Did we need this snap election?
I do think it’s needed, to be honest.
You know, if you look at the composition of the legislature before the snap election was called, we had a 46-47 majority. Speaker breaks the tie. And over the course of the last two years, there’s been about 13 times that the conservatives have made a concerted push to take down the government on votes of confidence.
I’ve had friends in the NDP who are MLAs, who have had cancer and have had to vote either virtually or from their hospital beds. MLA Darlene Rotchford was voting in the legislature via a digital vote five hours after she had a baby. And then of course, when we lost MLA Joan Phillip that reduced our spread of votes.
And I think it’s important that the public have a clear mandate to government to make decisions on their behalf. And unfortunately, it’s hard to move good legislation forward when you’re constantly looking at confidence votes and constantly fighting over policy. And having that clear mandate for a government is super important. And I think voters have the right to be able to do that.
Your greatest strength of being a single mother is also considered your biggest weakness as other candidates do not have kids. How will you navigate representing Skeena and being a mother?
Well, I think I’ve been doing both for the last ten years. This is not a new thing. And I think that women in particular get asked those questions about family. And those same questions don’t get asked to men about whether they can manage the responsibilities of their families and having a career. And I’ve been working in professional capacities in Terrace for 27 years.
I’ve got a 22-year-old and I’ve got an 11-year-old, and there has never been an opportunity or a time in my career where I haven’t been able to take care of my family and tap into the network of a connected family and a large family unit in terrace. You don’t always have to be married to have the support that you need to do the job that you have.
We co-parent really well. My kids’ dad and I, we all play a role in raising our children and the community that we have. And there’s no better place than Terrace, which has a super connected community to help support people.
And being a single mother isn’t a weakness. It’s a strength. And it’s what I’ve brought to the council table.
The NDP is one of the progressive parties. A big part of progressive agenda is that Canada has no stake in LNG Canada and while the companies that own LNG Canada profit with high margins, the people in the region get very little benefit. How do you respond?
That’s something that the BC NDP is looking at. There is a five-year period where we’ve been considering the royalty framework. And that’s something that will be examined. If the NPD gets back into power, that framework will be reviewed. And there’s always the opportunity to look at those royalties and see where we can move the dial.
But that’s not the only way that we benefit from big industry. You know, there’s an incumbent on industry. When they come and do business in Canada, in order to get the social license to operate in this country and in this province, they have a responsibility to give back to the community. And we’ve seen that with LNG Canada in a lot of different ways. So, there’s many ways that that industry can support the region.
Taxation and royalties are just one part of that. But I would also argue that there’s a lot of other businesses in Canada that are that are not Canadian, frankly. And so that’s not an unusual thing.
NDP Health Minister Josie Osborne drug decriminalization pilot project failed to significantly drive self-referrals to treatment or lower public disorder in the Skeena region and the toxic drug crises got worse. How can voters trust the NDP on the issues regarding drugs?
I think you can interpret that policy in a lot of ways. And I think that policy is actually an example of where the NDP took a risk in implementing something and also dialed it back when they saw a need to kind of reevaluate that program. The fact is that this is a program. This is a problem that is impacting not just people here.
And I think what we need to focus on is what can and where can we move the dial. What we’ve done and the B.C. NDP’s track record in Terrace is being able to come up with four detox beds that we didn’t have before. Those are operating right now and serving people in this region. There’s 12 more coming. There’s sober second stage living facilities, two of them.
And that’s the kind of network and continuum of care that we need to continue investing in. And that’s just the last couple of years. We still have the opportunity to grow in that way.
And I think when we think about young people, that’s our opportunity to educate young people about the perils of drug use and make sure that they have an opportunity to seek help when they need it.
One of the things that I advocated for was The Foundry. The Terrace City Council and our mayor advocated hard to the provincial government to invest in the Foundry. And they did come to the table after Sean Bujtas and ourselves lobbied them for $1 million. That was the million dollars that TDCS needed to get this project across the finish line.
And now The Foundry is open. Youth between the ages of 12 and 24 can self-refer themselves to the foundry and get help when they need it on site, without needing to have a family doctor or be referred, or go through the paperwork required in other places to get the help they need. And it stops the waitlist for access to mental health and addiction support.