Tyler
Russell

The last days of door knocking have taught me sooooo much about our community. Before I share about the wealth of people I have met, allow me to share one important story that one miraculously living and speaking resident asked that we (a friend was door knocking with me at one point) help publicise.

On March 24, 2024 along where the E&N and the Galloping Goose intersect, a driver distracted by their phone blew through a red light and sent a cycling neighbour of ours flying. Countless bones were broken and their brain was squeezed through their fractured skull resulting in a grade 3 diffuse axonal brain injury. Given the severity of that it is a miracle to hear that story from the very person who survived the crash. The relatively new no-fault insurance system is clearly a concern of this individual, but most of all they want us all to stop looking at our phones when we drive. Speaking of cycling infrastructure and bringing more safety to the car-cyclist interface, they emphasised simplicity in design, pointing out that more signage or complexity of streetscape can cause further distraction, so, they suggested that simple things like narrowing roads and clearing sight-lines near car-bike intersections to preemptively force focus is better than a bunch of signage.

Support-wise, they expressed understandably mixed feelings about various existing health and other supports. They are an architect with sadly unfulfilled, yet relatively modest home-oriented design ambitions. And the inability to achieve them really pains them psychologically. The gap between their expertise and conceptual capacity and their physical ability is painful.

Listening to neighbours like this is highly instructive for how we move forward with decisions we will need to make around car-bike interface zones, especially ones that involve children.

I also met a bus driver who told me how they wish they had been consulted when the bike lanes had been put in because I'm multiple locations the position of the barriers they report, they struggle to fully pull over. They are not against the lanes, but having ones approaching the bus bays be mountable would cause them less workplace stress, stress over blocking traffic and not getting close enough for riders.

A low cortisol Esquimalt keeps kids safe, and traffic moving.

I have met so many of our wonderful neighbours. I have met people who you would never guess depend on and are profoundly grateful for Esquimalt’s various free food resources, including the Community Pantry–which needs a home–market bucks and others. One neighbour who experiences periodic food insecurity and is grateful for these resources also mentioned how the “quirky friendliness” of our community plays an important role in upholding their spirits. Sharing food, fun, unpretentious festivals and gatherings, and greeting one another on the street are ways our community already helps keep some of our cortisol from rising.

In my home the first step to keeping tantrums to a minimum is ensuring that my little guy is properly nourished and well rested. After that comes ensuring clear boundaries are firmly held. Similar principles apply to community safety, a fed and housed community is a safer community.

In that vein, I would like to see us find a home for the Community Pantry and to expand the Esquimalt Farmers Market’s Market Bucks program. Market Bucks have been mentioned by users and distributors alike as an excellent example of a way that through the printing of our own local micro currency that we can power our community’s capacity to care and include while building up local vitality. We may want to think of a way to expand market bucks and create Esquimalt Bucks, a local business only oriented program that circulates value locally, welcomes newcomers and ensures that vulnerable neighbours can delight in a donut or plate of our famous local poutine from time to time.

I have met single parents and elderly folk who, in the overwhelm of it all struggle to keep up with yard maintenance and waste disposal, and as a result feel shame and, if bylaw has been involved a sense of being pushed out of our community, all for something that began when all alone they poured necessary care into a struggling loved one and fell behind in various home maintenance tasks.

Perhaps a local currency could be a part of a support for yard maintenance help for some of these folks as well. When I met these folks and heard their struggles, I thought it would make sense for Esquimalt to binge on the Canada Summer Jobs program and with a big crew of local youth, offer to help these folks clear the overwhelming backlog and find out what sorts of ongoing support might help.

I have met people who pay $25,000 in property tax who don't mind, and others who were paying $4000 and are now paying $6000 who fear losing their capacity to remain in Esquimalt. There are people who defer their $16,000 property tax bill no matter the new Provincial rules. And those who pay much less who had to stop deferring because it became uneconomical. Some of those are visibly concerned about their future housing security.

I met another person who on the face of it may appear extraordinarily wealthy, who lost a spouse and associated resources and is now in a home way beyond their means and quite concerned about how long they may be able to remain in Esquimalt.

Housing security takes many forms.

I met a new citizen who is struggling to bring their spouse to Esquimalt. I learned more reasons why the Blue Boat got cancelled from a former naval officer who took responsibility for ensuring its cancellation. The vessel itself, they said, was no longer safe to operate. That same individual strongly advocates for something like it to start up again, post haste. They gave me their card and said they could help with efforts to bring it back.

I met very lonely seniors from across the socio-economic spectrum. And I toured an apartment complex where everyone has each other's back. In that building was a mostly bed ridden senior who is very well taken care of not by family or just by our public health system's homecare services, but heart warmingly, by their neighbours. I received a couple of “you gotta go talk to so and so down the hall.” When I knocked, reflective of the high trust in their building, I was called to the bedroom to chat. Despite being bedridden, they were in wonderful spirits and did not show any signs of loneliness. Many others in our community are not so lucky.

You would never know it from the outside, but that highly diverse building–by age, gender and ethnicity–struck me as, in terms of quality of relationships and mutual care, one of the wealthiest collections of neighbors in Esquimalt. Mind you many people in that same building felt under siege not by their landlord per se, but by the age of their building and the development trends they see around them. There was a fatalistic surrender to the inevitability of a developer purchasing and tearing down their building and their near future housing precarity that may result. Some mentioned the prospect of homelessness. One resident of a separate 55+ building spoke like a lucky survivor in a horror movie when they recounted how lucky they were to find a place after being evicted from the soon to be redeveloped Sussex and Saunders developments. For them, shifting to an older 55+ building was a life-saver in terms of price point. In these quadrants Esquimalt's development trends are like a Mecha Godzilla chomping up and threatening to chomp up existing buildings, sending their current residents scattering in desperation.

Many tenants in all kinds of rentals mentioned housing precarity as a concern. In particular longer term tenants fretted about elder landlords passing away, themselves getting evicted and having to face contemporary market rates and potentially face temporary homelessness as a result. For these cases, a policy like the one COPE is proposing in Vancouver may make sense for our region as well.

https://www.copevancouver.ca/rent_control_for_vancouver

Affordability is a major issue. And so are trees.

From one of the apartments, I was invited to look out at fhe view of the tree-scape/city-scape of the Saxe Point neighborhood. This neighbour emphasized to me the value of being able to see green and how important it was to them to preserve what we have in terms of mature trees in the Saxe Point neighborhood in particular, since that was the view from the roof of their building that they have savoured ever since getting out of a darker basement suite. Others have pointed to individual trees that they argue should be taken down since they only stand thanks to countless steel bars injected into them.

People in Saxe Point neighborhood are mostly livid that greenspace annihilating four and sixplexes. Neighbours repeatedly noted and derided a particular development company for practices of de-greening, over-building and having little respect for neighbours or existing greenscapes as they are permitted by our council to build up these things. Neighbours are similarly impatient with any suggestion by existing or prospective Town Council members that there is nothing we can do about these things since they are operating under a Provincial mandate. Of course there are things we can do. We can have stricter rules and more effective processes around tree conservation and we can mandate certain landscape guidelines. Why that was not done when these projects were moved forward is beyond me. We could also have a Development Cost Contribution bylaw (DCC) in place to give us more leverage in negotiation with developers.

Our failure to have a DCC in place over the last couple of years had us essentially saying no thank you to over $10,000,000 of non-property tax revenue. Being unreasonably accommodating to developer prerogatives is a real concern across our community. A DCC gives us a starting point. Victoria charges over $10,000/unit in development cost contribution and a couple thousand more in amenity cost contribution fees. Esquimalt saw 989 units of housing built between 2024 and 2026 without such bylaws in place.

