Municipal election day is tomorrow, but we do have a provincial one coming up a week after that.
And it was those vying to be your next Skeena MLA that took over Terrace’s Tillicum Twin Theatre last night, fielding questions on DRIPA, industry, healthcare and more.
Conservative Incumbent Claire Rattée supports repealing DRIPA, saying it’s only driven division and forced numerous court battles.
She wants reconciliation to continue in a more meaningful way without legislation, through relationship building with First Nations.
But Green Party candidate Nick Gottlieb says it isn’t DRIPA creating uncertainty, but the NDP’s failure to amend legislation to bring it in line.
He also pointed out that it has no impact on property rights, despite what some parties have said.
OneBC’s Larry Taylor took issue with his party being labeled as racist, saying he wants to work with First Nations on industry.
He says we all need to work together to support local businesses and keep profits in the north, rather than funding the south and foreign entities.
Gottlieb agreed, but says less than 1 percent of profits from things like LNG stay in the province at all.
He wants to tax them to bring more income to the province, but Taylor disagrees, saying you can’t tax yourself into prosperity.
One way Taylor suggests to reduce costs to northern businesses is to improve the roads to make transporting goods less expensive.
Gottlieb says we need to break the reliance on raw resource extraction and actually use those commodities in the province.
NDP candidate Sarah Zimmerman spent most of the night defending her party’s record on things like healthcare and crime.
She says they’ve brought tonnes of healthcare investments to the north, adding beds and bringing more workers to the region.
But Rattée pointed out that also came with cuts to things like long-term care and mental health.
She calls it the biggest issue for the region, and promises more services that bridge the gap from detox to treatment.
Zimmerman pointed out the disconnect in the Conservative’s promise to spend more on healthcare without raising taxes.
She also lauded NDP programs to combat repeat offenders and property crime, and double trades training.
Provincial voting day is on the 24th at the Skeena Mall, not to be confused with municipal elections tomorrow.
