00:08:41.360And I got to see Anna at the same time when I was going to apprenticeship school.
00:08:47.800I didn't have any money so I bought a tow truck to help put myself through school because
00:08:53.240you learn as a farmer's son, you learn to support yourself.
00:09:00.940And I also then bought into a tow truck or to a trucking business in Vancouver as I was
00:09:07.440doing my apprenticeship and working because boilermakers don't work full time.
00:09:13.360At any rate, from there, from British Columbia, my father was on the farm and not doing well
00:09:22.060health-wise and he needed help and so I came back to Manitoba and then eventually took
00:09:29.660over the farm and as being having a lot of experience all over the country then
00:09:40.100you take a look at what's happening locally and you voice your opinion and
00:09:44.660that's what led to getting involved in different farm organizations being
00:09:51.900actually being appointed to boards whether it was a grain elevator or grain
00:09:57.860company board or whatever, and then I became a local councillor on the local RM.
00:10:07.480And you speak up for the people that elected you.
00:10:10.980And then after that six years that I was on there and the things that I learned, I was
00:10:19.280involved in different things that because we saw the expansion of
00:10:26.480agriculture but was being dumped on by environmentalists and today even today
00:10:36.340agriculture is being ridiculed by environmentalists and yet they do it with
00:10:44.720full stomach and a full mouth and they expect you should be able to produce all
00:10:52.940of this for next to nothing but it does cost money to produce and the
00:10:58.220environment is very very important it's very important to agriculture it's
00:11:02.600important to the people that live in in the rural area whether it's in rural
00:11:06.620BC or if it's in rural Saskatchewan Alberta or Ontario for that matter it
00:11:13.160doesn't matter where the environment is very very important to you one of the
00:11:19.400things that is it's a fake tax is the carbon tax that is a fake tax and quite
00:11:32.340frankly we need to compete in the world with what we produce here but we have to
00:11:40.140build our country and we have to expand and exploit our natural resources so and
00:11:48.300along the road one day someone said the MLA has retired and we want you to run
00:11:59.460of course four other people wanted the job too and I hadn't given any thought
00:12:08.220for myself I had actually been supporting someone who had left the
00:12:12.240province because of the provincial government he had been working for he
00:12:18.040left the province and went to work in Alberta anyway he encouraged me and
00:12:24.000encouraged me and finally I didn't say okay and I did become an MLA for 13
00:12:29.720years but the environment has been important all the way along the road
00:12:35.160whether it was when I worked in British Columbia or when I worked in Saskatchewan, Alberta, wherever.
00:12:43.300So that's just a kind of a short overview of where I started.
00:12:49.700And I still do farming and a certain amount of farming in between sitting around creating newspapers.
00:13:01.320Well, and we're happy to have you on this newspaper today.
00:13:04.000Well, our broadcast that's affiliated, obviously, and directly affiliated with the Western Standard.
00:13:09.880I think that may be something to kind of give people an idea of just how far and how much could be done by one person.
00:13:19.460I mean, you had listed for me a little bit earlier the various projects you worked on.
00:13:22.920Can you give us that list in a bit more detail, maybe even explaining how you got into some of those jobs?
00:13:29.300especially your time in British Columbia, as a Boilermaker, you were at both mills and
00:13:36.240at dam sites. How did that feel, being a part of these projects? I mean, they're still standing
00:13:42.120today. I can still visit the place that you helped build.
00:13:45.240It was actually very, very good. You met a lot of people, but you also learned how they
00:13:56.400existed where they were and some of them people hadn't traveled very far from where they were
00:14:04.400born and so on but to see how prince george was developed for example that was uh that was quite
00:14:12.960something i was there when they they built the uh the first pulp mill i worked on that
00:14:18.240And at that time, I made fun of people that had left Kansas City to come and live north of Prince George, where they could actually claim a quarter section of land and move on there.
00:14:37.740And a lot of us young men that were working in Prince George laughed at these people as they came up the highway and convoys and homesteaded a quarter section, not thinking farther ahead that we were building the fault mill and they were going to clear their land and make money and they became great citizens there and great people to work with.
00:15:03.120You learned a lot of different things working in places like that.
00:15:07.840In Cornell, it was the same, building a mill there.
00:15:11.840And I worked in Kitimat, worked in Terrace.
00:15:18.100And some people have said, and I have said it often,
00:15:22.980that Rupert may not be at the end of the world,
00:15:27.180but you can see it from there, from Prince Rupert.
00:18:14.840and when we did a DNA we were closer than we thought at the same time I
00:18:24.220forget what year it was but there were ten families of us after I came back to
00:18:31.240farm that sponsored a family from Vietnam in Canada great people hard
00:18:39.040workers and they they paid attention to our laws and our rules I'm not saying
00:18:47.680that they gave up anything that they believed in they didn't have to but they
00:18:52.840were hard workers and that's the two of them started businesses after they came
00:18:57.880here so there's a lot of things that you learn as you you work around the country
00:19:06.880And then when you come back and you've got your own business that you have to make money at and make a living at, and then have people that don't understand it, you have to stand up for yourself.
00:19:19.980And you're finding that out as well on your own farm or your parents' farm.
00:19:51.420And I don't want there to be condos built, especially in the Fraser Valley, all over the place.
00:19:55.620It's some of the best growing land in this country.
00:19:57.560But at the same time, up here in Prince George, I mean, I'm not building a secondary residence to run an Airbnb that's, you know, 80 miles from the airport.
00:20:09.680Like, I just need a secondary residence.
00:20:12.140The amount of laws and ordinances that surround that, it's a lot.
00:20:15.880I think coming back to rural issues, maybe you can talk a little bit about, you know, everybody would probably think, most people would think, you know, if you're thinking about Manitoba,
00:20:25.320hey manitoba this is a it's a rural province it's a western province it's got lots of farming going
00:20:31.860on you know it has entire cultures based around farming my mother's mennonite i know there's a
00:20:36.680strong mennonite community inside of manitoba and others as well uh farming based how how could
00:20:43.760there be any difficulties for rural manitobans in this area i mean it sounds like the kind of
00:20:47.960province where they can just you know anybody can farm anything and things can go really well
00:20:51.860What's the specific problems, difficulties, challenges faced by people in Manitoba when it comes to rural issues?
00:20:59.840Well, I'll give you one issue that I was really involved in.
00:21:06.620One of them was the expansion of the hog industry in Manitoba.
00:21:14.260And at the time, we had an NDP government, but we also had two companies.
00:21:22.660One of them was a very large company to begin with, McLean's, but the other was just a family in rural Manitoba in a place called the Brokery.
00:21:35.840The Veilfeer family and one partner by the name of Janssen started a company, and it
00:21:46.200was called High Tech at the time, and now it is High Life, and it's a very, very, very
00:21:52.500large company, which has been now sold, but it still operates in Manitoba, but at the
00:22:02.540At the time, the NDP said we were polluting everything and because at that time I was
00:22:10.260involved locally on a council and also with a small organization in southeastern Manitoba.
00:22:25.260We tried to explain to them that we weren't polluting water with agriculture, we weren't
00:22:31.900polluting the Red River, or as they said, damaging Lake Winnipeg, blah, blah, blah.
00:28:14.040and to build batteries, you have to mine.
00:28:21.420So there is a lot more to this environment
00:28:28.440and carbon tax hoax than what most people know.
00:28:36.260I think that a lot of people inside of, well, within anywhere,
00:28:41.720It's just a bit of ignorance around the whole thing.