Having such a fee is one tool that could give our community a better way to negotiate with developers.

Another idea is to work with the retired and active developers and construction folk resident in Esquimalt to create an Esquimalt Development Collective and perhaps a related community investment branch, including perhaps an Esquimalt Real Estate Investment Collective. Where local money goes into local development in ways that serve local needs. These could use local human and financial resources and work with the municipality to develop our community in a way we see fit rather than in a way that is reactive to the whims of incoming developers. Perhaps, such a group could also work with entities like the Rental Protection Fund. We may also want to consider following the lead of many First Nations’ development or investment corporation approaches and consider joint ventures models. A community grounding mechanism like this may help to lower some cortisol as well, no?

In a related, cooperative, community economy vein, I would like to see us encourage or mandate the use of locally prefabricated elements in construction to reduce on-site construction times and thus shorten the amount of time people have to deal with construction noise.

Perhaps we can realise in one small way a local development economy that is a reflection of who we are as a community, a community that creates a thoughtfully, lovingly designed urban environment and living place that takes care of those who might be displaced, so Mecha Godzilla fears become a thing of the past.

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Did you know that the Esquimalt Neighbourhood House and the Esquimalt Anglers' Association receive full permissive property‑tax exemptions from the Township, while the parts of the Esquimalt United Church property that house the Rainbow Kitchen now receive only a partial one, falling to half in 2027?

The distinction is slightly technical, but important. Places of worship receive a statutory exemption for the worship building and the land it sits on. The rest of a church property, such as halls, other buildings, parking and surrounding land, needs a permissive exemption granted by Council. Until 2024 those were fully exempt. In October 2024, Council passed a new bylaw that steps them down: 75 per cent exempt in 2025 and 2026, and 50 per cent in 2027. It applies to all six places of worship in the bylaw, from Esquimalt United and Our Lady Queen of Peace to a Buddhist society and the Ismaili community. For Esquimalt United, that means a graduated increase in the tax it pays on a large property that houses the Rainbow Kitchen, a signature Esquimalt food‑security and urban‑agriculture initiative, and more. The Township's staff report and bylaws set out the schedule.

The amounts are small for the Township. Across all six places of worship, these exemptions were worth about $57,600 in total property taxes in 2024; by 2027 that falls to an estimated $31,500. For a congregation keeping a hall, a kitchen and a garden open to the whole community, it is not small.

The staff report gives no reason for the change. I can understand a general wish to look harder at what faith institutions receive. The history of Canada's mainline churches is complicated and, in important respects, deeply painful. The United Church itself has acknowledged and apologized for its role in the residential‑school system; it was responsible for 15 residential schools operated between 1849 and 1969. The United Church's apologies can be read here. Acknowledging that history does not require us to ignore the very different and very valuable work these same institutions make possible today.

Rainbow Kitchen is a key example.

It began in 2001 in a small Anglican church hall near the border of Vic West and Esquimalt, offering coffee, tea and sandwiches one day a week. By the time the St. Saviour's property was sold, it was serving more than 125 meals a day, five days a week. In 2012 it moved into Esquimalt United Church at Admirals and Lyall, where a $20,000 donation from the Victoria Rotary Club helped with renovation costs, as The Anglican reported in March 2012 (page 9). Rainbow Kitchen tells the story of its beginnings on its own website.

Esquimalt United had already been doing related work. A community soup lunch began there in January 2000, and in 2009 part of the church lawn became vegetable gardens, with much of the produce going to Rainbow Kitchen. The church's history page records that work.

Then the community kept adding to it. In 2016, HeroWork brought together roughly 120 companies, 170 tradespeople and hundreds of volunteers for a renovation it valued at about $500,000. The result was not simply a nicer kitchen. It increased the capacity of a building already shared by many community groups; HeroWork listed a francophone preschool, AA meetings, a dragon‑boat club, gardening groups and community dances. HeroWork's project summary is here.

A place like Rainbow Kitchen is not merely a building or a meal service. It is social infrastructure: somewhere people can encounter other people, eat, volunteer, talk, belong, and sometimes simply be somewhere other than alone. It is a beacon of love in our community.

Rainbow Kitchen exists because people have spent decades putting care into it: church members, volunteers, charitable organizations, businesses, service clubs, donors, staff and guests. There is accumulated community value there. When municipal policy touches places like this, I think we should ask not only "What is this parcel worth?" but also "What happens here, and does that activity merit a tax exemption?"

Rainbow Kitchen aligns with several things Esquimalt says it values. Esquimalt's Official Community Plan supports food security and the expansion of community gardens "on public, private and institutional lands," and the Township's own health and wellness resources page describes Rainbow Kitchen as providing "nutritious meals, food security programs, school nutrition programs, and social connection for vulnerable residents."

The current bylaw runs through 2027, so the next council will decide what comes after. My position is that Council should reconsider the declining exemption for the portions of the Esquimalt United Church property that support this community work, and more broadly weigh the actual community services taking place on land owned by faith organizations when it sets permissive exemptions. The Township's own exemption policy already asks applicants to describe their programs, participants, volunteer hours and community use of their property. That information should shape the result.

That is not an argument that every church, temple, mosque or other religious institution should automatically receive a blanket exemption for everything it owns. It is an argument that use matters. The social value performed on a property deserves to be visible in the municipal calculation.

And that brings me to seniors

The issue of the Rainbow Kitchen and taxation first came to my attention through a senior involved with the church. In talking with older residents, the Rainbow Kitchen question began to look like one part of a much larger one: what are the places and services that let somebody grow old in Esquimalt without becoming isolated from the community around them?

Whatever one's personal views about religion, churches and other faith communities have historically provided that kind of infrastructure for many people, older people in particular: grounded, lifelong connection, a place for reflection and for cookies and tea, somewhere somebody notices when you haven't shown up.

The point is not that religious institutions are the only answer to loneliness. Far from it. The point is that a healthy community needs a diversity of gathering places: religious and secular, structured and informal, for young people, families, retirees and people living alone.

I understand that that matters especially as people age. Neighbours have pointed out to me that widowhood can bring not just grief but financial disruption, through the loss of a pension from the household income, along with the sudden loss of a person's most constant companion. Declining mobility, they note, can steadily shrink someone's world. A community designed for aging needs more than accessible sidewalks. It needs destinations.

Neighbours have pointed out that the lack of a bank is a big one; Esquimalt's last branch closed in January 2023. Many of us know the overwhelm of dealing with financial matters. Imagine, in the year after losing a spouse of more than 50 years, the emotional weight of managing an account you shared for all those years, in your now quieter‑than‑ever home. The assistance of a teller can go a long way!

I have spoken with people close to me in the local banking industry about trying to make something happen here. It is something I will keep pushing for.

Unfinished business

But I digress. Esquimalt commissioned a significant report on these questions a decade ago.

In 2016 the Township commissioned an Age‑Friendly Assessment to help older adults stay active, socially engaged and independent. Some of what followed is visible around us: the Town Square and new library, active‑transportation improvements, and continuing sidewalk work all speak to themes raised in that process.

But there is unfinished business. One concrete recommendation was to work with BC Transit toward direct bus routes to both Victoria General and Royal Jubilee hospitals. The 15 on Esquimalt Road runs past Royal Jubilee, and the 14 on Craigflower Road runs to Victoria General. But from the Village and the south end of town, Vic General still means a walk up to Craigflower or a transfer, which is why the assessment also asked for better service between Craigflower and Esquimalt Village.

