Jobs, housing and the environment were just some of the issues up for the discussion at the all-candidate election forum hosted by the 108 Mile Ranch Community Association on March 19.
All three Cariboo-Chilcotin candidates showed up for the discussion. Donna Barnett, the BC Liberal Party candidate, Sally Watson, the BC New Democratic Party candidate and Rita Giesbrecht, the BC Green Party candidate, answered pre-submitted questions in front of a packed room at the 108 Mile Ranch Community Hall.
Approximately 70 people showed up to the event moderated by Leon Chretien, who gave the candidates equal time to answer each question.
The discussion started off with each candidate introducing themselves and their party.
Sally Watson began by emphasizing that it is time “to have a government that is working for you.”
Watson explained the NDP platform in her opener, promising a freeze on hydro rates and a stop to the MSP premium, as well as improving services in the area, including health care, seniors care, and education.
She also spoke about revitalizing the forestry industry through engineered wood products, and launching job initiatives in clean energy and energy efficiency.
“The BC NDP wants to make your life more affordable and wants to make sure you have enough money at the end of the day.”
Barnett opened second, emphasizing her experience working in and for the Cariboo-Chilcotin.
“We have issues. Big issues. Ones that that are being addressed and ones that are going to have to continue to be addressed” she said.
“I have worked with many people in this area, I have fought for this area,” she said, pointing to keeping the laundry in the hospitals and bringing the Bella Coola ferry back as two of her accomplishments.
Barnett noted that land use, treaty negotiations and the forestry issues are all issues facing the Cariboo-Chilcotin, but that the B.C. Liberals “do what we can within the budget and balance the budget.”
Giesbrecht opened last, laying out the methodology of the Green Party.
She emphasized the party works directly for the people, without taking corporate or union donations.
“All our policies are grounded, in that they need to serve the people first before they serve any corporate interests or any political interests.”
She said that the Green Party is based on a set of core principals: participatory democracy, respect for diversity and inclusion and that policies created by the Green Party are based on a concept of three bottom lines: an environmental bottom line, a social bottom line and a fiscal bottom line.
One question, early in the forum, asked candidates their plans for affordable housing for all and how they planned to pay for it.
Watson started off with the NDP’s campaign promise for 144,000 rental and low-income units to be built over the next four years.
“Most will be in higher populated areas,” she said. “But if we have a proposal here, it will definitely get looked at.”
Barnett reiterated what the Liberal government has accomplished so far, saying housing will always be an issue: “We’ve announced $1.5 million for a low-income housing project which is to be run by the Canadian Mental Health Association,” she said. She also pointed to the homebuyer’s program, additional money towards affordable rental housing and assistance to low-income seniors.
“There’s a good program out there now and I know it’s difficult for some people. Housing is not cheap, but we have a good plan, it has been implemented and we will carry on.”
Giesbrecht detailed the Green plan for housing, saying it will be integrated with a strategy for stable incomes so that homeowners don’t have to worry about relying on their investments in housing to afford retirement.
“As it’s core principal, housing should be for accommodation in communities, and not for investment and particularly not for foreign investment,” she said.
Giesbrecht says that the Greens would increase the foreign ownership tax levy to 30 per cent from where it currently stands at 15 per cent.
Candidates were also asked about their ideas on how to employ people in the Cariboo while also protecting the environment for future generations.
Barnett started by acknowledging the difficulty of the question.
“We must remember good jobs, good paying jobs, come from the resource industry,” she said, adding that we will need more jobs in education and health care.
“We also need to look at jobs in the high-tech industry,” she added, also pointing to working on initiatives that promote tourism and agriculture. She also noted that a coming downturn in the annual allowable cut will need to be addressed.
Giesbrecht indicated the area is overdue for a transition.
“The absolutely critical thing is transitioning away from the previous extraction industries that we have been reliant on,” she said. “Offering job training, stable income in the meantime, education for new trades and improved trades — education overall so that students are coming up ready and basically transitioning from old century thinking into new century thinking [and] stabilizing income and other factors of society while we do it.”
Watson said the NDP will look into apprenticeship and trades training to bring young people into industry.
“We will build homes, we will build hospitals, we will build schools and we will retrofit public buildings with energy efficient things, because many of our buildings, although they are still good, solid buildings, are not energy efficient,” she said.
She also noted that the forestry industry is going to have to step back.
“We will have to make more out of the timber we take out of the forest,” she said.
Land use also came up multiple times during the discussion, referenced in questions about sustainable agriculture, treaty negotiations and the environment.
Giesbrecht noted that the Green sustainable agriculture plan that involves “strengthening protections and making sure that land which is suitable for growing food will not be used for anything else.”
With regards to treaty negotiations she stressed the importance that “governments must deal with the First Nations governance in good faith and with the understanding that title is assumed to exist.”
Watson discussed the need to use farmland for farming.
“We have to make money off the land that we use. Many of our farms are used as hobbies and that takes away from agriculture possibilities that we could possibly have.”
She also pointed to the conflict between range tenure holders and treaty negotiations, saying that John Horgan, leader of the NDP, would meet with the Northern Shuswap Tribal Council immediately after being elected.
“It would be advantageous if we could all sit down at the same table,” she said.
Barnett pointed out the importance of ranching to the Cariboo-Chilcotin and said that land use “is going to change, and it is one of the issues that we will have to work together with.”
She said that it will be important to settle treaties sooner, but that there will need to be mitigation for the ranching community in the long term.
Other topics discussed included transportation, health care, the carbon tax, fracking, seniors care, minimum wages and Site C dam.
For the full video of the debate, check out the Free Press Facebook page.
