B.C. Conservative Party Leader John Rustad takes your calls

joining me now is the leader of the BC conservative party John rustad Mr rustad thanks so much for being here thank you very much for having me on good to have you with us and I appreciate that you're able to take calls as well let me just ask you um this obviously came as a real shock to uh the public and many in the BC United party I'm sure in your party as well yesterday between you and Kevin Falcon what is that relationship like because Kev he's he's called you many names in the past right he's called you extreme not ready to be Premier um just recently BC United was handing out tinfoil hats to refer to conspiracy theories around 5G that was pedal by one of your candidates you've traded barbs um you've said he's demonstrated he will always put his own personal um ambition first so how are you going to work together to come up with candidates and policy I I actually don't think there'll be any problem at all because there is one thing that unites both of us and that is we need to bring an end to the very destructive policies of David eie and what has been happening in this province but you disagree on pretty fundamental things you were you were booted out of um the BC liberal caucus in 2022 because of of uh posting a social media post that casted out on climate change science you were asked about this yesterday at the news conference and we have a clip of it now your relationship uh broke down a couple years ago over party discipline and climate change so Mr rustad are you moderating your views on climate change do you still believe it's not a crisis and that the science suggesting we're causing it is false um as the conservative party of British Columbia we are welcoming this opportunity to be able to work with the United party um as I have said all along uh we're not changing our principles and the values that we stand for we're going to continue to fight for what we think is right for the people in British Columbia what is that answer mean so when you look at it right now one of three people in this province are looking at leaving British Columbia because of climate change one in three people can't live in this province and they were looking to try to build a future one in two youth are looking to leave British Columbia there's a problem in British Columbia it is unaffordable you can't find housing we have a huge problem with drugs and with crime um and people are saying uh why would I stay here I can't raise a family here I can't afford to live here that is what is wrong and that's what we need to be focused on is climate change a problem climate change is an issue there's no question it's an issue but we have to put that in the context of making sure that people can afford to live in British Columbia that people can afford to raise a family here that they can build a future here is climate change human caused there's no question that that human is having an impact on it there's no question in terms of that you know and so okay because that's very that that is antithetical to what you had boosted back in 2022 you are moderating your position then no I haven't changed my position at all you can go back and look at the clips from back then it's I've said exactly the same thing the issue here is that people are struggling and we need need a government that's going to focus on trying to make sure that they can have a good quality of life here in British Columbia okay so you're saying now you believe climate change has been caused by human activity yes I'm saying that that humans have contributed to climate change yes okay is it at a crisis level it is not at a crisis level there are many more things that I think are are far more important when people can't put food on the table that's a big issue and as a province quite frankly we should be concerned about that when people can L afford to be able to pay their rent when they can't have a dream of being able to ever own a home when they're looking at leaving this province those are big issues what about the cost of fighting fires fighting wildfires BC's provincial budget has um expended money toward fighting wildfires that is a critical issue it's repeating and getting worse uh of course last year was the worse that BC has seen people are um evacuated from their communities you you've lost communities like Linton is that not a crisis uh it certainly is a big issue and it does need to be addressed and I don't think government is doing a good job in terms of fighting fires but we have a premier today that believes that taxing people into poverty is going to change the weather and I'm sorry that is not right what would be your solutions for climate change so what we need to be thinking about if I could say is being able to make sure all of our decisions are about how we improve lives one of the things that I've came out with in our terms of our policy is we only we only procure uh 34% of the food we consume from BC 2third of our food comes from outside of our borders that leaves our people vulnerable we need to be looking at it especially from a perspective of our changing climate how do we make sure we look after our own people in BC how do we look at doubling agriculture production how do we make sure we manage water much better how do we make sure that our infrastructure is more resilient so that it's not going to be affected by so many issues that we have with uh with climate and so those are the types of things that we need to be able to do in British Columbia to make sure people can