Saturday August 31, 2024 | VICTORIA, BC
BC POLITICAL SEASON 2024 | by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
BC Green Party candidate Christina Winter — running in Victoria-Swan Lake — has proudly worked on many Green campaigns over the years, including for David Merner and Francis Litman. In 2024 she’s ready to be frontline as the candidate!
Winter says that Victoria-Swan Lake is “generally a progressive riding but has been held by one person for a long time”. BC NDP cabinet minister Rob Fleming is not seeking re-election and a three-way race is now open in Victoria-Swan Lake among the major BC parties:
- BC NDP – Nina Krieger – executive director at the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre
- BC Conservative – Tim Taylor – Victoria area Realtor
- BC Green – Christina Winter – co-launched Marigold Law Group with her husband
“People know there is going to be a change and they’re looking at what kind of change they want,” says Winter, who has door-knocked for Greens since 2015.
Key downtown riding:
Victoria-Swan Lake has a footprint in both some of the lowest-income income households as well as some of the higher-income areas of Victoria just east of the downtown, including some parts of Saanich.
The riding edges the Victoria-Beacon Hill riding along Bay Street, the Oak Bay-Gordon Head riding along Shelbourne Street, the Saanich South riding along McKenzie Avenue, borders the Trans Canada Highway and also Esquimalt along Gorge Road and reaches as far as View Royal on the west.
Policies and operations of both the City of Victoria and the District of Saanich have interplay here.
Housing:
Winter is hearing about the challenges of home affordability (rent or own) in Victoria-Swan Lake and about people “trapped in housing” because they can’t afford to buy a home in their price range (unless they leave the city) that’s even comparable to where they are now.
She says some people are having to make lifestyle decisions such as living apart because a larger place would be unaffordable, or people staying together after separation or divorce because they can’t afford to move. “There just isn’t enough affordable housing,” she says.
She thinks the province should be investing in affordable housing and below-market housing (which it already is) but also co-op housing and social housing as “supply that is going to impact affordability overall”.
“The new market rent spaces are very expensive,” says Winter. “We need to be a bit more innovative with how we’re building and build things faster,” she says. “Rentals are an investment piece for the province and can be managed over the life of the buildings,” she said, noting that stratas already do this.
Multiple crises:
Greens like to take a holistic approach in recognizing the interplay of complex issues, says Winter. Listening to people who do the work on the ground is key to finding solutions.
In health-care the needed changes have been mentioned by health-care workers for decades, she said.
She likes the idea of setting up health-care opportunities like Urgent Primary Care Centres but buildings without adequate staffing is a problem. Staffing issues at hospitals have been seen for years now, but particularly post-pandemic.
She also mentions child care as an issue, for which she says there aren’t enough spaces and wait lists are long. This is impacting parents — probably in most cases women — who don’t go back to work until their child is in Kindergarten, because “the economics just don’t make sense”. This has longer-term impacts on career trajectories (forcing women to work from home or take contract work) and relationship balance in the household. She says that multi-generational households and family networks are beneficial when that’s available (not just for having child care when needed but that’s backed up with multiple family incomes).
Winter says that many child care centres find it complicated to align with becoming a government-supported facility. “Stable core operational funding from the province is something that’s missing,” says Winter. She says that the government still expects child care centres to find “other grants or money fro other places” even when government program funding is provided.
Seven BC Green candidates in the Greater Victoria area:
The BC Greens definitely now have the progressive/left lane in this 2024 BC provincial election race, now that the BC United Party has collapsed their campaign into the BC Conservatives movement.
There are seven BC Green candidates in the Greater Victoria and south Vancouver Island area: Party Leader Sonia Furstenau (Victoria-Beacon Hill), Deputy-Leader Dr Lisa Gunderson (Oak Bay-Gordon Head); Camille Currie (Esquimalt-Colwood), David Evans (Juan de Fuca-Malahat), Cammy Lockwood (Cowichan Valley), Ned Taylor (Saanich South), and Christina Winter (Victoria-Swan Lake).
===== RELATED:
- BC Conservatives claim center-right lane in fall election race (August 28, 2024)
- Rob Fleming leaves open game for Victoria-Swan Lake in election 2024 (August 18, 2024)
- Summertime Victoria office party for South Vancouver Island BC Greens (August 2, 2024)
- Editorial: BC Greens in transition as election fast approaches (July 15, 2024)
- Rob Fleming not running in 2024 election (July 4, 2024)