2026 Saanich Municipal Elections
This year, 31 people are running in the 2026 Saanich municipal election. Four are running for Mayor, and 27 for council. You can find more information about all of the candidates, as well as details about how, when, and where to vote here. Election Day is October 17.
Family Doctors for Saanich worked with Livable CRD and asked each of the candidates a number of questions relating to access to primary care in the District. Livable CRD is a non-partisan voter-education project focused on municipal elections in the Capital Regional District. They are not a political party and do not endorse candidates. Rather, they publish information so residents can make informed choices. You can learn more about Livable CRD and the full survey they circulated to all regional municipal candidates here.
We were able to include the following health-related questions in the Livable CRD's candidate survey:
-
What role should Saanich play in establishing new primary care clinics:
-
(Colwood Model) Municipality is the clinic operator, GPs , NPs & support staff are all municipal employees.
-
(Langford/Sidney/Central Saanich Model) Municipality indirectly supports PCC with Permissive Tax Exemptions, zoning, below market rent, etc. Clinic is operated by a non-profit such as South Island Primary Care Society or Shoreline Medical Society.
-
No role. Medical care is the sole responsibility of Province of BC
-
Decline to answer.
-
-
If you have anything you'd like to add in regards to healthcare in your municipality, feel free to share your thoughts below.
Three of the four mayoral candidates, and 14 of the 27 council candidates responded to the questionnaire. Their replies are summarised below. You can find the full survey results, grading, and read candidate comments in full here.
Everyone confirmed to be running in Saanich in the 2026 municipal election. Each of them is sent the same questionnaire on transit, housing, climate, arts, and the rest of what a council decides, and a candidate's own page shows how each of their answers was graded. To compare them against each other and against the region, use the full scorecard filtered to Saanich. For voting places, advance voting and the official candidate list, see Saanich's own election page.
Here we present the responses to the Livable CRD survey so that you can better understand the positions of the various candidates with respect to increasing access to primary care in the District. This is in no way an endorsement of any candidates and the ordering of candidates has been done alphabetically.
Mayoral Candidates
Zac DeVries
Preferred Model:
Langford/Sidney/Central Saanich Model
Additional Comment:
I will continue to promote incentives and below market medical spaces and will bring forward a zoning bylaw amendment to reduce barriers to home-based family medicine. Doctors who live in Saanich, or who want to locate their practice here, should have more flexibility to provide primary care from their homes where appropriate. Removing unnecessary municipal barriers can help support more family medicine and improve access to care in our community.
Karen Harper
Preferred Model:
Langford/Sidney/Central Saanich Model
Additional Comment:
This is a major concern as over 30% of our residents do not have a health care provider, so we need to find ways to work with other levels of government to solve this asap.
Rishi Sharma
Preferred Model:
Langford/Sidney/Central Saanich Model
Additional Comment:
Access to primary care is one of the most important issues facing families in our community. I don't believe municipal government should simply say health care is someone else's responsibility when there may be practical ways we can help.
Before this campaign, I worked with a local physician and community advocates exploring innovative options for a Saanich medical centre, including a model similar to what Colwood was developing. I met with the previous Mayor to discuss the idea, but unfortunately it didn't move forward.
I would like to restart those conversations with the physicians and advocates I worked with and examine what we can learn from Colwood and other local models.
The Province remains responsible for health care, but municipalities can be partners — through facilities, zoning, partnerships or innovative delivery models. If there is a financially responsible way to help more Saanich residents access a family doctor, I believe it's worth pursuing.
Council Candidates
Colette Baty
Preferred Model:
Langford/Sidney/Central Saanich Model
Additional Comment:
Access to primary healthcare is a serious concern for many people in our community, particularly those who do not have a family doctor or timely access to primary care.
Saanich should use the tools available to it to help create the conditions for accessible community-based primary care, while qualified healthcare organizations deliver the care.
Susan Brice
Preferred Model:
No role.
Additional Comment:
I would absolutely love it if Saanich was in a position to provide healthcare in our community, but at this time it is not affordable without raising taxes on everyone. I fully support a coordinated education program that would not require municipal funds to be diverted from municipal responsibilities
Judy Brownoff
Preferred Model:
No role.
Additional Comment:
Saanich currently looking at whether, with new development, developers could look at health care space. The issue is, it still needs staffing, which is a Provincial responsibility.
Kathleen Burton
Preferred Model:
Langford/Sidney/Central Saanich Model
Additional Comment:
I encourage readers to visit the following website:
https://healthywestshore.ca/
The Saunders Foundation has worked across the province to bring ideas forward to the Province and local government. I worked with them to set up a meeting with the Mayor of Saanich, the Saanich Community Associations Network and the Camosun Community Association at our Annual General Meeting.
Don Cameron
Preferred Model:
No role.
Additional Comment:
Let’s monitor the Colwood model as it enters its second year of operation before discussing what model we want.
