Most of the candidates for West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country faced off in the Coast’s first all-candidates meeting for the 45th Canadian general election, hosted by the Sunshine Coast Labour Council at Elphinstone Secondary School Monday night.
Candidates parried as they navigated questions on health care, affordability, jobs and economy and pensions.
Incumbent Patrick Weiler, who was first elected in 2019, defended the Liberals’ record and progress in affordable housing, childcare, dental care and transportation.
NDP’s Jäger Rosenberg pointed to his experience as a student living in Germany during an election that saw a surge in the far right and the need to support left rather than centrist parties. He touted the NDP’s progress on social policies while they held the balance of power in the minority government.
Greens’ Lauren Greenlaw drew on her careers as an earth scientist in the resource industry and her time as a municipal councillor in Squamish, noting the disproportionate responsibility on municipalities to navigate crises while receiving a tenth of the revenue from tax bills.
People's Party of Canada's Peyman Askari (who event moderator Miyuki Shinkai noted was the first to arrive and helped set up the chairs) gave a heartfelt plea for affordability. Askari, who came to Canada in 1989 at six years old, has a PhD in computational neuroscience and runs multiple companies, says he sees pain in his father’s eyes as he struggles to pay property taxes and loans. “The People's Party, they talk about the issues, and they allow me to explore the main challenges this country is facing, and it's not what the media is talking about.”
Conservative candidate Keith Roy sent his regrets to the labour council, pointing to a short election cycle and large riding. He also did not appear at an April 8 forum held by the Squamish Chamber of Commerce.
Shinkai, president of the labour council, stated, “I hope everybody can learn from candidates, and the candidates can learn from each other,” in her remarks to the crowd of around 50 people.
While they threw the odd barb at one another, candidates remained cordial if not friendly, crediting one another when they agreed with an opponent’s point.
The following coverage lays out the bones of candidates' responses in the order they responded. Answers have been edited for length, clarity and accuracy.
How will your government invest in a fully public, non for profit health care system that guarantees that every Canadian has the same high standard of care, supports our front-line workers and puts patients before profit?
Askari: The Canadian health care system is health insurance with the government as a single-payer through tax dollars, said Askari and argued for a market-driven system. “I'm not saying that if somebody gets in a car accident, we don't extend health insurance and then we let them die, but like everything else in society, you have to be responsible,” he said. “If you can afford health care, you should pay for your own health insurance. If you can't, then we step in and help you. “It's the same way we deal with food, with housing.” “I don't want to harm people, but we have to treat them like individuals and tell them, you have to make your way through life. That's how you get freedom, through responsibility.”
Greenlaw: Greenlaw said her family has gone through five family doctors in Squamish in six years as doctors cannot afford to live in our communities and it’s not profitable to be a general practitioner. Since the 1970s, the federal government has promised to cover 50 per cent of health care costs and currently covers about 22 per cent, said Greenlaw, saying the federal government “absolutely” needs to put more money into the health care system and pointed to Australia’s system of funding doctors’ and nurses’ education which is paired with the expectation they work in different communities to pay it back. But Greenlaw’s recurring statement of the night was to “stop subsidizing fossil fuel companies,” so as to free up funding, but also in the case of health care, lighten the burden on the health care system. Among the “uncounted [health] impacts of climate change” Greenlaw listed respiratory illnesses, people getting injured in natural disasters and the mental health toll.
Rosenberg: Rosenberg pointed to his family’s health care roots –– his mother is a chiropractor and his sister is training to be a psychology nurse. While health care is under provincial jurisdiction and not under direct federal control, funding is the main control mechanism, said Rosenberg, arguing for a properly funded system. He also plugged the NDP’s work in getting PharmaCare and dental care passed. But it was mental health where Rosenberg’s passion ramped up as he slammed the “complete and utter lack of mental health support” on the Sunshine Coast and spoke to losses to suicide and overdose. Of his own bullying experience that saw him switch schools, Rosenberg said he was “on a waiting list for three years just to see counsellor.” “We are proposing with the NDP to put mental health in the public funded system, because you should not have to go broke because you're struggling with anxiety or depression,” said Rosenberg.
