Host Rick Maddison talks with Ron Mattuissi, Jeff Cox and Scott Lanigan about healthcare in the Okanagan. With a declining number of physicians and an aging population are we heading for a crisis or are we currently in one? Did we know about it and could we avoid it? What are we doing to right the ship ? What role do varying levels of government have in this perilous situation? Do we have a path forward?

In this episode Rick Maddison moderates the discussion on safe supply, and the effects on homelessness on BC. Panel includes: Ron Mattiussi (Former City Manager Kelowna), Scott Lanigan (Former chair of Journey Home), and Jeff Cox (Former board member of Pathways). Lively chat with both right and left opinions. An excellent overview of the pitfalls and ways forward on a very complex and volatile subject.

On this week's episode, the panel discusses the BC Conservative leadership review.

Maddison says the leadership review appears to be taking a very long time.

"I think what we saw was an election that was supposed to go one way. It went another way, and now we're looking at a review. We've had a couple of ridings turn... now we're left with the question, how is John Rustad, how are the BC Conservatives doing in this province?"

Cox says, "I would give John Rustad eight out of 10. He took a party from nothing to something and almost won an election."

"But if we are going to turn this province, which I'm telling you, if it does not happen soon, it is not going to end well, John's got to step aside, and they've got to put somebody that's more mainstream in there, and they've got to get ahead of it and vet candidates and start building a real party," Cox continued.

Mattiussi agreed with Cox's assessment.

"I agree with the idea that they can't win the way they are within this province," he said.

"It's got to be built from the centre, somebody that can speak to the centre with those principles, that could attract both centrist liberals and progressive conservatives and conservatives. It's a big tent, and it has to be bigger to win in this province."

Lanigan says B.C.'s political parties have to do a better job of explaining themselves to voters.

"I think that is actually the Achilles heel of our provincial political groups, and I think they need to spend some time clarifying who they are and what they're about and being crystal clear, especially for the younger generation."

But the panel agrees, it is a difficult challenge to unite diverse political views under one tent.

One Foot Off Center will be published monthly by Castanet, on YouTube and in an audio-only version on Spotify.

On this episode, the panel discussed the Agriculture Land Reserve in the Okanagan and the best way to cope with future wildfires.

Ron Mattiussi, former Kelowna CAO, says the ALR policies should be revisited, noting most of the policies were created and implemented in the 1970s.

"I'm not arguing the principle of preserving agricultural land, but do we? Are we doing it? Are we doing it well? Is it the right land? Is it in the right place? I think it's about time somebody started asking real questions," says Mattiussi.

Jeff Cox says he agrees with the concept of ALR but also wonders if we are doing it the right way.

"There are rules that exist around the ALR today that make no sense to me," says Cox.

Scott Lanigan and Mattiussi discussed the impact of fire management, noting the success of FireSmart programs in mitigating wildfires around urban areas. They also touch on the need for a collaborative approach involving municipal, provincial, and federal levels of government to address these issues effectively.

"Years ago... they used to be much more creative in using and empowering forestry crews and those types of things," says Lanigan.

Mattiussi says he doesn't believe that Canada and B.C has done enough fire suppression work, pointing to past Indigenous practices that managed to keep wildfire damage to a manageable level.

"I'm not a climate denier at all. Climate change is real, but there's such an attachment between, the climate is changing and we're burning down. Well, 300 years ago, Indigenous groups in this valley actually did fire suppression, so this is not new. They cleaned the forests around the areas that they were inhabiting," says Mattiussi.

Castanet is proud to present One Foot Off Center, a podcast tackling the big issues facing the Okanagan.

Rick Maddison, Ron Mattiussi, Scott Lanigan and Jeff Cox will meet every month to discuss how those issues impact everyday Canadians.

Maddison is a well-known entrepreneur in Kelowna and owner of Tempest Media. Mattiussi is the former chief administrator of the City of Kelowna and has worked in local government across the province.

Lanigan is the lead pastor of Trinity Church, one of Kelowna’s largest churches, who has served with various community groups like Journey Home.

Cox is the founder and CEO of Kelowna-based Simply Benefits.

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One Foot Off Center will be published monthly by Castanet, on YouTube and in an audio-only version on Spotify.

A BIG WIN for the One Foot Off Center Podcast! After talking about how Elon Musk should label The CBC as state-funded media, he did! Obviously, our influence helped Elon make the final decision, so we are going to carry on with a few other topics that we hope to resolve sooner rather than later.

Rick and Jeff dive into a variety of topics ranging from the terrible timing of the PSAC strike to Justin Trudeaus fancy taxpayer-paid vacation at a high-priced resort that happens to be a donor to the Trudeau Foundation (of which he says he has no involvement) to LNG in Canada, and the Ethics Commissioner resigning.

On this week's episode, the panel discusses development, and parking, in Kelowna.

Maddison says there seems to be a run of developments approved in the city that do not have enough on-site parking.

"This of course is due to their proximity to transit. However, driving through this city you can almost tell you which developments don’t have available parking because the streets are jammed with vehicles," says Maddison

Mattiussi suggested that these developments are "borne out of Vancouver and Victoria where density and transit meet the needs of many."

Cox asked if Kelowna should be striving to hit housing target numbers "no matter the cost."

"Are we beholden to the province to follow this initiative?" he said. "Should we build out transit first, then do away with parking close to transit centres?"

