 David Eby says housing focus won't change if he jumps from minister to premier | | |  | | | What happens when a politician deeply interested in municipal issues becomes premier of British Columbia?
We may soon find out.
David Eby announced his candidacy for NDP leadership on Tuesday. With no competition yet and the vast majority of caucus supporting him, it’s overwhelmingly likely he’ll become B.C.’s 37th premier sometime near the end of the year.
For the last few years, Eby’s focus has dovetailed with some of the biggest issues in local politics. On housing, he’s put himself in the middle of supply debates, pushing local councils to approve specific projects and threatening legislation if cities don’t speed up approvals. On crime, he’s approved a study into repeat offenders, and been the subject of opposition attacks that he’s not doing enough to keep downtown areas in urban centres safe.
Given that, we requested an interview with Eby on what might change with his focus on local issues should he become premier. What follows is a transcription of that discussion, edited for length and clarity.
Metro Matters: First, let's talk about timelines for a couple of things that were on your portfolio before you stepped down from cabinet: the legislation on housing targets and forcing municipalities to act, that was likely going to be in the fall session. What's the status of that now?
David Eby: The minister responsible for housing now, Murray Rankin, and his team will be doing the work to bring that forward, I hope, in the fall. The issue hasn't gone away just because I've stepped down from the role. And I know it's something that my colleagues in the legislature are concerned about and want to see some action on. So we're still on track for that.
MM: In terms of the other piece that you were overseeing, the study on repeat offenders: where exactly are we with that?
DE: So the last update I had from Doug LePard and Amanda Butler was that they were on track for delivering on schedule and that will be released, I hope, by the new minister, and it will form the roadmap for what we need to do to address these issues in communities.
MM: So you don't think there's going to be a freeze on some of this stuff while the leadership race and transition happens?
DE: It's hard to predict what will happen between now and the legislative session and so on. But when I left things, they were on track and ready to go ahead. And I have a lot of confidence in Murray Rankin to be able to deliver on these things and their priorities for British Columbians.
MM: You’ve talked about your relationship with British Columbians should you become premier. You've said “no radical changes” about 15 times in the last week. But when it comes to your relationship with municipalities and city halls, you've been writing letters, showing up at councils sometimes. Obviously, that's not something a premier usually does. What message do you want to send to city councils on what you want your relationship to be like should you become premier?
DE: I think cities are really vital partners in delivering housing and we have to deliver more middle-class housing. We have to deliver housing for the people who make the province run. The shortage of housing is driving people at the bottom of the market to homelessness, and it's frustrating businesses that want to expand. It's frustrating our delivery of health care. It's frustrating our ability to hire teachers. It's frustrating our emergency response because emergency responders live so far from where they're delivering services.
For all of those reasons, we need cities to step up. If I'm successful, it'll be a clear message to those cities that are helping deliver the housing, and government is going to be there to deliver that middle-class housing. Then we're going to support them with the infrastructure that they need to make their communities livable: the community centres, the pools, the trails, that kind of stuff.
For those that don't, we're going to set minimum standards. I think that by setting those minimum standards, including around things like legalizing rental housing, secondary suites and that kind of thing, we'll be able to help them understand the importance of housing. |  | MM: You’ve talked a lot about housing and building new supply. We've seen the price of housing increase by quite a bit under this government. Is it a case where you say, we need years six, seven, eight of our government to turn it around? Or is there more significant work that really has to happen if we're going to turn a corner?
DE: What we've been doing with middle class housing, whether it's rental or to owners, we've still been very reliant on the private sector. But I think ultimately we're going to have to just build this housing, whether it's the government building it or a partnership with First Nations or a partnership with the private sector building that housing, and hopefully that addresses the trust issue.
You know, I think a lot of municipalities, when they're dealing with private developers directly, they're very skeptical about their intentions. They want to put a bunch of measures in place to ensure that the housing is delivered as promised. If it's government, I hope we'll be able to expedite that process and say to those cities that are willing to work with us and get this housing approved quickly, they're going to be the ones that are seeing this affordable housing and answering the needs of their constituents.
MM: Crime and policing are, by and large, a local issue. Yesterday Minister Rankin tweeted twice and then deleted twice tweets that said despite anecdotal evidence, crime is not up. Do you agree with that? What is your take on the argument that crime is up and people feel less safe in big cities today than they did two or three years ago?
