2026 Campaign Platform

Victoria does not have a revenue problem. It has a management problem. This platform is built on the principle of moving away from governance by aspiration and ideology toward measurable results, fiscal discipline, and the democratic consent of the governed.

“Practical Government for a Changing Victoria”

Five platform planks. Expand each section for the detailed rationale and key actions.

Rationale: The 2026 budget opened at a 10.44% draft tax increase, reduced to 7.28% only after public pressure. That reduction was achieved largely by deferring costs, not by eliminating them. Residents deserve a government that starts with what they can afford, not one that works backward from political exposure. The city’s land holdings, its capital commitments, and its major program expenditures must all be visible and accountable in real time.

Key Actions

  1. Real-Time Taxpayer Dashboard. Launch a publicly accessible digital portal tracking all major capital projects: e.g. Crystal Pool, the Community Safety Plan, street redesigns with budget vs. actual spending updated in real time. Residents should not need a FOI request to see how their money is spent. The $10 FOI fee will be abolished.
  2. Single Meeting Model. Abolish the Committee of the Whole / Council Meeting split that allows substantive deliberation to happen in daytime sessions most residents cannot attend. Victoria’s 2022 independent MNP Governance Review recommended reforms to improve transparency, accessibility, and efficiency in Council decision-making. A single-meeting model would implement those principles by ending the current split between daytime Committee of the Whole deliberations and final Council votes.
  3. Free Vote Commitment. On all non-fiduciary matters, development approvals, budget priorities, policy direction, I commit to vote according to the evidence and the interests of Victoria residents, not according to slate solidarity or endorsement obligations. This is a personal public covenant, not a legal instrument. It creates the accountability that comes from having stated it plainly.

    Jurisdiction note: This pledge governs one Councillor’s votes. It cannot be imposed on colleagues. A Council majority willing to make the same commitment changes the dynamic; one Councillor making it alone provides a public benchmark.

  4. Integrity Commissioner. Establish an independent Integrity Commissioner appointed by Council but reporting independently with the authority to receive complaints from any person about breaches of the Code of Conduct by elected officials. Victoria’s current Code can only be enforced by Councillors and staff, not by the public it is supposed to protect. Findings will be published and tabled at public Council meetings.
  5. Council Remuneration Deferral. Any change to Council remuneration will take effect only after the subsequent election. Elected officials who set their own pay during their own term have a conflict no process can eliminate. This commitment will be proposed in the first term, before the next pay discussion, not after it.
  6. Zero-Based Budget Discipline. End automatic annual departmental increases. Every department justifies its baseline spending each year against core service priorities: fire, police, water, sewers, and roads come before discretionary programs.
  7. Value-for-Money Audit of the Safety Plan. Commission an independent forensic audit of the $10.35 million already spent on the Community Safety and Wellbeing (həlisət) framework. The audit will identify what has been delivered, what is unproven, and what can be cut to reduce the 2027 tax requirement.
  8. Civic Land Inventory. Publish a full public map of every city-owned parcel, including surface parking lots, works yards, air rights, and surplus buildings. Report annually on what each parcel produces in public benefit and whether it meets OCP housing targets before adjacent private land is up-zoned.
  9. Inflation-Linked Tax Commitment. Any proposed property tax increase above the rate of inflation will require a mandatory 90-day public consultation period before Council may adopt it. This is a policy commitment to fiscal discipline not a legal straitjacket, but a public covenant with residents.
  10. OCP Financial Accountability. Require that any OCP amendment with material infrastructure cost implications be accompanied by an independent financial impact assessment before adoption, so the long-term cost of planning decisions is visible before the vote is taken.
  11. One-Taxpayer Policy. Victoria residents already pay provincial taxes to fund provincial services including health care, income support, mental health treatment, and addictions services. Any proposed city expenditure on matters within provincial jurisdiction will require a specific, time-limited cost-recovery agreement with the Province before Council commits the funds. Without that agreement, the city’s position is clear: this is the Province’s responsibility, and the Province must fund it. The same principle applies more broadly to taxation itself. There is ultimately only one taxpayer. Costs imposed on businesses do not disappear; they are passed back through the economy in the form of higher rents, prices, fees, and reduced affordability borne by residents themselves. Victoria taxpayers should not be asked to pay twice for the same responsibilities simply because governments shift costs between jurisdictions or disguise them through business taxation.