Then there is long‑term care. The latest report from B.C.'s Office of the Seniors Advocate should get our attention. In 2024/25, people classified as urgent and waiting in the community for a long‑term‑care bed in Island Health waited an average of 148 days. Non‑urgent community admissions averaged 404 days. Both rose by a third or more in a single year. See Monitoring Seniors Services 2025, page 32.

Those regional figures do not, by themselves, show that Esquimalt specifically needs a new long‑term‑care facility. That takes a local needs assessment, discussions with Island Health, and a look at projected demand and suitable land. But they certainly justify asking the question.

Independent living is tight too. I was told by local seniors that the Renaissance, the family‑owned independent retirement residence on Esquimalt Road, has a long waiting list. When I called to check about that, they told me a suite typically comes available every three or four months.

I am also hearing repeatedly about the importance of ordinary, walkable services: in‑person banking and financial help, medical care, more useful retail, and places to source meals from without cooking.

A workshop for every age

One idea that came up that intrigues me is a community workshop or maker space: somewhere a retired carpenter can keep woodworking, someone can repair a bicycle or build something, and skills accumulated over a lifetime can be passed on rather than disappearing behind someone's front door. Done well, it would not need to be a "seniors' centre." It could be deliberately intergenerational, a place where a teenager who wants to learn the lathe might find themselves working beside someone who has used one for fifty years. It could be a branch of, or modelled on, the Victoria Makerspace.

To bring this rambly post to a close, I will build on something my father told me on a father‑son stroll when I was about seven: prosperous communities are not simply communities with valuable real estate. Their richness is found in the value of their social connections and in how well they love and care for one another.

In urban spaces that takes a measure of thoughtfulness about the social infrastructure we foster.

Rainbow Kitchen is one of those places. We should take care of the conditions that let places like it keep loving.

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It is so great to connect and learn about our community!

Over the last few days I had a chance to speak with so many of you. This post captures only a few of those conversations, but the focus on fire is important. I will get to the others in later posts.

Traffic

Traffic is a persistent and important issue. A mom told me how challenging, or near impossible, it is to get her kids to soccer at Hampton Field for 5pm. A local firefighter affirmed that the type of bike lanes on Lampson has added life‑threatening time to response times. Their recommendation is not to remove the lanes, because those save lives too, but to make the concrete barriers mountable so cars can pull out of the way in an emergency. An 11‑year‑old chimed in that their big concern in Esquimalt was the traffic: they had been stuck for half an hour on Admirals in a school bus with no working air conditioning, and, as they put it, it was soooo hot!

Everyone seems supportive of any and all strategies to ease the traffic: the Blue Boat (a staff‑only ferry for base and dockyard workers), free transit along Admirals, Lampson and Esquimalt, or anything, anything, please!

Our firefighters' health

A friend and neighbour recently shared how the cumulative stress of first‑responder work, in another jurisdiction, contributed to the passing of a dear friend of theirs. The mental health of our front‑line emergency personnel is put under strains most of us will never know. If there is one part of our municipal family for whom lowering cortisol is vital, it is these people. By all reports, the current council, the Chief Administrative Officer and the Fire Chief are realistic about the stress and demands first responders face. But that is fragile. Leadership matters, and leadership changes. Further institutionalizing care for the mental and physical health of firefighters is essential.

In April the Province passed the Firefighters' Health Act, acting on the statistical fact that firefighters face higher rates of cancer and mental‑health injury. This is excellent and long overdue legislation!

Fragile relationships, different words

One fragile piece local firefighters raised is cooperation with neighbouring departments. Under the current Chief, they say, relations are excellent. But what happens when this Chief moves on? What if the next one doesn't have the same gift for relationship building? The public record shows how real that risk is: in 2016 Victoria refused to sign a regional mutual‑aid agreement, and in 2020 it pulled out of the 40‑year‑old agreement with Esquimalt, Saanich and Oak Bay, saying its neighbours called on it more than it called on them. New agreements followed in 2021. Good relations carried the day, and good relations can change.

They also noted that the firefighting terminology used by neighbouring departments differs. There are a lot of ways to talk about a fire hydrant. What happens when three departments, used to different terms, arrive at the same fire?

That says nothing of dispatch. Since 2018, Esquimalt, Colwood, View Royal, Sidney and North Saanich have contracted fire dispatch from Surrey, on the mainland. Saanich dispatches Oak Bay, Central Saanich, Sooke, Highlands, Metchosin and the Juan de Fuca and Gulf Island departments.

The break‑up of a shared, on‑Island dispatch system looks to me like a moment when short‑term savings overrode long‑term vision, and the search for real efficiencies and good relations among immediate neighbours. That ship may have sailed. It is unfortunate that a better regional conversation, with provincial or regional support, didn't happen at the time.

No matter what, institutionalizing good relations and interoperability among our region's fire departments is critical, especially if we are going to keep adding taller buildings, not to mention competently protecting the ones we already have.

A region that cannot staff a fire alone

Resident safety is crucial. As things stand, Esquimalt Fire Rescue cannot fully staff even an ordinary house fire on its own at the industry standard. We have the gear; we don't have the people. As Oak Bay's Fire Chief put it in a 2023 report to his council: "it needs to be recognized that none of the fire departments in the CRD is able [to] deploy sufficient on‑duty staffing for a major structure fire (e.g., a multi‑family residence, mall or high‑rise building), and an ordinary residential structure fire effectively taps out even the largest departments." Mutual aid between departments, he wrote, is "critical to enable each of the departments to respond safely and effectively with the required staffing to a major event" (p. 26).

It is incumbent on any future council to make sure these mutual‑aid arrangements are more deeply formalized than they are now, and that interoperability between the region's departments is optimized.

We also need to balance our construction ambitions with what we can ask of our firefighters. By the numbers in that report, responding to a single high‑rise fire to the industry standard would take essentially every on‑duty firefighter in Saanich, Victoria, Oak Bay and Esquimalt combined.

A fire in an ordinary single‑family house calls for 16 to 17 firefighters under National Fire Protection Association standards. Esquimalt's council‑set minimum is six on duty, and the Township's own workforce plan says the department has often run with five. A high‑rise over six storeys calls for 42 to 43. Esquimalt already has a growing number of buildings over six storeys, with more coming, including the approved 26‑storey tower on the Carlton Club lands at Esquimalt Road and Head Street. If two serious fires happen in the region at once, we do not have the capacity to respond.

This is not acceptable. It puts a psychological burden on firefighters when we build in ways they cannot reasonably be expected to protect. Their job, their identity, is to save communities from fire. When we set an insurmountable expectation in front of them, or fail to equip them for the task we ask of them, we are not doing our duty as a council.

There is a defence dimension too. Many of the people who crew Canada's Pacific Fleet live in these buildings. Fire protection around CFB Esquimalt is part of the base's resilience, and that is one more reason the Province and Ottawa should take a greater interest in our regional fire capacity.

I am forwarding this dispatch to people in the fire services, and I ask them in particular to hold me to account for it if I am elected. I will push hard on regional capacity and interoperability, especially to meet the expectations our choices in the built environment imply.

A bylaw to protect our insurance rating

One thing we can do legislatively at the municipal level, to the benefit of taxpayers and insurance‑payers alike, is a motion to maintain or improve our Fire Underwriters Survey rating. Through an amendment to existing bylaws, or a new one, we could adopt language like this:

"It is the policy of the Township to maintain or improve its Fire Underwriters Survey Public Fire Protection Classification and Dwelling Protection Grade through prudent planning, investment, development review, and management of fire‑protection capacity.

