Tell us about yourself
I’ve lived and grown up in Nanaimo my entire life, went to school here, graduated out of Malaspina University College, and have continued to grow my family here and be a massive part of the community.
I have spent the last 30 years in negotiations as a facilitator, mediator, negotiator. I have a B.A. in First Nations Studies, a Master’s in Conflict Analysis and Management, and a Ph.D. in Organizational Management. And with that combined experience, I have facilitated some of the toughest discussions that our province and our country has faced with contentious issues, facilitating the moving of the Trans Mountain Pipeline.
I have also facilitated what was a very contentious issue in Nanaimo, specifically the Colliery Dam to resolution where everybody felt heard, and we built the spillway and protected the people downstream.
I’m also the founder of the Steve Smith Foundation which we built a world-class bike park that includes two pump tracks and some jump lines and then extended to the Geordie Lund Skills Park.
I also was the leader behind the Save the Harbour to ensure that the Nanaimo Harbour wasn’t turned into a yacht parking lot, and that it was continued to be able to be used by fishermen, by people that lived on Protection Island, and everybody else.
I’ve been negotiating legislative space for First Nations for approximately 30 years in the BC Treaty process.
What are you hearing when door-knocking?
The impact the tariffs are having on our forest industry.
Forest industry is of a major concern in Vancouver Island, and Nanaimo Ladysmith area.
Housing affordability, creating opportunities for everybody to be able to own a house. The homelessness issues are top of mind for people.
Healthcare is probably, I’m going to say it’s neck and neck with forestry in the sense that Nanaimo is a designated tertiary healthcare facility, yet we have no tertiary healthcare services.
We have a very aged hospital, and we need new hospital tower and a cath lab. And we have to find ways with our population that’s growing so exponentially with people moving here.
We need to have the infrastructure that enables people to stay here. So, you need home, you need a hospital, and you need jobs.
What is your position on tariffs and the trade war?
Like everybody else, I was fearful when these first were announced.
Having spent a considerable amount of time with the Prime Minister, I am confident the plan that he has and the plan that’s been created will ensure that Canadians will be safeguarded against anything that happens down south. In saying that, we also have to do our part.
And that’s where I believe I can be the voice of strength in representing the Nanaimo Ladysmith and bringing about forestry initiatives.
I’m actually having a forest round table here to talk to all the leaders in the forest sector about how do we ensure that we’re pivoting to meet not only the current condition that we find ourselves in, but to envision a future where sustainable forestry is all-encompassing, from actual seed to final sale, and how do we build that value chain that includes the primary, secondary, and tertiary industries, all right here in Canada, so we actually then are not necessarily reliant on shipping to the US.
We have to find ways and means to ensure that we can build strong here in Canada, and then look to others, such as international trade partners, because we have on coastal Vancouver Island, the best, strongest fiber.
What are potential solutions to housing affordability and homelessness?
Housing affordability is going to take a Canada plan.
We have to find ways to bring down the cost of building and ensuring that we create spaces that enable anyone to buy a house that’s affordable.
So I think I don’t have a solution in the sense that there’s one, you know, I can’t make, I can’t wave a magic wand and say, ta-da, it’s going to be fixed today.
It’s going to take a collaborated effort across the board to be able to build homes that are affordable and that people can afford. When you’re building 5,000 square foot homes, not so many people can afford those. But when you go back to building a house that’s got three bedrooms, one bathroom, living room, kitchen at 1,000 square feet, people can afford that because then they can afford to heat it, they can afford to stay there.
As for the homelessness issues, those are deep-seated and what I will say is, I served on the College of Physicians and Surgeons when the opioid crisis and this was on the rise.
So what we’ve been doing for the past, I don’t know how long, and this is primarily a provincial issue.
It’s not necessarily managed at the federal level, but I believe the federal government has a role to play, and that is finding solutions that can be applied throughout the country that enable mental health support, enable spaces that don’t put others at risk for our homeless
What would you do about cost-of-living pressures in your riding?
Well, I think one of the things you can find is that the port expansion out at Deep Point is creating jobs, good paying jobs.
Just about a $50 million investment from the federal government, but it’s a $200 million investment in partnership with Nanaimo and DT World. That’s going to create good-paying jobs.
When you create good-paying jobs, people can afford to buy homes, buy cars, buy groceries, buy medicine. So a lot of this is about creating the environment that says invest in Nanaimo. Invest in Nanaimo Ladysmith.
And by investing, you’re creating jobs. Once we have good paying jobs, we have to, you know, make sure that our university can support skilled trades. Go back to our roots at the university there, we were a trade school from the beginning. And I think we have to have some serious investment in trades, including that in the medical field.
Because I talked about the hospital tower, well, you build a hospital tower here that has tertiary care, you’re again, attracting more people with highly skilled professions, 12 years of university to become a specialist doctor, to practice here. That way we’re having more people, you know, younger families, hopefully, having children, so we build more schools.
It takes a whole community coming together to understand the global vision of what’s going to work right here in Nanaimo-Ladysmith.
And right now, we need to take a serious look at our forest industry and make sure we’re making the right investments that we’re supporting, again, primary, secondary, and tertiary industry in the industry and forest. So you actually go from seed to final sale, like finished product, and a finished product being a house built here in Nanaimo with wood that has been harvested right here on Vancouver Island.
What do you think is the most important issue for the area and why?
For the riding, it’s about forestry, but it’s also about access to good healthcare.
It’s about having the services and supports you need to have over 500,000 people living North of the Malahat that are hard-working, working in dangerous jobs, have access to tertiary care because if you live on Vancouver Island, that Malahat is closed many, many times throughout the year.
We need to protect our citizens, we need to have good-paying jobs in the forest sector because that’s what we rely on, and we have to have the healthcare that services them.
Are there any final thoughts on any topic that you would like to share?
This is the most important election of our lifetime. And it’ll probably be the most important election of my grand-daughters lifetime.
The sovereignty of Canada is at risk, and we as Canadians need to stand up and protect it. And doing that, we will protect who we are as Canadians.
