Committee of the Whole

Okay, thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome on this smoky day.

I'd like to begin by acknowledging our friends and neighbors, the Songhees and Esquimalt First Nations.

I have a fairly long meeting intro that I have to read, which is going to be the way of life for the next year probably, so I should probably stop apologizing for it and just get used to it.

This meeting is being held under the auspices of Ministerial Order M192 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the public health officers' orders prohibiting gatherings in excess of 50 people.

This evening we will hear from the public during the public participation and question period portions of the agenda.

So that comes up twice in committee of the whole.

It'll come up very soon in this afternoon.

So if anyone's thinking of calling in to speak to any issue that's on this afternoon's agenda, now would be a good time to get on the phone.

And then it'll also come up in this evening session.

Um, and I think there's probably more items that the public are interested in this evening's um portion of the agenda.

So you to in order to do that, you call 778-402-9227, and when you prompted, you enter the conference ID number that you see on the website, which is 150012433 pound.

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And if you can just begin by giving us your name and address for the record.

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Thank you.

Um, I just need to get in here now.

Hopefully, this will cooperate.

So I just need a motion to approve the agenda, please.

Second.

Okay, thank you.

So Alan has asked me to let her know who is moving and seconding because it's difficult, her not in the room.

So that was moved by Councillor Rogers, seconded by Councillor Lemon.

All in favor.

That's carried.

Um, so we have no minutes.

So we're on to petitions and delegations, and we're welcoming South Island Prosperity Partnership.

Good.

Welcome to the Yep, go ahead.

Oh, okay, you can hear me.

Good.

Hello, everybody.

Good afternoon.

A pleasure to be here with you today.

I I do apologize, my screen sharing isn't working.

So Kieran, who's on the phone with me as well, um, he's on his end operating the slides.

And and I I think you can actually still see me and hear me fine.

Is that right?

Yeah, that's fine.

And and counselor Matson is on the phone so he can hear you.

And counselor um Damien is unfortunately missing, but he is going to watch the presentation later because he'll be able to go on the website and watch the recording of it.

Just yeah.

Well, well, thank you once again for having me here.

Fantastic.

And I just want to mention quickly I'm I'm calling from Esquimalt today, so I'll just begin by acknowledging that I'm lucky enough to live and work on the traditional lands of the Lakwungan people, today known as the Songis in the Esquimalt nations.

So thank you all very much for having me here and the opportunity today to speak about some of our recent progress and next steps.

And it's uh we're just rounding up to the five year mark.

Um, so it's really a nice time to check in before we embark on the next five.

As you know, SIP is an alliance of over 65 public and private sector partners in Greater Victoria, and these include 11 local governments, nine First Nations, three postsecondary institutions, nine industry associations and nonprofits, as well as 30 major employers.

And of course, View Ural was one of our very first 29 founding members, and Mr.

Mayor played a huge and instrumental role in really getting this off the ground.

So we want to thank you for your continued role in shaping our vision and priorities as we move forward.

So we believe that the strength of our organization really lies in the diversity of our members, and we have one of the most diverse regional economic development models in North America.

In fact, we recently won a gold medal from the International Economic Development Council for this collaborative model.

SIP was first established by its members as a region was one of the slowest to rebound from the Great Recession in 2008, 2009.

And at that time, SIP's founders found that Canadian cities of the same size as the South Island were substantially more invested in economic development.

So SIP was created to facilitate and promote the development of a strong, resilient, inclusive, and diversified economy.

In short, a place where we can grow while still protecting our very high quality of life here.

Now, this is just a reminder, I don't want to read every single one of these, but our purpose was enshrined in our constitution and came directly from consultation with our members.

I wanted to just take a moment here.

This slide is actually a work in progress, but it does give you a really good illustration of how our economy is so integrated and central, sorry, and View Royal is deeply embedded within the regional economy.

So I just wanted to show you here an example because that's CGI, and of course, it's not located in View Royal, but you can see that there is a commuter shed that spreads all the way across the peninsula, and that our our area is really like a spider web, a sort of interdependencies, and where we work and where we live are rarely the same place.

So SIP's been in existence now for over four years, and as we approach our fifth year anniversary this March, we wanted to make sure that we're still meeting and hopefully exceeding the expectations and values of our members.

So we initiated an organizational review to examine current strengths and areas for future focus with an independent evaluator.

And this work was overseen by a member driven organizational review committee.

So the evaluator conducted 22 surveys and 19 interviews, and the full results will be available to view to be presented to you at our AGM September 30th.

And so far, there's the general perception that one, SIP is making progress in achieving impact and supporting economic development and awareness in the region.

Two, there is a need for regional economic development coordination and collaboration, and SIP is effectively filling this role.

And three, economic development is a long-term proposition, and many significant outcomes will be measurable only 10 years or out into the future.

So this year, because it's uh coming up to our fifth year anniversary, we wanted to invite all the counselors of the region.

Um, ideally it would have been in person, but um, and short of that, due to the pandemic, uh, we hope we can we can delay the in-person component and have you all together on a digital format.

Um, and Kim Thoreau, the consultant looking at our organizational review, will be available for um for live questions.

I'm just gonna now run through very quickly, um, well, as quickly as possible.

I know you have a full agenda and you're gonna be there um all evening, it sounds like.

So um, I'll move to the next slide, please.

We began with 29 members and have now more than doubled that to 66 members.

Um, and that's thanks to your your founding um vision and leadership.

So thank you again for that.

New businesses attracted.

So, to this end, SIP attracts new companies and key targeted sectors in order to create new high-quality jobs that can contribute positively to the diversity and resilience of our economy.

Uh, so to date, we have attracted seven new businesses, and our rate of attraction, as you can see, is is growing rapidly.

And now that's because on average it takes between seven and 24 months of working with a company to facilitate their relocation.

Another measure we track is job growth through our business attraction efforts and also our trade accelerator clients.

So to date, we have helped develop or create rather 175 direct new jobs.

And this will fall below our original five year forecast of 500 jobs, but it doesn't consider the induced jobs, which equal 718 additional jobs to date.

So the total uh value of these jobs and combined salary is actually over $37 million, which creates significant demand in other sectors like retail, restaurants, professional services, real estate, and construction.

And it's worth a quick side note that as of last June, 75% of our members, so that those are the largest employers of the region, they cited that the shortage of highly skilled labor was their number one top concern for impeding growth.

And they reported chronic labor shortages that are equal to 4% of their total workforce.

So simply put, job creation is quite challenging with a tightly constricted, a sort of tight labor market like the one we have right now.

And although this is shifting a little bit with the pandemic, that's probably topic for future presentation.

But we will certainly be going back to those sort of tight labor conditions in the not so distant future.

This is the other side of the coin.

So we've received very clear direction from our members that to that we need to focus on growing good jobs that are, quote, over the living wage.

And as of 2019, that number was 40,300.

So the average salary of the jobs from our previous slide that we've helped create are on average $87,880 a year.

So we also worked very hard to establish a strong fit with our community.

And an example we're very proud of is Daytan, a Brazilian software company that for the past 10 years has received Best Place to Work in South America certification.

And they initially began by bringing over 15 Brazilian companies or sorry, families, because that culture is such a strong component of their business.

And they plan on hiring over a hundred local employees.

So they're a great example for us of community integration because they they've actually uh it sounds like a cliche, but they've uh they've formed a strong Portuguese community around a Portuguese church and they meet there every week to play soccer and uh have barbecue.

