Conservative Party of BC candidate, Chris Moore [Powell River-Sunshine Coast]

This post was written using a transcript from Tony's October 2024 podcast. It’s been edited for clarity.

CHRIS: Hey, Tony. Good to see you again. It's been a while.

Chris’ history on the Sunshine Coast

TONY: So you've been a long-term resident of the Sunshine Coast, and I was just kind of curious. What's your background here, if you don't mind letting the viewers know?

CHRIS: Yeah, a little off and on. I mean, I got introduced in '79. Actually, I showed up here for a year and a half. I started a small construction company down in the Gumboot Cafe of all places.

TONY: Oh, wow.

CHRIS: But things weren't panning out as well as we hoped, so I moved to Whistler in '81 and took a job there as a building inspector. But after that one year on the coast, I became a weekender, and so I was a weekender pretty much from 1980 until 2004 when I moved down here full-time.

Biggest changes in that time

TONY: Since 1980 or even 2004, you've seen a lot of changes. What's kind of the biggest changes you've seen happen on the coast since you've been here?

CHRIS: Well, that's a loaded question, isn't it? We can certainly say that it's not affordable housing. There's not a great highway. We're still struggling with ferry services, water issues, public health, public safety. But these are the things that are impacting me the most right now. But if I was going to take the top three, I would say affordability in all aspects. Public safety is huge now from what I'm seeing in terms of what's happening on the streets, and public health in terms of people's need or lack thereof. Doctors I suppose is huge right now.

Public safety on the Sunshine Coast

TONY: Starting with the public safety, I think that's something that's kind of concern in a bunch of different communities across the province. But specifically myself, I noticed in Sechelt we've got that tent city thing going on, and it seems like there's a lot more property crime in the last little bit than has been for a long time. Is that something you've noticed and would you have a kind of plan to deal with that when you get elected?

CHRIS: Yeah, public safety is huge. I mean, in Powell River right now, it's the number one issue.

TONY: Oh really?

CHRIS: Yeah, for sure.

TONY: So it's even worse than kind of Sechelt up in Powell River?

CHRIS: Yeah. Well, once again, I mean the coast is struggling, but there's not a place in the province that doesn't. Public safety is huge. It's disconcerting, particularly for the seniors in the community that don't feel safe in terms of just making an evening walk around the park or taking their garbage out in the back lane, reinforcing their locks in their back doors because of people that are prowling around looking for stuff. So we got a crisis on the street with offenders that perpetuate continually crimes. They're probably responsible for 80% of the crimes in the...

TONY: Is that like the revolving door? They get arrested, taken a court and let go?

CHRIS: Yeah, so essentially the ratios are 20% of the guys are doing 80% of the crime, and they're the same people and the police know who they are. But the thing is they're not spending any time in jail. They get out. The bail reforms are easy. They don't even have to post bail. Typically, what I hear from the RCMP is that they're on the streets before the RCMP can even do the paperwork.

CHRIS: So we have a huge issue with the catch and release, and we also need major bail reforms, right? Plus we need more Crown Prosecutors throughout the province to get these people in the places they need to be. Then you got on top of that, you got your mental health issues right now where we have a lot of people, i.e. Rain City, that just really do not have the capacity to look after themselves. And then in tandem with that, you have your heavy addiction problems on top of that, which just further complicates that issue, particularly when you get into sheltering and housing.

TONY: So I guess essentially then just make sure that the repeat offenders aren't being let go and allowed to do it again, and then I guess just invest some more money and resources to be able to help people get offenders or homeless people get the help they need. Is that-

CHRIS: Well, I mean if you look at the repeat offenders right now, the RCMP are short 500 officers in the province. We're 500 officers short. So right now in Sechelt, we don't have any officers attending high school to talk to the students about recruitment programs. We don't have any officers attending to talk to the students about the do's and don'ts as a 16-year-old kind of thing. They do not have the people to do it.