    Jurisdiction note: The commitment not to spend without cost-recovery agreements is within council’s control. Securing those agreements requires provincial cooperation and cannot be guaranteed unilaterally.

  12. Public Integrity Reviews. Council will mandate an independent review of major rezonings where credible evidence suggests that approvals were based on materially incomplete or misleading data regarding public benefits, heritage preservation, or unmitigated community impacts. A rezoning is a social contract with the community; it remains valid only so long as the evidence used to secure it is accurate and complete.
  13. Regional Service Coordination. Taxpayers are exhausted by tax hikes that vastly outpace inflation while local governments rely on routine “cost-plus budgeting”. Before passing further increases onto residents and local businesses, Council must fulfil its fiduciary duty by demonstrating it has considered all possibilities for operational savings. Where practical, I will pursue regional service coordination and harmonisation across our 13 municipalities. By conducting rigorous base reviews to eliminate overlapping bureaucracies and administrative duplication, we can drive down the costs of shared services. Any efficiency savings achieved at the regional level must be returned to each municipality, lowering local tax burdens and delivering better value for residents.

Summary: This plank stops the cycle of unsustainable increases and opaque decision-making by opening the books, reforming how decisions are made, and requiring the city to live within its means just like the residents who pay the bills.

Rationale: Victoria’s current planning model treats residents as stakeholders to be managed rather than citizens to be heard. The 2025 OCP uses broad, discretionary language that allows Council to approve major density under Local Government Act s.464(2) without triggering a public hearing claiming projects are “consistent” with a plan vague enough to justify almost anything. The result is planning by bypass, not planning by consent. This plank restores the neighbourhood as the primary unit of planning and uses the legal tools the city already has to ensure that development delivers what it promises.

Key Actions

  1. Restore Binding Neighbourhood Consultation. Re-empower Community Association Land Use Committees (CALUCs) as a mandatory early-stage step for all significant land-use changes. Major applications go to the community before they go to Council.
  2. Advocate for OCP Reform. Advocate for repeal and replacement of the current broad, discretionary OCP with a neighbourhood-based planning framework that provides parcel-level clarity, infrastructure-linked density, and restored mandatory public hearings for significant land-use changes. The current OCP’s vague language is the primary mechanism by which public hearings are being bypassed. Replacing it with precise, neighbourhood-specific rules closes that loophole lawfully.
  3. Infrastructure Before Upzoning. No significant upzoning will be supported without a certified Infrastructure Capacity Report confirming that sewers, water supply, emergency access, schools, and transit can support the additional load. Growth must not create hidden downstream costs for taxpayers.
  4. Use Seven Legal Tools. The city already has the legal authority to secure enforceable public benefits from development approvals. Council will use all available legal tools consistently, including:
    • Sunset clauses (24-month “use it or lose it” timers on rezonings to prevent land speculation)
    • Phased Development Agreements with binding infrastructure and affordability milestones
    • Section 219 Covenants with financial penalties for failure to deliver promised amenities
    • Full financial disclosure, feasibility analysis, or pro forma review as part of rezoning and Community Amenity Contribution (CAC) negotiations
    • Strict permit conditions locked against negotiation during construction
    • Community Amenity Contributions at full land-value uplift, not negotiated minimums
    • Master Development Agreements for large-scale sites with hard performance triggers
  5. Material Change Rule. Any amendment to a development application, changes of more than ten per cent to height, density, or permitted uses; removal of community amenity commitments; changes to heritage conditions made after the public hearing has closed will require a pause, staff report, and re-notification before any vote proceeds. For example: a developer commits to affordable units or heritage retention at a public hearing, then has those conditions quietly reduced before the bylaw is adopted after the public has no further opportunity to respond. Or a heritage retention commitment that formed the basis of public support is amended out entirely after the hearing closes, with no re-notification to the neighbours who spoke in favour of it. Both practices end.
  6. Public Lobbyist Registry. Establish a searchable public registry of all meetings between city staff, Council, and development proponents. If a developer is making the case for a project at City Hall, the public has a right to know it.
  7. Urban Forest & Garry Oak Protection. Implement a net-positive tree canopy requirement for all new developments. Heritage Garry Oak ecosystems will be formally designated as critical natural infrastructure. Removal will require documented justification and mandatory replacement ratios. A modest homeowner stewardship credit funded by development cash-in-lieu fees will reward residents who maintain these ecosystems on private land.
  8. Heritage Impact Assessment. Any rezoning or development permit application affecting a designated or registered heritage property will require an independent Heritage Impact Assessment prepared by a qualified heritage professional at the applicant’s cost published as part of the public record before the hearing. The heritage advisory panel’s recommendations are currently non-binding and routinely overridden. A mandatory assessment puts the evidentiary standard before the vote, not after it.
  9. Heritage Conservation Fund. Capitalise a dedicated Heritage Conservation Fund through a levy on development permits in heritage-sensitive areas to provide technical assistance, adaptive reuse loans, and seismic upgrade support for heritage property owners. Heritage protection without financial backing is an unfunded mandate. This fund gives protection practical weight.
  10. Local DCC Reinvestment. A defined portion of Development Cost Charges generated in a neighbourhood will be directed back to that neighbourhood’s parks, sidewalks, and local infrastructure.
  11. Participatory Budgeting. Direct three per cent of the annual capital budget distributed by an equity-weighted formula across Victoria’s neighbourhoods to resident-controlled project decisions. Eligible projects are neighbourhood-scale capital improvements: parks, sidewalks, public realm, accessibility. Outcomes are binding on Council. For the first time, residents will control real money in their actual neighbourhood.