In considering significant new development or redevelopment, the Township shall assess whether the proposed change in building height, density, occupancy, required fire flow, concentration of risk, or other relevant factors could materially affect the community's fire‑risk profile or the adequacy of existing fire‑protection resources.

Where a proposed development could reasonably be expected to place additional demands on fire‑service staffing, apparatus, water supply, emergency communications, pre‑incident planning, automatic or mutual aid, or other elements relevant to the Township's fire insurance grading, Council shall be advised of those impacts before final approval.

The Township shall not knowingly permit growth in community fire risk to outpace the fire‑protection capacity necessary to maintain its existing Fire Underwriters Survey classifications. Where additional capacity is required, the Township shall identify appropriate measures to maintain or improve those classifications, including operational, capital, infrastructure, intergovernmental, development‑related, or other measures available to the Township.

The Township shall periodically review its Fire Underwriters Survey classifications and the principal factors affecting them and report to Council on risks to maintaining those classifications and opportunities for improvement."

The Fire Underwriters Survey, for reference, is the insurance industry's rating of a community's fire protection, and it feeds directly into what residents pay for fire insurance. Esquimalt earned an improved rating in 2017. We don't want it slipping.

I have much more to write from neighbours' feedback, but I will post this for now.

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A lot of great input from meeting our neighbours lately, so I will break it into a few posts.

Too bright

When I first moved to Esquimalt, one of the big challenges was controlling the brightness in our apartment. The streetlights are very bright, and it takes blackout curtains to make a proper sleep environment.

A couple of people raised this recently, and it seems to be a Township‑wide issue. One kind and highly knowledgeable couple, who noted that brightness became a problem with the switch to LED lights, made two very good points. First, street lighting is meant as a crime‑prevention measure, but bright lights don't prevent much if everyone has blackout curtains and nobody is looking outside. Second, Calgary does a good job of keeping streets bright while shading residents from the overflow.

I looked it up. Calgary has a 117‑page Design Guidelines for Street Lighting that deals with light trespass onto homes and calls for glare shields or louvers where lighting is near residences. Thank you, Calgary, for doing that work so we don't have to!

I can't find any such guidelines for Esquimalt. Perhaps the next council can look at adopting, or gently adapting, ready‑made guidelines like these.

That would add to the list of off‑the‑shelf bylaws and rules we can bring in to make Esquimalt better: a Right to Cool, thank you New Westminster; street lighting design guidelines, thank you Calgary; an Amenity Cost Charge, where we can look to Oak Bay, New Westminster, Port Moody and the District of North Vancouver, all of which adopted one in 2025. The world's knowledge, municipal bylaws included, is at our fingertips in PDF form. That mindset can fast‑track a lot of improvements.

The arts

Another marvellous contribution from neighbours: we can do so much more with the arts in our community. Sooo much more!

One astute neighbour pointed to the Canada Council for the Arts' finding that for every additional dollar it invests in arts organizations, those organizations spend six dollars in their communities.

They suggested that, since Esquimalt has no arts, culture or festivals coordinator, the Township could look at co‑hiring one with two or three neighbouring municipalities that also lack one, View Royal and Colwood for example. We would need to look at the current load of the Community Development Coordinator, under whose portfolio many of these tasks seem to fall, to work out the real need. But I agree that a more arts‑focused role could be of great benefit.

They highlighted some of our local arts luminaries, including Theatre Al Dente and Wonderheads, whose world‑class work I had the pleasure of hosting and seeing when I ran the Rotary Centre for the Arts in Kelowna.

There is sooo much possibility in our community if we come out of the woodwork and work together! And if we simply charged for parking on event days, we could foster more of a transit‑using culture and raise a fair amount of revenue at the same time.

Another neighbour has talked with me for a long time now about realising a children's festival.

As I have said elsewhere, I want to lean into making Esquimalt Buccaneer Days and its parade even more awesome and inspiring: more of that larger‑than‑life street puppetry, perhaps with generous participation from our local puppetry experts.

A children's festival of collaborative creativity might sit well in the weeks before Buccaneer Days, so that what the kids make can be shown in the parade, or it could stand alone. Much to explore. Most of all, I want us to lean into collaborative creative expression, as Buccaneer Days already does, to show ourselves and our children the joy and possibility of working together. A micro‑grants program to go with it may be worth exploring. The arts organization I serve as board treasurer has run a successful micro‑grants program over the years. It is an empowering mechanism.

Still on the arts, another neighbour said that while they understood graffiti enforcement in general, they and their son love visiting the dedicated graffiti walls along the E&N. That is the Trackside Art Gallery, between Lampson and Esquimalt Road, Canada's largest legal graffiti wall, repainted by dozens of artists every year. I have taken my own son. It is inspiring. Esquimalt is home to some surprisingly accomplished mural and public‑art professionals, and our potential as an arts‑invigorated town is far greater than we are realising. I look forward to exploring those possibilities and, if elected, acting on them.

Child care spaces

Speaking of children, one neighbour emphasised that we need more child care spaces, and suggested that any big development should include consideration for child care space within it. Given the state of the waiting lists, Esquimalt clearly lacks adequate child care space. I am not sure that tying new spaces to new developments, or covenanting developments to that use, is the right approach. But we do need far better planning to make sure child care needs are met. This is one more thing an Amenity Cost Charge can fund.

Much more to write from my recent door knocking, but I will send this out for now.

Thank you to everyone who has signed up to the newsletter!

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If I were to describe Esquimalt politics in terms of camps, you could basically say there are bike‑lane lovers and bike‑lane haters. On Saturday I think I found our community's most common common ground. I thought it would be traffic, but not quite: people who own cargo bikes and mostly bike rarely mention concerns with traffic, though people who bike some of the time, and love the lanes, definitely do. The real common ground between the lovers and the haters is sidewalks! In an area where new sidewalks went in, people at both ends of the Esquimalt political spectrum told me what a wonderful addition they have been. What they have done for child safety was gratefully noted by multiple parties.

Sidewalks are where we all get along!

Get the cars moving again

One sidewalk‑loving neighbour had a very concise request: get rid of the bike lanes and put the speed limit back up to 50. You've got to get the cars moving again! If you want to save the environment, you can't have everyone idling for two hours a day. What was once a 7‑minute commute for them is now 30.

I don't share every part of that prescription, but the frustration is real, and what they said next is hard to argue with.

They hugely support bringing back some kind of Blue Boat service, and reminisced about how it worked: where the parking lots were on the Colwood and Langford side, the friends who really enjoyed it, how fast the crossing was. They had little patience for studies for studies' sake, like the one done some years ago exploring the possibility of a general public ferry when, as we all know, what matters is a service for base staff.

They insisted that investment in transit should come before bike lanes, because as they see it an effective transit system can pull real drivers off the road.

Why the Dayliner didn't work

They remembered the old Via Rail Dayliner, which ran out of Victoria through Langford and up‑island, and how hardly anyone rode it because life wasn't organised around it. People still had to get groceries and everything else, and those services were available via car, they emphasised, so the Dayliner didn't make sense for daily life.

