Two months ago, I had the incredible experience of attending the opening of Gvúkva’áus Haíɫzaqv, or House of the Heiltsuk, the Heiltsuk Nation’s new Big House in Bella Bella. In addition to its detailed artistry, the building is enormous, with a capacity of up to 1,000 people. As I marvelled at the magnificence and magnitude of […]
Housing Affordability
Action on Affordability
There are many things I love about serving my community as an MLA, but topping the list is when I meet people whose lives have been positively impacted by the work of our government. This happened recently when I met Gordon, who lives in my constituency of Esquimalt-Metchosin. Gordon is on a CPP disability pension, […]
Cracking Down on Dirty Money
It is now overwhelmingly clear that money laundering has been a huge problem in BC for years, affecting not only our casinos but also our real estate market, contributing to skyrocketing home prices. The Decade of Dirty Money happened largely because the government at the time refused to act and chose to look the other […]
Tackling B.C.’s housing crisis means building a diverse housing stock
To those who have been demanding government action, help is finally on the way For many years, British Columbians have felt the pressure of a ballooning housing crisis. More and more families were making impossible choices between their housing cost and buying groceries. The market for middle-income families got smaller and smaller as speculators were […]
Working together to end homelessness
This article was originally published on Georgia Straight. Homelessness has been hurting too many people in our province for too long. Thousands of British Columbians are without a home. They are living on the streets, in parks, tents, in shelters, or in cars. Homelessness hurts the health of our communities, our economy, it hurts those […]
A step forward in student housing
Two years ago, when the BC Liberals were still in power and refusing to address the housing crisis, I wrote in to the Times Colonist calling on the provincial government to at least get out of the way and allow universities to build more on-campus student housing. I had recently met with two UVic students, […]
Supportive housing works and we need more of it
Everyone deserves a home. Unfortunately, not everyone in BC can afford one. Nowhere is this more evident than in my home community of Maple Ridge, where the present tent city has been in place since early 2017. Sadly, most communities in BC are now familiar with the realities of tent cities. They create great difficulties […]
Ensuring Our Communities Have the Infrastructure They Need
British Columbia is a geographically large province, with diverse and important infrastructure needs. From transportation to education, healthcare to housing, public infrastructure allows us to provide the services people need, all while building our economy. Government has a responsibility to invest in provincial infrastructure, apprenticeships and skills training and we know communities from the coast […]
Helping women get ahead
We all want B.C. to stand for fairness and equality, and that means we need action on women’s issues. In 1970 I joined women travelling across the country in advocating for a woman’s right to choose, and to change the laws so that a woman’s safety and health was a priority concern. I’ve been an […]
Addressing the Roots of Skyrocketing Home Prices
Addressing the Roots of Skyrocketing Home Prices Hard-working families can’t compete with out-of-province, wealthy speculators I’ve heard from many of my constituents about how housing affordability is their biggest concern. I suspect this is the case across most of the province. People have seen prices soar and an increasing number of empty homes observed during […]
We’re in a Housing Crisis. It’s time we start acting like it.
BC is in a housing crisis. Rampant speculation, destructive real estate market practices, insufficient affordable housing starts, low vacancy rates, and a curious refusal by the previous government to take action on the issue for years has led to the situation we’re in now. We’ve seen hollowed out communities, families pushed out to the […]