With all the hoopla around Jumbo Glacier Resort, the Radium mill re-opening and Crown land use, local media have had their hands full in the last month.
There has been no shortage of news stories at the local level, and with a provincial election coming up in May, the ongoing verbal sparring between the our current NDP MLA Norm Macdonald and aspiring BC Liberal candidate Doug Clovechok is keeping current provincial issues and hot topics at the forefront.
But all is quiet on the federal front; at least according to what can be gathered from MP David Wilks’ columns.
Titled “View from the Hill” for Valley Echo readers, they are submitted to our editorial department on a fairly regular monthly basis, and convey a Parliament Hill that is industriously, and quietly, working away to improve the quality of life of all Canadians.
From playground funding to awarding medals, from getting tough on crime and immigration fraud to supporting parents of critically ill children and reforming public pensions, the topics of national importance that Wilks is privy to from his time spent in Ottawa and chooses to herald are… safe.
You wouldn’t know from reading them that the Conservative government of Canada is coming under fire on a regular basis in mainstream media for its national and international policies.
Although we did learn back in May, when Wilks piped up against the omnibus budget bill, that dissent within the Conservative ranks is not be tolerated. In no time our MP was throwing his full support behind the bill he had previously criticized to constituents.
Now critics are in an uproar over Canada’s proposed treaty with China, and even Conservative-leaning voters are furiously opposing Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Canada-China Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Act (FIPPA), which could pave the way for potential Chinese control of Canadian resources. Yet Wilks has been strangely quiet on the subject.
Playgrounds and pensions aside, Wilks could better serve his riding by delving into some of the more controversial, and complex, initiatives his party is spearheading. Playing it too safe could ultimately hurt him in the long run.
