A pair of BC Conservative MLA’s had mixed reviews of the Throne Speech that was tabled by Lieutenant Governor Wendy Cocchia in the Legislature.
Prince George-Mackenzie representative Kiel Giddens said there wasn’t much in it for entrepreneurs or everyday citizens.
“It just didn’t have a message of hope for businesses or individuals who are struggling right now whether it’s a small business who is trying to keep the lights on or people looking for better health care, its more platitudes from the government.”
Giddens added the province’s prowess in diversifying trade opportunities is kind of a catch-22 as the province doesn’t have any current international offices open.
“One thing that I was concerned to hear was that when they talked about trade missions but yet, this is the same government that closed down all of our trade offices. For them to backtrack and get into this now and use language like trade wars is quite unfortunate and is a problem of their own making.”
When it came to the province fast-track major resource projects, a lot of them were missing from the list.
“It’s also important to look at what’s not on there. They don’t have the major LNG projects like the LNG Canada phase two and don’t talk about that whatsoever. Instead, they talk about a smaller project already under construction in Cedar LNG,” said Giddens.
Giddens believes the financial outlook for the province likely won’t look any better than last year.
“We had the largest deficit in BC’s history last year and now its more of the same. We need to get more resilient in this province and get our resource sector working again and get our small businesses and the fiscal situation back in order.”
On the other hand, Prince George-North Cariboo MLA, Sheldon Clare stated while it was good to hear roads and infrastructure be mentioned, all of the focus should not be on the Lower Mainland.
“If they think that they can say they are going to build highway and road infrastructure to make big improvements but they are not going to do things like fix the Quesnel-Hixon road, the old Prince George highway and build the North-South interconnector in Quesnel and not deal with the bridges and landslides, I think that will be a big problem.”
Clare doesn’t think the government’s plan to try and woo American doctors to come north of the border and fill some much-needed holes is a very sound idea.
“It’s really not very ethical to be raiding other countries of their physicians. At one time, we did have a lot of doctors in British Columbia and I think it was during the Harcourt government that they decided we had too many doctors and they discouraged people from going into medicine.”
“I think a lot of this was a reaction to how the election went with so many Conservatives being elected and is an attempt to pivot away from taking responsibility for the failings that have put the economy into the position that its in.”
BC’s Budget will be unveiled on March 4th.
Something going on in the Prince George area you think people should know about?
Send us a news tip by emailing [email protected].
