BC Green Party Deputy leader Sonia Furstenau is paying a visit to the Kootenays.
The schedule is as follows:
July 9 – 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm. Trinity United Church in Creston.
July 10 – 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm. Kaslo Legion Hall.
July 11 – 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm. Lakeside Park BBQ area in Nelson.
In the series of free community forums, community empowerment, watershed protection, food security and climate action will be discussed. The public is encouraged to raise concerns, which may in turn make it to Legislature.
Furstenau says the minority coalition government between the BC Green Party and the NDP has an effect on MLA attendance in legislature. More people show up now that every vote is down to the wire. Even so, changes are being made under the 2017 Confidence and Supply Agreement between the two parties.
“The legislation on lobbying reforms, now we know who lobbies the government, how many times they visit, who are they representing. So that’s a big change. We’ve had changes to professional reliance, with the Professional Governance Act. There’s the revitalization of environmental assessments. We have Clean BC.”
Because there are only three members of the BC Green Caucus, the burden of responsibility is a little heavier according to Furstenau.
“We have critic roles that divvied up between the three of us and there’s twenty one ministries. So that’s seven each. There’s several committees that we all sit on. Some of them involve travel and lengthy deliberations. Then of course there’s our constituency work which is very important to all of us and also very demanding.”
It was a tight race in the Nelson-Creston riding in the 2017 election. NDP’s Michelle Mungall narrowly won with 41.85 % of the vote, trailed by Green candidate Kim Charlesworth with 28.16 % and Liberal candidate Tanya Wall with 27.93 %.