BC Green Leader Sonia Furstenau said she’s dismayed Conservative Party of BC Leader John Rustad is ducking debates.
Rustad has backed out of leaders’ debates organized by CHEK News and the Surrey Board of Trade, Furstenau said in a statement. “This is a worrying trend for someone who wants to lead B.C., but is not willing to show up and answer questions.”
The Conservatives did not respond to a request for comment about the skipped debates. Rustad participated in a CKNW radio debate Tuesday and will join a televised one Oct. 8.
We understand Furstenau’s point. Over the past month The Tyee has made multiple requests for an interview with Rustad, but he has yet to accept.
I and other Tyee reporters have been able to ask Rustad the occasional question during press conferences. But that’s not the same as a detailed exchange, with room for followup questions and time to cover a range of issues.
We had those kinds of interviews in recent weeks with Premier David Eby and with Furstenau.
And Rustad has spoken with me in the past, including one-on-one interviews when he announced he was seeking the leadership of the BC Conservatives and at the end of last year.
An MLA for almost two decades, Rustad held cabinet posts in BC Liberal governments but was never a major player. Over the past year and a half since Rustad joined the BC Conservatives, he has led the party as it has moved from the fringes to one that has a real chance of forming government.
The success has brought attacks. Rustad’s opponents have been working to define him as a “career politician” who wants to cut health care, education and other public services. They point to his tolerance of extreme views among Conservative candidates and his willingness to sit down with controversial interviewer Jordan Peterson.
That may be why the Angus Reid Institute reports that “half of British Columbians say John Rustad holds views that are ‘too extreme’ for him to be premier [and] more than two-in-five undecided voters (44 per cent) say his views are too extreme.”
Profiles in other media have been detailed and humanizing. Through them one can learn that Rustad’s wife, Kim, is a survivor of cervical cancer and that the couple did not have children. He instead dotes on his nieces and nephews. He and Kim keep a parrot as a pet.
I hoped to speak with Rustad as well. Ahead of an election that his party may well win, we have questions for him. Some are personal, filling in details of Rustad’s background, but most are about his party’s policies.
They include:
- Video recently surfaced of you saying you regretted getting three doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. Tell me more about that. What happened?
- You also suggested the vaccination effort was really about population control rather than achieving herd immunity. Why do you think that?
- And when you said that the pandemic was exaggerated, what did you mean?
- Do you still want to fire provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry? Why? And why would you pick a fight with someone who many still see as a calm professional who steered B.C. through the pandemic with better results than most similar jurisdictions?
- If you had been premier during the COVID-19 pandemic, what would you have done differently?
- In your list of what you would do for seniors, you said you would “modernize” the Shelter Aid for Elderly Renters grants. What does that mean? If it means increased payments, how much would you raise them by? Would you tie future increases to inflation? Why or why not?
- Would you also “modernize” the Rental Assistance Program that provides grants to families with children?
- And what about people who are not seniors or don’t have children and also struggle to pay their rent? Would you close that gap and subsidize their rents as well?
- You have proposed an income tax exemption to cover mortgage payments or rent up to $3,000, which observers have said will give greater benefits to people with higher incomes and more expensive housing. How would you make sure people with lower incomes can afford homes?
- What else would you do to improve housing affordability?
- Campaign Life Coalition, which advocates against abortion, currently has you listed as “not supportable.” How do you feel about that? What would you say to them?
- Thanks in large part to what happened between your party and BC United (which suspended its campaign at the end of August) there are a significant number of Independents running in this election. What impact do you think they are likely to have?
- Some people were surprised by how few of the BC United candidates you accepted to run as Conservatives. What was your thinking on that?
- You have talked about the need to review school books to make sure they are neutral. How would those standards be set? Who would do the reviewing and how would they be chosen?
- Reports have said you studied engineering for one year at the University of British Columbia. Is that correct? If so, why did you stop after just one year?
- Along with the carbon tax, you have promised to end the Low Carbon Fuel Standard, a measure that reduces carbon emissions that few people notice. Why get rid of it?
- Many of the issues the province is having with timber supply were foreseeable long ago. In the past you talked about opening up timber reserves that have been kept for wildlife, old growth, views or other values. Do you support logging them now? What about logging in parks?
