B.C. leaders debate health care, vaccines — and paper straws
Debate featured a series of polarizing topics, as party leaders faced tough questions ahead of Oct. 19 vote
The leaders of the three major B.C. political parties clashed in a televised debate on Tuesday, which was touted as an attempt to appeal to undecided voters, but also provided an opportunity to land attacks against their opponents.
B.C. NDP Leader David Eby portrayed B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad as an anti-vaccine climate change denier who is advancing harmful conspiracy theories and making promises that are not grounded in financial reality.
Rustad said seven years of NDP rule has created a province where tent cities have proliferated, crime is on the rise, people can't afford a home or get basic health care — and can't even drink from plastic straws if they want to.
B.C. Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau attacked both leaders for lacking a long-term vision, saying her party is the only one giving people hope for the future.
"I feel like I live in a different place from John Rustad — his vision of B.C. is one that is dark and gloomy," Furstenau said.
Rustad shared an anecdote of seeing someone overdose Tuesday at the corner of Vancouver's Robson and Hornby streets as evidence that the overdose crisis has gotten worse under the B.C. NDP's experiment with drug decriminalization.
Neither the Vancouver Police Department nor B.C. Emergency Health Services could confirm someone died of an overdose Tuesday.
"We need to bring an end to the government being a drug dealer, quite frankly," Rustad says, referring to the NDP's prescription opioid program, also called safe supply, which the Conservatives say is keeping people in the cycle of addiction.
Eby admitted that the NDP government had to change course when it came to decriminalization, which resulted in a recriminalization of drug use in public spaces earlier this year.
The NDP leader attacked Rustad for changing his position on safe consumption sites, which Rustad has called "drug dens."
WATCH | Key moments from Tuesday's televised debate:
Rustad initially said he would close all safe consumption sites and replace them with treatment intake centres. On Tuesday, he said safe consumption sites can stay open as long as they're acting as a "gateway to treatment."
"It's not OK to play politics with it, John," said Eby. "It's not OK to say to one community, 'We're going to close the overdose prevention sites, we're going to close the drug dens' ... and then you said we're going to change the name."
Rustad pointed to arrests made this month at a safe consumption site in Nanaimo, saying "we have actually seen people arrested and distributing drugs in those facilities. These sorts of things need to be shut down when that happens."
Clashes over COVID-19 mandates
Eby and Rustad also clashed over the COVID-19 vaccine and vaccine mandates.
Eby accused Rustad of entertaining "bizarre conspiracy theories," including Nuremberg 2.0, a reference to an idea that those behind public health measures established during the pandemic should be put on trial, similar to how Nazi leaders were prosecuted after the Second World War.
Rustad apologized Monday for his prior comments about the Nuremberg trials and COVID-19 measures that "offended some people."
"He thought that British Columbia couldn't participate in an international war crimes tribunal to try public health officials and people who promoted vaccines." Eby said, adding that four B.C. Conservative candidates donated to the anti-vaccine-mandate truck convoy protests.
Rustad said he was "not anti-vax, I'm anti-mandate."
"I believe that people should have choice. It shouldn't be thrust upon them and forced upon them or coerced to take a vaccine," he said.
Paper straws a flashpoint
Furstenau accused Rustad of wanting to go backward on issues like climate change and reconciliation.
"It's fascinating to me that John Rustad's vision for this province is one that is rooted somewhere around 1957. He cannot look ahead because he can only look back," the Green leader said.
Eby also slammed Rustad for praising the province's agreement with the Haida Nation, which recognizes the nation's Aboriginal title over Haida Gwaii, earlier this year, but the next day posting on social media that the agreement could put private property at risk, which Eby said is "a total lie, a total fiction."
Rustad responded that his party is advancing "economic reconciliation in B.C.," which will see "both Indigenous and non-Indigenous be able to prosper."
In another anecdote about how things were supposedly worse under the NDP, Rustad referenced a meme that shows "two lines of white powder, supposedly cocaine and a plastic straw. And at the bottom the sign says 'One of these is illegal in B.C.' And that to me tells me a great story in terms of David Eby's British Columbia."
Greens push for minority gov't
Near the end of the debate, moderator Shachi Kurl asked the leaders whether they are contributing to an increasingly polarized political landscape.
Eby laid the blame on Rustad for questioning climate change and vaccines, as well as making comments that he says are disrespectful to Indigenous people and the 2SLGBTQ+ community.
Rustad says his party has been talking about the issues and the solutions.
"We're talking about the fact that our economy is in shambles. We're talking about the fact that crime is running rampant. That are the things people are concerned about," the Conservative leader said.
Rustad says Eby wants to talk about conspiracy theories because "he cannot defend his government policies."
Furstenau made the case for another minority government, saying the "least polarized we were in B.C. was during the minority government from 2017 to 2020 when we worked together, particularly in response to the global pandemic."
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With files from The Canadian Press