Wilkinson, Furstenau turn up heat on Horgan in debate
Pandemic preparedness, snap election, taxation among hot-button topics
The second leaders' debate Thursday morning saw B.C. Liberal Andrew Wilkinson take a more aggressive tone against the NDP's John Horgan, with several fiery exchanges on issues such as pandemic preparation, taxation and mobility pricing.
Each man positioned his party as the one to lead B.C. out of the pandemic, while Green Leader Sonia Furstenau took Horgan to task for calling a snap election in the middle of a global crisis.
One of the key moments came early as Horgan and Wilkinson argued back and forth about pandemic preparedness, with Horgan blaming the previous Liberal government for cuts to jobs in the long-term care sector and Wilkinson telling him to focus on the present.
“Once again, you're dredging up mistruths and misstatements from 17 years ago,” Wilkinson said. “You've been the premier for three years, so why didn't you get prepared for it?”
The two men talked over each other as 980 CKNW radio host Simi Sara asked them to take turns.
“Take responsibility, John,” Wilkinson said. “You need to blame yourself and actually take responsibility for this.”
Horgan fired back: “I take responsibility every day. You hide under your bed while your candidates do outrageous things that disintegrate the fabric of our society.”
Under attack from both Wilkinson and Furstenau over the decision to call an election and break the confidence and supply agreement with the Green party, Horgan drew attention to unpopular Liberal taxation policies, including tolls on the Port Mann Bridge, MSP premiums and the ICBC “dumpster fire,” at one point even raising the spectre of the HST.
“We've been focusing on programs for people,” he said.
But Wilkinson said Horgan's economic plan contained no relief for small businesses.
The two men also sparred over mobility pricing: “That's not part of our platform. Never has been, never will be,” Horgan said.
Coming off a strong performance at the first leaders' debate on Oct. 15, Furstenau asked Horgan if he would commit to cancelling Site C “if it will save money for British Columbians to do so” and spoke to the need for cleaner energy.
Horgan said he stands by the decision to proceed, talking about his party's “balanced approach that puts people at the centre” of every decision, but he left some uncertainty about the dam's future, explaining that new evidence about the geotechnical issues plaguing the project is expected in the next few weeks.
“We'll take a good, hard look at that evidence, and if the science tells, and the economics tells us, that it's the wrong way to proceed, we'll take appropriate action,” he said.
Horgan tried to blame the Green party for forcing him into an election, but Furstenau quickly countered that.
“You're trying to make the case that a disagreement over legislation ... was sufficient to call an unnecessary election during a global pandemic,” she said.
“People need to understand that total obedience is not something that is good for governance ... and is not something that is expected in a confidence and supply agreement that has provided stability and some of the best governance we have seen in this province in a decade.”
Furstenau was widely viewed as having the most thoughtful response to a question about racism and personal privilege in the first debate. In Thursday's radio debate, she was asked why her party is less diverse than the others.
“Snap elections are hard on democracy and they're hard on diversity,” she said, adding “what happens in a snap election is it literally privileges privileged people.”
The debate came nine days before election day on Oct. 24, as advanced polling stations opened across the province.