And I I suspect from that photo that was the the feeling of their first first snow that they experienced, which they they sent us that selfie when they when they endured that.

When SIP began, we had uh two First Nation communities, but now we have nine First Nation uh communities as our members.

Uh so that uh what pretty much wildly exceeded our expectations, and we've learned a lot in the process.

SIP was instrumental in getting funding required to create the Songies Innovation Center, which is a co-working space and an incubator for Indigenous entrepreneurs and freelancers.

And the center is growing, as you can see from this graph year over year.

Last November, we also had the first ever Indigenous Prosperity Gathering, and the gathering was a collaborative effort to create dialogue around economic disparities between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities.

And it was actually the first time that the 10 nations had ever gotten together to discuss collaboration on these topics ever.

This is another project that we're involved in.

So for the third year in a row, recognizing the need for more international business exposure for local businesses, we've partnered with the Toronto Board of Trade and the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce to introduce this award-winning program to the region.

And it's a free program open to any company in the whole region.

And we've so far put 30 local companies through that product that that program.

We're also working on an abattoir study, which is the development of a business case to create a local abattoir here so that livestock doesn't have to be removed from the region to be processed, only to be returned here to be to be eaten and sold.

So this is an example of an initiative that we were working on prior to the pandemic outbreak, but it's become more important in light of the current pandemic as more of us become very concerned about local supply chain and food sovereignty.

This is coming also on the on the heels now of a provincial study or effort to look at how we can modernize the meat processing that occurs in the province.

And so we'll be playing a role in helping influence that that those regulatory changes.

Finally, I thought I'd also share with you a project that we've just completed with the Squai Malt, as it's something that a number of municipalities have shown a great deal of interest in.

And we'd be happy to come back at any time and present on this, and we'll certainly be presenting it in detail to the Partners Committee.

And we helped create and develop project parameters and work with the external consultants on a customized investment readiness roadmap.

Really, this allows us to see how does local what can you do at the local level and how does that tap into the regional economic development picture.

And we're able to do that to to really be able to make that a much more cost-effective solution um at a sort of neighbor or local or local level.

Canada's Smart Cities Challenge was an opportunity you probably remember for Greater Victoria to become seen as a national innovator.

And we received a $250,000 grant and we were one of 10 finalists in that first ever Canada Smart Cities Challenge for our smart mobility proposal.

And although we didn't get the final prize, the proposal remains relevant and projects will likely be strong candidates for stimulus funding.

In fact just two days ago it the there's been another sort of challenge that's been launched to look at some of these ideas and how they relate now to COVID recovery.

And definitely it's it's um something that we're going to see more of, given that we've just been through a natural disaster of sorts that hasn't impacted our physical infrastructure.

And so stimulus funding, you can expect to see a lot more in the digital infrastructure.

So since the pandemic hit SIP has moved very quickly to launch what we call the Rising Economy Task Force to coordinate a strong local response to the current economic crisis.

The task force is the largest coordinated industry led recovery effort in BC and I'm quite sure Canada.

And our goal is to develop a regional plan that can help accelerate our recovery efforts with a lens around inclusion, sustainability, and resilience.

And so this has been 120 stakeholders involved, and 11 sector-driven committees have been struck, and those represent the drivers of our economy.

And the task force is going to look at recommendations made by these committees.

So those 10 reports, if you haven't seen them, they've been released and they've been already highly influential with the timing of this is two weeks before speech from the throne when Prime Minister Trudeau delivers that speech.

before that period um they've been circulated with very senior um um little senior ministers and policy staff and so on um and are and are really having a big impact and are very timely so i'll give you just some sense of the key traction or progress to date um as i mentioned 120 stakeholders um they produced 10 high quality uh committee reports um and something that um we're getting uh a lot of feedback about how useful these are because there's there's no other community um in canada yet that has can organized to this degree so we to get there we hosted over 50 meetings and workshops um did uh delivered 250 surveys uh this resulted in 39 recommendations and now uh nine recovery themes.

So immediately we're we're moving on a lot of uh quick wins and advocacy priorities um building partnerships.

And the next step is really now developing the regional priorities, and the task force will develop that strategy.

And then that will be presented during Rising Economy Week, which I'll tell you about in just a moment.

So just at a glance, you can see that we are about three quarters of the way through the process here.

And so we've gone the sort of draft wording for a vision, recovery goals, and the prioritization process.

And we're working with MNP who've contributed this in kind as a sponsorship.

And they've done a wonderful job.

And then this will be presented during Rising Economy Week.

Just a few examples of some early traction.

So the committees have actually already been quite active and COVID Safe Verification App is a neat example of something that's really come from the collaboration with the BC government needing to work with some organized industry representatives and done so through the retail services and restaurants committee.

And this app essentially allows you to take your phone, scan like a QR code or and it will later become an app and find out if a an establishment, uh a sort of a restaurant or store, if they are complying with public health office requirements and it's a safe place for customers.

The idea behind this is to really encourage customers to be able to feel very secure in shopping locally.

And so we've had some pretty um pretty good feedback so far about the how that's been progressing.

And so it's something we're we're testing here, piloting and creating here and that will be rolled out to the whole province.

Another example is microcredential training for upskilling displaced workers in digital marketing in this case with the Lacrity Foundation and the BC government.

And so microcredentials is just a fancy way of saying how can you deliver a much shorter way of training people so that in three months as opposed to three years, if they've lost their job in one sector, they can be hired in another sector much, much faster.

So you know no one can take a four-year pause anymore and go get a full new degree or something.

So how do we do that in a more rapid way?

So we're doing quite a bit of work in that in that area given that it's such a huge crisis and challenge for our region and all of Canada.

And then we've received some funding for what we've been doing to take some of these ideas and turn them into fundable proposals from Western diversification, which will be announced actually tomorrow.

To complement our monthly our annual Prosperity index, which is a dashboard that tells us how we're doing year over year as a region.

This is something that we've we've needed to add in a monthly dashboard, like a scorecard to see how much we are actually recovering and be able to take a closer look at that on a monthly basis.

Speakers picking up on all these topics from the Rising Economy Task Force.

We're also partnering with the Pacific Northwest Economic Region to have a track that's broader, allows us to get ideas from outside the region.

And we'll we'll have speakers such as Monique LeRoux, the chair of Canada's Industry Strategy Town Council, which is Canada's sort of think tank looking at the recovery for the Liberal government.

And also locally, Minister Mangal, the Minister of Jobs and Competitiveness and Economic Development.

And lots more.

So if you go to that URL at the bottom, Rising Economy.com, you'll get all the details there.

I won't go through the awards, but I will say that we've been very humbled in just four and a half years of life to be able to be recognized for some of our contribution to economic development, and the people behind it have been in this field for um combined you know decades.

So that's certainly um been uh been something that's been very encouraging for us.

And I'll show you the the small but uh passionate team you have working um on your behalves.

Um and you can see here there there's five of us and some um occasional contractors, but it's not an immense team, um, but certainly one that is very um committed and passionate about this work.

And before I I finish up here, um it's the time of year again, or time of a decade, I suppose, that um we we say that our first five year funding um has come to expire, um, and we want to talk to you about a renewed funding request for five year funding.

And so I'll just mention here to give you a sense that the funding was originally based on the 2011 census and 2016 tax blend.

So we've just updated this now for the 2016 and 2018 years as was agreed upon five years ago.

