Thoughts on BC Politics and More

The province’s refusal to consider a request from Nanaimo city council to provide sober housing for those who qualify for supportive housing has the mayor of Nanaimo scratching his head. In an interview, Mayor Leonard Krog said he can’t understand why the province won’t give people trying to recover from addiction a fighting chance to succeed. “Surely, if we can offer facilities where people who are in active addiction can take their drugs safely, and we’re prepared to staff and fund those, is it unreasonable to expect that we would be able to provide housing for people who, hopefully, have a chance to not end up on the streets in the horrible conditions that many live in now”  ... CLICK HERE for the full story

One week after taking a victory lap on safer streets, the BC government is getting yanked back into reality by municipal councils and police frustrated by the rising street disorder, crime and public safety concerns around safe consumption sites. In Nanaimo, Councillor Ian Thorpe put forward a motion on Monday to demand the Vancouver Island Health Authority close an overdose prevention site located next to city hall. The city had previously considered erecting a 10-foot-tall fence around the municipal property to address vandalism, crime and safety issues from the site that were hurting city staff and residents. “The consumption site is a symbol of our failed government policy" ... CLICK HERE for the full story 

Conservative MLAs say the NDP government has lost control of the healthcare crisis in British Columbia, as local governments from Merritt to Nanaimo are now escalating mental health and addictions issues to Ottawa out of sheer desperation. IMAGE CREDIT : Neuroscience Institute “When mayors start writing to federal MPs instead of the Health Minister, it just proves the provincial government’s inability to deal with the crisis,” said  Claire Rattée , MLA for Skeena and Critic for Mental Health and Addictions. “Addictions, poverty, and mental illness are colliding across this province. The system is underfunded, unaffordable, and dangerously inaccessible,” Rattée continued.  “Experts say mental health should make up 12% of the health budget, BC isn’t even close. And now Merritt’s mayor is appealing to Ottawa because the province won’t act. This is all happening amidst a larger healthcare crisis in BC. We don’t just have gaps, we have total breakdowns.” In Merritt, ...

Official Opposition Critic for Infrastructure and Construction, Misty Van Popta, is calling out the BC NDP government for dragging its feet on the critical Nanaimo patient tower project — even after local partners offered to pay upfront to move it forward. The Nanaimo Regional Hospital District (NRHD) has stepped up in an unprecedented way, offering to fully fund the business plan for the new patient tower and cardiac catheterization lab. This offer, sent to Premier David Eby and Infrastructure Minister Bowinn Ma in February, removes the last financial barrier to advancing the project — yet the province still hasn’t moved forward.   “ It is unacceptable that local governments and private partners get to a point where they feel they have to front the bill just to get vital health infrastructure off the ground. All while this NDP government refuses to act, ” said Van Popta. “T his project is shovel-worthy and shovel-ready. What’s this government waiting for ?” The prop...

No mention of a Nanaimo hospital patient tower in BC's budget has some health-care advocates disappointed, but the province says that the work is still taking place. "We know this is a priority for the community…" said Preet Grewal, spokesperson for the Ministry of Infrastructure, adding that minister Bowinn Ma met with the Nanaimo Regional Hospital District board president last week. "We look forward to working with the NRHD and Island Health on this important project over the course of this four-year mandate." The ministry stated that the project will not be added to a budget document until the business case is approved. Before funding will be allocated for a build, the plan will need to be submitted, which determines the funding that the project requires. The plan itself falls under the $50-million threshold that results in being added to the provincial budget document ... CLICK HERE for the full story

The New Democrats were put on the defensive last year by mounting evidence that government-approved safer supply drugs were being diverted to the illicit market. “More BC detachments report having seized suspected safe supply drugs,” read a March 2024 headline in the Northern Beat online news service, summarizing evidence from the RCMP in Prince George, Campbell River and Nanaimo. Reporter Fran Yanor later expanded the list to five detachments after she herself witnessed drug transactions outside pharmacies in Victoria and Duncan. The shocking details of what was happening emerged from a search warrant obtained by reporter Jason Proctor of the CBC. He disclosed how Prince George RCMP spent 10 days in March “mounting a surveillance operation on a woman who stood outside a downtown pharmacy each morning trading illicit drugs for safer supply medication ... CLICK HERE for the full story

