The One Foot Off Center podcast panel broke down what ForChange Kelowna should be looking for as it prepares to vet this fall's council candidates.

Does it matter what a candidate did before city council? With roughly 80% of council votes tied to housing, how many names on this year's ballot really understand housing if pressed on the spot?

It's known that councils will spend an hour arguing over a $500 purchase, yet wave through an $84 million project without a second look. Is that a failure of oversight, or just what happens when a number gets too large to feel real anymore? What actually makes someone fit to lead. How do you measure character in a person you've only sat across from once?

Listen for more on how ForChange differs from a political slate, and why the group insists it will never tell anyone how to vote.

Host:

Rick Maddison

Regular Panel:

Ron Mattiussi — Former City Manager, City of Kelowna 


Cassidy deVeer — Interim Executive Officer, Canadian Home Builders' Association Central Okanagan

Scott Lanigan — Lead Pastor, Trinity Church Kelowna

Links:

ForChange Kelowna: https://forchangekelowna.com/

BC is Burning: https://bcisburning.ca/

Thanks to our sponsors: Soil to Sod Landscaping, Key West Mechanical, and Jennifer Maddison, RE/MAX Realtor.
Soil to Sod Landscaping: https://soiltosod.ca/

Key West Mechanical: https://keywestmechanical.ca/

Jennifer Maddison, RE/MAX: https://www.jennifermaddison.ca/


One Foot Off Center is a Kelowna-based panel show where local leaders debate the issues shaping our city. New episodes weekly.

🔔 Subscribe for more Kelowna conversations that don't play it safe.

Should seniors lose the right to vote on decisions they won't be around to live with? Host Rick Maddison is joined by former Kelowna City Manager Ron Mattiussi and CHBA Central Okanagan's Cassidy deVeer to debate age-restricted voting, municipal debt, and why Kelowna keeps falling behind Kamloops on rec facilities. Ron calls the idea "bullshit" and explains why. Cassidy pushes back on who Kelowna's low property taxes actually protect. It gets heated — that's the point.

One Foot Off Center's regular panel includes Ron Mattiussi, Cassidy deVeer, and Scott Lanigan, Lead Pastor of Trinity Church Kelowna.

A boardwalk that's supposed to be public is closed — and it's headed to court.

Rick Maddison talks with Cassidy DeVeer (Canadian Home Builders Association) and former Kelowna CAO Ron Mattiussi about the El Dorado dispute: who actually has rights to the lakeshore, how the city has handled fights like this before, and where private property ends

and public access begins.

🎙 Hosted by Rick Maddison 🎧 Guests: Cassidy DeVeer, Ron Mattiussi, Scott Lanigan📍Kelowna, BC

Kelowna's rental vacancy rate now sits at 6.4%, among the highest in Canada.

With provincial and municipal government policy encouraging development of rentals, some see the rising vacancy rate as a sign that housing pressures are easing. At the same time, vacancies at that level traditionally discourage developers from entering a market.

Kelowna's vacancy was previously as low as 0.6%, which saw rents soar.

"There’s a downside to 6.4 per cent," said deVeer.

"What I find so interesting is that nobody's put together the high rate (8.6%) of unemployment right now. It's wonderful vacancies are high... but unemployment is also high. So what does that mean? It means people have left our city to go find work elsewhere."

Local construction companies have felt the impact directly, with one firm shrinking from 18 employees to just two, and award-winning renovators now working solo jobs just to stay afloat, according to deVeer.

"I don't really call that lucky for a lot of people."

Part of the issue, according to Mattiussi, is that the market is currently "off equilibrium."

"I think getting up [to this rate] was a perfect storm... nobody builds multifamily. You make the commitment many years before you pour the concrete," Mattiussi says. "I think on one hand, we're overbuilt in the condo market... The best thing it does is it brings rents down... but is that a healthy way to bring rents down? No, I don't think so."

The discussion also highlighted the skyrocketing cost of delivery as a major barrier to new housing. deVeer points to what she calls B.C.’s aggressive building codes, which exceed national standards, as a key driver of costs.

"Our homes are highly over-engineered," says deVeer. "If we're going to change anything, we have to address the cost to build because labour rates aren't going down... We tax housing like we do alcohol and cigarettes, which is crazy."

While development cost charges (DCCs) remained a contentious topic, Mattiussi argued they are necessary to prevent taxpayers from footing the bill for new growth, though he admitted there needs to be a balance.

"Without DCCs in place, I've watched developers go bankrupt in the 90s," Mattiussi says. "When you look at the city of Kelowna, it has some of the highest rates in BC, and yet the lowest rates of property tax."
One Foot Off Center will be published monthly by Castanet, on YouTube and in an audio-only version on Spotify.

