Frequently Asked Questions

It is an independent, non-partisan policy framework for the City of Victoria, spanning five pillars plus a foundation, with every measure costed, sourced and measurable, published openly for any candidate or resident to use, adapt or challenge ahead of the October 17, 2026 municipal election. The public number to hold us to is the 12 Commitments scorecard, reported every quarter. The framework contains far more measures than that, and we deliberately no longer state a total, because three earlier versions published a count that did not survive a hand count. Twelve is what we ask to be judged on, because a scorecard nobody can remember is not accountability.

No. There is no party, no membership, no whip, no caucus, and no leader. It is a public document. Anyone can read it, adopt parts of it, argue with it, or ignore it. A party disciplines its members to vote a certain way; this framework has no members and disciplines no one.

No. A slate is a group of candidates who run together, coordinate a campaign, and share infrastructure. This framework does none of that. Multiple candidates may independently endorse the same measures — that is the point — but they are not running together, do not coordinate through this document, and owe it nothing beyond whatever they choose to adopt publicly.

The framework was drafted by residents working from publicly available research, municipal data, council records, and peer-city evidence. It is intended to stand on the quality of its measures and its sources, not on the identity of its authors. Corrections and contributions come from anyone with relevant expertise — planners, police, builders, social workers, fiscal analysts, engineers.

It means the test for every measure is "does this work elsewhere and can it work here?" — not "does this fit a left or right label?" The framework deliberately absorbs strong ideas from across the spectrum: a progressive councillor's supportive-housing throughput program sits beside a fiscal-restraint councillor's enforcement-of-existing-rules approach, because both are evidence-backed and within municipal power. No measure is included or excluded on ideological grounds; it is included if it is costed, sourced, and deliverable, and excluded if it isn't.

• A Liveable City — housing, families, childcare, cleanliness, mobility
• A Safe City — public safety, order, accountability, modern infrastructure
• A Beautiful City — heritage, parks, urban aesthetics, climate resilience
• A Well-Managed City — taxes, permits, performance, fiscal discipline
• A Democratic City — referendums, transparency, participation, public-visualization tools

Plus a Foundation, not a pillar — honouring the host Nations (Songhees and Esquimalt), built into how the City operates rather than how it speaks.

No — and the framework is structured specifically to prevent that. It carries no candidate's name, endorses no candidate, and is explicitly open to every candidate in the race, including incumbents from across the current council. If it were one person's platform, it would not invite rivals to use it freely. The goal is to raise the standard of debate for everyone, which only works if it belongs to no one.

The framework is a document, not a campaign. It does not raise or spend funds to support or oppose candidates, and it does not run election advertising. There is no ad budget, no donor pool attached to it, and nothing for sale. If that changes in any way that would engage BC's election-finance rules, it will be disclosed.

The framework itself does not engage in election advertising — it does not spend money to promote or oppose candidates. It publishes policy research and a passive endorsement registry. That said, any candidate who uses framework language in their own paid campaign materials is responsible for their own compliance with the Local Elections Campaign Financing Act, and should confirm with their campaign's compliance lead. The framework cannot and does not provide legal advice.

Don't trust them — check them. Every measure carries a budget-impact estimate, and the Savings & Revenue Analysis shows the math with sources and explicit caveats, including where estimates are uncertain and where year-one delivery differs from steady-state. Where a peer-city claim is cited (Phoenix managed competition, Calgary's SAVE program, Pittsburgh's adaptive signals, Hoboken's Vision Zero record), the source is named so you can verify it. The framework has corrected its own numbers publicly when they were wrong — that track record is the point.

Yes, in writing and on the record. The budget analysis was revised downward when an earlier version under-counted the cost of its own additions. A flagship technology measure — a full city-scale "digital twin" — was demoted from a near-term commitment to a contingent, long-term aspiration after honest review concluded that no Canadian city of Victoria's size has successfully deployed one, and that cheaper tools capture most of the value. A framework that won't correct itself isn't pragmatic; it's just another platform.

