British Columbia's major party leaders took their election campaigns to the Okanagan Friday to talk about fire safety and the high cost of groceries.
Interim Conservative party leader Lorne Doerkson is promising to spend half a billion dollars on a fleet of Crown-owned water bombers and cutting-edge technology, including artificial intelligence, to fight the growing threat of wildfires, if the party is elected on Oct. 24.
Doerkson said the proposed plane purchase and the innovation fund are part of a larger plan to improve the response to wildfire through more on-the-ground prevention and less bureaucracy.
NDP Leader David Eby stood outside a Kelowna grocery store on Friday to announce additional plans to improve affordability by putting price caps on certain groceries items, such as eggs, butter and milk.
He said that his party, if re-elected, would cap unfair increases on staples through price guards on corporate retailers, setting hard ceilings on retail margins for everyday essentials.
"We have seen prices on the basics climb beyond inflation," he said.
"So, what we are going to do is put the same protections in place we have for farmers," he said, referring to marketing boards that regulate their products.
Doerkson made his announcement in front of a rural property wiped out last month during the Bald Range wildfire, which destroyed more than 80 homes in Faulder, B.C., and forced thousands of people to flee from nearby Summerland.
"We are here today because British Columbians deserve a government that will act before the smoke appears on the horizon," he said.
"We owe it to our kids. We owe to our forestry workers and we owe it to communities like Summerland, like Lytton, like Clinton to take back control of our forests."
Doerkson, who spoke next to property owner Joel Patan and local Conservative candidate Tracy St. Claire, said having a provincial water-bombing fleet will ultimately save money, given the escalating costs of fighting fires.
"We will protect our communities, we will safeguard our health care and education budgets by avoiding billions in emergency suppression costs and economic loss," he said.
"Most importantly, we will do everything we can to ensure families like Joel's never again have to flee their homes in the dark with two hour's notice."
When asked about the costs of buying the planes, Doerkson said the province could help pay for them by renting them out to other jurisdictions when they aren't needed.
Eby also made a fire-related announcement, saying that government would match donations to the Canadian Red Cross up to $20 million for people affected by this summer's wildfires.
After his Kelowna announcement, he visited a coffee shop in Summerland and toured vinAmite Cellars winery, where he tasted and purchased a bottle of wine.
The NDP's promise on Friday of a cap on some groceries would be linked to six staples: milk, eggs, butter, cheese, chicken, and turkey, the party said in a statement.
These products are already regulated through marketing boards and the proposed measures would extend that protection to consumers, Eby said.
Just as farmers get their costs, government will put in measures that will cap the profit margins that large grocery chains can make off staples, Eby said.
He said his government would also introduce measures to prohibit predatory pricing and support smaller, independent grocery retailers.
The Retail Council of Canada issued a statement Friday saying B.C. families deserve a debate grounded in facts, not political talking points.
Kim Furlong, chief executive officer of the council, said the promise misses the mark on what actually drives grocery prices, including transportation, energy, labour and regulation.
"Retailers share the goal of affordable food," she said. "Let’s focus on solutions that actually lower grocery bills: reducing supply chain costs, improving efficiency and strengthening competition — not promises that sound good but leave the real cost drivers untouched."
Conservative candidate Gavin Dew, who is running in a Kelowna-area riding, noted that Eby didn't follow through with his promise to B.C. residents of $1,000 in grocery relief after the 2024 election.
B.C. New Democrat candidate Ravi Parmar, meanwhile, questioned Doerkson's promises.
"How is Lorne Doerkson going to pay for this?" said Parmar, who's the forest minister under Eby's government.
He noted that Coulson Aviation, based in British Columbia, is converting 10 federal government Hercules aircraft into water bombers. The company contracts with various agencies around the world, including BC Wildfire Service.
British Columbia is already leading the way when it comes to active forest management through commercial thinning and selected logging, he said.
Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Aaron Hemens
