Meet Your MLA Candidate: Dan Wood

Centre BC Candidate seeks West Vancouver-Sea to Sky seat

Editor's Note: The Watershed has contacted all the current candidates running in the upcoming Municipal Election to give them the opportunity to answer a few questions. All the candidates were offered the same questions (apart from those which differ to reflect the experience of candidates who have not held office before). Responses have been edited for brevity, style and clarity. 

Dan Wood works for BC Housing as a property agent and founded a Canadian food technology company. Wood moved to West Vancouver in 2023.

1. If you win this seat, what do you see as achievable goals for transit and rail along the corridor? 

Achievable in one term: a funded regional bus service from Líl̓wat Nation to Metro Vancouver, with a Lions Bay stop. The committee has been meeting since 2019, and the memorandum signed with the Province three weeks ago has no money, no routes and no date in it. The Province has put two funding models on the table and the communities asked for a third, a regional fuel levy; what is missing is a decision. CentreBC's platform funds a 15 per cent increase in transit service by 2030, a refundable 15 per cent commuter credit on monthly passes, and a rebuilt intercity bus network from 2029. I would make this corridor the first use of those tools. Passenger rail on the existing line is worth a proper study, but I won't tell Lions Bay it is coming before the buses are. I was the only candidate to outline these key aspects thoroughly during the Pemberton all-candidates debate last week.

2. What commitment would you make toward improving safety along the Sea to Sky, in light of the number of major accidents along that stretch?

Three commitments. A published closure protocol for the highway, with one agency accountable, real-time information and staged detours, so an eight-hour closure like July's never again leaves people without answers. The Ministry's crash data made public by section, so everyone can see why one stretch is fixed before another. And targeted safety work on the known sections between Horseshoe Bay and Squamish, funded through the $15-billion transportation plan in our platform. The regional transit service is part of the answer too.

3. With our village located in the Howe Sound Biosphere, many Lions Bay residents are deeply concerned about environmental issues, including the LNG transfer facility at Woodfibre. Transportation of workers using the Amia X watercraft continues to generate noise and wake damage, and according to information presented at the recent open house, the company's initial flaring estimates were under-estimated. What will you do to prevent and/or mitigate any environmental impact along Howe Sound?

The Province issued the environmental assessment certificate for Woodfibre, and the Province is responsible for enforcing its conditions. I would want the Environmental Assessment Office and the BC Energy Regulator to publish compliance data for the project, including actual flaring against the estimates in the assessment, so that residents can see for themselves rather than hear it at an open house. If the estimates were wrong, the conditions should be revisited, not the estimates. On the water-taxi noise and wake (issue), vessel operations are federal, but the Province can and should require the company to address them as a condition of the provincial certificate. More broadly, our platform doubles the Watershed Security Fund to $200 million for local water and salmon projects, and I would want Átl'ḵa7tsem/Howe Sound's biosphere designation reflected in how the Province regulates everything on the Sound.

4. What is your top priority for West Vancouver-Sea to Sky?

Homes that the people who work in this riding can afford. I have spent ten years on the supply side of housing. Approvals of more than a year, development charges that have outrun what they fund, and financing costs that doubled are why projects don't pencil (yield a profit) and the people you need can't live near the job. Our platform sets a six-month standard for rezonings and eight weeks for permits with one set of rules, cuts development charges in half on rental and below-market homes, and doubles BC Builds on public land. Every line is costed, unlike the other parties.

5. What else would you like to share with voters, specifically in Lions Bay and along the Sea to Sky?

Lions Bay knows better than anywhere in the riding what it means to depend on one road and to live below steep creeks in a changing climate. Our platform restores FireSmart funding to $40 million a year, guaranteed in law and shared by formula with every local government, and creates a $75-million-a-year fund to pay the local share of flood and debris-flow protection, so a village of 1,400 people can draw down federal money instead of losing it. I will also say plainly that CentreBC's platform is fully costed, with the deficit shrinking every year and the budget balanced in 2034. That is not something the other parties can say, and in a province $13 billion in deficit it matters. I and my team are continuing to knock on the doors of Lions Bay residents to engage them in these conversations.

More information on Dan Wood and his campaign can be found HERE.

Candidates for the BC NDP and the Conservative Party of BC did not reply to questions from The Watershed by the deadline.

The Watershed welcomes your thoughts.

Leave your comments below,

or email us at editor@lionsbaywatershed.ca 

Like what you're reading?

For as little as $5/month, you can support local independent journalism

by subscribing to The Watershed HERE.