Weiler: Weiler said having a public health care system is one of the things that distinguishes Canadians from the Americans. He acknowledged the system “hasn’t been meeting our expectations for many years now and so there’s major changes that are needed.” He pointed to the new health care deal signed with provinces two years ago and how that has enabled the feds to work with provinces on areas they’ve identified, such as mental health in B.C., and the establishment of low-barrier health care facilities across B.C., Foundries, (establishing one on the Sunshine Coast is under way). On the health care worker shortage, Weiler pointed to a federal fund, which supports provinces in speeding up their foreign credential recognition, which he said saw six times more nurses credentialed annually since it was brought in. And he said they’re working on labour mobility within the country.
Many of the policies by those in power have left working families burdened by rising costs while wealth continues to concentrate at the top. How will you break from this failed legacy and redirect public investment into affordable, community-built infrastructure that truly combats inequality and supports working Canadians?
Rosenberg: “Stop cutting taxes for the wealthy, they have enough money,” opened Rosenberg. Climate change, he added adds to the cost of living for low and middle-class Canadians. “If you're a low income and your house gets destroyed in a storm…you don't have the spare money to pay for that,” he said, arguing for keeping the corporate carbon tax. He added that the NDP is promising a GST break on household goods and added the need to not cut services, such as Pharmacare and dental care. Saying that he had to skip meals during COVID as his family didn’t have enough money to pay for food, he said he understands what it’s like to be stressed out about paying for food as that’s the reality of his generation. “We're not going to be able to get housing. We're not going to be able to pay for food or school if we don't have a government that steps in.”
Askari: Youth have been locked out of the housing market, said Askari. He was at St. Thomas Aquinas Regional Secondary School in North Vancouver recently where a Grade 10 student came up to him and said “I agree with a lot of things you said, but I don't have any hope for the future,” relayed Askari. “I want to explore what's the underlying cause that the cost of housing is so expensive, and the reason is that we're printing so much money that we're inflating the value of our money. So people are putting their savings in inflation-resistant assets, housing. So housing is turning into a savings vehicle,” he said. While he said he doesn’t care if billionaires are taxed 100 per cent, he doesn’t think that’s going to solve the problem, which he sees as fixing the inflation rate. “Stop printing money, restore confidence in the Canadian dollar.”
Weiler: Weiler fell back on the Liberals’ record, pointing to their raising taxes on the top one per cent following their election in 2015 and dropping them for the other 99 per cent and said they’re promising to cut taxes for the lowest income bracket again. One of the key factors in affordability is the housing crisis, said Weiler and said since the feds got back into housing in 2017, more than $70 billion has been invested in below-market housing, and pointed to moves to speed up housing permitting. Weiler also pointed to $10 a day care and the emerging dental care program. “There's a lot of work that needs to be done in this space, and I think a lot of it is not so much a top-down approach from the federal government, but it's supporting the leaders that are already doing the work on the ground.”
Greenlaw: “Wealth disparity is the biggest problem in our society,” she said. “It's where all of this greed proliferates.” While she says she’s housing secure, she says she’s experiencing the affordability crisis in losing all of her community to attrition. “Almost all of my friends are housing insecure, and it's a really scary situation, and a lot of them are food insecure too.” The Greens are proposing to move the basic level of income that’s untaxed from $15,000 to $40,000, she said. She also reiterated the need to stop subsidizing fossil fuel companies. She also spoke to the need to do something about international real estate speculation –– money laundering and real estate investment trusts. And more federal support for housing is needed, she said. “Squamish, we're killing ourselves trying to build affordable housing. We need that money from our federal and provincial governments to actually get this off the ground.
Years of economic policies that favour the elite have hollowed out stable, union-supported jobs, leaving workers behind. What concrete measures will you implement to rebuild our economy, prioritizing investment in job creation, reinforcing union workplaces and ensuring that prosperity benefits all working Canadians, rather than just a few.
Greenlaw: “I come from the resource industry, and without unions, my entire industry would be far more dangerous,” said Greenlaw. She pointed to last year’s strikes and the Liberals forcing people back to work three times without renegotiated agreements. She said she and her team are working on creating an in-depth business ecosystem for the riding. “We want to start facilitating, bringing local products to market, and removing the barriers for people who are in agriculture, people who are makers, any business barriers, just trying to tear them down,” she said. “I have been buying local for over a decade now, and it is absolutely not facilitated. But I do very strongly believe that we need to invest in our local economy and our local businesses as much as we can.”
Weiler: Weiler pointed to the Liberals repealing anti-union laws shortly after coming to power a decade ago, and bringing in anti-scab legislation last year, and putting forward investment tax credits to support growth of a green economy with the condition that to receive the full amount companies must be union jobs. He said the Conservatives are “cosplaying as being a friend of workers” and that leader Pierre Poilievre has supported policies that have “done so much harm to unions in Canada.”
