Enough excuses: Governments are failing downtown Victoria’s businesses
John Wilson is the CEO of the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce
I’ve been CEO of the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce for slightly more than one month. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind, but the fact I served on the Chamber’s board for 13 years, including three as Chair, has helped. I know what the Chamber does and what our work means to our members and the region’s business community.
That said, one of my first mandates is to be the unapologetic voice of business and call for urgent action to address the crisis in downtown Victoria.
Every day, business owners unlock their doors to find vandalism, needles, human waste, and sometimes people in medical distress on their doorsteps. Staff are harassed. Customers stay away. The city’s reputation — built over decades as a safe, walkable, welcoming capital — is slipping through our fingers.
This isn’t just unfortunate. It is the result of political failure — failure by local governments, by the Province of British Columbia and by Ottawa. And the business community is left to pay the price.
Let’s start with the City of Victoria. Successive city councils have spent years downplaying public safety concerns as a “perception issue.” It isn’t. Ask the shopkeeper who had their windows smashed for the third time this year, or the restaurant owner who had to hire private security to protect staff closing up at night.
While council debated bike lanes and other nice-to-have amenities, the downtown core was deteriorating. The city’s bylaw officers are stretched thin, and police presence has been inconsistent. Our protective services deserve better. They need the resources and direction to do their jobs effectively.
We also need city officials to acknowledge the struggles businesses face, and enforce bylaws, remove entrenched street disorder and make downtown safe for families.
Provincially, Premier David Eby has talked a lot about housing and public safety, but the pace of change is excruciatingly slow. The Province’s much-touted “complex-care housing” is good in theory — but, in practice, we are still waiting for this strategy to make a dent. Meanwhile, encampments pop up, shelters overflow, and people with untreated mental health and addictions issues cycle through the system with nowhere to go.
B.C.’s Safer Communities Action Plan, announced in 2023, promised better coordination between police, prosecutors and health services. But where are the results? Businesses don’t need more announcements. They need action: more ACT teams on the ground, more treatment beds, and real accountability for repeat offenders running amok downtown.
And what about Ottawa? Federal politicians love to show up in Victoria for photo ops — usually with a backdrop of the Inner Harbour — but when it comes to real investment in affordable housing or fixing the legal system, the response has been weak.
Small businesses don’t have the luxury of waiting years for federal initiatives to become reality. Ottawa must step up with immediate help.
Every level of government has failed to grasp the urgency of the situation. Meanwhile, Victoria’s entrepreneurs are left holding the bag. They are the ones hiring private security. They are the ones cleaning up after break-ins. They are the ones losing customers and staff because people no longer feel safe downtown.
This is not sustainable. A downtown that feels unsafe is a downtown in danger of dying itself. And once a city’s core is hollowed out, recovery takes decades.
The business community is done waiting. We’ve heard enough talking points, press conferences and sympathy statements. What we need is leadership. Real leadership.
Now that I am in this role, I will be making these points directly to City Hall, the B.C. government and Ottawa. Enough is enough. We need to act before we lose the confidence of everyone who still wants to believe in the enormous potential of our capital city.
This column originally appeared in the August edition of the Business Examiner.