Summary: This plank moves from blanket rezoning to precision planning protecting Victoria’s neighbourhood character, closing the governance loopholes that allow decisions to be made after residents have had their say, and ensuring that growth is lawful, infrastructure-linked, and delivers enforceable public benefit.

Rationale: Victoria’s housing debate has focused almost entirely on supply volume: more units, taller buildings, faster approvals. But approving more density does not produce affordability if that density displaces the affordable rental stock that already exists. This plank uses the city’s regulatory and land-use powers, not taxpayer subsidies, to protect existing renters, secure affordability conditions in new development, and ensure the city’s own land works harder for residents. The model is calibrated to Victoria’s building scale.

Key Actions

  1. Missing Middle as the Default Growth Model. Victoria needs more homes, but not every solution requires a thirty-storey tower. The city will formally designate missing middle housing (duplexes, triplexes, courtyard housing, townhomes, laneway homes, and small apartment buildings) as the preferred growth form in established neighbourhoods where infrastructure capacity exists. Gentle density at this scale produces less displacement, lower infrastructure costs, and housing that ordinary residents and small builders can actually participate in. Supply volume and housing affordability are not the same thing.
  2. Pre-Approved Pattern Book Housing. The single biggest barrier to small-scale infill is not zoning but cost and delay. A homeowner adding a garden suite or a small builder constructing a triplex faces the same architectural and permitting overhead as a large developer, at a fraction of the economic scale. The city will develop a pattern book of pre-approved duplex, triplex, townhome, and laneway home designs available to any applicant, qualifying automatically for an expedited permit stream. The designs will prioritise family-appropriate unit sizes.
  3. Calibrated Fee Relief for Small-Scale Infill. Development Cost Charges and permit fees were structured for large projects. Applied without adjustment to a homeowner building a secondary suite or a small builder constructing a triplex, they function as a barrier to exactly the housing form Victoria needs most. The city will establish a reduced DCC and permit fee schedule for missing middle and family-oriented infill, with priority processing for owner-occupied and long-term rental forms. This is not a subsidy; it is a recognition that small-scale infill generates lower infrastructure demand and should be costed accordingly.
  4. Family Housing Targets in Larger Developments. The market, left to itself, produces studios and investor-grade one-bedrooms. It does not produce three-bedroom ground-oriented units for families, because those are harder to liquidate at speculative price points. Any development receiving a rezoning, density bonus, or access to public land must meet minimum unit-mix requirements: a defined percentage of two-bedroom and three-bedroom suites, and a defined percentage of ground-oriented units. The specific thresholds will be set in an amended OCP and applied through housing agreements. Communities are built by long-term residents, not a rotating supply of short-term occupants in micro-units.
  5. Suite Legalisation and Homeowner Concierge Program. Thousands of secondary suites across Victoria exist outside the permit system built decades ago, occupied by long-term tenants, never formally approved. Many owners are older residents on fixed incomes for whom legalisation is prohibitively slow and expensive. The city will establish a time-limited permit amnesty for suites meeting basic safety standards, paired with a standardised approval package and concierge permitting service. This converts grey-market supply into secure legal tenancies without requiring a single additional square metre of land.
  6. Housing Co-operative Expansion. Co-operative housing permanently removes units from the speculative market. A co-op member pays housing costs, not a mortgage on an appreciating asset, and the unit stays affordable at entry for the next occupant because resale is controlled by the co-op’s own rules. Victoria has a strong co-op heritage and a waiting list that demonstrates unmet demand. The city will actively solicit co-operative proposals for municipally owned sites under the 99-year leasehold model, treating co-ops as a priority tenure form alongside non-profit rentals. Where a co-op proposal competes with a market proposal for a city-owned parcel, its permanent affordability structure will be weighted as a core public benefit, not a tiebreaker, because it is something market proposals structurally cannot match.