However, knowing that it's such a tight year, such a difficult year revenue wise, what we'd like to propose is instead of increasing uh funding for a year, we keep it at the current baseline.

And then after that, um just introducing a 2.5% increase, which is um adjusted with uh sort of the average um inflation rate based on CPI for the last five years.

Next slide, please.

Of course, finally, thank you so much for your time right now.

Your commitment and your support and your leadership are tremendous value to the entire region.

And so thank you very much for that.

And of course Mayor Screech's participation with the Partners Committee, which is a highly active group that meets every three weeks and help really help shape quite a lot of this and keeps us all very um engaged.

So thank you very much for that.

And that's it.

I hope you have a few questions if I can see help.

I suspect there'll be some questions.

Um Councillor Rogers.

Yeah, thank you very much for your presentation.

It's uh great to get a um a catch up on on all what's going on, particularly with the the COVID uh uh pandemic.

And uh I'm really appreciating the uh the task force and and the recovery efforts that um uh that your organization is undertaking.

Um so um um just catch me up on this um the rising economy week um that you're gonna have on uh what November the 16th.

How does one um uh is it a virtual conference that's uh via Zoom?

Yeah, so it'll be a virtual conference via Zoom or something very similar to Zoom.

Um it will be free.

There'll be what we call a digital main stage.

So somewhere, you know, every day we'll send you an email that says this is the lineup for today.

Um if you can't make a part of the day, but you want to catch up, that'll be available on the website right away.

So you can sort of pick and choose what speaks to you the most and catch up and then jump back in.

So it'll be a combination of panels where you can do live QA.

There'll also be workshops.

There'll be one designed targeted at municipal, municipal governments, how you can also do your part to prepare sort of for the um what you call you know economic recovery.

And we'll do that with, we'll co-host that with MNP.

So really a whole variety of pieces.

We'll do some live broadcasts, um likely front with a local um uh like well just say it uh likely with check, but that hasn't been confirmed um and uh so we're trying to kind of make sure it's a little bit varied so we don't we don't bore people um with um with one format uh another question thank you um your prior to covet uh there was all the uh the concerns regional concerns of uh of climate action and um the the critical emergencies um arising from that we certainly see that uh happening in in california uh today even though the president may not think so um so can you uh update us on on how um uh your organization is is working to uh address that through economic um recoveries and and strategies yeah that's an excellent question um so a big a big part of the recovery strategy is looking at the lens of resilience um and resilience um is has an environment strong environmental component to it so so that's definitely a lens for the the task force um the task force to deliver to identify the priorities for economic recovery uh so that that's one place where um you'll you'll see it we're also actually covering some of that topic too during rising economy week uh there'll be a a keynote or a panel on the green recovery.

Um and um i agree anyways you're absolutely right we're um this is a topic that's um it's it's important for it to be not a left or right wing topic but uh it's an economic development it should be I think a fundamental um reality for all of us thank you counselor hi Emily no I don't have any questions I just I just um wanted to a thank you very much for your presentation and say when your your smart city um project and entry was so smart you had it yeah I I I trust that hasn't, you know, changed your focus.

I I certainly there was a climate action um emphasis in that.

And uh anyway, good work.

Thank you very much.

Oh, thank you so much.

Yeah, no, we we haven't um dropped that or anything.

So we're um uh there's quite a lot of recommendations on the Transportation and uh travel committee that that that speak to that.

But also I think I I have quite a lot of hope for the new um the new uh grant uh that's been opened up as of yesterday.

Um and then also we've been doing a microtransit study um um and we're we had to pause a little bit to see how do we contextualize it for the current pandemic.

Um and and then we'll be looking at the next steps there.

But but thank you.

Yeah, we thought it was very smart too.

Counselor Madsen, did you have any questions?

I'm good at this time, thank you.

Appreciate your uh presentation.

I'll have a better look at it once I uh see it online, but thank you.

Okay, it is in your package as well, right?

If if you click on the presentation, the the slides are all there.

I just discovered that, that's why I'm telling everyone.

I checked earlier and it wasn't there, so maybe I'll I know the one question from the counselor who's absent would be so I'm going to ask it.

You know I'm highly supportive, but the could the question would be tell me how View Royal benefits from this exactly.

Right.

Well, I I I think my my couple ways to answer that.

Yeah, go ahead.

Were you gonna say something?

I was just gonna say, I mean, your presentation does largely, but if you can just expand on it if you can briefly, I think that would be helpful.

Yeah, absolutely.

So I mean, number one, um, if we were to to do the research in terms of View Royal, where people um derive in in their working age where they derive their income, um probably safe to say like eighty percent of residents um um find uh jobs in in in the working age group.

Um in the workforce, they they don't work in View Royal.

Um so so you know anything we do regionally, we're all very interdependent.

That's that's kind of like the the the big picture is that uh we can't we can't do it on our own.

Um and so I think that having a healthy economy that and fostering that environment over the next decade really is is something that we all need to need to be doing.

But also I um I think the other part of that is that um there's there's so many opportunities that we can't take advantage of when when we're um when we're siloed from one another.

So just you know smart cities to be an example of you know wouldn't have happened um without that that's a regional point of view that is all pulling together.

And and as we go through the the rising economy uh task force work and the strategy and so on, you know we just are are not going to get that kind of traction with um um federal government, provincial government and so on um without that that unified vision so it's tremendously powerful i i that's my that's my second answer okay thank you thank you very much counselor rogers has another question uh too just bouncing off of um uh the previous one how are you doing in terms of getting the other two municipalities on board so it can be completely regional yeah that's a good that's a good question so Langford um uh we've continued we've never given up and so every year we we knock on the door again and and see if we can can um drive you know the the point home um uh so we haven't had luck to be honest in in Langford and and I think that that's sort of a standard um reaction in that municipality I think that's fair to say um they don't do a lot of the things collaboratively um regionally uh but we'll keep trying um and then uh Mitchosin is one where um we've been told you know there might be some changes um in terms of the composition of that council in the coming years and that there would be more appetite um for it but I do believe that the the mayor is is um would be in favor of it that's um those are that's sort of where we are but we're pleased to have souk down having having joined us the positive spin is that we've gone from 10 to 11.

Yeah, yes and and nine nations where we only had two before nations which is pretty remarkable so we're we're closer to 13 than we used to be.

Yeah.

Thank you for coming.

And we will um we'll get a motion of some sort for you fairly soon so that you you you have that moving forward.

Um yeah.

And I just want to again thank you all for what you're doing right now.

This is a is an I'm I hate using the word unprecedented, but just such an uh a time that no one has prepared for.

So everything you do is so vital and important to keep um things moving along for for all of us here.

So so thank you on behalf of SIP as well.

You're welcome.

Thanks very much.

Okay.

Have a good day.

Thanks.

Well, I mean, I think if if you if we're prepared to make it, I mean it's it's just status quo for the budget, right?

Okay.

Then the money is already in the budget.

Yeah, and I I think it's quite important for this.

Well, I think if you want to make a motion that this move that um continue to support for uh the next fiscal year.

Well, they're looking for the five years of commitment again, right?

Five years.

That's what they're looking for.

Is that the five years only steady?

Well, going up the just the the 2.5% per year.

Yeah.

So we've we haven't gone up at all in the first five years.

But this five years we will go up the 2.5% per year.

Yeah.

But they really do need in terms of any planning work, they need that five-year commitment, which is what we gave them in the first place.

Okay.

So just okay.

Second.