A fair challenge, and the answer is in the measures themselves. The framework simultaneously calls for competitive bidding on some services (often coded "right") and a 50% cut in unsheltered homelessness through Housing-First with wraparound services (often coded "left"); for property-tax restraint and for protecting tenants from displacement; for enforcing existing bylaws and for capacity-first sequencing so enforcement isn't cruelty. If it had a hidden partisan agenda, it would be far more internally consistent in one direction. Its willingness to hold both is the evidence.

The framework is unusually disciplined about this — it is built around what a municipality can actually deliver versus what it can only advocate for. Healthcare, drug policy, sentencing, major transit, and the building code are provincial or federal. Where a measure touches those, it is framed as advocate, partner, or co-fund, never deliver. There is a companion guide, How City Hall Actually Works, written specifically to help residents spot the difference and hold every candidate — including any who endorse this framework — to it.

No, and the framework says so plainly. BC does not have a "strong mayor" system — the Mayor of Victoria has one vote of nine and chairs meetings, but cannot unilaterally hire, fire, sign contracts, or pass bylaws. Most measures require a council majority. This is why the framework is addressed to all candidates, not a single would-be mayor: who else sits on council matters as much as who holds the chair.

No. Where the City already does something well — the AAA cycling network, the DVBA Clean Team, BC Housing partnerships, the Crystal Pool referendum, the Climate Leadership Plan — the framework explicitly says it will continue that work, not claim to invent it. The differentiation is in the measures the current council has not deployed: published permit benchmarks, competitive service benchmarking, a quarterly performance dashboard, rotating zero-based budget reviews, and a glide path back toward inflation-level tax increases.

It isn't free, and the framework doesn't pretend it is. The claim is narrower and honest: a glide path — Year 1 capped at ≤6.5% on the residential rate (measured against the 9.34% residential increase council levied in 2026, not the 7.28% aggregate and not the 13.3% opening draft), Year 2 ≤5%, Year 3 and beyond around inflation plus population growth (~3.5%). That is funded by operational savings (managed competition, zero-based reviews, administrative attrition through retirement not layoffs) plus new property-tax revenue from housing growth — not by cutting frontline services. Net headroom is $4.3 to $14.0M a year on central assumptions and about −$0.3M on pessimistic ones, and we publish the pessimistic number too. Year-one savings are a fraction of steady-state, and the analysis states that openly. Anyone promising full savings on day one is misleading you.

Because the framework names the mechanism, not just the goal. "Managed competition for waste collection and street cleaning, targeting ~20% savings on ~$12M, with mandatory re-employment clauses protecting at least 80% of existing workers" is a mechanism. "Rotating zero-based reviews of 3–4 service areas per budget cycle" is a mechanism. "Reduce administrative headcount 12 to 15% over the term through attrition only, where vacancies allow, with no layoffs" is a mechanism. Each has a peer-city precedent and a number attached. "Find efficiencies" with no method behind it is exactly what the framework rejects.

No — and the distinction is built into the measure. Managed competition (on the Phoenix model) lets City workers bid against private firms for the work; when public delivery is competitive, it stays public. Winning private bidders must offer equivalent positions to at least 80% of affected City workers at equal or higher pay. The City keeps oversight and audits performance quarterly, and can re-tender if a contractor underperforms. The CRD's blue-box recycling is already contracted out — the principle is proven regionally. It is competition for the work, with worker protection, not a fire-sale of public assets.

In the Savings & Revenue Analysis. It separates operating savings from new revenue from capital debt service, distinguishes year-one from steady-state, chooses the conservative end of every range, and lists what it deliberately did not count as savings (behavioural-change guesses, parking-data licensing, unguaranteed grants). It also includes a section on how to stress-test the framework's own claims if you're a skeptic, journalist, or rival.

