Latest / Political Capital with Rob Shaw / #121 - Overdose crisis, social media bill, international student cap

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#121 - Overdose crisis, social media bill, international student cap · Political Capital with Rob Shaw

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Check Podcasts. Hey everyone, and welcome to Political Capital, your source for
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all the latest INNBC politics. I'm your hosts Robshaw, coming to you from
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the Check News World headquarters in Victoria. The BC government appealing a court ruling
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on its open drug use laws, some new overdose numbers, another record there,
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and a cap on international students. Plus a member of BC United exits
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on the eve of an election. We have a lot to cover this week.
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If you're watching us on check TV or YouTube, Hi, and also
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make sure you subscribe to the audio podcast for extra content. Let's bring in
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the pod squad break everything down, Ali Blades, Jillian Oliver, Jeff Ferrier,
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thank you for being here. As usual, we're going to dive right
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into what I think is the big topic this week, and we have talked
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about it on many shows now and it's got any branches. But another update
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on our overdose crisis numbers. Twenty twenty three a record year of deaths.
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After everything we've done, all the conversations, week after week, press conference
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after press conference, twenty five hundred and eleven people died, almost seven per
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day. This toxic drug crisis remains one of the leading cause of deaths in
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the province. So amidst that backdrop, we have the Chief Corner, at
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least to the point. Holding our last press conference before retiring, she reiterates
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her call for the government to drop the requirement of a prescription to obtain safe,
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supply, clean, medical grade opioid alternatives, saying lots of people don't
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have doctors, they can't get access to it. The premiere says, no
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drugs are dangerous. If we're going to give them out to people, they
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need medical supervision. Let's start there. That rift, it's been going for
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a while, but right up until the Corner leaves in these record numbers worsening
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between the Corner and the NDP government. Ali, what do you make of
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that? So the Chief Corner and the NTP government truly have been on opposing
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sides of theories to fix this crisis for a very long time. That's not
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that's not a shock. Her departure and her last press conference very much solidifies
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that even more so. But I want to get back down to this what
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this is, and it is a crisis. And so we do a lot
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of research on the show, and we for the show, and we read
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a lot of articles and we try to expand our mindset on on these things
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that we're trying to build opinions on, and it seems like every week that
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we're talking about it, I learn more and more, and so I'd like
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to challenge everyone to do their very own research. But I continue to lead
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down this path of treatment first and and and there's a lot of information out
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there to support that, and even doctors are saying it's it's treatment first,
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and so in this though, I wanted to deviate a little bit from this
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from your question rub In that I see something happening potentially in the future with
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a new not in my backyard issue. Essentially, if we want to push
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treatment, if those who are announcing treatment beds like the NDP government, and
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we want them more in more communities, and we want them more accessible.
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It thanks to the NDP government for making them more accessible and free and available.
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I think there's going to be an issue leading into the provincial election where
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treatment options and spaces for this are going to be opposed by municipalities. And
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so when we talk about like destigmatizing this crisis again it's a crisis. When
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we talk about destigmatizing it, I want to make sure that we're all challenged
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in understanding that in order to get those treatment beds, we also have to
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be open to the fact that they have to go somewhere, and they have
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to go into those North Vancouver suburbs and those Coquitlam suburbs and into interior communities.
