Q&A: Hope's mayor confident hospital can escape ER troubles

Hope Mayor Victor Smith says he is optimistic his community’s emergency room can avoid the fate that has befallen those in other small British Columbia towns over the last year.

In a wide-ranging mid-term interview with The Current, Smith talked about why he thinks Hope’s ER can avoid temporary closures, the future of a large chunk of waterfront land, planning to avoid a future flood, and what he’d like to see in the upcoming provincial election.

This fall, we’re speaking to mayors across the region about the state of their communities, and their goals for the second-half of their terms. Watch for conversations with the region’s other mayors in the coming weeks.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and concision.

‘We learned a lot’: emergency planning

FVC: Two years into your term here, what do you consider some of you and your Council's biggest achievements over those two years?

Smith: We've definitely made good headway in our emergency preparedness, which everybody was concerned with after 2021. But as you know, it takes a while in politics and everything else to get things in line, get it going. It takes time but I think we've done very good—our fire department now has the most volunteers we've ever had in our history. And we started a FireSmart program, reaching out to people about fire and I think also our communications have really improved from before, and that was something—we need to be better communicators.

FVC: Would you say Hope is better prepared for flooding than in 2021?

Smith: We learned a lot from 2021—first time was a mistake, second time it was ‘OK, we didn't do nothing, right?’ So we definitely learned from that. And, yeah, we have a good council. We have good conversations [and are] respectful of each other. We’re not in the news like other ones, shall we say. And we have a good working relationship with our staff.

We also are working towards leaving it for the next council, you know, to make sure … things are in good shape, good momentum, also in our staff to make sure we have people coming up and staff to take over. Because I keep seeing this in other communities where they have that, and somebody leaves all of a sudden, they bring somebody in, and all of a sudden, there's just not the right fit. And it seemed to take like, six months or a year to fix [it] and in that time, that's all costing your community time and money. Because we're smaller, it affects us more; if you're a larger community, it doesn't.

FVC: Back to the emergency preparedness I know you guys had received a report that something like $10 million of improvements were needed to better protect the community from a future large Coquihalla flood. What's the status on trying to secure funding?

Smith: We actually had done some stuff before the flood even happened, but the government actually rejected any funding on it. But we are now working with our First Nations and all the partners in the area, so we meet just about monthly now trying to come to get a report finished to take forward to the government. Unfortunately, you may be doing all the study, but there's no definite thing at the end—you may not get funding in the end, but we're hoping. It's what the government's calling for so we hope it's going to be a good result in the end.

FVC: You need the money to actually build the thing that's going to stop the water from flooding.

Smith: We do. We are actually quite a bit more fortunate than Princeton or Merritt. Because they still have major issues going on there. Like, they're still on water boil advisory in Princeton they're hoping to get off next year. That's a long time to be on water-boil right?” [Editor: the most recent news suggests Princeton’s boil water advisory could end this fall.]

FVC: But those places also show the potential for what could happen in Hope if things go wrong with a certain storm, right?

Smith: Yeah. So we are actually close—down to the hospital on Old Princeton Way—of getting a dike in there. We know about the hydraulics and drawings that we've done, that it would be a major force, and we've got it recognized now, so that'll move forward. And that's probably our biggest concern right there, because that would be a devastating thing to our business community on the Old Princeton Way. So that's moving forward.

Housing and health care

FVC: And what's on the to do list for the next couple years?

Smith: Well, we have housing, in particular going on, for some apartments and townhouses. But also you gotta realize—the government talks about all the building, but you notice that all the towns—we have quite a few houses on the market for sale. People can't afford them. That's a concern. You can build them, but if they can't afford them but apartments and everything. So you want to make sure it's working.

Fifty per cent of our population is 50 years and older in Hope, you know. We need young families—young families make a long-term plan for your community to move forward. All the events and everything we do—other than Brigade Days but we have some pretty major [attractions]—are all free so people can come with their family, have a healthy experience, interact, visit each other. We're meant to talk to each other.

On the health care side, we've just opened up 10 more beds at our Fraser Lodge for people. Because if you stay in your town, you live longer. If you ship them off another where your family doesn't visit, they want to die. Like how sad is that? Also, we [added] a new roof to the lodge and we're upgrading the elevator. So we're definitely doing stuff at our hospital—we are a major hub here—to make sure we're better prepared for what's coming.

Also the economy, it’s tanking right now. There's no doubt about it. I don't care what they tell you, right? It is. There's not as much money left. It's harder. The cost of living right now is hurting everybody. And if you're a pensioner, it's really hurting you, because there's no more money coming and that means you just give up something…

FVC: And Hope, of course, is a place where incomes are lower. Also people from Abbotsford can maybe save some money on housing sometimes by moving to Chilliwack, and people from Chilliwack can save some money by moving to Hope. But it's harder to find any housing savings in a place like Hope.

