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Clark and Stilwell make pitch to Liberals

Jobs and keeping people in their home communities were the main messages two BC Liberal leadership hopefuls had when they came to Terrace last week.
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Left: Kitimat’s Robin Lapointe speaks to BC Liberal leadership candidate Christy Clark during her stop in Terrace Jan. 13.

Jobs and keeping people in their home communities were the main messages two BC Liberal leadership hopefuls had when they came to Terrace last week.

In the case of Christy Clark, who was here Jan. 13, that’s through the importance of families and keeping the economy strong.

“We want to have a thriving economy so families can stay in the community where they were raised, and where they want to live the rest of their lives,” the former education minister and deputy premier told a packed room at the Northern Motor Inn. “That’s the importance of a thriving economy.”

Vancouver-Langara MLA Dr. Moira Stilwell focused on education during her talk at the Northwest Community College’s longhouse Jan. 14.

“Northwest B.C. has always played an important role in British Columbia’s economy, and the resurgence of the mining sector, and the enormous infrastructure investment that’s happening in this area, will provide good-paying, highly-skilled jobs for years and years to come, and Northwest Community College is going to be the school that provides the workers and good jobs for everyone in this region,” Stilwell said.

She would spend $10 million on building up the college’s mining training jobs.

Stilwell said her platform has three main components: securing the economic future of B.C. through education, emphasizing economic development, and increasing exports.

Clark’s main speaking points were families first and a strong economy, She also said one of the reasons she’s running is that she doesn’t want the government to fall back into economic turmoil under the NDP. Ultimately, she said she’d like to get solid candidates up here and have cabinet ministers in this region.

Clark also spoke about having a government that listens to the public and allows MLAs to speak on behalf of the community, and suggested holding 12 town halls across the province over the course of a year.

She talked about keeping resources and people in the community, reversing cuts in resource ministries, and making sure major projects went through bureaucratic channels in a timeframe that is friendly to industry investment.

Keeping the Asia Pacific corridor strong will also open up foreign markets and bring the economy together, Clark said.