So that's on the floor that committee recommend to councillors moved by councillor Rogers and seconded by Councillor Lemmon that we commit to the five years of support for SIBS.

So I'll call the question.

Councillor Matson, you all right with that?

He's fallen asleep.

So I'll call the question all in favor.

Thanks, everyone.

I think it really their work really is remarkable.

Um, and I think it's it's well worth continuing to support.

Good.

So now we go to public participation.

Is there anyone on the chat function or on the telephone?

Your worship, I do not have any callers at this time.

Okay.

Thank you.

So I think we'll we'll carry right on through.

And I will turn the chair over to um Councillor Lemmon for Protective Services.

Thank you, Your Worship.

Um, I have a chair's report.

I have except to um to acknowledge all the men and women working within this file under such extraordinary um circumstances and the the the the courage and um I can't imagine I can't imagine being a a um firefighter or a police officer dealing with so much that is so um so new to us and so much is so unwelcome uh so i just hats off salute you um no business arriving from previous minutes that i know of anyone know of any business no and uh so public safety report for july do do we have um acting director marshall on the line or we do.

Yes, ma'am.

I am here.

Hi.

Thank you.

Where is he?

Where are you?

We can't we can't see.

I think i might need to speak for my picture to come up on the screen, maybe.

Oh there you are.

There you go.

There we go.

Perfect.

So did you want to speak to this report?

Um the the report is just a quick snapshot of what's been going on within the protective services division for the summer, basically July and August.

Um, some main things we've been focusing on.

One um of our priorities has been um vacations and breaks for staff and our membership as we uh look for look towards a uh possible second wave coming in the fall.

So just ensuring that everybody's rejuvenated and ready to go for that.

Um we've introduced a couple new programs as well.

We now have a self-inspection model for low hazard businesses, um, which allows us for for businesses that have a low hazard and they haven't been a problem in history, no code violations, that type of thing, being able to have an online version of a self-fire inspection.

We've had positive results so far with that.

As well noted in there is our operations division has implemented a new format for our drills on Thursday night.

We have broken our three main stations that we do up into six, which adheres to our COVID requirements for less than six people per group, as well as encouraging the social distancing as much as we can while we still maintain our required training.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Any questions?

Counselor Rogers.

Yes, thank you.

So in in terms of the training, is that uh through the GII?

Are they able to provide those services still?

Um we're finding that the the large scale organizations like the Justice Institute or even our our um Vancouver Island Emergency College up in Nanaimo, they haven't quite yet continued with in person classing.

We still have a lot of uh online courses available, but our our reformat of our our drills was mainly for the volunteer membership and staff for every Thursday night.

So it's more of a skills maintenance um drill issue.

Can I ask other questions as well?

So how how are you doing in terms of the numbers of members, volunteer members?

I believe right now the office division is looking at having a uh recruitment drive coming up uh this fall.

Um right now, I believe we're sitting at just over 30 members.

Uh we have a probationary class of six that have just completed their uh, I believe they came in right at the beginning of COVID, so they're kind of uh right in the middle towards the end of their uh training processes, but at this point we're doing uh relatively well.

Okay, that's great.

Uh you know, the challenges of of COVID, um, you know, it was interesting, compounded by uh the the forest fire event on Mill Hill and most recently uh OK Tire.

Uh you know, uh a huge uh commendations to um to the department to being able uh to participate and address those matters.

Uh do you care to uh speak on those at all?

I think especially with uh those last two incidents that you spoke to really shows the work that the department has done with its uh regional partners with regards to Colwood Fire and Lankford fire.

Uh we found that uh both of those incidents, I don't want to say they were seamless, but um the way that the departments uh work together, the way that we had results, I think we're both extremely positive.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Okay.

I don't have a question, but Rob, I just wanted to say I I said to CAO Anima yesterday when I was chatting with him that I thought we were remiss in not um acknowledging International Firefighter Day on Sunday.

You know, it seemed like other municipalities were doing something to acknowledge it.

And so um just I just want to convey that, and next year we'll make sure that we do acknowledge it in some sense, because council I think should should acknowledge that that type of event.

Thank you, your worship.

Thanks.

And I just have a question, Rob, and that is um there's to to thank the firefighters and welcome the new recruits and so on.

There's an annual banquet.

Um, how are we going to acknowledge the troops this year?

Or can we?

Yeah, it's a very interesting question.

I think what uh we will be working on when the chief gets back from his holidays is looking at uh what possibilities you know what we can do to be able to get the same results, you know, to as you said, the welcome the new members.

We do have several members that are reaching some milestones within their careers, i.e., 20-year medals, or we even have a 35-year medal.

Um it's gonna be challenging, um, but I think we should be able to come up with something that will at least show our appreciation and our honor to these members.

Okay, thanks very much.

Um, motion to a seat?

I do have a question.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Oh, there you are.

It's not all about me.

I know, I know.

So, Rob, uh thanks for your uh for the report and your presentation.

I want to know are there any uh issues or concerns that uh we should you should you'd like to bring to our attention?

What keeps you up at night?

I don't know if there's any uh major issues or concerns that we really have at this time.

Um the only thing of note that's really changed for us was actually our dispatch protocols with regards to um BC ambulance have changed.

They actually changed this morning at 11 AM.

We are now being called to I don't want to say a normal level of calls, but we're somewhat back to a normal level.

Um we've been included in the the red category now, so we do go to purples and reds.

Whereas prior to this with COVID 19, we are only going to purple calls.

Uh follow up question Do we have an option on attending those or can my understanding was you were just going to the the more major ones yes now we we do you're correct we do have a um an option on those and that we have been in conversation with chief hearst um we did actually just recently get a proof of life from uh grand fork so we slowly make it his way back home um we will be meeting with our chief officers uh next week to to look at this and see what type of ramifications this could have for the membership um call wise and what we could anticipate going forward into this possible second wave okay and one last question on this what does there any negative impacts to our residents from not attending these lower level calls not that I'm aware of yeah I I I would think that uh I mean there's some hard stats that came out through BC ambulance and the government about you know how effective uh fire departments response were to certain type of calls I mean you know do we have a an overall effect in the the medical outcome but I think what might get missed in that portion uh is the uh the emotional end you know our residents looking after our people um so that will be something that will be discussed when the chief comes back and we'll we'll look at that kind of holistically on how we feel best suits the department and our community.

Okay thank you very much.

Okay.

All right so we have a motion to receive do we have a seconder yeah it's move moved by councillor rogers seconded by myself okay yeah all in favor councillor mattson is that anything yeah he's that yes yeah so just assume that I'm in favor unless I say not all right done okay uh motions passed why don't we turn change it around and let um why don't we talk talk go okay who's who's gonna be speaking to um probably Kim to the best bearer okay so why don't why don't we why don't we thank you, Acting Director marshall.

Appreciate it.

And here we have in person, Inspector preston of the West Shore RCNP.

Welcome, sir.

Thank you very much.

Just a note I saw it fit to be here.

I noticed Chief Hurst did not see it fit to be here.

He's not.

He's in Grammar.

I know.

I know.

I knew this meeting.

I wouldn't take holidays during this meeting.

He didn't have the same uh dedication.

Just throwing it out there.

He would do the same if I wasn't here, and you know it.

All right.

Well, it's been a while here since uh had the pleasure of uh addressing Mr.

Barron Council, so thank you for having me.

Um I'll just go over some stats for the summer, July and August, uh mainly, and then we can talk about uh anything else you wish.

