BC Liberal leader Christy Clark made a campaign stop in Prince George Friday night. Photos 250News

Prince George, B.C. – BC Liberal leader Christy Clark brought her election campaign to Prince George today, meeting with the party faithful and others at what was billed as a community gathering.

Clark joined Liberal candidates Shirley Bond, Mike Morris and John Rustad at the Westwood Drive campaign office of Bond and Morris in a 40-minute campaign stop Friday evening.  In a speech running just under 10 minutes she told the gathering “here we are in the capital of northern British Columbia with three of British Columbia’s absolute finest MLAs.”

Clark said “in this election we are going to be voting for a party that wants to lower your taxes by up to $900 a year, and a party that would raise your income taxes, a party that would double your carbon tax, a party that can’t even make up its mind about what it wants to do with MSP.  Do you want higher taxes or do you want lower taxes?”

She said northerners know how the economy works, adding “you know we don’t need a bigger government to make British Columbia work, we need a bigger economy.”  Clark says Morris, Bond and Rustad won’t spend their days and nights “thinking about better ways that we can spend your money because you know what, I know that you can spend your money better than government can any day of the week.  Let’s leave it in your wallet.”

Clark told the Liberal crowd that “here we are, proudly our Jobs Minister standing behind me, instrumental in helping make sure that we became the number one economy, number one in economic growth, anywhere in this country.  220.000 jobs created since we introduced the Jobs Plan.  We have the lowest unemployment in the country, it hasn’t been this low since 1976.”

Clark said the task on May 9th is to elect a government that puts people to work instead of growing the unemployment line.

The Liberal leader said “this growing economy has allowed us to make incredible investments” like trades training at CNC, in schools “and re-building your hospital.”

And of course, while we’re busy figuring out how we can put another $200 million into the Cariboo Connector, the NDP are trying to figure out how they’re going to milk you to pay the tolls down at the Port Mann bridge.”

She says “they’re going to take the $500 million that we have set aside in our childrens’ savings account, the Prosperity Fund, they’re going to drain the Prosperity Fund dry.  They’re going to take that money from our kids and they’re gonna blow through it in just two years in order to pay for those tolls on the Port Mann bridge.”

She says only her party has a plan to “make sure we control government spending, to cut taxes, to create jobs all across British Columbia.  We are the party that’s going to cut MSP in half on January 1st.”

She accused the NDP of a triple flip on MSP and said “they don’t know where they’re going, don’t have a plan, they don’t know what they want to do for British Columbia or, if they do, they are not telling you.”

She says the Liberals “want to make sure we building British Columbia strong, want to make sure we say yes to economic growth, we want to say yes to jobs, lower taxes and want to say yes to northern British Columbia, the hard-working people that built British Columbia because there’s one thing I know, this province was not built by people without guts.”

“This province was built by determined, hard-working people who were prepared to put their backs into it.  That’s what built resource communities like Prince George and that’s what’s built every single inch of this province.”

In a brief media scrum prior to her departure Clark was asked about restoring jobs in resource-based communities in this part of the province, rural communities that have seen increasing unemployment in recent months.  Clark says “my job is to make sure that we bridge these communities through low commodity prices until they bounce back, and bridge communities also through the Softwood Lumber dispute that’s emerging.”

“We know you guys are going to make a bigger contribution as you always do, but we want to make sure people can stay here and live here and work here until we get to that point.”

She says the party’s rural economic development strategy will create about 26,000 jobs in the north and rural BC “and part of it is connecting all of the communities across the province.  She says it’s a multi-million-dollar plan, although “we haven’t mapped out exactly where, I mean obviously we need upgrades in Prince George and the region here, but all of that mapping is still being done.”

Clark says she has been all over the north in the first eleven days of the election campaign and says “john Horgan hasn’t been north of Merritt.”  She says today she came to Prince George and has also visited Dawson Creek, Kitimat, Prince Rupert and Terrace and says “I’ve been to those places because they’re all so vital to our economy in British Columbia.  Vancouver is the biggest lumber town in the province and we need to connect people in Vancouver with the resource economy that feeds us and clothes us no matter where we live.  That’s why the north and the interior of British Columbia are so important.”

With that Clark hopped aboard her campaign bus, which was headed to Vancouver Friday night.  She did say she’ll be back during the campaign.