  “We have a situation where vulnerable seniors, many with mobility issues or dementia, are housed directly beside individuals with deteriorating mental health issues, including paranoia and aggression, who have been given free rein to use psychotic-inducing drugs and carry dangerous weapons. It’s a disaster in the making” - Gwen O’Mahony, Conservative Candidate for Nanaimo-Lantzville   Family members and employees associated with Dufferin Place in Nanaimo, who wish to remain anonymous, express serious concerns about the province’s decision to house individuals struggling with drug addiction alongside a long-term care facility for seniors. The province reallocated a section of the facility, initially designated for senior care, to create a unit for addiction and mental health care.   Reports indicate that open drug dealing and usage occur outside the facility entrance, along the roadside, and in surrounding areas. Witnesses have observed individuals injecting dr...

APRIL 3rd, 2024 - Victoria:  The Conservative Party of British Columbia is thrilled to announce former NDP MLA Gwen O'Mahony as their candidate for Nanaimo-Lantzville. "This is not the NDP I thought I served with as an MLA. This is not even John Horgan’s NDP," said O'Mahony. "Years ago, I joined the NDP and was elected to represent the traditional ideas of the left. These ideas included representing workers, fighting for what’s right and helping those most vulnerable," said O'Mahony.  "However, after a decade of extremism from the left, I can confidently say that as a former MLA and as a woman, I can no longer remain a member of the NDP." "Whether you are a traditional conservative voter or a traditional NDP voter, I want to invite you on this journey with me. Join the Conservative Party of British Columbia and help us bring back common sense," concluded O'Mahony. "We are thrilled to have Former MLA Gwen O'M...

The biosolids are piling up in the Capital Regional District with few options in the short term other than Hartland Landfill to bury the remnants of sewage treatment. Of the 2,908 tonnes of biosolids produced last year, the CRD put 2,233 tonnes into controlled-waste trenches in the landfill with other hazardous materials. About 680 tonnes were shipped to a quarry reclamation site in Cassidy, south of Nanaimo, and the remainder — just 67 tonnes — went to the on-again, off-again operations of a Lafarge cement facility in Richmond to fire its kiln. Now the CRD is talking with another Nanaimo-area private quarry about taking some more biosolids, which isn’t sitting well with its counterparts to the north . . . . CLICK HERE for the full story

. . . . Nanaimo Unitarian Shelter executive director Paul Manly wrote an open letter about the worker’s death last week after the woman’s mother asked him to help amplify the story. Manly noted that in Nanaimo, there are 20,000 people without a family doctor, and only one walk-in clinic, making it difficult for patients to get the care they need and deserve . . . . CLICK HERE for the full story

. . . House of Commons petition calls for a $1 billion fund to be established using B.C. and federal funding opportunities for public transit. It recommends using that money to create a modern freight and passenger service on Vancouver Island. Such a service would be a strategic asset on the island, said the petition. The petition said the non-profit Island Corridor Foundation should be recognized as being in the public interest and that it would need guaranteed funding if the project moves ahead. The Foundation, which owns the corridor, consists of 14 First Nations and five regional districts. Freight service could run along the north-south route and out to the harbour at Port Alberni where cars could then head to Nanaimo and then onto the Mainland . . . CLICK HERE for the full story

An expanded Vancouver Island major crime unit is needed as communities grow and serious crime increases, local mayors say. Sooke Mayor Maia Tait and Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog both welcome an initiative of B.C. Solicitor General Mike Farnworth to examine the expansion of the Vancouver Island Integrated Major Crime unit to all Island communities. Farnworth has directed the province’s policing and security branch to work with the B.C. RCMP on the issue. He has written to 22 Island municipalities, First Nations and police forces inviting them to participate in preliminary consultations ... CLICK HERE for the full story

In October, The Bureau published an investigative story of mine which recounted how safer supply programs in Nanaimo, British Columbia, are being widely defrauded and flooding communities with opioids and crime. This story follows up with more testimony from Nanaimo illustrating how bad government policy is destroying lives and blighting cities ... CLICK HERE for the full story

