Wednesday, May 17, 2023

At a glance (2 minute read)

  • Ray Harris, chair of REBGV's GRC, wins BCREA's inaugural advocacy award for volunteer work.
  • The award honours Ray's advocacy efforts, and work to secure support, and promote member engagement, focusing on affordable housing supply.
BCREA’s inaugural advocacy awards include three awards: best GR Realtor Volunteer (Ray Harris, REBGV), best Real Estate Board GR staff (Alex Goseltine, BCNREB) and best GR Committee (VIREB).

Ray Harris, chair of your board’s Government Relations Committee (GRC), has won BC Real Estate Association’s (BCREA) inaugural advocacy award for his outstanding volunteer work.

The award recognizes the dedication, commitment, knowledge, and experience Ray brings to his role helping politicians and their staff at three levels of government – municipal, provincial, and federal – understand common-sense solutions to problems faced by home buyers, owners, sellers, and REALTORS®.

The award also recognizes Ray’s work advancing the advocacy portfolio to the Board, successfully garnering support and resources for government relations activities, and encouraging members to get involved so the voice of Realtors is heard by politicians at every level. 

The greatest challenge in the past years has been convincing government to enact policies to increase the supply of affordable housing, according to Ray.

“GR is a slow and long process, and we’ve been talking about supply for years. But we’re seeing success and government is starting to get the message,” Ray said.

Ray was president of the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver in 2014/2015 and served as a director of BCREA for two terms from 2017 to 2021. He has been a member of the GRC since 2015, and has chaired since 2021.