Esquimalt-Metchosin

Esquimalt-Metchosin spans four municipalities on the western edge of Greater Victoria: Esquimalt, home to CFB Esquimalt and the Pacific Fleet's naval dockyard where roughly 4,000 military personnel and 2,000 civilians work; Metchosin, a small rural community prizing its natural and semi-agricultural character; and the growing suburban centres of Colwood and View Royal, which have absorbed much of the West Shore's residential development pressure. The riding blends a significant military community with commuter suburbs and rural land, and the daily traffic congestion between the West Shore and downtown Victoria — known locally as the Colwood Crawl — has been a perennial political issue. The NDP held the seat heading into the 2020 snap election after winning it in 2017, and the contest shaped up as a two-way race between the NDP and the Greens, with the BC Liberals mounting a more modest effort.

Candidates

Mitzi Dean (BC NDP) — Dean was the incumbent MLA, first elected in 2017, and served as parliamentary secretary for gender equity. Born in Sevenoaks, England, she had worked in fundraising and community-based social services across Great Britain for over 20 years before moving to British Columbia in 2005. Prior to entering politics, she was executive director of the Pacific Centre Family Services Association in Colwood.

Andy MacKinnon (BC Green Party) — MacKinnon was a Metchosin councillor, professional forester, and professional biologist. He held a master's degree in botany from the University of British Columbia and was co-author of six best-selling books about plants of western North America. He was an adjunct professor at Simon Fraser University, which had also awarded him an honorary Doctor of Science degree in 2013. He had run for the Greens in the same riding in 2017.

RJ Senko (BC Liberal Party) — Senko did not receive the BC Liberal nomination until several days into the campaign, resulting in a compressed campaign timeline. He had a background as a government relations consultant and public affairs professional.

Independent candidate Desta McPherson also ran but received minimal support.

Local Issues

Housing affordability was the most pressing concern across the riding, with particular urgency around CFB Esquimalt. The base maintained only about 710 military housing units — far fewer than needed for the roughly 4,000 military personnel and 2,000 civilians who worked there. The majority of Canadian Armed Forces members had to find accommodation on the private market, and Greater Victoria's rental vacancy rates were among the lowest in the country heading into 2020. Military families posted to the base found themselves competing for scarce rentals against a rapidly growing civilian population, and some were forced to look as far as communities over the Malahat — a commute of an hour or more — to find housing they could afford. The National Defence department's limited housing stock and the provincial government's inability to cool the broader rental market converged to make affordability a cross-jurisdictional challenge that no single candidate could easily address.

The West Shore's rapid residential development reshaped the riding during the NDP's term. Colwood's Royal Bay project — a multi-phase development on a former gravel pit brownfield site — was expected to add as many as 2,300 homes and house up to 7,000 people over 15 to 20 years. In 2020, the City of Colwood approved plans for the adjacent Latoria South area, including 2,100 additional homes and an 80,000-square-foot retail village. The scale of growth brought demands for schools, parks, and community services that municipal budgets could not easily absorb. Colwood's population was climbing steadily, while Metchosin — which prized its rural, semi-agricultural character — watched warily as the development wave lapped at its borders. The contrast between the two communities' visions for the riding's future animated debates about growth management, density, and the preservation of green space.

Transportation between the West Shore communities and downtown Victoria remained a chronic frustration. Commuters from Colwood, View Royal, and Metchosin spent long periods stuck in traffic on the Trans-Canada Highway — a daily ordeal so well-known it had earned the colloquial name the Colwood Crawl. The absence of rapid transit connections left the area underserved relative to its population growth. The Vancouver Island Transportation Corridor Coalition, a non-profit society formed in July 2020, began advocating for the modernization of the former E&N railway corridor as the backbone of a future commuter rail and active transportation network connecting the West Shore to the capital. The Capital Regional District continued to extend the E&N Rail Trail — a paved cycling and walking path — through View Royal and Esquimalt, but the broader question of whether rail service would ever return to the corridor remained unanswered.

The opioid crisis continued to take a devastating toll across Greater Victoria during the NDP's term. Overdose deaths climbed in 2020, compounded by the pandemic's disruption of support networks, treatment programs, and drop-in services. Dean's background as the former executive director of a family services organization positioned her to speak to the issue, but constituents across the riding's four municipalities expressed frustration at the scale of the emergency and the perceived inadequacy of provincial resources directed toward harm reduction, treatment beds, and mental health support in the West Shore.