PENTICTON, B.C. – An ice cream stop and a winery tour were part of NDP leader Adrian Dix’s campaign trip through the Okanagan on Friday as he followed Premier Christy Clark’s footsteps through the region in an attempt to correct Liberal claims that the NDP would shut down much-anticipated capital projects.
Dix was accompanied by his wife Renee Saklikar. After careful consideration of the colourful tubs at Tickleberry’s ice cream parlour in Okanagan Falls, she picked death by chocolate and mango.
“You can’t have any,” she playfully warned Dix as she tucked into her waffle cone.
Not that Dix, who has Type 1 diabetes, needed the reminder. He didn’t even go for the sugar-free vanilla, saying it is still highly caloric.
He did, however, try the wine at Stoneboat Vineyards in Oliver, where he was given a tour of the operation and told about recent innovations in winemaking.
“That’s good,” he said, nodding as he sipped on a glass of sparkling wine handed to him in the tank room, where the wine is fermented.
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Prior to the leisurely afternoon, Dix spent some time in Penticton, where he assured residents that a much-needed upgrade at Penticton Regional Hospital will still go ahead under an NDP government.
He told residents that while they have waited ten years for the Liberals to realize the south Okanagan’s regional hospital is desperately run down and overcrowded, the NDP would start the business case plan for the upgrade as soon as it is sworn in.
Clark told supporters in the region earlier in the week that an NDP government would shelve plans for the hospital upgrade and a proposed jail in Oliver.
But Dix said, unlike the Liberal’s broken promises on the hospital, New Democrats will get the job done. He said the Liberals spent a decade stalling the upgrade to Penticton Regional Hospital while committing $514-million for a new roof on BC Place.
“This hospital project must be built, it can be built,” he told supporters outside the hospital. “You can build four such projects for the overruns on the Vancouver Convention Centre and the (BC Place) stadium project.”
Clark has been telling supporters over the last few days that capital projects in B.C. are at risk under an NDP government. She maintains the NDP cannot commit to those projects given their “out-of-control” spending platform.
Dix said he finds Clark’s comments disappointing.
“More of the same politics is failing for 12 years, and then threatening people that if they don’t re-elect you, then you won’t get your hospital … I think that’s wrong,” he said.
Clark announced last winter that the government would commit $2 million for the development of a new patient-care tower at Penticton Regional Hospital.
And in February 2012, the B.C. government announced it would build a new $200-million Okanagan prison on land owned by the Osoyoos Indian Band near Oliver.
Clark had said the project would create up to 500 direct and 500 indirect jobs, and 240 full-time jobs at the prison.
Dix said in addition to making good on the hospital renovations, his party will also improve health care in the region by expanding home support for seniors and those with chronic disabilities.
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