Sacha Christensen

Council · View Royal

View Royal 2 yrs

About

Sacha Christensen is a View Royal resident and public relations professional with a background in government and public policy. He is running for Council to bring practical, collaborative leadership to Traffic, Community Health, and Liveable Housing.

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.

✓ 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.

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

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

Land Use

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

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

✓ Advocate to improve regional public transit between communities. 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

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.

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

On a professional level, I have faciliated a number of environmental initiatives as the Strategic Initiative and Community Outreach coordinator for MP Randall Garrison, such as: Drafting Private Member Motion M-53 to create a Crown Corporation dedicated to transitioning oil and gas jobs into the renewable section, advocating to the federal government to fund erosion mitigation at the Esquimalt Lagoon, and facilitating consensus-based protection initiatives for the Southern Resident Killer Whales by drawing on community interest groups, First Nations, and anglers associations within the region.

On anl advocacy level, I sat for two years on the BCNDP's Standing Comittee on the Economy and the Environment, have championed environmental initiatives as a former executive of the Camosun College Student Society, and am actively running to ensure View Royal is prepared for the challenges all municipalities here on the South Island will face from the effects of climate change.

In terms of my personal efforts to reduce my carbon footprint, I've been fortunate enough to find a job where I'm able to walk to work most days, and bought a limited speed electric motorcycle that I use to commute to further away.

Questions for View Royal

What would you do to alleviate the traffic congestion throughout View Royal?

As the bridge between the Westshore and the rest of Greater Victoria, we carry enormous commuter traffic from folks who have been priced out of communities like Victoria and Saanich, while their jobs have stayed there. Every day, tens of thousands of folks have to travel through View Royal to reach their jobs–particularly at CFB Esquimalt, with 7000 active base employees, and an estimated 3000 more from the Submarine contract.

We NEED a council that is able to work with these Westshore municipalities to deliver viable alternative regional transportation options. Traffic congestion is too big an issue for a single solution, and we need a variety of initiatives to address it. This means pursuing options like:

Light Commuter Rail between the Westshore and Victoria, in partnership with the Kosapsum and Songhees Nations through the Reconciliation Corridor Initiative
Improved access & regularized maintenance of the E&N trail for bikes
Advocacy to expand bus routes from the Westshore to key employers in Greater Victoria–which we have already seen CFB Esquimalt pursue of their own volition.

I’m running because we need to have a regional approach to these issues, and a council that is willing to look beyond its strict boundaries and show real leadership for this intrinsically regional issue.

Have you actively participated in any of the Town's surveys, workshops, etc on the OCP, the Urban Forest Strategy, Climate Action Plan, Active Transportation Plan, Strategic Plan? How important are these subjects to you?

As a relative newcomer to View Royal, I haven’t had the full opportunity to participate in these initiatives directly, but have been reading up on them since I decided to be a candidate back in early August. I think the OCP’s 2050 vision for View Royal is an excellent roadmap to draw on, and believe our active transportation plan is one of the most essential components of our Town’s long-term planning. I also believe the Climate Action Plan is one of the best tools our town has for actually enacting localized pricing of carbon emissions—especially as a means to incentivize carbon-neutral new builds.

To what degree would you support the recovery of climate-change-related costs from polluters, to lessen the related burden on View Royal taxpayers?

I absolutely support them, particularly as a means to fortify our infrastructure against climate-change-related costs we know we’ll be facing in the years and decades ahead. One of the things I am most concerned about is having appropriate measures in place to prevent shoreline erosion going forward, and one of the key ways we can do that is by using climate-based DCC’s as a way to support long-term community resilience in the face of climate change.

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.

Home About Why Contact Privacy Policy