Um we did an overview just to kind of give a uh a broad based uh overview for the constituents of the west shore and in august and we recently broke down all the statistics of all the calls that we went to so we went over to it was just over 2000 calls uh in august which is um it close to similar to where we were last year despite covet um so we're pretty much uh on pace of last year uh of note though uh of concern was the fact that the mental health calls had had uh jumped up so much i think it was 60 percent to 135 calls or something on those lines uh just for and as well as some well-being checks on top of that so um there is some concern i i have no doubt that COVID somehow is contributing to uh you know the wellness, the mental wellness of of a lot of people.

I think uh all of us have been affected somehow, and obviously some uh some more than others.

So uh those that's one of the things that uh we're really trying to focus on and trying to see how we can better address those types of uh files with our partners.

Um I'll just go over some of the uh some of the the bigger files and some of the more high-profile uh incidents that we've been dealing with over the last number of months.

Um in general here, we had a $30,000 recovery of stolen property by our crime reduction unit.

That's our property crime unit.

Um, and a uh they executed a warrant on a storage unit in Sanich, and the majority of the property has been returned off to uh to the owners.

It's a 52-year-old male who was arrested.

Um, and this individual was absolutely going around to all the construction sites stealing.

Uh he was not selected or not uh particular where he was going, but there was stuff missing from everywhere found in this.

It was it was incredible how much uh property they actually recovered from this unit.

He was a professional thief.

So I'm happy to say that he was in custody and is awaiting trial.

Um we also did a year-long complex drug investigation where five uh five suspects uh in a multi jurisdictional uh drug trafficking ring have been arrested.

Uh we executed three search warrants on two residences and one business.

And we searched the properties in Langford, Shaunigan Lake, and Duncan.

Vast uh amounts of evidence, including 90 grams of suspected cocaine, a prohibited uh modified handgun uh found loaded and unsafely stored in the residence.

Four replica handguns and other prohibited weapons, brass knuckles and switchblades were also uh located.

So that was some good work from there.

Um, in terms of uh, oh, actually, and uh, because I had the pleasure of going out with the bike unit uh for a shift there for a couple hours and uh saw first down how valuable they're within an hour and a half.

We had two separate individuals arrested, one in Langford at the bus stop at the station nav and one in um Callwood, um, one on warrants and uh possession of drugs, and the other one on warrants and a $3,500 stolen bike that uh he had no knowledge of how it got there.

And so we were able to recover that.

So it was uh it was actually really good for me to go out there and just see how uh what an impact that they have and how quickly and how many how much contact they have on the trails.

And we came all the way out uh to View Royal and and traveled the whole area here.

And uh yeah, it was it was pretty impressive.

Um we uh stepped up enhanced summer patrols through the Theatus Lake, um Woody's Lagoon and Matheson Lake uh throughout the summer there.

And I think our attendance there uh was appreciated by many of the constituents.

Um our crew unit, our our property crime unit was also on July 7th.

We identified a um a male suspect in a string of thefts from shoppers drug marts.

And I don't know if you remember that.

There was two females that uh we'd identified on camera stealing high, high-end perfumes, and they were just literally walking in on the shelves and and going like this into a bag and walking out.

And they it's actually turned out that it was a a cross a cross-country organized crime ring.

And thankfully, uh the good the good work that the members did here was able to link it to uh York Regional Police.

And it was actually an overseas thing where they were going across the whole country stealing this, sticking the stuff in UPS boxes, shipping it to York, and it looked like a warehouse full of stolen uh perfumes, colognes, all sorts of uh high-end products from all these shoppers and and pharmacies.

And then they were shipping them overseas to uh for sale.

And it was a quarter million dollars worth of uh stolen property that was recovered.

So, you know, in terms of small business, that's a that's a huge hit when somebody walks into somebody's store.

Like I'm sure, Mr.

Barry, you could probably appreciate when somebody would walk into a small business and steal that much.

Uh it was it was incredible.

And they're not uh they're not uh Canadian citizens, uh the ones that uh from my understanding, they actually just came over here and um landed immigrant status.

So, anyways, that was uh that was a good um 13 people have been arrested, $67,000 cash was recovered, and a quarter million dollars in stolen property.

Um and as I mentioned, yeah, we went uh from just back to the mental health calls here.

I have the stats here.

We went from last year uh mental health calls from 84 last year to 134 this year, and we also went from 53 well-being checks to 93 um well-being checks.

So a significant increase as you can see.

Um I'll just go through each community here.

Um I know what's uh I always like to kind of give a broad overview of what's happening in all of West Shore, and then I'll focus in on exactly what's going on in uh View Royal here.

Uh Langford, we had a bit uh Bitcoin fraud, and that's something that uh hopefully some of the seniors here can be aware of and and uh mindful of.

We actually had somebody call an impersonated police officer and um told the individual that they were in trouble, that their social security or social insurance was being used, and the only way they could get out of this is paying ten thousand dollars.

And they actually picked the individual up and took them down to the bank where they um which took out ten thousand dollars, is my understanding.

And we we haven't uh we haven't solved that one yet, but we're still working on it.

But it's something that obviously they prey on vulnerable uh seniors and people with perhaps some capacity issues.

Um we had uh emergency response call.

Uh our uh our ERT team was called out to a uh arrest an armed and barricaded male uh suspect who is uh in on the 1700 block of Falcon Heights.

The uh people come home to realize that somebody had broken into their home.

We brought out a full package of Earth crisis negotiators and the dogs, and uh we were able to safely apprehend the individual, the 28-year-old male who was in a possession of a crossbow and had a lifetime ban from weapons.

Um in terms of um we had some robberies.

Uh we had two reports of similar style robberies where a suspect approached uh male victims walking alone at night and demanded their wallets.

Uh one was a completed robbery where the male actually gave the wallet to the individual, and this individual was riding around on a BMX bike on the trails.

And again, I think that speaks back to the importance of having a bike patrol on the uh on the trails to make people feel safe.

And and um, yeah, one was near uh Superstore and one was near Pete Road.

We also had a dangerous uh driver pulled over uh driving down Humpback Road.

Uh he was prohibited from driving province wide, breaching several court conditions, imposed curfews, weapons.

Um we located two shotguns, one of which is uh sawed off, and uh that individual is obviously uh taken into custody as well.

Um we had windows being smashed out of elementary schools uh at uh David Cameron Elementary, and that was in Callwood.

We had uh a break and enter uh suspect we caught on a construction site at 320 Gold Stream.

The security company uh notified us, and we were able to apprehend a 40-year old male at that time.

August 9th, we also arrested an individual uh after the uh monitoring company advised if a male had broken into another construction company in 1913.

Suk rode, a 33-year-old male had been arrested at that time.

He also was in possession of weapons dangerous to public, breach public uh probation order, possession of a controlled substance, and he's carrying a backpack with narcotics, torches, brass knuckles, and a collapsible baton.

Um in Callwood, we actually had a third attempted robbery on foot uh across the uh the bridge from the Galloping Goose near Belmont and uh Cooper arrested at that time was in possession of private games probably reached public we got a glitch um yeah we didn't we didn't apprehend that suspect at that time in terms of uh view royal unfortunately we had a 32-year-old uh female that drowned in Matheson Lake there an RCMP uh officer and an off-duty Oak Bay police officer and a sandwich firefighter performed uh CPR the death wasn't suspicious we went to 36 calls for service uh over the summer there in Highlands so we went to 80 calls in the First Nations and as it uh relates to View Royal on July 9th uh well, first of all, we had uh 302 calls for service uh in in the month of August alone in uh View Royal in July, we had uh July 9th, we had a male masturbating on a public transit bus.