00:28:44.680As soon as you've been off the farm for a few generations, or you've just never had
00:28:51.960a family member who had that kind of line of work, or there's a lot of professionals
00:28:57.700in your family, even if they're not doctors and lawyers, or teachers, or accountants,
00:29:02.460and that sort of thing, and nobody has a family farm lying around, or there's just Uncle Joe
00:29:08.020two provinces over he's a carpenter so that's the last guy you know that works with his hands
00:29:12.740everybody else in your family is doing uh tertiary jobs right uh service industry jobs
00:29:18.820or professional work there's just a disconnect and i think that's what happens in a lot of urban
00:29:24.240centers is that a lot of urban reality is like there used to be more working class jobs and when
00:29:29.640we had more manufacturing in this country you could actually bump into someone who actually
00:29:33.900worked with their hands for a living nowadays right there's the contractors and then their
00:29:37.900various laborers who are always kind of moving around the city doing what they're doing
00:29:41.660and everybody else in a shiny office building they don't really they don't really get to do
00:29:45.820that do you think that some of that the disconnect there's a cultural disconnect between
00:29:49.900the people who get the benefit to the work and the people actually doing the work
00:29:54.380oh absolutely there's a huge disconnect and you're you you've hit the nail on the head0.99
00:29:59.420in that respect as well, because at one time a lot of the immigrants
00:30:06.880and Mennonites are part of that, when they came to Canada, they farmed.
00:30:15.140They worked with their hands, and they raised their families on the farms.
00:30:20.000Today, our farms are much larger in size,
00:30:24.680but with a lot less young people involved in it.
00:30:29.420And another thing that I think that people don't understand is or don't pay attention to, and maybe you don't even know about, but they like to say that Alberta is polluting the world with their oil industry.
00:30:50.180And yet Quebec, where does it get a big portion of its oil?
00:30:57.300Saudi Arabia oh yes how do they go about getting that do they use coal yes
00:31:12.120they do yes and I have a brother that's a
00:31:14.920boilermaker that's worked all over the world and he now lives in Africa and is
00:31:22.620is semi-retired basically, but at the same time has built coal-fired boilers in different
00:31:30.500parts of the world in the last few years.
00:31:33.940You see Germany now doing that, and China is still building coal-fired boilers, and
00:31:44.060Yet, we are not supposed to be able to use our natural resources.
00:31:53.160And the people that have elected the liberal government today that is actually, in my mind, ruining Western Canada.
00:32:04.160The people that have elected them don't know where their energy comes from.
00:32:09.700They don't care because they have a disconnect with the environment totally.
00:32:17.180Only thing they'll listen to is the crap that the media carries.
00:32:23.360And the media has been bought and paid for by this liberal government that's in place today.
00:34:02.200you know, how, you know, how the sausage gets made and then who's eating the sausage.
00:34:06.420It's this thing. I don't want to know how it's being made. I just like, I just like the,
00:34:10.540the end product. Right. And, and it's tough work. It's tough work to get these things done.
00:34:16.480Let's talk a little bit about your time in, in the legislature proper. So you're elected to
00:34:23.000that big, beautiful building in Winnipeg. It is, I actually think it is one of the more beautiful
00:34:29.060legislatures we have uh throughout the country let alone western canada of the tyndall stone
00:34:34.020and everything else of course it's also a gigantic masonic temple but that's a different question
00:34:38.840altogether uh the point being that it's yeah it's a very cool building i got a tour of it while i
00:34:43.740was there by a buddy who was working with with the premier at the time and you know it's it is
00:34:50.500this kind of testament to what's happening throughout the province of manitoba you were
00:34:54.680elected there. You guys sit in a semicircle, which is a little different than the parliamentary
00:34:59.160tradition that we're used to otherwise. And what was your time like there? You've been there,
00:35:05.520I think, in opposition and then as well as in majority. What was it like to be a part of a
00:35:11.260movement in Manitoba? And did that movement achieve what you wanted to achieve?
00:35:15.140it uh it was a bit of a challenge to say the least because when you're when you're working
00:35:26.180in your own business you uh you make the decisions and you live with them and you get it done
00:35:34.900and when you're elected you have to work with a lot of people with different ideas
00:35:40.420and define what your decisions are going to be and what your projects are,
00:35:47.840and then it just takes too damn long to get it done, in my mind.
00:35:54.920But at the same time, it is the way that the legislatures work.
00:36:02.780And, yes, we did accomplish a lot of things.
00:36:07.500Even when you're in opposition, you can't accomplish certain things.
00:36:12.500But it does take a lot of time and a lot of effort to do that.
00:36:19.500But one of the big parts is to be able to educate the total population in the province.
00:36:31.500So as a rural MLA, you have a big chore to educate those that disconnect, as you pointed out, from the rural area in order to move ahead with things.
00:36:50.900And then, of course, we also have the same situation that British Columbia has with our aboriginal population.
00:37:01.500And they're, how should I say it, not just claims, they do own a lot of land.
00:37:12.140And then you need to cross that land with certain things.
00:37:16.860And Manitoba was, for example, is to bring our power from our dams in northern Manitoba down to southern Manitoba.
00:37:26.760and you have to cross different reserves and so on and so forth.
00:37:33.520And the NDP, rather than to deal with each aboriginal tribe,
00:37:42.700decided we're going to circumvent that and go a different way
00:37:46.660and they built this Bipole 3 at a cost, an extra cost of $5 billion
00:37:52.800dollars at whose expense at the people of manitoba's expense it runs all around the
00:38:02.480doggone province and back to winnipeg but nobody can tell you can't tap into those kind of powers
00:38:09.680until after it's gone through your uh your station so it's going to take years for manitobans to pay
00:38:18.080for that and we couldn't stop that when we got elected that was something that
00:38:23.240we were going to stop but we couldn't and that well I don't know it does it's
00:38:31.400disappointing that you can't do that but there's too much money put into it in
00:38:36.860order to stop it so there yes there's and there's other things that that I
00:38:44.460brought up myself I suggested that I have a program that I was working on to
00:38:54.400stop the switch I don't know whether you've heard of it or not but switching
00:39:00.700from daylight savings to that's right yeah back and forth it was called stop
00:39:06.960the switch was my project and the reason for it was so many people suffer health
00:39:18.360issues when the switch is made whether it's in the spring or in the fall so
00:39:23.940many people suffer and there's a group of people and when I say a group there's
00:47:40.660And in 1920, the federal government formed them with Eastern Police, formed the Northwest
00:47:48.960Mounted Police and the Eastern Police into the RCMP.
00:47:54.400And the Northwest Mounted Police actually started in Manitoba.
00:47:58.560At any rate, after some of the things that have happened to the RCMP, and it happens to other police forces too, but I thought, you know, you look in the mirror and you see that red light.
00:48:13.820What's the first thing that goes through your mind?
00:48:16.220You look at your speedometer and say, where in the heck did he come from?
00:48:21.060But at the same time, if somebody's breaking into your house, then who do you call?
00:48:27.640And we know that a number of the RCMP were shot.
00:48:35.820Their families go through something every day that our families don't have to go through.
00:48:42.400When the RCMP member goes to work, is he coming home?
00:48:47.200So I felt it was important to honor them with the RCMP day, the day that they were formed.
00:48:54.660And so I put forward a private member's bill, which passed in the legislature.
00:49:00.840Those kind of things I think are important to recognize the people that do things that normally we take for granted.
00:49:15.580You take for granted that you're protected all the time.
00:49:20.680We should not take those kind of things for granted.
00:49:24.660No, we shouldn't. We shouldn't. It's a rarity in this world, actually. There's very few places where you don't have to give your police bribes or feel like you need to be armed at all times in order to protect yourself. I'm not saying I'm against self-armament whatsoever. I'm very pro having armaments and being able to defend yourself.
00:49:45.260But nonetheless, the point that I'm trying to draw here, to your point, Cliff, is that, of course, we need to honor those who put their lives on the line every day, first responders, military, of course, our police.
00:49:56.460I think that maybe the way we can kind of round out what we've been talking about here, we've been talking about this divide, you know, the West and the rest.
00:50:05.100We've been talking about the divide within rural and urban, even in a place like Manitoba, again, a place where most people would think, no, like, I mean, that's still a rural province.
00:50:13.240It's like Saskatchewan, the farmers have the say, and you're explaining to me in no uncertain terms, like, well, no, actually, Winnipeg is kind of pulling all the strings around here nowadays.
00:50:24.160Let's talk a little bit about what the future then holds, but for Manitoba and for Canada in general, what's going to happen here?
00:50:31.440How does the premier of Manitoba or the premiers of the rest of the western provinces, how do they get either more out of Ottawa or how do they lead as a group in order to ensure their own populations are better taken care of?
