ROTHENBURGER – 15-Minute Cities and the alleged plan to ‘control the masses’
Arthur Hatton school safety pilot project. (Image: CFJC Today)
IT SEEMED LIKE such a good idea — a more walkable city, neighbourhoods with amenities close by, reductions in the use of fossil fuels.
In the minds of some, though, it’s all a master plan to take away freedoms and pen people up close to their homes.
A flyer was floated around town a week or so ago that caught the attention of City officials because of its use of City colours and fonts. The flyer raised an alarm about the Community Climate Action Plan adopted by Kamloops City council two years ago.
According to the flyer, C-CAP, as it’s called, is a radical plan to take people’s vehicles away from them, among other outrages. “Tell City Council to stop this madness before it’s too late,” it urges.
So, on the one hand, the thing looks like it might be an official City document but, on the other hand, is a call to action against a City plan. Concerned about both the look of it, and about its message, City Hall announced it’s trying to track down who was behind it, and also hosted a special webinar about C-CAP this past Thursday night to dispel the myths.
The City quite often does online presentations but not usually in reaction to claims from public sources, especially anonymous ones.
Mel Rothenburger is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a recipient of the Jack Webster Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award. He has served as mayor of Kamloops, school board chair and TNRD director, and is a retired daily newspaper editor. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.
ArmchairMayor.ca 
Hi Mel – Hi Kamloops
This is Geoff – I did the presentation with A4C
Rather than jump to conclusions based on the flyer I first read the CCAP for myself. Then I went into city hall, started asking questions, met with the Mayor, then sat down for 1.5 hours with Glen Cheetham the sustainability manager and person in charge of the CCAP. I get annoyed watching conspiracy stuff on the internet – Let’s inject some facts into this conversation
Right from Glen Cheethams mouth to my ears “The sacrifices needed to meet this plan are on par with World War 2 and the Covid Lockdowns” – For some reason he doesn’t want to talk about that publicly. That’s OK though, i take meticulous notes.
Just look at the words the plan uses: “Big Moves”. We’re not talking about “small changes”, “minor adjustments” The plan is about BIG MOVES. To sit here and dismiss this without any kind of rational fact based debate is foolish. People of Kamloops deserve a real conversation on this plan and how it will radically affect their lives.
Mel – Let’s talk about the arguments and get away from talking about the people and conspiracy theories.
-Geoff
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Maybe one could write more about the actual C-CAP program which I find interesting. Of less importance is figuring out where the idiot wind is blowing from.
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YES
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FAKE FLYER listed by our local paper. It’s a real flyer that has stimulated some chatter. The Toronto Blue Jays ad, in this column Mel, is using the same blue. Will it also cause comments? The KTW version on the internet shows 2 views of 1 page, the paper version shows 1 view of each side but is so fuzzy it’s difficult or impossible to read. Why?
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Although it seems one can draw a line from the leaflet to this Action4Canada nonsense group, and its clear an ideological parallel can be made between the two, there seems to be a decided lack of hard citable truth, as reported in this article, that in fact this group was behind the leaflet.
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Yes, I believe the column was very clear that it’s not known who produced and distributed the flyer.
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No question the Action4Canada is lunacy pure and simple. It is also fair to question the true commitment from the CoK to make Kamloops more liveable. Thus far the commitment is mostly “aesthetics” in my opinion. The City is overall less livable now than at anytime in the past.
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