OLSEN – I haven’t forgotten feelings of helplessness as a provincial minister or senior bureaucrat coldly stated they couldn’t help us, even though their legislation created the situation needing a solution
On my morning walk I got to thinking back to my decision to resign from the Central Saanich Council table to run in the 2013 Provincial election for the BC Greens. The decision to resign was triggered by one of my colleagues, who moved out of the country, and the reality that the District needed to hold a by-election. This allowed me to be clear with my constituents what my intention was. However, my decision to run was a lot more to do with my experience of the relationship between the provincial and local governments. It was frustrating to thoughtfully develop priorities and community objectives, and then have to chase conditional grants on non-priority areas -- just so we could fulfill the provincial government’s priority. In addition, we were constantly shouldering more of the weight from federal and provincial downloads. I remember that experience even all these seven years later.