That was a real gap in this framework and Measure 66d closes it. A tax-only glide path is an incomplete promise, because the fastest-rising part of a Victoria household’s municipal bill is the part nobody campaigns on. The CRD’s own five-year forecast for regional water rates is 7.6% in 2026, 9.4% in 2027, 10.9% in 2028, 12.3% in 2029 and 12.6% in 2030, which compounds to roughly 65% over five years.

So the framework now publishes one Household Bill: property tax plus water, sewer, solid waste and stormwater, as a dollar figure, a year-over-year change and a five-year forward view, for a median home, a median condominium and a median purpose-built rental. It appears beside the tax glide path, not in a separate document.

Where the City sets the fee (stormwater, solid waste, municipal water and sewer distribution), any increase above CPI plus growth needs a supermajority of council and a published reason. Where the CRD sets it, we report and forecast it and act through Measure 70c, but we do not cap what we cannot set. Promising otherwise would be the kind of thing this framework exists to stop.

No. Measure 70c takes no position on whether the Goldstream plant gets built. It takes a position on the standard of evidence required before a $1.07 billion regional commitment locks in: a published business case, a published independent alternatives analysis, and a rate impact stated in dollars per household per year rather than in percentages.

The case for the plant is real and on the record: rising source-water temperature, algal-bloom risk, wildfire exposure, reviewed by Stantec and supported by Island Health. The case against the current plan is also real and on the record: the system is currently exempted from filtration requirements, Island Health’s own medical health officer told regional water commissioners in March 2024 there was no urgent need for additional filtration capacity at Sooke at that time, and an engineering review commissioned by the Urban Development Institute concluded the master plan did not demonstrate a compelling scientific rationale.

That is exactly the situation where the answer is a published test, not a slogan. It is the same standard Measures 74 and 78 apply to Victoria’s own capital. A project that survives that test is stronger for having passed it.

No, and Measure 50b makes that structural rather than a promise. Arts funding is the first line every fiscal-restraint council reaches for, and “we won’t cut it” is worth nothing without a mechanism.

So the arts and culture funding floor is published, expressed both per capita and as a share of operating expenditure, set at the current level in the first financial plan of the term. Reducing it requires a supermajority of council, 6 of the 9 members, with a published written rationale — the identical instrument protecting the tax cap, the over-collection refund, the debt rule and the utility discipline. Anchor organizations move to three-year operating agreements so they can plan and hire. City-owned space, the largest real subsidy a municipality controls, is offered below market on multi-year terms.

One thing is explicit: the Measure 65 grant review applies to arts organizations on the same three-part jurisdiction, outcomes and duplication test as every other recipient, and on no other test. Artistic content and public positions are never a funding criterion. Fiscal discipline paid for by the cultural sector is not discipline, it is a transfer.

Yes — that is the whole point. You can endorse the full framework, endorse specific pillars, or endorse individual measures, in your own words and with your own modifications. There is no exclusivity, no fee, and no permission required. The only ask is attribution where practical ("drawn from A City That Works") and, if you're elected, a commitment to publish quarterly variance reports against the measures you ran on. The Candidate Endorsement Pack has everything you need.

No. Endorsing creates no membership, no caucus obligation, and no coordination requirement. You do not owe the framework money, loyalty, or votes. You can endorse some measures and publicly oppose others. You can withdraw an endorsement at any time (it's logged, by date, like everything else). The relationship is one-way: candidates adopt the framework; the framework endorses no candidate back.

The framework expects this and gives you three honest options: refine it (keep the goal, change the method, publish what changed), substitute it (replace it with something that achieves the same outcome, and say so), or withdraw it (publicly, with an explanation). All three protect your credibility better than the usual option — quietly failing and hoping nobody notices.

The answer is simple and disarming: the framework is open to every candidate in the race, including your opponents. It's a public menu of evidence-based, costed proposals — your opponent could endorse the same measures tomorrow. Using rigorous, sourced research is not a weakness to apologize for; the weakness is running on aesthetics with no numbers behind them. The Candidate Endorsement Pack includes ready-to-use language for exactly this question.