Smith: Well, we have lots of housing, right? But then you also got to realize that it's a good attraction for us, the fact that we have doctors and a hospital, which is a big thing for a small community. The fact is, if they wish to go down [the valley], then they need to be able to drive. Transportation: we have the bus line going to Agassiz then connects to Chilliwack, but it takes a while to get there.

Transit and community amenities

FVC: I was going to ask you about that because I noticed Hope does have that bus connection with Agassiz, but it doesn't have a direct one with Chilliwack, [and] there's a pretty strong connection between Chilliwack and Hope. Have there been discussions about creating and funding a route between those two places, or extending the Fraser Valley Express?

Smith: Council has brought it forward and had discussions on it. And would like to do a feasibility [study] to see if that is possible in the future. Because, like you said, there's more people who would go direct to Chilliwack, than Agassiz then Chilliwack. We have care transit here that does amazing things for people, for medical appointments and stuff like that. It’s an absolutely fabulous thing to make sure people get there. Because when you're going down, you’ve got somebody to talk to; when you go see a doctor down there, a specialist or a treatment—somebody to talk to. They take you right to the door, and they wait, whereas a bus doesn't do that. So care transit has been huge for our community and a lot of great volunteers make that happen. We are amazingly rich in volunteers in Hope. We are just so lucky.

FVC: You mentioned the importance of bringing families to town and making it attractive for families. Well,, one part of that sometimes are the community and cultural institutions. I want to ask you about the Hope Cinema, because it's obviously one of those in the community, and its future seems to have been in doubt for a couple of years. Now, it's up for sale for just under $1 million. Would the district consider buying it?

Smith: No, we're not into the private enterprise. You’re competing against private enterprise. And those two guys, those two families that ran the thing—this weekend's their last weekend—and it wasn't for lack of trying, trust me, they tried everything. They did a first class job, worked their hearts out and everything. But they were not making any money. So after that…, The time they've been there, It's pretty unfortunate. I just sent a thing out there thanking them, because nobody tried harder than they did trying to make that place go right.

FVC: But that would normally be the point at which a municipality would consider subsidizing a community cultural institution. You see this in other communities—maybe not with movie theaters, but with theaters for the performing arts and other facilities that can't make it work as a business, but are seen as a community asset. Is it just the sense that the movie theater is a movie theater, and maybe somebody else would come along, or is it you guys haven't talked about it?

Smith: Hopefully something else comes along and buys it. They tried wrestling, they tried music, they had Tashme the other day. They have tried everything, and they were just looking to break even. So it wasn't going. Nobody had more heart and soul in that place than those two families. And we're also working on Station House, try to get that up and running, and that's a big project.

FVC: There's only so much money to go around, I guess?

Smith: Yeah, then also, we're working right now with council and everything else, we are doing projects besides council stuff . We're working on trying to get four outdoor pickleball courts next year, we’re working on the spray park, we're working on downtown revitalization. So we have a lot going on.

FVC: A million dollars isn't much for a place like Abbotsford or Chilliwack—they spend that on community cultural institutions all the time—but Hope is obviously much smaller and has a smaller tax base.

Smith: We are trying to also make sure we manage our money because our tax base is small and affects very much when you do anything. We just did a major upgrade at the Rec Center aids opening next week. We went from ammonia to CO2. It's going to reduce the cost of running the pool [by] 30%—a pretty major upgrade, and the regional district’s taking that part over, instead of the previous contract we had. This will be better for everybody, having one owner making a decision on stuff.

FVC: On a kind of a similar vein, there's also, I noticed, a large chunk of land along [Kawkawa] Lake there and adjacent to Thacker Regional Park up for sale that seems to be in a place that you could expand a park if you wanted to. [The property, at 21392 Union Bar Road, is no longer listed for sale. It had been listed for $6.5 million.] I'm assuming, from what you've said, that the district isn't considering buying that. But do you know if there's any plans by either the FVRD or UBC, which has some land up there, to consider expanding that park?

Smith: There's actually a couple people looking at it, at that land.

FVC: You can't say much more than that?

Smith: I'm just being honest with you, and what they would do would tie in with the park there. Have you been up to Thacker’s marsh there?

FVC: I haven’t.

Smith: It's gorgeous, what a lovely place to go for a walk. It is, and it's good for everything else. We work with our Hope Mountain Center. They do a grade four and five [program] about learning about the marsh. Every year they go up there, and they know more about the marsh than [I do] and I'm born here. But that's what you want, you want those people with the extra knowledge and how to respect it and everything else. That's put on, actually, by Blue Trident/Nestle Waters, right? So we're trying to [do] stuff like that in education. We’ve got a major bicycle trail off-road being built right now—it should be finished in October—up on Mount Hope. That should be pretty exciting.

