Building an Oak Bay for Everyone

Other municipalities in the region are leaders in making sure residents can get care — Colwood has built a clinic and is hiring family doctors, Langford is working with a non-profit to build clinics, and Victoria has committed to municipal leadership in creating new clinics. It's time for Oak Bay to take action as well.

Firstly, I will advocate tirelessly for a seniors' campus of care at the Oak Bay Lodge site. Our region needs high quality public care, and the site has sat empty for far too long.

Secondly, I will work to bring a new clinic to Oak Bay. A clinic can be built at low or no cost to the municipality through developer contributions. The clinic will ensure every resident has a family doctor. Once this is achieved, I support expanding the clinic into a real walk-in clinic, which the region has been missing since the pandemic. If the model proves continually successful, I will support hiring specialists for the outpatient care Oak Bay residents desperately need and can't get. This project may be fully compatible with the Lodge site; I will do my best to bring family doctors to Oak Bay as soon as possible, regardless of Island Health and Provincial timelines.

As an aging community with declining access to healthcare services, Oak Bay and the Capital Region as a whole need these investments to avert suffering and deliver a good standard of life.

Right now, Oak Bay is unaffordable to all but the wealthiest new residents. This is chasing out young families, seniors who want to downsize, and people who grew up here and don't make high six figures. Oak Bay residents deserve affordable places to live, affordable and efficient ways to get around, and easy access to affordable services. I will prioritize bringing affordable housing to Oak Bay, building out a complete walk, bike, and roll network, as well as bringing better transit to the District.

Housing and Neighbourhood Businesses

Because of the poor state of Oak Bay's infrastructure, the District is in a difficult position regarding building affordable housing. Putting new housing on a block with a chronically broken sewer main or intermittent water supply is foolhardy. I commit to a clear and transparent process for legalizing a variety of housing across the District, in lockstep with the necessary replacements to sewer and water mains. I will also pursue and support bringing more businesses and housing options to centres like Estevan Village and Oak Bay Village.

I will always try to bring creative solutions to the table, such as bringing pre-approved designs for small apartments, townhomes, and laneway houses to the District. Oak Bay's housing bylaws need a transparent and accountable review, and I will ensure that the public is not just consulted but included in this planning. Simply put, we need to be clear what we want in the District, instead of just saying no to everything we don't want. Without a clear vision, there is no certainty for residents.

I also support increasing the variety and availability of small businesses across the District. Every neighbourhood deserves access to local services like grocers, bakers, doctors, and veterinarians. Increasing commerce in the District is also an effective way to broaden the tax base, lessening the need for steep tax increases to keep up with urgent infrastructure needs.

Transportation

Oak Bay is an aging municipality. Everyone, at some point in their life, will be unable to drive, not least seniors and kids. Being able to walk or roll to work or services is a big component of both affordability and quality of life, especially for seniors and people with disabilities. Every moment is precious, and the District should be making sure that getting around is safe, easy, efficient, and affordable for everyone. That means we need to be proactive in making sure that it is easy and safe to get around without a car. Families and people aging in place need a safe way to get from their homes to friends, family, and basic services.

I support building out a complete network of sidewalks, pedestrian-first streets, and walk and roll routes. Large portions of the sidewalk network are in poor condition and need urgent repair, and many areas are not comfortable for people cycling or wheeling. I will work to fix sidewalks as quickly as possible and deliver a complete transportation network.

For drivers, I will work to improve traffic flow. A huge proportion of local congestion is caused by outdated traffic signals and poor intersection design, which also slows down transit. I will work to update these signals and get traffic moving, a win-win solution for everyone.

Oak Bay has two corridors with high-quality transit— Henderson/Foul Bay and Oak Bay Avenue. I support improving access to these services by providing more housing options near frequent transit and ensuring that there are complete walk and roll conections to bus stops. I also support investing in our outdated and underfunded bus stop infrastructure.

In 2021, our community was given a stark reminder that heat kills, and climate change is here. Municipalities have a responsibility to protect and prepare residents for the climate crisis, as well as a duty to reduce emissions.

Mirroring Saanich, I will push for a municipal interest-free loan program, managed through property taxes, to help property owners replace outdated furnaces with heat pumps, insulate their homes, and build cooling-off spaces in rental properties. This will have the effect of reducing the largest source of municipal emissions, as well as protecting residents from deadly heatwaves and cold snaps.

I also support an ambitious expansion to Oak Bay's urban forest, as well as the creation of a rain garden program similar to Victoria's. Climate-change-induced drought and flooding mean that municipalities need to take a more active part in stormwater management beyond just pipes under the street. Green infrastructure like rain gardens reduces the load on stormwater systems, protecting residents from flooding, with the added benefit of filtering out pollutants that would otherwise enter our ecosystems.

Significant parts of Oak Bay are vulnerable to flooding from storm surge and tsunami. Sadly, little work has been done to build the needed infrastructure and protect residents.

I will ensure that the needed flood protection infrastructure is built, rather than kicking the can down the road like previous councils.

