ASK Salt Spring: Answered - Ep 30 MLA Adam Olsen

Episode Date: February 3, 2024

Green Party MLA Adam Olsen discusses the upcoming provincial election, secondary suite legislation and healthcare.

Right, you're listening to Ask Salt Spring Answered on cheer.fm. We've just been at the Ask Salt Spring session with Adam Olson, who is our Green MLA for Saanich North and the Gulf Islands. Adam, welcome. Thank you. So right at the end we got a bit of news didn't we about the secondary suites legislation. I gather this came from your assistant who was monitoring something on his internet. Yeah, got an email apparently. I haven't had a chance to see it,

but originally the initiative that the government was going to fund is up to 3,000 renovations of secondary suites or new secondary suites up to $40,000 matching was originally not going to include the Southern Gulf Islands, but it sounds like it is. So we were advocating with the province

that that should be definitely something that is available to Gulf Island residents, and it appears that starting later this year it will be. And does that legislation also include the ability to have a secondary suite on your property regardless of local you know well so bill 44 allowed secondary suites this is a program that is it it's kind of a funding program or a grant program that um that you can get up to 50 percent of the cost of your renovation to to improve or to create a secondary suite.

So this specific program, Bill 44 was in the past fall session, opened up secondary suites and accessory dwellings across the province in single-family properties. And this is what we're talking about here is specifically a grant program. Okay. So people would be able to apply for a grant, you said $40,000, and a matching grant, like they could get $80,000 basically. No.

So the total project, if you were to get $40,000, that means your project is up to $80,000. The maximum that you can apply for, as I understand it, is $40,000. Okay. But it's a matching piece. So if you only spend $40,000, then the total amount that you could apply for is $20,000. So they're only going to fund 50% of the improvement.

Okay. Yeah. All right. So do you think that's going to have a big effect on Salisbury? I mean, I've heard people talking about the cost of building secondary suites, and it's considerably more than that threshold, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, I think there's two aspects of this. If you're going to be improving a building that you already have in order to produce another space for people to live in, there's going to be some cost to that. I think that people aren't going to be unhappy with the ability to have some of that cost defrayed. Also, if you have a unit where

people are living in it, and it might not be like a legal secondary suite or something like that, you haven't built it to the building code standards, this will allow you to have some access to some funds that you can bring that suite into compliance and, you know, create a safer, more secure place for people to live. So, you know, the goal of this, I think, is to improve secondary suites in the province, improve the number, increasing them, and improve the quality of the current secondary suites that exist. Okay, great. Now, we talked about a whole bunch of things this morning, including the upcoming election.

And I think you said there will be now, I think under redistribution, there'll be 93 ridings. How many are there right now? 87. 87, right? Six new ridings. Yeah. And the goal of the Green Party is to have a candidate in every riding. Yeah. Do you think that's feasible?

Yeah, I mean, I think that we got very, very close. I can't remember the exact number in the last election. We got very close, and it was a snap election. Right. We're in the process right now as a political party, you know, laying the groundwork to announce some more nominations. My colleague, Sonia Firstenot just announced that where she's running and Victoria Beacon Hill in the next riding. So, you know, these things are happening where we're building a solid foundation for the campaign. And the goal of course, will be to give

everybody in British Columbia, the option to vote for a BC green candidate. I think we present a unique opportunity for British Columbians in the election. We provide, I think, an incredible value to the debate. In the legislature, oftentimes we're the only party that are raising issues around old growth and issues around equity. For example, we argued quite strongly for the government to implement pay equity legislation rather than the pay transparency legislation, take it a step further. So, you know, I think that what Sonia and I have offered in the legislature over the past six or seven years has been, you know, very, very stable critique of the legislation that the government's bringing forward.

We've offered some really good ideas on environmental, social, and economic policy. And so we continue to, I think, provide British Columbians a voice in the legislature that is valued. And a lot of the initiatives that we brought forward, government has adopted. Right. And I think you were asked in the meeting today what the ballot box issues would be, and you said economics was one of the big ones. Obviously, we're all struggling to make ends meet under the current inflation

and everything else that's going on, and healthcare system, right? Could you enlarge on that a little bit, on those two? Yeah, well, I mean, oftentimes when we talk about affordability, it begins and ends at housing. The affordability around food, I think, is something that people are very cognizant of as well, as the cost of groceries has gone up.

