Thoughts on BC Politics and More

The interim leader of conservative upstart political party OneBC spoke in favour of defunding non-profits not aimed at addiction recovery during a speech at the Union of BC Municipalities convention on Wednesday. Dallas Brodie said if elected, the party would “re-stigmatize” the use of illicit drugs, hearkening back to educational and advertising campaigns decades ago targeted at reducing smoking. “We will defund the addictions industry. Any NGO [non-governmental organization] that receives public money will be funded only for results, measured by recovery, not dependency. The same will go for housing,” said Brodie, who criticized non-profits as “enabling” addiction ... CLICK HERE forn the full story 

Speaking to municipal leaders at the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention, Conservative Leader John Rustad laid out three clear commitments a Conservative government would deliver to local governments: restoring property rights and predictability, dismantling Metro Vancouver’s unaccountable bureaucracy, and establishing a $1 billion infrastructure fund. “We’ve seen and heard your concerns,” Rustad told delegates. “About property rights and predictability for housing. About accountability and transparency. And about the need for real investment in core infrastructure. A Conservative government will deliver on all three.” Rustad said the NDP’s Heritage Conservation Act amendments, DRIPA, and the Cowichan decision have created chaos and uncertainty for municipalities and builders, stalling housing projects across the province. “Certainty builds housing. Uncertainty kills it,” Rustad said.  “We will repeal the HCA amendments, repeal DRIPA, and refer the Cowichan decision to the Supr...

... a UBCM official stepped up to brief me on the growing backlash among mayors and councillors over the NDP government’s ambitious makeover of the Heritage Conservation Act. The project to transform the Act has been worked on for two years by the New Democrats and their First Nations partners. But after the proposals were mostly finalized, local government had been given a single three-hour session in mid-August under the guise of “engagement.” It was pretty much a one-way conversation, I was told. Less “what do you think?” than “here’s where we’re going, so prepare yourselves” ... CLICK HERE for the full story

BC has slid into an attitude of “endless accommodation” of antisocial behaviour by desperately ill people on downtown streets, says the man at the epicentre of the epicentre of Victoria’s downtown decay. Julian Daly, CEO of Our Place, the agency most directly involved in the drug-infused mental-health crisis most obvious on Pandora Avenue, told municipal leaders at the Union of BC Municipalities convention that the balance between compassion and enforcing expectations has been lost. The ongoing “what to do” debate has flattened into an overly simple artificial choice between compassion and enforcement, he said, but both elements and a lot more are needed to make a difference ... CLICK HERE for the full story

The head of a large shelter on Pandora Avenue in Victoria — in the midst of the street disorder of the city's most high-profile homeless encampment — told delegates at the Union of B.C. Municipalities (UBCM) conference that the province needs to shift its focus on homelessness. Our Place CEO Julian Daly said BC must treat it as a health issue, and that the most compassionate way forward may be involuntary treatment for some. "That is controversial, I know," Daly said, "but if someone is so unwell that they cannot make informed decisions about their health care, then leaving them to die on the sidewalk with little but their liberties intact is not compassion. It is abandonment" ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Municipal politicians used the first day of the Union of BC Municipalities convention in Victoria to push the BC government to do more to curb ongoing street disorder in their downtown cores, saying the addictions, crime and mental health issues have grown far beyond their ability to control. A collection of urban mayors representing cities with 60 per cent of the province’s population said the government has left thousands of housing units that could address homelessness unfunded. Victoria mayor Marianne Alto said cities are overwhelmed trying to handle the social services, shelters, housing services, transportation and other upstream costs needed to slow the demand on policing and public works budgets that respond to the disorder ... CLICK HERE for the full story 

Mayors and councillors from across BC head to Victoria this week to try and squeeze help for health care, crime, street disorder and infrastructure out of a provincial NDP government that’s dead broke and in a political tailspin. The Union of BC Municipalities convention occurs right across the street from the legislature, but the gap between the two sides in terms of demand and delivery is more like a chasm. For many communities, the top issue oscillates between health-care shortages and public safety—both of which fall squarely in the lap of the provincial government ... CLICK HERE for the full story

As leaders gather this week at the 2025 Union of BC Municipalities’ convention to chart the future of British Columbia, forestry must be central to those discussions ... ... at a time of pressing challenges, forestry offers solutions: for rural, urban and Indigenous communities, it can and should be a unifying force ... ... Yet the sector faces headwinds. U.S. softwood lumber duties exceed 35 per cent, global markets remain volatile and further tariff increases loom ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Conservative Official Opposition Municipal Affairs Critic Tony Luck and Rural Communities Critic Sharon Hartwell say a new Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) report underscores the urgent need to restore independent oversight of municipal spending in British Columbia. “The CFIB report makes it clear that small businesses and taxpayers are losing confidence in how municipalities manage their finances,” said Luck. “For too long, local governments have operated without meaningful accountability. It’s time to bring back the Auditor General of Local Government — this time properly structured under the Auditor General of BC so we get results without creating a new bureaucracy.” The CFIB report paints a troubling picture of municipal finances across the province: rising operating costs outpacing inflation, wage and benefit growth in local government far exceeding the private sector, and a lack of transparency that leaves taxpayers in the dark.  Business owners told CFIB th...