- The current government has deferred logging in many old-growth forests and has been working to implement a strategy for protecting old growth. Would you continue with the strategy? What would you do about the deferrals?
- Consultation with Indigenous title holders has been a key part of that work. Would you continue with that? Why or why not?
- You have proposed eliminating the stumpage system and replacing it with a value-added tax. How do you expect that would affect negotiations with the United States over softwood duties?
- You have talked about more private sector involvement in vehicle insurance, an idea the former BC Liberal government considered and rejected. Your opponents say such a system would drive up the cost of insurance for many drivers. Are they wrong? Why?
- Your party’s platform calls for cracking down on money laundering to help housing. Has that not happened? What more would you do?
- Your platform talks about “choice in daycare.” Does that mean paying parents, and I expect it would mostly be women, to stay home?
- Your party’s materials talk about public sector job growth “cannibalizing” private sector jobs. What do you mean by that? What needs to change?
- What do you make of the current government’s claims that the growing deficit and debt are affordable? Are they wrong? Why?
- Your platform for small business talks about “useless and redundant regulations” that “need to be removed.” What would be a few examples?
- B.C. has had carbon emission reduction targets for decades. Would you keep them? Would you meet them? If so, how? If not, why not?
- Party documents talk about the need to remove “ideology” from the classroom. What does that mean? How do you square that with the pledge to “protect free speech on campus” and not allow “censorship and intimidation”?
- They also talk about reallocating post-secondary funding to medicine, engineering and skilled trades. What does that mean for other areas? Are there fields you see as inessential?
- There’s a section about protecting historical markers and restoring them. What are a few examples of ones you would restore? Why?
- There’s a section that says you would “review the purposes, budgets and structures of all existing government entities to both assess their need and requirement for the good governance of the citizens of British Columbia; to eliminate duplication, waste and red tape, and to determine whether such services would be best delivered by the public or private sectors.” What do you have in mind? What does government do that you think might be better handled in the private sector?
- What about BC Hydro? Would it be a candidate for privatization?
- There’s a call to “ensure that salaries and expenses of MLAs, Cabinet ministers and all senior officials of the government are made public at least annually and are easily accessible to all British Columbians.” Hasn’t B.C. been doing that for decades? What change would you be making?
- The party says it would “work to eliminate the duplication and overlap of government authorities and services including the integration and reduction of provincial ministries.” Which ministries would you get rid of? Why?
- Would you make any changes, as party documents advocate, to the requirements for publicly funded facilities to provide services like medical assistance in dying, or MAID, that they might not agree with? Would that apply to abortion as well?
- One policy says, “A Conservative Party will not fund any program that deliberately hastens the death of any persons with mental illness.” Would you stand by that if the federal government moves ahead with a requirement that MAID be available to people with mental illnesses?
- Another policy says, “Parents are the most important and significant factor in a child's upbringing, and as such must have a protected sphere, without interference, to nurture and make decisions involving the child's medical care, education, religious beliefs and moral upbringing.” How far does that go? Could a parent refuse a medical treatment such as a blood transfusion that might be needed to save a child’s life?
- Similarly, your document says “that minors, 17 years of age and under, best interests will be determined and protected by parents and/or guardians in all health-related situations and decisions.” Does that mean, for example, that a 16-year-old who felt strongly about whether or not to get vaccinated could have their decision overridden by a parent who disagrees? How would you reconcile that with long-established case law and medical practice that allows minors to make their own health decisions when they are deemed capable?
- Would you follow through on the pledge to increase the funding for students in private schools so that it is at the same level it would be if they were educated in the public system?
- One Conservative policy says the government should “control the administration, application and interpretation of the Firearms Act with the goal of reducing paperwork and legal hurdles for firearms owners in B.C.” What do you have in mind? What’s the issue? Why make it easier for people to get guns?
- Does the party really support offshore oil and gas exploration? Why? What would you do about the risk of spills?
- What do you figure you need to do between now and election day? Anything you’d like to add?
- Why were you so hesitant to talk with me? Wasn’t this fun?
Final voting day is Oct. 19.
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