For a while there, it sounded like Premier Christy Clark was identifying with the Truck Loggers Association to the point of making herself an honorary member.
“There are days when critics didn’t believe in your dream.”
Check.
“They didn’t believe you could be successful.”
Check.
She lauded the benefits of sticking with a plan even if people don’t believe in it and slogging through the criticism.
“It ain’t always sexy to do that,” she said, but it works.
We’ll see.
When the TLA views the prospect of an NDP government, they think one thing: restrictions on raw log exports.
It’s a stopper for the industry because so many members depend on that market to some extent, because the prices are better.
The B.C. Liberals have always allowed room for some exports. Forests Minister Steve Thomson adjusted the current policy slightly earlier this week. The idea is to dampen it down slightly, but maintain a “balanced” approach to the perennial hot-button issue.
While the previous NDP government in the 1990s made room for some exports, the party in opposition has become increasingly critical, and leader Adrian Dix is on the record as opposing the practice.
So the TLA, a 70-year-old organization that represents the interests of smaller logging operations, has always been receptive to the B.C. Liberals. Clark got a fairly warm welcome and an optimistic invitation to speak again as premier next year.
It was prompted in part by another baby step the government made on a long-standing problem logging contractors have about tax charges and liabilities when they’re left holding the bag if licensees default.
Help was promised last year but got hung up. On Friday, Clark said $5 million has finally been “operationalized” and will be made available.
She did her best to remind them of the other horrors — apart from banning log exports — that await them if the NDP wins.
“It wasn’t long ago in B.C. when cutting down a tree was considered bad.”
Her main political thrust amounted to a call to Dix to come out and fight like a man.
“There are those who will say they have policies on forestry and log exports and they’re gong to tell you what those are after the election.
“We’re supposed to be in a democracy, in a competition of ideas. How can you have a competition of ideas when only one person has their ideas out on the table?”
Clark said she’s not scared of the competition and not frightened about saying what she believes in.
Dix will eventually release some kind of platform, on or before the campaign kickoff in March. But he will probably hold off on commitments for as long as possible.
Which leaves Clark fuming. “I think refusing to be honest with the public about where you stand on issues is going at some point to be a serious liability for the Opposition. Because British Columbians are going to quite rightly say, ‘;we deserve to know.’ ”
When it comes to the argument she’s looking for, she’s left mostly with the NDP record from years gone by as a target. But transposing that onto the 2013 NDP is a weak substitute for going head-to-head with Dix.
Just So You Know: Readers are invited to the annual toast to the memory of Sir Winston Churchill on Sunday.
A band of hardy souls will mark the anniversary of his death on Jan. 14, 1965, by gathering at 2 p.m. around the hawthorn tree he planted in Beacon Hill Park (near the foot of Quadra Street) during a visit to Victoria in 1929.
There will be a toast, some brief remarks and a raffle of Churchill memorabilia.
