Safety and well-being

• Money spent, results not reported

  Real money has gone into making downtown safer. What has not been published is a plain accounting of how much, against what measure, with what result. The City's own governance review found 75% of survey respondents did not feel council reports effectively on how the City is performing, and this is a good example of why that matters.¹ The tax side of this is on the real tax bill.

• Clearing a street is not a housing policy

  Removing and discarding the belongings of people living outside moves a problem a few blocks. It does not resolve it, and it makes the next stage worse for the person it happened to. We would like the City to say what it expects that practice to achieve.

• The province has responsibilities the City keeps absorbing

  Treatment, mental health care and the supportive housing that people leaving the street actually need are provincial responsibilities. In our view Victoria has taken on a growing share of those gaps without securing provincial funding to match. That is money not spent on the City's own core work, and it lets the province off the hook.

• Where is the housing?

  Supportive and secure housing is the intervention with the best evidence behind it. It is also the one Victoria has least of. That connects this page directly to housing and affordability, which is where we think the answer mostly lives.

• The firefighters are asking for a plan too

  In September 2026 the Victoria Firefighters union, IAFF Local 730, put six public-safety pledges to every council candidate, the first time in its 168 years it has stepped into a city election. One pledge asks the next council for a municipal plan to reduce street disorder, with real bylaw enforcement, so that crews are not left waiting for a police escort before they can treat someone. The union points to July 11, 2024, when a paramedic was kicked in the face on Pandora Avenue and firefighters formed a barrier with their axes while about sixty people crowded in before police arrived. The department answered 2,381 overdose and poisoning calls in 2024, the third most of any community in BC.² The union endorsed seven candidates on September 23, and six of them are the six we are voting for.

Sources

1. City of Victoria Governance Review, Report of Recommendations, prepared by MNP LLP, July 18, 2022. Governance review (PDF)
2. Victoria Firefighters IAFF Local 730, SafeVictoria: Six Pledges for a Safer Victoria, pledge 2 (Deterring Violence Against On-Duty Firefighters) and pledge 3 (Increasing Support for PTSD and Mental Health), 2026. safevictoria.ca/pledges. Endorsements published September 23, 2026: safevictoria.ca/endorsed-candidates. The "first in 168 years" is the union president's description, reported by CHEK News, September 10, 2026: cheknews.ca.