New Westminster’s mayor hit the road last week to advocate on the city’s behalf.
Mayor Patrick Johnstone recently visited Victoria, where he met with several provincial ministers to advocate for supports for housing and infrastructure, health care and harm reduction services, public and road safety, new schools, and child care in New Westminster.
During his two-and-a-half-day visit to Victoria, which coincided with budget week in the province’s capital, Johnstone had meetings with: Health Minister Josie Osborne; Tourism, Arts, Culture and Sport Minister Spencer Chandra Herbert; Public Safety Minister Garry Begg; Education and Child Care Minister Lisa Beare; and Housing and Municipal Affairs Minister Ravi Kahlon.
While in Victoria, Johnstone also met with New Westminster’s three MLAs: New Westminster-Coquitlam MLA Jennifer Whiteside; Burnaby-New Westminster MLA Raj Chouhan; and Richmond-Queensborough MLA Steve Kooner.
“I made the trip to Victoria during budget week to put New West’s priorities around public services and infrastructure front and centre with the province, and to discuss ways we can make progress on our shared goals by working together,” he said in a news release. “New Westminster is growing, and that presents both opportunities and challenges for us. And as a city, we can’t deal with our intersecting health care and housing crises alone — we need the province to be our partner every step of the way.”
In addition to last week’s meeting, Johnstone said he’ll also be scheduling meetings with a couple of other ministers who weren’t available.
Johnstone, who was in Victoria when the B.C. government released its 2025 budget on March 4, said his message was about uncertainty regarding the on-again, off-again tariffs and economic challenges related to global markets. He felt his message was heard by cabinet ministers.
“Yes — at different levels and at different requests. It's in the context … of global chaos right now and tariff uncertainty and everything,” he said. “So, I did try to also tailor my message a little bit towards that.”
While some of New West’s needs require provincial funding, Johnstone said others don’t necessarily involve a lot of spending but require the city and province to work together. As an example, he said a health contact and resource centre, which is one of the initiatives proposed in the crises response pilot project, will not cost a lot of money but requires coordination, as it involves existing housing and health teams.
“The other message back to them is this is the time to build community; this is the time to get back to what we're doing locally,” he said. “And if we can't trust global markets, we don't know where global markets are going, we need to support a local community to build local industry, local business.”
Housing
One of Johnstone’s key points included requests for funding to support city initiatives, including housing partnerships. In a meeting with Kahlon, the mayor discussed some of the challenges the city is facing with affordable housing.
Johnstone said he proposed a memorandum of understanding with the province to help New West deliver on its five-year goals in the crises response project. The city’s plans includes: 58 new 24/7 shelter spaces across the city (12 new spaces per year); an additional 352 supportive housing units; development of 2,311 below-market rental units; funding and resources to open a health connect and resource centre, which would meet the health and related needs of the daytime unhoused population, while providing greater access and efficiencies in serving this population; and working with the Fraser Health Authority and Royal Columbian Hospital on transitional housing to support discharge planning and placement of unhoused and precariously housed patients.
In April 2024, Johnstone held a press conference at the site of a future supportive housing project at Sixth and Agnes streets. At the time, a visibly irritated Johnstone said he “is calling BS” on having New West included on a list of 20 cities receiving housing targets; he said New Westminster is “well ahead” of the targets in all of the sectors it's responsible for and is only falling short in the creation of subsidized and supportive housing — something that requires provincial funding.
During last week’s meeting, Johnstone said he and Kahlon discussed New Westminster’s official community plan update, which is being updated this year, as required by the province.
According to Johnstone, the other half of their conversation was about the city’s financing growth strategy, which allows municipalities to use development cost charges (DCCs) and amenity cost charges (ACCs) as tools to fund growth such as amenities and infrastructure.
“We're concerned that there's not enough money in the system right now. … If we try to use the tools they've given us, we are going to run a risk of chilling on development because it's going to be too expensive to develop in the city if we try to recover all our costs that way,” Johnstone said. “And he hears that; he understands that. He hears that from other communities as well, and that's going to be an ongoing conversation with him.”
Johnstone said Kahlon recognizes New Westminster is “a city who wants to get things built” but it has needs when it comes to accommodating that growth.
“We’re a city who also needs to fund infrastructure,” he told the Record. “I didn't want it to be a confrontational conversation. I wanted to be one where the best I can do is let him know where we're going.”
Support for new housing was a major focus of the mayor’s meetings in Victoria.