Askari: “The tariff war with the U.S. has kind of brought it to the forefront that the world is going to go a little bit more protectionist,” said Askari. “If you look at what Donald Trump is doing with the tariffs, he's trying to onshore industry, and that's the problem I see in Canada.” The outsourcing of manufacturing jobs to China has made it harder for the working class, he said. “In Canada, you have the people that actually work, and then you have the people that speculate on that work, the people that trade stocks, the people that short stocks, the people that buy up property. I think what's going to happen –– Trump has just forced our hand –– we're going to go more protectionist, and we're going to have to come up with a vision.
Rosenberg: Rosenberg pointed to the policies Weiler named as having been NDP accomplishments. “The NDP, again, is the party of workers, he said. “I started working full time at 14 in order to try and help my family make ends meet. And for my generation, union jobs are not achievable,” said Rosenberg. “The economy has been changing so forestry, the mill and other jobs like that, that are good paying union jobs, have been exported and outsourced to China and other countries where they don't treat their workers well, they don't have high wages, and a lot of this is a result of our capitalist system. Capitalism does not put the interest of workers in mind.” Rosenberg went on to promote worker protections and advocated for punishing companies that engage in union-busting activities.
Decades of under-investment and austerity measures by those in power have eroded the security of our public pension system, leaving many workers vulnerable in retirement. How will you restore and protect our pensions through robust public investment and union-backed reforms ensuring every Canadian worker can afford or look forward to a dignified, secure retirement?
Weiler: Weiler pointed to the Liberals’ actions cancelling the Conservative plan to raise the Old Age Security eligibility age from 65 to 67 and increases to OAS and General Income Supplement, as well as increasing businesses’ contributions to the Canadian Pension Plan. He also pointed to the Liberals’ announcement earlier that day that they’re reducing the amount people have to withdraw from their Registered Retirement Income Funds this year “so that they're not having to pull funds out when the market is being hammered by the incredibly stupid things that Donald Trump is doing right now.” Weiler also said the Liberals promise to increase the GIS this year for low-income seniors living on fixed incomes.
Rosenberg: “When I was working at Clayton’s in Sechelt, I had a co-worker who was in her 80s because she couldn't afford to live on her pension,” he told the crowd, calling it “disgusting” that people who work their whole lives don’t get to live a proper retirement. Putting mechanisms in place that allow people to age in place in their homes and communities is needed, said Rosenberg, but so is long-term care. “They need to have good, well-funded, ethical-treating long-term care facilities where they are treated with dignity,” he said. Rosenberg said the NDP plan on enforcing pensions “so if the company goes bankrupt, your pension isn't on the line” and called for a “bottom-up” approach with conversations with those affected.
Greenlaw: Greenlaw said the first thing is to make pensions “as secure as they possibly can be” and said we need to divest pension funds from “problematic industries” and into “industries that will grow and proliferate. “Right now, my understanding is that quite a lot of our pensions are invested in…fossil fuels and we better hope…that that is not a long-term industry.” “Everything is interconnected to an infuriating degree and this is no exception,” she said. “A lot of these issues come down to real deep, systemic issues. There is a real inequity in our society.” Some of the concrete answers come from community building she said, “One of the conversations that that we should be having is, how do we become more responsible citizens, and how do we hold each other, and how do we hold people accountable?” Affordability ties into tax restructuring ties into investments, she shared.
Askari: “This is not an attack on Mr. Weiler's government. This is an issue that's just inherent to any governments. We are asking the people that are harming us to fix the problem and…what's being done to the seniors is absolutely disgusting,” said Askari. “We are inflating their savings, because the government knows that if they inflate the value of money, they technically have to pay them out less.” Askari called for pensions to be tied to inflation. After Weiler pointed out that pensions are tied to inflation, Askari appeared to concede the point. The birth rate decline from the CPP’s origins in 1965 to today Askari also pointed to as an issue. “We're not having enough children to sustain this, so we need to revisit the pension and make it so that it's –– to steal a term from the left –– more sustainable.”
The last two prepared questions came from Grade 12 students from Elphinstone Secondary School.
How will your party support struggling university students that cannot afford housing, food and other basic necessities?
