BC Liberal leadership candidate Kevin Falcon has been travelling across the Interior this week, making a stop in Kamloops on Thursday (Image Credit: CFJC Today)

By Chad Klassen

BC LIBERAL LEADERSHIP RACE

Falcon says province needs better leadership during current climate-related crises

Dec 2, 2021 | 4:43 PM

KAMLOOPS — A former cabinet minister within the BC Liberal Party, who’s now running in the leadership race, visited Kamloops on Thursday.

Kevin Falcon, who is one of six candidates in the BC Liberal leadership race, has been travelling across the Interior to talk to constituents about the issues facing their cities.

Falcon says the province needs more leadership during climate-related crises like forest fires, the heat dome this summer, and floods.

“We’ve got the kind of experience, capable leadership that’s not going to make the kind of mistakes we see, whether it’s the forest fires and the NDP’s incredibly slow reaction and delayed reaction to that, or the heat dome where 600 British Columbians unnecessarily lost their lives, or even the more recent flooding where they still continue to do press conferences out of Victoria, and it frustrates me as a former Minister of Transportation that they’re not down where the people and providing support on the ground,” said Falcon.

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Falcon, who was also the Deputy Premier under Gordon Campbell in the 2000s, says the BC Liberal Party has some work to regain the trust of voters in the province after back-to-back election losses.

“What we got wrong is we weren’t listening and responding to the needs of the public with respect to issues like affordable childcare. That’s why I support $10 childcare,” he noted. “I just want to make sure we smart and we involve the private sector. They’re almost all run by women and the NDP is trying to drive out all the private sector operators.”

Falcon added, “I want to make sure we deal with issues like mental health and addiction because I think every community is impacted by that. But we’ve got a government that continues to do more of the same thing expecting better results, and what we’re seeing instead are some of the worst results we’ve ever seen.”

A new leader of the BC Liberal Party will be decided on Feb. 5.