Castanet is proud to present One Foot Off Center, a podcast tackling the big issues facing the Okanagan.

Rick Maddison, Ron Mattiussi, Scott Lanigan and Jeff Cox will meet every month to discuss how those issues impact everyday Canadians.

Maddison is a well-known entrepreneur in Kelowna and owner of Tempest Media. Mattiussi is the former chief administrator of the City of Kelowna and has worked in local government across the province.

Lanigan is the lead pastor of Trinity Church, one of Kelowna’s largest churches, who has served with various community groups like Journey Home.

Cox is the founder and CEO of Kelowna-based Simply Benefits.
One Foot Off Center will be published monthly by Castanet, on YouTube and in an audio-only version on Spotify.

This month, the panel discussed the controversial cleanup of Kelowna's tent city.

Lanigan emphasized the need for viable alternatives for the individuals that will be forced out of the camp each morning.

"Where are these individuals going to go? It's fine to say, hey, we don't like tent city or any city, no matter what jurisdiction you're in, but here in Kelowna, there has to be a viable alternative," he said.

"Unfortunately, in Kelowna, we don't have a viable alternative for these individuals."

"Even yesterday, we were walking downtown as a family, and we saw an increase in, the homeless community and I'm like, well, this is directly correlated to what happened just a few days ago," Lanigan continued.

Lanigan sat on the board of directors for the now-dissolved Journey Home initiative and he is sympathetic to Kelowna's unhoused population.

Jeff Cox highlighted the complexities of homelessness, including mental health issues and drug abuse, and called for a shift from wet houses, which allow drug use, to detox facilities.

Ron Mattiussi, former city manager, says he watched as the homeless population in Kelowna just kept rising while he was at city hall.

"In my time as city manager, over a five-year period, statistics were, bylaw enforcement broke up, one year, 25 camps. Next year, 75 by the time I stopped counting, it was up to 300, 400," Mattiussi said.

He said the city tried to take a firmer stance on homelessness and prevent camping on sidewalks.

"Other governments have the money to deal with it. We take property taxes. We just didn't think that we should be using that money to deal with a problem that comes from everywhere."

Mattiussi says during his time as city manager he felt he was constantly dealing with the repercussions of failed policy.

"I think governments are getting to the point where we're going to have to say having people sleep on the streets in winter is not what a just society, what a fair society does. But there's an element on our streets that are not going to be housed in conventional housing or conventional type homes."

The rest of the conversation underscored the need for comprehensive, data-informed solutions to address the root causes of homelessness and the community's response to it.

Castanet is proud to present One Foot Off Center, a podcast tackling the big issues facing the Okanagan.

Rick Maddison, Ron Mattiussi, Scott Lanigan and Jeff Cox will meet every month to discuss how those issues impact everyday Canadians.

Maddison is a well-known entrepreneur in Kelowna and owner of Tempest Media. Mattiussi is the former chief administrator of the City of Kelowna and has worked in local government across the province.

Lanigan is the lead pastor of Trinity Church, one of Kelowna’s largest churches, who has served with various community groups like Journey Home.

Cox is the founder and CEO of Kelowna-based Simply Benefits.
One Foot Off Center will be published monthly by Castanet, on YouTube and in an audio-only version on Spotify.

Kelowna's rental vacancy rate now sits at 6.4%, among the highest in Canada.

With provincial and municipal government policy encouraging development of rentals, some see the rising vacancy rate as a sign that housing pressures are easing. At the same time, vacancies at that level traditionally discourage developers from entering a market.

Kelowna's vacancy was previously as low as 0.6%, which saw rents soar.

"There’s a downside to 6.4 per cent," said deVeer.

"What I find so interesting is that nobody's put together the high rate (8.6%) of unemployment right now. It's wonderful vacancies are high... but unemployment is also high. So what does that mean? It means people have left our city to go find work elsewhere."

Local construction companies have felt the impact directly, with one firm shrinking from 18 employees to just two, and award-winning renovators now working solo jobs just to stay afloat, according to deVeer.

"I don't really call that lucky for a lot of people."

Part of the issue, according to Mattiussi, is that the market is currently "off equilibrium."

"I think getting up [to this rate] was a perfect storm... nobody builds multifamily. You make the commitment many years before you pour the concrete," Mattiussi says. "I think on one hand, we're overbuilt in the condo market... The best thing it does is it brings rents down... but is that a healthy way to bring rents down? No, I don't think so."

The discussion also highlighted the skyrocketing cost of delivery as a major barrier to new housing. deVeer points to what she calls B.C.’s aggressive building codes, which exceed national standards, as a key driver of costs.

"Our homes are highly over-engineered," says deVeer. "If we're going to change anything, we have to address the cost to build because labour rates aren't going down... We tax housing like we do alcohol and cigarettes, which is crazy."

While development cost charges (DCCs) remained a contentious topic, Mattiussi argued they are necessary to prevent taxpayers from footing the bill for new growth, though he admitted there needs to be a balance.

"Without DCCs in place, I've watched developers go bankrupt in the 90s," Mattiussi says. "When you look at the city of Kelowna, it has some of the highest rates in BC, and yet the lowest rates of property tax."
One Foot Off Center will be published monthly by Castanet, on YouTube and in an audio-only version on Spotify.