Dozens of Ballenas Secondary School students turned out for their school’s meeting with local provincial candidates, questioning them on topics such as education, poverty and the environment.
The school’s Interact Club organized the event on Thursday, April 27, which saw B.C. NDP candidate Sue Powell, B.C. Liberal candidate Michelle Stilwell and B.C. Green Party candidate Glenn Sollitt attend. Missing was Terry Hand, candidate for the B.C. Refederation Party.
The morning began with the candidates presenting a clear distinction between each of their overall viewpoints in opening statements.
Sollitt began, saying he is running because he fears B.C. may be on the same path as the U.S. with two entrenched parties. He said they are beholden to special interests groups, whereas the Green Party is funded by individuals and so are responsible only to their constituents, as they should be.
Stilwell agreed that an MLA’s job is towards their constituents. She said she feels the best way to move the province forward is by growing the economy, creating jobs, keeping taxes low and living within a budget.
Powell described her life as an uneducated mother working several jobs. After a rough start, she was able to go back to school, earn a degree in social work, and become a City of Parksville councillor. She said she could accomplish all this thanks to the social safety net keeping her and her family going, and said that’s why she’s running with the NDP.
Next came three prepared questions from the event’s moderator, graduating class president Erica Friesen, followed by an engaged open question period.
Friesen’s questions focused on education funding, child poverty and the Site C dam, with student questions following up mostly on those themes.
Stillwell defended her party on education, saying B.C. has had a shrinking student population over the last 15 years, but the education budget has still grown. She acknowledged the Supreme Court decision giving back teacher’s right to bargain on class size and composition, adding the government must come to the table with teachers as collaborators rather than skeptics.
Powell said her party wants to re-evaluate the per-pupil funding scheme, and provide millions more dollars for textbooks, playgrounds, school supplies and professional development for teachers.
Sollitt said a good education system shouldn’t be a result of a good economy. It should work in reverse. He said his party wants to spend millions more dollars on education, give free day care for children under three years old, and have 25 hours a week of early education for children 3-4 years old.
On poverty, Powell discussed increasing the minimum wage to $15, providing $100 more a month for people on income assistance, and providing a clothing allowance for things like interviews.
Sollitt said, in the long term, the Green Party wants to install a minimum annual income, but on the short term, said support for education, affordable housing and child care would get both parents into the work force.
Stilwell re-iterated her party’s focus on creating jobs, adding that B.C. has seen it’s child poverty rate decrease, and said she would expand her party’s new LIFT program aimed at helping working single parents access training.
On the Site C dam, Stilwell said the decision to build it “is something that I do stand behind.”
She said it will be the safest, most reliable form of energy collection for the province in the long term, and that plenty of research and consultation took place before deciding to go ahead.
Both Powell and Sollitt said they are against it, that the environmental impact outweighs any benefit, and that there wasn’t enough consultation. Sollitt went further, saying the electricity the dam would create would cost more than what it sells for, and that B.C. doesn’t need it anyway. He added that B.C. Hydro did not look at other forms of energy collection, like wind and solar.
Another point of stark disagreement was on the Kinder Morgan pipeline deal.
While Stilwell said B.C. has always been a natural resource-driven economy, and that the government has to make sure some of the benefits of developing those resources goes to the province, while protecting the environment as best it can.
Sollitt said his party is “bitterly opposed” to the project, saying the government should look to moving away from fossil fuels rather than expanding it’s fossil fuel infrastructure, and that the environment should be a priority, with the economy just behind it.
Powell had to leave by this time.
Friesen said she was impressed with all three of the candidates’ answers to student questions. “Their answers were well thought-out and really did address the student’s questions. There was no curving or avoiding the question. They went straight on an answered them.”