B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad paints dire fiscal picture in speech ahead of election call

The leader of the party fighting to take control of the B.C. government from the NDP on Oct. 19 painted a dire picture of the province in his last public speech before the campaign period begins Saturday.
Finances are a disaster with a deficit he estimated of up to $12-billion by the end of the fiscal year, B.C. Conservative Party Leader John Rustad told a crowd of almost 2,000 city councillors and mayors at the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention Friday.
Meanwhile, in Surrey, Premier David Eby, kicked off his campaign a day early, revealing the NDP bus while accompanied by his wife and their children.
The orange campaign bus is adorned with photos of people with Mr. Eby standing in the centre and slogans such as “action for you,” “homes you can afford,” and “better health care.”
Mr. Rustad, however, made a number of statements in his speech highlighting his view of the issues in the province: Crime is rampant. A third of young people in B.C. are saying they want to leave the province. There is no real plan for treating the growing number of people who are being hit by a combination of drug addiction and mental illness. The health care system is broken. And carbon pricing is a failure when it comes to mitigating climate change, he said.
“Taxing people into poverty is not going to change the weather,” said Mr. Rustad, while cautiously affirming beforehand that he believes that “the climate-change issue is real” – something he’s been attacked on repeatedly by the NDP for past statements where he has suggested climate change may be a hoax.
But Mr. Rustad offered only a few specifics of what the Conservatives might do differently on those and other issues.
He said his party would deal with the problem of toxic-drug use, homelessness, violent crime, and public disorder by creating a more robust, comprehensive treatment system.
“We can’t carry on with safe supply and decriminalization,” he said.
But he said there are measures to ensure that people committing violent crimes get put away – using the Mental Health Act if necessary.
“They’ll be held and treated until they’re no longer a risk,” he said. Others who are not violent, but have challenges, should potentially be taken care of through a system of “compassionate involuntary care.” Mr. Rustad did not comment on the NDP’s announcement Sunday that it is initiating an involuntary-treatment system immediately.
Conservatives would improve the health care system by looking to alternative models, with services delivered by a range of government and non-government agencies, he promised.
He said there should be a conversation with the public about “the possibility of using nuclear power” to meet the province’s energy demands, where electric-power generation is not able to keep up.
Mr. Rustad, in one of the most well received points in his speech, promised to eliminate the NDP’s current legislation that requires cities to incorporate all types of new housing density: four- and six-plexes in any town with a population over 5,000; more significant density in city neighbourhoods that are close to major transit nodes.
That got an enthusiastic round of applause.
Instead, he said, his government would work with city councils to prezone land, something that would speed up construction and permitting, in return for money from a $1-billion fund the Conservatives would create to help pay for water and sewer infrastructure.
The $1-billion, which is barely enough to pay for a quarter of a Metro Vancouver filtration plant, would be amplified with as much as $30-billion from the federal government that Conservatives would work to get, Mr. Rustad said.
That infrastructure issue has been a sore spot for civic politicians, who have found themselves being pressed by both provincial and federal leaders to allow more densification, but neither of those governments has a clear plan on how cities should cover the associated infrastructure costs when they absorb hundreds and thousands of new residents.
In his final point, Mr. Rustad warned that the NDP’s moves to give more control to Indigenous groups is having a real impact.
Giving full title to Indigenous groups on Haida Gwaii, he said, means that “title will now exist under your private property, underneath your communities” and that Haida law will prevail on taxation and regulation.
Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau also spoke at the convention Friday, arguing a minority government would create “built-in accountability” for whichever party won.
“We see when we have majority governments in this province, they do not deliver on what they promise, but they do a whole bunch of things that they didn’t promise, and they do it without being able to be held accountable by the legislature or by the people of B.C.,” she said.
Ms. Furstenau told reporters after her speech that the other party leaders are offering “a lot of fear and a lot of anger and a lot of finger pointing.”
Special to The Globe and Mail; with a report from The Canadian Press