CHRIS: And that ties into one of the central issues on the coast, why the officers aren't here is because of the affordability, particularly the housing. They have more, how should I say, attraction in Powell River because the housing prices, as you know, are just that much lower in Powell River. So there's more of an attraction to be relocated in the areas like that when you're on a salary like the RCMP, which is a good salary, but it's a deterrent in Sechelt of all things. So once again, our affordable or our lack of affordable housing comes to bite us in that case where we don't have enough peace officers.

CHRIS: The mental health issue is a whole other ball of wax. I mean, what's happened is we've been downloaded from the provincial government and they've punted a lot of these people down into the communities and they've left the municipalities with picking up the operational costs on this. As much as they may provide the initial shelter, it's the ongoing operational costs that the municipalities are struggling with right now, not to mention, how should I say, the fallout with the mixture of homelessness and people that are homeless that have heavy addiction.

CHRIS: This is apparent right now, particularly in Powell River where the local population is having a strong reaction with the latest BC housing accommodation and where they want to put it. People are saying that the process is inadequate, the people are not being talked to, do you want it, how is it supposed to operate, meaningful impact stuff.

BC’s housing crisis

TONY: Jumping over a little bit to the shortage of housing, which I mean that you were speaking to, part of the problem with the homeless and the crime and that kind of stuff has been lack of places for them to go. What's your position on improving, I guess, building and providing housing and cut through the red tape that seems to be there now to get that inventory on the market and potentially help with the prices, given that more inventory results in generally lower prices for people?

CHRIS: Well, yeah, it's right on. I mean, this has been the mantra from day one, we don't build enough housing. Pick your poison in terms of what kind of housing. It can be shelter housing, it can be affordable housing, it can be transitional housing, it can be middle-class housing, whatever. We do not build enough housing. This province needs a hundred thousand doors a year right now, and our record in 2022 was 32,000 doors. That's our record.

CHRIS: So even if we had all the money to build all the houses to stabilize the price because right on, if you bring on the supply side, you'll temper the pricing a bit, even if we had all the money. Guess what we don't have, is we don't have any builders. We do not have enough tradespeople. So we advocate huge increases in vocational training, BCIT Red Seal approval. And this needs to be looked at as an option for a lot of the young people in encouragement, particularly from high school where maybe they would consider trade vocation as opposed to going to postgraduate for doctorates and maybe with some of the arts or soft sciences. So it's huge. We need to find a way to do it.

Why throw your hat in the ring?

TONY: So question for you. You were a very successful Realtor when you were focused on that. What made you decide to jump over and take on this role and serve the community in this way?

CHRIS: Well, really, I think the motivation is the same. I mean, the big thing I liked about real estate over the years, I was privileged to operate and work with a lot of different development groups and things. It was always about building community, whether it'd be a stratified 64-door condominium project or a small subdivision or building Whistler or West Sechelt or whatever. It was all about creating community and the people that were going to come and live in the community and partake in the raising of children and looking after elderly people and all those cool things.

CHRIS: And that was always the attraction in terms of real estate. But real estate for me now with all the great years I've had behind it still is only one part of the concerns that we have on the forefront. So politics is the next step for me because we have not just real estate, we have public health, we have public safety, we have first nation issues. We have a million different things coming down the pipeline, environmental issues. How are we going to move forward in this province? What is going to be our position worldwide and how do we relate to the rest of Canada?

CHRIS: So those are really interesting things, but for me, they're still about building our community. What's the Sunshine Coast position going to be?

Sunshine Coast water shortage

TONY: So touching on the environmental side of that, I think that a lot of pushback that we get right now as far as adding inventory housing, that kind of stuff, is our shortage of water or our perceived shortage of water or I guess the Chapman Creek reservoir. How do you see that impacting the amount of inventory that can be brought online, and what do you see as a solution for that?