I agree. If you want people to use a mode of transit, the city around it has to be designed with some sensitivity to normal ways of life. Very pragmatic folk, they support a long‑term light rail vision so long as it isn't a white elephant irrelevant to daily life. I shared my experience living in Korea and Japan, where grocery stores and all kinds of everyday needs are built into and around stations, and how places like Hong Kong have built a whole city around transit. It takes the long‑term application of those design principles to make that kind of system work, not a one‑off project in a sea of design principles that think otherwise.

The timing matters. Last December the Songhees and Xʷsepsəm Nations, the CRD and five municipalities, Esquimalt among them, agreed to explore together the future of the rail corridor between Victoria and Langford, under the Nations' leadership. In March the CRD board committed $1.7 million it had held in reserve for the corridor since 2012, as Victoria News reported, and study work is under way. On Wednesday, here in Esquimalt, the federal government added $500,000 for the Island Corridor Foundation's feasibility study. It is a study, not a train. But it comes exactly at the moment when we need to start shifting our urban design concepts if we are going to be serious about this.

A Viewfield station

In Esquimalt, I see a Viewfield station, right next to Wholesale Club, Flying Squirrel and Driftwood Brewing, as a ready‑made super station. Creative zoning could allow housing density there while keeping it an industrial and employment zone, turning it into an integrated employment neighbourhood: a place to live, work, play, make things, shop and connect to the rest of the region by rail.

Making an adjustment like that to our OCP would mark a larger shift in how we think about Esquimalt. Twentieth‑century car‑oriented planning separated cities into residential, commercial and industrial districts. Development around rail stations gives us a chance to integrate compatible uses again and build complete neighbourhoods with mobility at their core. With a comprehensive review of the Official Community Plan expected to start in the next council's term, these are ideas we can start thinking about together.

If we lean into rail‑oriented design, the economic potential around future station areas is tremendous. I can imagine the Naden, Viewfield and Vic West terminus stations together becoming a vibrant regional centre of economic and social life by 2050.

That is a long‑term vision. But we also have an immediate problem: getting people moving again. That means measures we can act on much sooner: reviving a Blue Boat‑style service, improving transit access, as with my Esquimalt Free Ride proposal, and making transit schedules actually work for the shifts of the thousands of people travelling to and from Esquimalt every day.

We need to solve the congestion of today while designing for the Esquimalt of 2050.

Another neighbour mentioned that some of the traffic‑calming measures have people dangerously jumping lanes just to get out of an intersection.

Who pays for infrastructure

One neighbour longed for the days of beach fires, and reckons the last time they saw a beat cop walking Esquimalt's streets was nearly 20 years ago. They work in construction and like development, but feel that here in Esquimalt, there may have been a bit much of late, especially when, as they see it, the burden of infrastructure is passed on to taxpayers. They were aghast that Esquimalt has no amenity cost charge or equivalent in place to make sure developers pay for the infrastructure their projects need.

They knew that when the Province announced its five‑year housing target of 754 new homes for Esquimalt back in 2024, Esquimalt went on to blow past it by more than 200 homes in just two years, with much more still in the pipeline. The Township's latest report to the Province counts 989 homes completed and another 427 approved and on the way. Again they emphasised pacing development with infrastructure. We can't let infrastructure founder.

The CRD's own projections show the region's population growth slowing, largely because of federal immigration policy. Given the correlation between population growth and housing demand, it is sad to think we may be late in bringing in a charge that speaks to Esquimalt's real infrastructure deficit.

Finding a way to close that deficit will be one of the big challenges for the next council. Frankly, the answer will not come from small levies on a fourplex or sixplex here and there, and it certainly should not come from further tax increases. It should come from having development and amenity cost charges in place, as I propose in my Green for Grey initiative, and from realising larger initiatives like, for example, a Viewfield station neighbourhood. That vision needs federal, provincial, First Nations, regional and neighbouring governments pulling together. The coalition agreement the Nations, the CRD and five municipalities, Esquimalt among them, signed last December is a good start. The job is to make sure that realising it also relieves our infrastructure deficit, without further shocks to taxpayers.

A garden on the commons

My last conversation of the evening was with a neighbour tending a guerrilla garden on a patch of public land. At first they said their mind was too caught up in international affairs. Then they voiced concern about access to housing for the unhoused, how it too often gets left on the back burner, and how much they would like to see meaningful action.

Then they shared a beautiful history of guerrilla gardening and seed sharing: how the Victoria Seed Library came to be, with strong Esquimalt participation, and how transforming rough lawn on municipal land into a luscious food patch brought personal healing and rich community connection. They spoke with wonder of the expanse between Esquimalt High and the road: "You could grow a lot of food there!!" They described the empowerment of growing food not just for yourself in your own back yard, but on a community commons. It provides year‑round nourishment and a path to social connection, fostering a culture of respect for labour and care, and joy on both sides of acts of sharing bounty, sometimes including with the deer.

They volunteered that they may have capacity to help promote more front‑yard and roadside gardening, and were invigorated by what that could mean for our community. I was delighted, and said that if I am elected I may reach out to see what is possible. Victoria publishes boulevard gardening guidelines that tell residents what they can plant and where. I could not find an Esquimalt equivalent. That would be an easy one to borrow.

An afternoon and evening of seeing the breadth of possibility in our community. With neighbours like these, we have a lot we can do together and a beautiful future to look forward to!

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With the traffic congestion of recent years, people are gunning for alternative routes. I mentioned earlier a neighbour's concern about drivers ripping through the laneway between Ellery and Colville. On Friday I spoke with people worried about Old Esquimalt Road being used the same way. They were grateful for the speed bumps, but said the bumps aren't having enough impact.

I am not above taking detours myself. Around 3:30 one recent afternoon, I went down Grenville to avoid the jammed‑up Admirals and Esquimalt intersection. It is not something to be proud of, but it was definitely faster.

That is the point. The traffic situation is raising our community's cortisol levels and pushing people into traffic‑evading manoeuvres through streets that were never meant for them. Speed bumps treat the symptom. Addressing the jam itself, as I propose, is key.

One neighbour gratefully acknowledged the difference the pedestrian crossings on Esquimalt Road have made. Another wants more enforcement at those crossings; they have been dismayed time and again by drivers not slowing down, for seniors in particular. Enforcement may help. But in my opinion the root cause is people who are stressed and in a rush because the streets are jammed everywhere else.

There was a lot of appetite for any proposal that would ease the traffic.

Property taxes

A few neighbours commented (or maybe that is too gentle a word) about property taxes! One was livid with the current council, first for, as they put it, all but banning cars. They had noticed traffic counters on Old Esquimalt Road and suspected that meant more bike lanes. They weren't against bike lanes altogether, as one particular Esquimalt chorus sings; they were against the concrete‑barriered kind, and feared those, or some other anti‑car measure, were coming for their street. I don't know what the counters are for. I will ask. But the real boil came with property taxes: they are too high, and something has to be done about them!

Another neighbour focused on what taxes mean for seniors on low or fixed incomes. If you retired in the last couple of years expecting to live another thirty, and you just watched property taxes jump and the rules for deferring them change, it is understandably scary. These are not increases anyone could have planned for.

The deferment change is the quiet one. Until this year, a senior deferring their property taxes paid simple interest at prime minus 2%. Under the 2026 provincial budget it is now prime plus 2%, compounded monthly. Here is the BC Seniors Advocate's release and the Province's own explainer. Staying in your home just got more expensive for the people least able to absorb it.

So what can be done?