Host Rick Maddison talks with Jeff Cox about the current state of affairs in Candian Politics. Everything from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau calling Canadians who don't believe in his views 'flat earthers' to Chinese meddling in Canadian elections.

A podcast focusing on current events and political decisions in Canada and how those decisions might affect everyday Canadians. This episode focuses on the City of Kelowna's proposed 20% reduction in development cost charges (DCCs).

One Foot Off Center will be published monthly by Castanet, on YouTube and in an audio-only version on Spotify.

On this week's episode, the panel discusses dog parks in Kelowna.

Specifically, the City park dog run, which had an original, approved budget of $750,000 with an additional $150,000 placed in reserve from a previous project. On Monday, August 25, 2025, council received a request for an additional $450,000 for the dog run.

Maddison says, "the initial cost was a $750K and now it's grown to $1.2 million, and it's spectacular... I wonder if the dogs recognize how nice it is."

Lanigan says, "it's phenomenal, is it $1.2 million phenomenal, or is it that's a little ridiculous, phenomenal.

"I'm all for creating accessible opportunities for individuals who can't go to normal spaces. But at what point does it become a little ridiculous?"

Cox says, "it does seem excessive, considering that you can probably buy my house for the same amount of money."
Mattiussi agrees that the final price tag does seem excessive.

"But there's all kinds of people lobbying for all kinds of things, and you're always balancing. What one person says is a horrible thing. And just having a dog park... some people would judge why we'd be spending money on that at all. Other people are saying that the ones you have are crappy.

"I don't know what's going on with this dog park. It does seem excessive," says Mattiussi.

The conversation also touched on development cost charges (DCCs) and the need to revisit these fees to ensure affordability and fairness, particularly for smaller homes.
One Foot Off Center will be published monthly by Castanet, on YouTube and in an audio-only version on Spotify.

On this edition of One Foot Off Center the panel discusses the performance of the BC NDP party and the recent challenges with Interior Health, in particular, the closure of Kelowna General Hospital's pediatric department.

The CEO of Simply Benefits, Jeff Cox says he was not impressed by the premier's decision not to attend the recent premiers meeting with new Prime Minister Mark Carney.

"Every premier in Canada in a room with a new prime minister to talk about how we're going to move this country forward, and you didn't show up? It doesn't make sense. I don't get it.

"I just feel he's very disconnected to what's going on," says Cox.

Former Kelowna city manager Ron Mattiussi agreed with Cox.

"I think you got to be in the room. I think this is a pretty critical time. He wasn't there so they voted to have a pipeline through B.C. Call me crazy, but this is a pretty significant moment in our national history," says Mattiussi.

Lead pastor at Trinity Church, Scott Lanigan didn't like the move either.

"You have a seat at the table and you don't take it. To me it's obnoxious. Everybody knows it's the meeting after the meeting and you didn't show up," Lanigan says.

From there the group pivoted to talk about healthcare in the province and Mattiussi pointed out that politicians across the country have been well aware that people born between 1946 and 1964, boomers, the largest Canadian generation were going to be a challenge for the healthcare industry.

"It's also at a critical time, demographically, to try to deal with this problem. I mean, they knew in 1995 that this crunch was coming," Mattiussi says.

Regarding the recent challenges at KGH Cox says, "I just think you get to a stage where there has to be change."

Since the podcast was recorded Susan Brown the CEO of Interior Health has announced that she is stepping down.

Cox brought up the size of the geographical area covered by IH as a challenge for any administrator but also noted that in his opinion there are three administrators for every frontline worker.

"This is not frontline workers. We have three administrators to every one frontline worker," Cox says.

"Is it a function of the size of the organization that the left hand really doesn't know what the right hand is doing," Mattiussi says.

Maddison worries that the province is resting on its laurels, "we're beautiful, we have mountains... we're more expensive, and houses cost way more, and our food is more expensive.

"But we're starting to see that, that reverse migration, where people from Alberta, and Ontario especially, were coming here in droves, and now it just feels like the reverse is true, where people are like, 'I want to enjoy more of life, and I don't want to just work for my house.' I think house poor is a real thing," says Maddison.

Mattiussi expressed concerns that Kelowna in particular could become like Costa Rica, "rich people can always afford to live here."

But at the other end of the strata, says Mattiussi, what if there are only service provider jobs available in the Okanagan.

"I worry about that discrepancy," says Mattiussi.

One Foot Off Center is hosted by Rick Maddison and Jeff Cox, featuring Scott Lanigan, lead pastor of Trinity Church and Ron Mattiussi, former Kelowna city manager.

One Foot Off Center will be published monthly by Castanet, on YouTube and in an audio-only version on Spotify.