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What happens when the province can't move fast enough and people in your city need help now? In this episode of Non-Partisan Hacks, hosts Joel Grenz and Sean Wood sit down with Marianne Alto, Mayor of the City of Victoria, recorded live at the AVICC convention.

Victoria is BC's capital city - a mid-sized municipality shouldering an outsized share of the region's housing pressures, homelessness, and mental health and addiction challenges. Mayor Alto talks candidly about what it looks like when a city decides to stop waiting: building 97 new shelter and transitional housing spaces, creating a first-of-its-kind Community Safety, Wellbeing, and Partnerships department, and funding nonprofit service providers when senior governments can't or won't.

She also shares what she's learned about courage, accountability, and adaptability - and why standing in a room full of people yelling at you is sometimes just part of the job.

Listen for:

• How Victoria exceeded its provincial housing targets - and why Mayor Alto was eager to be picked first

• Why Victoria carries more than 80% of the region's social services - and what she's doing about it

• The story behind the Dollar Place facility: two public meetings, hundreds of angry residents, and a decision she'd make again

• How the city's Community Safety and Wellbeing Plan is funding nonprofits to do what the province hasn't

• What she told her council on inauguration day: "Listen, think, and then do good work"

• Advice for elected officials deciding whether to run again - including a frank conversation about vitriol in public life

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Why You Should Listen to This Episode

If you’ve ever been told you can’t - and refused to accept it - this episode is for you. Kaleb Dahlgren speaks from a place of hard-won strength: as a survivor of the Humboldt Broncos tragedy, a #1 bestselling author, a community builder, and a young man who spent his entire hockey career proving the doubters wrong. His story is one of extraordinary resilience layered upon resilience, told with a vulnerability that makes it genuinely unforgettable.

In this episode:

Kaleb Dahlgren joins Cindy Thompson on A Resilience Project to share the journey behind his memoir ‘Crossroads’ - and what it truly means to find strength in vulnerability.

After losing 16 members of his Broncos family in the tragic 2018 crash, Kaleb navigated grief on a scale most people will never face. Yet his story of beating the odds began long before that April night. Diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes at age four, he was told by hockey coaches and scouts that he would never succeed in the sport. Rather than stepping back, he used that negativity as fuel - working relentlessly to play at the highest level of hockey each year of his young career.

Inspired by his own challenges, Kaleb founded Dahlgren’s Diabeauties, a program that uses hockey to raise awareness of Type 1 Diabetes and support children living with the disease. In 2018, he received the Canadian Volunteer Award for Emerging Leader of the Prairies. He graduated from York University with a Commerce degree, was named the Most Outstanding Male Graduate for Varsity Athletics, and is now forging his next path as a chiropractic student and keynote speaker.

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Why You Should Listen to This Episode

If you or someone you love has ever felt like an outsider in a world that wasn’t built for the way your mind works, Santiago Dominguez speaks directly to that experience. Diagnosed with high-functioning autism, Santiago opens up about the exhausting daily effort of navigating school, building relationships, and searching for a sense of value in a world that often misunderstood him. His story is one of hard-won resilience - and a powerful reminder that difference is not deficit.

In this episode:

Santiago Dominguez joins Cindy Thompson on A Resilience Project to share what it truly meant to grow up with high-functioning autism in a world that rarely made space for the way he experienced it.

For Santiago, every school day felt like a war - a constant negotiation between who he was and what the world expected him to be. Complex peer relationships and a deep desire to be understood shaped his early years. But through it all, he found his way to something more grounding: a rediscovery of his own value, on his own terms.

Now 24, Santiago is a real estate photographer, a history student at Vancouver Island University, a high school tutor, and a youth coordinator at Maranatha Church in Nanaimo, BC. Through his work with teenagers facing similar struggles, he channels his own experience into something purposeful - helping young people see what he had to learn for himself: that autism is a personality, not a disability.

The PULSE Community Podcasts can be found at: ThePulseCommunity.ca

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Recorded live at the AVICC convention in Victoria, this episode of Non-Partisan Hacks brings a remarkable guest to the mic. Joel Grenz and Sean Wood sit down with Marianne Meed Ward - Mayor of Burlington, Ontario and co-founder of ElectRespect - to talk about the growing crisis of harassment, abuse, and threats facing elected officials at every level of government.

Marianne has received death threats, been told by police not to attend her own public meetings, and watched colleagues leave elected life entirely because the personal cost was too high. Rather than stepping back, she helped launch a national movement. ElectRespect is now a cross-country campaign with hundreds of elected officials and over 60 municipalities signed on - the pledge is straightforward: commit to respectful democracy, lead by example, and ask the same of colleagues and constituents.

Listen for:

• The real-life incidents - including death threats linked to a local development application - that pushed Mayor Meed Ward to act

• Why the tools available to municipalities to deal with misconduct are dangerously limited

• How social media, bots, and post-COVID anonymity turbocharged political toxicity at the local level

• Why women, people of colour, Indigenous, and 2SLGBTQ officials face a distinctly more personal and threatening form of abuse

• What ElectRespect is actually asking people to do - and how any elected official or member of the public can sign the pledge today

• Why changing the culture has to start with politicians themselves

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Why You Should Listen to This Episode

If you've ever wondered what it takes to break a cycle - of trauma, of violence, of generational pain, this episode is for you. Henry McKay speaks with a clarity and courage that only comes from having lived through the very things he now works to prevent.

In this episode:

Henry McKay joins Cindy Thompson on A Resilience Project to share a story of intergenerational trauma and intergenerational resilience - and the critical elements that helped him find his way through.

Henry is a father and fourth-year Social Work student at the University of Manitoba. Drawing on his own experiences with childhood trauma, abuse, poverty, oppression, drug dealing, and street gang involvement, he speaks honestly about what it meant to move from a life of alcoholism and violence into one of healing, hope, and purpose.

Today, Henry works as an Action Therapist with at-risk youth in the child welfare system. His mission is to help prevent or reduce the harm of substance use and gang involvement, while introducing Indigenous ceremony to youth navigating some of the same circumstances he once faced. In asking "if not you, then who?" - he answers that question every day with his work and his presence.

The PULSE Community Podcasts can be found at: ThePulseCommunity.ca

Cindy Thompson's website: cindythompsoncounselling.ca

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