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And so if you're going to then oppose these treatment options in places where
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we need them, the government's not going to be able to do what they
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need to do and get more beds available. So all of this to say,
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I think we have a little bit of a growing problem. We're already
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starting to see a little bit of that, but I think this is going
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to get a whole lot worse. It's a great point because you'll hear the
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same argument that we hear in the housing debate when it comes to locating treatment
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or outpatient kind of services here. Well, i'm not against treatment, just
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not here, just not in my community. You shouldn't put those beds or
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those shelter spaces or whatever. And you're right, it does lead to that
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kind of problem. And then we have municipalities saying, well, we're not
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opposed to overdose prevention sites or supervised consumption sites or treatment sites, but they
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need wrap around support twenty four to seven services of medical services, security services,
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things that may or may not even be logistically feasible and end up opposing
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the end result as well. So the point being, and I think Ali
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raises it quite well, Jeff, there's a lot of there's a lot of
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problems in any response to this crisis, and you have all sorts of people
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with different ideas and what to do, and it's hard to turn it into
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a reality. Yeah, that's true. And I think you heard from the
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corner that she was expressing her frustration that she wasn't able to make her idea
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a reality. And so there's been a lot of folks asking, well,
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why not make drugs more freely available to folks absent medical supervision? And I
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think it's because the coroner and folks who are in that light of thinking haven't
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made effectively made a case to the public that doing that is going to do
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more good than it's going to do harm. And I heard the premiere this
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week's seven on where I think the majority of the public is at is that
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doctors prescribe and monitor folks who are getting safe supply. This ensures that people
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will be kept alive and helped and offer treatment in those places. Like Ali
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notes that we need to be expanding and expanding in every community and corner of
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British Columbia because that's where the need is. You also have to keep our
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drugs out of the hands of those who ought not to have them in the
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first place, and that's important to preventing people being stricken with addiction. So
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the numbers are troubling, it seems intractable. It's in BC, but it's
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everywhere. It's everywhere. There's poison in the drugs everywhere, and it's killing
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people everywhere BC and next door in Alberta taking a very different approach from a
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good place, but taking a very different approach, and they had the worst
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year for drug overdose on par with BC last year. So we need to
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be doing what Ali said, more treatment beds available on demand and it's going
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to be everywhere. But the prom with treatment beds and Jillian, let's bring
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you in here on this, and the Premier did respond to the record overdose
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numbers the next day with record treatment beds one hundred and eighty. Some of
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them are private becoming public, some of them will open in the summer.
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We don't even know how many treatment beds we need. We don't know,
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And the corner made this clear, we don't know how many we need.
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We don't know how we use the ones we have. We don't know the
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wait list, we don't know the outcomes, we don't have a clue.
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It's like blindfolding somebody and they're shoveling pennies down a well and we have no
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idea how deep the well is or if we're even making a difference with these
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beds. And so there's that issue as well that even when we see the
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progress on numbers, what does it mean they're just numbers? What do you
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think, Julian, Yeah, well, I mean I think there's when it
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comes to treating addiction, there's no one size fits all. It's a very
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individualized personal experience that people go through and the same thing isn't going to work
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for every person. On top of that, I think, you know,
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the coroner highlighted there's about one hundred thousand people in BC with an opioid substance
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disorder, and then another one hundred and fifty thousand people who are using drugs
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that might not fit the sort of criteria for a full substance use disorder,
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so people using recreationally or occasionally. So you know, even if we are
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able to scale up treatment massively, it's not going to totally address the problem,
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and we're still going to see these deaths. I think, you know,
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with respect to the to her call for a safe supply that comes from
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the death panel released late last year that included not just her, but members
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of all of the health authorities, or almost all of them, certainly the
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Vancouver Coastal Health and phrase will have health authority as well as law enforcement,
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and you know, addiction specialists from the leading hospitals across the province. And
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I think reading that report, you really sense the desperation of so much thinking
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and effort being poured into this issue and the number is still continuing to get
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worse. One thing they really highlighted is that that's not because of decriminalization or
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safe supply. It's because it's a moving target, because the supplyable list of
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drugs is getting increasingly more toxic and more dangerous. So it's a really really
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tough problem to get on top of, especially when there are so many issues
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with distributing safe supply, because you know, when you're doing that through a
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prescribed model that relies on doctors. We have a doctor shortage, a million
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people in BC without a family doctor. It's a really really difficult problem to
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get ahead of. And I think that's sort of where the coroner is coming
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from with this sort of last ditch effort to push the policy forward, because
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it's sort of like the only things you can think of that could possibly make
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a difference. And ultimately, you know, it's the core function of her
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job is to take responsibility for these deaths and to provide any solution she can
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to reduce them. So I think that's where she's coming from. It's obviously,