  7. Evidence-Based Short-Term Rental Policy. Short-term rental restrictions were introduced to address a housing emergency. I support measures that increase housing availability for Victoria residents. However, public policy should be guided by evidence, not ideology. The Province has established a benchmark vacancy rate of 3% as an indicator of a healthier rental market and allows municipalities to seek exemption from certain restrictions after maintaining that level for two consecutive years. If Victoria achieves and sustains that benchmark, I will support a comprehensive review of our short-term rental policies to determine whether a more balanced approach can be adopted, one that protects renters while also supporting local entrepreneurs, tourism, downtown businesses, and seasonal housing needs inclusive of students. Housing policy should respond to conditions on the ground. When conditions change, good governments review whether existing restrictions remain justified.
  8. Mandatory One-for-One Replacement. Any redevelopment that demolishes purpose-built rental housing must replace every demolished unit with a new rental unit on the same site. No net loss of rental inventory.
  9. The “Lesser-Of” Right of Return. Displaced tenants have a first-priority right to return to the new building. The return rent will be the lesser of:
    • The tenant’s pre-displacement rent adjusted only by lawful Residential Tenancy Act annual increases during the displacement period; or
    • 80% of the applicable original rent plus lawful annual RTA increases; or CMHC average market rent for a comparable unit in the same area. This replaces Victoria’s current “whichever is higher” formula, which effectively permits rent increases on return
  10. Tenure-Based Relocation Support. Developers of buildings with six or more units must fund an independent Tenant Relocation Coordinator reporting to the city, not the developer, to assist displaced tenants. Tenants of 10 or more years receive mandatory rent top-up support during the construction period to bridge the gap between their old rent and interim market rent.
  11. Open Books Before Concessions. If a developer claims that affordability requirements make a project financially unviable, the developer must submit a full pro-forma audit to an independent firm at their own cost before Council considers any relaxation of affordability conditions. Unverified hardship claims will not be accepted.
  12. Civic Overbuild Mandate. Every major civic redevelopment, fire halls, community centres, parkades and works yards, must include a housing feasibility assessment as part of the design brief. Victoria has already demonstrated this model works: Fire Hall No. 1 (The Dalmatian) integrated 130 units of affordable housing. I will not build single-purpose civic buildings in a housing crisis.
  13. 99-Year Leasehold Strategy. The city will not sell municipally owned land for housing. Instead, underused city parcels, including surface parking lots, surplus works yards, and air rights above civic facilities will be offered on long-term nominal leases to housing co-ops and non-profit providers. Removing land cost from the equation is the single most effective way to lower rents without increasing taxes.
  14. OCP-Linked Affordability Covenants. Tenant protections and affordability conditions will be codified in housing agreements attached to OCP density approvals, so that bonuses in height or density are legally tied to long-term affordability obligations not aspirational commitments that dissolve after approval.
  15. Revitalising Downtown Through a Redevelopment Corporation. A strong downtown is the economic and cultural heart of any city, and I will create an arms-length redevelopment corporation to drive downtown revitalisation through smart public-private partnerships. This model puts a semi-public agency to work assembling land, brokering projects, and providing targeted gap financing using modest public investment to unlock large-scale private capital. My approach will prioritise mixed-use and residential intensification to bring life back downtown around the clock, while integrating heritage preservation so that adaptive reuse of historic buildings will define our city’s renewal.