And you take a look at your grocery bill and then the amount of groceries that are actually in the bag and you wonder where it's all gone. So food and housing are basic needs that all British Columbians need in order to be able to thrive. And both of those costs have gone up. A point was made in the meeting that interest rates are high right now compared to what they have been, but, you know, they're not high compared to what they have been in the past, which is true with the exception that the cost of everything has increased. And as well, we've gone through a period of very low interest rates and so what's happened is people have borrowed an incredible amount of money and in many cases

people have been borrowed more than perhaps their capacity to pay back and so then when the interest rates goes up goes up that becomes very catastrophic for people the the ballot box question that i think is going to be on most people's mind, other than the affordability or other than their personal and community economics, is going to be health care. And we continue to hear it in our constituency office day in and day out. Every week we hear about the impact that our eroding health care services in this province are having on people. And these stories are some of the most challenging to engage with because, well, frankly, they're very sad.

You know, we call them in our office too late diagnosis, diagnosis that come with very little medical intervention possible in them. And it's a result of an erosion in our primary care. And it comes as a result of a health care system that's designed as more of a fix. Sorry, a health care system that's designed more as a sick care system than one that is about prevention, about early intervention, about education, public health measures that are community-based. And so, you know, I think we're really going to be, in the upcoming election, we're going to be offering, continuing to offer British Columbians kind of an option on the ballot

that sees health care as from the community up, from public health care, that is really founded on making sure that the health care is in the community as it's needed and that we're really putting the focus on prevention and improving people's well-being. Because oftentimes when you get sick and there's delays in providing screening and diagnostics, oftentimes the information comes too late

or it comes at a time when you're in a significantly advanced stage. Right, yeah. Okay, now there was a couple of oddball kind of things talked about. One of them, particularly, I thought, was talking about the regional district for the Southern Gulf Islands. And, yeah, I was quite intrigued by that. And I think you said that it would be a very challenging thing to implement, but you felt there might be some advantages to such a system. I mean, is this even being considered?

We had enough trouble with, you know, obviously when they wanted to form a municipality here, you know, we went through a referendum and everything else, and it was defeated. Why would we suddenly go to become a regional district of our own? So I think it's important that there's some context provided around this. First of all, the question was asked whether or not that it would be better or that there would be advantages to a regional district of the Gulf Islands. It wasn't something that was pitched as an initiative that's underway.

There's no conversation other than at Ask Salt Spring about this from what I understand. And what I offered was just an assessment from kind of a social, political, and economic perspective. The first thing that I said, and when you framed it as my response was that it would be something that would be difficult to do, I know that there would be expense to it because there are so many services that are delivered by the CRD right now that the governance of those would have to be reorganized, right? From a political perspective, and so there's going to be an expense to that. And I have no idea, nobody has any idea what it would be. It would be, we would find that number out as a result of a study and, you know, if there was any interest in it. From a political perspective,

there are a couple of aspects of this that I think need to be thought about. And one of those is that our friends at the Islands Trust have multiple, half dozen or so, or more regional districts that they're interfacing with when they're, you know, communicating and working with all of the islands in the Islands Trust area. And so from a bureaucratic perspective at the Islands Trust, that is always going to be a more complex scenario than if you were just dealing with a single regional district as an example. So perhaps, and you know, I think that it would probably be a good

idea to have a conversation with the Islands Trust about this, but perhaps it would simplify the conversation about that. Also at a political level, and this is at the elected official level, the Southern Gulf Islands have two really good electoral area directors that go to the CRD. Gary Holman here on Salt Spring, Paul Brent on the Outer Gulf Islands. And when they go to that CRD board, they're joined by another electoral area director from Juan de Fuca, Al Wickham. And when they sit there, there are three votes, and they're facing dozens and dozens of other votes around them. It is exceptionally hard, and they do absolutely the best job that they can at that board to advance the interests of the Southern Gulf Islands.

But they're always going into a weighted vote against Saanich and Victoria and then Langford, Colwood, and all of the other municipalities on the Saanich Peninsula. So I use the example of the Growing Communities Fund, the billion dollars that was allocated by the province last year and split up based on per capita. And the people in the electoral areas, the people on Salt Spring and in the outer Gulf Islands,

did not get a fair amount of money based on what someone in central Saanich was allocated or what was allocated based on someone being in Central Saanich. And again, this is not as a result of a lack of ability for Gary and Paul to articulate on behalf of the Southern Gulf Island residents that this was an unfair situation. It was the fact that they were going into a board that had, each of those municipalities got their own allocations based on per capita.

