Vernon council seeking meetings with five ministers and premier at UBCM

May 20, 2024 | 8:30 AM

Vernon city councillors attending the Union of B.C. Municipalities (UBCM) convention this fall are planning to meet with several high-ranking provincial politicians.

At its meeting May 13, mayor and council outlined which NDP cabinet ministers they would like to meet with at the convention.

“I think that we need to meet with Minister [Ravi] Kahlon, our Housing Minister. I think there’s a number of issues in front of us that would make for a good discussion,” Mayor Victor Cumming stated during Monday’s meeting.

“I think we need to meet with Minister [Nathan] Cullen, who’s [portfolio is] Water, Land and Resource Stewardship, around speed, or lack thereof, in terms of handling approvals and permits.

Cumming also suggested seeking a meeting with Premier David Eby.

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“We met with the premier last time and some significant progress has been met on two of the issues that we raised on the day. I think it would be valuable to meet with him again and discuss the shifts and changes and bring forward anything else that we can discuss over the next couple of months,” Cumming told his colleagues.

Councillor Kelly Fehr suggested setting up a meeting with Jennifer Whiteside, the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, to discuss complex care, to which Cumming agreed.

“I met with Minister Whiteside one-on-one here when she was in the community a few weeks ago and I expressed my disappointment with the lack of progress on complex care,” the mayor said.

“Then we sent her our complex care analysis. It was done with the City of Kelowna, to remind her of why we had made that articulation. So I think that’s a good idea.”

Councillor Brian Quiring suggested a meeting be set up with Lana Popham, the Minister of Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport, to discuss issues relating to short term rentals and resorts in Vernon.

He also noted that the Regional District of North Okanagan only gave the City of Vernon a few minutes notice before their meetings at UBCM last year, and recommended the RDNO and city plan ahead of time to better coordinate meetings with ministers.

Cumming agreed to both requests, and tasked Quiring with raising the need of collaboration with the RDNO.

Councillor Brian Guy then suggested meeting with Bruce Ralston, the Minister of Forests, to express thanks for the work being done to mitigate the wildfire risks in the Aberdeen Plateau, which Cumming also agreed with.

The mayor said meeting with the five ministers and the Premier would be beneficial, noting there would be another opportunity to revise the list in the future, but directed staff to set-up those meetings in the meantime.

Cumming added that at the convention in 2023 other members of council were able to meet and talk about specific topics and policies with provincial representatives, and suggested continuing that practice this year.

“I can think of some of them. With tourism we’ve got someone on council that knows that well, same thing with complex care,” Cumming said.

“I think it would be valuable that I share the speaking notes as we go through there, as we’ve done in the past.”

The UBCM convention will be held Sept 16 to 20 in Vancouver.

by Liam Verster

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