Premier Stand-up rolls out yuk-yuks, but no bucks for forestry support
Credit to Author: Gord Kurenoff| Date: Sat, 28 Sep 2019 02:38:57 +0000
VICTORIA — Did you hear the one about the premier who went to the convention of local government leaders and delivered his message mostly in jokes?
It was that kind of day Friday, when Premier John Horgan addressed delegates at the annual convention of the Union of B.C. Municipalities in Vancouver.
He teased newbie mayors and councillors about the inevitable letdowns from their first year in office: “The lights are so bright I can’t see the fading optimism in your eyes.”
Got off a good one about the mostly successful effort to ease the passage of salmon past that rock slide in the Fraser: “I’m not going to pretend there was a good outcome for the salmon, because that’s not what spawning is all about.” But, hey, at least their offspring will have a future.
Joked about the dope smoking proclivities of folks in the Kootenays and the Gulf Islands.
He even managed a riff about his own government being at the bottom of the national heap in collecting cannabis revenues: “Only government that could not make money selling weed in B.C.”
Horgan slipped at one point and referred to his partner on power sharing, the Green leader, as “minister Weaver.” Then recovered with a second-person aside to Weaver himself, who is on the sick list: “You’re dizzy Andrew, he didn’t say that.”
Then came perhaps the longest and surely the most pointless anecdote about a race between a chicken and a dead duck in the history of the UBCM or any other organization.
By then I was expecting “I just flew in from Langford and boy my arms are tired.”
But perhaps you had to be there. I wasn’t, only listened over a phone line. Even at that distance, I could hear the laughter as well as the standing ovation at his arrival and the second when he finished.
Clearly, the premier knew his audience.
The delegates were welcoming even though he departed from the tradition of previous premiers, who usually came to these things with provincial largesse.
“You’re waiting for the goody bags to be handed out,” said empty-handed Horgan. “We are not doing that today.”
Not only did the premier not come bearing gifts, he rejected the convention call for the New Democrats to revisit the recent decision to divert the $25 million rural dividend fund to help pay for a $69 million support package for displaced forest workers.
Earlier that day delegates had voted unanimously to call on the province to reinstate the dividends, which are used by smaller communities and First Nations for local economic development.
Some 338 applications were in process when the suspension was announced. Delegates pleaded with Victoria to find another source of money to support forest workers.
But the premier wasn’t having any of it. The money had been diverted to a more pressing cause and there it would stay.
Though the delegates could not have been happy at the rebuff, the premier managed to finesse it past them by linking the diversion to the troubles in the forest industry. There was even some applause.
Talking to reporters afterward, the premier said the New Democrats are looking at other sources to fund at least some of the applications sitting on the back burner.
“We need to get dollars into the hands of forest workers right now and that was why we suspended the fund,” said Horgan. “We’re trying to marry up some of the applications with more appropriate funds that are cost shared with the federal government.
“There are a multitude of funds within government, there are resources, contingency funds, forecast allowances, a whole range of issues.”
For instance, the New Democrats are adding millions to the annual cost of building roads and bridges with their union-favouring community benefits agreements. But those are untouchable.
One reason for the pronounced fallout over the diversion was because of the way it was handled.
Forests Minister Doug Donaldson, who is also responsible for rural development, announced the support package for forests workers without mentioning that part of the cost would be covered by winding up the rural development fund for a year.
The news only got out when applicants started getting letters from Donaldson announcing that the dividends were suspended.
Horgan was asked in the media scrum why the New Democrats “weren’t as up front as you could have been about where the forestry money was coming from.”
But he met the question with a question: “How much up front other than advising people that we curtailed it do you want us to be?”
Well since he asked, the New Democrats could have announced the bad news along with the good — and spared themselves some of the backlash.
Toward the end of his defence of the decision on the rural development fund, he dropped the light touch in favour of a tougher message.
“I’m not at all concerned that people would prefer to have everything right now,” said Horgan. “When I was a kid I always wanted everything right now, too, and I ended up turning out OK, even though I didn’t get everything I wanted at the time I wanted it.”
By then he was talking to reporters, and the convention had adjourned. But if delegates heard the comment on the way home or when they got there, I doubt they would be laughing along with Premier Stand-Up on that one.
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