Victoria Mayor Marianne Alto launches re-election campaign

Victoria Mayor Marianne Alto has officially launched her re-election campaign. 

Mayor Alto held a press conference to announce her bid for re-election on Wednesday, May 20th at the COAST Innovation Hub in the downtown core. 

Before she spoke, she was introduced by Brianna Bear, a Songhees artist and Knowledge Keeper, and Murray Rankin, a former MLA and MP for Oak Bay-Gordon Head and Victoria respectively. 

Both introductory speakers noted Alto’s calm and balanced demeanor as the Mayor of Victoria and endorsed her campaign for re-election. 

Alto spoke first of why she chose the site for her announcement. 

“I chose this venue because of what it stands for—the COAST Innovation Hub is of course about innovation, but it’s also about exploration and connection,” said Mayor Alto.

“It’s about creating and seizing opportunities, and I think that is what I believe our city is all about and what I think our council has strived to do over the last three-and-a-half years.”

She noted that she is grateful for the council she has served with, and their willingness to tackle issues head on, take risks and consider new ideas in order to be an agent for change in Victoria. 

Mayor Alto outlined her three priorities for her re-election campaign: unlocking more homes for people, taking action on community safety and investing in community and wellbeing. 

In her term as mayor, she, her council and City staff were able to get over 7,000 units of housing approved. 

Mayor Alto said she is proud that many of those units are multi-bedroom units meant for families, that many are below-market housing units and that her council dedicated themselves to finding more missing-middle housing throughout their term. 

She also noted that the latest Official Community Plan implemented by council looked to embrace densification.

“We know that we are an evolving city and we know that people want to live here, and they want to stay here,” she stated. 

“We have to embrace the fact that change is coming and if we want it not to be random, we have to put some intentionality behind it.”

On the City’s Community Safety and Wellbeing Plan, a plan which Mayor Alto says she would plan on expanding upon in a second term, she noted that there is still much work to be done. 

“It’s an unusual balance that looks at prevention, intervention and response of enforcement, and the reason that’s important is because no one of those things works by itself, they all have to be synchronized and complimentary,” said Alto. 

“When one of those things falls away, the thing starts to crack a little bit. So our commitment has to be to continue to fund, to resource, to partner with people to make that work.”

Alto says the plan has so far created 97 new living spaces for people, created pathways for vulnerable people to move from shelters to housing, has built up new and existing community resources and has increased resources for police, bylaw services, public services, parks and sanitation. 

“It’s a big job,” she laughed. “It’s a one-of-a-kind alliance that we haven’t been able to find duplicated anywhere else.”

On wellbeing, Mayor Alto spoke to how the notion of wellbeing can be obvious, but is often overlooked or not prioritized. 

An example she used of wellbeing in the community is the new firehall in downtown Victoria, and how it combines fire services, health services and affordable housing. 

“That microcosm creates community, and that community is an exemplar of what the whole community can be when you work together for the same aims and everyone is pulling in the same direction.”

She noted that under her leadership, the City has funded rent banks, facade improvements, social services, public realm and infrastructure rehabilitation, parks enhancements, festivals, playgrounds, swim platforms, skateparks and pickleball courts. 

But the largest community wellbeing project she drew attention to was the Crystal Pool Replacement Project, which will get underway this fall.

Mayor Alto then spoke to what she hopes for in the coming election.

“The incoming council is going to have to maintain the commitment to innovation, exploration, curiosity and finding a way forward that is really unusual and sometimes [comes with] with risk,” she said. 

“I’m going to suggest that in order to do all that, you’re going to need a calm, rational, pragmatic chair who has some experience with this and is looking at balance.”

She then added that if she has the opportunity to be elected as Victoria’s Mayor for a second term, she will continue on with the work she has started while also looking ahead to what needs to be done for Victoria’s betterment. 

If re-elected, Alto said she would also prioritize improving the ways people move around the city, protecting parks, funding more arts and culture endeavours and implementing regional policing in Greater Victoria, rather than having separate jurisdictions. 

To support Mayor Alto in her announcement, Councillors Jeremy Caradonna, Krista Loughton, David Thompson and Susan Kim were in attendance at her announcement. 

Alto was first elected to city council in 2010, and was elected as mayor in 2022. 

The upcoming local election date is slated for October 17th.