{"id":16623,"date":"2020-10-23T15:17:13","date_gmt":"2020-10-23T19:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=16623"},"modified":"2020-10-23T15:17:13","modified_gmt":"2020-10-23T19:17:13","slug":"election-2020-raising-bcs-self-sufficiency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/election-2020-raising-bcs-self-sufficiency\/","title":{"rendered":"Election 2020: Raising BC’s self sufficiency"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Roy L Hales<\/p>\n

Though only a little more than 2% of the electorate voted for him in the last provincial election,\u00a0\u00a0John Twigg<\/a>\u00a0is back. This time he is running for the\u00a0Conservative party of BC<\/a> \u2013 which has not contested this seat for decades. Twigg especially wants to talk about self sufficiency in food, policing and banking.<\/p>\n

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John Twigg, Conservative candidate for North Island riding in Vancouver Island - submitted photo<\/p><\/div>\n

Veteran journalist and lobbyist<\/h2>\n

He is a veteran journalist<\/a>\u00a0who previously served as\u00a0Premier Dave Barrett\u2019s press<\/a>\u00a0secretary (1972-75), and was the Financial Editor for the\u00a0Regina Leader-Post<\/a>\u00a0(1978-85). He also successfully lobbied for the creation of the West Coast Trail and Nitinat Triangle portions of Pacific Rim National Park, as well as pioneering the concept of community gardens in Victoria\u2019s James Bay.<\/p>\n

He has been living in the Campbell River area, for the past 25 years.<\/p>\n

Self sufficiency in food, policing and banking<\/h2>\n

\u201cWhy are you running in this election?\u201d<\/p>\n

Twigg replied, \u201cWhen you run you get opportunities to answer questions like the one you just asked. I use this opportunity to raise what I think is one of the major concerns for British Columbians, that\u2019s to get more self sufficiency. When we look around the world at the troubles that are already there and getting worse \u2013 and I think the people on Cortes relate to this \u2013 I think British Columbia urgently needs to have self sufficiency strategies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cCertainly in food, of course we have lots of water, but we also need self sufficiency in policing and in banking. I\u2019ve been advocating the revival of the\u00a0BC provincial police force<\/a>\u00a0parallel to the\u00a0RCMP<\/a>\u00a0and all the municipal forces. I also want to revive the\u00a0Bank of BC<\/a>\u00a0and issue currency. That may sound a little outlandish but, for the province\u2019s centenary in 1958,\u00a0Premier W.A.C. Bennet\u00a0<\/a>issued a silver dollar without approval from the Bank of Canada. So, yes, BC could have its own parallel security, police force, self sufficiency in food and many other things that are important to maintain the civil order in society.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are other reasons too. I would like more jobs and better management of resources. There is more than one reason I\u2019m running, but the main one is to get out this message of raising BC\u2019s self sufficiency.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why another police department?<\/h2>\n

Twigg explained, \u201cDepending on how bad the civil disobedience got, the RCMP alone might be insufficient. Or, as they respond to federal authority, they might go to one place and we think they should go to another. We have that problem already in urban areas, with street crime and drug addiction.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re depending on federal forces. Here in Campbell River we\u2019ve got the RCMP. They\u2019re a pretty good police force, I happen to know some of the people in it, but we don\u2019t controi it. They liaise with the city. If BC had its own police force, we could say\u00a0 \u201dLook, we need to deal with this, or we\u2019ve got to do that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Our own currency<\/h2>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s similar with money supply. If there was a run on the Canadian dollar and it became worthless, or they stopped printing more money, or what would happen to commerce if there was no e-commerce? It is a back-up stability thing to be able to print our own money and have it accepted.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cThere is a trick to it. How do you get it acceptable, for other people to trade in? \u2013 You make the money acceptable as payment for your provincial taxes. It gives the currency fluidity, I\u2019m a former financial editor; I\u2019ve been to the Bank of Canada. I know this kind of stuff\u2026 It sounds like a crazy idea because some people haven\u2019t heard of it before, but actually, it is solid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Doesn\u2019t adding another currency just make things more complicated?<\/h2>\n

\u2018We\u2019ve already got more than two currencies now. US dollars are widely accepted in BC. Other foreign exchange is widely accepted as well,\u201d said Twigg. \u201cIt is not like we would only have a BC currency, we would have a parallel currency that would be widely accepted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Links of interest<\/p>\n