Witnesses kept an eye on the suspect and we were able to point him out to uh they were able to point him out.

A 50-year-old uh uh Patrick Clooney has been arrested and charged with an indecent act.

Uh we had three suspects uh uh arrested in uh on Norquay.

We uh continue to deal with Norquay, and uh it's uh kind of an endless fight here.

But uh we did arrest uh three people July 18th.

Uh we executed a search warrant.

Um received we seized 80 grams of uh suspected cocaine and crack cocaine, a replica long gun, a thousand dollars in cash, and a vehicle uh believed to be used for the drug trafficking out of that residence.

And we continue on that.

On August 16th, we arrested uh an individual for arson uh who was suspected of uh lighting bushfire on the galloping goose trail in View Royal.

Fire Department was quickly on scene and was able to put that out.

Thankfully, the 17-year-old male was arrested and charged with mischief at that time.

August 21st, Victoria General Hospital Protective Services called that a uh a patient had left the hospital driving away, drifting and spinning his wheels in the parking lot, blew through a stop sign.

The vehicle was located and towed for driving without due care and attention.

We also had a uh 20 August 22nd, we had a female passed out in the driver's seat of a car near the 1500 blocks of Admiral's Road.

A drug test uh was completed with poor results.

The individual was charged with impaired driving and refusal to provide a uh a drug demand.

So we had a lot of calls uh throughout the summer there for uh traffic related.

In fact, we had 108 complaints of uh traffic related uh issues.

Most of them were complaints of speeding, uh erratic driving, and uh a number with uh driving without licenses and a few collisions.

Uh the high complaint areas were the island highway number one, island highway and six mile, island highway helmkin off uh off ramp, and the island highway admirals.

We wrote uh as such, I promised you last time that we would do step up our traffic enforcement.

We wrote 66 tickets in uh July and August.

We issued 22 actual tickets and 44 warnings.

And I've I you know instructed our uh traffic unit to use some obvious discretion that we don't need to always write people tickets.

And in this case, here we wrote one third of the people that we pulled over for uh offenses tickets, and two-thirds we gave um some direction and some um just a little softer approach.

Um we also had uh 26 files of uh um from July 1st to um today of loud parties, and most of those are teams playing music and construction noise.

So that's kind of an overview or snapshot of where we've been.

Um it's been a busy summer, and obviously with COVID, we've uh we've had to take different approaches.

We have tried to show a lot more visibility.

Uh initially there right off the bat, we were showing a lot of visibility outside of um uh pharmacies and grocery stores, liquor stores.

There seems to be quite a few thefts.

People were fairly desperate we have stepped that back up in anticipation of a second wave here we are trying to make uh contingency plans at the detachment to make sure that should we have a breakout that we have um appropriate resources so what we're doing is we're keeping uh members we're trying to segregate them onto the three floors of the detachment keeping them away from each other and we have a vigorous um cleaning process going on at the detachment to make sure that we can provide services to you and despite COVID.

I open it up to you thank you very much questions counselor rogers?

I'm not sure.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Sure.

Well, no, it's um first we I wanted to thank you for thetis.

Um, I think that was great to see, and we got good feedback from it, and hopefully we can maybe make that an annual, you know, to have one or two weekends or something where there's a high profile and um but I think it helps.

I'm curious with courts and people being in custody right now.

And what's happening when you're arresting someone on BE, which is obviously the because I'm hearing a lot of stories that obviously the the jails aren't wanting to take people because they have to put them into a 14-day quarantine.

So that people are being released on a basically a promise to appear somewhere down the road, and there's not even a date on that promise to appear.

Well, there would be a date.

We can't release them without a a date, but there is uh a lot of files have been uh stayed because of court time because it's not in the public interest because of COVID.

The more serious ones there we continue to um apprehend and and they are um remanding those individuals on the I I'm not completely sure of the uh corrections process but um there is certainly more apt to release people back into uh the community while this is going on especially at the onset of this and I can only imagine if we have a another big wave of COVID I mean we're a little more sheltered here on the island, but still um the correctional facilities aren't just on the island, obviously.

There are a lot of them are across the pond there.

So it is uh it is an issue.

Right.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, okay.

Thank you.

And the other question was just with island outfitters moving to View Royal, which you you may or may not have heard, but I've had they're moving where the Madman McCays used to be up by the Burger King.

Yeah.

Um, and I've had three people contact me now about how View Royal could ever allow a business that sells assault rifles to come into our municipality.

And and my my standard answer is just is saying that as far as I know, that that assault rifles are actually illegal now in Canada.

Um and they may well be selling hunting rifles.

I suspect you're correct.

Yeah.

Yeah, carbines, uh many of the the weapons have recently, as you know, been banned in this country.

Yeah, I mean it's I think all semi-automatic assault rifles have been banned.

But there's been there's a huge list of what they came out with, and and you'd have to be uh very much a gun enthusiast to to actually understand uh many of the guns that I I'm not a gun enthusiast, but uh no, I don't think we have to worry about that concern.

You know, and the concern where you see down in the states all the assault rifles on the wall and people coming in and uh buying uh I don't think that uh I I don't envision that in uh in View Royal or Island Outfitters, uh that's for certain.

Yeah, okay.

Good.

Thank you.

John, yes, um great to see you again.

Um you know E when you you talk about um the uh the issues with with COVID and and I'm wondering about um well uh domestic violence.

Is is that file up?

Are the number of instances domestic violence with the the COVID um you know what I belie I I don't know that offhand.

I know initially we were we were going to quite a few right off the bat and maybe people were just getting used to spending more time with each other.

Um but uh I don't have the the exact stats for you right now if our domestics are up or down correct.

Okay.

I mean we we go to we certainly go to a handful a day uh domestics every day.

Um I look on the pass on sheet and I'd I'd be shocked if uh there's not a domestic on pretty much ever every sheet every day and that's twice a day.

Yeah.

And then of course um uh the the province is um dealing with the other pandemic, you know, the drug deaths, you know.

And um I'm sure that's same situation um in the region and in the West Shore.

Um and all the more reason and congratulations for the work that you're doing to um uh you know to try and catch and deal with the the traffickers.

And I know that um the the residents in Norquay were so frustrated but fortunately with a neighborhood watch uh they've kept uh very good records for you folks um on who's coming and who's going.

And and um uh I think they have direct links to our uh investigators there.

So they have their cell numbers, I think, and uh I think they're in regular contact.

There's a mutual uh interest uh making that problem go away.

One of the interesting things coming from that though is um uh once the individuals that were coming to pick up um the merchandise, they got uh became aware that uh you guys are aware of license plates and so forth, and now they started using taxis.

Um what's what's the uh the police response to that on on how we can uh helpfully hopefully curtail that.

Well, there is there is sometimes we'll we'll say uh I know that they were looking into whether or not they could work with the cab companies, and they have, I guess, apparently done that in the past where they say they won't deliver people to a certain address because they're private companies and they don't have to.

The other thing is that you know, in terms of us writing warrants, short trips in a cab to and from a uh location is a telltale that it's drug trafficking and residence.

That only that only bolsters our uh our grounds for another search warrant.

