Victoria councillors seeking re-election call for provincial commitments ahead of election

Four Victoria city councillors seeking re-election are calling on the BC government and the provincial candidates running for office for specific commitments that could help local governments throughout the province. 

Councillors Jeremy Caradonna, Matt Dell, Krista Loughton and Dave Thompson co-authored these calls to action. 

Together, they say that the overlapping campaign period between the local and provincial elections offers a unique opportunity to communicate to provincial candidates what the urgent priorities are at the local level of government. 

The calls to action are centred under four sets of criteria: homelessness, mental health and substance use disorder; investments in housing; investments in transit and rapid transit; and climate action and keeping vulnerable Victorians safe. 

For homelessness, mental health and substance use disorder, the candidates say that local governments have been struggling to properly care for unhoused community members who struggle with mental health and addictions. 

“To put it plainly, cities are overwhelmed with the scale of the crisis on our streets,” the incumbent candidates wrote. 

“Over many decades, the costs and labour of addressing the intersecting affordable housing, mental health, and addictions crises—now sometimes called “street disorder”—have been unfairly downloaded to local governments.” 

They noted that the City of Victoria spends millions on the situation, but that the City is unable to solve these matters on its own. 

The result is that City workers, including VicPD, bylaw and the Victoria Fire Department, are exposed to risks, burnout and tasks that wouldn’t be required if upper levels of government had followed through with their responsibilities for the healthcare and housing needs of vulnerable residents, according to the candidates. 

They say the Province must find new ways of addressing urban street disorder in Victoria and throughout BC.

As for investments in housing, the candidates say they recognize the challenging fiscal reality the Province is facing, but that more needs to be done. 

“BC Housing has paused the Community Housing Fund, which is the main mechanism through which affordable non-market housing is financed, and the Province has scaled back on rent supplements, which are crucial in helping people in shelters and supportive housing move on and move up through the housing continuum,” said the candidates. 

“We urge the incoming provincial government to prioritize housing, which is also directly related to the community safety issues mentioned above.”

When it comes to investments in transit and rapid transit, the candidates say that with a growing population, the region needs more work to be done at the provincial level to help relieve congestion on city streets. 

“The region and the Province have not invested properly in transit and thus enticed enough people to make a shift to buses,” the candidates wrote. 

“The Transit Act is written in such a way that about [one-third] of investments in transit must come from the Province. Without those commitments, the services cannot expand or significantly improve.”

They noted that early planning is underway for two potential rail lines in the region: a Highway 1 alignment from Victoria to the West Shore and the Reconciliation Corridor Initiative which could revive the E&N line between Vic West and Langford. 

“We would love to see concrete commitments from the Province in advancing rapid transit for this region, to reduce congestion pressures on Victoria’s streets and to solve the Colwood crawl,” the candidates added. 

Lastly, on climate action and keeping vulnerable Victorians safe, the four incumbents draw attention to the nearly 20 Greater Victoria residents who died during the 2021 “heat dome,” as well as increasingly extreme weather patterns brought on by climate change. 

“We have witnessed an unfortunate retreat from climate action from senior governments and this trend needs to reverse,” said the candidates. 

“Local governments shoulder much of the burdens of a warming planet.”

Though the City has piloted projects to help people receive tax breaks for energy efficient retrofits, these four candidates say more investment needs to come from the Province. 

They want to see more resources become available for those who want to install an electric heat pump, which can offer the dual benefit of reducing emissions while enabling residents to stay cool in increasingly hot Victorian springs and summers. 

The council candidates ask voters to keep their calls to action in mind as they head to the polls this October. 

“You have an opportunity to make your voice heard twice in October—once on the 17th (municipal) and once on the 24th (provincial),” said Dell, Caradonna, Loughton and Thompson. 

“Use it as an opportunity to hold candidates accountable and get commitments to solving the pressing issues that our community faces.”

The four candidates who collaborated on these calls to action are among 21 council candidates vying for the eight available council seats.