The Canadian flag is flying at half-mast at Victoria City Hall in honour of longtime Victoria Coun. Bea Holland, who has died at the age of 87.
Daughter Ann Watley said the family was pleased by the gesture. “She was a really big part of this city,” Watley said. “And she really did a lot for her community.
“We’ve watched our mom give everything to her community.”
Alan Lowe, who was Victoria’s mayor for nine years while the Saskatchewan-born Holland was at the council table, said he was fortunate to have been able to ring in 2020 with her while she was at Royal Jubilee Hospital after breaking a hip.
“I brought in a 2020 hat she could wear and we had a good time.”
From there, Holland went to the extended-care unit at Saanich Peninsula Hospital, which Watley called “a gift” for the way her mother was treated.
Lowe said he and Holland communicated often after she left municipal politics, after being on council from 1997-2006.
“Bea and I kept very close — we would go out for dinners maybe one a month,” Lowe said. “What she was was a very gentle soul, just really nice to people and really caring.”
Those traits showed during her time as a councillor, he said.
“She was a hard worker and always cared about people and projects,” Lowe said. “She was very, very supportive of staff and always thanked them for the work that they did.
“She was generally a very positive person that always saw the good in people.”
Chris Coleman also served on Victoria council with Holland, and said he learned a lot as a rookie while seated between her and another veteran, Helen Hughes.
A lot of nudges from the pair kept him on the right path, said Coleman, adding he was expertly mentored “to be quiet and listen.”
Holland was a wonderful person with “a heart of gold,” Coleman said.
She also served as a city councillor in Port Alberni for two terms, filling other roles such as president of the Association of Vancouver Island Coastal Communities.
“She was on boards, she and my father were with everything from Rotary to Kinettes to Kinsmen,” Watley said. “We were born and raised into a place where that was just what was done.”
Holland told the Times Colonist in 1991 that she had lived in Port Alberni “for a million years.” She said that one of her grandfathers was the first dairy farmer in the region and her husband ran a small business.
Before she got into municipal politics there, she started the area’s first home-support agency, then went on to lead the B.C. Home Care Association for a number of years.
In 1990, she was on B.C.’s seniors’ task force, which toured the province seeking opinions from the public — resulting in a well-received report called Towards a Better Age.
Holland’s diversity of roles continued in Victoria, where she moved in 1983.
“She was the executive director of Silver Threads for many years, and she just always had that crisp, political mind that also captured an incredibly compassionate personality,” Coleman said. “She cared and worried about people.”
During her time in the capital region, she worked with the Victoria Hospitals Foundation, the Canadian Community Care Association, Meals on Wheels, the B.C. Cancer Foundation and the Fernwood Home Support Association. For many years, she was a member of St. John the Divine Anglican Church, where she was a rector’s warden.
Watley said making things better for seniors was especially important to her mother, who had two other children, Peter Wilson and Judy Penno, as well as six grandchildren and a great-granddaughter.
Watley said she and her brother were with her mother when she died, and her sister had just visited.
