Doherty Pleased with Trip to Washington
Prince George, B.C. – He didn’t come back with a new Softwood Lumber Agreement in his back pocket but Cariboo-Prince George Conservative MP Todd Doherty says he’s still pleased with a three-day trip he took to Washington DC this week.
Doherty says the non-partisan trip was made up of Conservative, Liberal and NDP MPs and included a whopping 85 meetings.
“It’s part of the Canada/U.S. Friendship Group where we go down and we continue the dialogue. We wanted to make sure that they understood that we’re friends, we’re allies and that we share a common border.”
An outspoken critic on the need for a new Softwood Lumber Agreement between the two countries – Doherty said he spread his message loud and clear.
“My focus was letting them know the impact of the failure to get an agreement in place. Letting them understand that 140 communities in B.C. are forestry dependent,” he says.
“And putting some real numbers to the fact that if one of my communities loses two mills that it could mean a loss of 400-600 jobs. That could be up to 1,600 people in a community that could move somewhere else because there’s no other job for them.”
In all, he says the trip was worth it despite some of the criticism his trek took when 250News first published news of his jaunt Monday (see previous story here).
“Yeah. You get criticized for doing nothing and then you get criticized for trying to do something and did I think we were going to go down there and actually get a signed deal? No. But the more that we are opening the lines of communication and building those relationships, the better it is.”
Comments
I see this as him doing his job, something the last guy in his seat didn’t do.
“…the non-partisan trip was made up of Conservative, Liberal and NDP MPs…”
It was not revealed (as far as I can recall) that he was not on a personal (just him) mission. I certainly did not read otherwise and commented accordingly. Perhaps my fault, after all…I was under the impression that he was going to attempt to solve the problems all by himself.
Given the information made available in the original 250news story, we all thought it was just Todd Doherty making that trip on his own. If we had been informed, at the time, that he was part of a “… non-partisan trip made up of Conservatives, Liberals and NDP MPs…” we would not have made those comments.
Ditto.
Exactly! Even the Citizen article made it appear that he was on a solo mission to make up for the others’ inactivity! Go figure!
Where do you get your information from, the georgia strait? That was in the media, I mean the mainstream media at the time. And who’s this “We”? Are you one of the few who slammed him?
Well maybe do some “research” and you won’t be caught with foot in mouth disease next time
Thanks Todd.
My thanks to our PM Mr. Justin Trudeau who tolerates and invites non-partisan input and participation from all MPs! Quite a different attitude from what we had to endure before! He does not believe in muzzling scientists or anyone else! Have people forgotten already?
We have sure heard a lot from those “unmuzzled” scientists in the last year and a half haven’t we?
Yep Prince George wasted a lot of time having a useless “Dick Harris” representing us for too many terms. I am a strong supporter of the right, however I will admit, I intentionally voted for the Green Party once as protest against Dick.
Todd, Your staying on the right track. Your being noticed even on your first term. Way to go.
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