CHRIS: Well, I think the water issue is more central for the Sechelt area in terms of the refrain that we can't build any more development without water supply. I mean, the good news on that is that there is water, right? It's just a question of what water we're going after. I spent last week with a number of people that had a pretty good dissertation on the aquifers that are pretty much consistent in West Sechelt and in Sechelt areas. So we're seeing a lot of drilling going on right now and trying to qualify exactly what that means and what kind of water is there and how much of it. And there appears to be a lot.

CHRIS: We also have advocacy for things like the Chapman area in terms of the dam. Most people are pretty familiar with that, what's happening up there. And there's some play there, but it also ties into the environmental flow into Chapman Creek, which ties into an environmental issue. So we have to be careful in how we proceed with that. And then you have the big ideas like the Clowhom stuff, the pipeline from that area.

CHRIS: So the water thing is still there. I mean, that's the bad news. But the thing that is always interesting for me is the number of people in this community that seem to have a lot of really interesting ideas. And there's a solution here, but we just don't seem to have pulled together the political will at this point to go after it.

What is an “environmental realist?”

TONY: And is that when you position yourself, you said you're an environmental realist kind of thing. Is that kind of you mean you see environmental problems and try to use your resources to address them as opposed to having kind of an upfront laid out sort of plan? Can you elaborate on that position a little bit?

CHRIS: Well, environmental realism, I suppose, is the fact that we as humans live on the planet. And we all knew from the day we could walk and throw a gum wrapper on the ground that maybe that was the greatest thing. And that every time you got into an automobile at any point in your life, you kind of wonder where the exhaust was going.

CHRIS: So we do have a negative effect on the environment on the planet. There's no way about that. But the fact is you've got eight billion people on the planet going to 10 or 12 billion people that all want the same things that we got. So what's going to be our role and how do we move forward? BC is a great example. BC can have a huge impact in terms of reducing global emissions if we ever created the will to go after it. And that would be through the reduction or the elimination of coal burnt worldwide, which is the biggest polluter there is.

CHRIS: What's the solution? It's LNG, and yet we don't want to talk about that, or some groups don't want to talk about it. But it is a really positive step towards reduction of global emission, which is what we're talking about when I talk environmentally. If you want to play, let's go to the big ring, okay? Let's go to the major leagues and really punch above our weight. What can BC do to impact or reduce emissions? Get people off coal. We can do that.

CHRIS: And the same thing is applicable locally with the water issue. There's no perfect solution, no perfect solution. There's ones that mitigate and reduce the environmental impact, but there is going to be something. But we can take real good concrete steps on how we're going to mitigate that.

CHRIS: The other component on that for me would be forest management stuff. How do we practice forestry? Riparian setbacks. How do we look after the forest yet we still want to have a renewable industry that we can harvest and create good jobs with, and why not produce great wood for the world market? We can do both.

How to improve BC Ferries

TONY: Taking another little jump somewhere else is you've always been a proponent for better ferry service. My personal view this last summer is that they've done a much better job. I found with the ferries being more frequent and that kind of stuff, there was more on time, that kind of thing. But obviously with the population here increasing, there's got to be some stuff done to maintain that and continue to improve. What do you see as the main thing that needs to be done with the ferries?

CHRIS: Well, I think the first thing is that I give accolades and full compliments to the staff on BC ferries. I travel a lot on the ferries, particularly now I'm going to Powell River. I'll tell you, I can't say enough about the people that are working.

TONY: Do you guys get special passes, like always at the front and free meals and everything? Is that...

CHRIS: Yeah, they didn't hear about that.

TONY: Know for realtors they do that, but I thought a politician realtor, they've got to give you the best treatment ever.

CHRIS: No, but it is. They take great pride in the work. And I got to tell you, that ferry I love up the Powell River, Saltery Bay-Earls Cove Ferry. It's a beautiful ferry, right?

TONY: It's a nice ride as well, yeah.

CHRIS: It's a beautiful ride. I mean, I can sit in my car, in like a truck and scenery and I can do some work. I mean, the only negative thing I got to say is no Wi-Fi, right? But anyway, I can still live with that. But BC Ferries, it's important that people understand, take their commands from Minister of Transport and Minister of Finance in terms of frequency of ferries and stuff like that. So we need to let BC Ferries run, but we also need to see increased service, particularly the Langdale-Horseshoe run.