One bit of good news: Esquimalt council brought resolution NR51, "Changes to Provincial Property Tax Deferment Program," to the Union of BC Municipalities convention, which wrapped up on Friday. It urges the Province to review the changes "with consideration for the needs of low‑income seniors on fixed incomes, including the introduction of an income threshold, so that the program continues to support low‑income seniors as originally intended." You can read it in the UBCM Resolutions Book (search for NR51) or in Esquimalt's own report.

Thankfully it passed. Credit where it is due. Now we need to keep up the push until there is a program in place that works for seniors.

BC municipalities don't have the power to act alone on this the way Toronto does. But Toronto's approach is worth looking at. Its Property Tax Increase Cancellation Program lets low‑income seniors and low‑income people with disabilities apply to have their tax increase cancelled. For 2026 that means a household income of $62,000 or less, a home assessed under $975,000, and being over 65, or 60 to 64 and receiving the Guaranteed Income Supplement, or receiving disability benefits. That is the kind of targeted tool I would want Esquimalt asking the Province for.

What Esquimalt can do today: the Township already has a pre‑authorized payment plan that spreads property taxes over ten monthly payments, August to May. Nobody I spoke with knew about it. It should be far better advertised, and it has a gap: you have to be fully paid up before you can join, which is no help to someone already stretched. It is a stopgap, not a fix, but a stopgap that spares someone a July cash crunch is worth having.

A $10,000 drain

One young couple told me their basement has flooded repeatedly. The fix is a perimeter drain connected to the municipal storm drain. The Township's quote to connect: $10,000. That is $5,000 for the connection and up to $5,000 more for traffic control because they are on a busy road. For them, that means it just can't happen. This is troubling. Constant moisture has serious implications for health, and for the house itself.

I looked into it. In 2021 council approved a program to keep stormwater out of our sewers, and the staff report says the cost of work on private pipes "will be shared equally between the homeowner and the Township." What I cannot find is any public explanation of who qualifies, or whether it would help a couple like this one. I will be asking. And if the Township can't share the cost, it could at least offer to put the fee on the property tax bill so it can be paid off over several years.

And one more

A neighbour who is a permanent resident, so not yet able to vote, said that if they could ask for one thing, it would be to finish the upgrades at Archie Browning sooner rather than later, because they want their kids skating regularly.

More doors this weekend!

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The residents I spoke with on Wednesday afternoon had one common chorus: please abide by the Official Community Plan, and permit no more than six storeys where that is what the plan says. Other themes were love, care and time. The restoration of Island Rail came up too, but I will leave that for a later post.

What years of construction feel like

One older resident living beside a construction zone has a sensitivity to sound. For them, the difference between building six floors and building nine is not abstract. It is more months of noise cutting into their later years, and nine storeys of neighbours looking into a back yard they may never fully enjoy again. Their partner told me they spend six or more hours a day wearing noise‑cancelling headphones, and that after years of construction this has impacted the couple's communication with each other.

A parent of young children, also concerned about OCP adherence, told me that repeated rock blasting nearly pushed them to the brink of a mental‑health crisis. When everything in life is already too much, and we add years of blasting next door, we have created a real problem.

These are texture‑of‑life impacts stretched over long spans of time. Everyone I spoke with agreed that densification is important. But the impacts are viscerally felt. We can do better.

One pro‑density neighbour confessed, with heart‑warming Canadian self‑deprecation, that going to council over a project in their back yard was nimbyism, since they support density everywhere else. But this project was literally in their back yard, and it proposed to exceed the existing OCP.

Green for grey

Another neighbour who shared the OCP concerns suggested that densification in one area should come with an expansion of enjoyable green space in another. In conversation we started calling it a Green‑for‑Grey Initiative. Developers might not only commit to conserving canopy on site but contribute to a pool for green‑space expansion and canopy conservation elsewhere in town. This could be a part of taking Esquimalt away from the current haphazard approach to development negotiations and fall in line with BC's new Amenity Cost Charge bylaw provisions under the Local Government Act. The devil will be in the details, but I broadly support Esquimalt adopting an Amenity Cost Charge bylaw. I've since written this up as Proposal 03: Green for Grey.

That neighbour mentioned a study on canopy and cooling, so I looked it up. Research modelling Manchester in the UK found that adding five percent mature deciduous tree cover could lower average summer surface temperatures by about one degree. This falls in line with my commitment to forwarding a Right to Cool bylaw soon after taking office.

A focus on fostering green canopy is exciting, and it fits my ambition to see Esquimalt become a carbon‑negative community. If our canopy plan includes fast‑growing deciduous trees like bigleaf maple, and we treat prunings and the decadal replacement of trees not as wood waste but as contributions to long‑term carbon storage through pyrolysis, we start putting meaningful acreage to work on both urban cooling and atmospheric carbon removal. That is the sort of legacy infrastructure I would love to leave the next generations.

Time as accessibility

A neighbour with a background in critical disability studies pointed out how much room there is to widen our approach to accessibility, starting with time. One low‑cost example: in the Australian state of Victoria, people with accessible parking permits may park for double the posted time. The last thing someone who struggles to keep up with ableist pacing needs is to be rushed by it. Of course, with Esquimalt's scantily enforced approach to parking such a policy would have less impact locally, but showing leadership in this regard and encouraging region‑wide adoption of such policies would be fantastic. I think our neighbour makes a good point, and I would be happy to add this to a list of proposals to bring to council.

Housing, and a coalition of the pro‑active

One of the OCP‑concerned, pro‑density neighbours was most concerned about housing for people who are unhoused, and wondered what role Esquimalt could play. For the little historical context I have, I shared that a friend who used to run a social‑service agency told me that years ago they could call landlords in Esquimalt and find a place for someone struggling to keep a roof over their head. As Esquimalt gentrified, those opportunities all but dried up.

I mentioned the approach taken by the Woodward's redevelopment in Vancouver. Some echoes of that can be seen in Esquimalt Town Square, but I acknowledge that there is more thinking and working to be done. We agreed on two things. Esquimalt should stay a pro‑active community when it comes to people's right to housing. And no municipality in the region should be able to sit out while others carry the load, which is how many people here already feel about regional policing. Thinking of the good work and good spirit that Rainbow Kitchen and the United Church bring, we wondered what a regional approach might look like, not just to policing, but to poverty alleviation and to upholding rights like access to housing.

What I could commit to as a councillor is to work with established organisations while seeking out like‑minded people and organizations, churches, grassroots groups, and specific councillors and mayors across the region, and form a results‑oriented "coalition of the pro‑active" that brings tangible solutions to the housing challenges our local and regional neighbours face.

Caring for the neighbours of a construction site

In a neighbourhood that has lived with construction noise for years, it was clear that if we want a low‑cortisol Esquimalt, we need to do a better job of caring for our neighbours when we choose to put them through years of disruption.

One off‑the‑cuff idea, which might also be a long‑term opportunity for a worker, community or entrepreneur‑owned business: encourage as much off‑site prefabrication as possible, through rezoning conditions and construction management plans, to cut on‑site noise, construction time and trades parking. Alongside that, consider a noise, time and neighbourhood wellbeing assessment that looks at the actual neighbours rather than an abstract receptor on a map.

We are a small enough community to do this with a human face. Neighbours who want to can tell us what they are dealing with, a noise sensitivity, a newborn, an autistic child who may be disproportionately affected, and the developer can be invited to be part of the care for that household, rather than cast in the adversarial good‑guy, bad‑guy roles so common in our culture and politics.

I could commit to knocking on the doors around proposed developments to understand the texture‑of‑life impacts before decisions are made, and to create pathways for developers to exercise care that reaches the actual people affected.

