Campaign stops by B.C. party leaders on Tuesday highlighted LNG expansion, a proposed PST pause on alcohol, and new renter protections.
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Leaders of B.C.’s political parties focused on LNG, the provincial sales tax and renter protection during campaign stops on Tuesday.
Speaking as premier, B.C. NDP Leader David Eby touted a $30 billion LNG export expansion in Kitimat and said his government’s LNG project “means 4,000 high-paying jobs.”
Eby said the job figure “doesn’t talk about all of the ancillary jobs that comes with that.”
In Langley, B.C. Conservative Party Interim Leader Lorne Doerkson welcomed the LNG expansion announcement and said his party wants to triple LNG production over the next decade.
Doerkson also pledged to temporarily pause the provincial sales tax on Canadian beer, wine and spirits until a trade conflict with the U.S. is resolved.
He said: “Take a bottle of Okanagan wine priced at $20. Today, a PST adds two more dollars to that at the till, and under our plan it obviously would add nothing.”
Doerkson said the party would keep an American booze ban in place until the trade war settles down, but he did not provide specifics on the size of the financial impact from the PST pause.
He also responded to claims from the B.C. NDP that some of his party’s candidates had been “too soft” on U.S. President Donald Trump, saying: “I absolutely think that Trump is a bully, and I think the NDP are out of line.”
Across the Georgia Strait in Victoria, B.C. Greens Leader Emily Lowan said her party would reinstate a $3.3 billion community housing fund and implement vacancy control.
Lowan said the Greens would act after what she described as broken promises by the B.C. NDP on renters, citing the community housing fund and “the ban on no-pet clauses.”
The final day of voting in the provincial election is Oct. 24.
Elenore Sturko’s CentreBC and Dallas Brodie’s OneBC did not hold any campaign events Tuesday.
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