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you know, there's a huge gap between that policy and where the public's
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at, and I think that's where the government's coming from. But it's you
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know, I think that it's her job to state the facts and evidence that
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she has them, and that's what she did. Yeah, well, that's
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that's safe supply. The other part of the main government response to this,
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outside of the treatment beds is DCRIM, the decriminalization experiment, and the government
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announcing this week it is appealing the Supreme Court temporary injunction against its law to
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in some ways, not quite recriminalize, but roll back decrim and in public
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spaces, public places like bus shelters and parks and beaches where the new law
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was intended to move people along if they were using openly. There is that
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a surprising move at all, Jeff, the appeal and what do you think
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government's trying to say with that appeal? Not surprising at all. I think
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the govern was trying to say that here's the concerns of people who are seeing
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how decriminalization is rolling out, and they want to preserve decriminalization, so they
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want to address the negative unintended consequences in a way that's going to make the
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public confident. And what the government's doing on that broader suite of issues that
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Jillian talked about, you know, safe supply, safe injection sites and the
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like. People shouldn't be using drugs at schools, parks, playgrounds and beaches
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around Kids's common sense, but let's also be clear that people also shouldn't be
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using drugs alone. That's a recipe for death. We know that. So
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what's needed and what I know this government says it's support what I would like
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to hear John Rustdad and the Conservatives say is support for more well resourced,
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well run safe injection sites where people are medically supervised, have access to supports
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where they don't die in communities across BC. And I think if RUSTDAD does
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that, I can see Falcon following suit, and then we get all parties
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on the right focused on where they need to be, which is saving lives
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instead of sole you wedge politics on matter of life and death. But RUSTAD
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and to bring back to Alley's point, RUSTAD and Falcon aren't inventing opposition to
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the safe consumption sites and overdose prevention sites that no, No, they're leveraging
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in it for their They're leveraging it for their political but they're also repeating what
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many mayors and people are saying that they become hot spots for crime and social
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disorder, and especially in downtown cores, make some streets feel unsafe for citizens.
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You can't go to certain areas without someone in the middle of a psychosis
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due to they should be leaders and not parrots. But I think bringing forward
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those concerns instead of pretending that they don't exist, ali to bring you in
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is going to have to be part of what government has to do. Right,
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they have to build some type of case to put these in. They
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can't just throw the sites in and then say if you complain about someone running
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up to you and screaming in front of your family or being in medical distress,
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that you're not seeing it. It's not okay to say that that's happening,
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and the government needs to do better to deal with that. We're not
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going to get it right right off the bat, because we're this is a
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crisis. There's just way too much going on right and I'll applaud the NDP
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government because they have pivoted to a space where they realized, Okay, decriminalization
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may not be that solution, so we're going to change our minds. That's
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okay. That's actually great when politicians do that, because they're taking evidence that
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this experiment isn't working and fix it. That's what governments are supposed to do.
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They're supposed to fix it. One of the issues though, that Lapointe
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was having was her criticism that this has become hyper politicized and like, essentially
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this is the conversation that we're having right now. I think every political party
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has had an opinion about this. BC United had came out with a comprehensive
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plan of better as possible right out of the gate. Typically wouldn't see this
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from a political party, and an election year, they hold on to it
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closer to an election so that they're not giving away their trade secrets. Right.
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The BAC Conservatives have a very successful petition right now of I think they're
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getting close to five thousand signatures from across the province aiming to end safe supply.
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And so essentially what I'm trying to say here is that everyone needs to
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have an opinion. We all need to understand what each political party where their
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stance is on this, because this is a big issue leading into a provincial
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election. But it's okay if we change our mind because people's lives are at
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stake here. So maybe LaPoint is right, this has become too politicized and
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what we will just recalibrate as we go. Oregon changing its mind as well.
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Legislations a new bill this week and it was the first US state to
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go with d crim in twenty twenty, recriminalizing saying that if you are arrested
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or threatened with arrest and a fine for possessing drugs and you go to a
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mandatory meeting with an addictions counselor your chargers are dropped, and that's their move
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back to recriminalize because they were seeing deaths and disorder rising and public confidence falling
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in dcrim. So it feels like there's a governments are moving, as Ali
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says, to try to alter and continue Jillian, the social buy in,
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as the premier puts it, the social buy in for decriminalization needs to reassure
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people that they can still be safe in their public places, and the two
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aren't mutually exclusive, and that's why he's appealing the court decision for sure.
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And I think, you know, this is legislation the government put in.
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They brought in they felt was necessary, so it's no surprise that they're standing
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behind it. But it's you know, it's such a tough balance to strike
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because there is overwhelming evidence and this is what the judge was ruling on that
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many of the measures that we have to reduce public consumption of drugs actually increase
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the risk of death, whether that's confiscating drugs because that leads people to go
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seek out riskier supply, you know, putting them in the criminal justice system.