have a future here in this province John rad is with me leader of the BC conservative party taking your calls 1 1800 8255 95604 669 3733 what is your question for the leader of the BC conservatives Finn is on the line in sui hi Finn hi welcome what's your question so my question for Mr bad is in light of DC United bowing out of the race you can quick to describe the conservatives as a big tent party for anyone dis who disagrees with the NDP so my question for you is there room for folks in the party who may have disagreements with the NDP but believe in the importance of addressing the looming threat of climate change Bel that lgbtq citizens of all ages should be treated with dignity and respect or that covid doesn't come from 5G Towers because frankly all I've heard from the statements from yourself and the party are complete capitulation to the most far-right and conspiratorial fringes of the province has anything really changed with your party so one of the things that I would say to to this particular U viewer is we've been actually working with Andrew Weaver the leader the former leader of the green party he's won a the Nobel Prize is part of this and he is very excited about working with us on our policies and our approach that we want to do around energy generation and how we want to address uh these sort of issues in BC we've had many people from across the Spectrum political Spectrum join our party lots of people from the NDP for example who have said I've voted NDP for the last 40 years but I cannot vote for David eie and his destructive policies I'm coming over and joining the conservative party so we have have a very broad tent in terms of it we have U people you know who are gay who are bisexual you know our policies and approaches are are very open in terms of people and from right across the Spectrum but you want to remove the soi1 123 resource so what I am opposed to is I'm opposed to the sexualization of kids in our schools and the material that's there what I want to do is I want to make sure that we have a very strong anti-bullying program and that we have supports in place because I know sometimes students can really struggle particularly with families and we need to be B to support those and support right through the families and what SOI has become is a lightning rod denying parents their rights to be able to to understand what's going on with their Childs in a school that to me is wrong parents have rights parents have rights um uh lgbtq people have rights as well and uh soji has been described it is a resource that uh promotes inclusivity that says simply I you it's not sexualization they would say they would say this is a resource that says people exist people people of various sexual orientations and uh gender uh exist of course they do of course they do so why not support a policy that uh it simply promotes inclusivity of that because that policy has led to materials in schools which quite frankly I could not say on air you would you would have to censor it there's pictures and books showing children having sex and that to me is just wrong where where where do you have evidence of this yes I do I've seen the books I've seen the the library stamps in the books in the schools where this information is avail we've asked you for this evidence and your party has not sent it to us we can certainly show you that the sites that have all this information collected okay we would we would like to do that in order to be able to see the evidence that to back up your claim for example there's a um uh there is a group in sui that has tried to recall the education Minister that has a tremendous amount of that material available and so all you have to do is have a look at that site that alone will will give you all that material that you need to see we read information in the legislature directly from a book from a school in library and we were called out and said that was on parliamentary cam is our next caller now in Cobble Hill want to make sure we get some callers into hi Cam hello yes yeah I'm a Placer Miner and I planned to mine this year but needless to say it isn't happening because I I've waited nearly a year for permits the minister of Mines I've sent letters to I've gone to the parliament buildings with letters get nowhere and uh a lot of the this is driven by an IND indigenous agenda uh the the NDP tried to give that's given away like the queen Charlottes Banks Island zabis and they they've gone after all this stuff do you mean this has to be rolled back and that's cost me hundreds of thousands of dollars I I just I think we have to be more like what's your question I'm getting I can't do anything I can't do anything and I can't find out from the mines Minister I can't find out from anybody if this is indigenous driven because everything with the NDP is driven by non-disclosure agreements they won't talk to me I can't do I'd like a comment from uh your guest okay Cam thank you very much for the call thank you and and this is a real problem permitting in British Columbia has has frozen up um in the forest sector for example up in my area BC Timber sales has uh 2 million cubic meters of wood that it could put out on an annual basis me three years they haven't issued any permits in the mining industry uh I've heard that as well in terms of not being able to get permits not being able to move forward so we are going to move to a to a a single project single permit process in British Columbia we're going to make sure that um the the permitting goes through and that it doesn't get