B.C. Premier David Eby leaves the Union of BC Municipalities convention in Vancouver, on Sept. 19.ETHAN CAIRNS/The Canadian Press
Racing to promote his party’s accomplishments before the B.C. election campaign officially starts Saturday, Premier David Eby unveiled an unconventional new home ownership program, while also saying that the NDP is tackling public disorder, health care, and instituting a change to carbon pricing that will put more of the cost onto businesses.
Mr. Eby started Thursday with an announcement that all 2,600 of the homes planned for the Indigenous-owned development site in central Vancouver, called the Heather Lands, will be offered to middle-class families at only 60 per cent of their market value.
The government will cover the other 40 per cent and recover its share of the property’s value from the owners, who will need to be first-time buyers with low enough incomes, when it is eventually sold or after 25 years.
“This will be dedicated to people who help make our communities grow. We are creating a new model,” said Mr. Eby, surrounded by chiefs from the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh nations who are developing the site and who pitched the ownership idea months ago.
From there, Mr. Eby went on to the 2,000-person annual gathering of municipal politicians in downtown Vancouver and promised to put money into special community-policing efforts for cities whose downtowns are struggling to thrive because of the visible problems with public disorder.
Echoing one of the main concerns of the municipal politicians at the Union of B.C. Municipalities (UBCM) convention, he acknowledged that the toxic drug crisis and associated street disorder need to be fixed, for the sake of both people on the street suffering and the general public.
“There are two goals. One is to make sure the people who are struggling in the community so visibly, whether they’re lying facedown on the sidewalk or when they’re yelling and screaming and causing fear and confusion and concern, that they are looked after.
“The other thing is making sure the residents in our communities feel safe in our downtown areas, that when they go out with their kids, they can feel comfortable being out in the community and they feel that the people needing care are getting the care they need.”
He said the NDP platform will contain a commitment for extra resources for community policing.
“By having a strong and visible law-enforcement presence in your downtowns, coupled with the social supports that we put in place … we’ll be able to ensure that our cities are safe, everybody’s looked after and our downtowns recover.”
He added later that the extra policing will take a lot of pressure off cities and help reduce their policing and other costs.
One session on Tuesday at the UBCM convention that was dedicated to how cities are dealing with homelessness and encampments was a litany of stories from unhappy mayors and councils about the huge sums of money they are spending dealing with those issues.
Kelowna Mayor Tom Dyas said his city has spent $20-million in the past three years on the social problems there, which include the third-highest number of overdose calls among all cities in B.C.
Smithers Mayor Gladys Atrill said that her relatively small town has had to add two additional police officers at a total cost of $220,000 apiece, as well as budgeting $110,000 a year to deal with the homeless camp that is next to her City Hall.
“What I’ve noticed is the community, the business owners who we used to count on for support have been robbed, attacked.”
Besides the big issues of housing and public disorder, Mr. Eby also touted the NDP’s successes in health care, saying that so many family doctors have been added to B.C. that “for the first time in 20 years, the number of people looking for a doctor has gone down.”
And he repeatedly defended his recent, surprise announcement that B.C. would abandon carbon pricing – a levy on fossil fuels that is rebated to low-income households. Then-premier Gordon Campbell introduced it in 2008, when the policy was considered ground-breaking as a climate-change initiative.
Mr. Eby said it would be dropped if the federal government decides to eliminate it as a requirement.
The Premier said he had heard from too many people that they felt they were having to make a choice between climate-change efforts and being able to pay for basic household expenses.
“We’re going to make sure that everyday British Columbians are protected.”
Mr. Eby repeatedly attacked his chief rival, B.C. Conservative Party Leader John Rustad, saying he would massively cut health budgets, has promised to roll back most of the NDP’s housing programs, and doesn’t believe in climate change.
The Premier said health spending in B.C. needs to increase, not decrease.
With a growing population and more and more seniors, “we cannot address this problem by cutting the health budget. It certainly will not keep your emergency rooms open.”