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We cannot have a low‑cortisol Esquimalt while first responders struggle to get through traffic, children at play are put at risk by frustrated drivers hunting for shortcuts, and the interface between drivers and cyclists stays unfriendly. Tuesday evening's door knocks, along Lampson and the streets around Transit Road, pointed at exactly those pressure points.

Lampson and Transit Road

For hours a day, some residents say it is nearly impossible to pull out of their own driveways. One neighbour described how, soon after the bike lanes went in, a barrier ended up blocking their ability to turn onto the street safely. Another chuckled, in dismay, at how many drivers they have watched get stuck on the barriers.

The bike lanes: supported, but

Here is the finding that surprised me. All but one of the neighbours who raised concerns about the Lampson bike lanes identified as cyclists, most of whom use or used a bike for their daily commute. Every one of them said they broadly support bike lanes. Their objection was the concrete. One suggested that flexible delineators would have delivered the same protection while leaving room for drivers to pull aside and for residents to turn into their driveways. Everyone agreed they want roadways that are safe for bikes and drivers alike.

What I can commit to out of this is to check in with first responders first and foremost and to review how the bike lanes are working, with cyclists, drivers, and residents along the route.

Emergency access

A commercial truck driver told me they once watched an emergency vehicle stuck for ten minutes in the area because cars could not pull to the side with the new barriers in place. That is one resident's account, and I want to know whether it reflects a pattern. I will check in with the ambulance station on Ellery and with the fire department to hear what emergency access looks like from their side.

That same driver asked for something simple: consult professional drivers when traffic decisions are made. From what they have seen on the ground, they said that it does not appear that is what is happening at present. They also wished for better morning transit to Langford, where they pick up their truck each day, and noted with approval that unlike James Bay, Esquimalt does not have Lime bikes filling loading zones. Raising transit ridership, they said, should be a priority. I agree.

The Ellery laneway

One very specific concern: with the congestion of recent years, the laneway between Ellery and Colville has become a bypass route, and some drivers take it at speed. Children regularly play there. Neighbours asked for a speed bump or two to slow anyone attempting the shortcut. That is a small fix with a clear purpose, and I will push for it.

The Blue Boat

A retired neighbour who cycled to the dockyard for decades remembered the social richness of the Blue Boat ride and argued it makes every kind of sense to bring it back. I've looked into it. The service only worked as a shuttle for people working on the base, not as public transit, and when it ended in 2012 it was reportedly carrying about 500 people a day who would otherwise have been driving alone. I've also read the feasibility work on a public ferry between Royal Bay and Esquimalt, and I don't see that one flying.

A base‑employee shuttle is a different question. I can commit to speaking with base leadership to understand what stands in the way of bringing it back and, if there is a path, work with the right parties to reopen it.

Trucks and yellow lines

Another neighbour walked me through how hard it is to turn a large truck around Colville, Transit and Lampson, fuel trucks especially at Transit Road. They also pointed out that some of the yellow curb lines are dated, and, pointing across the street at a parked car to make the point, it is clear that a number of residents just ignore them and park in front of them. A yellow‑line audit came up. That seems like a sensible, low‑cost ask. They also wanted clarity on the direction the Township plans to take with short‑term rentals.

Park and bike

A neighbour described watching people arrive on their street each morning, park, and ride bikes into downtown, taking advantage of Esquimalt's free street parking. Their guess was Langford commuters. The concern was not acute, but there was a sense of Esquimalt being taken advantage of, and street parking is the most consistent concern I hear at any door. Some form of "except residents" parking restrictions on affected streets may make sense.

The pattern reminded me of my own commutes in Japan, first as an exchange student and later during my master's. One cheap bike to the train station, a train, and a second cheap bike from the station to school. Secure overnight bike parking is what made it effortless. People are already treating Esquimalt as their station. Once the Island Rail Corridor runs again from the West Shore to Vic West, we can make that impulse work for everyone, with secure bike parking and bike‑share stations in the right places, instead of on someone's street.

Odds and ends

Property taxes came up once. The resident who raised them noted that they are a concern for some but said they personally felt they were within reason. And one neighbour noted that their favourite Esquimalt festival was Ribfest.

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We have a regional theatre service. Why not a regional policing plan?

At the Labour Day Picnic, before I had decided to run for council, I had an interesting conversation with members of IATSE who work in local theatre. Having some experience myself with the uncertainty of arts funding, I asked how people in the sector were doing. They were enthusiastic about the stability they expect from the Capital Regional District's newly adopted Performing Arts Facilities Service.

It is a real regional accomplishment. Municipalities across the region have agreed to share responsibility for the Royal Theatre, the McPherson Playhouse and the Charlie White Theatre, facilities that serve people well beyond the municipalities they happen to sit in. The service starts in 2027.

Policing is a far bigger undertaking, with a budget many times the size and rules set by the Police Act. The mechanism won't necessarily transfer, but the principle might: the region can pull together on something of shared value when it decides to. It struck me as a hopeful reference point for the many areas where better regional coordination is essential, policing among them.

Policing came up on my first day speaking with neighbours. One person talked about how reassuring it is to live close to police and fire services. Another raised a concern I have heard repeatedly in Esquimalt: that Esquimalt taxpayers carry part of the cost of policing problems concentrated in Victoria which Saanich, Oak Bay and Central Saanich with their own departments and West Shore with the RCMP participate less.

Noting the RCMP's history with First Nations, that neighbour was wary of an RCMP alternative. In any event, the Township's 2023 Policing Service Delivery Model Review concluded that a full switch to the RCMP was not a realistic option under the federal rules and agreements in place, and that RCMP facility standards would require more investment in Esquimalt facilities than is reasonably expected in the foreseeable future..

So I shared with our neighbour about the regional performing‑arts agreement and asked: what could a regional policing equivalent look like?

In some ways, regional policing already exists

Greater Victoria already shares a surprising amount of policing: integrated teams for domestic violence, youth, mental‑health crisis response, canine services and more. But it is a patchwork rather than a plan, and commitment can be fickle. VicPD's 2026 budget documents report that Central Saanich withdrew from the Mobile Youth Services Team, the Regional Domestic Violence Unit and the Integrated Mobile Crisis Response Team in 2025, and that West Shore RCMP was scheduled to withdraw from some of those services in 2026 and from the domestic‑violence unit in 2027.

That is not an argument for any particular institutional model. It illustrates the problem: we have some regional policing, but no stable regional policing plan.

We certainly haven't lacked for studies

Greater Victoria has debated regional policing for decades. Regionalization studies go back at least to the late 1970s, and the Justice Institute of British Columbia's bibliography on police regionalization points to a substantial body of work on the question.

Esquimalt in particular has spent years examining alternatives. The Township is currently exploring an Esquimalt police department supported by specialized services from neighbouring agencies, while stating that its long‑term goal is regional policing. In July 2026, Council directed that the incoming 2026 to 2030 Council receive a comprehensive policing orientation and strategic discussion. There is, in other words, no shortage of paper.

I am trying to track down one document in particular: the 1985 proposal by the Victoria‑area police chiefs for Greater Victoria Regional Police Services. I want to understand what they thought could be shared or consolidated forty years ago, why it did not happen, and whether any of those lessons still hold. If anyone has a copy, please share it. Otherwise, once I locate it through the Justice Institute library, and if I have permission to scan it, I will post it here.

I don't pretend to know the final model

A single regional police service might ultimately make sense. Stronger integrated services might make more sense. There may be a model, like one proposed in recent years, in which a smaller Esquimalt service buys specialized functions regionally. Governance, accountability and cost‑sharing will probably matter more than what is painted on the side of the cars.