Summary: The tenant rights are a made-in-Victoria solution. It draws on the Burnaby and Vancouver models where they fit our scale, ensures developers bear the cost of displacement rather than tenants or taxpayers, and uses the city’s own land as the foundation for genuinely affordable housing.

Rationale: Victoria’s recent transportation changes; e.g. lane reductions, parking removals, protected cycling infrastructure have often been presented as standalone safety or climate initiatives. In practice, they frequently function as part of an integrated densification strategy: removing parking minimums, reclassifying road capacity, and enabling Transit-Oriented Area (TOA) density without a separate public discussion about the cumulative planning implications. Residents are not told this. The result is a city where first responders are hemmed in by concrete barriers, seniors and tradespeople lose access, and neighbourhoods are being reshaped incrementally without genuine consent. This plank demands honesty in planning and restores operational reality to road design.

Key Actions

  1. Mandatory Emergency Response Audit. Immediately commission a formal audit by Victoria Fire and VicPD of all current corridor redesigns. Infrastructure that creates documented bottlenecks for emergency vehicles, or prevents vehicles from pulling over for sirens, will be flagged for re-engineering. Safety is measured in 911 response times, not cycling counts.
  2. OCP Emergency Access Overlay. Advocate for amendment of the OCP Transportation Map to formally designate Primary Emergency Corridors. No road redesign, including bike lane installation or lane reallocation, on a designated corridor may proceed without written sign-off from the Fire Chief and Police Chief confirming no degradation to emergency response capacity.
  3. Transparency in Transportation-Density Linkages. Any transportation project that will be used to justify a reduction in parking minimums or an increase in permissible density in the surrounding area must disclose that connection explicitly as part of the project report to Council. No more incremental densification by stealth through road redesign.
  4. Oppose Option F and Restore Neighbourhood Consent. Reject transportation planning models that prioritise theoretical throughput over operational reality. All significant street reconfigurations will require a neighbourhood impact assessment, including effects on emergency access, commercial loading, and accessibility for those who cannot cycle, before Council approval.
  5. Prioritise Regional Transit Advocacy. Shift the city’s focus from engineering behavioural change through road friction to pressing the Province to close the BC Transit funding gap. Real modal shift comes from providing reliable, high-frequency transit that gives commuters a genuine alternative not from making driving more difficult. This extends to the Island Rail Corridor.
  6. Inner Harbour Water Transit Feasibility. Commission a feasibility study for integrated water transit between Vic West, Esquimalt, and the downtown core. Victoria’s harbour is an underused transportation asset that can move people without adding pressure to any road corridor. Vancouver has integrated water transit with Translink and Victoria should have it with BC Transit.

Summary: This plank restores operational realism. It ensures Victoria’s streets remain accessible to paramedics, tradespeople and seniors, and first responders and that any transportation change that also functions as a planning tool is identified and debated honestly.

