A city that works.
What do you expect for Victoria?
What should we hope for our city? What do we have the right to demand — for ourselves and for our children?
The time for complaining is over. The moment has come to imagine a city that works — right now: to want it with all our strength, and to build it together, with realism and with method.
This is the complete framework for a city that works.
Five Pillars · One Foundation
Every measure in this framework belongs to one of five pillars, anchored by a foundational commitment to right relations with the host Nations.
Whoever you are, Victoria should work for you.
Childcare, school safety, parks, housing, food in schools.
Tenant protections, vacancy targets, affordability, transparent waitlists.
Permits, tax base, downtown revival, first-hour free parking.
Bike network, RapidBus, contactless fares, adaptive signals.
Safety, accessibility, neighbourhood services, modern lighting.
Property tax restraint, heritage protection, infrastructure.
0% ideology. 100% pragmatic.
We started where the truth is most visible: the budget. Politicians make promises; numbers don't lie. Then for every problem a Victorian faces daily, we applied the same six-step method.
Not the symptom — the structural reason the problem exists.
Municipalities have specific powers. Don't promise what requires provincial or federal action.
Pittsburgh's Surtrac: −25% travel time. Helsinki's digital twin: millions saved. Canadian waste competition: −24% on average.
Use data, sensors, and digital tools to understand before deciding.
Engineers, police, builders, social workers, business owners, residents.
Direct and indirect impacts. Every proposal in this framework has a budget impact estimate.
What the City actually controls.
Before making promises, we must be honest about what the City of Victoria actually controls. We will advocate aggressively to senior governments for action in their domains — but we will never promise what isn't ours to deliver.
Land use & zoning · building permits · property taxes · bylaws & enforcement · municipal policing (via VicPD Board) · parks & recreation · local roads & sidewalks · water & sewer · garbage collection · local planning · business licences · heritage designation
Healthcare · K-12 education · social housing funding (BC Housing) · welfare & income assistance · courts & sentencing · major transit (BC Transit) · highways · building code · vacancy & speculation taxes
Immigration · criminal law · employment insurance · OAS · major infrastructure grants · Indigenous affairs (Crown-Nation relationship) · ports & harbours
82 measures. Every one costed.
Organized by pillar. Each measure includes its rationale, mechanism, and budget impact where applicable. The full text and source citations live in the open framework document.
12 commitments. Measured every quarter.
From 82 measures, twelve numerical targets. Each is tracked publicly. Each has a baseline. There are no excuses, no spin — just published results.
| # | Commitment | Target | Baseline |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New homes (composition) | 12,000+ by 2030; 25% missing middle, 20% 3BR+, 15% non-market | Provincial 5yr target: 4,902 |
| 2 | Rental vacancy rate | 5% | 3.3% (highest since 1999) |
| 3 | Unsheltered homelessness | −50% | ~320 people |
| 4 | Crime severity | −15% | CSI 152.65 (down 11%) |
| 5 | Graffiti removal | 90% within 48h | No current standard |
| 6 | Permit speed (by category) | −50% across simple, complex, rezoning | 3–18+ months by type |
| 7 | Green mobility | 60% non-auto trips | ~49% (2022) |
| 8 | Serious-injury traffic collisions | −50% by 2030, trending toward zero | 1–3 fatalities/yr |
| 9 | Downtown vacancy | 5% storefronts | ~11% (current) |
| 10 | Trees planted | 5,000 by 2030 | ~500/year |
| 11 | GHG emissions | −50% by 2030 (vs 2007) | −31% achieved |
| 12 | Stormwater upgrades | Replace oldest 20% of system | 100+ year-old pipes in service |
The Balance Sheet.
A safer, cleaner, greener, better-managed city — without raising taxes above CPI + growth. The arithmetic is straightforward: spend smarter, not more.
Honest about timing: these are steady-state numbers at the end of a four-year implementation. Year-one savings are a fraction. The tax-cap glide path (Measure 66) reflects this — we do not promise day-one delivery of full savings.
What we are — and what we're not.
- →Govern like managers — measure, adjust, deliver
- →Consult before building — and listen to the answer
- →Simulate before constructing — Digital Twin, not demolition
- →Protect the environment with results, not slogans
- →Enforce the rules that exist — before inventing new ones
- →Respect taxpayers — every dollar audited, every quarter reported
- →Cost every promise — no measure without a budget line
- →We don't do ideology — we do results
- →We don't make promises we can't measure
- →We don't pick fights — we fix problems
- →We don't spend first and justify later
- →We don't try things in real life when we can simulate them first
- →We don't deploy public surveillance — better lighting, not behavioural AI
The honest answers.
Every framework attracts critique. Here are the questions we hear most — and the answers we stand by.
"You're too pro-business / anti-environment"
This framework includes 50% GHG reduction by 2030, 5,000 new trees, 60% green mobility, and Climate Friendly Homes expansion — with published uptake numbers, which the current council has not provided. That is not anti-environment. It is results-oriented environmentalism.
"You're cutting services / austerity"
We are not cutting services — we are ensuring every dollar delivers value. Good management isn't austerity, it's responsibility. Every dollar saved through ZBB and competitive bidding gets redirected to frontline services: more bylaw officers, faster permits, cleaner streets.
"You don't care about homelessness"
Compassion without accountability helps no one. The framework commits to a 50% reduction in unsheltered homelessness through Housing-First, supportive housing, and relentless advocacy to the Province. But we also enforce — because residents, businesses, and vulnerable people themselves deserve safe public spaces. The phased plan proves we understand: you cannot enforce without capacity.
"You just want to privatize everything"
We want competitive bidding where the private sector demonstrably delivers better at lower cost — waste collection, street cleaning. Workers are protected with mandatory re-employment clauses. The City retains oversight. The Phoenix "managed competition" model even lets City workers bid against private firms.
"Referendums slow everything down"
Only new (non-lifecycle) capital projects over $25M go to referendum. Lifecycle maintenance is excluded so essential infrastructure proceeds. That means a handful of major decisions per term, not every speed bump. Crystal Pool (58.7% Yes, Feb 2025) proved Victorians can make informed decisions on major spending.
"You're going to put surveillance in our streetlights"
No. The framework explicitly REJECTS audio surveillance, behavioural AI, gunshot/scream detection, and "directed brightness at suspect" functionality. Measure 30 is the Kelowna/Halifax model: LED + IoT for outage detection and brightness modulation, optional environmental sensors. The ~21% nighttime crime reduction from better lighting alone is real and does not require any surveillance.
"How does this differ from a candidate platform?"
This is a framework, not a campaign. It is open for adoption by any candidate, in whole or in part. Multiple candidates can run on these ideas, and they should. The goal is to raise the standard of debate — to make costed, sourced, measurable platforms with quarterly accountability the new normal in Victoria.
This framework is open.
This is a framework, not a campaign. It is open for adoption, adaptation, and improvement by any candidate or civic organization in the Victoria 2026 election cycle. Multiple candidates can run on these ideas — and they should. The goal is to raise the standard of debate.
Get a quarterly digest of which measures are advancing, which are stuck, and what the next council needs to hear from you.
There is no copyright restriction on the use of this framework. Attribution is appreciated but not required. Adapt freely.