Longtime Esquimalt resident, former council member, and childcare professional Meagan Brame hopes to represent the Esquimalt-Colwood riding on the provincial level as she runs for B.C. United in the 2024 B.C. election.
During Brames 14-year tenure on the Esquimalt council, she is credited for saving the Archie Browning Sports Centre when the council at the time were planning to demolish it without any public consultation.
"I've always been the person that's like, 'I'm not going to be somebody who just complains.' I'll be part of the solution. So I ran for council and was elected," she said. "The way things have been going with the [New Democratic Party] government, and again to go back to why I ran for council, I'm not just going to sit and complain about it, I'll somehow try to be part of the solution."
Brame, a mother of two sons and now a grandmother of two, has been running Saxe Point Day Care in Esquimalt for the past three decades, making community connections and supporting individual families.
"I do believe childcare is super expensive for parents, It's probably more than they're going to pay on tuition," she said.
Both the provincial and federal government has been pushing out private childcare centres by only funding not-for-profit and private operators, which is losing spaces as private centers are starting to close, she said, and if elected, she hopes to further support the provinces $10-a-day ChildCareBC Centres, which supports both the private and public sector.
When speaking to members of her community, she said the three main public concerns Esquimalt-Colwood she's heard are affordability, homelessness and addiction, and healthcare availability.
"It's hard to house somebody until we can deal with the addictions in a lot of cases. Treatment needs to be free. There needs to be more of it. It needs to be accessible, but sometimes we just need to do compassionate care," she said.
She said when it comes to the housing affordability crisis, she is "most excited" about a rent-to-own project, where developers would sign to have 15 per cent of units to be rent-to-own where people who qualify would pay three years' worth of market rent, and then after three years the rent would go as their down payment.
"Because you can't afford to pay market rent and to actually save [to buy a property], so this helps bridge that gap, and I think it's a fabulous way to get first-time buyers into the market," said Brame.
To increase doctor availability and lower healthcare wait times, she and B.C. United plan to increase the rate at which people can take medical qualifying tests with the goal of training more doctors and nurses.
All in all, if elected, Brame plans to stay connected with her community, and she hopes to enact positive change within her community.
"I will be the person that is known for advocating for the people of my community because I've always done it. I have a track record of doing that for 14 years," she said.
