Good morning,

Last week, the City of Victoria announced it would spend more than $10-million to add more police and bylaw officers, among other measures, to clamp down on the disorder and squalor plaguing its downtown and especially, the neighbourhood around Pandora Ave.

The move follows the release last month of the city’s Community Safety and Wellbeing report, which was two years in the making.

But the city’s decisive moves, seemingly abruptly, last Wednesday signal a marked shift in the way Victoria has been grappling with its homeless, addiction and mental health crises.

Just a year ago, a bicycle paramedic was responding to a call on Pandora Avenue where a homeless man was having a seizure after smoking drugs. The man punched the paramedic in the face when he wasn’t looking and then kicked him in the head when the paramedic tried to crawl away. Police responded and an angry mob of unhoused residents encircled. The assailant was hit with a police taser.

After the confrontation, first responders said they would no longer attend calls in the area without a police escort.

But at the time, service providers in the neighbourhood and even a business owner told The Globe they were uncomfortable with the idea of further police presence as a solution to the problems on Pandora.

A year has made a difference.

The action plan announced last week, which will be funded by reallocated resources from a city emergency fund as well as money previously devoted to other projects, will dedicate resources “to demonstrate that criminals can no longer thrive in Victoria,” according to a city news release.

Mayor Marianne Alto acknowledged that “in some parts of the community,” criminals are “taking advantage of vulnerable folks.”

The plan also directs resources to ensuring vulnerable people are relocated to services outside the downtown and to other areas in the region. The city news release pointedly notes that while Victoria hosts most of the social and health services provided in the region, demand for those services is increased by neighbouring municipalities transporting recently released hospital patients to parks and shelters in Victoria.

Local councillor Stephen Hammond, a lawyer, said the new measures are “a major turnaround from the city.”

“It’s a sign of the complete frustration of Victorians.”

The city has had a reputation for being among Canada’s most progressive. Councillors once considered putting up snowflakes in place of Christmas decorations. Two years ago, council voted against a proposed ban on drug use in libraries and community centres.

But Nancy Macdonald’s deeply reported look in May at the widening toll the addiction and mental health crisis is having on Pandora received national attention.

She noted a Leger poll from earlier this year that found 73 per cent of Victoria respondents think downtown has gotten worse in the past year, far higher than any other Canadian city. Forty-four per cent of respondents said that they or a close friend or family member had been the victim of a crime or dangerous experience within the past six months.

Commercial vacancies in Victoria reached a historical high of 10.7 per cent in February, 2025, up from 6.1 per cent in 2023, according to Colliers, an investment management company.

Councillor Marg Gardiner referred to Nancy’s work in her June newsletter to city residents. Gardiner wrote a column that appeared in local media and placed the blame for Victoria’s public disorder problems squarely on an out-of-control drug crisis that has been enabled by city policies.

“Successive city councils, with fanciful ideas of defunding the police, welcoming the unhoused/drug addicted to come to Victoria and the normalization of illegal drugs on our streets has allowed this to happen.”

She proposes a series of measures, including an end to the city’s safer consumption site and to supportive housing and social service agencies that permit illicit drug use on their premises.

Last weeks’ action plan announcement by Alto indicates a pendulum shift in the city, but how far that shift swings is yet to be determined.

This is the weekly British Columbia newsletter written by B.C. Editor Wendy Cox. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.