And they were then arguing that the regional district allocation needed to have a similar per capita number as what the municipalities were getting. Well, that's, you know, that's a tough mountain to climb for them at a regional district board where all of those other municipalities around are saying, no, no, no, like this is a regional district money. This is money that's, you know. So I explain it this way because in the scenario where there would be a regional district that included the Gulf Islands and that allocation would have gone, then they wouldn't be necessarily sitting. You know, maybe Saterna would say, well, now we've got to deal with Salt Spring in the same way that Salt Spring has to deal with Victoria when they're at the regional district. However, that's a different conversation than what Salt Spring deals with when they go to

the CRD board or what, you know, any of the Thetis deals with when they go to the Cowd board or what you know uh any of the fetus deals with when they go to the cowichan valley regional district board right so i think the point that i wanted to make was that the issues that exist on the southern gulf islands are unique to the southern gulf islands it's very difficult for the crd board members that are sitting there to put to take off their municipal government hat and start to consider what it's like to represent Juan de Fuca, start to consider what it's like to represent Salt Spring. And again, it's not due to a lack of ability of the directors to do it. I meet with them on a regular basis and they know the issues well, they can

articulate the issues well. It's just the politics at those boards, they're big politics. And so, and the votes are weighted. So it means that, you know, you need to have a very strong argument in order to be able to do it. And when money's on the table, you know that that becomes even more challenging so you know i i think i think look the reality is is that there is always a governance conversation this is you know i've had the honor of representing these beautiful communities in the salish sea uh for the last six or seven years now and one of of the things that I got elected

and then shortly after that, the incorporation vote happened here on Salt Spring. I learned a lot from that vote. I've learned a lot since then. There's always a governance conversation happening in the Southern Gulf Islands. This one came up today kind of organically. But, you know, I think it's important to acknowledge

that that conversation is always happening in one way or another. But at this point, it was purely hypothetical. Yeah, it was. Right. Now, there was some discussion also about policing and, you know, the lack of local justice system. But it also kind of morphed into a discussion about the RCMP on Salt Spring. Now, at some point in my notes here, I have you talking about the possibility, and I don't know again if this is purely hypothetical, of Central Saanich Police becoming part of the Salt Spring Island Police Force as a Salish police force

and replacing the RCMP with a municipal police force. Again, it was one of those things that kind of popped out of nowhere almost. Well, what I was talking about was I was part of the review of the Police Act, and we made a recommendation. I was part of the review of the Police Act. And we made a recommendation, all parties that were involved, all parties were involved, and the all-party committee made a recommendation to move away from the RCMP as the Provincial Police Service and to create the British Columbia Provincial Police Service. And the point that I was making was that in that instance, communities could organize their policing in any way that they want. They could contract the services with whoever. So in that instance, yes,

maybe the communities on the Saanich Peninsula decided to create a single policing unit. Maybe, but without the RCMP, you know, if the government, and the government has not moved in that direction yet, they've been hesitant to move in that direction. We have a contract that's coming up, I think it's 2032 is when that contract ends. So the time is ticking, we have to make a decision what we're going to do. I think also it will be driven by what the federal government decides to do if they want to continue to do community policing with the RCMP, or if they want to just have the RCMP be a federal unit that does, you know, major crimes and security at a national level. So we're not clear exactly what the federal government wants to do. Interesting way that you frame the question. Again, it's not, I was not suggesting that

that's something that's imminent or even being discussed about, but I was basically saying that there would be a provincial police service and some regional policing and tiered policing. So, you know, the recommendation that we made was to say, look, we want the chain of command to clearly end here in this province. Now, the chain of command for the division here in BC is pretty clear. It ends here. But when you see the police complaints commissioner from police complaints go all the way to Ottawa, and it's a federal system. Right. So we recommended that there be an arm's length civilian, um, oversight committee that doesn't exist,

uh, for the RCMP. To handle complaints. That's right. Yeah. Um, and so there's a lot of things about training, you know,

and I think that the RCMP is doing the best that they can to staff up the detachments across the province. We simply took a look at whether or not in British Columbia would, British Columbia would be better served if we had, you know, a full say on training, a full say on the posture of policing, community policing, and then, and then, um, uh, and other policing units, integrated units that exist already right now in, in, in like the greater Victoria area and in the lower mainland, we have a patchwork of policing services and, and some of them are RCMP, some of them are municipal. And I'll just leave maybe i'll just leave the the conversation at

this because it's been i'm kind of bouncing around a bunch of different ideas here and um but you know you think back to the early 2000s with uh the willie picton situation terrible situation multiple police services multiple touch you know, kind of in our CMP units. When you have a fragmented policing system, you have a bunch of gaps that don't necessarily serve the public. When you have a singular police service, a provincial police service like this, has been proposed by the committee, you close some of those. And you can provide a much more consistent service across the province, much better communication, in some cases less competition between the policing services.

