Kate Marsh
reelectkate.weebly.com
katemarsh.ca
facebook.com/katemarsh.ca
twitter.com/Marsh_Kate
Are you associated with or running as part of a slate? If so, which one?
No
Do you live in the municipality where you are running, and if so, for how long? If not, what is your connection to that community?
Yes, I have lived in the Cowichan Valley for 46 years, North Cowichan for 45. My paternal great great grandparents ‘pre-empted’ the land now called Extension BC, near Nanaimo in the latter 1800’s. My family connections are deep and broad here.
What is your occupation, and for how long?
Facilitator - (1995) then Master Facilitator, (2016) teaching how the strategies of the Virtues Project tm could help families, couples, businesses, non profits - basically any human endeavour with their interpersonal growth and communication. I trained facilitators from all over the world. I have facilitated personal/professional development workshops for businesses, First Nations organizations, non-profits and individuals, in person and via teleseminars.
Tell us about your previous elected and/or community experience.
Two term school trustee (Kathy Ross) in then, SD 65 in the late 80’s. Volunteered in school Parent Advisory Council’s through my 4 children’s public school education, sat on the small high schools task force, helped with the Community Schools Program, sat on their board, Hospice volunteer, kindergarten volunteer for several years pre-Covid. Honoured to be a volunteer emotional support person for 4 years for the Understanding the Village workshops, which give a glimpse of colonization’s affects on Indigenous peoples. Elected in 2011 - Councillor in the District of North Cowichan, appointed to the Cowichan Valley Regional District since 2016 and represent the CVRD at the Hul’qu’min’um Treaty main table since 2018.
0We have various simultaneous crisis’s that must be addressed. Housing, polarization, need for livable income, local food security, whatever one believes about the cause of climate change it is upon us. Fires, floods, heat domes, atmospheric rivers appear to be the norm.
We must adapt. North Cowichan recently adopted a New Official Community Plan, needs a Zoning By-Law to match and is working on a plan to protect biodiversity. We need attainable housing that does not add to environmental and higher tax problems. Attainable housing is desperately needed - we can’t keep doing things same as before and expect healthy change in all of the ‘top’ issues below.
What are your top three issues?
The following are all important and my main focus - Foster safe, resilient communities, centre most growth in community cores, support local food security, achieve affordable, attainable housing, encourage livable wage jobs, partner to reduce crime, seek real solutions to the opioid crisis, support the Car 60 program, support a local circular economy that reduces waste, (thereby taxes), keeps money flowing around in our community, protects biodiversity, water and air and adapts to a changing climate. Support a positive work environment for staff and for the elected.
What’s your vision for your community in 25 years?
The Cowichan Valley is one big community with unique flavours, if you will. We have a Regional Growth Strategy. Councils and the CVRD Board have collegial working relationships, with each other, with staff, citizens, the development and business community, the agricultural sector, First Nations and other governments. Ensuring growth in our community that leads to a livable legacy for the next generations, and protects the biodiversity, water and air and the right to life of the natural world, with which we are all interconnected. Little to no waste. We continue to adapt to changes, climate, environmental, economic, and some we may not foresee. We are reaping the many rewards of a municipal forest reserve that utilizes the best and highest use of that treasure.
What’s one “big idea” you have for your community?
This idea was given to me by my friend Reverend Keith Simmonds, and it is, in my opinion, one of the solutions to housing attainability and retainability. To press Senior Governments to provide forgivable loans or grants for part of homeowners costs, in appropriately zoned areas, for suites, carriage housing, tiny homes, on the condition that the rent for those units would be under market costs for a set period of time. It would not only help precariously house people who can only rent, but housing owners, to keep up with the increasing tax and maintenance burdens by adding to their household income. It would provide jobs for the building sector in Cowichan and keep money circulating here where we all live.
