in Squamish in her past leadership of Squamish C.A.N. (Squamish Climate Action Network). Recently (prior to her candidacy application) she has enlightened us in her newspaper column about so many important issues. In short she has “done her homework” and would be an asset to us all as an NDP MLA. Good luck Ana, I will be voting for you.
I have been wary of many politicians over the years, especially many of those in Victoria at present, but I feel very strongly that this one will be refreshingly different, should she succeed. Her responses in the above interview really say it all.
Dave Colwell, GH
Jack Cooley says
This is an excellent comprehensive interview revealing much of what Ana believes, namely that she is not strictly an environmentalist but has several other tenants in her value system. Because I attended her MLA candidate confirmation meeting I have some additional information. At that meeting she courageously announced that she favours slowing our growth rate so that we can achieve sustainability. Most politicians think otherwise: striving for ever greater growth rates, ripping the environment apart to extract more and more fossil fuels and other resources. Finally we have a politician with a wise long term vision of how we should behave.
Melanie says
It’s great to be pro-active about our local environment, but it can be a mute point if we don’t stop chemtrails from adding copious quantities of aluminium, strontium, barium and other chemicals that are changing the natural PH of the Oceans worldwide as we speak, and making the soil unable to produce many of the vegetables that it once did. See Canadaskywatch.com
These aerosols are killing the planet — if it’s too daunting to stop it at a Global level, we can at least try to not have these planes dumping chemicals over the area we live in — I’d like to see a candidate address this issue as well.
JS says
Ms. Santos is a sincere activist and I admire her idealism. The world needs those. However I am not sure I would agree that she is the right choice to be MLA. In her columns she tends to oppose things without offering viable alternatives. She has maintained a singular focus on the environment that I think would come at the expense of other priorities. Its fine to oppose mines and so on when you earn a comfortable living and are well fed, but to families barely scraping by or worse, these represent missed opportunities to feed their families. Ms. Santos says she is all for industry and development if it is environmentally and socially sustainable, but in the years that I’ve watched her Ive seldom seen anything in the resource or industrial sectors that she deems to meet those requirements. Instead of striking a middle position and looking for mitigation strategies her default pisition is to oppose outright and offer little else in the way of alternatives. That is a fine way to go as an idealist, but not very practical as an MLA. She claims to be an independent voice, well, I know a thing or two about her party and I know that independence will be on a short leash the day after the election. To say nithing of Mr. Dixs many ethical lapses, I’m not sure how the NDP beings anything fresh to the table. Most of the ideas they espouse this time around were tried in their last outing ad government with disatrous results. MS. Santos says we need to look at things from the perspective of a small business scraping to get by and I agree, which makes the NDPs opposition to the HST, which relieved small businesses of the burden of dealing with two sales tax regimes all the more inexcusable.
Finally I take issue with anyone seriously comparing the BC Liberals (or any other BC party), to Francos fascists. That is plainly ridiculous and exactly the kibd of extreme thinking that will rule out my vote for you as an MLA.
Glenne Campbell says
JS
If you have followed the BC film Industry over the past 25 years, you will have witnessed an industry that strives to achieve green goals, employs thousands of people, feeds numerous families, supports hundreds of small businesses and provides billions of dollars to the province, all via renewable resources : creative minds.
The present Liberal government, under Christie Clark, has killed the industry 1+ billion new dollars a year in BC, insulted the workers who have paid taxes for years and made available very highly skilled people to other jurisdictions around the world to show them how it was done so successfully in BC.
NDP has agreed to start putting this industry back to work. Its a proven, unlike shipping liquified natural gas – which no one has ever done before.
PS – I think we are all in agreement that the current trend in politics is to forgo the bashing of the other party. We must be vigilant in using terms of reference to previous political parties and events. It is, however, a sign of the times that so many cautionary tales are being told and unfortunately, we should be paying attention.
Brad says
I’m not sure I agree with you, Glenne.
Seems to me the film production credits here in North America have basically been a race to the bottom. We offer more, then another jurisdiction does, and on it goes. How far are we prepared to go? There was a recent article (I believe in the Economist, but don’t quote me on that) that highlighted how a number of jurisdictions are getting out of that game because the economic benefit may not be as advertised. And anyway, why is the film industry so special? Why not offer the same tax credits to all businesses? I’d be fine with that personally, but some would say that would have a disastrous effect on provincial revenues, etc. I just don’t like government cherry-picking favored industries.
With regards to your PS — I don’t think we are in agreement on that at all. Every party’s past record is fair game, and Mr. Dix’s especially so given that he was directly involved. Being fired over forgery is a serious breach of public trust; a crime, even. I know for a certainty if the roles were reversed and Christy Clark had been involved in such things, the sanctimonious many on the other side would insist she be disqualified from holding office, and maybe even imprisoned. Bit hypocritical for them to turn a blind eye to that with their guy.
And as noted above, it’s not like many of the NDP’s ideas haven’t been tried before. Perfectly fair game to point that out, and their demonstrable consequences.
Hugh says
Although comparing the BC Liberals with Franco may be a bit extreme, the Liberals have done many things with little or no notice. The most memorable of these is the HST, announced shortly after the last election with no warning or discussion. Similarly the BC Rail sale, which has been a disaster for Squamish in terms of both local jobs (and industry) and any hope of getting rail as an alternative for our many commuters. These Liberal actions, and others, seem contemptuous of the electorate.
I have watched Ana Santos as she founded and developed SquamishCAN. Contrary to JS, I have found her to be open to discussion on the many issues we have in trying to develop a sustainable economic model in Squamish. She is very hardworking, and built SquamishCAN from nothing to a force within Squamish, all on a voluntary basis. At the same time she maintained her own small business, translating for a range of companies, She is very intelligent, quick, dynamic and willing to listen. She has my support, because she would make a great MLA.
LArry McLennan says
Let’s see-Ana compares her party’s platform to spreading manure- Couldn’t agree more. She brings to the table a collaberative attitude which apparently involves locking people in rooms. Sounds somewhat like Franco , the Commies or Nazis might do. You haf relatives now livink in Brackendale??Apparently she also embraces the idea of having government-run (collective) food distribution systems. Check out how that worked in communist countries. How about a five year plam Ana? I think this constituency should look to others for representation.
Dave says
Interesting the way some people seize upon a couple of words, take them out of context or worse, take a phrase (albeit a figurative one) and use it it a cheap manner to malign the author. Mr. McLennan, your post is a prime example and some might say that it borders on racism….but that , of course is open to to interpretation.
You don’t have to agree with a person’s platform, but do try to give your opinion in a fair, intelligent manner, otherwise you run the risk of looking rather silly! This forum has, fortunately, not shown your kind of tone until now, which has been a credit to the Editor’s format here.
LArry McLennan says
I was having a little fun with context Davey boy but I’m curious to see where I bordered on racism. You mean references to Franco or Nazis or commies? If I’m not mnistaken, your favorite candidate was comparing the Liberals to Franco. Was she bordering on racism? Just sayin’. i’m marking you down as doubtful for the Liberals.
ellen says
I believe in freedom of speech, but the way some people talk or rather here attack eachother is so juvenile, I don’t expect that especially from our resident accountant, your condescending language just lowers your own credibility. If you don’t want to vote for Santos, then don’t, if other people like her platform, why not.
Mike Quesnel says
Hmmm I have to question if Ana was planted into the NDP candidate position to make the liberal Candidate look better? Where are the leaders?