B.C. Premier John Horgan has no second thoughts or apologies for his government’s much-criticized decision to take $25 million from a rural diversification program to assist communities that have lost forest industry jobs.
Speaking to the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention in Vancouver Friday, Horgan addressed the forest industry crisis that featured a convoy of logging trucks descending on the convention to call for assistance.
The province’s assistance is $69 million in retraining and retirement bridging funds for communities losing sawmills and associated employment, with the “rural dividend” program suspended for a year to help pay for it. Grants pay for tourism facilities and other projects to diversify rural economies.
The program is “not ended, curtailed, it will be back next year,” Horgan said.
Why not just reinstate rural dividend, @jjhorgan is asked. Here’s his answer #UBCM2019 #bcpoli pic.twitter.com/ik7kXPD28w
— Tom Fletcher (@tomfletcherbc) September 27, 2019
Asked by reporters after his speech why money wasn’t taken from a wildfire fund that was significantly under-utilized this year, Horgan said there are other infrastructure funds that are being reviewed to see if they can help.
One of those is water treatment for Williams Lake, which has a Health Canada advisory on the level of manganese in its water supply, he said.
Regarding other applications, for tourism development, trail building and other projects, Horgan compared the demands to the desires of children.
“I’m not at all concerned that people would prefer to have everything right now,” Horgan said. “When I was a kid, I always wanted everything right now too, and I ended up turning out OK.”
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The speech contained no new measures, as Horgan recapped his government’s achievements over the past two years. He addressed local government calls for a share of legal cannabis revenues with a joking reference to governments being unable to make money selling it.
B.C. should eventually cover the costs of regulating sales and “make a few bucks selling cannabis,” and a sharing formula will be developed, he said.
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