With a lack of public addiction treatment beds 鈥� only six in Campbell River to serve the north Island north of Nanaimo 鈥� what will your party do to address the lack of capacity?
As an independent, I will call for a massive increase in funding for the beds that are needed. But more importantly, I will bring awareness to what we're calling for recovery as the means to stop these preventable deaths.
We have to also address the reality that over 90 per cent of the people that enter recovery are going to relapse. It's a normal component of the disease of addiction. And when relapse occurs, we send those that suffer from that disease back to organized crime, as they have nowhere else to go. If they were an alcoholic, they would have the opportunity to go to a beer, wine, or government liquor store to get what they need that day, and they would have another opportunity to try again.
Our son was in recovery for eight months, and you don't stay in recovery for eight months if it isn't something you want in your life. And when Ryan relapsed on his job site, he was going back to work as a third-year electrician and he died during his lunch break. Our federal drug policy, the prohibition of drugs, gave Ryan nowhere else to go but back to organized crime.
And I think all of our provincial parties are ignoring this, and it's disgusting that they are allowing these people to die a preventable death. And they are not acknowledging the 150 youth, the vast majority that were not addicted, our first-time recreational youth.
Users who are not addicted are not going to recovery but are going to die. It's like these people don't exist to them and it's not being acknowledged.
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 goals will you aim to strive for in helping the province and Island hit those goals?
As an Independent, I will be supporting policy that acknowledges climate change is real, and hard choices will have to be made not only to address the issues of today, but for our future generations. And as an Independent, I support policy, whether it comes from the left or the right.
If it's policy that is evidence-based I support that it needs to represent the best interests of all British Columbians, and we will have to do more than we are doing today, and the fires that we see every year only increase.
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?
If there are policy ideas from all parties that address the issue that we have in the Comox Valley (we have to look at them.) I think we have to look at the roles that our municipalities, regional districts, province, play in driving up the cost through red tape policy and delays for permits.
I don't think there's accountability enough for these organizations and levels of government that also add to our increase in the cost of housing. So we need to address that as well.
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 absolutely support it desperately, and there will always be pushback, it doesn't matter where it will be.
It is going to help for sure. But once again, we're not addressing the pushback and the issues that are causing the chaos and the unpredictability of people who suffer from addiction and mental health issues. All forms of government and all parties are not acknowledging that the toxicity in drugs has changed dramatically - it's not what it was 10 years ago.
Users today are in endless cycles of detox and sickness. It's just not talked about that the number of people that are knocked unconscious ... and now have permanent brain damage and come back out into the community severely mental health issues and are using drugs on top of it.
We want to put little band aids and we want to fund more beds and build more mental institutions. But we still are going to allow organized crime to fill the mental health and addiction of people who are affected. And we are always going to have mental health issues and we are always going to have addiction issues.
It's the toxicity in the drugs that has changed. And once again, how would our alcohol users who are functioning alcoholics who own businesses, pay rent, have jobs, have families, contribute to our community if organized crime was still making the alcohol?
Because it wouldn't be blind drunk, it would be dead drunk and we would have chaos like we've never seen. But we don't acknowledge that we give our alcohol users a safe, legal source to go to. And until we address our substance users, we're just putting beds and we're not dealing with the issues ... it's not going to change much.
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鈥檚 ability to use these policies and resources?
No, I would support all policies and funding to support inclusive environments for our students. I would also call out any party candidate or leader of a party that did not support inclusion, SOGI, and truth and reconciliation.
We need to include reducing class size, increasing EAs (and) learning supports, teachers and counsellors. I would also advocate for class composition to be factored into policy and support.
