Harper unveils Stand Up for B.C. platform`
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What a great team of candidates we have here in B.C. I am pleased to be back here in Victoria with this great team for the second time in this campaign.
Every time we stand up to the other leaders, the other candidates, the other parties, the voters see a comparison – the failures of the past versus our hope for the future. And in every election, the Liberals have great hopes in B.C. – they’re going to win every seat in the province. And every time, it slips back and those hopes are crushed because they run into the common sense of the people of B.C., and because British Columbians have learned that they just can’t trust the federal Liberals. And let me tell you that this time around we are not only going to hold our seats, but win new seats away from the Liberals and NDP. On January 23rd, B.C. is going to be a bright pacific blue again. This election will mark the end of a government plagued by scandals, failed expectations and broken promises, and the start of a bright, new future for this great province and this great country.
CHANGE
After twelve long years of scandal and inaction, Canadians need to hear about a positive agenda of change. And as last night’s debate showed, there is only one party with a clear, positive agenda of change. Our Conservative campaign is focused on moving Canada forward. We’re focused on positive proposals, and real actions that will benefit ordinary working people and their families. Let the Liberals pursue the negative and the phoney communications strategies – a promise to ban guns that are already banned, posturing against the Americans without delivering any results, and fighting a separatist threat that they created in the first place. That’s what you do when the only record you have to run on is a corruption report from a judge.
It’s time you got a government that will stand up for real change, stand up for British Columbia and stand up for Canada. When ordinary British Columbians ask themselves who will stand up for B.C., they will realize that they can’t trust a failed, corrupt government. I know British Columbians, and I know British Columbians will do the right thing. When British Columbians see corruption, they wash that party away. We saw it happen to the Social Credit, we saw it happen to the NDP, and mark my words, it will happen to these Ottawa Liberals.
Today, I want to talk to you about the job your B.C. Conservative caucus has been doing, and the plan they have been working on for this province. I am announcing our platform for British Columbia - called Standing Up for B.C. Stand Up for B.C. is more than a slogan - it’s our commitment to the people of this province.
REPRESENTATION
The first part of our B.C. platform is a plan to secure fair representation in Ottawa for B.C. You know, Gerry McGeer, the former MP and mayor of Vancouver, used to say that it was 3,000 miles from British Columbia to Ottawa, but it was 30,000 miles back. One reason Ottawa seems so out of touch with B.C. is that this province does not have its fair share of representation in parliament, even though its population continues to grow. Today, I am announcing that a new Conservative government will restore the principle of representation by population in the House of Commons. While no province will lose seats, in the next redistribution, British Columbia will finally get its fair share of seats in Ottawa. Of course, our reforms will not stop with the House of Commons. We will also be reforming the Senate, in British Columbia and everywhere else, by ensuring future senators are elected by the people they are supposed to represent. And as we pursue further senate reform, one of our goals will be to ensure British Columbia gets its fair share of seats in the Senate as well.
SOFTWOOD
Our B.C. platform also includes a real plan to deliver real help to our forestry industry. For three years, we have been calling on Ottawa to help the softwood industry with loan guarantees, and for three years there has been no action from the Liberals. After the NAFTA panel decision in favour of Canada, after the Liberal Trade Minister said we should negotiate away our victory, as our British Columbia MPs demanded action day after day, it took Paul Martin 64 days to call the U.S. president to talk about the softwood duties. Now, there’s an election going on. Suddenly we see Paul Martin standing at a lumber yard, talking tough. I say he’s like the kid in the school yard, yelling insults at the big guy from a long, safe distance. Our B.C. platform includes a commitment to directly support our softwood lumber industry as long as this trade dispute continues, until that battle is won. And our support for our forest industry will not stop there. We will provide full 10-year funding to fight the spread of the pine beetle inside and beyond this province.
RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT
The Liberals have mismanaged our other resource industries as well – and we will fight for those industries. A new Conservative government will launch an inquiry into the mismanagement of the Fraser River fishery. We will provide stronger scientific research to ensure the survival of the west-coast fishery. And we will negotiate a stronger provincial role in the management of British Columbia’s fishery.
And concerns about B.C.’s environment go beyond its forests and its fisheries. Our Members of Parliament have fought a lonely battle to have the Liberals stand up against Sumas 2, and a Conservative government will make sure that sewage treatment for Victoria harbour gets at least the same priority as the cleanups of harbours in other parts of this country. The word conservative is derived from conservation, and this is why we will protect our traditions and our heritage. In Canada, nothing is more important than our natural heritage.
