Public Safety

We must have compassion for your grandmother who is afraid to wait for the bus, your coworker cleaning human waste before work, and your family wondering which streets and parks are safe anymore.

They deserve our compassion too.

In fact, they deserve our compassion first.

These are not imaginary concerns.

The CVRD removed bus shelters at Village Green Mall and James Street after increasing open drug and alcohol use, sanitation problems and safety concerns. People who needed the bus were described as feeling intimidated, afraid and unsafe.

North Cowichan’s own safer-community work has documented concerns about public disorder tied to homelessness, addiction and mental health, including the effect on residents and businesses. Council has responded with increased public-space cleaning, refuse removal, portable toilets and work to strengthen bylaws dealing with open drug use.

The intentions behind many of the policies that brought us here are compassionate.

But compassion cannot stop with the person in crisis.

Streets Are Not Campsites

There should never be a time when people are permitted to establish an encampment on a street or sidewalk in North Cowichan.

Roads are for transportation.

Sidewalks are for walking.

Business entrances are for customers and employees.

Your ability to use them should not depend on whether somebody else has decided to live there.

Parks present separate legal questions around overnight sheltering when adequate alternatives do not exist.

Streets and sidewalks are different.

When elected, I will support keeping roads, sidewalks, business entrances and transportation corridors clear.

No Public Drug Use

My position is simple.

No public drug use.

Not on a sidewalk.

Not in a park.

Not at a bus stop.

Not outside a business.

Not anywhere in public.

“They are going to do it anyway” is not a policy.

People are going to speed anyway. We still have speed limits.

People are going to steal anyway. We still prohibit theft.

The fact that somebody may break a rule is not an argument for abandoning the rule.

We may not be able to stop every harmful choice.

We can say: you cannot do it here.

Helping Is Not Enabling

Someone suffering from addiction deserves help.

They deserve the opportunity to get well.

But making it easier to remain addicted, living on the street and deteriorating year after year is not the outcome we should accept.

Making people comfortable while they destroy their lives is not helping them.

It is enabling.

The goal should be recovery.

The goal should be fewer people living on our streets.

The goal should be fewer people addicted to drugs.

The goal should be fewer families wondering whether the person they love is going to survive another night.

The Numbers Are Moving the Wrong Way

In 2023, a one-day Point-in-Time count identified 223 people experiencing homelessness in Cowichan.

On November 27, 2025, the same kind of 24-hour snapshot identified 428.

These are minimum snapshot counts, not estimates of every person experiencing homelessness. The organizations conducting the counts say hidden homelessness is undercounted.

That makes the increase more concerning, not less.

We also know the people counted are not exclusively people who have always lived here.

In the 2023 survey, 195 people answered the question about how long they had lived in the community. Seventy-five said they had always lived here. One hundred and twenty had moved here at some point. Seventeen had arrived within the previous year.

Seventeen people in one year is not nothing.

This is not the growth I want us planning for.

I want people coming here to build lives, businesses, families and a future with us.

When Elected

When elected, I will support clear rules and consistent enforcement.

I will support keeping our streets and sidewalks open.

I will oppose public drug use in public spaces.

I will push Victoria and Ottawa to deal with the responsibilities that belong to them instead of leaving us to live permanently with the consequences.

And I will judge success by whether fewer people are living this way.

Not by how efficiently we manage the crisis.

We should be building the community we want, not organizing ourselves around a permanent crisis.