In Conversation with Iain Black: Get Northeastern BC firing on all cylinders
For the final interview in my series with available Conservative Party of BC leadership candidates, I sat down with Iain Black to explore how Northeastern BC fits into his vision for the province’s future.
Iain Black thought he was done with politics. But the concern he has for the state of the country, and the province of British Columbia brought him back, hoping to use his skills, background and experience to help make a difference.
And northeastern BC is central to his vision of the future of British Columbia.
“We cannot have a successful province if we don’t have the natural resources sector performing at multiple levels better than it is now,” Black said in a conversation with the broken typewriter following his visit to Fort St. John.
“I’ll settle for two or three times as current performance, never mind, its full capacity.”
The Lower Mainland, Black pointed out, would not have the hospitals, schools, roads and bridges that it does, without “the Northeast firing on all cylinders, and all of the families up there doing well.”
“It’s been the subject of not just, I wouldn’t say ambivalence; I would say neglect on the part of the NDP for the last 10 years,” he said.
“They have systematically and deliberately got in the way of the natural resources sector at every opportunity, and British Columbians throughout the province are paying the price.”
Earlier this year, the Fort St. John and District Chamber of Commerce put out a video which notes that the Peace Region has the highest per capita number of entrepreneurs in the country. At the same time, WorkBC reports that the northeast has the highest unemployment rate in the province, at nine percent.
Black said that this dichotomy is both good news and bad news for the region.
When he was part of Gordon Campbell’s BC Liberal government, unemployment was two percent, and Black explained that anything less than four percent unemployment is considered full employment because there will always be around four percent of the workforce in transition, looking for a new job.
“I was part of a government where we actually had what I would call negative unemployment. We had jobs looking for people. Economically, anything less than, if you don’t study economics, four percent is considered full employment,” he said.
“That literally meant that you had jobs looking for people. So, hearing that there’s nine percent unemployment in the Northeast is very concerning to me on several levels. It goes back to my comment [that] we’re clearly not firing on all cylinders.”
British Columbia has long been a special place for small business, with more entrepreneurs and more women-owned and operated businesses than any other province in Canada, Black pointed out.
“What you’re seeing in the northeast is kind of a double-edged sword. You’re seeing a higher number of people starting businesses for themselves because they’ve been laid off by the energy companies, or that opportunity isn’t where it used to be.”
Once the natural resources sector gets back to where it should be, Black believes those entrepreneurs are going to do well, and their families will reap the benefits of the sacrifices they’re currently making.
But first, “we need government to get out of the way, and get our forestry, our mining, and our oil and gas sectors back where they need to be. We have to change the attitude that exists in Victoria at the moment, which is the Department of No, when it comes to oil and gas.”
It’s not only the resource sector in northeastern BC that the NDP government is neglecting. There were a couple of things in the province’s budget that have caused Black some concern.
One was cutting the funding to the Peace Villa expansion project; a decision Black describes as lacking comprehension.
“I would point out all of them were in non-NDP ridings, every one of them. Doing healthcare by partisan politics is not okay. Only one of them was actually the lower mainland of British Columbia,” he said.
All the other cancelled or “re-paced” facilities, like Peace Villa, were in rural communities.
“That is a shocking decision when you’ve got that aging population who has got a clear desire to age in place if they possibly can. These are the type of facilities that are a key part of that formula.”
The second missing element of the budget was that there was no mention of the Taylor Bridge.
“This again reflects a government that doesn’t just take the northeast for granted, I think it’s neglectful. They want the revenues, as distasteful as they find it to get the revenues from the natural resources sector. They know they need it.
“So, they’ll take the revenues, but they’ll do nothing to invest in the communities that are providing those revenues. And the Taylor Bridge replacement project is an example of that.”
The bridge is “going through remediation on an ongoing basis,” and there will soon come a point when the jokes about it being held together with welding rods will “stop being funny and starts being a very real safety concern.”
It takes years to plan and construct a bridge, especially over such an “impressive span”, Black said.
“So, if you’ve only got 15 years left of its natural life, seems to me you don’t want to push that envelope. And you want to have that underway and under construction for the next three or four years,” he said. “And you’re not going to do that if it’s not on the books, if it’s not on some sort of a capital plan for the provincial government, and it’s not.
“So, I would flag that as a major concern that I would address once I’m Premier of British Columbia as well.”
Looking ahead to a potential role as premier, Black said that the next leader of the Conservative Party of British Columbia must have three things:
“It has to have somebody in charge of it who has evidence they have led something. They’ve actually taken a group of people, got them on the same page, focussed on identifying some common objectives, set expectations for each other, managed and measured the results and held each other accountable.
“Number two, we need somebody who has a command of economic policy, because if we don’t get the books of this place sorted out, the rest of it just won’t matter. There will be no Taylor Bridge. There will be no getting the Peace Villa expansion back on track.
“And number three, you need somebody who sat at that cabinet table and who sat at that Treasury Board table, who understands how these big decisions are made, who understands the implication of choosing to build a hospital in Fort St. John versus a bridge in Kamloops versus a school in the Lower Mainland.”
Black says he is the only candidate for leader who has that experience, and the proven economic policy understanding.
“We don’t have time to train the Premier. There is a big difference between being in opposition and being in government. Being in opposition is like being a huge hockey fan, season ticket holder of your favorite team. You know the game, the players, the coaches, the referees, you know the rules. When you have been in government, when you have sat at that cabinet table, the treasury board table, you’re a player on the ice. And the premier is the player coach.”
Voting for verified Conservative Party of BC members opened on May 23 and continues until 8 p.m. PST on Friday, May 29. The winner will be announced at the party’s leadership convention on Saturday, May 30.