DE: Over the last 15 years, we did see crime go up and down. But there's one thing that's not really in dispute, which is the pandemic had huge impacts on our criminal justice system.
So a lot of criminal trials were cancelled. A lot of judges were reluctant to send people to what's called remand, which is a jail, to wait for their hearings. And our prison populations dropped by about 30 per cent. So those folks that used to be in jail, that used to be waiting for trials or serving sentences are out in the community, and some are fine, and it's not a huge issue, and community responses are sufficient.
But for other people, they're either really struggling because of mental health and addiction issues, or they're just prolific offenders and they're causing a lot of chaos. And so there are two responses: one is we desperately need more residential mental health and drug treatment facilities, and support for people that is available to courts, that is available to individuals themselves. And I think we can expedite that work if we can address the human resources challenge of getting the staff for those places.
And the second is that people will see a shift; as the criminal justice system is coming back online, the judges are working through the backlog. There are a bunch of confounding factors, federal law changes and so on. But at the end of the day, my impression is that what people are concerned about is seeing people who are struggling with mental health and addiction issues in their downtown cores — they look at Hastings Street, they're in Trail or Terrace or Kamloops, and they see these things. And to my mind, they are very connected to this need for these residential treatment beds.
MM: So you're saying in a year from now, things will look different.
DE: Well, it's going to take some time to open those residential treatment beds. So the work that LePard and Butler are doing, a former deputy chief and an expert on mental health and corrections, are to find things that we can do quickly within the existing system to respond to this. And in the medium term, getting those beds open is going to make a huge difference.
MM: When you're the minister responsible, you can get into the weeds a little bit more. As premier you have to delegate a lot and oversee from a big picture. Have you thought about how you're going to balance those priorities if elected?
DE: The office of the premier is one that really helps set the priorities for the government. For Premier Horgan, there was a huge focus on Indigenous reconciliation, on diversity within the public sector and ensuring that the government reflects British Columbians, ensuring that voices are heard in the Legislature that hadn't been heard before.
For me, if I'm successful, all of those remain really important issues, and people will see a real focus on the issue of middle-class housing. They'll see a real focus on the issue of mental health and addiction in our streets, and also the connection between these things and our economy, and the opportunities that are available for British Columbia being a stable place in a world that's quite unstable right now. | | |  | | | 2. Surrey | Every rumoured candidate for Mayor of Surrey is now in the race, with Sukh Dhaliwal and Gordie Hogg making things official this week. It sets up a complex five-candidate race, where everyone has slightly different positions on the police transition, but where organization will matter more than ideology — to say nothing of a potential vote split between the four non-McCallum candidates.
Read more | | | |  | | | 3. Port Moody | Speaking of the relationship between Eby and municipalities — as Port Moody council continues to take longer than Burnaby, Coquitlam and New Westminster in approving master plans for increasing development along its SkyTrain stations, the province has sent a warning letter to mayor and council. It could well be a big clue in how far a Premier Eby is willing to push things. Read more in Daily Hive | | | | | |  | | | 4. Victoria | For the last few years, Victoria council has been divisive, with criticism from some that citizens are unhappy with its focus and that it spends too long debating endless motions. This week, an extensive governance report from an outside consultant was released, showing many of the same themes (though with a self-selected sample size alert). We’ll see how, or if, a new council reacts.
Read more in CHEK News | | | |  | | | 5. Grand Forks | The only person running for mayor in Grand Forks is the person who finished second in 2018 and then became a councillor in a byelection. That would ordinarily make Everett Baker the likely winner — if not for the fact that it was recently revealed he was pardoned for multiple sex crimes when he was a young man in the late 1970s and early 1980s. One wonders how public opinion will sift out. Read more in the Grand Forks Gazette | | | | | | Share this newsletter | | or subscribe if this was
forwarded to you. | | | | Correction from last week: We inadvertently wrote that Saanich was the ninth biggest municipality in Metro Vancouver, for which we received justly snarky feedback from Vancouver Islanders about our error. It is in fact the ninth biggest municipality by population in the entire province — and largest on the Island, which continues to be a fun fact to surprise Victoria-focused friends with. | | | | That's it for this week! In the meantime, check out the latest headlines at cbc.ca/bc and follow our municipal affairs reporter Justin McElroy on Twitter. And if you have any questions you might want answered in a future mailbag, drop Justin a line at metromatters@cbc.ca. | | | |
