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Furstenau pays visit to West Vancouver-Sea to Sky

Valeriote has a good chance at the seat, says Furstenau
Valeriote and Furstenau at Troller Ale House
BC Green Party leader Sonia Furstenau answers media questions inside Troller Ale House in Horseshoe Bay Tuesday morning.

With the election less than a week away, and thousands of votes already cast, BC Green Party leader Sonia Furstenau says she believes West Vancouver-Sea to Sky candidate Jeremy Valeriote has a good chance of being elected this weekend.

“The numbers are telling us that we are very close,” she said in a visit to Troller Ale House in Horseshoe Bay Tuesday morning. While the Green Party came in second in the last provincial election, the riding has gone Liberal for nearly 30 years.

Accompanied by Valeriote in visiting Horseshoe Bay, Furstenau highlighted the party’s commitments to small businesses and tourism. She touted the Green Party’s platform promise inject $300 million into a six-month rent subsidy program to cover 25 per cent of rental costs for eligible small businesses. “To ensure that they do make it through this winter and they can come out and be an absolutely essential part of our communities and our economy on the other side of this,” said Furstenau.

Troller, she said, has seen revenue fall by 30 per cent while expenses remain the same.

Furstenau also pointed to the Greens’ proposal to fast-track provincial grants to tourism operators, including non-profits, to sustain them over the winter.

Furstenau also touched on innovation and a low-carbon economy and the Greens’ plan to establish a strategic innovation fund to target climate and technology goals. She described West Vancouver-Sea to Sky as a region “building its economy in step with its love of the outdoors.”

When asked about Woodfibre LNG, Furstenau reiterated the party’s anti-fossil fuel stance. “The notion that we are taking public money to prop up an industry that isn't financially viable by itself, that then will turn around and cost us in the short, the medium and the long term in terms of impacts of climate change, it is an astonishingly, astonishingly irresponsible decision,” she said.

 

Correction: an earlier version of this story said that Furstenau was the first leader to visit the riding in this election, NDP leader John Horgan visited Squamish earlier this month.