By Sebastian Kanally, Times Chronicle
Oliver is pushing for minister meetings on topics such as the Airport Land Grant and answers on funding for travelling health care workers.
Council approved requesting four minister meetings at their recent June 23 council meeting for the upcoming 2025 Union of BC Municipalities (UBCM) convention.
The first request is for a meeting with Randene Neill, the minister of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship. The town intends with this meeting to double down on the topic of the Airport Land Grant.
The Oliver Airport operates on a BC government airport crown grant and must adhere to the Airports Land Use Operational Policy of the Ministry of Water, Land and Resource Stewardship.
The town is trying to get the ministry to expand its land use policies so that the town could use the land at the airport for other revenue generating purposes such as dorms, offices, or even housing.
The airport land grant was recently sent to Southern Interior Local Government Association (SILGA). The resolution was endorsed at the 2025 SILGA convention and will be included in the UBCM resolution book for this convention.
The UBCM minister meetings are in person and will be 15 minutes long. Only one meeting can be requested per minister, but you can bring up to three topics per meeting.
Oliver’s Corporate Officer, Rochelle Lougheed, explained that these meetings will be more “high-level”.
The other three meetings the town will be requesting will be around the Hike and Bike trail maintenance, funding for travelling healthcare workers, and housing victim services.
Councillor Aimee Grice explained her desire to request a meeting with Josie Osborne, BC’s Minister of Health.
She explained she wanted to “talk to the Health Minister about securing funding through the Interior Health Association (IHA) for our travelling health care workers with all of the community housing we have been able to secure.
“We had a huge outpouring of offers from the community to have housing for our travelling health care workers and our Corporate Officer has been trying for eight or nine months now to get an answer from IHA on what the process would be or if or how or when we can secure funding for these and has not been able to get that.”
This meeting request, along with the airport land grant, and reassessing the current level of support for victim services showed that council wants to follow up on things they have already been in discussions about.
Mayor Martin Johansen summed this up when he said, “I think we should circle back with victim services as well, they have been working on that for three years, so we might as well continue that conversation.”
The town requested three ministerial meetings in 2024 and all of them were granted. These were on the topics of housing for health care workers, assessing the level of support with victim services, and diversifying tourism in the South Okanagan.
The annual UBCM convention will take place in Victoria, BC from September 22 to September 26.