So that was the recommendation that we made. We do not want another scenario where people are kind of moving within the cracks in order to get away from, you know, the police and recognizing that the communication isn't necessarily, it's improved, certainly is improved. But so in the context that we've had, you know, that was a conversation that we had in the legislature i'll just say this about the about the um the policing services in general and the relationship that i have with them and we certainly have a very very constructive relationship we have been bringing the issues that the local detachments of the outer gulf islands on pender the salt spring detachment here on Salt Spring Island.

We've been raising those issues with the minister, Minister Farnworth, who's the Minister of Public Safety and the Solicitor General. Minister Farnworth was here last year with us, and we did a visit with, I think it was last year. Time moves quickly. It was last year. So attentive. We got a good relationship.

We raised the issues. But from a provincial policing scenario, that was the recommendations that were made, and those were the reasons why the recommendations was made because we have a responsibility to British Columbians to ensure that there's public safety and security. And after 15 months and several hundred and, several hundred, more than a thousand people who made contributions, those were the recommendations that we made.

Okay, now we've got an election coming in October at the latest. We have a spring session this year. Do you think that the NDP will pack that full of feel-good legislation to help them with their election campaign? Oh, well, it'll be interesting to see what kind of legislation does come forward. I've heard lots of rumblings about the types of legislation that could be there. I'm not going to really speculate too much. Again, interesting the way you asked this question, feel-good, because they proposed a change to the land act that has not and and their process for consultation and the process for for the changes that they're making hasn't brought a lot of good feelings so you know like i think that a lot was left to be desired for on the process on that we made a commitment in 2019 when we passed the Declaration Act

that we were going to create space within our laws in order for there to be shared decision-making on the land base between the Crown government and Indigenous governments. That was always part,

Section 6 and 7 of the Declaration Act was always part of the conversation. The fact that this, the amendments to the Land Act weren't done, that they're being proposed for this coming spring session, weren't done back then, I think it was a bit of a mistake, but that was the way it is. And now they're bringing them forward. They proposed a consultation that they didn't announce with a press release.

The slide deck wasn't very informative. It left a lot of gaps, a lot of room for misinformation and disinformation. And as a result, frankly, it's eroded the process that we've been on around reconciliation unnecessarily. And so I wouldn't say that this is going to be a feel-good debate on this one. I think that it's going to be very challenging. And unfortunately, the people who are going to wear this mistake that the provincial government made the most are going to be Indigenous leaders who we have committed to in this project of reconciliation that this was going to be done.

And now what it's done is it's eroded public confidence. And it's made, and ultimately what happens is the people who are going to wear it the most are First Nations people. That's really unfortunate. And so we're going to continue to, I'm going to continue to advocate with Minister Nathan Cullen that he do everything he can in order to repair the damage that has been done. And I'm going to plead with my colleagues on the opposition benches who are leveraging this opportunity that was created unnecessarily by the government to just slow down a little bit. Let's see what the legislation has to say. Let's be thoughtful about it.

Let's understand that people are involved, both Indigenous people and non-Indigenous people in British Columbia are involved. Their rights and their interests are involved as well. And the more anxiety and tension that we create around this before we see the legislation, the more challenging we create the whole landscape going forward. And so we just need to just slow down a bit. Let's see what the legislation is. Let's debate it. Let's critique it. And let's make sure that we're not in the end, making it more difficult for Indigenous nations to do the work that they need to do in order to

see their rights be respected, and in order to see their rights be respected and as well to see their communities be supported. Sounds like you have a challenging session ahead of you. Yeah, they're all challenging. That's part of the reason why I love this job so much. So, you know, this is the beautiful part of this job is that I get to be challenged by the legislative side as a critic. You know, one of the things that I've talked about a little bit over the last little bit and done some writing about

is my role as a critic. I really, really embrace that. And as an opposition member, oftentimes people lament that, you know, they're not in government or whatever. I really embrace the role of critic. It is a fundamental and important role. The role of critic is critical in our system of government.

You have government, and then you have to have that counterbalance. I really appreciate that role. And then doing the constituency work like I did here at Salt Spring once a month. And I really love the constituency work. These are the two sides of the job that I've really come to appreciate over the six years. It is an honor to represent these communities. They're vibrant communities. And I look forward to the opportunity to doing it again.

And we'll go to an election and I'll present that as an option for Saanich North and the Islanders. And I hope to be the successful candidate once again and continue serving these communities for four more years. Okay. Thanks, Adam. Yeah. Thanks a lot. Cheers.