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Is it not a pleasant experience that can cause trauma and harm and create
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mistrust. So and pushing people behind closed doors, which is the number one
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thing that the coroner is said over and over again is what's leading to these
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deaths. So it's a really really tough balance to strike. I think the
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province really needs to not kind of be stuck in a reactive mode and they
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really need to take leadership. If they're going to be pushing forward progressive policies,
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they really need to champion them and remind people that this is what the
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evidence is telling us and that yes, we have to do it in a
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managed way that addresses public safety concerns, it keeps treats safe as well.
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But they need to, you know, show some leadership, some moral leadership,
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and really stand up for the evidence for what they're doing and not kind
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of a bout of pressure and sort of, you know, chase the right
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wing message down a rabbit hole. Yeah. I really don't think it's about
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chasing the right wing message. I think we're talking a lot about, you
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know, the corner being the champion of the evidence. Folks in communities have
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a lot of evidence with addiction. Everyone has experience of addiction in their lives
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and their families and their friends, and they've seen what long term usage of
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hard drugs does to their loved ones and their health and their mental health and
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their relationships, and their economic stability and their personal safety. And so you
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know, it's less about the you know, random fears and chasing messages.
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It's about meeting people where they're at on these issues. And folks are really
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worried about you know. You know, inction sites is one thing, and
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I've just talked about why it's important that we have those to make it so
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that people have a safe place to go so you can keep them alive they
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get into treatment. But starting from a place of saying people are concerned about
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this because you know, they're they're chasing the right wing messages, no,
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it's because people have seen what this does to the lives of their loved ones
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and they don't want these drugs getting into these folks hand because it can destroy
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lives. And that's where we need to start in stead of pointing fingers saying
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you're thinking wrong there. Yeah, but you know, you should also be
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able to say what you see and experience and feel and fear in your own
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community in terms of the impact that government policies are having on the streets,
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like you should be able to say that without being labeled as a right wing
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persons who's subscribing to an ideology. We have NDP mayors saying that these policies
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are causing unintended consequences, like you should be able to say that without being
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labeled on the political spectrum as an enemy of the NDP government, because,
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you know, because they are moving their policies and gas lighting us at the
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same time by pretending they're not moving them. They have recriminalized dcrim to a
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certain extent, but they won't say it, so we're all left kind of
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like saying it, but being accused of having an ideology for saying it and
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it you know, I think if they were more upfront about what Ali's point
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was, that it's okay to change your mind and alter the policies as you
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go to create good policy, we might not be labeling it on a political
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spectrum. But anyways, we spent the whole show talking about this one issue.
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Ali, I just want to make one last point here because I think
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I need to connect the dots for some folks where when we think about this
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issue, we think that it's limited to the downtown Knee Side, and we've
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said on this show before that it's not and I want to bring awareness to
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that even more so in my point about treatment beds being all over the province.
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I just recently learned that fifteen to twenty five year olds are the fastest
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growing group in Canada being hospitalized for opioid orbit DOOSE. And those fifteen to
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twenty five year olds are not all limited to the downtown eat Side. And
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so this is this is a massively larger issue beyond just this one little area
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with safe injection sites where you are able to get safe supply. And so
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when we think about it, your mind immediately goes to this one geographical area.
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It is not and so we need to think about that as well.
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Okay, we've completely at a time, but we have one minute. I'm
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going to give it to Jillian. On new legislation, the Premier's announced to
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define social media companies as contributing to public harm things like addiction and eating disorders
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and non consensual image sharing, allowing the government maybe to sue these companies,
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similar to something we've seen in the States. Jelean and you've been looking into
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that just quickly tell us, tell me what you think of that idea,
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what we should know about it. Yeah, I think you know, BC's
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had some really disturbing stories of kids being affected by cyberbillying, by sex stortion.
