Steve Gray
Website: MetchosinSteve.ca
Are you associated with or running as part of a slate? If so, which one?
No.
Do you live in the municipality where you are running, and if so, for how long? If not, what is your connection to that community?
Yes. I am a 34 year resident of Metchosin.
What is your occupation, and for how long?
Retired medical doctor for past five years.
Tell us about your previous elected and/or community experience.
I have been a volunteer member of the Metchosin Hall Society for some thirty years. I am one of two trustee owners of the Metchosin Community Hall.
My other most recent volunteer activities have been in the wider community. I am an active member of Climate Justice Victoria, Nurses and Doctors for Planetary Health – Victoria, the Rolling Justice Bus, Elders for Ancient Trees, the Mining Justice Action Committee and BC-Yukon KAIROS. I am also a member of First Metropolitan United Church.
I have no previous elected experience.
Why are you running? What’s your motivation?
I have lived in Metchosin for more than 30 years with my wife Janet. We have raised our three children here. Janet and I are extremely grateful to be living in Metchosin and to be part of such a vibrant community. We appreciate Metchosin’s dedicated volunteers and strong community-based organizations.
I am a retired medical doctor with decades of leadership experience in government and health authority roles.
I am running for Council because I believe that I have more to contribute to my community. As an elected Council member, I will make decisions through an environmental and fiscally responsible lens.
What are your top three issues?
I want to see Metchosin retain our remaining wild spaces and protect our aquifers, forest cover, watersheds and shoreline. Moreover, expanding protected local green space should be a priority.
Metchosin needs to finalize and implement a local climate emergency plan.
The District must work to ensure consistent application of its bylaws with clear consequences for serious and/or repeated violations impacting the environment and our community.
What’s your vision for your community in 25 years?
Much will have changed by the year 2047 as the climate crisis deepens.
As a result of forward thinking local government, Metchosin’s forest cover remains intact and our water supply is fortified. Our wild spaces have been preserved and now form part of a Vancouver Island tip-to-tip wildlife and biodiversity corridor. Metchosin’s agricultural lands are in full production providing vegetables, fruit and nuts critical to regional food security.
Our volunteer, community-based organizations have expanded according to the interests of local residents nurturing resilience and independence in the face of serious ongoing climate challenges.
Our village centre hosts a mix of uses serving the needs of the local community including a community health centre providing ready access to a primary health care team for residents of Metchosin.
What’s one “big idea” you have for your community?
The District of Metchosin should set to work immediately with the provincial government to establish a local community health centre with salaried physicians and allied health professionals with the goal of assuring all residents of Metchosin 24/7 access to a family doctor and quality primary care.
Current estimates suggest more than 4,000 residents of the Westshore do not have access to a family doctor. Local governments have an important role to advocate on behalf of their residents for basis access to medical care when none is available.
Metchosin can do even better and champion the establishment of a community health centre to serve its population.
