The five Salmon Arm-Shuswap candidates addressed a broad range of topics affecting society, including the drug crisis and climate change, at the Oct. 2 election forum.
Constituents filled the Salmar Classic Theatre Wednesday night to hear what the candidates stand for and their responses to randomly drawn questions submitted by the public prior to the event. Following a question about addressing precursors to addiction in children, another asked candidates what they would do to address the ongoing drug and overdose crisis as the current policies aren’t working.
“First of all, there’s no such thing as safe supply... They looked into it and found out that since the safe supply has been out there, the deaths have tripled, and yet they want to give more drugs without a prescription,” Independent candidate Sherry Roy said. “We need to get back to health and wellness and understand why people are doing drugs to begin with.”
BC Green representative Jed Wiebe said they take a stance of using evidence-based policies from experts and the experience of people who have been directly impacted by the drug crisis to create “solutions grounded in dignity and care.”
“We need a compassion first approach.”
Independent Greg McCune acknowledged that it’s probably the biggest crisis facing the population at this time, and agreed that the current approach to it is not helping.
“In my opinion, there’s nothing compassionate about what we’re currently doing. It’s going to take a start from square one, and you have to treat people one hundred per cent. We need to pay for their support,” he said. “There are many reasons why people are where they are now, but without full support, it’s not going to get better.”
Conservative David Williams took a similar approach to full support of those affected, and reiterated his previous response to addressing it with kids when he said, “First let’s start by getting the drugs off the street.”
“Let’s start at the root problem, right off the get-go we have to stop the precursors from coming into this country,” he said. “The second thing is we have to get the prolific criminals that are selling the drugs in jail. Third, we have to make rehab easily available for those who need it and for those who refuse to go, we have to make it involuntary.”
He added that they also need to educate kids about addictions to prevent the problem from continuing with the next generation.
NDP candidate Sylvia Lindgren said her party is taking an “ethics-based” approach that is working in other countries and providing needed assistance to those affected, including housing, 650 new treatment beds, free naloxone and safe use sites.
“They deal with the immediate stuff... making sure that people have the things that they need long enough to keep them alive long enough to actually be able to access treatment.”
Other questions touched on forest management, small business supports, vaccination mandates and homelessness before the matter of climate change came up near the end of the evening. Candidates were asked if they believe there is a man-made climate emergency and what solutions they would support to address it.
Roy pointed out that there are a number of initiatives and programs in place, but a lot of people don’t know what they’re actually accomplishing.
“It comes back to follow the money, and we need to understand what the ICLEI (International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives) program is and how it’s targeting Canada. We are being led by an agenda that most of us are not aware of...” she said. “We keep paying lots of money in taxes, but nobody ever tells you where that money goes. We need transparency and accountability.”
Williams acknowledged that climate change is happening, and has been since the beginning of time and that humans probably contribute to that, but that it’s not necessarily a crisis yet.
“I don’t think we’re at that point. I think that everybody... should be doing their very best to mitigate any kind of problem,” he said. “And probably the best way is actually really to take a look at the real scientific data and make your own conclusions.”
Wiebe, however, definitively stated that the climate crisis exists and said denying that humans have caused the problem is “as ridiculous now as claiming that cigarettes don’t cause cancer.” He added that the government needs to stop “dumping billions and billions of dollars into subsidies for fossil fuel companies... and redirect that into the well-being of British Columbians.”
Like Wiebe, Lindgren wholeheartedly agreed that climate change is real, citing recent weather events such as the recent hurricane in the U.S., atmospheric rivers and forest fires and that humans are a big contributing factor.
“Of course, climate change is real and yes, of course, the amount of carbon that we’re putting into the air is making that worse,” she said, adding that there are a number of programs she supports for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. “One of the big ones is electrification, making sure that we’re moving away from oil and gas.”
She’d like to see that industry taxed and have that money be put into other, cleaner power sources such as solar and geothermal of the things that can be done to help, stating that the NDP is already making those efforts.
Like his fellow candidates before him, McCune looked at the financial side of climate change as well but also related it back to the other big problem of cost of living that society is facing.
“I don’t think we can tax away the issues that we have. It comes back to poverty, for example. Poverty’s not good for the climate,” he said, explaining that people having to drive all over for multiple jobs to make ends meet just adds to the problem. “Until we start to care about everyone... I think then, and only then, can we make a difference in all that needs to happen.”
The forum ran for two hours, with the candidates garnering a lot of applause, some boos and some laughter. The next opportunity to hear from them will be at the Sicamous & District Chamber of Commerce’s all-candidates forum that will be held in council chambers on Oct. 10 at 6:30 p.m., with the same format of pre-submitted questions.