Yes. Several measures are politically neutral and could be endorsed by sitting members from across the current council — quarterly dashboards, the Saanich Citizens' Assembly, the Indigenous working tables, the Integrity Commissioner. Measure-by-measure endorsement exists precisely so incumbents can adopt what fits their record without endorsing things they've voted against.

Two things. First, a checklist for evaluating any candidate's promises — is it within municipal power, is it costed, is it sourced, is there a delivery date and an accountability mechanism (see How City Hall Actually Works). Second, a concrete list of measures you can ask your candidates about by name: "Do you support published permit-processing benchmarks? A quarterly performance dashboard? The tax glide path?" Specific questions get specific answers and expose vague ones.

Write to info@acitythatworks.ca. Every measure is open to correction — a misread source, a math error, an assumption that doesn't hold, or a better idea. Revisions are dated and published. The framework treats being corrected as the system working, not as an attack.

Meeting your councillors individually about a specific issue, speaking at the statutorily required public hearing on land-use matters, and voting in every municipal election — where turnout is typically 35–45%, so each vote carries roughly three times the weight it does federally. None of it is glamorous; all of it works better than complaining online. The full list is in How City Hall Actually Works.

Yes — and the framework had to correct itself to say so honestly. Earlier versions of Measure 40 committed Victoria to deploying speed cameras at every school and playground zone, with equipment capital and ticket revenue attached. A BC municipality cannot do that. The Intersection Safety Camera programme is a partnership between the Province, ICBC and the RCMP; per UBCM it is not operated by or delegated to municipalities, and the officers who issue the tickets are appointed as Special Provincial Constables under the Police Act. Victoria council established this itself in 2023, when a motion asked the Province either to install cameras or to allow municipalities to install them and collect the fines.

So the measure now commits to the three things a city can actually do: nominate ranked sites to RoadSafetyBC and ICBC from the collision evidence, complete the enabling right-of-way work at City cost so provincial installation is never delayed by municipal readiness, and carry Victoria's own unanimous resolution forward through UBCM for the enabling authority. No revenue is booked, because there is none for a municipality to book.

And to close the obvious question: an intersection safety camera is provincial equipment on a provincial programme. Measure 30’s commitment that the City operates no cameras of any kind stands unqualified. Victoria nominates and prepares. It does not own, operate, or view.

No — the framework explicitly rules it out. The streetlight measure is LED conversion plus an IoT platform for outage detection and brightness control (the Kelowna/Halifax model), and it pre-emptively rejects audio surveillance, gunshot/scream detection, facial recognition, behavioural-pattern AI, and any "directed brightness at a suspect" function. The crime-reduction benefit of good lighting itself — about 14% on the updated 2022 systematic-review evidence (Welsh, Farrington & Douglas, Brå / Criminology & Public Policy), revised down from 21% in the earlier review — is real and requires no surveillance. We cite the lower, current number deliberately. The framework is, as far as we know, the only platform in the race to take an explicit no-surveillance position.

Neither, by design. The framework commits to a 50% community GHG reduction by 2030, 5,000 new trees, 60% non-auto mode share, and expanded home-retrofit support with published uptake numbers — that's results-oriented environmentalism, not symbolism. It also cuts red tape for small business, targets a 5-business-day licence turnaround, and protects the downtown that small operators depend on. Treating these as opposites is the old framing the whole document is built to reject.

The framework's position is that compassion without accountability helps no one, and enforcement without capacity is cruelty. It commits to a 50% reduction in unsheltered homelessness through Housing-First, supportive housing, wraparound services, and a supportive-housing throughput program (so stabilized residents can move on and free up units), with published outcome metrics — not just dollars spent. Its sequencing is explicit: build capacity first, then enforce, and never "move people along" to nowhere. It also flags that Victoria carries a wildly disproportionate share of the region's shelter and supportive housing and calls for the other municipalities to take their fair share.

