There may have been no knockout punches in a televised leaders debate Wednesday, April 26, but Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver landed a couple of left jabs on NDP Leader John Horgan, who at one point seemed to concede the election to the Liberals.
The startling admission came after Horgan had slammed the Liberal Party for taking millions in donations from wealthy donors and corporations.
This week, the NDP began questioning Premier Christy Clark’s relationship with a wealthy donor, Peter Wall. Last year, Wall donated $400,000 to the BC Liberals, according to the NDP.
Video shot by a citizen shows Clark meeting with Wall in an outdoor setting. Her calendar showed no such meeting, however.
Weaver said that the NDP was “playing both sides of the money issue,” and said it was “a bit rich” for Horgan to make such a criticism when his party has been funded by the United Steelworkers, to the tune of more than $600,000, and which also has sent its members to work on the NDP campaign.
“You’ve played both sides of the big money issue,” Weaver told Horgan. “Attacking Miss Clark on the one hand for taking money from corporations and unions, and at the same time accepting them yourself. If, as you say, Mr. Horgan, we can’t trust Miss Clark because of these donations, how can people trust you?’
Horgan said his party tried six times to get legislation passed to ban union and corporate donations. Weaver pointed out that, despite the lack of such legislation, the Green Party has refused to accept donations from unions and corporations.
At one point, Horgan began talking over Weaver, saying: “The most corporate funded party in British Columbian history is going to win the next election, Andrew, because they’re taking big piles of money.”
“Did you just say the Liberals are going to win the next election?” asked the astonished Green Party leader. “I can’t believe you just said that, John.”
The spectre of corporate donations influencing political decisions became even more pronounced this week when the U.S. Department of Commerce levied countervailing duties on Canadian softwood lumber.
As Horgan pointed out, Weyerhaeuser – which is on the U.S. Lumber Coalition that lobbied for the duties – was among the Liberals’ many corporate donors. Horgan also slammed Clark for being tardy on the softwood lumber file, saying she “chasing LNG and not focusing on forestry.”
The softwood lumber agreement has been expired for well over a year. Just today, Clark announced she would lobby the federal government to ban American thermal coal exports that move through B.C. ports, in response to softwood lumber duties.
Horgan characterized Clark’s actions on the softwood lumber file as too little too late, and pointed out that Clark has yet to visit Washington to lobby on behalf of B.C. lumber producers.
“It’s a bit rich for someone who has been absent from the softwood lumber debate for two and half years to now, 13 days before an election, to somehow say she cares about forest workers,” he said.
Clark said that Horgan “not once” raised softwood lumber as an issue in the Legislature in the past three years.
She added that three of the NDP’s campaign workers are from the Steelworkers Union, headquartered in Pittsburgh, which also donated more than $600,000 to the NDP.
“The same people that stood beside Donald Trump when he called our B.C. forest workers a disgrace,” Clark said. “I think we are finally beginning to understand why you never even raised it in the Legislature.”
Horgan hit back that the Liberal government has allowed raw logs to be exported from B.C. at “unprecedented ” levels, at the expense of B.C. sawmills that can’t get enough logs.
On the high cost of housing, Horgan said the Liberal policies were all designed for homeowners, and ignored the many workers who can’t afford to own a home.
He added that those workers have been hammered by soaring MSP premiums and BC Hydro rates, which the Liberals only agreed to reduce in the last provincial budget.
“We’ve been raising alarm bells about the high cost of housing in British Columbia for three years,” Horgan said, “And what we got back from the B.C. Liberals was stone faces.”
He said the cost of a single family home has increased $600,000 between 2014 and 2016, so many British Columbians cannot afford to buy a home. He added 15,000 people are on wait list at BC Housing looking for affordable housing.
The NDP are promising a $400 renters rebate, which matches the homeowners grant.
“If homeowners can get a break for owning a home, we feel that renters deserve a break as well,” Horgan said.
The Liberals introduced a 15% foreign buyers tax to cool the speculative market in Vancouver. The Green Party plans to double that to 30% and extend it across B.C. It’s one of three new or expanded taxes the Greens proposed to cool the speculative market.
Clark asked how adding three new taxes to homeowners will make home ownership any more affordable.
She went on to criticize the spending plans of both the NDP and Green Party. The Greens have proposed large tax increases, and a four-year budget that balances out in the fourth year.
Although both the Greens and NDP have talked about making life more affordable for average British Columbians, Clark said raising taxes and killing projects like the Site C dam, George Massey tunnel replacement and Trans Mountain pipeline expansion does nothing to make life more affordable in B.C.
“Both of you are determined in your plans to kill jobs in British Columbia,” Clark said. “How does it make it more affordable shutting down the 10,000 jobs at Site C and the other projects that we proposed?”
Weaver slammed Clark for her promises of an LNG industry, which has yet to materialize, and the NDP for supporting it as well, saying he was the only one in the Legislature warning that it was an industry that would fail to take off. He said Clark did not seem to understand the “new economy.”
“I stood in the Legislature for years pointing out that this was not going to happen,” he said.
“People have built hotels in Terrace in anticipation (of an LNG industry). You’ve misled them.”
“No, Doctor Weaver, we are not going to allow you and the NDP to put an end to LNG,” Clark shot back. “As the market improves, these projects will go ahead for British Columbians.”
“I’m not sure which jobs you are talking about, Miss Clark, because there are no jobs,” Weaver said. “In fact so desperate is your government to land a single LNG project that you’re building the Site C dam to deliver power into our market for a market that doesn’t exist.”
Clark admitted the nascent LNG industry has “gone slower than we wanted because of market conditions. I think people understand that. But I don’t think people want us to give up.”
She said she was determined to continue to try to develop LNG and build up its Prosperity Fund.
Both the NDP and Liberals have vowed to cut MSP premiums in half and eventually phase them out. The Greens plan to roll the MSP into payroll and income taxes.
Weaver challenged Horgan to explain when he planned to phase the MSP premiums and how he planned to make up the lost revenue.
Horgan answered he would put that question to a “blue ribbon panel.”
“You basically are saying you have a plan to come up with a plan to come up with a plan,” Weaver said.
On transportation and public transit, Horgan was asked why he did not support the replacement of the George Massey tunnel with a bridge.
Horgan said he has committed to following the Mayors' Council of Regional Transportation 10-year vision, which does not include replacing the tunnel with a bridge, which he characterized as a "vanity project."
During the televised debate, leaders were allowed to ask each other questions. Horgan asked Clark if, after 16 years of "illegal cuts" to education, she was prepared to apologize to a generation of students who were "shortchanged."
Clark not only refused to apologize, she pointed to rankings that showed B.C. students ranking number one in reading and two in science according to "international comparisons."
She also pointed to the NDP's own platform, which she said "doesn't include a penny, a new penny, for education. They must think that we're doing something right."