00:50:46.620Well, I think they have to stand together, first of all.
00:50:50.760And I am disappointed in one respect that the Premier of Manitoba didn't stand up with Scott Moe and Kenny and Ontario when they were fighting the federal government on the carbon tax initially.
00:51:16.760and but in Manitoba our premier and I was sitting in that in the government at
00:51:25.460the time and he said we're going to have a carbon tax here and I said no and I
00:51:32.660said it in caucus I said it privately to him and because the people in rural
00:51:41.840Manitoba that elected me were saying the same thing.
00:51:46.100Now apparently, well then he changed his mind afterwards, but in the meantime, didn't step
00:51:53.060up at the time, and now he is still saying, well, we've got our own, what do they call
00:52:00.840it, the clean green machine that they've got here, and they're going to court on that with
00:52:10.260And we do need to also explain to, or how do you go about saying it, because we have a lot of people from eastern Canada that have come to work in western Canada, because that's where the jobs were, in Harper's days.
00:58:35.520And I know that you are very proud of Manitoba, proud of the place you came from, proud of the things you accomplished.
00:58:40.440And we're proud to have you on here today.
00:58:42.580Thank you so much for joining us, Cliff.
00:58:44.680Well, thank you for the opportunity, and I hope I didn't embarrass you with my language.
00:58:49.460Nope, not at all. Not at all. Thank you so much. We hope to have you on again soon.
00:58:55.380We'll look forward to it. Thank you again, and keep up the good work, and the young man that
00:59:02.100works with you, I have a lot of respect for him. There's no reason why he can't be the premier
00:59:08.780of british columbia at some time there you go we'll keep we'll take care of him for you don't
00:59:14.480you worry thank you so much clip well we'll be bringing on darcy uh darcy reppin right away he
00:59:22.000of course is the co-founder of the rural party of british columbia and the former mayor of telco
00:59:27.640darcy are you there let's see i am uh hopefully you can hear me yeah i can hear you just fine
00:59:34.780Why don't you tell us a little bit about your background and how you founded the Rural BC Party and what kind of the purpose is and what you're hoping to accomplish.
00:59:45.300Sure. Well, first of all, good morning, Nathan, and thanks for having me on.
00:59:50.820Yeah, the politics didn't come to me intentionally.
00:59:54.600I initially got involved because of issues that were happening here in Telcwa that I was concerned about and a number of other people were concerned about.
01:00:05.240And so I really began with my term as mayor of Telcwa.
01:00:10.460I didn't seek re-election partially because I wanted to focus more on rural BC issues, provincial level issues, and even to an extent, federal level issues.
01:00:21.520um and so at the time i was uh considering this project i realized there were some other regional
01:00:28.580politicians that were pretty fed up with the way our region in particular was being uh handled by
01:00:35.100the the provincial government and so uh you know ultimately we got together and had a chat about
01:00:41.340the best way forward and determined that forming a province-wide rural party one that targeted
01:00:47.720rural areas and emphasized the need for equity for rural British Columbians was the best way
01:00:55.480forward. So yeah, Jonathan Van Barneveld, again, a very successful local politician in Houston, B.C.,
01:01:05.400and myself and a couple of other people that we've been working with really got together and said,
01:01:11.620But, you know, we need to present some solid policy that shows people in rural BC that there's another way forward besides the urban centric parties that currently rule the roost.
01:01:25.680And, of course, we know that the urban areas will still be that target.
01:01:30.720Our belief is that for us, if we can take seats in the rural areas, we'll have a disproportionately loud voice in the legislature just because of the shakeup that would be and what it would show our Victoria politicians,
01:01:47.920and how rural people are feeling about the treatment
01:02:01.680in terms of funding and infrastructure development
01:02:04.820and, you know, managing the revenues from our resources.
01:02:09.920But really what it's about is having a positive projection
01:02:13.900of what rural BC can look like in the future.
01:02:16.420And that's the thing that gets me excited about what we're working on.
01:02:22.440You know, it's funny because I've always lived in Prince George, except for my brief time down in Vancouver.
01:02:30.800And well, I was in Langley, to be honest about for my schooling.
01:02:35.540I went to Trinity Western University in Langley.
01:02:38.160But the thing that kind of comes to my mind is that when it comes to these rural areas, they do just get completely ignored.
01:02:45.620Now, I mean, maybe people out in Telco don't feel that people here in Prince George have a lot of solidarity with them.
01:02:52.380I mean, we've got too many Starbucks and we've got some of the big box stores.
01:02:56.020It's not we're not exactly, you know, Hudson's Hope.
01:02:59.260But but at the same time, obviously, people live in Prince George in order to experience the outdoors and to be, you know, to get to hunt.
01:03:07.200And they enjoy being here instead of being in the long commute of the lower mainland and the various bumper to bumper traffic that happens there.
01:03:14.760And we have more similar concerns to you than we do to the rest of the lower mainland, that sort of thing.
01:03:20.780I think that there still is that feeling of disconnect, though, between, you know, smaller rural areas, slightly larger rural areas, and then actual cities or towns.
01:03:29.940And then, of course, the metropolitan areas down south.
01:03:33.540How do we make a connection between places like Prince George and Telco?
01:03:39.120I think that connection has already been made, Nathan.
01:03:41.760And to be honest with you, I don't think that disconnect exists because the people that live in the smaller areas recognize the importance of places like Prince George and terrorists in our connectivity with the world.
01:03:55.640Right. So Prince George is our medical hub for much of the work that people need done with their health care for our area.
01:04:04.880and also terrorist factors strongly in that.
01:04:08.580In terms of, you know, trips out of town, shopping,
01:04:11.940different appointments, often those are also hubs
01:06:25.620to me it's a reasonable thing to do it's the fair thing to do and I believe that
01:06:29.640when they do that they'll see that they need to increase the investment in rural
01:06:33.600BC but that investment will pay much more dividend than a similar amount of
01:06:40.060money invested in our urban areas and there's one very clear and simple
01:06:45.420example that I use for that and that's the proposed elementary school that
01:06:48.900they're looking at putting in right downtown Vancouver Smithers is building
01:06:53.700a new elementary school as well right now and there are some differences in design the one in
01:06:59.140vancouver will have residential space above it slightly different number of classrooms and kids
01:07:04.740accommodated in the school and both facilities have child care involved but the bottom line is
01:07:11.860you can take those two budgets and you can look at them and go what's going on here and what's
01:07:16.100going on in terms of the cost and the bottom line there's no brainer it is far more cost efficient
01:07:22.900for the government to invest in building these sorts of facilities and housing in rural bc than
01:07:28.980it is in downtown vancouver and so if you're looking at bank for your buck again we don't
01:07:33.860want everybody from vancouver to move to rural bc it's impractical it's not going to happen
01:07:38.420it's used as as often a boogeyman argument by people that say hey like we love our lifestyle
01:07:44.340we don't want to have everybody moving here it's not going to happen but if we saw a one percent
01:07:50.340annual increase in migration to rural BC. Really, we'd barely notice it in terms of livability,
01:07:58.820but it would create a massive boom in terms of housing, employment, infrastructure development,
01:08:06.460the fact that we can actually have other businesses that forever have only been able to operate in the
01:08:12.180urban areas can now set up quite comfortably and actually do business as efficiently or more
01:08:18.780efficiently in say the highway 16 corridor with our rail route and our access to the port and our
01:08:25.820fiber optic internet there's just no reason anymore to lean on that historical excuse of
01:08:33.100well darcy people historically have moved to the urban areas great historically there was no
01:08:38.540internet right this has revolutionized our world so every time someone brings that argument up to
01:08:44.620me about why rural bc is dead in the water and is just going to slowly you know fade away i just go
01:08:53.440no actually it's going to go the other way and you guys are behind the curve because we now have
01:08:59.120everything that we need to do exactly what you're doing in vancouver cheaper better faster more
01:09:06.280efficiently and what we need is the government to recognize and support that those are i mean
01:09:14.600they're they're incredible points i and i wouldn't excuse any of them or or you know go against any
01:09:21.740of them it's absolutely true the infrastructure here in northern british columbia it's far superior
01:09:26.840than what it was even 20 years ago uh let alone uh you know 50 years ago and now and now there's
01:09:33.720a way forward in that sense if there is a place for not necessarily counter argument but maybe
01:09:39.120those unintended consequences of population change or increase or but but there are other macroeconomic
01:09:44.880factors that are uh around this is that i mean one of the things we talk about on this show at
01:09:50.160every now and again i bring it up as a refrain is that you know i remember when four hundred
01:09:54.720thousand dollars was a doctor's house um now in storage you know people want that for a bc bungalow