It was honestly downgraded. Earlier versions proposed a full city-scale digital twin as a near-term project. On review, the framework concluded that no Canadian municipality of Victoria's size (~92,000 residents) has successfully deployed one, that the cost-benefit didn't hold at this scale, and that cheaper tools capture most of the value. So the full digital twin became a long-term, contingent aspiration, and was replaced with three smaller, peer-precedented measures: modernizing the City's underground-utility GIS data, AI-generated public-consultation imagery (continuing a sitting councillor's precedent), and a one-time LIDAR scan of the downtown core.

It's the line above which a new (non-lifecycle) capital project goes to a binding public vote, within the BC Local Government Act and Community Charter framework. The Crystal Pool replacement (approved February 2025, 58.7% Yes) is the proof of concept — the framework simply makes that the standard rule rather than a one-off. Routine lifecycle work — replacing aging pipes, resurfacing roads, renewing water and sewer — is explicitly excluded, because subjecting essential maintenance to a referendum would be absurd. It's a handful of big new-build decisions per term, not every park bench.

Measure 53d, and it is published before deployment rather than after. Victoria has no AI policy today, and neither does any comparable BC municipality.

The rules: a public register of every AI or automated decision-support system the City uses, with purpose, vendor, data inputs and responsible department. Human-in-the-loop is mandatory and automated adverse decisions are prohibited — no permit, licence, grant, enforcement action, hiring decision or housing allocation affecting an identified person is finally decided by a machine. AI may sort, flag, pre-screen, draft and translate; a named human decides and is accountable. Every AI-generated image is labelled on the image itself, with a plain statement that it is an illustration and not an approved design. Prompts, outputs and logs used in any decision are municipal records under FIPPA, retained and disclosable. Privacy assessment and published accuracy and bias testing before deployment and annually after — and where an error rate cannot be measured, the system is not deployed on a decision path. Canadian data residency, and no contract permits a vendor to train models on Victoria residents’ data.

These are contract terms, not aspirations. A vendor that cannot meet them does not win the work. The City is going to use these tools either way. The only question is whether residents can see how.

No City cameras on public streets — and the framework had to correct itself to be able to say that cleanly. Measure 24 previously implied street-level municipal computer vision for parking availability, which contradicted Measure 30’s own commitment. v1.8 fixed it: City-owned parkade and lot systems plus non-imaging occupancy sensors, publishing space counts only, with no retained identifiable imagery. Sensors cost more per stall than cameras do. That is the price of the position, and we pay it rather than quietly making an exception.

Where investigators genuinely need footage, the route is Measure 28c: a voluntary registry of camera locations only, operated by VicPD on the Kelowna model, in which businesses record where their cameras point so investigators know which door to knock on. Voluntary in both directions, no live access, no monitoring station, and the City neither owns a camera nor holds a recording.

The legal reason matters: in Investigation Report 26-01 the BC Privacy Commissioner found the City of Richmond was not authorized under FIPPA to collect personal information by public-safety camera, because a municipality has no mandate to police individuals. Victoria’s policing mandate belongs to VicPD under the Police Act, not to the City. So the party requesting footage is the party with the mandate, and the City’s role is facilitation.

Saturday, October 17, 2026. Nominations open September 1, 2026. Anything in the framework about candidate intentions is a snapshot in time and will shift as the race develops.

• The Program — every measure, costed and sourced
• One-Page Summary — the 60-second version
• Savings & Revenue Analysis — the math, with caveats
• Candidate Endorsement Pack — tiers, language, full checklist
• How City Hall Actually Works — what the City can and can't do

Yes. There is no copyright restriction on use by candidates, community associations, or civic organizations in the Victoria 2026 cycle. Attribution to A City That Works — A Citizens' Framework for Victoria 2026 is appreciated but not required.

• Email: info@acitythatworks.ca — for corrections, contributions, endorsement enquiries, or questions not answered here. Responses typically within three business days.
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