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I think this is the term and I think it's it's a great thing
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for the province to show leadership on. In the States, there is about
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I think thirty three US states that are going after Meta in the courts,
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suing them for sort of negligently designing their algorithms in a way that's harmful to
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youth. And I think, you know, the most important thing about this
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in BC is the province really showing leadership and sending a clear message to kids
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that if something happens to you through social media, it's not your fault,
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it's nothing to be ashamed of, and you know, it's something that we
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need to fight back on and talk about openly. And I think that that's
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really important leadership to be showing right now. And you know, one of
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the criticisms government faces is well, can they do anything in the face of
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giant tech giants on non consensual image sharing and social media harm. Well,
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it's better to try than to do nothing. Okay. Continuing the discussion,
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there as a fascinating bit of legislation that the government bringing in on the social
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media companies. As Jillian pointed out, following some of the US legislation alleyser
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like any way to create size that it seems like that might be the kind
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of thing everyone supports in the legislature. Good politics by the NDP, Good
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good leadership. I guess who's going to say anything bad about this? I
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mean, this is genius. This is also genius in an election year,
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So no, you won't hear any criticism from me on this one. I
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do say when I say that we want more leadership from from government and from
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politicians, this is exactly it. I mean, there's a responsibility to clean
22:30
up the potholes and to make sure that the little things keep running, but
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then there's also a responsibility for innovation, for generational security. And I think
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that at least starting the conversation, even if this government isn't going to be
22:47
the one to take it all the way through because of the just sicklical nature
22:49
of governments and politics, they've at least started the conversation. Like we've seen
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this with other jurisdictions, trying to sue a big pharm right, and so
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this is naturally the next step in protecting our children into protecting students, protect
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them from the harm of the social media jeffet, I mean it does perpetrate
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harm. I think it's just a matter of whether government is in a place
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to take that to court, win the money, what they do with the
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money if they win, how they kind of close the circle of improving.
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I think it's very good politics and very good policy for government to go after
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the Internet bazillionaires who deliberately engineer their social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook to
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make them addictive to kids in an effort to boost their own profits when they
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know full well that too much time what too much time on those platform does
23:55
to kids mental health. Thirty three states in the United States, spanning the
24:00
political spectrum going after Meta and I'm glad Besti's doing the same. I hope
24:06
other provinces of all political persuasions joined forces. It's really important, you know,
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as I'm a parent, I know there's lots of parents out there who
24:15
listen and walk to the show and your worst nightmare, your worst fears that
24:21
your child is going to become the victim of something like this, and this
24:25
is very much, I think a response to what happened to a twelve year
24:30
old kid from Prince George Carson Cleland and in response to the advocacy of his
24:34
dad, kid who was targeted by online predators and took his own life.
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And I think everyone wants to stop that from happening. And this is going
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to be the weird part of the show because I'm going to talk about the
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third part of the legislation, and I'm the one who's going to mention that
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it's a bit of a win for Kevin Falcon. I don't know how this
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happened to me on the show. I'm the one pointing this out, but
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what the premiere is announcing and also is a cell phone ban in classrooms during
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instructional times. I understand it's going to be locally determined and locally led at
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the school board level, so that different boards and different schools that have concerns
25:23
about safety or accessibility can manage and address those at the local level. But
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Kevin Falcon got an awful lot of media last week talking about something that government
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was already working on and moving on, and that was good for him,
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makes him look good, makes him look like he's making a difference, even
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though really this probably would have happened without him. So that's my that's my
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nice way, that's my nice thing. That's my nice thing to say about
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Kevin Falcon this week. Half backhand, Now, that was very complimentary for
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me. All right, let's let's go to another The week started actually with
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big news with Ottawa capping international students, going from more than a million international
26:03
students last year down to a three hundred and sixty thousand cap this year,
26:07
basing it on population in the provinces, which may CBC drop from as many
26:11
as one hundred and seventy five thousand international students and colleges and universities down to
26:17
maybe as low as fifty thousand this year. We don't have exact numbers yet,
26:21
but that's the sort of worst case scenario, leaving the province scrambling.
26:26
It has been working on a plan to crack down on private sort of diploma
26:30
mill colleges that mistreat international students, but they're also now getting hit with this
26:37
cap and having to essentially administer the spaces to public and private post secondary institutions.
