By Cheryl Jahn

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Jan 17, 2025 | 3:03 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – The mayors of BC’s largest municipalities have issued a special letter identifying certain expectations of government, now that Premier David Eby has presented ministerial mandate letters.

Mandate letters outline the objectives that each minister will work to accomplish, as well as the pressing challenges they will address in their role.

“We gather together once a month to discuss the various priorities at the beginning of the year because each is slightly different,” explains Mayor Simon Yu. “So we settle for the biggest common agenda that we all have want to see change.”

There are thirteen items on that list:

1. Direct the Minister of Health to engage directly with local governments to assess the need for substance use treatment and supports in each community, to improve local-government involvement in the creation of local-specific mental health supports,

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2. Direct the Minister of Health to immediately expand access to detox beds, sobering beds, and stabilizing beds in communities across BC,

3. Direct the Minister of Health to explore options for provincially-funded recovery communities, and investment in a comprehensive range of recovery programs,

4. Direct the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, in collaboration with his colleagues, to establish shelter unit minimums for each community in BC,

5. Direct the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing to establish minimum care and operational standards for sheltering and supportive housing facilities, including their impact on neighbourhoods and neighbours,

6. Direct the Minister of Housing to reform BC Housing, including providing BC Housing with a new mandate that directly addresses the need for BC Housing to work more urgently with municipalities, and establishes BC Housing as the agency responsible for sheltering and supportive housing,

7. Direct the Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General and the Minister of State for Community Safety to create funding and support for local governments that are creating or implementing community safety and wellbeing plans,

8. Direct the Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General and the Minister of State for Community Safety to create a provincial urban downtown safety improvement plan,

9. Direct the Attorney General to act on bail reform, and immediately increase funding for provincial court services, to increase the speed and efficiency in which violent and repeat offenders can be processed through the court system,

10. Direct the Minister of Infrastructure to work with colleagues in the Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs, the Minister of State for Local Governments and Rural Communities, and yourself, to build a municipal infrastructure funding program,

11. Direct the Ministers of Health, Social Development and Poverty Reduction, Housing and Municipal Affairs, and Solicitor General to work collaboratively to address poverty, encampments, community wellbeing, food security, the mental health and addictions crisis, and street disorder by establishing a cabinet roundtable, working group, or committee to address these challenges collectively,

12. Direct the Minister of Health to expand the PACT/CLCR programs and advance civilian-led mental health response programs throughout BC, and

13. Direct the Minister of Finance to explore cannabis revenue-sharing programs with local governments.

“This kind of a reference point,” says Mayor Yu. “This is what we have to face is that music when election time comes, you know what you promised to do.”