BC housing minister says he’s fed up with squabbling municipal councils, and will bring in changes to provincial oversight of dysfunctional local governments before voters go to the polls next in 2026. Ravi Kahlon said he’s willing to listen on potential solutions, but will not go as far as to dismiss mayors and councillors deadlocked in petty squabbles that overwhelm the business of local government, as is occurring in communities like Kamloops. “We've been hearing from many mayors, and councils and [Union of BC Municipalities] as well, on a better path forward, something that puts better, clear rules in place for local governments" ... CLICK HERE for the full story  

Divide and conquer. It’s the new strategy the BC NDP government is deploying against what used to be two major allies: The First Nations Leadership Council (FNLC) and the Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM). Both have fallen offside with Premier David Eby’s administration in the last month over their vocal calls for him to pause Bills 14 and 15 due to a lack of consultation and potential infringements on Indigenous rights. Eby, so far, has refused. Instead, the NDP has started chipping away at the political credibility of the organizations, suggesting in subtle and not-so-subtle ways that they don’t truly represent the views of their members, and that the government knows better than they do what people actually want ... CLICK HERE for the full story

The president of the association representing local governments across BC welcomes the cabinet choices announced Monday, but is also looking forward to additional details. "The devil is in the details," Coun. Trish Mandewo, president of the Union of British Columbia Municipalities, said. "For us, the key is having the clarity about the roles and responsibilities of (various posts) and right now, they are quite a number of unanswered questions from our perspective"... CLICK HERE for the full story

Barriere Mayor Ward Stamer says he is optimistic the provincial government will implement mandatory dashboard cameras on commercial vehicles following talks with BC’s transportation minister. Last year, Stamer and Clearwater Mayor Merlin Blackwell championed a resolution, approved at the Union of BC Municipalities conference, asking the province to review the feasibility of mandating all commercial semi-trucks registered in BC to have dash cams installed and in operation while driving on provincial roads. The rationale of the resolution is that dash cams can encourage commercial truck driver accountability in adhering to safe driving practices. The province recently issued a response to the resolution, stating it's reviewing feasibility of this initiative and consultation with stakeholders will occur likely in the first half of 2024 . . . . CLICK HERE for the full story

The well-being of our communities is threatened -- and solutions have been in front of provincial politicians for a long time. We must modernize local government legislation in British Columbia and provide local elected leaders access to the fiscal tools they need to build resilient communities. This is now even more urgently required as COVID-19 has caused community leaders to empty reserves and has increased the strain on property taxes exposing financial vulnerabilities that have been lingering under the surface for many years. Intergovernmental relationships A decade ago I stood at the microphone at the Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities (AVICC) annual convention and asked then-Premier Gordon Campbell and then-Leader of the Official Opposition Carole James about the relationship between the province and local governments. I had only been elected to the Central Saanich Council table for a very brief time, but it was all the time I needed to unde...

Earlier this summer, I invited people to participate in the Ministry of the Environment and Climate Change Strategy consultation and engagement on plastic waste and recycling. British Columbians are good re-cyclers, but we need to do better and the Ministry is working to that end. I’ve discussed recycling, packaging, and plastic waste a few times in the pages of this blog, always with the perspective that the absolute best recycling we can do is none at all. By that I mean: first reduce consumption, then reuse items, and only after all that, recycle. Unfortunately, our recycling system has been designed and marketed to have us all believing that we do not need to reduce consumption because you can just recycle the product. This is reinforced by the next product you buy proclaiming in bold print that it was made with X% of recycled material. Congratulations! Well done! ... we have all contributed to creating a more circular economy rather tha...

Kamloops South Thompson MLA MLA Todd Stone, the BC Liberal Housing Critic, is calling on John Horgan and the NDP to start taking real action after the government re-announced yet another project today dating back to the previous BC Liberal government, this latest one in Okanagan Falls. “ John Horgan and the NDP have been in power for over two years and they are still re-announcing projects set in motion by the previous BC Liberal government years ago ,” said Stone. “ The NDP promised to build 114,000 new units of housing and now, halfway through their mandate, they have opened just 2,400. At this rate it will take over 100 years to meet their promise .” At last month’s Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) conference, both John Horgan and NDP Housing Minister Selina Robinson falsely claimed that their government had created over 22,000 new affordable housing units. That is 19,600 more than their numbers actually show. “ John Horgan and the NDP came to power on promises of m...