'The question shouldn't be whether someone looks local': North Shore politician reacts to West Vancouver councillor comments
A North Shore politician is slamming a West Vancouver councillor after she said “hordes” of people go to Ambleside Park that she can tell “are not from West Vancouver.”
Krishna Raisinghani, who is running for City Council for North Vancouver, shared his sentiment after Councillor Christine Cassidy’s remarks during a council discussion on the controversial paid parking pilot at Ambleside Park.
After stating that Ambleside’s parking rate (at $2.50 an hour) is cheaper than many nearby beaches, like Vancouver’s Jericho Beach at $4.25 an hour, Cassidy went on to say:
“The genie is out of the bottle, so we are going to be attracting the hordes, whether we want them, or whether we don’t, whether we’re free, or whether at $2.50. They are coming,” she said.
“And you can just see it these days when you go down on those hot last few weekends, the crowds that were on that seawall, you could tell they did not live in West Vancouver,” she continued.
“And the reason I could say that they’re not from West Vancouver is the numbers that group together. It’s not you and your buddy or you and your wife or you and your children. These are groups of six, or eight, or nine. It’s an outing for the day. You’ve come to West Van for an outing.”
In a video posted to Instagram, Raisinghani shared his take on those comments.
“West Vancouver council was debating paid parking at Ambleside. And we can certainly have a fair debate about parking. We can talk about congestion, local businesses, turnover, residents, visitors, and how our beautiful public spaces are funded,” he said.
“But the moment that conversation becomes about looking at a crowd on a seawall and deciding that ‘they don’t live here and therefore don’t belong here.’ We’ve crossed into something completely different. Public spaces are public. And therefore need to feel public.”
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Council meeting discussion
Raisinghani also attended a council meeting on May 4, where he said that he came as a “North Shore neighbour” because he thinks that how people speak about public spaces and the people who use them “really matters.”
He added that, like many families on the North Shore, his life isn’t divided by municipal borders.
“And that’s exactly what I love about the North Shore — it’s all connected,” he said.
Raisinghani acknowledged that there are “real pressures” when many people visit public spaces.
“But I hope we still can be very careful about how we talk about the people who do show up,” he said. “The question shouldn’t be whether someone looks local. The better question is how do we care for our public spaces and our loved spaces while still making people feel welcome?”
“When groups of people are being referred to as ‘hordes,’ or saying that they can tell clearly that they don’t live in the area, it really sends a message about how visitors are being seen. And I hope it’s not the message that we want people to hear,” he said.
Daily Hive previously reached out to Cassidy and asked her how she could tell Ambleside Park users didn’t live in West Vancouver. She responded by email, saying that she has been part of two petitions on the seawall in 2012 and 2013, along with three election campaigns in 2014, 2018 and 2022, where she said on sunny days and weekends, “the majority of individuals I spoke with did not live in West Vancouver. They were from throughout the Lower Mainland.”
She said that her statement was taken out of context.