So we're trying to work more, you know, on a healthier lifestyle, living and stuff. I mean, look where we live. We live in a gorgeous place, but not everybody knows.

Tourism

FVC: I was going to ask you about that. I'm through Hope all the time as one of the million passersby who goes in and stops and maybe goes to a restaurant here and there. But [tourism] plays a huge role in Hope's economy. But it feels like it's not seen as a destination in a way that it has the potential to be. Just driving around, it's got a very cute downtown, it's got Hope Mountain within walking distance of everything. What more needs to be done to attract more destination visitors to Hope?”

Smith: The off-road bike [trail] is going to be a big thing for us, but also we're trying to do the spray park and pickleball and stuff like that to make it [more attractive] because it's free—so they can get a chance to come here. Because every place else you go, you pay to park, you pay to get in—like man, there's not much money. So if we can make an affordable place to enjoy and come and make a better life for your family. You take a look at the Coquihalla campground, right across the road, we got a bike park. Those kids, I'll tell you, they ride around there, they come back, they sleep like you can't believe and they remember that weekend they went to that park, and mom and dad go [Smith imitates a parent talking under their breath], ‘You know what? This was a pretty inexpensive trip, and we looked like rock stars to our kids.’

FVC: I have a friend who's talked about, and they go to the campground there for just that reason.

Smith: Yeah, it’s right across the road. So you can be there at a campsite right across the road. The kids are right there, and they go down to the creek. The kids are in the creek. They're looking at rocks, they're doing this in the water, it’s not very high so the current’s not bad… And of course, now Othello Tunnels just opened up—just the first two, the rest will be next year. That was it. That's about a $5 million fix-it from the flood. But that's a big attraction. So [we have] a lot of good things to make a healthy lifestyle and not break the bank.

FVC: You mentioned the hospital earlier. A lot of small towns are having real issues with their hospitals and their ERs. How are you feeling about the service level at the hospital there, and are you worried that it might have some of the issues other places have encountered?

Smith: I think we're in actually a very good place in that Fraser Health's been really good to work with, like [CEO] Dr. Victoria Lee and and they have good management in place. So we're doing good things. We are, I think, third in BC for the number of doctors for rural BC, which is pretty good, because so many are having such a time in the interior. Like, holy man, they're closed for a week.

FVC: You feel it's in a place that's pretty stable, too, with the people who are there?

Smith: It is. We have solid people. We have people [who] are staying here longer. They like working here, even if you live in Chilliwack, driving to Hope is sure a lot better than driving to Abbotsford or Langley.

Hope’s election wishlist

FVC: I was gonna ask you about the provincial election. What do you hope to see from this year's election in terms of policies or other issues that might affect Hope?

Smith: We're always open, and we work with whoever's in power and will work with their agenda. If they're working trying to sell you on lemons, you don't buy oranges, because it probably won't work. And that's the trouble. I see some towns fighting with them. But take a look what it is, and usually, if you work with them, they usually work back with you. You know it's give and take. I'll give you an example of the thing here. So when the flood was here, we're down at the airport and we're getting stuff in, the weather cleared. We sent the planes that had food to Princeton and Boston Bar because the weather was good; they could get through and the roads were blocked. That's what you do. You share with your neighbors. Same with the politics. I realize everybody's got a piece of this, but if we can just get a piece and share with the other ones, we're okay with it. We don't think everything's coming to us.

FVC: Is there one thing in particular, though, that you do hope comes to you, or that the parties make a priority?

Smith: Well, we have two things in Hope that we would really like to see happen. The first is that we need funding for infrastructure, because if you have the infrastructure and everything's in place, it's way easier to build.

FVC: What type of infrastructure?

Smith: Like your water, your sewer and all this stuff. And, you know, do the upgrades and be ahead of the arc. Because everybody's playing catch up, especially when they want people to build new housing, [but] I’m going ‘the infrastructure the doesn't support it.’ So that's important there. Another program working on is with FISH, which is building homes for challenged children and the seniors.

FVC: Right, FISH, the housing organization out there.” [FISH is the Fraser Inclusive and Supportive Housing Society].

Smith: It's a great mix with people. And they’ve got the land: that's a great thing about it. You need to do a plan when you're building something to see that it's sustainable down the road, that’s the trick. [Anything can work] as long as you pour money into it. The thing is, how do we make it sustainable so people can afford to live there?”

FISH continues to raise money to build a supportive housing facility in Hope. It has raised more than $1 million but needs much more funding.