In fact, it it it couldn't be any easier when you see short trips in a cab to a resident there back, and there's no, you know, when we run that and there's no business, uh legitimate business um license for that residence.

We you know that's one of the things we always check.

You know, are they running a flower shop or they're running something out of there that would justify short trips to a resident?

And in this particular case, obviously that's not the case.

So uh I would suggest that if that continues to be, you know, to happen, um, that will result in probably another uh another search warrant.

I know that the members were also parking police cars, writing files up right outside the residence.

And uh it was amazing how many cars would come and slow down, but they decided it wasn't a good idea to stop tonight.

And they're and your your point's well taken um you know taxi companies uh have a responsibility in the community as well and and I'm sure there I know there's some certain places in Vancouver they won't go to and and um maybe that's just letting letting those folks know.

Um a couple of other questions um our place Talcott, um the uh the facility there.

Um and uh and the mayor's point about um whether or not institutions are uh how they're addressing with the COVID uh situation.

Do we have any ice sense of what's what's going on at our place?

I don't uh I don't know that, but I do know that that's the whole reason that in Victoria having those types of facilities uh dramatically the capacity dramatically reduced or actually shut down.

That's the whole reason that they're allowing um camping anywhere that you can find um grass, essentially.

And uh there's very few people in there.

That that's my understanding, right?

That there's maybe seven, eight, nine people in there.

Yeah, well, what we do, you know, it'll be interesting to see what happens when the rain starts coming.

Um yeah, it'll be interesting to see what the province's response is um to that and how they're what they're going to do.

Okay, and I and I guess an editorial comment, um, um, I'm sure the your members are just as frustrated if the courts are uh busily um and and crowns are feeling that they they have to stay the files.

Um what's the message to the offenders?

Um a little inconvenience to go to court, um, no consequence.

I'm back in business.

It's uh it's it is very frustrating, you know.

A lot of the breaches and you know, because we and that's one thing we pride ourselves here in the West Shore is we've got uh we're very diligent when someone put people on conditions or we're in the court imposed conditions, we make sure that we go to their residences, and that's why a lot of them the offenders we've had great success in in moving them along out of the West Shore, uh, because they know that they're gonna get vigorously checked um two or three times a day.

We're gonna make sure that you're adhering to your conditions.

Um but unfortunately, a lot of the times that we reach those conditions at this point, there's just no uh no will or capacity to uh to pursue the actual charge legally.

So it uh you're right, it it's an inconvenience to them, but it's uh it's equally um frustrating for you and me.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Uh Counselor Matson, any questions?

Yes, thank you.

I had a couple of questions.

Uh, first, regarding the your participating with the bike patrol, did the uh patrol have to um hook you up with uh an electric bike or something else so you could keep up?

You know what?

I I funny enough, we actually do have two e-bikes and that was one of the conditions uh that I that I got to ride one 'cause those those guys are like billy goats and uh I unfortunately sit behind a desk.

So we'll keep having you and me though.

That's a planted question.

Yeah.

Okay, thank you.

Uh my my other question is and you know, with everything going down in the states to s and and I guess even back east in Canada to the calls for defunding the police and and then when they try to sort of restate that as you know, it'd be more appropriate for uh mental health workers to attend some of these calls.

I'm I'm just wondering in terms of the big increase in mental health calls and well-being checks, um like is there any sort of long-term plans to sort of try to pass that on to the healthcare system?

I'm not saying we should defund you because you have lots to do, but uh or or is there a percentage of those that that would be better off looked at by you know mental health workers or social workers or something?

Yeah, that's a and that's a great question.

Um I've I feel that it many a times here already.

And um, yeah, I mean, obviously, I in fact I'm meeting with uh um Brenda Butterworth Carr here on Friday, and I'd like you know, I'm gonna ask her the same question that you just asked me is is is there gonna be additional resources?

I think the RCNP is asking that.

Um, you know, when I joined uh 23 years ago, the the amount of calls that I would go to in terms of mental health was an absolute fraction of the calls that uh we have today.

Um yet we essentially wear a different hat today and you're essentially uh asked to be a jack of all trades.

We're not doctors we're not physicians we're not nurses we're not mental health practitioners but we're the last line of defense we're the last person that people call when when they can't deal with you know certain situations or certain people um I welcome uh any additional resources I would love to have uh we we do have IMSERT which helps us um but there's such a you know, it's the capacity for them is so small.

Um we just yeah, we'd love to see some more some more mental health uh you know partnerships.

Uh I'd love to be able to have uh regular doctors, physicians, nurse practitioners that we bring the same people to and they get released 15 minutes later.

We wait at the hospital for two, three hours only for them to be released 15 minutes later.

Uh, you know, and that's one of the other things.

And I'm I'm actually compiling a list of all the hours from all the municipalities.

Uh Sanage sent me their hours.

I'm waiting for uh Dell to send me his hours, and I'm gonna show that to the province.

This is how much it's cost our municipalities in policing essentially to be security guards after an apprehension when we wait at the hospital.

Wouldn't it be better served to have in this in this particular region?

It's not a one-size-fits-all, but wouldn't it be better to have a number of, you know, four doctors that this is all they deal with with the same people, so they can they can actually get a scope of what they're dealing with in terms of hey, I know this person here, I know what medications are, I know the risks involved in this individual, and they can do proper assessments and and hopefully find proper treatment for them instead of we go to the eMERGE where they're you know, no for no pun, they're hemorrhaging over there with uh with clients, and you know, they only have so much capacity as well.

So, yeah, these are all things that we we need to work on.

It's gonna take some resources, and I think it's uh I mean these are provincial resources that we're gonna be asking for, uh provincial help.

But we can't do it alone.

Um, you know, in terms of the defunding, I've I've actually uh this I went to callwood uh Erbachosen yesterday, I've talked with Callwood and Langford.

Um they all said, you know, obviously they're not interested in defunding, and I know we've got lots of support from from V Royal as well.

Uh so I don't think uh we're in the same situation as perhaps uh Victoria and Edmonton and some of these other large Toronto, uh these other municipalities that they're gonna take uh from their policing and put into um other areas.

I think we could use some help uh to complement what we've got right now, but uh that's kind of where we're at right now in terms of of resource levels.

Oh thank you.

Just do you just keep us sort of apprised of the discussions and if there's sort of any progress made that way in terms of getting either support from the pro from the province or uh yeah.

Yeah, 100%.

It's and it at some point here uh you know it's gonna become incapacitating to the police here.

When you deal with, you know, 130, whatever I said there in in August, uh when your detachment's dealing with 134 mental health calls and and 93 well-being checks.

Um you know, I don't know that that's what uh was envisioned when you're when you're hiring police is to really move off of into the mental health field like that.

And and it's it's you know brutally expensive at 180,000 dollars or whatever for you, I think it's about 160,000 dollars a year for a police officer I'm not saying that we don't need these people don't need the help or we don't need the resources it's just that's expensive resources.

My I guess my last question in terms of this would be do you have some suggestions for us like um would this be something you know that maybe all the municipalities could you know get other municipalities to write uh to the province or you know point or if we could have some stats we could point out the issue and we could you know then lobby the province or or others for this I'm absolutely not sure what the best course of action is whether it'd be something we can help you, and that would be great because it'd helped us.

You bet.

Yeah, this is an area chiefs thing where when we meet uh the area chiefs of police, um, you know, we can collectively put our stats together, present it.

