Housing issues dominate inquiries at MLA Rice's office

NDP MLA Jennifer Rice updated
constituents on her work this Spring
with the delivery of a household mailer

An update on the work of North Coast MLA Jennifer Rice arrived in mailboxes around the riding this week, as the MLA provided a home mailer as part of the Friday delivery of the Northern Connector.

The four page mailer provides selected items of note from the efforts of the MLA from the recently concluded Spring Session, making note of her work on such files as the Community Para medicine program, the NDP's work on corporate and union donations and the Great Bear Rainforest Act to name a few.

As well, Ms. Rice's direct work two key issues over the last few months is reviewed, with the MLA providing her thoughts on the issue of elevated lead levels in area schools and environmental concerns related to the recently ceased mining operations on Banks Island.

An interesting review from the MLA is that of the tracking of the top concerns that are raised with the North Coast Constituency Office, which notes that questions or inquiries related to housing dominated the bulk of the inquires to the office.

The housing issues won't  be considered particularly surprising over the course of the last year, as Prince Rupert tries to reconcile the need for affordable housing with the current shortage of such units and increases to rents to those accommodations that are currently available.

Some of our past items of interest on housing in the North Coast can be found here.

The breakdown on inquiries that make up the MLA's office list include:

Housing 
30 percent

Ministry of Social Development and Social Innovation 
25 percent

Health Care
16 percent

BC Hydro
13 percent

Ministry of Children and Family Development
10 percent

Others (Transportation, WCB, BC Ferries, etc)
6 percent

The household mailer also features a collection of photographs of the MLA at various events or functions across the North Coast riding.

You can find a review of her work during the Spring session, as well as other notes on the provincial political scene from our Legislature Archive here.