Oak Bay is small and has to pay a lot to maintain services. I support regional services where appropriate and will pursue serious consideration of regional policing due to steeply rising costs. At the CRD, I also support exploring fully regionalized water and sewer services. Smaller municipalities pay more, and I believe government should have the capacity to maintain and deliver core services in-house. We should not need to rely on consultants for routine services.

Oak Bay also has a shortage of social "third" spaces. Rec centres are a key third space, and I support expanding operating hours to what they were before recent cuts. I also support allowing new neighbourhood coffee shops and supporting programs like resident-led community streets and gardens. I will also push for the creation of an Oak Bay Arts, Culture, and Community Spaces strategy to inventory, protect, maintain, and grow our arts and cultural spaces. Groups like Scouting troops, social dance communities, and community choirs should feel welcome and supported in Oak Bay, and it should feel easy to start a new club or activity in our community.

Consultation is a word that comes up a lot in Oak Bay. I think it's really important to consider when consultation is meaningful, and when it's a box to check (or even a delay tactic). Projects that take longer usually cost more, and Oak Bay has a tight budget.

Firstly, I want to move Oak Bay towards a more iterative approach to change. Instead of looking for the perfect design or policy from the get-go, we should prototype changes—a plywood curb extension here, a policy tweak there. That provides a chance to really test a solution and get meaningful feedback, while also delivering responsive and quick decision-making. Sometimes, big changes are needed, but often slow and small solutions are the best way to get big change at a low cost.

Secondly, I think Oak Bay needs to seriously address the use of consultants for public engagement. Oak Bay needs to be able to communicate and get feedback from residents without relying on private companies, especially for routine things.

Thirdly, Oak Bay needs to learn to move faster on important issues, particularly when safety is involved. That means less micromanagement from Council, and a bigger focus on outcomes. Oak Bay has excellent staff, and it is time for Council to trust them to do their jobs. Countless examples, such as Council making line-by-line edits to engineering drawings or spending an hour discussing the colour of paint for a rock, show how better leadership at the Council table is desperately needed. As Mayor, I would strongly discourage extended debate on minutiae and focus on real outcomes for Oak Bay residents.

Finally, Oak Bay needs better transparency and communication from Council. It's easy for communication to get muddled when decisions at the table aren't being made with honest reasoning or a clear connection to desired outcomes. When the District sets goals like creating a safe cycling network, achieving net-zero emissions, or allowing non-market housing, those goals should be directly and transparently tied to each decision. Frankly, it is confusing for the public when the District sets aspirational goals and then makes decisions that appear completely disconnected. I will ensure that my votes at the Council table are clearly tied to this platform and the legislated goals Council sets together with the community.

Municipalities and local governments have an important role to play in growing and protecting Canadian sovereighty in the face of American aggression.

Firstly, Oak Bay needs to reduce its reliance on American tech companies for critical everyday services like staff email, calendars, and other essential digital tools. I support working with regional partners to replace American products with Canadian and open-source alternatives. This is something our allies across Europe are already doing in the face of American aggression. France, in particular, is well on the way to eliminating all reliance on American tech companies and has moved off of Microsoft services for the vast majority of government operations. As part of their efforts to accomplish this goal, they have created a suite of open-source alternatives for office work. Oak Bay and our region should take advantage of this work. It is well past the time for Oak Bay to end our dependance on American services.

Secondly, we need to protect Canadian culture. The biggest way to do this is to fund local art and local artists, in ways that enhance our community. I support adopting and funding an Oak Bay Arts and Culture Strategy that includes a clear path to growing arts and culture spaces in Oak Bay.

Reconciliation is one of the most important issues facing Canada today. If we are to survive as a nation, grow stronger as a community, and build a new national story, we must build stronger cross-cultural and government-to-government relationships.

Reconciliation must be "a new vision, based on a commitment to mutual respect... [that[ inspire[s] Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples to transform Canadian society so that our children and grandchildren can live together in dignity, peace, and prosperity on these lands we now share." (TRC Report, 2015) I fully support this vision, and one of the core reasons I am running is that I believe that governance in Oak Bay has not delivered shared prosperity and dignity to all.

I believe Oak Bay needs to embrace co-governance with local Nations on important shared sites like Spewhung/Turkey Head. There is an important role for local government in responding to many of the 94 calls to action from the Truth and Reconciliation Report, including by connecting community members together in shared events, showing leadership on combatting misinformation and hatred, and collaborating with local nations and urban indigenous commmunities on economic development and land use.

Oak Bay has managed to include a lot of language about reconciliation, but we have seen little concrete action on that vision of shared prosparity and dignity. I will work to ensure that the District is a welcoming place for indigenous people, and that we are actively working to build relationships with local nations and urban indigenous communities. I believe one of the main reasons that Oak Bay has a much smaller Indigenous population as a share than neighbouring municipalities is the cost of living. I will work to make sure that the District has diverse housing options and a variety of cultural and social spaces that are welcoming to all people.