This is the conclusion to our three part series featuring all four Fraser-Nicola MLA candidates answering questions from the Merritt Herald. Harry Lali of the NDP and Michael Beauclair of the Conservatives appeared in the May 2 Herald. Jackie Tegart of the Liberals appeared in the May 9 paper.

1. What is your background? What experiences make you a good candidate?

I was brought up all over northern Canada, and I’ve lived all over BC. I have been a cowboy, a miner, a fish plant worker, and an environmental program manager. I am a successful business person, having spent 30 years building technology companies. I have been on numerous boards of directors, and I am an expert in governance for companies, councils, associations, and non-profits. I am an effective and persuasive advocate for social and environmental issues. I came of age working on a saddle horse at Douglas Lake in the Nicola Valley, riding and living with First Nations people who are still my friends and family. I am broadly educated in economics, ecology and agriculture. I am a father and a grandfather. I have been active in federal and provincial politics since the ’70s. I have built MPs’ offices and assisted ministers to provide superb service to constituents. I will be the most effective MLA Fraser-Nicola has ever had.

2. What can be done to bring jobs to the area and improve the economy?

Both the NDP and the Liberals want to borrow billions to subsidize remote fossil fuel mega-projects to, they hope, generate “trickle-down” benefits for our communities. Greens want to free those billions of dollars for work on development of renewable energies, upgrading of commodity resources, and sustainable local businesses. The economic case is clear – Green economic policies will create more good jobs, more opportunities for young people, more rebuilding of communities, and a healthier rural political economy. B.C. has an abundance of renewable resources, and we could be leading the world in their development, building businesses and jobs, developing value-added product expertise for export rather than commodities. Governments must lead the way here, with purchasing policies favouring local products, tax policies providing incentives for new businesses in these desirable sectors, and clear environmental and other assessment systems to provide certainty to business owners and entrepreneurs.

3. What are your policies to improve rural health care and education?

We do not support the continuing trend of past Liberal and NDP governments towards centralization of essential healthcare services and standardization of educational criteria and service requirements.

We believe that 24/7 emergency room services, natal care, and non-specialist surgeries are fundamental services, absolutely required for the sustainability of our communities and reserves. We believe that local health care should also be responsive to local needs for enhancing overall wellness for young and old, and for providing expanded home care services and nurse practitioners for the elderly population. We believe that local providers should be able to provide, for instance, food services to local hospitals. We believe that rural doctors should be on salary, not on a fee-for-service basis, and that recent medical school graduates and doctor immigrants should be preferentially placed in rural communities. We believe that drugs, the fastest rising component of healthcare costs, should be purchased by a single provincial buyer and that we should work towards a national purchasing plan and eventually national pharma-care. We calculate that re-allocation of existing funding will be sufficient to fund these programs.

We believe that public education is an investment in the real infrastructure of the province – our children are the most important long-term productive asset of all. We believe that educational policies and programs need to take much more account of local circumstances. We see in Fraser-Nicola some of the highest indicators of children entering the school system with one or more educational risk factors, and in consequence we see the lowest rates in the province for high school graduation. We believe that performance criteria and funding allocations from the provincial government should be more flexible to allow local boards and schools to work creatively to address these needs. We support whole-heartedly initiatives like the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology and its partnerships with resource companies for advanced training for First Nations students.