Most business leaders supported Kevin Falcon during the recent Liberal leadership race, but they have quickly rallied to support winner Christy Clark.
Business support for Clark is now widespread, but its continued strength will depend on her priorities.
Consensus among business leaders is that job 1 for Clark, who is slated to officially become premier within the next week, should be to stimulate economic growth.
“Whether that’s focusing on different sectors than we have in the past or supporting historical sectors, that’s something that she has to get a plan around,” said Sue Paish, who is CEO of Pharmasave Drugs and a past chair of the Vancouver Board of Trade.
“The second thing for me is that she come out with a strong platform on health care.”
Clark generated controversy during the leadership race by saying that health-care-spending increases should be tied to the economic growth rate.
Paish, who supported second-place finisher Falcon, agreed that Victoria needs to rein in health-care spending. She said Clark could help do that by empowering pharmacists, dietitians, rehabilitation specialists and other alternative health-care providers.
“We have a system that focuses on putting a huge amount of traffic into the senior levels of the health-care system – doctors and acute-care hospital workers,” Paish said. “We need to flatten that out.”
She also wants Clark to sink more resources into healthy living education such as programming in schools and advertising campaigns similar to the federal government’s 1970s ParticipACTION initiative.
TBWAVancouver president Andrea Southcott, who also supported Falcon, said Clark will make a great premier.
She focused on two of Clark’s promises from the campaign that she hopes Clark keeps:
- creating a business creation tax credit to give angel investors a tax break for investments in businesses that are less than two years old; and
- allow all startup compan ies to have a partially refundable payroll tax rebate in their first year.
“I think it’s a good thing for job creation when you create a climate that is friendly for startups,” Southcott told Business in Vancouver.
Small-business advocates, however, are wary of a Clark government.
“Reconsider creating Family Day,” urged Laura Jones, who is vice-president for B.C. and Yukon at the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
“Family Day is not family friendly for small-business owners. They’ll be paying more out of their pockets and working longer hours to make up for lost revenue on Family Day.”
Jones has heard from CFIB members who own restaurants and want Victoria to eliminate the recent stiffer penalties for driving with a blood alcohol level above 0.05%.
However, Jones said Clark’s top priority should be to balance the provincial budget as soon as possible and stop ringing up debt from capital projects.
Clark hinted during the campaign that she would try to balance the provincial budget before the 2013 fiscal year, which is the government’s current plan.
“2013 is a crazy timetable,” Jones said. “If it’s a priority, it should be done for the 2011-12 year. That doesn’t mean that it will be super-easy, but it’s doable.”
To control ballooning debt, Jones said Clark should institute a freeze on capital projects.
But that suggestion falls flat with other female business advocates.
Suzanne Anton, who is not ruling out running for mayor of Vancouver in November, said investing in transit infrastructure should be one of Clark’s top priorities
“The Evergreen Line has to be built.”
Anton added that a Broadway connector line between the VCC-Clark station underground to Arbutus Street should come next.
“Governments don’t have to tell people how to live their lives, but governments can allow people to live their lives well by building good infrastructure.”