ECONOMIC ISSUES
Let me turn back to the economy. Last summer, when B.C. faced a crippling truck strike that shut down its ports and our MPs demanded action, Liberal Transport Minister Jean Lapierre refused to intervene for weeks. The B.C. economy lost tens of millions. And speaking of Jean Lapierre, we’re going to suspend his firesale of Ridley Terminal in Prince Rupert. We will make sure this deal is thoroughly investigated. The Prince Rupert terminal will be part of Canada’s Pacific Gateway – not a plaything for Liberal insiders.
Now that we’re into an election, you will hear a lot of talk about the Pacific Gateway project from the Liberals. Let me tell you, a Conservative government will actually do what the Liberals only promise to do on this project. We will actually spend the money that has been allocated for the gateway and we won’t insist on having a patronage board run it from Ottawa.
JUSTICE AND DEFENCE
There is no part of the country where the Liberals’ blindness to the growth of crime in our cities and communities is having more impact than British Columbia. The Liberals say they want to complete Chuck Cadman’s work on reforming the criminal just process, but the crime bills that this government has introduced are a pale imitation of the reforms Chuck sought. A Conservative government will pass Chuck Cadman’s street racing and auto theft bills as he designed them – with real teeth. And we’re going to crack down on crystal meth, marijuana grow-ops, crack dealers, and gun crime. Not with more phoney regulations, but with real law enforcement, and mandatory minimum prison time for drug dealers and users of illegal weapons.
We will also, finally, call a full judicial inquiry into the Air India murders – the biggest mass murder and terrorist incident in Canadian history. We will get to the bottom of how this happened, why the investigation was bungled and try to give the families the answers they deserve.
We all know the Liberals have gutted our national defence, a symbol of our declining place in the world. And in no province has that gutting been more evident than in British Columbia. A new Conservative government will make sure that our navy at CFB Esquimalt, and our air force at CFB Comox have the resources and the equipment they need to do their job, and we are going to restore the regular army presence in B.C. that Paul Martin eliminated in 1995.
CONCLUSION
The Liberals are back here, as they are only at election time, looking for issues and looking for votes. On issue after issue, Conservative MPs in this province have been fighting for B.C. and they have been fighting the attitudes and the neglect of the federal Liberals. Just as often they have been fighting the NDP who, all too often, lined up and propped up the Liberals on these issues. Today’s NDP is no longer the party of British Columbia – it’s for high taxes, it’s soft on crime and it puts the demands of special interests ahead of the needs of working families. If you want change, if you want attention, if you want to shake the establishment in Ottawa to its foundations, then your choice – your only choice – is to give us more B.C. Conservative MP’s and help us elect a new Conservative government. If we are elected, we won’t just talk about B.C. issues at election time, we will act. Across this country, we will act on cleaning up government, cutting the GST, giving parents the choice and the money for child care, giving tax breaks to seniors, to students, to families and to small business. But we will also act on British Columbia’s special concerns. We will act on more seats for BC and on senate reform. We will act on softwood lumber. We will act on the Pacific salmon fishery. We will act on a clean environment. We will act on Air India. We will act on Ridley terminal. We will act on criminal justice. We will act on national defence. These are the things that a new prime minister – a Conservative prime minister – will do. That’s what it means to stand up for B.C. Only the new Conservative party can do it and will do it. That’s the message your campaigns must take across this province.
The federal Liberals are absorbed by their own scandals. They’re out of touch with British Columbia because they’ve never been in touch with British Columbia. The Liberals no longer speak for ordinary British Columbians who work hard, pay their taxes, and play by the rules. If you aren’t a government insider, a big Liberal donor, or a special interest group, you just don’t fit in to the Liberal vision of Canada. Only the new Conservatives will stand up for B.C. and stand up for Canada. So on January 23rd, I am asking all of you, and all of your friends, neighbours, and fellow British Columbians to help us send more B.C. Conservatives than ever to Ottawa.
On January 23rd, stand up for change, stand up for B.C., and stand up for Canada.
Thank you. God bless British Columbia and God bless Canada.
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For further information: Conservative Party Press Office (613) 755-2191.