01:10:01.840now let's be clear i love i love bc bungalows they were pretty okay well built depending on how how
01:10:08.400real fast ever put together their split levels are very simple if the roof line's angled enough
01:10:12.800and you got shingles it's something you can do yourself later and if they've been renovated on
01:10:16.160the inside they're not a not a bad looking house like that's fine but four hundred thousand dollars
01:10:22.400on whatever that is point three of an acre i don't know uh is is a lot uh let alone the taxes that
01:10:29.280happen here in prince george i don't know if you guys are experiencing that uh further west or if
01:10:33.920housing brides are just going up everywhere it's just everybody from vancouver moving to prince
01:10:37.600George but it's it's getting to a point where people cannot get into a decent
01:10:42.260house even if they have you know like a government job and a decent down payment
01:10:47.140yeah absolutely and yes it is happening further west I believe Smithers and
01:10:52.560telco actually had the highest property value increases this year and telcos
01:10:56.800average off property value I believe is either just below or just slightly higher
01:11:04.100than Prince George's. So the issue there is not people leaving the city and migrating to
01:11:11.780rural areas, in my opinion. The issue there is our failure to develop a building code
01:11:19.740and a construction industry that can meet the demand that we have for housing. I'm not even
01:11:26.580going to use the word affordable. I'm just going to say housing in general. And it's been an
01:11:32.560ongoing frustration for me going back to when I was mayor of Telco, that we haven't been able to
01:11:38.420be more proactive in going, look, we can build houses that meet the requirements of our climate
01:11:45.180and of our living conditions more affordably than we are right now. And Nathan, part of the reason
01:11:52.060that those housing prices are so high is that when you look at the actual cost of construction now,
01:11:57.200even in rural and northern BC, I believe you're looking at for a high quality house between 250
01:12:04.020and 300 dollars per square foot. So when people are comparing single family homes that are already
01:12:10.280existing and constructed versus buying and building a new home on a lot, even at 400 or
01:12:18.160450 thousand dollars, really you're probably still getting better bang for your buck with older
01:12:25.400houses. My feeling is that we need to drive those construction costs down. I am absolutely an
01:12:33.540optimist and someone who believes so much in our ability to create as a species. And already we're
01:12:41.880seeing some really interesting innovations, things like 3D printed homes. We're seeing new techniques
01:12:47.280for building highly efficient and even net zero buildings. What we need, again, is a very clear
01:12:55.140roadmap and i'm i'm not anti-publicization of different industries to be clear but i believe
01:13:04.020that one way or the other whether it's through private industry or through public a public
01:13:09.140construction entity we need to get more efficient and more cost efficient at building housing and
01:13:16.420when we get there it will still be cheaper to build in rural areas because the land is here
01:13:22.660and the the opportunity to upgrade and redo infrastructure water and sewer systems is going
01:13:29.540to be far far cheaper and easier to deal with than it is to dig up broadway street in vancouver
01:13:37.380right um and the other thing is is that many of the towns in bc so prince george is seeing
01:13:43.780a boom um smithers and telco are seeing a boom uh terrace and kitimat obviously are
01:13:51.540in another boom which for them is i think getting a little tiring for the people that live there
01:13:56.820because it's boom it's bust it's boom it's bust prince rupert is kind of doing what it's been
01:14:02.500doing all the other small towns in our region actually haven't seen a large shift in housing
01:14:08.420prices or in migration and i can tell you right now i grew up in mckenzie bc there's a lot of
01:14:15.300perfectly fine empty homes in mckenzie bc which is a fantastic place to live especially if you're
01:14:21.780lifestyle oriented and you're into fishing and hunting and hiking and beautiful mountain views
01:14:26.820out of your window um yes is it a little bit of a dated layout i mean it's a company town that was
01:14:32.660built in the 1970s but um you know my belief is that if you have a community that galvanizes
01:14:38.980around something and wants to promote it that you can make things that might look pretty dated
01:14:45.460look pretty amazing and there's a benefit to mckenzie's layout as well with the density in
01:14:51.280terms of maintaining their infrastructure that again will be much more cost effective than it
01:14:55.660would be in the lower mainland so there's some missed opportunities right now there is housing
01:15:00.540available in rural bc it's just maybe not in the places where the demand is but again you
01:15:08.960you know, even for Prince George, yes, those housing prices are up high right now. But if we
01:15:12.920were to see a depreciation in the cost of new building, I think everything would sort of
01:15:18.480stabilize on that level. We, of course, don't wish negative equity on anyone. It's not something you
01:15:27.280want to wish on anybody, but it's one of those funny things. When you're a renter, you, you know,
01:15:31.320you don't think being a landlord's a job. And when you're a property owner, you don't want to
01:15:35.300values go down it's it's it's an old adversarial problem but i think the the kind of coming back to
01:15:41.680the the general idea of rural bc and and some of the divides that are found there at least between
01:15:47.340us and and especially the metropolitan areas in the lower mainland is throughout the show today
01:15:52.840we've been talking a little bit about the fact that it very much mirrors the kind of western
01:15:57.720alienation concept so we have a comment here from aaron ekman of course friend of the show i know
01:16:03.340he's a friend of yours as well. And he's just making the point that, you know, there's a lot
01:16:09.040of, there's, you know, a cause of Western alienation. Has the rural BC party debated
01:16:13.100Wexit internally? Maybe that's a little bit on the nose, but the idea just in general that
01:16:17.700if this is the debate going on in the rural BC party, that of course the metropolitan areas
01:16:25.380aren't really paying attention to us. What about that larger scope question? Do we have an answer
01:16:31.420to should victoria and the rest of bc not be you know maybe the same place anymore vancouver and
01:16:36.460the rest of the mainland or and for that matter the rest of the west and and even ottawa somehow
01:16:42.140go their separate ways or find some new political arrangements i can tell you that it hasn't factored
01:16:48.700in our party policy and i can answer the the question very um up front for myself and the
01:16:54.620answer is no i love bc i've lived in vancouver i've lived in victoria i'm not a person who
01:17:00.620believes that the way forward is to go hey we should just cut ties um i about solutions and
01:17:07.580i absolutely believe that within bc um there are solutions and i'm working on them and i'm
01:17:13.500i believe that we're we're seeing progress um icbc is an example it's an incredibly frustrating and
01:17:21.020long and difficult slog but if you are able to present a clear case backed by data showing
01:17:30.140that there is a clear and obvious disparity my optimistic feeling is that when you bring that
01:17:37.020in a cohesive manner to the government that they'll listen to you and they'll correct those issues
01:17:42.620and so that's kind of my approach i mean you know i just think the grass is always greener and i
01:17:49.180couldn't fathom um you know a wexit scenario involving bc i think that again when we talk
01:17:57.100about differences especially politically and lifestyle wise um british columbia as a whole
01:18:02.540is quite different than than alberta and i think alberta is quite different than saskatchewan and
01:18:07.340manitoba i've worked in all these places right i'm familiar with them um and i appreciate uh
01:18:14.700all of them and what canada brings as a whole and to be honest with you i appreciate what our
01:18:19.180international neighbors bring as a whole as well i mean on that level i think that we have one
01:18:24.700one globe that we're all living on and that we need to instead of living in fear of our neighbors
01:18:30.460and always fighting and trying to figure out how to get the best of another entity that we actually
01:18:37.660go like what's the real goal here and that's for all of us to have a fulfilling and high quality
01:18:43.420standard of living and i believe that's attainable but we need to take a different approach that is
01:18:49.100much more problem-solving oriented and so yeah um you know what i honestly i think wexit is a
01:18:56.780a no-go in bc i know that i got more votes than all the wexit candidates combined in the last
01:19:04.620election and i think the reason for that is that i made it very clear that actually i'm
01:19:09.900um i'm very uh progressive and problem solving oriented rather than um you know sort of stuck
01:19:19.340on the things that you know are wrong that i you know i need to bring forward solutions to things
01:19:26.380and i think the people take an interest in that so um yeah wax it no go for me that's not a problem
01:19:35.020at all i i mean on the show i've i've been rather ambivalent about this obviously the western
01:19:39.820standard has a pretty hard sovereignness line and they prefer to be called sovereignness over
01:19:45.020separatists i i i for myself i'm just interested in a better arrangement politically uh so problem
01:19:51.420solving is another way of putting that maybe i would put it more cynically because i'm obviously
01:19:55.100just on the more tragic conservative side of the spectrum but the the other side of it is that it
01:20:00.140It definitely, in my mind, is that I don't want to see the borders of Canada change.
