ROTHENBURGER: 15-Minute Cities and the alleged grand plan to ‘control the masses’

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.

But there can’t be many people who are fretting about what the City is up to with its action plan, because only 35 citizens and four City staff sat in on the presentation.

Glen Cheetham, the City’s sustainability services supervisor, outlined what C-CAP is all about, focusing on its eight “Big Moves.” If you haven’t noticed, “Big Moves” has become a favourite phrase of City planners when it comes to what they’re working on. Sounds more interesting than “a list of things we’d like to do.”

Anyway, high on that list is a “car-light” community that would aim to reduce vehicle use through a range of things such as E-bikes, pedestrian malls and car shares. This happens to also be high on the list of concerns for those who fear C-CAP.

But there’s so much more. A target of 85 per cent of passenger vehicles with zero emissions, for example. Installing EV chargers in all new construction. Greatly cutting carbon emissions in buildings. A “circular economy” in which household and other waste is much reduced. A focus on renewable energy. Improved carbon storage through things like increasing the tree canopy, and greater use of native vegetation.

All of this connects to the theory and objective of what’s become known as the 15-Minute (or 10-Minute, take your pick) City, a concept that would provide amenities and services in neighbourhoods rather than centralizing them. It sounds darn good to me but the thought of it scares the heck out of those convinced it’s a ploy to control everything we do.

I don’t have any more idea of who produced the mystery flyer than you do, but its message is similar to a lot of the things a group called Action4Canada espouses. Action4Canada, which has chapters across the country, was founded in Surrey by a woman named Tanya Gaw, described in its promotions as “a committed Christian.”

She and her group were banned from school board meetings in Mission, and also raised the ire of the Chilliwack board, in connection with what they were claiming was child pornography contained in books about gender identity and sexual orientation.

During the pandemic she and Action4Canada tried to sue the provincial government and others over COVID-19 measures. The 391-page lawsuit, which claimed, for one thing, that one intention of anti-COVID vaccine programs was the “total and absolute surveillance of the Plaintiffs and all citizens,” was tossed out by the B.C. Supreme Court.

Gaw hosts an online interview show called the Empower Hour that recently featured a fellow named Geoff Snicer, who has an engineering background, is originally from Kamloops, and was described on the show as a “concerned and informed citizen.”

Snicer focused on the Kamloops C-CAP as an example of an agenda aimed at giving government more control over our lives. Of special concern is the 15-Minute City concept.

Government, he said on the Gaw show, wants everybody living in one place “where you have no vehicle.”

Even the just-concluded Safer School Streets program that tested the closure of roads around Arthur Hatton elementary raised alarm bells in Snicer’s view. While he said the official rationale for the Art Hatton experiment was about safety, according to him it’s another example of the need to be watchful. “They don’t want anybody driving cars; that’s the driving force behind this.”

Snicer acknowledged he’s not an expert on the 15-Minute City and that C-CAP — in Kamloops and elsewhere — includes a lot of good stuff but said there’s a lot to question in it. “You need to read between the lines.”

Okay. Action4 Canada, though, doesn’t hold back in the picture it paints: “The real agenda — to monitor and control EVERYONE and EVERTHING.” And, “property and car ownership outlawed.” A new “Smart Cities leaflet” from Action4Canada warns people will be evicted from “farms/ ranches and rural areas to gather people into the cities.”

The group urges people to write the mayor and council to protest their taxes being used to “create a Surveillance State and social credit system…” and to demand they guarantee freedom of travel and that they won’t restrict access to medical care, bank accounts, sporting activities, utilities, churches, groceries or the ability to garden.

It claims “15 Minute Cities are being marketed and introduced under the guise of convenience and safety and protecting the environment. But don’t be naïve, this is another massive step toward enriching the globalists and facilitating them in controlling the masses.”

After the City’s Thursday evening webinar, some 60 questions were asked on the chat line. Some raised legitimate concerns about things such as cost. Others seemed consistent — maybe intentionally, maybe not — with the scenario raised by Action4Canada and the mystery flyer as well.

So, folks, that’s the story of how a plan to make the city a better place turns out to be — in highly creative minds, that is — an attempt to control the masses.

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.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.

by Mel Rothenburger

ROTHENBURGER: 15-Minute Cities and the alleged grand plan to ‘control the masses’

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