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Date of Issue: Friday, Sept. 26, 2025
West Kelowna Mayor and Council attended the 2025 Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) Conference in Victoria from September 22 to 26, where they met with Ministers and senior provincial staff. Throughout the week, Council strongly advocated for progress on key Council priorities and investment from the Province to help meet the needs of West Kelowna’s growing community.
Council’s priorities focused on advancing affordable and seniors housing projects, improving mental health services on the Westside, securing long-term wildfire mitigation funding, accelerating key Highway 97 infrastructure improvements, ensuring fair provincial funding for policing, and power redundancy for the Westside.
“UBCM provides an important opportunity for our community’s voice to be heard at the provincial level,” said West Kelowna Mayor Gord Milsom. “We are seeing growth and increasing demands in West Kelowna, and we used this week to push for real, tangible commitments from the Province to help us keep pace.”
The top priority for Mayor and Council at UBCM this year was to secure the Province’s commitment to provide a clear financial and operational plan for policing services and for the Province to fund an additional seven to eight provincial officers to address the substantial officer shortfall. Mayor and staff attended a productive meeting with the RCMP and provincial staff and received a commitment to work closely together to address the City’s concerns. However, a meeting with Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General Nina Krieger did not result in a commitment from the Province to fund their fair share of officers on the Westside.
In a meeting with Minister of Housing and Municipal Affairs Christine Boyle, Mayor and Council requested the Province streamline approvals for three affordable housing projects on City-owned property, aligning with the Province’s housing mandate and the City's efforts to increase affordable housing options. These projects require provincial action before they can move forward, and Council is confident a solution will be found quickly.
Mayor and Council met with Parliamentary Secretary for Mental Health and Addictions Amna Shah to request additional mental health and substance use services on the Westside, encompassing Westbank First Nation, Peachland, West Kelowna, and surrounding rural communities. The Ministry committed to reviewing mental health services on the Westside and working on a plan to address any gaps in services.
In a meeting with Minister of Transportation and Transit Mike Farnworth, Mayor and Council discussed the progress being made on the design for safety improvements to Boucherie and Westlake Road interchanges on Highway 97. The Minister committed to a much-needed updated safety review of the intersection of Highway 97 and Daimler Drive and the Minister committed to a feasibility review and updated costing to expand the capacity of the Bennett Bridge.
Mayor and Council also met with Minister of Forests Ravi Parmar to stress the need for stronger, long-term investments in wildfire mitigation and FireSmart initiatives. These improvements would allow the City to respond more efficiently to wildfire threats and enhance community resilience. Discussions centred around West Kelowna being a leader in FireSmart education and a preference to fund wildfire mitigation to prevent interface fires from actually happening.
In addition to the Minister meetings, staff met with BC Housing to discuss partnership on the affordable housing projects that are underway, and the Regional District of Central Okanagan and the District of Peachland joined the City of West Kelowna in a meeting with BC Hydro to discuss the redundant power supply needs for the Westside.
The two resolutions the City submitted for consideration were supported by the other municipalities in British Columbia:
- Guaranteed FireSmart funding, and
- Implementation funding for provincially mandated accessibility modernization
“We had productive discussions with Ministers and are optimistic that the Province understands the urgency of West Kelowna’s needs,” said Mayor Milsom. “We’re doing our part locally, but now we need stronger partnerships and timely investments from the Province to support our growing city.”
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