CHRIS: So I think what we're seeing right now, or at least what I'm hearing, is we need the two ferries. There's no question. And that possibly they would be more nimble, quicker, faster, maybe 160, 170 cars. So think of the Earls Cove Ferry is 120 car, another 50 vehicles. We might also be looking at moving transport trucks and stuff like that at night, so we kind of get rid of that stuff during the day and more frequent, like the old days when they had the baked potato and the chili on the potatoes, right? Remember that?

TONY: Yes.

CHRIS: Yeah, so do I, my favorite thing.

TONY: Yeah, it was good, yeah. Bring that back.

CHRIS: And then we need upgrades. So the Earls Cove ramp needs to be a double improvements there. We need improvements at Langdale. We need preferred boarding or reserved boarding from people that are on medical. Particularly if they're going to Vancouver. People don't realize that a lot of people from Powell River have to go to Vancouver because they tie into Coastal Health. They can't go to the island, Comox-Courtenay. So, they got two ferries.

CHRIS: So in tandem with that, we want to see them getting kind of, if they're coming from Earls, pardon me, Saltery Bay to Earls Cove, they get a reserved spot at the Langdale boat. And if you're on medical like you or me or something like that from Gibsons, you get a reservation. So there's some improvements we can do, but we really need to focus on a more seamless continuity and regularity.

Upgrading Highway 101

TONY: So that being the ferries being part of the highway system when we were doing our preamble before we started talking, you were telling me about a trip that you took, which I'll let you tell the story on a plane and had a good look at the coast here. And you were talking about the highway system, obviously in between the ferry. So do you want to elaborate on that a little bit?

CHRIS: Yeah. Well, quickly, it was a nice flight into a plane with John Westad, a good friend of mine took us in for a spin. We did the South Terminal, pardon me, Port Mellon all the way up to Pender Harbour and up to Saltery Bay kind of thing. But it's amazing when you can see our constituency at 1,500 feet, the interconnectivity and the highways and the right of ways, the ferry terminals and the highway and et cetera, et cetera, and things become pretty clear to you. But being able to see that from that height, I mean, we know that we need major upgrades on a highway that was built in the '60s. It's 2024, I believe, and really we have seen nothing.

TONY: What areas are you thinking? What parts that need the most help right of way?

CHRIS: Well, when I look at... I'll tell you what, when I come off that ferry right now in the upper coast, when I come in from Earls Cove and I come into Pender Harbour, it's brutal. If you're driving at night and it's dark, it's not a fun ride. It's twisty, it's turny, it's slippery, it's not cool, and I don't relish it at all. And there's a lot of people that are my senior that are driving that highway, not to mention the transport drivers that hate the highway.

CHRIS: We have not seen anything. Nineteens years, we've had representation by MLA from Powell River in Victoria, and what do we got? Nineteen years, we got Joe Road. That's what we got, zippo, nada, and it's not good. So we need to realign certain components of it. So there are components that come out of Gibsons and stuff like that that we'll be looking at, but we'll bypass certain areas and probably go back down to the highway around Rat Portage and stuff like that and enhance that. But then when we come into, for instance, Davis Bay, we swing up into the right of way and come in for the top there.

CHRIS: It's important that we collaborate with the Sechelt nation on this kind of thing because I mean, as we move the highway into Sechelt and get up to the Halfmoon Bay area, I mean there's the right of way, which looks good, and there's been cost analysis done on this. And then we free up the highway, some of the highway like the Davis Bay area for pedestrian traffic, 30 kilometers an hour walking, more biking, just way more friendly and coming down into the Sechelt area, reclaiming those roads back for pedestrian flow, retail shopping, just that kind of nice quaint seaside feeling instead of massive semis coming through all the time.