01:20:04.120I have put it as maybe some of those internal borders should change.
01:20:07.800I have advocated in the past, for example, that we should follow the diocesan lines or maybe something else.
01:20:15.360But the point is that that would give us at least 47 districts.
01:20:18.160And actually, to the point of having we had Cliff Graydon on earlier, so we're talking about Manitoba.
01:20:23.220Well, I've been up to Churchill, Manitoba a few times now.
01:20:27.420And I can tell you the people in Churchill, Manitoba feel far more connected to the people and none of it than they do to the people of Winnipeg. And so maybe those borders in that sense should change some of those provincial lines.
01:20:37.660Coming back to the rural BC question, what kind of political arrangements might find some of that innovation?
01:20:44.860Would you, for example, be in favor of, I don't know, a provincial Senate or somehow the regional districts getting kind of a say as legislation comes out of Victoria?
01:20:54.600The various regional districts have a say in things or local candidates somehow have a way of influencing that in a secondary fashion?
01:21:02.120I don't know if it's a second chamber or how it works, but something like that.
01:21:07.660I struggle with it a little bit because what we see so often in rural BC in these small
01:21:14.220municipalities is a lot of candidates elected by acclamation and we see a lot of sort of
01:21:23.380municipal gridlock people are stuck in their own municipal bubble of dealing with the day-to-day
01:21:31.700issues that they're trying to address for their constituents and the reality is that in
01:21:37.580all of those communities it's it's a you know it's a part-time job um i when i was mayor uh
01:21:45.740much to my wife's chagrin kind of called it mayor school and actually left my previous career
01:21:51.820to really dedicate myself for those four years now the unfortunate part of it is that combined
01:21:57.580my regional district director salary and mayor salary was under 20 grand a year so i gave up
01:22:03.820about half a million dollars over four years to serve my community and that hurt and that was
01:22:08.700definitely part of the factor of me um stepping away from that but the other thing is is that
01:22:15.100by stepping away from it i can actually dedicate that kind of focus so um you know honestly i think
01:22:22.700you're going to be challenged in a parliamentary level in addressing this i think that the best
01:22:31.260way forward for people in rural bc is not going to think that they're going to get better
01:22:35.980representation in uh victoria and there's a very good argument for that which is that uh you know
01:22:44.060most people feel that a vote should be equal to another vote and we already have some problems
01:22:49.660with that in canada the senate i think we can circle back to your western alienation a bit later
01:22:55.820and talk about some of the things that drive that fall into the same category.
01:23:01.480So, again, my feeling is that we need to provide the evidence
01:23:07.820and the proof that we are not being treated equitably,
01:23:11.860and that comes down a lot of the times to math.
01:23:14.480That's what I've done with ICBC through a series of Freedom of Information reports,
01:23:18.700and today is actually a very – it's a huge day for me
01:23:22.940because today is the day that icbc has as a deadline to respond to the first information
01:23:29.020request in their rate requirements proceeding and so that issue is now plainly on the table
01:23:37.340and we will see what their response is and i've also engaged with our local mla nathan cullen and
01:23:45.100he also is paying close attention i've also reached out now to adam olsen and to sonia first
01:23:51.340now as well so people are apprised of the issue and now it's kind of the balls in their court
01:23:57.900and we have to see whether they're going to do the right thing or whether they're going to dig0.68
01:24:02.600in and quite clearly just say you're second class citizens so it's a start it's the approach that
01:24:09.280i'm taking in terms of representation in the legislature again i think if we flat out are
01:24:15.760able to elect representatives in the rural areas in those you know 24 25 ridings that would I think
01:24:25.160be very interested in that kind of representation number one there's a chance that we would hold
01:24:31.000the balance of power in the legislature we saw that with three seats with the greens
01:24:36.100and the other one is even just breaking in we know historically how hard it has been
01:24:41.720for a party to um elect uh representatives it took the greens i don't know how many elections and
01:24:48.960you know i was on the radio with stewart parker the other day and one of the things that he remarked
01:24:53.940on was you know first election i wasn't even here i was in uh the northwest territories during the
01:24:59.740last election spent zero dollars on signs or radio ads or tv ads um participated remotely in the
01:25:06.440debates and got almost 11% of the vote. I mean, I put pennies on the dollar, what we put into the
01:25:14.240campaign compared to the other candidates and 11% of the vote came. So to me, I look at and I go,
01:25:22.440there's clearly a strong interest. And one of the things I've always said too, is that my biggest
01:25:28.980job isn't during election campaigns. I may never run again. And that would be perfectly fine with
01:25:34.580me because i'm all about policy i'm not about the politics i'm not about smiling for the cameras or
01:25:40.340cutting ribbons i think that we can do better and that's where my focus is so we're certainly
01:25:46.180working on that for the next campaign and hopefully we can find compelling candidates
01:25:50.340throughout the province that people engage with and go yeah like this is a problem that we need
01:25:57.140to see addressed and by electing people to the rural bc party we can start to address them and
01:26:03.380at least shine a real light in the legislature on what's going on i think that you know speaking of
01:26:12.900shining that light in the legislature i mean there are things that affect rural british columbians
01:26:17.220that simply don't affect you know urban british columbians i was just bringing this up again just
01:26:21.540a little bit earlier with cliff i was talking about all the ordinances and the incredible
01:26:25.860amount of red tape that comes around for those of us in in especially in farming communities or just
01:26:30.660in rural parts of the province that have a little bit more acreage that does qualify under the ALR
01:26:36.280as farmland or whatever. The idea of trying to build a secondary residence and having generational
01:26:42.520farming, all this stuff, you'd think that they'd want to facilitate this, but the amount of red
01:26:46.200tape that's around it is incredible. What are some of those key planks in the rural BC party
01:26:52.400platform that address some of those issues, not just about people who are farming and whatever,
01:26:57.500that's very important but but of other rule issues what does that look like uh well again
01:27:02.940it looks like uh drafting policy that addresses it i agree with you nathan i am a hugely passionate
01:27:09.820advocate of agriculture in northwestern bc um and you know i'm a co-founder of a cooperative
01:27:16.620the coast field and forest cooperative that has been engaged in trying to get funding for
01:27:22.060a agricultural research center in our region um the alc is a dumpster fire it has been a dumpster
01:27:31.100fire for decades it's an absolute embarrassment and it is totally stunning to watch the decisions
01:27:39.020that they make time and time again i mean you probably know of the lady today uh decision on
01:27:46.620they're wanting to access the lake there for a rehabilitation center and the alc saying no on
01:27:53.660their own territory it's insane to see some of the decisions that are happening so i certainly
01:28:00.620support and i know that our regional district board um you know specifically mark parker is
01:28:05.420the chair and mark fisher is a grower here and in my area have been doing incredible work putting
01:28:11.500pressure on the provincial government on some of these issues uh particularly the overruling of
01:28:17.580local boards uh local commission boards which is uh you know whenever that happens everybody's
01:28:24.060jaw drops and just goes what wait a second a guy who's not a farmer who's in victoria
01:28:29.020is telling the people that are farmers up in northern bc that they're making the wrong decision
01:28:33.740on agricultural uh proposals i have to i have to interject here with just a with just a story
01:28:40.060to this effect now admittedly it wasn't the alc that that's bad enough it was it was bc assessment
01:28:45.020and it's one of the reasons why i grind an axe against those guys every day again bc assessment
01:28:49.660if you're listening no one decides what my house is worth except for the person who pays for it
01:28:54.460that's it that's it and the bank i guess when they want to do the equity back door thing whatever to
01:28:59.340keep the economy spinning because we want all these spinning plates to keep doing what they're
01:29:02.380doing whatever right the point being that uh the bc assessment was trying to tax my parents property
01:29:08.300as their backfield to the second section they're trying to tax it as lakeside residential to a lake
01:29:14.060with no public access except the ancient public access that's an overgrown goat trail and and no
01:29:21.100utilities and no buildings and then all their examples were literally like from ena lake they
01:29:26.140were all from these little like these little residential places that are you know like cabins
01:29:29.900on a lake so that's all that and then they're comparing it to this 160 acre that's next to this
01:29:34.460tiny little lake that doesn't have any utilities i'm just saying i'm like did somebody call this
01:29:38.940in on a friday like really like a friday afternoon it was already halfway through happy hour and they
01:29:43.420just punched this up and threw it up on the website for their response to my challenge
01:29:47.180it's like this is nonsense it's like who who is running this thing so and this is this is the
01:29:53.500problem right is that um we leave these decisions to individual bureaucrats that absolutely that
01:30:01.500friday and they've you know they've already mailed it in and they're like i'm gonna look at lakeside
01:30:07.900properties today and do it and then they end up getting back by their superiors or they get it
01:30:13.980sent off without um having that actually being looked at and i hear those complaints time and