Rationale: Victoria’s Community Safety and Wellbeing framework (həlisət) has produced a compelling narrative but weak governance. Its major commitments use “soft verbs” to convene, support, advocate without specifying legal authority, measurable targets, implementation timelines, or defined funding models. Over $10 million has been committed without a clear public accounting of what has been delivered. Separately, two VicPD positions were cut despite identified staffing pressures, and frontline responders were not meaningfully consulted before major public safety policy shifts. This plank builds the implementation architecture that the current Council failed to provide.

Key Actions

  1. Safety Performance Contract. Convert the həlisət plan from a narrative document into a performance contract. Every major commitment must identify: legal authority, responsible lead body, implementation timeline, measurable target, and projected cost. Quarterly public reporting on outcomes including crime trends, street disorder, response times, shelter placements will replace annual narrative updates.
  2. Public Safety Dashboard. Establish a real-time, publicly accessible implementation matrix modelling Hamilton and Toronto’s existing systems so residents can track commitments, actual outcomes, spending, and timelines without needing to request reports.
  3. Restore Core First Responder Capacity. Restore the two cut VicPD positions as an immediate step toward meeting identified staffing pressures. Police and fire services will be fully funded before discretionary programs are expanded.
  4. Tiered Dispatch — Hold the Line. Council took the right step on January 5, 2026, voting to restrict Victoria Fire Department responses to serious medical calls only thereby cutting projected annual call volume from roughly 12,000 to between 6,000 and 6,500. That decision must be protected. The next Council will face pressure from advocates, unions, and provincial agencies to reverse or dilute it. I will hold that line. The policy will be subject to annual public reporting on call volume, firefighter wellbeing indicators, and response time benchmarks for high-acuity emergencies, so the results remain visible and the case for keeping it stays grounded in evidence rather than politics.

    Jurisdiction note: The Council policy governing VFD medical response is within Council’s authority to maintain. Any integrated response involving BC Emergency Health Services or Island Health clinical staff requires provincial partnership and cannot be mandated unilaterally.

  5. Community Paramedicine. Tiered dispatch reduces what firefighters respond to. Community paramedicine addresses why so many calls are generated in the first place. The evidence is not theoretical and has shown it worked in Surrey. While the Province built this model for rural BC Victoria’s downtown core, with its concentration of high-utilising individuals in supportive and transitional housing, has no equivalent, despite being exactly the environment where those results would replicate. I will fund a City partnership contribution and formally advocate to the Province to bring community paramedicine to Victoria as a permanent urban program, not another pilot that disappears.

    Jurisdiction note: Community paramedicine in BC is delivered through BC Emergency Health Services, a provincial Crown corporation. Victoria can fund partnership arrangements and advocate for provincial investment but cannot operate a paramedic service unilaterally.

  6. Frontline Consultation Before Policy Change. Mandate formal consultation with police, fire, paramedics, and neighbourhood associations before major public safety policy changes are implemented. Upstream planning decisions will not create downstream operational emergencies.
  7. OCP Safety Benchmarks. Advocate for the integration of measurable public order benchmarks into the OCP so that street safety and wellbeing targets become planning obligations, not aspirational language. If key disorder indicators rise above defined thresholds, a formal Safety Response Protocol is triggered rather than another report being commissioned.
  8. Independent Oversight. Appoint an independent oversight body comprising community members, business representatives, and social service practitioners to review safety spending annually and report directly to the public on whether vulnerable residents are actually better off.
  9. Business Safety Support. Establish a dedicated city liaison for downtown businesses facing the direct costs of theft, vandalism, and reduced foot traffic. The health of small business is inseparable from the health of the city centre.
  10. Demand Provincial Responsibility. Formally advocate to the Province for a legislative framework requiring it to fully fund and operate mental health, addictions, and complex care services. Victoria cannot continue absorbing provincial responsibilities onto a municipal tax base.

Summary: This plank turns planning into results. It replaces the management of disorder with the restoration of safety building the operational architecture the current Council failed to provide, ensuring every dollar spent produces a measurable outcome on Victoria’s streets.

Practical government for a changing Victoria.

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