26:45
Lucrative international student spaces, so that leaves BC in a bit of a
26:49
jam. I don't know what we think the impact of this might be ali
26:53
and if there's going to be an appropriate government response to it, or we
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just roll with whatever Ottawa has put in place here. Well, I think
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Ottawa has kind of given the province a bit of a challenge so that we
27:07
can address a larger issue. But the intersection of immigration and international students,
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it's a fragile system and it's created this space where post secondary institutions have benefited
27:19
from a lucrative international student fees. So the consequence here is that domestic students
27:29
Canadian students may actually be forced to pay more because of this instability. We're
27:37
not really talking about that quite yet because we're still in like step one of
27:41
this this whole announcement, but let's not lose the plot here. Essentially,
27:49
the federal government has turned non Canadian students training into a backdoor immigration system with
27:56
no limits, and it's feeding into a larger issue of housing, on affordability
28:00
and job availability, and so we're seeing a lot of skepticism from provinces,
28:07
not just BC, but Ontario as well. Has said that they might not
28:12
be able to actually meet to the demands from the federal government. It is
28:18
you're right, though, but there is going to be an impact. I
28:19
think the argument being that public post secondary institutions, colleges and universities have been
28:26
underfunded and they have relied upon international students, which you know, like take
28:32
UBC for example, you can charge sixty thousand dollars in tuition to an international
28:36
student versus sixty nine thousand for domestic students. So the post secondary institutions bring
28:41
in more international students to prop their budget up. Now you're having the Ottawa,
28:47
you know, cut that out at the knees, and BC might have
28:49
you know, a drop. We might be quartering the number of international students
28:53
of jillion, you like, Should the government be looking at funding changes?
28:59
Are we going to have the argument about tuition hikes? Is it? Is
29:02
it a problem? It's I think the reason why this has gone unaddressed for
29:07
so long is because of just how financially lucrative international students are. When I
29:12
was researching this issue, I went back and I actually found a press release
29:17
from like late in the Christy Clark government in twenty seventeen touting the economic benefits
29:22
of international students and that was actually at the time part of BC's official jobs
29:26
planned. So for a long time we really just looked at this as a
29:29
massive revenue source without thinking about some of those knock on effects, like,
29:33
you know, more demand on student housing, I think, And so I
29:37
think it's you know, the government has kind of sort of just been happy
29:41
to let this, you know, fall by the wayside for a long time,
29:44
and now the educational institutions have become so reliant on this funding it's really
29:48
really difficult to unravel. I'm sure that there is a lot of scrambling at
29:53
the Advanced Education Minister's office to try to figure out how this is going to
29:59
impact some of the bigger universities and colleges. I don't know what the answer
30:04
is. It's going to be interesting to see what they come up with,
30:07
because the province's fiscal picture is already pretty stretched. There's a lot of demand
30:12
there and they've got a lot of priorities going into an election this fall.
30:17
But yeah, I mean, looking at some of the figures, the federal
30:21
government when they were talking about this issue, estimates that it's twenty two billion
30:25
dollars in economic value that international students bring fifty thousand jobs in BC and I
30:32
think three hundred and thirty million in provincial government revenue in twenty nineteen. So
30:36
it's a lot of money we're talking about and we're not going to be able
30:40
to replace it overnight. If these caps come in from the Fed in a
30:42
talk pavy situation and the decision that the educ posted Secondary Education Mister's going to
30:52
make on how to allocate those numbers could make or break colleges and universities private
30:57
and public, you know, across the province in terms of being able to
31:00
meet their budgets without having to cut things back. Jeff, what do you
31:03
think? Uh? So, if I'm this is what I'm expecting to see
31:10
from the BC government in response to what AUTO was done, uh, I
31:15
expect Selina Robinson, the post Secondary Education Minister, to come out with an
31:22
announcement where she uh uh preserves announced that the government's preserving those spots for the
31:33
established public and maybe a few of the uh you know, US based private
31:42
colleges and universities. So if you're s f U ub C Camuson College,
31:48
Emily Carr U NBCU, VIC, did I say you VIC already b C
31:52
I t you're gonna come out okay. But if you're one of these storefronts
31:59
in a strip mall that call yourself a university, and you post images online
32:04
that make it look like Harvard when it's really your next door to a seven
32:07
eleven, and you grant useless degrees that don't get anyone anything, and you
32:12
exist mainly to take advantage of international students to get yourself rich, you're in
32:19
some trouble and you might want to figure out what you're going to do with
32:23
your business. And I will point out that, by the way, these
32:28
kinds of I think you call them diploma mills. These exploded under a former
32:31
government that shall rename nameless, but I will say one of its key cabinet
32:37
minister's last name starts with the letter F rhymes with Balkan. But they do
32:45
also exist for a reason. Right, there is a purpose for private colleges
32:50
and universities in between diploma mill and public institutions. And there is going to
32:54
be some legitimate business trades based institutions. They're going to get hit by this
33:00
and out they go. Not everyone can go to UBC. If everyone could
33:04
go to UBC, we'd give UBC all the international students, and you could
33:07
just suggest that people should go to UBC. Goodness, great public very well
33:12
if you think that shall go to s f U and you VIC and all
33:16
those other universities and colleges I talked about. Capilano was good and Thompson Rivers
33:22
fantastic, UNBC wonderful. Yeah, there'll be some fallout from this that tremendous
33:30
will land back on government, but it is a it's a federal move,
33:32
so yeah. Can I also point out though, that there is to the
33:37
to the to the point of why do we have international students coming year?
