FILE PHOTO - BC United Party leader Kevin Falcon.

Image Credit: BC United Caucus

BC United leader Kevin Falcon hosted a town hall in Kelowna last night and established a direction for the party as it head towards the provincial election.

A large crowd gathered for the town hall meeting at Kelowna's Ramada hotel last night, Feb. 7, to hear Flacon speak on different issues and enquire about their concerns. Falcon spoke about affordability, healthcare, education, climate, crime and drugs, housing and how to make BC a province people want to establish themselves in.

"We have to get back to being a province where people want to come and invest, build their future, make a family, start a business, that's what we have to get done," Falcon said.

Before his speech, Falcon introduced the newest BC United candidate, Dr. Michael Humer, who was selected to be the Kelowna-Centre candidate in the upcoming election. Dr. Humer was a thoracic surgeon and is now ready to take on politics and improve the state of the province, especially in matters of healthcare.

READ MORE: Getting to know Kelowna Centre's first aspiring candidate

To Falcon, and the BC United party, the first way to achieve this is by improving affordability across the province.

Falcon is already making promises to remove taxes in hopes of making BC a more affordable place to live.

"Here's what we're going to do in the first 90 days in office: number one... restructure the provincial carbon tax," Falcon said. "We can't get rid of the federal carbon tax because it's federal, but if Pierre Poilievre becomes Prime Minister and follows through with removing the federal carbon tax, it will be gone in BC too.

"Another thing we will do is eliminate all provincial fuel taxes, that's 15 cents on the litre right away."

Climate change was the least talked about topic of the night, as the party's priorities seemed to lay in affordability and education.

Falcon does not have much planned as of yet aside from relying on the liquefied natural gas project in Kitimat in hopes of seeing carbon emissions go down in China before they do so in BC.

"Let's be smart about how we deal with the climate. The best way to deal with it is what we're doing now," Falcon said. "I want you to know this (about the LNG) facility in Kitimat is world-class, I've toured through it, and by the end of this year we will have ships sailing out three times a week, each vessel is worth $100 million going to Asia.

"Our natural gas will be going to China and what's great about that is that it gets the Chinese off the coal power, the dirtiest form of emission, onto LNG, a cleaner form of energy, and reduces their emissions by 50% which is far more than we could ever achieve in BC."

READ MORE: As BC United unveils Thompson-Okanagan candidates, NDP, Conservatives lag

In talking about healthcare, Falcon called out the current NDP government for not responding to the doctor shortage appropriately, blaming it on the province's "red tape" and bureaucracy issues.

"I want you to think about the fact that in the last seven years, the provincial bureaucracy has grown by 36%," he said. "Has anyone seen a 36% improvement in any service the government delivers?"

Falcon vowed to bring more doctors into the health-care system, starting with those who are already trained physicians, whether in Canada or elsewhere, but can't practice in BC because of current policies.

"We're going to get doctors back here, even if it's going to make people upset."

Finally came the time to speak of education. The first aspect Falcon touched upon was the sexual orientation and gender identity program, more commonly referred to as SOGI.

The topic has been quite controversial across the province and Falcon used the same narrative the anti-SOGI protesters have been using in saying he wants to protect "parental rights" as he "cannot think of a scenario in which parents don't know what's best for their children."

"You have to make sure parents feel involved in the school system, don't push them out. We also need transparency. Parents have a right to know what's going on in their kids' classrooms at all times. The third one is age-appropriate, we need to make sure that what our kids are learning about is age-appropriate," Falcon said.

In matters of crime and drugs, Falcon started by stating that mental health care needs to be taken more seriously and quickly followed by criticizing the safe-supply program.

"The government's approach right now is what I call publicly supplied addictive drugs, they call it safe-supply, but I call it by what it really is," Falcon said.

BC United's plan is to invest in care facilities to help those with mental health and addiction problems.

"We have to reinvest in purpose-built facilities in every region of the province," Falcon said. "We have to make sure that those who have severe untreated mental health problems get the full-time, 24/7, secure care they need so that they can get better."

Falcon finished off by talking about housing.

BC United's plan is to accelerate the building process so that more housing is made available at a faster rate.

READ MORE: BC Conservatives say the Okanagan is turning blue

Falcon opened up the floor to questions at which point his supporters praised his and the party's platform while still bringing up certain issues that hadn't been touched upon such as agriculture and the possibility of a split vote.

Falcon vowed to bring glory back to the agriculture industry and believes he can overcome the split vote by showcasing to voters on the right that BC United is the 'right' party to vote for.

Falcon is in Vernon tonight for a town hall meeting at the Prestige hotel.

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