Concerned Citizens of Powell River has released results of the organization’s survey regarding the possible name change for the city.
At the April 16 city committee of the whole meeting, Robin Murray, speaking on behalf of the citizens group, appeared to present results from a survey it had conducted regarding a potential renaming, showing that most responses were opposed to a name change.
Murray showed a copy of the survey that had been distributed.
“We sent it out to the entire town,” added Murray. “A lot of people feel the voices of the people of Powell River haven’t been heard or respected. There seems to be a lot of disagreement and hostility toward the name change.
“I can understand why the name change has been requested but I also understand the people who grew up here, who care deeply about their town, and the name is very much a part of why they want to keep the name.”
Murray said waiting another two and a half years until the next municipal election is going to cause a lot more stress and division. He said the concerned citizens wanted to find out what people were really thinking.
The group met in January and talked about the design of the survey, about what kind of questions, and members came down to: Are you in favour of a name change, yes or no?
Murray said the surveys were sent out at the beginning of March by Canada Post through the ad mail program. Canada Post informed the group that not everybody receives ad mail, but the survey was sent to more than 5,200 homes and apartments, according to Murray.
“We got quite a few back; I would pick up surveys every day, bring them home and put them in a locked room until our meeting in the middle of the week,” said Murray. “We’d sit down, break into groups and count the surveys. We tried to make it as official as possible, with having a couple of people open the envelopes and then hand them to two people to count.
“There were a couple of other people watching to make sure everything was counted. We counted all the yeses, we counted all the noes, and made sure they were people just inside the City of Powell River.”
Murray said all respondents left their name and phone number on the surveys and a signature. He said he believes the response represents the majority of the people’s views. There were 2,056 responses to the survey, with 19 of them voided because they were from qathet Regional District areas other than the city.
There were 125 people in favour of a name change and 1,912 people indicating they were not in favour of a renaming, said Murray.
“We went through them all and we tried our best to do as legitimate a survey as possible to get the people’s views,” said Murray. “We opened it to everybody and a lot of people were very happy with it.
“A lot of people in this community don’t want a name change and we believe it needs to be dealt with sooner than later because it is causing so much division.”
Councillors had no questions for Murray.
Tla'amin response
Tla’amin Nation hegus John Hackett provided the Peak with a response to the survey.
“Tla’amin Nation raises its hands with respect to the more than 9,000 city voters who recognized this illegitimate opinion poll for the simplistic and divisive exercise it was,” stated Hackett. “Tla’amin looks forward to engaging with the city’s democratically elected officials to advance the work of reconciliation and name change in a meaningful way.”
Tabulation process
In an interview following the committee of the whole meeting, Murray said invites were made to witness the counting of ballots, but in the end, the concerned citizens did not have a third party present. Murray said there had been discussion about having an independent group tabulate the ballots, but the group decided not to do so.
“We did it ourselves and tried to keep it as organized and professional as possible,” said Murray. “We have met with mayor Ron Woznow and showed him the results up a little bit closer. What we are going to do, if the city’s chief administrative officer or corporate officer wants, is make available the box of surveys so they can go through them and verify them.
“We will show the surveys to them but we won’t leave them. We had a lot of people really concerned about their privacy, so we want to honour their trust. There’s a lot of concern about repercussions.”
In terms of reaching out to Tla’amin, Murray said it has been spoken about and the thought is that it would be a good idea. He said the concerned citizens would be willing to meet.
Next steps will be to meet with the provincial ministry of municipal affairs with the results.
“They sent us a letter with what needs to be done and we want to meet with them and let them know the results,” said Murray. “They emphasized the need for community engagement, so we are talking about reaching out to the qathet Regional District areas because we had many people asking. We think we have a wide enough sampling of the population to say what the majority of the people feel.”
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