Skip to main content

Posts

“I am a Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, or free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind.” ~~ John G. Diefenbaker

BC Small Business Confidence Weakens as NDP Piles on New Costs

New data from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB)shows weakening business confidence in British Columbia and rising cost pressures across the board. “Business confidence in BC is weak, barely above neutral, and moving in the wrong direction,” said Gavin Dew, MLA for Kelowna–Mission and Critic for Jobs, Economic Development, Innovation and AI. “At the exact moment small businesses are struggling, this government continues to kick them while they’re down with higher taxes and more red tape.” CFIB data shows 74% of small businesses in BC identify tax and regulatory costs as a major challenge, alongside rising pressures from insurance, wages, and energy. “Tax and regulatory costs are a major burden on small businesses, and this government keeps making red tape and taxes worse,” said Dew. “Insurance is also one of the top pressures, reflecting the real public safety challenges businesses are dealing with every day.” The report also points to weakening demand, declining bu...
Post a Comment
Read more
Recent posts

British Columbians Strongly Support Protecting Private Property: Poll

A new poll finds that 78% of British Columbians say the BC Supreme Court’s Cowichan decision will hurt BC’s economy by undermining property rights. The decision granted Aboriginal title over approximately 800 acres of private land in Richmond – including farms, small businesses, and individual homes. Opposition crosses every region and every political party. The poll was commissioned by the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association (ICBA), Canada’s largest construction association. According to the poll, the Cowichan decision has heightened concerns about private property not just in Richmond, but across BC. “Farmers, ranchers, small businesses and homeowners are struggling to understand the implications of this decision on land values, on when, and how, they can sell their properties, and on how projects get approved – there is a real risk that if the Government is not clear on its policy approach and what all of this means, BC will become uninvestable,” said ...
Post a Comment
Read more

HARMAN BHANGU: Bill-9 says the government will get to decide whether your request is good enough to bother answering

Bill-9 could directly restrict how I do my job as an opposition MLA.  Freedom of information is one of the only real tools we have to figure out what government is actually doing behind the scenes. Press releases tell you what the government wants you to hear. The real story lives in briefing notes, internal emails, and reports that only come out when someone forces the government to hand them over. Bill 9 weakens that system. Right now the law says government must respond “without delay.” Bill 9 replaces that with “without unreasonable delay.”  That might sound like a small wording change, but anyone who has dealt with bureaucracy knows exactly what it means: more wiggle room to stall, more excuses, and more waiting while the government runs out the clock. The bill also lets ministries decide whether a request has “enough detail” before they even start looking for records. In other words, the government gets to decide whether your request is good enough to bother answering. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

MILOBAR: This is what the members want us to campaign on, stand up for, fight for daily, and focus on

Last night (March 13th) 200 area residents, and members of the Conservative Party of BC, heard from Kamloops Centre MLA Peter Milobar. Milobar, who has been traveling the province for several weeks, is looking to become the next leader of the Conservative Party.   The following is a condensed version of what he had to say:  This election as the right-of-center party -- as BC conservatives -- we cannot afford to lose. We need a win. BC needs us to win. And we need experience to do that. Not just in the leadership race, but in the actual general election. And my experience as a city councillor, my experience as a mayor, my experience as an MLA, as a small businessperson; I’m actually the only one in the race that can talk about that experience. Because make no mistake about it, the NDP will be competitive in this coming election. They are going to get 37-38 percent of the vote no matter who their leader is. We need to be cohesive. We're supposed to be a party that believe...
Post a Comment
Read more

KRUGGEL: Potential recall of Tara Armstrong isn't about a single flashpoint issue, or a scandal

The voters in the provincial riding of Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream elected Tara Armstrong in October 2024 to represent them as a British Columbia Conservative MLA. She won the riding with a solid 53.92% of the vote with the NDP coming in at a distant second with 35.25%. Her win was all but guaranteed as the area has been a strong anti-NDP stronghold for generations. When Kevin Falcon folded the BC United Party up and packed it in Armstrong has no competition on the right. Independent Kevin Kraft, formerly of BC United, had no official banner to run under and he pulled in a measly 6.5% of the vote. The brief history That all changed when the party expelled Dallas Brodie early in 2025 for her belittling comments on the survivors of Residential School. Her comments were considered so off putting and inappropriate that the BC Conservatives didn't even want her. New Democrats might smarmily declare that the bar has to be pretty high for them to toss out a member ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Job Losses and Population Decline Signal Economic Weakness Under BC NDP

New Statistics Canada Labour Force Survey data shows British Columbia lost 20,000 jobs in February, including 33,000 full-time jobs, while the province’s population declined by roughly 3,000 people last month, including 2,000 youth aged 15–24, raising new concerns about the direction of the province’s economy. Gavin Dew, MLA for Kelowna-Mission and the Critic for Jobs, Economic Development, Innovation and AI, says the numbers point to a worrying trend for BC’s economy:  “With BC losing 20,000 jobs in February and David Eby on track to lose his own job, no wonder he’s trying so hard to distract British Columbians with silly political games. The NDP jobs minister is seemingly more focused on taking over the Premier's job than protecting private sector jobs for British Columbians." "Here's a simple economic truth: holding the unemployment rate steady by losing both jobs and population is not a success story," said Dew. "Less people chasing fewer jobs is a downw...
Post a Comment
Read more

STEPHEN WOODWORTH: Proportional Representation or Democratic Representation?

Describing the basic flaw of Proportional Representation (PR) is challenging because advocates of PR offer at least a half dozen or more PR variations without ever specifying which one they propose should be implemented if we ditch ‘first past the post’ (FPTP), so agreeing to ditch FPTP in favour of adopting PR is like buying a pig in a poke. That said, PR generally assigns legislators to Parties based on the Parties’ share of the popular vote, in addition to legislators directly elected to represent specific constituents, contributing in at least two ways to increased power to Party bosses.  First, the extra legislators are accountable mainly to their Party rather than being representatives for any specific electors, since they owe their appointment to their Party. Legislators who act as if they are beholden to their Party rather than to electors are already a huge contributor to lack of democratic legitimacy in Canada’s electoral system today, and the question is whether we wan...
Post a Comment
Read more

Labels

Show more