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Kelly Backs

Director · Area D Roberts Creek · Sunshine Coast Regional District

Neighbourhood:: Roberts Creek
Years in the community:: 16

About

The village blacksmith, former columnist for the community at the Coast Reporter, 6 years as a volunteer firefighter and first term director at the SCRD board. I play drums, ride my bike and raised my son here after losing his mother to cancer.

Policy commitments

Buildings

We all want healthy, affordable, and comfortable homes. These policies will help to lower energy bills, cut pollution, and improve indoor air quality.

✓ Support electrification of new buildings. Supportive

✓ Incentivize electric heat pumps and air filtration systems. Supportive

✓ Incentivize renewable energy, battery storage, and smart-grid technologies in new and existing buildings to improve energy security. Supportive

✓ Scale up energy retrofits for existing homes, businesses, and public buildings. Supportive

✓ Implement a 'right to cool' bylaw to protect tenants during extreme heat events. Supportive

Climate Justice

Our community is already experiencing the harmful impacts of climate change caused by fossil fuel pollution, and taxpayers are on the hook to upgrade and repair critical infrastructure.

✓ Endorse the fossil fuel treaty and commit to phase out fossil fuels. Supportive

✓ Enact a moratorium on AI data centres to protect our energy and water resources. Supportive

✓ Pursue available legal options to recover a fair share of the climate costs facing our community from fossil fuel companies and other big polluters. Supportive

✓ Collaborate with Indigenous peoples as partners in the stewardship of the land, air, and water, and work towards reconciliation. Supportive

Ecosystems

The air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat all rely on healthy ecosystems. Nature can also help protect our community from extreme weather by controlling floods, protecting shorelines, and cooling neighbourhoods. Access to nature improves the health and well-being of residents, and supports biodiversity.

✓ Protect and restore ecosystems, which are essential to human survival, health, and economic well-being. Supportive

✓ Expand and protect tree canopy, parks, and green infrastructure to cool neighbourhoods, clean air, and manage stormwater. Supportive

✓ Prioritize native tree planting in all areas, especially those with low tree cover, higher population densities, and more vulnerable residents. Supportive

✓ Create connected urban greenways for people and wildlife. Supportive

Land Use

We envision vibrant, walkable communities that protect nature and improve food security.

✓ Build affordable homes near jobs, schools, shops, and transit. Supportive

✓ Upgrade critical infrastructure for heat, fire, flood, and storm resilience. Supportive

✓ Increase food security by supporting local agriculture and community gardens. Supportive

Transport

Connecting neighbourhoods through public transit and active transportation networks will cut pollution, improve public health, and make our communities more affordable (and fun!).

✓ Deliver reliable, frequent, affordable local transit. Supportive

✓ Advocate to improve regional public transit between communities. Supportive

✓ Build bike and roll networks that are safe for everyone. Supportive

✓ Expand EV charging infrastructure. Supportive

Watersheds

Climate change, increasing populations, and overconsumption threaten our water security. Healthy watersheds and forests are critical to support clean drinking water, stormwater management, climate resilience, and biodiversity for future generations.

✓ Implement water conservation plans and educate the public to conserve drinking water. Supportive

✓ Protect and restore watersheds as vital municipal infrastructure. Supportive

✓ Develop and implement a water security plan. Supportive

Zero Waste

Zero waste policies reduce pollution, keep waste out of landfills, build resilient local economies, and safeguard public health by shifting society away from a disposable culture toward a sustainable circular economy.

✓ Implement zero waste bylaws to divert organic waste and recyclables from disposal. Supportive

✓ Support the development of a circular economy to eliminate waste and improve resilience. Supportive

✓ Implement bylaws to eliminate waste from new buildings, renovation, and demolition projects and to use existing buildings as efficiently as possible. Supportive

✓ Supportive

~ Neutral

× Opposed

– No response

Climate action

How have you contributed to climate action in your community through advocacy, past work, advisory committees, volunteer work, and/or reducing your personal carbon footprint?

The staff at the SCRD have been very progressive in the policies they have brought to the board for GHG reduction, solid waste diversion and recycling, flood mapping and water conservation, among others. I supported these, as well as free transit for high school students and hope to bring forward more policy around transit connections, watershed protection, an expansion of the Community Forest.
In my next term I will revisit of our Agricultural Plan to better support food security and look into incentives for some home grown agrobusiness.
The implementation of volumetric billing that has just begun has the promise of curtailing waste of our finite supply of treated drinking water through not only the cost of excessive use, but the leak detection that comes along with the meter installations.
I will advocate for a ferry to ferry public bus service to serve both the lower and upper Sunshine Coast, as well as logical route adjustments to avoid what I see as duplicate service on the highway between Gibson's and Sechelt (sometimes a #1 and #90 are traveling in tandem) The frequency of the #90 will help encourage more ridership and I would like to see a circle route serve my community of Roberts Creek.
The draft OCP will be out early in my second term and will need to be studied extensively to make sure it truly aligns with the forward looking vision of the community I call home.

Compiled & presented by

Vote4Tomorrow is an independent voter guide to evaluate where local candidates stand on climate and environmental policies that will affect our future.

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