But again, you need to present an option, and I do think bullstream um a mental health team and a car where that has a doctor, a nurse, a practitioner, and a psychologist, somebody that's uh trained in dealing with mental health and de-escalation, and those uh that's their their sole job.

That would be great to have that.

We just need to coordinate that and find the funding uh for that.

And I would suggest that funding, and because it's a healthcare component, needs to come from the province.

Yeah, okay.

Thank you.

Good.

Any other questions?

Nope.

No, we're good.

Okay.

Kim is not now not Kim.

Kim?

It's now not the time to talk about uh October.

October?

Got it.

I was just yeah, okay.

Okay, sounds good.

Can't now move receipt of the RCMP's media summary item C.

Second.

Okay.

Okay.

All this in favor.

Motion passed.

Received.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Really great having you here.

So before we go to the Besper Avenue, there's a gentleman who had called in for public participation and um he's been sitting there patiently.

So phone number ending in nine two two one.

Um, if you'd like to give us your your name and address and the issue on our agenda that you would like to speak to.

Caller, are you are you there?

1604-996-9221.

Don't forget to unmute yourself.

Hello.

The caller will need to push star six to unmute themselves.

Yeah, you need to press star six if to unmute yourself, caller.

Hello.

Hello.

Hello, can you hear me now?

Yes, we can.

Oh, excellent.

So my name is John O'Farrell from 292 Bestboro.

So I think you're going to go right into Besborough now.

Right.

And we do have your letter written.

That's right.

Correct.

I I've re uh I've written you a letter, and I was just calling to hear what you had to say.

And I sent another picture of another vehicle just now out in front of the house that is parked, I guess you could call it inappropriately, within the last 15 minutes or so.

So I just thought I would uh hear what uh what counsel had to say and uh just reiterate uh my frustration with regards to the parking on the street.

Okay, yeah, thank you very much.

Well you're more than welcome to to listen in, obviously.

And it and or just watch on the you can also just watch on the live stream, right?

You don't really need to call in in order to listen.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I uh I am actually I I called in, but I wanted to make sure that you knew that I was here, but also I am streaming online as well.

Okay, thanks very much.

So I'll pass the chair back to you, Councillor Lemon.

CAO Anima, Kim, do you want to speak to this, please?

Thank you, Chair Lemon.

Um, this issue arose in March when the gentleman on the line did make a presentation to council, and the end result of that uh meeting was a request that staff provide a report.

Now on Bestboro, we have received five complaints during 2020, all of which originate with the same complainant.

The complainant has explained that the parking activity has been making it very difficult for him to exit his driveway.

Um the roadway for Best Bessboro is less than six meters wide.

It's 5.8 meters wide.

And that means that anybody that does park across the street has to be entirely off of the roadway.

The complainant has asked that perhaps a residential parking sign might be arranged.

And when bylaw considered that solution, they recognize that a residential parking sign does allow persons that conduct business within 250 meters to park there.

And that seems to be the concern.

Many of the offenders are parking there to attend to business at 284 Helmkin, the small mall that's on the corner of Helmkin and Island Highway.

And so given the residential parking only sign would be ineffective as it's not seen by staff to be a solution.

The number of complaints and the distance doesn't seem to justify a residential only parking sign.

And so council's option is to receive the report or provide a residential parking and lease sign, recognizing that it may well deter some from parking, but it won't be a bylaw enforcement issue for those that are attending business at 284 Helmkin Road.

A third option would be to eliminate parking across from this complainant from his driveway to the corner at uh the corner of Bessborough and Helmet.

Now that's not described in your report, but that is another option.

The recommendation from staff is to receive the record.

Okay.

Um thank you.

Kim, or or uh council, any questions?

Council Rogers?

Yes, uh yes, thank you.

Um yeah, I understand the and appreciate the the concerns of the the residents and and again and and um there's you know I've not not only from this individual, but um I've heard other individuals uh concerned about um the parking of um on on on Besborough um because of the overflow or not able to park uh there at uh 284 Helmkin uh the business there so it it's been an ongoing problem and and that's but I specifically uh appreciate the concerns the uh this resident has um I I guess I just wanted to I get a point of clarification from from um CAU on on uh the the report here where it's uh suggesting that um even to put resident only parking that would mean that um the people using the business that 284 Helmican could still park there?

Provided they parked within 250 meters um or provided they attended to business within 250 meters of where they parked.

Okay.

So if they parked at the complete other end of Besborough, that might be more than 250 meters, but I suspect maybe not.

So yeah, yeah, it isn't it isn't an interesting problem.

And and um uh and if this is the individual that's only concerned, maybe um it would be a case of having no parking, you know, in the length of the that uh individual's property on both sides, 294 uh 292 Besborough.

Um I'm certainly um would like I'd like staff to assess that.

And I'm also wondering, you know, in terms of those distances, uh, when you think of um you know the hospital or any other businesses and and um any other potential businesses that might be coming up at the net the adjacent corners of the Holman and Island Highway, um whether that then would permit um um uh parking on on Eltham, for example, uh if there is a business that uh goes in there.

So it uh it has a broad implications um and um I think we need to uh assess this um not only for this particular resident, but for the implications elsewhere.

Thank you very much.

Um Councillor Mattson, do you have a question?

Not a particular question, but from what I gather from staff is we don't make maybe correct me if I'm wrong here, if we don't get a lot of complaints except for the specific individual who is just on the phone.

And is this an issue where just to address his concerns versus you know issues with the uh you know the the uh the the other neighbors in the in that area also are residents in our area also have finding this to be an issue?

It he did when if I can when he when he came to council, and he does mention this in his letter, he did present us with several letters from other people on the street, along with quite a few photos, and that was was March 17th.

I don't really see the problem with giving them a residential only sign myself.

The you know, we've done it for for res streets around the hospital, and I know enforcement is difficult and we don't actively enforce it, but I do think they stop a certain number of people from parking there regardless, and that may well be enough to solve the problem.

I mean, the picture we see in this, the fellow in the big truck.

I mean, I kind of understand that as someone who, you know, I often in the course of my business, I'm driving a 25-foot cube van, and if I need to pop into somewhere like Helmican Square, I can't exactly park it in the parking lot.

So I do look for a side street upon which to park to allow me to access that business.

So I don't know that I think that's unreasonable, but I'm also completely fine with putting up residential parking signs for that street.

So I've spoken with Mr.

O'Farrell and his neighbor who has equal frustrations.

I it seems to me that the your neighbor, um, Mr.

O'Farrell, or perhaps your neighbor and you are also frustrated with the um people people spin around that corner and then think, oh, this isn't what I gotta be.

So they use the driveways there.

I the neighbors actually put up a a blockade um that doesn't people don't even see it or care they just they just use the driveway anyway so they're just frustrated with with the um with the commercialization and uh of their street and the and the abuse of their of their uh driveways uh so firstly i i agree that um as a as a deterrent resident only signs makes sense to me.

So I'm happy to move the receipt of the report and and the staff install residential only signs on the street uh a second go ahead yes, a point of clarification.

I'm and certainly I'm supportive of the signs, but um we're talking the signs from Helmaken to View Royal Avenue, not Besborough all the way down.

Because the Besborough actually kept it.

Oh yeah, no, no, no, yeah, so it's that stretch from that one corner, Besborough to uh View Royal Avenue.

Yeah.

And and I do want to say, I mean, I understand the frustration and well just Besborough to View Royal Avenue.

No, I think it's on Besborough.

No, it's not.

It's not is not the stretch down to where John's mother lives.