BC Premier David Eby heard from Vancouver Island leaders, who raised key issues hurting economic development across the region.   After addressing the crowd at Nanaimo’s conference centre Thursday, Eby fielded questions and concerns from business and industry leaders, politicians and communities on the key issues hurting economic development across Vancouver Island ... CLICK HERE for the full story

By breakfast time on Wednesday, BC Ferries was already warning that anyone wanting to drive onto a ferry on the route between Victoria and Vancouver without a reservation would be out of luck until the 9 p.m. sailing that night. The jam was due to a staffing shortage that had unexpectedly caused cancelled sailings. As passengers who had paid $18 for reservations on the cancelled sailings were shifted onto other sailings, which were already heavily reserved, ferries filled up quickly. The company’s website warned that drive-up space would be scarce and encouraged people without a confirmed booking to instead consider travelling as a foot passenger or via the terminal in Nanaimo, a 137-kilometre drive from the one at Swartz Bay ... CLICK HERE for the rest of the story

Over the summer, I visited Nanaimo, British Columbia, to investigate a local “safer supply” clinic which several contacts had warned me about. I discovered a hotbed of criminality and violence that starkly contradicted the narratives currently peddled by Canada’s harm reduction activists. Safer supply programs claim to reduce overdoses and deaths by distributing free pharmaceutical alternatives to potentially-tainted illicit substances. In Canada, that typically means doling out large volumes of hydromorphone, an opioid as potent as heroin, to mitigate consumption of street fentanyl. There is significant evidence that these programs are being widely abused and that recipients regularly sell (“divert”) most of their hydromorphone onto the black market. Yet the federal and B.C. governments, which are politically invested in safer supply’s success, have insisted that this is not a significant issue ... CLICK HERE for the full story

  B.C.’s Green Party leader is dismayed Alberta’s fossil fuel “war room” is targeting Nanaimo, B.C., for its leadership in phasing out natural gas hookups to reduce the community’s emissions. After a summer of record-breaking wildfires and sustained heat and drought, every level of government needs to be seeking solutions to the climate crisis, not sabotaging those that do, said Sonia Furstenau, the Greens’ leader and MLA for Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island. “What is needed from all leaders, governments, across all jurisdictions right now are tangible solutions,” Furstenau said ... CLICK HERE for the rest of the story

... Nanaimo has become a lightning rod in the province for the controversial issue of banning natural gas as a primary heating source, even though other municipalities, such as Victoria and Saanich, have already approved earlier adoption of zero-carbon rules and others are considering it. When Nanaimo council initially voted on the issue last month, the result was close, at five to four. Monday’s vote was five to three, with one member absent, and no one had changed their vote, despite a huge volume of letters from opponents of early adoption. Many came from supporters of the Alberta-based Canadian Energy Centre ... CLICK HERE for the full story

  When Nanaimo recently voted to ban FortisBC’s natural gas hookups from new buildings, Alberta’s infamous pro-oil and gas “war room” launched a cross-border political campaign to reverse the move.  The Canadian Energy Centre (CEC) is a publically funded provincial corporation created by former Alberta premier Jason Kenney to protect and promote the fossil fuel industry.  The CEC has launched a hardball lobbying push on its associated Support Canadian Energy website urging oil and gas supporters to flood Nanaimo city council with letters to press the local government to reverse its decision.  The Alberta agency targeted the small municipality of Nanaimo after its city council recently decided to accelerate the phaseout of FortisBC gas hookups in new buildings to meet B.C.’s mandated climate targets ... CLICK HERE for the full story

The ongoing allegation that former residential schools may be sites of multiple secret burials is not consistent with evidence I heard over many weeks covering the Blackwater trial   No doubt, things once unspeakable and for too long unspoken happened to First Nations children at residential schools in Canada.   It is a tragic legacy that requires both silent respect and vehement confirmation. When those details were first revealed publicly at the Blackwater civil trial in Nanaimo in 1998, the lead case in which the federal government and various churches were sued for what they did and did not do at residential schools, to be present as a reporter was on one hand a privilege.    On the other it was a jolt to see the unwholesome things that can and do happen to those who lack privilege ...   CLICK HERE for the full commentary