The withdrawal of BC United has left many supporters of their supporters as well as undecided voters who hover in the middle of the road uncertain about how to cast their vote in this polarized atmosphere. How will you encourage these voters to cast their ballots for you?
For ourselves up here we had Shirley Bond for a very long time so she was a big piece of our community and leaves a big empty space for sure and the fall of the BC United kind of pulled the wool out from underneath a lot of candidates which is a terrible thing. For myself I believe that the Conservatives are very right-wing and they support very odd pieces sometimes like such as like the 5G and things like this.
I think the NDP have been doing a very good job moving forward with pieces like social housing and things that the communities need that support everybody instead of just the few up top.
Moccasin Flats is a stark example of the addiction, mental health and poverty issues affecting Prince George. What would you do to address these issues?
Well, already in the last two years we've already brought in 200 social housing houses to help alleviate some of the people on the streets as well as putting a lot of supports out there to kind of help people transition off the streets.
So pieces like this are huge. I know when you cut funding it exacerbates the problem so that's not a direction to move into. I think to keep those supports going and to keep that those pieces that these people need to transition out it will you'll start seeing that problem shrink over time.
This part of BC has always relied on the resource sector for good jobs but changes like Canfor's latest closure announcement put these jobs at risk. What will you do to advocate for new resource sector jobs in Prince George?
Right now we're in a very crazy time because in forestry we had the pine beetle epidemic and that's run its course so we're running out of that type of timber. Also, there are huge tariffs at the border. We have to work with the federal government to get rid of that if they'll work with us which they should be.
And also looking at all resource sectors so if we have all resource sectors pieces firing like oil and gas, forestry and mining all together the resource-based jobs are plentiful. We need to hire people, we need to train people to have these good high-paying jobs and we need to cut some of the red tape and kind of fast-track if these big companies have a good, like within mining, if these companies have a good plan to fast-track certain pieces and work with all the community to make sure that it's a good project and it's a safe responsible project within our areas. For forestry we need more value-added timber. We need to work with the logs better and we need to look at a more sustainable forestry system.
The forestry system that we've had previous was based on the beetle kill and everything else but now we have to look at what's sustainable so we don't have these jobs that just come and go and go up and down. They ramped up everything for about 20 years. They knew, the powers that be, they knew this was going to run out at some time. Forestry workers knew this as well, talking to a lot of people on the doorstep so it's looking at the sustainable pieces to ensure that we don't have these ups and downs in our areas.
The relationship between the provincial government and BC’s Indigenous people is evolving. If elected, what approach do you plan to bring to your work with area First Nations, including the Lheidli T’enneh?
Well, being First Nations, the NDP have actually been working in a very good direction already it's very inclusive they've included us in a lot of these major projects.
There has been so much work that's been done to get us to where we're at right now and I believe John Rustad and his Conservatives are creating a big divisiveness from the work that's been happening. To move forward we need to move forward together with everybody, First Nations, the keepers of the land, communities and government and I believe the Conservatives are using it as almost a divisive ploy and it'll set us back decades in the work that has been done for so many people.
Our area's population is aging. What is your top priority when it comes to addressing the issues facing seniors and why?
There's a lot of priorities with seniors cost of living is a major one it's trying to alleviate the costs as much as we can on them and provide the supports they need which is a lot to do with health care.
We're looking at building this hospital, training the doctors, training the nurses to put this project together. I know we're working on a lot of different things also you know like I said cost of living, hydro rebates, busing transportation to help seniors in any way we can.
Some MLAs excel in the Legislature while others become known for their constituency work. In a huge riding with this mix of urban and rural communities what kind of MLA do you think you're going to be?
I think I will try to be a very good listening one and a very good voice in Legislature. A big piece of the MLA's job is essentially being the loud microphone to ensure that the constituents voices are being heard within the riding, and the riding is a very big riding - it's about six hours of driving across - but everybody deserves to be heard and every community has different needs and wants. So it's listening, putting that into action and bringing it down south to ensure that the voices are heard from up here and working together, hopefully with a majority government with NDP and having an NDP MLA up here we can get more done.
