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 believes in common sense. It makes perfect sense we would elect, as leader, someone who has the most experience to take us through an election; someone with eight consecutive wins – with three of those against the NDP.

People ask me, “How are you going to pull everyone together?” So again, it's about the experience between the city council table, at the regional district table, where I've been a mayor and a chair. That experience does matter. 

What I noticed is when I first started to put my hat in the ring, I had lots of people come and offer to work on the campaign. They said the same thing, ‘campaign to the far right, go to the middle, to win a general election.’ 

None of them are working on my campaign, but they are all working in this campaign, just not for me. Some of the candidates they're working for will stay on the right and that's fine; if they win at least the membership knew what they were voting for.
What I'm telling you today is that I will get a mandate from the grassroots, from the party, so I can stand in front of the caucus room and tell them, “This is what the members want us to campaign on, and stand up for, fight for daily, and focus on”.

It's the same things the public wants from us, to win a general election. So, we do have to take some steps. 

We do have to repeal DRIPA. Let's be clear about that. And we have to actually get in court and instruct our lawyers to defend private property rights. No gray area there whatsoever.

Our healthcare system is a complete mess. It needs a complete overhaul. 

Our education system, K-12 ... our kids are literally failing in numeracy, and literacy, and we need to get back to kids actually achieving in school (as basic as) things like a letter grade, so you know how your kid is doing. 

We need to address the affordability and the economy, in a meaningful way, and get government out of the way to let the private sector grow. We cannot cut our way out of the deficit ... but this government has proven they don't know how to grow the economy to get us back so we can afford healthcare and education moving forward. 

Crime and safety on our streets are out of control. Whether it's by stats or not, if you don't feel safe, you're not safe.

And we can't address small businesses if we're not dealing with what's going on in our downtown core at the same time. We have to bring some consequence back into the justice system. So, people's actions actually have a consequence behind them. That requires more crown prosecutors. That requires more judges.

Under David Eby's watch, we have lots of space in the correctional institutions, because no one's in there anymore ... we should seriously look at allowing police to lay charges like they do in many other jurisdictions across this country.

So that's the stuff we're going to focus on. And we're going to stick to that. 

We're going to campaign through this leadership race on those things, and then we're going to take them into a general election. 

Because one thing I know ... and I don't care if you vote for the federal conservatives, and I don't care if you vote for the federal liberals. This is about British Columbia.

I know for a fact there's a lot of federal liberals, and a lot of federal conservatives, that want safe streets, that want access to a doctor, that want to maybe get a hip surgery in a reasonable time, that would like their kids to do well in school. 

We're going to share those values, those principles, and those priorities as a coalition. And we're going to form government, and we're going to turn this province around. 

We're doing this to win. We are going to win. We've got a great team working with me, a great group of volunteers. And you're going to see more and more endorsements, and more and more support, and more and more momentum as the days and weeks go on. 

Thanks again everyone for coming out.



ME:  I’m going to include one of the questions that came up, during the Q&A with Peter, because it related directly to healthcare in Kamloops


PETER:  So, the question is about the cardiac care unit in the (Royal Inland) hospital that's been shut down since COVID, and how would I handle healthcare in general.

Healthcare is a mess, and no more so than here. We have a cancer center that won't have a PET / CT scanner. We have a cardiac care unit that hasn't been in operation, and we have a cath lab that's desperately needed. 

We actually have surgeons that want it - we have donors that would pay for it - and we have IHA saying you can have it in 2040. It makes no sense whatsoever. We have to common sense back into the healthcare system. 

This is a government, that in this last budget, canceled the Burnaby Phase 2 Hospital and Cancer Center, because they've overspent on all of their other capital projects. 

We need to meaningfully address health care. We have to listen to the staff, the frontline staff more and the doctors more -- and the bureaucrats within healthcare less. And that's, how I'm going to address things. 

I don't think anyone in this room will ever accuse me of not fighting for healthcare and Kamloops -- and I'm pretty confident they're (NDP) not going to not say anything like that about me either. 

We're going to keep working together and get the improvements that we need for health care, not just here, but across BC.