Premier Announces Funding and Celebrates Vaisakhi

Premier Christy Clark recently announced $150,000 funding for the state-of-the-art field house for The West Coast Kings Field Hockey Society. In addition, the premier attended a Vaisakhi event at the Grand Taj Banquet Hall, and spoke with the South Asian media, including DARPAN Magazine.

“Promoting and supporting healthy lifestyles is an important part of our government’s commitment to help families and communities remain active and strong,” Clark told the crowd gathered at Tamanawis Park in Surrey. “This new facility provides a safe venue where families can watch international tournaments while at the same time encouraging them to get out there and play themselves.”

The new field house will feature change rooms, public washrooms and meeting spaces. In addition, the goal for the facility is to also attract high-profile sports tournaments to Surrey increasing tourism, recreation and hospitality for the city.

At the Grand Taj, Clark, who was dressed in a blue salwar kameez, started off the media roundtable by saying “Happy Vaisakhi” to the members of the South Asian media. She went on to say she “feels incredibly at home with the South Asian community here and in India.” She was joined by MLA’s Kash Heed and Dave Hayer.

She discussed a range of topics, including recent opinion polls about the Liberals and the upcoming election. She also addressed the issue of the Conservatives making a dent in the Liberal party.

“The thing about opinion polls is some of them are valid, some of them are not; it’s very difficult to know what the truth is. Here’s the thing, we will get to an election in a year so if I spend a lot of time worrying about opinion polls today, I have got my eye on the wrong ball, I’ve got to be thinking about how do we protect and create jobs for the province? How do we make sure families can go find a job and put food on the table for their kids? That’s the questions I need to be focused on because thinking of issues that won’t matter for a year probably isn’t the way to meet our goals. So, no, it’s not a source of concern to me because I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about this.”

Clark continued by adding, “But I will say this; I am concerned about the fact that the BC Conservatives and John Cummins are making some dent in the coalition, the support for our coalition. We have been a free enterprise coalition in BC since 1952, and we call ourselves the BC Liberal Party. We include people, everybody in BC, whatever political party they’re from, that supports a thriving private sector economy. And if you want to make sure that you don’t get an NDP government in the next election, if you want to make sure that you don’t end up with a government that kills jobs and send your kids to other provinces because they can’t find work, then you need to make sure that you’re supporting our coalition.”

The premier also addressed the ongoing issue of turbans/helmets in the work place, more specifically in terms of safety on construction sites; the RCMP contract and the raise of RCMP officers in relation to how it affects Surrey; the Immigration Task Force in BC; and the ongoing labour dispute with the BC Teachers’ Federation.

After the discussion, Premier Clark mingled with the South Asian community and celebrated the festival of Vaisakhi.

***Image courtesy of Payal Video