It may surprise some among my supporters that I run on a platform of accountability for public officials, since I’m notorious for playing fast and loose with the rules. My idea of public accountability, however, is that elected officials are first and foremost accountable to their constituents, not party leaders, wealthy campaign contributors, nor King Charles III of England. An unaccountable representative is one who evades their constituents—or their constituents’ hard questions.
Hence my hobby of bird-dogging politicians, either to squeeze answers out of them or to remind them that we’re not going away. As we activists like to say: no justice, no peace.
So how accessible are our elected representatives? Read on and find out!
Grace Lore
Oh God. Our MLA Grace Lore is among the most elusive politicians I know. Her public appearances are furtive and securing a meeting with her is nearly impossible.
Choosing one example was tough, but let’s pick the latest petitioner I was involved with: the Victoria Cannabis Buyers Club. As you may already know, the compassion club was recently hit with civil asset forfeiture after being raided by the Community Safety Unit over the lack of a license to sell cannabis edibles with high THC contents; the matter is pending judicial review.
A few weeks later, Grace Lore posted the most tone-deaf clip on Instagram: a praise of the civil asset forfeiture program, which she described as having “Robin Hood/Batman vibes.”
The program takes the proceeds of crime – like money, cars, homes even a Hell’s Angels’ clubhouse (!) and turns them over to fund important community services for crime prevention, Indigenous healing, and gender-based and family violence supports for survivors and their children.
Grace Lore
Never mind that the CSU just robbed millions from a compassion club helping cancer patients—and she is a cancer survivor, dammit.
Club founder Ted Smith wasn’t happy about her statement one bit, and please kindly requested a meeting with her to discuss the issue; she steadfastly refused. It wasn’t a big ask, mind you, from someone who spearheaded the legalization of cannabis with a constitutional challenge which escalated all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada; he was indeed able to secure the support of our Mayor, who wrote a letter to the Attorney General, and even to meet with our police chief, who promised restraint henceforth.
We members of the club ended up picketing in front of her office four Thursdays in a row, which every single time was closed due to staffing issues (yeah, right). All that Ted Smith got out of her was a perfunctory email in response (emphasis added):
Hello Ted and the VCBC Team –
I have been following up with constituents who have reached out on your behalf and shared their support for the Victoria Cannabis Buyers Club.
Although my office and I have not heard from you directly, I did want to connect directly.
I want yourselves and everyone who has reached out to me to know that I hear your concerns, on the failure of the federal Cannabis Act and Cannabis Regulations to support the work for the VCBC), the impact their services have had for many of you and your loved ones, and support for changes to existing laws to continue providing their products and services.
As this is federal legislation, the exemption for medical use lies within Health Canada, and it the province is unable to grant an exemption.
I have been bringing these concerns to my colleague, Minister Krieger, and her team in the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General and will continue to do so, so that they can raise them with their federal counterparts. I will also share these concerns with our federal Member of Parliament, Will Greaves, and encourage you to share your thoughts with him as well.
I do need to note that as a locally elected representative, I am unable to get involved or comment on any matter that is before the courts due to conflict of interest rules. Therefore, I am not privy to or able to share any additional information related to enforcement action through the Community Safety Unit that occurred in April.
And I want to say that I hear how my video on civil forfeiture felt extremely hurtful to some people – and for that I apologize. It was not my intent, and I was not referring to the VCBC, I can recognize how that landed for those impacted. Please know my intent always is to share general information and make politics more accessible to folks.
As a cancer survivor that has struggled with chronic fatigue, nausea and pain – I am so sorry to those who feel disconnected from relief.
I know this doesn’t provide a satisfactory resolution in the short term, but it is essential for courts and independent offices to be able to do their jobs without political pressure.
Again, you have my commitment to continuing to bring concerns raised forward on behalf of our community. I encourage you to reach out to our MP, the federal Minister for Public Safety, and the federal Minister for Justice.
Sincerely,
Grace
It’s funny how our mayor had no qualms writing a letter urging the Attorney General to let the judicial system run its course before deciding on any enforcement actions, but our MLA’s hands are tied because ethics rules. I wonder how Robin Hood and Batman, both vigilantes, would feel about this.
Final score: F
Will Greaves
Our MP Will Greaves may not be as elusive, but Hell, he’s as slippery as an eel.
Of course grievances abound against the Liberals in general, and Greaves in particular. Lately he’s been hounded by many, from Palestine activists to environmental advocates, eager to get answers or commitments out of him.
For starters, on June 10 I went with a small group who meant to ask him one simple question: What will it take for the Liberal government to cut ties with Israel? In particular, we wanted to know what it would take for them to vote in favour of closing the arms embargo loophole which allows prohibited weapons to be funnelled via the United States to Israel; Greaves abstained at such a vote on May 25, which isn’t what we pay our elected representatives for.
Of course, Greaves evaded the question by vaunting the Liberals’ actions pertaining to holding Israel accountable, instead of addressing the obvious actions they refuse to take. Perhaps he thought that would be the end of it, in which case he doesn’t know how persistent we activists can be. So we followed him around, disrupting his Canada Day address at the Legislature…
… then for a whole hour at the Pride Parade!
Poor Will didn’t have anything to post about as a result, so he scrambled together some random pictures after the fact and pretended the whole incident never occurred:
Prior to that, on June 25, I joined environmental activists at a rally in front of MP Will Greaves’ office for 350’s national day of action.
About eighty of us were demanding divestment from anything that has the words ‘oil’, ‘gas’, or ‘pipeline’ in it. A group of four representatives went to meet Greaves in his office to deliver the People’s MOU, listing our demands for a clean energy platform. Our MP granted them an appointment and even met with them, although the group failed to secure any commitments. Nevertheless, good to see an elected representative meeting with constituents, as opposed to closing the office for the day or bunkering in like our MLA Grace Lore does every single time.
That’s by no means the end of it. The Liberals had to cancel a planned fundraising event at the Hotel Grand Pacific at the last minute due to security concerns upon learning of groups of activists planning to demonstrate in front of the venue, so we held a celebration at the Legislature instead.
By the way, Common Horizon has a squad dedicated to tracking Will’s movements ad nauseam. Eventually he’ll run out of excuses—or campaign funds.
UPDATE 2026/08/14: Arms Embargo Now just held a rally at Will’s office yesterday demanding yet again an arms embargo against Israel. We won’t give up!
Final score: D-