hung up in the bureaucracy and process we're going to make sure that people have an opportunity to be able to go to work in this province Alexis is next in the Sloan Valley Hi Alexis hi um thank you Mr rustad for taking the making yourself available for questions here first off and I'm looking for clarification um I think it was you I heard uh say that um BC needs to go back to uh fighting fires the way we used to I.E putting the fires out instead of creating massive project fires which pollute the Earth um and I don't know if maybe that was you but um people need to be aware of how much gasoline Diesel and phosphorus gel is used to create these fires hundreds of kilometers are burned and destroyed because it is very high intensity fires it damages down to the mineral soil preventing anything from growing um water sheds all over are being destroyed I am a user of the trosa Creek Watershed uh the fire was out on day two in 2021 and they did 39 back burs over several drainages at 10 kilometer plus distance in order to create a massive fire um they were unable to do so but they burned over 133,000 L of fuel in order to attempt this um we are being subjected to breathing poisoned air the ash of plants animals and trees so that we can employ people who come from out of country um it's on taxpayers dime they are all expenses paid to come here with guaranteed 80 days of work um and when they return home to their country they are guaranteed an EI um based program from Canada and they are employed over local subcontractors okay so Alexis you're talking about these Burns right is that is that what fire service is continually saying we used to be we're have been too good at putting out fires and we need to go back to being too good at putting out fires and I hope that's part of your mandate okay thank you Alexis so I'll give you a couple of examples uh I was just up in Smithers a few weeks ago and a wildfire broke up uh broke out uh in an area up in a up in the mountains you know far popul hard to get to area and it was reported to the ministry of forest the ministry of forest said well we don't happen to have anybody in the area so we're just going to let it burn in my area last year when there was wildfires um they we fought hard to contain the fires they got them contained um and then of course there was the fires down south and they had to reallocate Crews and that's fine the local Crews wanted to stay and fight the fire they wanted to stay and get the hot spots out and government stood them down and said no you're not allowed to do that the winds picked up those fires jumped the guard and people lost buildings to me the way we are fighting fires in this province is wrong we need to be taking a very different approach but it's also important to know that the landscape has changed both because things have are warmer but also because we got very good at putting out fires back in the 50s and that allowed trees to get a lot older than they normally get fuel loads are built up and so when you have fires you have very big fires and so we actually need to look at using fire as tool on the landscape but there's many other things we need to do to be able to change and and have a better opportunity to be able to um reduce the impacts of wildfires in BC Alexis thank you and uh Colton is next at Campbell River hi Colton what's your question for John rustad hi John uh brother and um Campbell River here um I have a question about honestly the makings of your party because we've seen this time and time again in British Colombia we've seen the social credit move to the BC liberals and now we've seen the BC liberals obviously have a very B Street Brandon go to DC United and now the conservatives are the big guy in the room and a huge Contender for the next government in this province but my question is is that it's been so ugly over the past few weeks and even year between your party and uh Kevin Falcon's party like it's one thing to be a fragmented opposition and to be totally against uh new democrat policies but how are you going to work together with each other because I know for the very fact that there are some mlas from BC United that will just not see eye to eye with this new uh vision of conservatism in this province a lot of people are looking at this frankly the way Alberta United their conservative parties how are you going to work together and put Eagles aside and get to work for everyday British Colombians thank you for that question um and I can tell you um politics can often be described as a blood sport I mean it is it can be vicious at times um you know you're you're in it you're in the fight until you're not in the fight and that's what happened with uh with Kevin Falcon and when he de decided that he was he was going to stop uh with his campaign he was going to suspend the campaign um he came over and said let's figure out how we do this together and I said yes I'm in agreement let's figure out how we can do this so I mean I've worked with Kevin uh from 2005 to 2013 when he was in government I've talked with Kevin numerous times when he was outside of government um and I'm not going to have any problem with working with him I don't hold any grudges against anybody including uh you know former colleagues uh from that party so I don't think there'll be any problem there is going to be some that may not want to be part of organization I understand that um and that's that's the way politics can be but we are a very large organization and we're very welcoming for people right across the political Spectrum Mr