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Craig Janzen Answers 3 KCFN Questions - Kimberley Municipal Election, October 2026
Municipal elections matter.
From land use and infrastructure to affordability, emergency preparedness, community services and local food systems (to name just a few)... politics and public policy have real consequences in our everyday lives.
With Kimberley and Cranbrook soon to be hitting the municipal ballot boxes — Advance Voting is open Wednesday, October 7 & Wednesday, October 14, with General Voting Day on Saturday, October 17 — the Kimberley Cranbrook Food Network recently narrowed our many possible interconnected food-system questions down to three (3) that we sent to all candidates for Mayor and City Council in both communities.
We're sharing their responses on our website/socials as they come back to us to help residents (which includes ourselves) hear directly from the people seeking to represent us all on important community matters such as the three questions we asked below.
Craig Janzen is running for Kimberley City Councillor. You can learn more about their candidacy through their Facebook and Instagram— but first, please see below for Craig's responses to our three KCFN questions, which we have shared as submitted.
Q1. What specific actions would you support at the municipal level to strengthen local food production and access to local food in our communities?
I believe municipal government should first focus on the tools it actually controls and use them well.
For local food production, that means ensuring our zoning and bylaws aren’t creating unnecessary barriers to things like community gardens, appropriate urban agriculture, farmers’ markets and small local food businesses.
I would also support partnerships that make good use of City land or facilities where there is a clear community benefit and the costs make sense.
I don’t think the City needs to become a food producer or create programs that other organizations are already delivering effectively. Sometimes the best role for local government is simply to remove an obstacle, provide appropriate support, and let good community initiatives succeed.
Q2. Food insecurity is affecting households in our communities, while local organizations providing food access and food-security programs are often working with limited resources. What role do you think the City should play in supporting this work, and what specific actions or partnerships would you pursue?
Organizations such as Healthy Kimberley already have the relationships, volunteers and experience to do this work.
Rather than City Hall trying to duplicate what they do, I’d look for practical ways the City can help them succeed.
That could include partnerships, appropriate access to facilities, assistance navigating municipal requirements, grants or in-kind support where there is a demonstrated need and clear community benefit, and helping connect organizations with funding opportunities from other levels of government.
Financial stewardship is one of my main campaign priorities, and I think this is an area where relatively modest support can sometimes leverage an enormous amount of volunteer effort and community benefit.
Support what’s working rather than automatically building something new.
Q3. Wildfires, drought, extreme weather and disruptions to transportation can affect both local food production and our communities' access to food. How should the City incorporate food security into its emergency preparedness and climate-resilience planning?
I think food security belongs in emergency planning because the issue isn’t only food production — it’s also access and distribution.
A wildfire, highway closure, extended power outage or other emergency can interrupt supply chains very quickly in a community like ours.
I would want emergency planning to identify our vulnerabilities, understand which organizations and facilities already have the ability to store or distribute food, establish relationships before an emergency happens, and coordinate with the RDEK, neighbouring municipalities, ʔaq̓am, the Province and community organizations.
Again, I don’t think Kimberley needs to independently build every capability itself.
Good emergency planning means knowing what resources already exist, knowing who our partners are, identifying the gaps, and having those relationships in place before we need them.
Thank you again for the opportunity to respond.
Many thanks to Craig Janzen for taking the time to respond to our questions — and cheers to all of the candidates who have put their names forward to serve our communities in these important roles (and thank YOU for stopping by to read & add some more context to your voting decisions/discussions).
You can learn more about Craig's campaign through their Facebook and Instagram and you can read responses from other candidates through our KCFN Municipal Election 2026 page (which we will continue to update as more responses come back).
For official municipal voting information and full candidate information, remember where you live and then visit the City of Kimberley 2026 Election page and Kimberley candidate profiles (if you live in Kimberley), or the City of Cranbrook 2026 Election page and Cranbrook candidate profiles (if you live in Cranbrook). And for wherever you live, ElectionsBC is always a good spot online to visit for trustworthy election information.
And then remember, for the upcoming Municipal Election, whether you live in Kimberley or Cranbrook or somewhere else… these are the dates for voting in the upcoming Municipal Election:
Advance Voting: Wednesday, October 7 & Wednesday, October 14
General Voting Day: Saturday, October 17
Please Note: KCFN sent the same three questions to all candidates for Mayor and City Council in Kimberley and Cranbrook that we were able to find contact information for on Sunday, October 4th (27 candidates in total between both communities). Candidate responses are published as submitted, with only minor formatting changes if necessary for readability. KCFN does not endorse individual candidates, we just endorse informed & engaged voters (and we hope people find these Q&As as engaging as we do).
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