Category: Civil Society and a Strong Social Fabric
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Anyone Can be the Mayor … On Facebook
Sunday evening, while I was celebrating Chinese New Year at a banquet hosted by the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association, I was also, apparently, getting back on Facebook. A page called “Lisa Helps – Victoria Mayor” with my photograph and an initial post that sounded eerily like me appeared. “Hello Victoria! I have decided to start…
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How do we build the city we all want?
NB If you want to skip the theory and go right to the call to action, join us Saturday January 19th to ‘Give a Day to Your City!’ and help shape the 2019-2022 Strategic Plan. In the past few years, there’s been a growing body of literature published that outlines the degraded state of civil…
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Inaugural Address 2018
It was an honour to be re-elected by the residents of Victoria. Today I was sworn in alongside my new council. Here is my inaugural address where I outline what we will do, why we will do what we do, and most importantly, how we will do this. Please pour yourself a cup of tea…
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Two Key Platform Commitments
Since January Lisa’s been working with a diversity of community members to develop a detailed, future-focussed, community-based, four-year plan. Today, we’re releasing the first two of many platform commitments that will help to make Victoria safe, affordable, and prosperous. Two Key Platform Commitments Working with the community and Council, Mayor Helps will: Lower the default…
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“I’m Right and You’re an Idiot” – April 9 Lunch Time Lecture at City Hall
Are you discouraged about the state of public dialogue? Do you want to be inspired and learn about how to move past this way of relating? Join us for the April 9th Lunch Time Lecture at City Hall as James Hoggan talks about his book and the process of writing it. Just as we pollute…
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Bridge to the future
For more photos of the bridge opening celebration, see the end of this post. It began early Friday morning. A small group gathered with Esquimalt elder Mary Anne Thomas and Songhees elder Elmer George on the new bridge at dawn. The elders called on the ancestors as they blessed the bridge and asked for protection…
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Why I’m Quitting Facebook
Disclaimer: Tech is the number one industry in Victoria with amazing, innovative and entrepreneurial people working in that space. This post is not a rant against technology; it’s about putting social media in its place. I’m quitting Facebook. Before the cry begins about how will the mayor be in touch with her constituents, let me…
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2018: Here’s to Civil Public Dialogue, and a Posture of Hope
Poster by Julian Gibbs-Pearce, Grade 5 I’ve decided to run for Mayor for one more term. In the past three years we’ve accomplished almost everything in my 2014 platform. In addition to lots of doing, we’ve created detailed, forward-looking plans that I’d like to see through to implementation. These include: Our economic action plan, Making…
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Help us develop one possible solution to the rental crisis
In Victoria in the 1940s during WWII, Times Colonist headlines urged Victorians to open their homes and “Billet Homeless War Workers.” Victorians responded to the crisis and opened their homes to strangers recently relocated to Victoria to help the local war effort. They didn’t call it the “sharing economy”, they didn’t charge anything, they just…
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We stand together in love, against Islamophobia
Thousands gathered today on the steps of Victoria City Hall and into the street to come together in solidarity with Victoria’s Muslim community after the horrific events in Quebec City on Sunday evening. Ismail Mohamed Nur, the imam for Victoria’s Masjid Al-Iman mosque spoke courageously about the rise of Islamophobia around the world and in…