“We need to build thousands of new homes in New Westminster over the next decade, including homes for people who are already living paycheque to paycheque, and for people who need more supports at home than the rental housing market can provide,” said Johnstone. “The city is working flat out to meet that demand — but we can’t do it alone. We need the province — and Canada — on our team to make that a reality.”
Education
Johnstone said he had a “frank discussion” with the education minister about New West’s unique needs for urban schools, the lack of available land for new schools, and the impact of housing targets on the need for more schools.
“I made it really clear to her that buying land and funding schools is really important to this community; every time that a new development comes to us, the community is asking us: ‘Where's the school?’” he said. “That's a question I get asked every time, and I want to make sure that she heard it, not just from our school board, but also heard it from city council as well.”
Johnstone said the New Westminster school board has presented city council with its goals for construction over the next five years.
“We agree with it,” he said. “And I just wanted to make sure the minister of education heard that the city is very aligned with our school board on what our needs are. We know what our needs are, it is just a matter of the province to fund them and get it happening.”
Johnstone said the ministry of education is aware of the redevelopment plan for Columbia Square Plaza — and the developer’s proposal to include space for a new school in its plan.
“That is on their radar. Whether that's the best way for them to get a school built downtown right now or not, that's up to the ministry to decide, working with the school board,” he said. “But we did make sure she knew that was one of the options available to us to deal with the school needs we have downtown.”
Health
Johnstone said the health minister is supportive of having the City of New Westminster develop a memorandum of understanding with Fraser Health to deliver a health connect and resource centre, an inhalation centre integrated with New West’s existing overdose prevention site (OPS), and for ongoing funding of the overdose prevention facility.
According to Johnstone, Osborne is “very interested” in the crises response model that is currently being piloted in New Westminster as a way of addressing the homelessness, overdose, and mental health crises.
“She was very interested in finding ways that that we can partner to make the services that we have available through health more efficient and is really excited about the idea of having that sort of hub model of services to folks who need services and who are unhoused or have other barriers to services,” he said. “So that was a really positive conversation. And again, being able to talk to both housing and health about it, because they're both going to have to partner with us — and nothing but positive feedback on that.”
Opponents to the city’s support of advocating for a safe inhalation site within the existing overdose prevention site have cited the need for recovery services over harm reduction services.
Johnstone said it was great to talk to Osborne as she’s new to the role of minister of health and is from Vancouver Island. He said she’s supportive of a continuum of care that includes recovery programs and harm-reduction programs.
“She recognizes it's not about one thing or another,” he said. “It's about supporting the continuum of care. It's about keeping people alive so that they can get into recovery. It's also about recognizing that people sometimes need recovery if they fall out of it again, and they need a safety net to catch them at times.”
More discussions
While in Victoria, Johnstone discussed New Westminster’s Vision Zero plans to improve road safety with the public safety minister. He said he also received a commitment from the minister to consider his request for safety cameras on McBride Boulevard at Sixth and Eighth avenues.
Johnstone said his discussion with Herbert, the new minister for tourism, arts, culture, and sport, included the need for more funding for the Massey Theatre upgrade project.
“Fortunately, he knew a lot about the Massey Theatre from his history in in the arts, and so I just talked him through what that program was, and he recognized the importance of that building to the community and is hoping to find ways to support us on that,” he said. “We also are applying to the federal government for support on that program. It's a big capital project for the city.”
Johnstone said their conversation also considered the need for provincial funding for festivals that will help to boost the local economy. He said Herbert was hoping to be able to announce something soon around festival funding.
“We also talked about FIFA and about opportunities,” he said. “The city wants to do something around FIFA, around the World Cup. And he thought that was really exciting because he thinks there's an opportunity for the province to help out other communities, not just Vancouver, in getting benefits through that program.”
Johnstone said he met with the city’s three MLAs and talked about the City of New Westminster’s priorities for advocacy at the provincial level. Whiteside, who had invited Johnstone to Victoria during budget week, joined the mayor in some of his meetings with cabinet ministers.
Johnstone said the U.S. government’s ongoing threat of huge tariffs on Canadian exports is dominating conversation in Victoria but that makes the need for intergovernmental collaboration more important than ever.
“These are tough times we’re living. I’m very concerned about the impact potential U.S. tariffs will have on jobs, investment, and affordability in New Westminster,” he said. “I know that that the province shares these concerns and is looking for municipal partners who are willing to roll their sleeves up and be part of the Team BC and Team Canada effort.”
