Topics ranging from transit, taxes to testing for COVID-19 dominated a meet-the-candidates event for the North Vancouver-Lonsdale riding Thursday morning.
The virtual event was hosted by the North Vancouver Chamber and focused in particular on issues impacting the local business community.
In a survey conducted by the chamber earlier this month, many North Vancouver business owners outlined pandemic-related issues that were affecting their daily operations, from access to rapid COVID-19 testing that would allow their employees to quickly return to work with clean bills of health to employee confidence in being able to safely use public transit.
“That was felt to be an important issue, especially around getting employees to work and just generally moving around,” said chamber CEO Patrick Stafford-Smith during introductory comments at the beginning of the Zoom meeting.
Acknowledging the importance of rapid COVID-19 testing and its economic impact on business, BC Liberal candidate 'Lyn Anglin said easy access to testing increased people’s confidence when it came to returning to their jobs and businesses being able to attract their customers back.
Anglin said a Liberal government would be committed to working with the provincial health officer and the regional health authorities to try and increase the availability of rapid testing for any British Columbian who feels the need to get tested.
“For businesses and for transportation, those are going to be key to increasing overall business confidence in the community and the province,” said Anglin. “Right now the testing is really oriented to people that have symptoms or have specific concerns. We need to have a look at whether we can do other things to improve access.”
Incumbent BC NDP MLA Bowinn Ma responded that the availability of testing that’s intended for people who specifically have symptoms related to novel coronavirus was “absolutely based on recommendations of public health officers.”
“The reason why we don’t currently test people without symptoms is because testing people without symptoms produces results that are not necessarily helpful for public health officials,” said Ma.
The NDP government is currently testing just under 10,000 people per day, with turnaround times of 24 hours for most of those results, added Ma. “This is a huge improvement from where we were in March when this pandemic first hit.”
It was announced earlier this week that a new COVID-19 testing site was opening in North Vancouver. Vancouver Coastal Health is expecting 450 to 600 tests to be administered at the site each day.
In response to a question about what their respective governments would do to keep costs down for small business owners trying to navigate the downturn caused by the pandemic, Ma said the NDP have announced tax cuts in areas under provincial jurisdiction, such as commercial property taxes, and pointed out her government’s revised regulations that allowed businesses to retool and adapt, such as in the restaurant industry, to the new realities of the pandemic.
“In addition to all of that, one of the most important things that we’ve been doing to help support small businesses is actually rooted in our health care response to manage the spread of coronavirus in such a way that we’re able to increase activity, including economic activity, without losing control of the situation,” said Ma.
Anglin applauded the province’s response to the pandemic from a health care perspective, but argued COVID constraints had forced businesses to lockdown too much without appropriate supports.
She pointed to the BC Liberals’ recent announcement that, if they formed government, the party planned to eliminate provincial sales tax for one year as an example of immediate actions the government could take to help businesses and individuals alike.
In addition to the year-long PST holiday, Anglin said that if the Liberals formed the next government, they’d eliminate the two per cent small business income tax, an announcement that Liberal Leader Andrew Wilkinson announced Thursday.
“The Liberals are going to continue working to reduce red tape, and there is going to be a loan guarantee program for tourism and hospitality businesses,” said Anglin.
In response to a question about seniors care and the North Shore’s aging population, Anglin referenced a pair of pledges the Liberals announced recently in North Vancouver, which included a 35 per cent tax credit for seniors and a cash injection to build more long-term care beds over a five-year period throughout the province.
Ma criticized the 16 years the Liberals were in power when it came to the seniors file, arguing it created a “fragmented and unaccountable system for seniors” that left long-term care centres especially susceptible to COVID-19 outbreaks.
“We’re going to be hiring 7,000 new health-care workers in long-term care and assisted living,” said Ma. “We also want to build better public long-term care homes and make sure that private operators deliver better care for the public money that they’re receiving.”
Christopher Hakes, the BC Green Party candidate for North Vancouver-Lonsdale, did not attend Thursday’s virtual meeting.
The North Vancouver Chamber hosted a virtual meet-the-candidates event for the North Vancouver-Seymour riding yesterday. One more session, featuring the candidates in West Vancouver-Capilano, is slated for tomorrow at 9 a.m.
The election is set for Oct. 24.
