Ask the BC NDP government, and it will tell you it’s always eager to hear from local residents concerned about its housing and drug programs. But ask the City of Nanaimo, and you’ll hear what it sounds like to be perpetually ignored.
The latest example was this week when council asked Housing Minister Christine Boyle to consider turning a 50-unit supportive housing project on Terminal Avenue into “sober housing” for those wanting to overcome their addictions in a substance-free environment.
“In order to save lives you have to provide safe places for people,” Nanaimo Mayor Leonard Krog told Global BC.
“And a safe place when you’re trying to remain clean and sober is not to be surrounded by people in active addiction, not to be in a place where drug dealers and others can come and annoy you or take advantage of your vulnerabilities.”
The request originated from residents around the facility, as well as some people inside it, and was endorsed by council. But the BC NDP government in Victoria was quick to assert that it knew better.
“Relapse is often part of recovery,” Boyle told the CBC. “What we don’t want is for people who have a relapse to lose their housing and go through the destabilizing impacts that can continue to have.”
Destabilizing barely scratches the surface of Nanaimo’s experience with such facilities. The lack of promised wrap-around support by the province meant the Terminal Avenue site was decried by the community as a haven for open drug use, violence and organized crime.
It was part of the reason a senior resident reached out for help from neighbours about what they said was a culture of intimidation, drug dealing and overdoses that left them feeling unsafe, according to an account at the Discourse website.
But Boyle remained unmoved. She waved off concerns from residents, neighbours and council alike.
"We are meeting people where they're at and helping make sure first that they get the stability of a safe and reliable home so that they can access health support,” she said.
It’s not the first time this government has told Nanaimo residents they don’t know what’s best for their community.
When council debated asking the province to shut down an overdose prevention site near city hall last month, the health authority and premier instead defended it.
When Krog was one of the first mayors in 2023 to call the province’s decriminalization policy a failure due to the disorder in his community, the province refuted him.
When Nanaimo residents called for changes to safe supply after finding more than 80 prescription labels outside a pharmacy where the drugs were being diverted to organized crime, NDP ministers said they were wrong.
When Krog called for involuntary care for those with serious mental health concerns in 2020, the government said that wasn’t the solution.
Here’s the irony though: on almost every one of these issues, the NDP eventually caved. Not because it listened to communities like Nanaimo. But because it feared losing the election last spring, so it panicked.
The NDP survived with a one seat majority. Since then, it has gone back to telling everyone else they are wrong about the things they are seeing in their neighbourhoods.
Krog, a former NDP MLA, continues to express frustration at his former colleagues in Victoria.
“I am disappointed by [Boyle’s] response and would like to think the government would take a broader view of this and consider not just the request of citizens whose neighbourhoods are impacted by this, but also consider the needs of people who are trying to get their lives back in order,” he told the Times Colonist.
Boyle, on the other hand, lectured Nanaimo about the importance of what she calls the “housing-first model” where drug and alcohol use is allowed in provincial facilities in order to get people off the streets.
The argument has not gone over well.
“For heaven sakes, open your minds up a little bit on this and stop sticking to what I would call an ideologically based position that is parroted by many in the health community,” said Krog.
The BC NDP says it listens. But Nanaimo knows it doesn’t. At least not until this government’s stubbornness threatens its political survival.
Rob Shaw has spent more than 17 years covering B.C. politics, now reporting for CHEK News and writing for The Orca/BIV. He is the co-author of the national bestselling book A Matter of Confidence, host of the weekly podcast Political Capital, and a regular guest on CBC Radio.
🚨New newsletter alert! Stay ahead of the curve in B.C. politics. Get expert political analysis delivered straight to your inbox, plus inside scoops and other stories from across the province. Sign up here for the Capital & Coast newsletter.