TONY: That centralized business district, I think that's always the sign of a healthy and vibrant town is they have that area where the locals go and they can walk and say there aren't semis coming through the middle.

CHRIS: Well, we can do that. I mean, we can do that, but the highway needs to be looked at, right? I mean it truly does. It's not only, it's incredibly dangerous. I mean, we all got stories. We all got stories of unfortunate people that have been injured or if not killed on this highway over the years, and it's not acceptable. And once again, we have not been looked after by the province for a long, long time.

TONY: Haven't been on the radar.

CHRIS: Yeah.

Less red tape for small businesses

TONY: So talking about small business, the Conservative Party kind of says it wants to be a champion of small business by reducing useless and redundant regulations. Can you provide one or two specific examples of redundant regulations that you'd like to see eliminated?

CHRIS: Well, I think everybody talks about red tape, right? I go and talk just like you. If you go down a main retail outlet in Gibsons or Sechelt and you talk to 10 store owners and they're typical retailers, I mean, it's just the overburden of regulatory stuff, whether it'd be the tax reporting processes, whether it can be business licensing. It can be... I mean, there's things that you'll want to have done in terms of fire protection and stuff like that. It can be using the outdoor sidewalks and stuff.

CHRIS: But the continual refrain is they spend so much time trying to conform to the regulations, and reporting about the regulations is time away from their business. And as you know, these people live heart and soul for their businesses. They pour their soul into their businesses. There seems to be an ordinate amount of stuff on the small businesses. The big businesses, they've got the staff. They put all those people to the side, they look after all that kind stuff. But for the sole proprietor or the two people that are running the shop, it's really, really tough. Tax reporting is big. There's a variety of stuff.

CHRIS: I mean, as you know, one of our businesses in my family is the Bricker Cider Company. I mean I can get into some interesting stuff about that whole industry in the province. I mean, you kind of shake your head why. It should be really simple. And it's the same thing with building, right? I'm going to go to building because the solutions aren't complex. In fact, we know the solutions for a lot of this stuff, simplify things for people.

Reversing the provincial Airbnb ban

TONY: One thing I've been talking to about with small businesses and stuff that I work with is the concern that with the elimination of Airbnbs, given that Sechelt doesn't have a hotel, Gibsons doesn't have a hotel. We've got motels but a big part, a big cottage industry was the Airbnb industry. Now Sechelt has essentially eliminated any non-residents or any people that have Airbnbs that don't live on site.

TONY: And then that's had an impact on availability of accommodation. And then as a trickle-down effect, you'd assume that that's hurting local businesses if they're not getting the same amount of tourists through because they've got nowhere to stay. What's a Conservative Party's position, I guess, provincially on Airbnbs? And is there any changes coming on that front?

CHRIS: Yeah, there's no question that we as the Conservative Party don't feel the province has any role in that in terms of restricting a short-term accommodation, that if there is going to be restrictions or by-laws put on short-term accommodation, that should drill down to local government. They're the best people to decide whether it's appropriate or not appropriate.

TONY: So like a complaint driven system, if you have an Airbnbs and people are partying and there's a complaint, then by-laws will get involved but otherwise-

CHRIS: Yeah. I hate that's the way how you govern it. I mean, you know what? If Chris is going to have a short-term accommodation and I've got people cannonballing at two o'clock in the morning and making a lot of noise, they revoke my business license and I'm done. I'm done like dinner. I mean, you cannot practice. Otherwise, you're going to be subjected to fines. We have lots of examples of that worldwide where there's no tolerance.

CHRIS: Going back to your question though, the province shouldn't be involved. It should be the municipality. So in case, the district of Sechelt decided to restrict the short-term accommodation in the absence of the owners living on the property. I don't necessarily agree with that because we certainly know that because of the lack of short-term accommodation in places like Sechelt, I can tell you, you talk to any retailer, any food and beverage operator, anybody related to retail sales of product or service, they're down this year and they attribute that directly to the lack of people coming up for the long weekend.