Mauricio Curbelo
Preferred Model:
Langford/Sidney/Central Saanich Model
Additional Comment:
I would prefer to have a model where Saanich is not directly involved in running a clinic, but can instead incentivize or support the creation of one that could be operated by another group.
Alli Deelstra
Preferred Model:
Langford/Sidney/Central Saanich Model
Additional Comment:
I believe health and wellness should be accessible to everyone, and accessing primary care should be as straightforward and barrier-free as possible.
Supporting non-profit primary care clinics through tools such as zoning, permitting, permissive tax exemptions, municipal space or below-market rent, rather than creating an entirely new municipally operated healthcare service.
We should also be thinking about both recruitment and retention. The goal should not just be to open more clinic space, but to help create an environment where family doctors, nurse practitioners and other primary-care professionals can remain in our community. This begs the question if short-term rentals restrictions should be reconsidered in areas around hospitals, care homes, clinics, to support doctors, nurse practitioners, and care providers that may want to plant their roots here.
At the end of the day, if there is dedicated funding in the budget to support this, I think the municipality could use the tools it has to start the conversation, work collaboratively with the Province, and focus on removing barriers for residents. Saanich can help make a difference.
Finn Fairbairn
Preferred Model:
Langford/Sidney/Central Saanich Model
Additional Comment:
We need to lower costs of housing to attract more healthcare workers, we can keep building facilities, but we need staff to staff them. I would also meet with First Nations to identify the health care needs of their people living in Saanich, to understand how we can better serve them.
Noah Fruttarol
Preferred Model:
Colwood model
Additional Comment:
I would like Saanich to take a greater ownership with the province in improving access to heathcare for all of us.
Hollis Hodson
Preferred Model:
Langford/Sidney/Central Saanich Model
Additional Comment:
This approach allows Saanich to be part of the solution without taking on a significant new operational and administrative responsibility that properly belongs within the healthcare system.
Garnett Humenick
Preferred Model:
Langford/Sidney/Central Saanich Model
Additional Comment:
We are in a health care crisis. It is not Saanich's fault and we cannot fix it alone.
Licensing is provincial. On July 6 this year the College of Physicians and Surgeons opened direct full licensure to doctors trained in seven countries, after doing the same for US-trained doctors in 2025. So there is movement.
Everyone else goes through Practice Ready Assessment BC. Ninety six seats a year province wide, and the return of service is tied to communities designated underserved, which Saanich is not. So the people already living here with medical degrees they cannot use are not getting a chance. Council can push the province on that.
Things council can control, space a new practice can afford, a municipal land lease to a non-profit operator, housing near the hospitals.
I believe the South Island should be doing this together. Thirteen municipalities each writing a letter isn't working. One region asking for the same thing is a position, and potential movement in a positive direction.
Teale Phelps Bondaroff
Preferred Model:
Langford/Sidney/Central Saanich Model
Additional Comment:
Local governments have a role to play in tackling the primary healthcare shortage. Working with Family Doctors for Saanich and local non-profit health care providers, I have been advocating for ways Saanich can connect more residents with primary care.
This term, I advanced and supported motions to create density bonusing and other incentives to build more clinics; implementing permissive tax exemptions for non-profit clinics; and advocating to the Province to remove barriers to implementing team-based care. I will continue to champion a wide range of strategies and strike a healthcare advisory committee to explore other ways to improve access to primary care in Saanich.
Moving forward, I want to explore the possibility of building a municipal clinic, similar to the Langford model. We already have a great space that will soon be available, the temporary Nellie McClung Library site, which could be converted into a municipal clinic when the books are done with their temporary stay.
Colin Plant
Preferred Model:
Langford/Sidney/Central Saanich Model
Additional Comment:
This is a difficult one for me as I absolutely support the need for more healthcare in Saanich but I am concerned about taking over the responsibility the provincial government has to develop and fund health care services in BC.
So often municipalities express concerns about downloading from the province but in this situation, I feel it is important to find a positive way forward where we improve our municipal frameworks, work with the province at providing services but also advocate for more funding and investment in healthcare.
That being said I am open to innovative approaches and how Saanich can contribute to improving municipal frameworks that would see more doctors and health care being provided in Saanich.
Harjas Popli
Preferred Model:
Langford/Sidney/Central Saanich Model
Additional Comment:
Saanich should be a facilitator and partner, not attempt to replace the provincial healthcare system. Where a credible non-profit primary-care provider is ready to operate a clinic, I would consider municipal land or space, zoning assistance, expedited approvals, permissive tax exemptions and below-market leases where the public benefit is clear.
The objective should be straightforward: use municipal tools to help residents gain access to primary care while ensuring provincial healthcare funding and qualified healthcare organizations remain responsible for delivering the clinical service.
Jordan Weaver
Preferred Model:
Colwood model.
Additional Comment:
At the end of the day, if there is dedicated funding in the budget to support this, I think the municipality could use the tools it has to start the conversation, work collaboratively with the Province, and focus on removing barriers for residents. Saanich can help make a difference.
Find the full survey results and gradings at: Livable CRD.ca