The BC government should be working closely with resource towns in transition; supporting communities like Port Renfrew when they decide to re-brand as the "Tall-Tree Capital”
EDITOR's NOTE .... below Adam's commentary, you will find a collection of photo's, I felt, would be
fitting to include. Many were taken
while traveling with family, some on solitary trips on my motorcycle,
or with my brother. I hope you enjoy them, however as they are my own personal pictures, please do not use elsewhere without asking permission first. Thank you:
It's National Tourism Week, so
let's celebrate SuperNatural British Columbia!
When I was a teenager I would go to downtown Victoria in the summertime
with my friends. We would hang out on the causeway watching the buskers and
mixing and mingling with the tourists. Victoria is an incredibly warm and
welcoming place to visit.
Following high school, I spent a considerable amount of time working in
the service industry. Some of my most important training for life came from
working the frontlines as a waiter serving people from around the world in a
range of restaurants from family to fine dining.
This experience is formative for my personal habits and grooming
standards, how I set a table and my personal urge to help the service staff, as
I highlight in this post. There is no doubt that my experience
serving visitors to Victoria is foundational to my work serving my constituents
and the people of British Columbia in the Legislative Assembly.
Tourism is one of the economic opportunities for our provincial
government in a transition away from a resource-dependent economy. In fact, the
two go hand-in-hand. People want to see SuperNatural
British Columbia but each passing year there is less to see.
I remember a conversation with a local leader in the tourism industry.
He was crystal clear. Tourism operators want a healthy environment. Visiting a
forest with giant trees, paddling a kayak in the Salish Sea, white-water
rafting the Fraser, or the prospect of catching a big fish or capturing the
image of a grizzly or wolf in the wild is globally appealing.
Tourism is the bridge
Unfortunately, we are carving away our forests with more rhetoric than
economic transition plan. In my role as the Tourism critic, I have met with
operators from across the province. There is increasing frustration with our
resource management practices in the province.
There is a massive opportunity to attract visitors to major centres like
Vancouver, Victoria, the Okanagan and the Kootenays. However, there is so much
more to the rest of our province and we are only taking advantage of a fraction
of our potential.
The provincial government should be working closely with resource towns
in transition. We should be supporting communities like Port Renfrew when they
decide to re-brand as the "Tall-Tree Capital." We should protect
old-growth not auction it.
Let's embrace the opportunity that tourism presents for the short,
medium and long-term economy of our province. At a time when we face a
tremendous test due to global warming, elevating this Ministry is an important
step.
Admittedly, there are emissions related to travel, but we need to
aggressively reframe the value proposition of our province. We cannot afford to
continue to have a strip it and ship it mentality. We need to nurture nature
and invite people to visit us and soak it in.
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