01:30:19.820time again um from you know people living here and it's you know whether it's bc assessment
01:30:25.820whether it's how they're being managed by the health system um whether it's ei issues i mean
01:30:31.980it's just you know income tax problems over and over again and um you know i i kind of cheekily
01:30:40.060put something out there a couple years ago when i was you know kind of a peak frustration going
01:30:44.780really what uh you know i basically said here's my resume i would like to be a service tester
01:30:49.980i'd like to be the person that goes and tests all government services and tells you whether they're
01:30:53.900garbage or whether they're working because with my experience i'd say literally the majority of
01:30:59.660the government services that i've tried to access have been absolute garbage and it's not because
01:31:05.100anybody's intentionally um you know again it's handling's razor right like we're not talking
01:31:10.460about people that are intentionally going we're just going to be annoying to people today but
01:31:16.220through this incredible bureaucracy in the end that's exactly what the result is and you know
01:31:22.860again i often joke that the only place if you ever want to revisit the 70s or the 80s and hear a busy
01:31:28.300signal the only place that you can do that is to call the candor revenue agency yeah yeah right
01:31:35.260so yeah it's really the alc is just another example of that now it's great to see and you know
01:31:44.300sometimes you have to acknowledge the positives as well as keep pushing on the things that need
01:31:49.260change i think so much pressure was put on the ndp government because of the issues with housing on
01:31:57.740uh agricultural land that they did finally announce we don't know exactly what it looked like
01:32:04.780that they were going to relax the restrictions on that now for me i always think you know there's a
01:32:11.820way to do this more uh in a more sophisticated manner so that they can achieve the objective
01:32:18.220that they're trying to achieve the first time around but also recognize as you said um you know
01:32:23.580uh generational uh farming opportunities or even you know one of the things that i'm a big advocate
01:32:29.980of is uh getting a more intensive agricultural industry going in our little pocket here where
01:32:35.820we have in place is a very beneficial climate and a ton of water so as we see the challenges
01:32:42.620that the central valley of Vancouver's pardon me of California is experiencing with their drought
01:32:49.580my feeling is that we can supplant a lot of that supply by developing the agricultural industry
01:32:57.340in the right parts of BC especially with climate change coming on because we have water and water
01:33:04.140when you're growing intensive vegetables and fruits is the key so yeah I again I think it's
01:33:12.140it's a long haul i don't really want to see agricultural land protection lifted entirely
01:33:18.700but again i think one of the key things for me and again with the the uh the rural bc
01:33:26.220party as a whole is that we're huge advocates of candidate independence and the candidates need to
01:33:32.300bring ideas for their region to the table first not their part not the party's ideals but they
01:33:38.780need to go into their region and go this is an issue that people in our riding our consensus
01:33:45.660feeling needs to be addressed that they know that the ndp of the liberals are not going to
01:33:49.660take seriously in victoria and that our candidates bring those issues forward first and foremost
01:33:56.380so yeah agriculture is going to be a huge one how we're managing our forest industry and
01:34:01.020impertinency and tenure huge you know how we're dealing with oil and gas some of the other mega
01:34:07.740projects site c is one that has been on my radar we have to look at the 60 000 foot view and go
01:34:16.780where are we going here like what is this going to look like as a region in 30 or 40 years
01:34:22.380particularly if there is increasing increasing international pressure for us to develop to
01:34:29.580either take in more people or to develop and extract more resources to feed that international
01:34:35.500demand the international demand i mean this is this is another part of this whole question of
01:34:43.900what development in northern british columbia looks like not just with a phase towards asia
01:34:48.300or with the rest of canada through the port right because i mean the trains go both ways
01:34:52.460but even internally uh again there is that divide even within rural areas i it's interesting to kind
01:34:58.860of it's interesting to have this interaction with you rc because because i it's interesting to see
01:35:04.140like a truly rural progressive somebody wants to wants to uh innovate here at home and everything
01:35:09.260else and i i do as well um we might differ in some of those respects but i think that this is
01:35:13.900another question so are we looking at that international scope is that the future for
01:35:18.280the rural areas of british columbia through the highway 16 corridor like that that face to asia
01:35:23.900that pivot to asia this is where our international market is this is how we will be able to facilitate
01:35:28.760growth in our region and and i know that there's on another side there's people like well you know
01:35:33.260again that it maybe it is a bit of nimby isn't right not in my backyard but there's a lot of
01:35:37.100people are also like well i'm more interested in the conservation aspect of what being in the rural
01:35:41.980part of british columbia comes from do you think there's a way to reconcile that that development
01:35:45.900and uh the conservational kind of idea the economy and the environment these questions are are often
01:35:52.300paired against each other what does the rule party have to say to this uh absolutely there's a way
01:35:58.140forward and to reconcile those and again i i spend a lot of time trying to put forward
01:36:04.860a perspective that shows both our obligation and how we can move forward and reconcile
01:36:12.460our our demands and obligation to participate in the international markets
01:36:18.140with creating stability in our economy and our livability here at home
01:36:23.420um you know industry is one impact housing is one impact i think that the biggest challenge is that
01:36:32.940we have a historical wrong that needs to be addressed and that is uh how the first nations
01:36:40.140people in our region were basically stripped of of their land base and went through historically
01:36:47.260a very challenging well understatement say challenging devastating period of time and so
01:36:53.820there's an obligation to address that and land rights are first and foremost in that we know
01:36:59.740that where i live the witsuit negotiations as much as they're far too opaque and secretive for my
01:37:07.580liking i believe everybody that lives in a region has a right to know what's going on
01:37:13.500we all know that coming out of that much like the lake babine nation agreement just north of us
01:37:19.100where they they gained control of 20 000 hectares of land there we're going to see a similar
01:37:24.860settlement here and so again for me it's about getting ahead of the curve but i also remind
01:37:31.100people that people in rural bc are disproportionately enormous consumers of goods and materials
01:37:39.260we consume more in terms of you know what we buy what we shop how much fuel we burn the heating
01:37:47.320of our houses the size of our houses all of that on a global level and so i am vehemently opposed
01:37:55.360to the not in my backyard approach um i am 100 behind doing development that is sustainable and
01:38:02.140responsible and if we're not going to publicize any of our industrial entities which as I've said
01:38:12.040before I believe is something that Norway has done very well with and is now incredibly their
01:38:17.800sovereign wealth fund has something like two hundred fifty thousand dollars per person in
01:38:23.140Norway available because of the way that they've managed to you know take public ownership of many
01:38:30.220of their resource industries and the companies doing that extraction um all that being said
01:38:37.660either way the companies are doing the extraction need to be held to account to do it
01:38:44.620in a sustainable way that isn't going to leave uh an extraordinarily negative impact i think
01:38:51.100part of that is to take that 60 000 foot view and get ahead of the curve and picking the areas and
01:38:56.860the resources that we know exist we know where most of the resources exist in in bc and to get
01:39:03.660ahead of the curve and go okay these are the areas that we are going to get ahead of the
01:39:08.300the curve in supporting that will streamline the permitting process it will make it where
01:39:14.780you know hopefully a lot of the the conflict will go away when there's consensus agreement
01:39:19.740that this is the right place to do these kinds of developments whether it's forestry or mining or
01:39:25.020oil and gas extraction and then just do it and go we're going to do this and we're going to make
01:39:30.460sure that we retain as much of the benefits and the revenue for the people that are here
01:39:37.100but to be honest with you nathan i don't see because of the the volatility the volatility of
01:39:43.100the international markets i don't see that as the be all and end all as we move forward i think the
01:39:49.580key is that we need number one i mean agriculture is far more stable and more important because
01:39:55.100people always eat and the demand for uh quality uh food from an area like bc is only going to
01:40:04.620increase there's no way that people go yeah whatever you know we're just going to eat spam
01:40:09.340that's made in the lab they're going to want our food they're going to want our water
01:40:13.660and so we have a choice we can either ignore that and just you know twiddle our thumbs and
01:40:20.680what's going to happen and i think the vice president of the u.s kind of said something
01:40:25.440that i've been saying for years last week she said you know we fought a lot of wars over oil
01:40:30.180and everybody caught that part of her her discussion said wow she's admitting that they've
01:40:34.220been engaged in wars over oil but the next thing she said was we can expect that that's going to
01:40:40.180happen for water. People didn't catch that. But what she's saying is that water is the new oil
01:40:46.760and they are very aware of their food supply in the United States and they supply us. The Central
01:40:53.780Valley of California exports far more food to Canada than Canada exports down to the U.S.