We do not need to settle that before agreeing on something more basic: Greater Victoria needs a coherent regional policing plan. A plan would identify which challenges are truly regional, which services are best delivered locally and which shared, how regional services should be governed and funded, and how municipalities can stop repeatedly rebuilding, or walking away from, the same collaborations.

Esquimalt Council cannot answer those questions alone. Any serious process needs Victoria, Saanich, Oak Bay and the other municipalities; the Province and the police boards; regional health and social‑service partners; with special care and attention given to ensuring meaningful involvement of local First Nations, whose historical relationship with policing has been, as the neighbour rightly pointed out, fraught.

My contribution would be to do the homework. I will be the nerd on council who reads all of the reports. I will keep asking questions, listen to police leadership and front‑line members, to the local First Nations, and to Esquimalt residents and community organizations, and push for a system in which Esquimalt gets good policing and bears a fair share of the costs of the regional services we all benefit from. I am less attached to the organizational chart than to getting the result right.

A first step I could bring forward: a motion asking Council to invite the neighbouring councils and police boards to a joint session on a regional policing plan, building on the policing orientation the incoming Council has already been directed to receive.

There are already institutions building relationships across departmental lines. The Greater Victoria Police Foundation is one. Those relationships matter, because regional cooperation depends not only on funding formulas and governance agreements but on trust between the people involved. Leaning into the bodies that build that trust is part of the work.

Policing is only one part of community safety

A regional policing plan should not be confused with a complete community‑safety plan. There is another side of safety, much closer to home: the strength of the relationships around us. A community where people who are struggling can find food, company, mental‑health support, addiction services and a place to belong is a safer community too.

In Esquimalt, Rainbow Kitchen and the United Church at Admirals and Lyall come to mind as examples of that spirit: making love the foundation of our community's safety and flourishing. The bureaucratic work of policing governance and budgets will be difficult and slow, and we need to do it. At the same time, we can keep building the kind of community in which fewer people fall through the cracks in the first place.

One small initiative I would like your feedback on: the Township could propose an Esquimalt‑convened community‑safety session at the next Victoria Forum, the gathering co‑hosted by the Senate of Canada, the University of Victoria and Royal Roads University that brings leaders and community members together on governance challenges. Convening that discussion would be one way to gather regional, provincial, federal and First Nations political will behind the regional policing plan we need.

Please let me know what you think.

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Child care

Child care in general is a big challenge for young parents. The lack of child care spots was a general challenge noted by parents, with some noting how they have their young children on multiple waitlists as they struggle to balance work and child care. More specifically, lower‑income parents who work evenings and weekends noted the lack of child care services that accommodate their schedules. This was particularly acute for new immigrant families, who have limited local social networks and face linguistic, cultural and, let's call them bureaucratic‑maze barriers to accessing local services.

My reflection on this is that we need to better equip our community so that child care meets the diverse needs of our residents. This does not all have to be a municipal or other level of government responsibility or expense, but there is a big role for the municipality to play, in collaboration with other service providers, as an efficient facilitator, coordinator and advocate. If anyone has a specific proposal they would like to share, please let me know and maybe there is an initiative we can push forward.

Street parking

There were strong arguments that Esquimalt wildly lacks street parking, with the point made that if a major construction project were to come to town, it would squeeze residents out of their preferred homefront spots. Those homefront spots are clearly very highly valued!

One resident recounted how, when they moved into their Esquimalt home a number of years ago, if they happened to park in a spot right in front of their own house that turned out to be a neighbour's long‑time preferred spot, they would find bags of dog poop and grass clippings on their vehicle. Rather than communicate their preferences directly, the neighbour communicated via poop bags and yard waste. It was only when the issue was finally raised in person that they realised what was going on.

Some residents felt that other homeowners were guarding the street in front of their homes while filling their own driveways and front lawns with boats, RVs and other space‑occupying paraphernalia. Parking is clearly an issue for Esquimalt residents.

Getting to and from the base

One resident had an interesting twist on parking. They alerted me to the Base's policy of allowing free parking because Esquimalt has no pay parking. In Halifax, they noted, the base charges for parking on par with local rates. I looked it up, and it turns out it is a thing: DND's policy is to charge for parking at local market rates, and if the local market is free, it is free on base too. This resident suggested that bringing in nominal paid parking, perhaps with street‑specific passes for residents and paid parking for non‑residents, might have some impact on base employees' transit use. Though, they noted, bringing back the Blue Boat (the ferry from the base to Colwood) or reviving the Island Rail Corridor, at least to Langford, would be the real solution.

Another long‑time resident, born and raised here, who worked at the dockyard and is now retired, recounted how the Blue Boat took loads of cars off our constrained roadways. When the Blue Boat was privatised and became a paid service, it fell apart, and we started to get the congestion we know all too well today. I looked it up, and that does appear to be exactly what happened. Here is some follow‑on reading for anyone interested:

• Celebrating what the Blue Boat provided, 2009 (page 10)
• Blue Boat to cease, Lookout Newspaper
• Goodbye Blue Boat service, Lookout Newspaper
• Solve the Colwood Crawl, Capital Daily, 2022

The Capital Daily piece is a particularly interesting and informative overview of the breadth of proposals that have come along. Reading it made me reflect that no matter how much highway widening you do, it isn't going to have much impact on the stretch of Admirals that matters most to residents: the bit from Esquimalt Road to the Island Highway. That stretch is exactly what my first proposal, the Esquimalt Free Ride, is aimed at.

The right to cool

The right to cool was my "you learn something new every day" piece, and I am grateful to the resident who brought it to my attention. This one is important. As heatwaves become more and more a part of our lived experience, tenants' access to coolness is essential. It makes sense to me that no resident should be living with indoor temperatures above 26 degrees.

Ecotrust Canada's 2025 report lays out the sorts of bylaws municipalities can bring in. According to their website, New Westminster brought in a bylaw in June requiring landlords to keep at least one living space in an occupied rental unit at a safe temperature of 26°C or lower at night. That sounds abundantly reasonable to me, and I will work to table a proposal of this sort soon after taking office. If I am elected, hound me, and hold me and the rest of council to account on this. With an El Niño possibly on the way, there is a real chance that the summer of 2027 is the summer we need this bylaw in place.

Community stake in developments

One resident drew a very interesting contrast between two recent developments. The Proxima development, they quipped, was all about getting as close to the road as possible, eliminating not only old trees but also a bus bay, and making, in their view, the Lampson and Esquimalt Road intersection more dangerous. They contrasted this with the Esquimalt Town Square development where, they posited, because the community had a stake, an important old tree was kept and the space was made breathable and vibrant, a real addition to the community. This conversation was food for thought, and I think it makes sense for us to reflect on what role community stake can play in future developments that will call Esquimalt home.

I particularly like the notion of development as a collaboration between community and entrepreneurs, rather than a wrestling match in which a singularly focused developer wrangles as much as they can out of a multi‑focused municipality to maximise the profitability of their project. Finding paths, as with the Esquimalt Town Square, where the community shares a stake in a development is interesting to contemplate. This would take more study and consideration, but I wonder whether an approach where the community has a stake may be relevant when it comes time to redevelop the Country Grocer complex.

Small fixes

I also heard calls for stop signs at the complex intersection of Munro and Fraser, and a call from a young parent for greater traffic calming on Sturdee.

This is what I am hearing so far. Stay tuned, I will report more as I keep knocking on doors.

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