We’re Richmondites who love Richmond - RCA announces its plan to bring the city into its new era

We’re Richmondites who love Richmond, and we have a vision to bring this city into a new era.

Our platform features five key elements, all centred around our love for this city.

We’re Richmondites who love affordable homes

We need to work with partners ranging from the province to developers and non-profits to get homes built in our city. We want Richmondites to be able to stay in their hometown, start their families, and age in the community they love, with continued access to housing and essential services. Above all, we want neighbourhoods to feel like communities again.

We’re Richmondites who love transit

The Canada Line has been a great addition to transportation. People can travel north and south in Richmond quickly and reliably. However, the same can’t be said for east-west travel.

The Richmond Citizens’ Association is committed to exploring the best options for rapid transit to better connect our city. When buses are reliable, quick and serve a wide area, we can dramatically reduce traffic and make it easier for residents to get around without spending big bucks at the gas station.

We’re Richmondites who love safe communities

Safety is top of mind for everyone. We want to create a community policing program where Richmondites who want to help make the city safer can work with RCMP and bylaws to safely patrol different areas and know when to call for assistance. Having more eyes supporting our law enforcement teams is essential to stopping crime.

But safety means so much more than just crime prevention. We need to protect against climate emergencies so seniors and vulnerable people don’t freeze in winter or become ill from wildfire smoke in summer. We need to ensure our fire department is well-equipped to serve the entire city and work with service providers to help unhoused people get the care and support they need, so they aren’t forced to sleep on the streets or in their cars.

We’re Richmondites who love healthy communities

We believe everyone should be able to access healthcare in this city, and we’ll make it happen by any means necessary.

An RCA-led council will explore the creation of city-led clinics so family doctors can focus on practicing medicine rather than managing a business. We’ll work with Vancouver Coastal Health to ensure urgent and primary care options are available across the city, not just in isolated areas, and we’ll make sure mental health services, especially for youth, have more room to grow so no one is turned away when they need help.

Healthy communities are also active communities. We want kids to get into swim lessons without parents spending hours refreshing the city’s flawed website. We want to help youth sports sign up as many players as possible so our next generation can be active without high costs to parents.

We’re Richmondites who love hearing from our neighbours

At the end of the day, the purpose of government is to represent people. We’ve knocked on thousands of doors so far this campaign, and every conversation where someone shares what they want to see from the city is invaluable.

We’ll establish more committees to focus on housing affordability, poverty reduction and mental health, because we need input from both experts and Richmondites as we plan how to tackle these challenges.

We’ll have bi-annual meetings in communities that are often overlooked, like Burkeville and Hamilton, so residents there have an opportunity to speak directly with their councillors. 

We need to strengthen our small businesses’ ability to contribute to the local economy by making licensing easier and creating spaces for innovation and start-up projects, giving entrepreneurs the room and equipment to help grow Richmond’s economy.