When Victoria Conservative candidate Jack McClintock officially opens his campaign office Saturday, he and Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca candidate Troy DeSouza will focus on “public safety and safe streets solutions.”

But McClintock's NDP opponent, incumbent MP Denise Savoie, said the Conservatives' “law and order” approach won't fix social issues.

McClintock is a former police officer who spent nine years on the Vancouver force and 11 with Victoria's before retiring as a spokesperson for the department in bucolic Central Saanich. DeSouza works for a law firm that specializes in representing municipalities. In recent months he led the prosecution that saw a persistent panhandler banned from downtown.

McClintock did not return calls by press time.

“With Jack being a police officer and myself being a municipal prosecutor, we have some insight . . . to provide here and we plan to do that,” said DeSouza. The Tories are against opening an Insite-style “heroin injection” site in Victoria, he said, even though the Vancouver facility is supported by the provincial government and many people, including Victoria mayor Alan Lowe and senior police officers, would like a similar site to open in the capital.

Instead the Conservatives would offer more treatment for drug addicts and bring in tougher enforcement and harsher penalties for pushers, he said. He and McClintock don't want a safe consumption site in or near their ridings, he added. “There are better alternatives.”

McClintock's NDP opponent, Savoie, noted most of McClintock's public comments since becoming the Conservative candidate have been on law and order.

“I gather that must be important to him, as it is to me,” she said. Unfortunately the Conservatives “get tough on crime” approach won't fix social problems, she said. “Funneling all solutions through that lens is an error and they continue to make it.”

It also makes McClintock and the Conservatives out of step with modern police departments, she said. “Our own police department in Victoria . . . have publicly said many of these are social issues.” While some of the problems on the streets are criminal issues, many others are rooted in mental illness, addiction and homelessness.

Said Savoie, “These require good social policy and investment.” Recent governments have failed to make those investments large enough, she said. “We know from talking to people on the ground that young people come and they want treatment and there's no treatment option.”

People should vote for candidates who are closely connected to their communities and see the broader solutions, said the former city councilor.