CHRIS: People don't think it's big, but I'll tell you what, if you've got a small industry and you're waiting for that long weekend and you go from a double-up on your gross income on that three or four-day period, it's huge in terms of the survival. So that baby was thrown out with the bath water in terms of trying to appease people regarding the affordable accessibility for a full-time accommodation.

CHRIS: So it needs to be looked at, but it ultimately is the responsibility of the local government.

Lack of doctors on the Sunshine Coast

TONY: With people moving here, and you talked about this earlier, the kind of healthcare crisis. I know that for myself, I was on a waiting list for about two and a half years to get a family doctor, and fortunately recently just got one. But the majority of people that I know that have moved here within the last 15 years don't have a family doctor. So is there any policies that are going to be brought in by the conservatives to kind of assist with that? Or where are the doctors going to come from that we don't have right now?

CHRIS: Yeah, so you're right on. Number one, there's a million people in the province with no doctors. There's 4,000 in Sechelt alone with no doctors.

TONY: Holy smokes.

CHRIS: So on Saturday, I went to the walk-in clinic. I didn't realize this, shame on me. There's only one walk-in clinic in on the Sunshine Coast. So this is from Langdale all the way to Gibsons, and it's in Sechelt. We got there quarter to eight on Saturday. People were lining up, the doors open at 10 o'clock. People were standing in the rain for two hours, two and a half hours. And I can pick old, young, mom, kid, wheelchair, didn't matter. I would say there's 35, 40 people from Garden Bay, from Gibsons waiting to see a doctor. It's really a big issue.

CHRIS: So the way we want to attack it, we want to encourage people to go into the medical profession, whether they be immigrants that are qualified from other countries, shorten the timeframe that it takes for them to be re-accredited, to go through, become a nurse, become a doctor, become an LP, doesn't really matter. And then at the same time, we want to encourage our post-secondary establishments to encourage more people to go into the sciences so that they can get qualified in medicine and whether at the same disciplines, and we need to open those doors up.

The Sunshine Coast in 2030

TONY: Well, that makes sense to me. So what's your aspirations for the Sunshine Coast? You've been here for a long time. Where do you see the Sunshine Coast in 2030?

CHRIS: Well, the 2030, I mean, that's not that far down the pipeline, is it? I mean, okay, I see better ferries, I see better highways, I see better public safety, and I certainly see way better in terms of the issue regarding doctors. But the Sunshine Coast should take a position in terms of, I would say in the environmental movement. The Sunshine Coast is so positioned well with seawater, freshwater, lakes and rivers and mountaintops and forests, and we've got the whole thing here.

CHRIS: And I think what the world is looking for is how do we co-exist in this kind of a temperate rainforest? How do we look after all the beauty of the orcas and the seals and the fish and the eagles and the forest and the mushroom picking and all the things that go with that, Dakota? How do we do that and yet we still sustain a good, vibrant, prosperous life for us? That's the challenge. But I think personally that this is the opportunity that we lead the way.

TONY: Well, I've really appreciated you coming on the podcast. I've known you for quite a few years now. I've always looked up to you. You've always been very successful and accommodating and helping people. And I think it's a good fit for you to step into this public office, and I wish you the best of luck. Is there anything we didn't talk about that you'd want to talk to the viewers and get across?

Conservative side attractive to millennials

CHRIS: Yeah, I think you pretty much covered it off, Tony. I mean, those are the big stuff in terms of what we're seeing right now. But the thing that's really encouraging for me right now is the number of millennials that I see coming to the conservative side and demystifying what it is to be a conservative. A lot of people have really felt over the years that we're anti this and anti that. We're not, not by any stretch.

CHRIS: I mean, what we are about is we don't want to have government running our lives and dictating to us how we live. Most of us have that common sense on how we want to move forward. And it is respectful and it includes everybody, right? We don't exclude anybody in it. And we want to move forward with our first nation brothers and sisters in terms of the very things that I talked about, how we're going to make the Sunshine Coast in this area world-class.