With a lack of public addiction treatment beds – only six in Campbell River to serve the north Island north of Nanaimo – what will your party do to address the lack of capacity?

First of all, overall in the province we have increased the number of treatment beds by over 650, and some of them are within the region in Nanaimo, which is available to people from here. We do have a recovery centre here. That's a good example of when we took office, the whole system for recovery houses was unregulated and unsafe for so many people and we put in regulations and provided a lot more support so that the recovery houses have a better outcomes and also makes us able to retain the workers who are providing a service.
We've got outpatient services here, which is really important, and people on the ground in terms of Outreach. We have a situation table here in the Comox Valley which is an early intervention process to keep people from going down the criminal path and creating their issues more around their health issues and social issues, so that agencies can intervene and not see people turned down the criminal path. It frees up the police resources as well.
We have complex care housing that was fairly recently announced to have more beds for 400 beds, including in Nanaimo. That's for people with mental health and substance use issues. And of course most recently, there's been the announcement around Secure Care for those who are even further along the path and are a danger to themselves and to our communities.
I also want to add that the solution is not to criminalize people. That's an expensive road to go down as well. And it doesn't have good outcomes either for individuals or for our community.
There is now an opioid treatment access line that's available through throughout British Columbia to get people help where they are, when they need it.

Every year, temperature records are broken throughout the province and the forest fire season appears to be getting worse and longer. What does your party see as the best way for carbon reduction, and what are your climate goals and how will you aim to strive in helping the province and Island hit those goals?

We’ve been taking action right from the first day to fight pollution and take better care of the place that we love, and at the same time, we’re working to build a clean economy with good paying jobs, local jobs and
With the Greens in 2017 we began work to create the clean BC plan and that has created a pathway for us to drive down our greenhouse gases and we've been working towards that including putting forward an accountability legislation that has us measuring and making sure that we are on the path to reach our targets. That accountability measure comes up every year. It's an annual report, so that we're always on our finger on the pulse about whether we're going in the right direction.
We put in emissions cap for the oil and gas industry along with ending the deep wells subsidy. We have a new energy framework to create more clean energy solutions like solar and wind.
I just want to say that Perfection is the enemy of progress.
And what we are faced with is the possibility of a government that doesn't even believe in climate change, and we need to do what we can to make sure that we can continue to move forward.

While there has been an increase in rental housing construction in the Comox Valley, there continues to be a lack of affordable housing. What detailed actions will your party take to increase affordable housing stock here?

The whole issue around affordable housing is of course province-wide and we’re pretty proud of the work that's been undertaken. I know that we have looked far and wide to find different innovative ways to create more affordable housing. We've taken on a number of initiatives which are just starting to roll out and we'll be seeing the impacts. I'm sure pretty quickly around the small scale multi-unit approval so that more affordable housing can be built within our neighbourhoods, and so people can stay in the neighbourhoods that they grew up in or stay in them as they age and don't want to be in the bigger homes. We’re facilitating faster approvals for modular housing. It was in announcement up in Cumberland this past week.
There's a forty thousand dollar forgivable loan for people to build affordable rentals in secondary suites. We’ve introduced the flipping tax to work to bring down housing prices. We've curtailed short-term rentals and we have the speculation and vacancy tax. All those are making a difference.
Stats Can reports were the only Province to be having a rent reduction, rents are coming down. We’re certainly not there yet and we have so much more to do.
Rustad and the BC Conservatives intend to to scrap our affordable housing action plan and it didn't work before and it's only going to make things worse.

The area around the Connect Centre in Courtenay continues to face issues and there have been reported increases of crime in the surrounding neighbourhood. The proposed Braidwood Complex aims to address these issues, but has faced pushback from some neighbours. Do you agree with the Braidwood Complex and its location, and how will you aim to make it work effectively? If not, how will you address these issues in its absence?

I think the first thing that I’d like to say is that I applaud this community for trying to address the needs of people who are living without a home in our community. The connect centre was never a purpose-built building, and they've done what they can. Is it enough? obviously not. The community needs to feel safe.
Some of the initiatives that we’ve taken are to try to help address that, but in the end we need housing for people. Housing first along with the supports that can help them succeed. We have a really good example of the old Super 8 now called The Lodge where people moved from the street into housing and with the right supports, it's been a successful small community, which has not impacted the neighbourhood.
So do I support the proposed Braidwood complex? Absolutely. Do I recognize that the neighbor's are very worried about it? Absolutely.
I have been seeing how BC housing is working to respond to those concerns in the design of the whole complex. I think that that's really an important piece of this, that people recognize that everyone needs a home and that we can we can deliver safe housing and safe neighbourhood.
I know that I've heard the Conservative candidate questioning it, and I would be really curious about how he'll answer this because I've been looking at this since 2004. I’ve been trying to find the right place and in the end it's about providing the right supports to make it successful wherever the land happens to be available.

School District 71 has policies and resources that create a supportive and inclusive environment for students. Will your government do anything to change or limit SD71’s ability to use these policies and resources?

The simple answer is no I wouldn't do anything to change your limit the ability to create a safe and dignified environment for our students. I think we have proven as a BC NDP government that support with creating the safe access around schools because of the protests that have been occurring around the province to make sure that the kids and the parents and the teachers and support staff are all safe and not bullied or harassed.
There's a misinformation campaign out there about what SOGI is. It is about creating a safe space for all students and giving them the dignity and respect that they all deserve.