Seeing people struggling is what prompted Tim Thielmann to run for public office for the first time.
The Conservative Party of BC candidate for Victoria-Beacon Hill describes himself as a husband and father of two who has worked as a lawyer with First Nations for 15 years.
After knocking on thousands of doors so far, the James Bay resident is confident the Conservatives are going to win the capital city riding. That's because people have reached a boiling point over safety, health care, the cost of living and housing, he said.
"Do you want more of the same, which is what you'll get with the NDP and the Green Party, or do you want a common-sense change," Thielmann said.
With the provincial election set for Oct. 19, the Conservative sees safety as top of mind for many Victoria voters.
“You look at our downtown right now and there’s a drug-fuelled decline and a lot of misery on the street,” he said.
Funding needs to shift away from what he called the "enablement" of drug use to compassionate intervention that gets people into detox or treatment programs on the same day they seek help. The province also needs to consider other options for a small segment of the population that poses a significant risk to themselves and others, he added.
“For those people, we should be talking about involuntary care or involuntary treatment, after you actually get the first step done, which is building the treatment and recovery for the people that want it and don’t have it now,” Thielmann said.
With his party set to unveil its housing platform, the candidate said he wasn't able to provide details of that plan just yet. But in calling B.C. one of the worst places in North America to be a landlord, he said the province needs to create more balance in the rules for owners and tenants.
“If people don’t want to be landlords then you’re going to have them exiting the market and you’re going to have fewer and fewer places to rent," he said.
The candidate also criticized the province's short-term rental restrictions. He said there wouldn't have been an uproar if the NDP only went after illegal operators.
“But that’s not what they did, they scapegoated them and stole their businesses, and that’s the kind of thing you see in third-world dictatorships," Thielmann said.
On health care, his team wants to shift funding away from upper management in health authorities and use those savings to hire more doctors, nurses and front-line staff. Thielmann said the Conservatives would also ensure critically important medical procedures get done within guaranteed wait times, and added people wouldn't have to pay out of pocket for those services.
"The province will cover the cost of those surgeries being done, whether it's in the government system here in B.C. (or) whether it's in a non-governmental clinic in Alberta, in the States or here in B.C."
