Local MLAs Todd Stone (right) and Peter Milobar presented the 2020 B.C. budget at a Kamloops Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Friday. They also talked about the economic impact of the ongoing rail blockades across Canada (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By Chad Klassen

RAIL BLOCKADES

Kamloops MLAs want governments to stop protests, blockades before economy impacted further

Feb 28, 2020 | 5:23 PM

KAMLOOPS — Todd Stone says something needs to happen now to get the country back on track.

Speaking at a Kamloops Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Friday, Stone and Peter Milobar said the ongoing blockades are a big threat to the economy moving forward. Stone says it’s time to take our country and province back.

“Frankly, I’m tired of watching the premier of British Columbia [John Horgan] play footsie with these eco-activists, and on the other hand professing to be standing up for hard-working British Columbians,” noted Kamloops-South Thompson MLA Stone following a question-and-answer period with chamber members on Friday. “He can’t play both sides. He’s got to pick a side, and I would suggest that as the premier the side he needs to be on is the side of hard-working British Columbians.”

Stone believes the blockades are now less about the Wet’suwet’en people against the LNG pipeline and more about an overall environment and climate change protest. As has been reported, some protesters aren’t even Canadian.

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“At the end of the day, we have to decide as a country, are we going to allow foreign influence, foreign agitators, to come into this country, both in person but also with their money, to agitate and obstruct and engage in all of this illegal activity when their sole purpose is to shut down our economy, and in particular our resource economy.”

The impact of the protests and blockades has been wide-ranging already. There have been layoffs at CN and Via Rail. The shipment of goods is also being affected.

“We’re having exporters being told they can’t get their product off Canadian soil to get to their areas they’re trying to export to,” noted Kamloops-North Thompson MLA Peter Milobar. “Those contracts are becoming threatened. We’re having feed suppliers for things like livestock — chickens and cows — having trouble getting the supplies they need.”

While there haven’t been significant impacts on transportation due to the blockades in the Kamloops region, both MLAs say it’s only a matter of time before we’re affected.

“We’re kind of in that middle ground here. A lot of our exports would be seasonal right now,” said Milobar. “But it’s one of those things that I think, in our situation, being such a major transportation corridor for the rail and highways, we’re just seeing that overall impact to the economy of B.C. and to Canada.”

Both Milobar and Stone fear the divide over the Coastal GasLink pipeline may only preclude what is to come as construction of the Trans Mountain pipeline ramps up in the spring.