33:39
It's not we've talked about the revenue for colleges and universities. It's also a
33:46
benefit. There is a benefit to our economy for in right numbers these folks
33:54
here, and specifically at a time when we're forecasting a million job openings to
34:00
fill over the next ten years and businesses really struggling, especially at the really
34:07
high end to be able to attract the talent that you need to achieve our
34:12
economic goals. As a province, that training smart the right number of smart
34:17
people from wherever they happen to come from is a pretty good way to recruit
34:22
and retain the people we need to drive the economy forward. Again, how
34:25
am I the person saying these things? All right, well, let's continue
34:31
with one last topic here Skeena MLA ls Ross announcing and there were rumors about
34:37
this for quite a while that he was going to leave BC United to join
34:42
the Federal Conservatives. Leader Pierre poly Evera shows up in Terrace this week to
34:46
announce that, in fact, Ross is his candidate for Skeena Bulkley Valley.
34:52
I think a sign perhaps of how important Ross is that the leader comes all
34:57
the way out to do that. Ali, what do you think of I
35:01
think a lot of people expected this, but it is it feels like it's
35:05
quite a loss for Kevin Falcon nine months before in election. Yeah, by
35:10
saying a lot of people expected this, like it's the political nerds who are
35:15
listening to the show. Right, Hang on a second, not all nerds.
35:20
There's somebody who's tuned in by accident. Probably they thought this was something
35:23
else. All nerds are welcome here, but running for politics as a cult
35:29
to service and Elis Ross made a significant contribution to BC and so it's actually
35:34
very exciting that now he's going to take that to the national stage. And
35:38
you know what, he has been a very popular conservative name from coast to
35:45
coast, and so this is a big get for the Conservative Party as well,
35:51
like that they are treating him like the star candidate that he is for
35:54
good reason. What's interesting, you know me, I always love to analyze
35:59
the communications and the messaging rollout of all political parties. But what's been very
36:04
interesting to me is that BC United has spent a significant amount of online digital
36:09
space in ensuring that they are messaging this carefully of Ellis's departure. We saw
36:16
a video, a press release, We've seen very clear messaging from MLAs that
36:23
they are sad to see him go. But you know, other MLAs who
36:28
are leaving and retiring aren't getting this royal treatment. They get a basically just
36:30
a tweet. So John Rustin and the BC Conservatives are absolutely loving this though
36:37
too, because now they get to claim that there's no space for Conservative voters
36:43
within BC United and that Elis is leaving because of these ridiculous and scandalous theories.
36:50
But no, it's really because he deserves to be on the federal stage
36:53
and this is a big gap for the Conservative Party federally, Like If there's
37:00
any bright side to this for BC United, and it would be a small
37:04
one, I guess, would be that maybe it helps them better make the
37:07
argument that they are aligned with the federal Conservatives than the BC Conservatives, who
37:12
just happen to share the name but aren't affiliate. You know, BC United
37:15
is so in alignment with this popular federal party that it takes their MLAs and
37:20
makes candidates out of them, maybe Dan Ashton, maybe Mike Deong. We're
37:23
waiting to hear if they're going to announce that they're running as well. And
37:27
does that help them, you know, ride the coattails of Pierre Poly even
37:30
more than the inadvertent coattail riding from the BC Conservatives. I don't know that
37:36
that might be the only upside. I think, like, like Jillian,
37:39
what do you think baseball argument? But maybe like a tiny, tiny,
37:45
tiny little bit of brand affiliation they too, which I mean, if they
37:50
need all the help they can get right now, I wouldn't turn it down.
