B.C.’s party leaders debated live on CKNW on Wednesday morning, discussing some of the most important topics for British Columbians in the upcoming provincial election.
Housing affordability, education spending, climate change, health care, crime and public safety were some of the topics discussed among BC NDP leader David Eby, BC Conservative leader John Rustad and BC Green leader Sonia Furstenau.
The first question went to Eby on the cost of living in B.C. and why voters should trust him.
“For us supporting families, it’s about driving down costs wherever we can, whether it’s around childcare, providing hundreds of dollars in savings, car insurance, $500 in savings, rebates through hydro,” Eby said.
“But it’s not enough.”
Eby touted the middle-class tax cut proposed by the NDP, which translates into about $1,000 a year break for about 90 per cent of families.
Rustad agreed that there was no question that affordability is the number one topic he hears about on the campaign trail.
He pointed to a promised tax credit on rent and mortgage costs, dubbed the “Rustad Rebate,” which was introduced last week.
“Plus cutting the carbon tax, saving on fuel and the steps that we’re taking on food and food production as well, and making sure food is available locally,” he said.
“David Eby and his government has had 33 different tax increases. And why suddenly, now that he wants to do tax cuts, it doesn’t make sense to me. From my perspective, what we need to do is we need to get the red tape out of the way.”
Furstenau said that financialized housing was driving unaffordability in B.C. but said no one wants to talk about it.
“We have real estate investment trusts that have been buying up housing, using it to deliver profits to their shareholders, fossil fuels accounting for one-third of inflation,” she said.
“These guys want to talk about the carbon tax has one-third of a per cent of inflation. But they don’t talk about the role that fossil fuels are playing in driving costs. And they want to attach our economy more to this backwards-looking fossil fuel industry. And then they don’t talk about profiteering.”
Furstenau called out Eby for his tax cut, saying it is just money out of one pocket and into another.
Eby said that is not the case and she knows that.
The BC Green Party is the only one that has promised to keep a consumer carbon tax in place in order to fight climate change.
Furstenau said that if the tax is applied well it puts the cost of the tax on the cost of pollution and returns money to British Columbians.
“Right now a family of four gets, if they’re making less than $42,000, gets $1,000 a year back, that’s the way it should work,” she said.
“What the NDP have done in the last seven years is tinkered with it so much that the biggest polluters get the biggest break on the carbon, taxing 65 per cent of their emissions. They don’t have to pay for (it) off the top. So we need to make the tax fair we made, which makes the rebates quite a bit bigger.”
Furstenau added that nothing is more expensive than ignoring climate change. She said all voters have to do is look at the cost of the atmospheric rivers in 2021, the heat dome, the wildfires and more.
“Ignoring climate change and continuing to tie ourselves to the fossil fuel industry is incredibly expensive,” she said.
Rustad didn’t immediately address climate change but said he recognizes there is a crisis in B.C. and it is an affordability crisis.
“That’s why we need to do everything we can to make energy as affordable as possible in British Columbia, removing the carbon tax alone, along with the low fuel carbon emission standards, according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, will be about 35.5 cents savings per liter for people. That is real savings,” he said.
Rustad added that if he becomes premier in the first budget he will eliminate both the carbon tax and the low carbon fuel emission standard.
Eby called out Rustad, saying he thinks climate science is a hoax. Rustad responded that climate change is real but wouldn’t address Eby’s comments about the science behind climate change.
Following the first break, the topic turned to health care in B.C.
Rustad said that residents, under an NDP government, have seen closed emergency rooms or long waits with people not being able to get services.
“It’s been an absolute disaster,” he said.
“Close to 40 per cent of our nurses are now administrators. What we need to be looking at is a different model. We have the second most expensive healthcare model in the top 30 countries in the world. And yet we have the second worst outcomes on many measures.”
Rustad said we need to learn from the European models of health care.
But Eby said Rustad is proposing adding another layer of private health care to the public system that would compete for the same pool of workers.
“We need to train more professionals,” Eby said. “We need to open that second medical school in Surrey, the one that John Rustad had passed over. He had the chance to do it when he was in government. He didn’t do it. To train those professionals, to get the internationally trained doctors and nurses off the sidelines, to have the incentives in place so that they work across the province.”
Fursteanu added by saying Rustad doesn’t like to talk about the privatization of health care that has happened across Canada.
“In Alberta, we’ve seen total surgeries decrease since they brought in private surgeries,” she said.
“In Quebec, private surgeries are two times more expensive than public, and in Ontario, we have illegal and extra billing.”
Furstenau also said Eby doesn’t like to talk about privatization because they have already seen “corporatization of health care delivery” in B.C. with the issues around Telus Health.
“What we have are doctors not willing to work in a system that is way too heavy on bureaucracy and is not letting it be led by the experts, the health care professionals,” she said.
The leaders were asked about crime, public safety and the toxic drug crisis.
Rustad has previously stated that he will shut down supervised drug consumption sites if he gets elected.
“What is happening in British Columbia is clearly not working,” he said. “We need a bold and brave plan, which is what the conservatives will do. Take a common sense approach to being able to deliver addiction and addiction treatment in British Columbia, to bring this to an end.”
Eby accused Rustad of saying one thing to one group of people and saying the opposite to another.
Rustad fired back saying it’s very clear that safe supply and decriminalization did not work in B.C.
Fursteanau said the Greens want to highlight that the socioeconomic conditions in B.C. are exacerbating the highly toxic drug supply.
“All John wants to talk about is the very furthest and the most expensive thing to do is put people into involuntary care,” she said.
“Let’s have a voluntary care system. Let’s make sure people are getting help before they’re in crisis. Let’s make sure there’s mental health for students, for people. We have so much work to do.”
This was the only radio debate ahead of the provincial election on Oct. 19, and the only chance to hear B.C.’s would-be leaders face off apart from the broadcast consortium debate on Oct. 8.