01:41:01.720So we better take notice when the Vice President of the United States is making a statement like
01:41:07.780that and realize that either they're going to come and get our water so they can grow our food for us
01:41:13.460or we better start growing some food and again in terms of that international obligation yep we
01:41:19.860should grow lots of food so that we can sell it to the people in california and that's kind of my
01:41:25.860approach is you know we need to maximize the value of what we have here and make sure that we're
01:41:31.460doing it in a stable and sustainable way and i don't believe in um you know i think we've seen
01:41:38.820some really tragic situations where corporations have kind of milked the resource and then left the
01:41:44.340taxpayer hanging um i'm currently involved in a remediation or looking at remediation work in the
01:41:52.900northwest territories uh in giant mine zone and uh yeah it's uh when you look at the cost of these
01:42:02.260cleanups uh it's it's a big challenge and much like mount paulie i mean how the taxpayers got
01:42:09.940that bill hung on them is beyond me let's talk just a little bit here about the challenge that
01:42:17.060you're putting forward to icbc uh what what does that look like to take us through this what what
01:42:23.140went wrong when it came to rural residents and icbc rates and what are you hoping to put right
01:42:29.940um yeah so it's kind of an interesting story that begun uh when uh i was still mayor of telco and
01:42:38.820actually the wife of one of our counselors showed up a meeting and said we just got our insurance
01:42:44.100we want to know why we're paying more than smithers and i kind of went what i had no idea
01:42:49.300and then realized that the dividing line the territorial rate dividing line is in between
01:42:54.420telco and smithers which on a basic level is clearly you know totally ridiculous because
01:43:01.460everybody in telco drives in smithers um we worked with uh trying to move that with icbc and just
01:43:08.100kind of got a very apathetic yeah we see what you're saying and you're right but we're not
01:43:12.420changing it um so that frustrated me and i began doing more research after we kind of got that
01:43:19.940response and they did say you know we're doing a 10-year adjustment that's going to make some
01:43:24.340difference in different territories but it really didn't address that so i started taking a look for
01:43:30.100myself at some of the data that icbc had online and realized you know i'm a bit of a math junkie
01:43:37.540and data junkie numbers uh are interesting to me so i'm looking at this data and my eyeballs just
01:43:42.980well popped out when i saw the disparity in accidents and injuries in greater vancouver
01:43:48.980and that the collision rates at certain intersections um compared to where i was living
01:43:55.060and so i did some quick math and went wow we are paying way more than we should be given what we
01:44:03.060would be getting back in claims this led to an initial foy campaign where i of course there's
01:44:10.020a three-hour limit on what they'll do for free and i knew that if i put the whole thing in myself
01:44:14.340they'd send me a bill for ten thousand dollars and say pay up or you get nothing so i i took a
01:44:19.460more creative approach and i recruited a whole bunch of people from throughout rural dc and said
01:44:26.100i'd like you to put forward this foy request all prepared and i kept a spreadsheet to track which
01:44:31.940postal codes and each person submitted an foi for a rural postal code and an urban postal code
01:44:39.700got those initial 20 something requests tallied up and went yep there you go there is the issue and
01:44:46.180so what it was nathan is over five years we got the totals of how much uh people were paying in
01:44:53.940from different uh postal codes and premiums and we got the total of how much was paid out in claims
01:44:59.700and uh for example the b6b postal code in downtown vancouver uh was actually being subsidized not
01:45:08.100even counting operating costs subsidized by over 20 million dollars a year uh the last couple of
01:45:14.260years of that set up and overall were subsidized uh by comparison places like telco and smithers
01:45:20.660were paying up to 2.7 times as much for every dollar coming out in claims so the next step i
01:45:29.060took that to our neighbors in houston to their council and asked if they would sponsor a
01:45:34.660resolution at the union of dc municipalities which they did and that resolution was endorsed
01:45:43.940by the executive at which point that opened the door for me to then do an foi for all of the
01:45:49.860postal codes because then you can say it's in the public interest so i did that icbc digging in you
01:45:57.380know it's amazing on each level i had to involve the office of the information and privacy
01:46:02.260commissioner because icbc just would not release the data and in fact that first set with the
01:46:08.340individual um people asking for it they actually put a threat in the response saying that they
01:46:15.060can't share that information with other people and so the first respondents when they got it
01:46:20.660called me and said i don't think i can give this to you and i was like it's a freedom of
01:46:26.500information request and so we tried to pin icbc down on they just oh it was a mistake
01:46:33.140you know it's like how do you put a threat at the top of an information report a freedom of
01:46:37.380information report and then say it was just an error it was totally bizarre but that's what they
01:46:44.340did and so finally we got all the information um i guess probably about three weeks ago and
01:46:50.500i crunched those numbers and yeah the bottom line is there's no question that uh the people in rural
01:46:57.940bc uh overall are paying about eight a dollar 85 for every dollar that comes back uh pardon me a
01:47:05.780dollar 84 for every dollar that comes back and claims and the people in the urban areas those
01:47:10.740to rate territories of southern vancouver island and vancouver are paying about a dollar 35.