37:52
I guess I need to find a silver lining in this. I do
37:54
think though, like for Ellis Ross, he was first selected in twenty seventeen,
38:00
so he's kind of, you know, suffered through some pretty rough years
38:04
in opposition. Sorry did I say twenty seventeen or twenty fifteen, And he
38:08
ran for leadership as well, right against Kevin Falcon came in second. Actually,
38:13
he was endorsed by John Rustad, which I was reminded of when I
38:15
was researching for the show, as well as some of those other more conservative
38:20
MLA names that you mentioned. So I think it's not surprising, you know,
38:24
where the federal government or federal conservatives are polling right now, that he's
38:29
jumping at the opportunity to potentially be in government. It's tough to be in
38:32
opposition. Falcons having trouble finding his feet as leader, and I think,
38:37
you know, it makes sense for someone like Elis Ross who's been a counselor
38:40
before, who was really passionate about lots of issues that he wants to make
38:44
a jump. So but yeah, I think it's you know, by and
38:49
large, not great for VCU Nada. This is now seven MLAs who aren't
38:52
running for reelection, and we think there might be more. I also think
38:58
that this, you know, puts this riding play for the NDP. They
39:01
only lost by about nine hundred votes there last time, and they also approved
39:07
a big L and G project with the Heisla Nation, which I'm assuming is
39:12
probably pretty popular up there. So I think that's another thing we could see
39:15
kind of coming out of this is some shake up in the North with NDP
39:20
becoming competitive in some places where they haven't been in the past. Yeah,
39:29
it paints a sobering picture for Kevin Falcon every time an incumbent leaves like this,
39:32
that those ridings that need resources from him and the party just to hold
39:37
them, not necessarily even win new ridings. To compete with the NDP,
39:42
you got to hold the ridings that your incumbents are leaving. That if Alis
39:45
Ross ran again, he'd be kind of a shoe in probably to win this
39:49
and without him, it's this total swing riding that the NDP could pick up.
39:52
So that doesn't help Kevin Falcon at all either. Jeff, what do
39:55
you think? So? I think that's a fair point on Skeena, that
40:00
it's in play. I remember talking to Robin Austin, the former NDP m
40:06
LA who Ross beat for that seat, after the election, and he said,
40:08
I knew that I had lost when I went. I was in Kiddemat
40:15
and I was talking to the working class folks, and those are the folks
40:22
who used to be the bedrock NDP supporters, and they were Kurt in Short,
40:25
and I knew that they had gone to Ellis. So he was a
40:30
difference maker and he'll be missed. So I'm not gonna I'm not gonna say
40:34
that this is bad news for Kevin Falcon and his leadership, or that the
40:38
wheels are falling off. I think that's that would be mean to say such
40:45
things. I will I will say that maybe some of the folks who've been
40:51
seeing all of those online ads that Ali talked about featuring Kevin and Ellis might
40:59
be coming away from watching those and thinking, wow, I should have voted
41:04
for Elis Ross. He would have been a much better leader than the other
41:07
guy in the video. And look at I got a lot of time for
41:13
Ellis. I think he's a really good get for the Conservatives. I think
41:15
he's a first nation's political leader who defied stereotypes, you know, way past
41:23
the romanticized views of many folks who look like me. Here's a guy who
41:32
supported resource development, supported LNG, and did it from a principal place because,
41:37
in his view, First nations leading economic development in their territories is how
41:43
they were going to take hold of their future, build strong communities, bring
41:46
their kids back home after decades of really awfulness, and restore hope for the
41:52
future. And so that's a guy with a compelling background of compelling story.
42:00
A big loss for the legislature to lose that voice, and it'll be interesting
42:09
to see how he fares against the incumbent MDP Member of Parliament, Taylor Bachrach,
42:15
who's well liked and well regarded in the community. And that will be
42:17
a race to watch in the upcoming federal election because those are two good candidates
42:22
and be really interesting race. We'll see what happens. I mentioned Dan Ashton
42:28
and Mike Deong. It's a couple other names who are out there floating around.
42:31
There might be more, there might be less people who make that jump
42:35
federally as well, leaving some other ridings for Falcon to have to worry about.
42:39
Don't envy the position of that war room looking at their map trying to
42:45
figure out how to win twenty thirty seats across the province and also hold a
42:50
bunch of other ones at the same time. The walking poles. Don't forget
42:52
the walking pools. The walking poles said that BC United are at eighty percent
42:59
your walking polls. All right, okay, thanks for the panel for sticking
43:05
around and tackling all those other topics. It was a surprisingly busy week in
43:08
BC politics and thank you for listening. Make sure you subscribe and we'll be
43:13
back next week with all the latest INBC politics here on Political Capital.