The Conservative MLA for Prince George-Valemount has added another portfolio to her list of responsibilities.
Rosalyn Bird was named to Opposition Leader John Rustad’s shadow cabinet as citizens’ services critic last year, but in an interview with The Citizen on March 21, the former Royal Canadian Navy officer said she has been appointed the party’s military liaison.
“I’m actually quite excited by that,” Bird said.
“I’ve had concerns for a number of years in regards to representation for veterans only going through the federal government and Veterans Affairs. I would say for sure that in the last five years, the number of organizations that have popped up across the province that are offering services that Veterans (Affairs) should be offering tells me that there are gaps and there are things that are not being addressed.”
There are physical, mental and lifestyle challenges posed to veterans when they leave military life, Bird said.
She said hopes to work with the government’s military liaison, NDP Esquimalt-Colwood MLA Darlene Rotchford, to create a better dialogue with the federal government on these issues.
“Darlene and I agreed right from the get-go that veterans issues were very much non-partisan,” she said. “She is actually married to a military member who is currently serving in the navy.”
Rotchford recently made headlines when she connected to the Legislature remotely to vote from a hospital just hours after giving birth to a baby girl, earning standing ovations from both sides of the floor.
Bird called it a special moment, one that helped show how dedicated Rotchford is to both her family and her job.
Despite Bird’s praise for her colleague, she still had some criticisms for the government.
While she was happy to see the funding for the new acute care tower at UHNBC finally put on paper, she said she was disappointed that there wasn’t funding for an air ambulance helipad.
“I did raise that when I gave my budget speech,” Bird said.
“This is the north. We deal with extreme weather. The fact that we actually have to transport people from our hospital to the airport or from the airport to the hospital, that 20 to 25 minutes, maybe longer depending on extreme weather could make a huge difference if it’s life-saving medical care that is needed.”
Also regarding the budget, she said she was disappointed that there wasn’t any funding for improved connectivity along Highway 5 going from Valemount to Kamloops.
Connectivity is an issue she said she’s been looking into not just in her neck of the woods, but across the province as part of her critic portfolio. She said she had recently spoken to someone from Falkland about the issue.
While there are currently concerns about Starlink’s owner Elon Musk given his proximity to U.S. President Donald Trump amidst the ongoing U.S.-Canada trade war, Bird said the company offers a product that would help communications in rural and remote areas.
“I would actually like to see if there are Canadian companies that are working on those types of communications, which I know there are,” Bird said. “This actually might be a point in time where the federal and provincial government starts to look at that much more seriously.”
Another citizens’ services issue Bird is looking into regards the pickup, removal and transportation of corpses by the BC Coroners Service.
She said people have expressed some concerns to her about how that process is regulated when it comes to respecting the dignity of bodies, managing religious concerns and protecting workers in the coroners service.
At some point, she said she is hoping to bring forward a private member’s bill or motion on the subject.
Though Premier David Eby has announced plans to eliminate BC’s consumer-facing carbon tax to coincide with new Liberal Leader Mark Carney’s promises at the federal level, Bird said she’d like to see the industrial carbon tax removed as well as she feels those costs will just be passed down to consumers.
“We need to refocus on opening up our resource sector, revitalizing forestry, getting our mines open, looking at (liquified natural gas), oil and gas projects, all those type of things,” Bird said. “We have the capacity to do that as a province and that’s where we should be focusing our energy.”
Late last year, the province announced several wind power projects co-owned by First Nations, including one by Lheidli T’enneh First Nation near Hixon, that are being allowed to skip the environmental assessment process.
“I think it’s a contrary message that we want to protect our environment but we’re not going to do environmental assessments,” Bird said.
“Whether that energy project is green or not, depending on your view of it, you still need to have those checks and balances in place and you don’t get to arbitrarily decide which projects require assessment and which projects don’t.”
