The October 24 provincial election was unnecessary, but a better focus now is: what can West Vancouver get from it? Here are 10 commitments we should seek from every provincial party.
- An independent review of the North Shore wastewater plant. Rather than the existing review, the Inspector of Municipalities should conduct a Section 765 review into how a project originally estimated at $700 million reached $3.86 billion. including its governance, oversight and cost allocation.
- Wastewater cost relief. Ottawa committed $212.3 million and Victoria $193 million when the project was dramatically smaller. Extending roughly the same proportional support to today’s $3.86-billion project would require about another $1.1 billion from each government, and would substantially reduce the burden on West Vancouver taxpayers.
- A West Vancouver Urgent and Primary Care Centre. We have a primary-care clinic, but not a UPCC. The province should work with Vancouver Coastal Health and the community, including local philanthropy, to make one happen.
- Infrastructure funds for the provincial housing that mandates require. If Victoria mandates substantially more housing in Ambleside and Taylor Way–Park Royal, it should help finance the water, sewer, drainage, parks and community infrastructure that growth demands, and leave reasonable local discretion over built form and sequencing.
- Transportation money behind housing growth. Taylor Way–Park Royal cannot absorb thousands of additional homes without improved transit capacity, traffic management, pedestrian connections and practical neighbourhood and seniors micro-transit.
- Permanent infrastructure-renewal funding. Aging roads, water systems, sewers, drainage and other municipal assets need predictable provincial support, not just grants available only when new housing is attached. Aging infrastructure is a major long-term financial challenge.
- Tools to revive commercial districts. Allow local governments to introduce a commercial-vacancy tax on persistently empty storefronts through a Community Charter amendment.
- Wildfire resilience as a priority. Half of West Vancouver is within 100 metres of forest, and our wildfire plan contains 45 recommendations but little implementation. We need predictable funding for FireSmart staffing, fuel and dead-tree management, private-property risks, evacuation planning and critical routes.
- Accommodate an aging population. Partner in a new Seniors’ Activity Centre and expanded adult-day, home-care and aging-in-place services.
- Fund mental-health and homelessness services. Municipalities increasingly encounter these provincial responsibilities through policing, bylaws and community services. Victoria should fund the health, outreach and housing response.
And one more: reconnect the Capilano Pacific Trail. The old alignment cannot safely be restored because of geotechnical instability. The province should join West Vancouver and Metro Vancouver in funding a safe, permanent connection from Ambleside toward Cleveland Dam.
Provincial campaigns inevitably produce promises intended for everyone. West Vancouver should use this one to ask something more useful: what, specifically, will the next government do for the problems it controls, the obligations it imposes, and the costs it helps create?