01:47:18.100so we're paying 49 cents more for every dollar that comes back and claims so today you know i
01:47:26.100asked some questions in the first freedom of information request with icbc today is the day
01:47:31.220that they'll have a response to that and i'll put forward my final arguments but i also certainly
01:47:38.180expect that our our rural representatives in victoria regardless of whether they're ndp or
01:47:43.460liberal or green uh support their own constituents in fixing this and not fixing it over 10 years and
01:47:51.620not fixing it partially but right now fix it we should not be paying more for every dollar that
01:47:57.780we get back in claims than someone in downtown vancouver and uh you know another point to that
01:48:03.860is when we've got this green or clean bc initiative how does that work when you're
01:48:09.380subsidizing people in downtown vancouver to insure their cars it's totally counterproductive to what
01:48:16.260you're trying to accomplish with your clean bc initiative so we'll see what happens it's uh i
01:48:23.460don't expect that i'm going to get a response saying whoops we made a mistake we're going to
01:48:27.140fix it all now but i think that we're making progress in in shining a light on what exactly
01:48:33.060is going on and in terms of the solution sorry you asked about that there's a couple of simple
01:48:39.460solutions one is break rural bc into a separate pool and rural bc now is very comparable in
01:48:46.100population to what the initial icbc pool was so there shouldn't really be a logistical issue with
01:48:53.140that in terms it's a big enough entity it's a million million people um or the other one is
01:48:58.580they've demonstrated that they can break data down by postal code and so i think that's actually
01:49:03.380the best way is to do a pro-rated five-year average per postal code and go you're going to
01:49:08.580pay the rate that your your postal code is um paying and we're going to balance the books on
01:49:13.860that level and it's totally doable it's just a question of whether the political will is there
01:49:20.260to fix it and whether icbc can get their bureaucratic butt in order and actually do it
01:49:27.460execute it it's an ongoing question isn't it whether whether we're talking about the alc
01:49:34.580or we're talking about icbc or we're talking about bc assessment it's uh it's interesting
01:49:39.780how many arms length agencies in this province or bc hydro for that matter bc ferries uh how many
01:49:46.180arms length industries in this province are well some of them are woefully mismanaged a lot of them
01:49:51.300are just mismanaged but uh they they hurt real people through their mismanagement with respect
01:49:57.380to to that then it's funny that you you brought up the postal code thing so i want to i want to
01:50:02.660just kind of give that a bit more of a spin it's interesting the idea of breaking things down by
01:50:09.060postal code i i think that that's a right that's the right way of doing things but then again we're
01:50:13.940coming back to a question of localism coming back to a question of place we're not talking about
01:50:19.300rootless cosmopolitanism which is something that at least people on my side often accuse people
01:50:23.940down in the lower mainland of to a certain extent how do we how do we bridge that gap how do we how
01:50:30.760do we find is there is there a progressive argument from your point of view for for localism
01:50:36.620that isn't just possible trying to find solidarity all across the bar trying to find a solidarity in
01:50:43.540a locale and build out from there um i don't think that it's a progressive argument it's a logical
01:50:51.260argument and the answer is this they are already doing it icbc already has rate territories there's
01:50:57.980already localism they have it built into their system they've had it built into their system
01:51:02.460for a very long time and they adjust their rates based on some magical formula that obviously
01:51:09.020doesn't work correctly for those rate territories so really it's not a question of localism or
01:51:15.260progressivism it's a question of going you can do this better icbc can have a better system
01:51:21.100and the system that they have right now and certainly one of the key questions from my
01:51:25.260information request was provide the breakdown of your algorithm of how you calculate rates
01:51:33.980i want to see that because it doesn't calculate the rates fairly for people in rural areas
01:51:41.820so that's basically where that focus is for me is to go let's get the information get a response
01:51:47.420that goes this is how we do it and then i go back into it and i go well this is where it's wrong
01:51:53.180and again it's not about localism we're not saying hey people in telco should pay a different rate
01:51:58.620and again i'm perfectly fine um part of the reason that i i broke all those pools down was to go if
01:52:04.540icbc just wanted to go with the rural pool um here's what it looks like and i actually did a
01:52:09.820separate pool that took in prince george colonna kamloops nanaimo places that are currently in rural
01:52:16.620rate territories to go what's their rates um and collectively they were actually they were much
01:52:23.060closer to the urban pool um however for nclga i broke out prince george alone and went hmm that's
01:52:30.840interesting prince george is an outlier you're actually in our closer to our rate level so um
01:52:38.060you know i'm doing this off the side of my desk right i have a full-time job and i'm able to
01:52:43.800calculate this stuff out. So surely some of those $250,000 a year bureaucrats at ICBC should be able
01:52:50.600to do better than me. And if they can't, then yeah, I'm willing to come and work for substantially
01:52:57.400less than $250,000 a year and do the work that they can't do, I guess.
01:53:03.180And isn't that just the question? Again, whether we're talking about the managers,
01:53:08.040the endless stream of management that appears to be in Northern Health or in any of our
01:53:13.140municipalities and they're big enough and certainly within our arm's length organizations this does
01:53:18.740seem to be the problem i just want to cue in just one last time then into what rural bc uh the rural
01:53:25.460bc party is if if there's another election tomorrow and suddenly all those seats uh that you had
01:53:33.460targeted are yours there's 25 seats in your hand and there is a minority uh legislature what what
01:53:40.100would you what would be the first thing on your agenda uh well the first thing on our agenda would
01:53:46.820be to push the government to create a ministry of rural development if you want to go okay like
01:53:53.780what's the number one step forward to actually start addressing these issues you need to have
01:53:58.100people that are focused on addressing these issues and that ministry in my opinion in the party's
01:54:03.700opinion, should be located in Prince George, not in Victoria. So that is a pretty clear and
01:54:11.580easily addressable step. I was shocked that the government didn't form a standalone Ministry of
01:54:18.380Rural Development after the last election, given the report from John Horgan's former Deputy Premier
01:54:24.780suggesting that would be a good idea, and also from John Horgan's own statements after the
01:54:30.940election when he said we have to do better in rural bc and yet here we are and that's not
01:54:36.920happening to my uh knowledge or or by appearances um and then going beyond that step uh we have a
01:54:45.800list of things that involve health care education funding icbc infrastructure revenue sharing these
01:54:54.380are all different things that we've already identified that need to be looked into we need
01:54:59.820to do the the studies and assess the data and establish where we're standing and then we need
01:55:05.540equity and that is a big part of it and then for certain things we've talked a bit about agriculture
01:55:11.460when we talk about health care we know that you're not going to have equal health care in every place
01:55:17.040telco is not going to have a st paul's hospital but we need to actually figure out a better way
01:55:22.520to address the disadvantage of not having that because the reality is is that people in rural bc
01:55:27.980actually pay more in taxes than the people in the urban areas and in a way
01:55:35.080that's good fortune that means that on average we have a higher overall average
01:55:40.100income but that's not even evenly distributed and so there are many people
01:55:45.200that you and I both know are really struggling in rural BC that then when
01:55:49.740they have to take a trip to Vancouver and they need support from a spouse or
01:55:54.680you know whatever it is and they're they end up out of pocket for whether it's
01:55:58.640accommodations or travel or all these different things meanwhile someone in
01:56:03.260Vancouver just catches a bus right so we need a sign train yeah that's it so or
01:56:09.500the 1.7 billion dollar SkyTrain right and yeah I have a whole other show on
01:56:14.660infrastructure Nathan but you know really what it is is you know we need to start
01:56:20.400looking at the details and i continuously feel like our government is is you know just completely
01:56:27.600stuck in a rut of trying to do surgery with a bread knife and we need to start getting out
01:56:32.980the scalpel and doing the details on how we manage our province and i think you'll see a lot of
01:56:39.120benefit for the urban areas once we do that as well it's not just all about you know the the
01:56:44.620rural bc area is getting a raw deal i know that's not the case but we need to do better across
01:56:50.340the board and i believe that uh we'll benefit from it and the urban areas will benefit from it
01:56:56.420and the province as a whole be stronger and in a better position to move forward into the future
01:57:02.820well that i think is an excellent resolve uh resolution rather for uh for any party
01:57:09.460and for anyone who lives in british columbia or in any of their local districts i think it's
01:57:14.180very important that we feel a sense of belonging and i think it's very important that we feel a
01:57:18.260sense of loyalty and and and for that matter the sense that the future could
01:57:22.220be brighter if only we did the work today I think that's all very good thank
01:57:26.480you for that inspiration Darcy awesome yeah no we've been happy to have you on
01:57:35.480again I do hope we get to have you on again soon and thank you so much for
01:57:39.800sharing your thoughts today awesome thanks again and enjoy your afternoon
01:57:46.860Well, that's been our show then today.
01:57:49.420We had, of course, Cliff Graydon on and we had Darcy Reppin on.
01:57:52.620And we talked a lot about those rural issues and that divide that's there between our rural parts of the country and our more urban parts of the country, which, in my opinion, still very much reflects the Western versus the rest divide when it comes to Canada, particularly our constant battle with Ottawa.
01:58:09.500In any case, I'm just thankful for your views.
01:58:11.780I'm thankful for your comments throughout the show.