Askari: “It's not your fault. It's not that you're lazy. It's not that you made bad life decisions,” he said. “I know I sound like a broken record…your anti central banker guy, but the reason you're you're suffering so much, the reason you can't afford food and you can't afford housing is because of inflation. We're printing too much money.” The first thing that needs to happen is to get inflation under control, said Askari. He also called for some housing reform, including not letting people from outside the country buy land within it. “I'm a big free market guy, but this is a problem that was caused by government, and we need to step in and solve it, possibly by interfering in the free market.”
Greenlaw: Greenlaw suggested there’s too much emphasis put on post-secondary education. She noted she holds two degrees, and said it’s often a box-ticking exercise to get a degree. “We are seeing people who are burdened with $100,000 worth of education debt to become like secretaries,” she said. There’s a need to remove the burden of “everybody needing a degree” for roles that don’t need four-year, $100,000 degrees, she argued. “It's problematic that we've set up the system so that people have to do that to get a job, because young people are ending up starting life in huge debt.”
Rosenberg: Pointing to his own experience going to Germany for cheaper schooling, Rosenberg said young people need to have a voice in government. He advocated for lowering the voting age and for public universities. He also pointed to a need for more of an emphasis on trades and more funding for especially health care workers.
Weiler: Weiler brought up his constituency youth council made up of people younger than 25 who meet every couple of weeks with advice for him. He pointed to the Liberals’ increase of the Canada Student Grants, taking up the interest on federal student loans and making it so people don’t have to start repaying their student loans until they’re earning a fair income. He also pointed to Liberals’ work on building more below-market housing and working with universities to get more student housing built.
What is your guys' long-term plan on sustaining and maintaining the beautiful Indigenous lands and forest all over the Sunshine Coast, along with reconciling with their past actions towards Indigenous peoples?
Greenlaw: On the long-term plan for sustaining the lands, Greenlaw said it’s not her place to comment. “That's in the hands of the Indigenous people. It's their land, they are the ones who should be the drivers in that,” she said. “One of the reasons why we're in the entire conversation around reconciliation is that throughout colonialism, we took a very paternalistic and oppressive approach to telling the Indigenous peoples what was best to do with their land.” On the reconciliation side, Greenlaw said the governments, on a municipal level, are completely separate systems “divided through racism, effectively, still.” “There has to be far more communication between the Indigenous communities and our government and our colonial governance structure.”
Askari: Askari said we can reconcile with First Nations, “By treating them with respect and dignity, by asking them what their grievances are. That's what I'm doing right now.” He said he’s hearing about erosion of rule of law, lands being taken unjustly and courts not acting fairly.
Weiler: Weiler said this is an important question for him with his history as a lawyer in Aboriginal and environmental law. “All conservation that we do in Canada, needs to be Indigenous-led,” he said. His pointed to his work with colleagues to help create the Old Growth Nature Fund to help protect 30 per cent of land in B.C. by 2030 and with that 13,000 square kilometres of old-growth forest under an agreement between federal, provincial and First Nations governments. Moving forward with reconciliation, Weiler said is a question not so much for settlers as for First Nations, but part of it is being honest about the history of the country. “We're still, I think, at the truth stage. We still have people that are denying the history and the reality of residential schools,” he said. “That's very, very dangerous, because it re-traumatizes Indigenous people.”
Rosenberg: Rosenberg highlighted the need to appreciate the environment and beautiful land. “It's important to actually go out and touch grass, not always be on the computers and the cell phones. Go out and appreciate nature, and then have politicians who do the same.” Watershed protection on the Coast, supporting sustainable logging and keeping the environment safe and protected is also needed, said Rosenberg. “And on reconciliation, what we really need to do is just listen to people,” he said. “We've had a really paternalistic approach to reconciliation and Indigenous Affairs in Canada. That's that's not all right.” He also noted mental health as “one of the biggest disparities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians. “The mental health from the inter-generational trauma and caused by residential schools is a really serious issue and we need a government that will fund resources to help people address their trauma, address their substance abuse issues, so they can move forward in a productive, healthy way.”
In their closing statements, candidates were tasked with also addressing questions on the importance of being able to vote for a woman, tipping and Service Canada access on the Coast before they dispersed to enjoy chats with the electorate and pizza.
An all-candidates meeting hosted by the Sunshine Coast Conservation Association took place April 9 and Sunshine Coast Chamber of Commerce is hosting a meeting April 14 at Chatelech Secondary School starting at 7 p.m.
The election is April 28. Visit elections.ca for information.
