By Dale Boyd

Osoyoos Times

Candidates are on the road, door knocking and reaching out to voters as summer winds down and Canada heads into election season.

Billed as a discussion on crime, the Conservative Party of Canada’s campaign event at local candidate Helena Konanz’ Main Street office in Penticton Monday ran the gamut of topics from gun legislation to housing and drug policy.

Glen Motz, MP for Medicine Hat-Cardston-Warner, and deputy shadow minister for public safety and emergency preparedness, visited Penticton and Oliver along with Konanz on his tour of the country to discuss crime related issues.

Motz’ community is one of the few success stories in the country when it comes to homelessness and property crime related to drug addiction.

“The secret is we are working together. It’s not siloed approaches to anything. It’s like this agency does this and this agency does this, and instead of doing everything independently, we are amalgamating some of these things and we are working together to make things work,” Motz said.

Before and after he retired from policing in Medicine Hat, Motz was focused primarily on housing.

“More money for policing doesn’t always mean your going to get a bigger bang for your buck. You have to deal with the issues that we talked about earlier. Are we dealing with the issues of poverty? Are we dealing with the issues of mental health? Are we dealing with the issue of addictions?”

Those solutions are a “slow burn,” Motz said, not an overnight change.

“You’re not going to see a response instantly,” Motz said, snapping his fingers. “You have to start somewhere.”

Konanaz noted her involvement in local efforts like the recently-opened Foundry youth centre, and low-income housing starts, put in place during her time as a city councillor in Penticton.

“We’ve put in a lot of housing units in the last few years, the province has come in and built a lot of housing as you know the one being built on (Winnipeg Street). One of the most difficult things for us when we were looking at rezoning was that they weren’t including the services if they needed them, the services to get off of drugs,” Konanz said.

“I think that (addiction-related services) are really lacking in this community right now.”

Though the language in advertising for the campaign event invited voters to share their views on “the increase in crime in our community,” Motz himself acknowledged, in context, crime is still hovering around a 20-year low.

“Those are the things Liberals try to mislead the public on. The majority of homicides in this country right now are committed by gang-affiliated members. The number one cause of homicide, a weapon used in homicides in Canada now, is still a knife. It’s not a firearm,” Motz said. “And different communities have different struggles. Toronto has a handgun problem, they have a huge handgun problem, but not from licensed firearm owners.”

Penticton resident Dianne Bersea attended the discussion Monday morning. She said crime was a big issue and she attended because she was curious how different parties will be dealing with it, which has been the topic of much discussion in Penticton and the South Okanagan over the past few years.

“I found this really fascinating, actually, because there was a lot of information, a lot of information I didn’t know, and it was interesting to see the perspective of people like a police officer, now MP,” Bersea said. “We really didn’t get Helena’s opinion very much, or at all really, but (Motz’) point of view was quite interesting. It was a bit broader-minded than I thought it might be.”

Her overall take away from the wide-ranging discussion is that there is money that isn’t being properly allocated, including the multiple billions of dollars in unpaid taxes from corporations outlined in a recent CRA report.

“I felt a little uncomfortable overall that so much emphasis was put on the people that are probably least likely to commit a violent crime, homeless people. (They) are more likely to be victims than they are to shoot up the town,” Bersea said.

In it to win it, and make a statement

Green Party candidate Tara Howse has been busy launching her campaign over the past few weeks as well, hosting an open house meeting at Penticton’s historical Leir House on Sunday.

She has been door knocking in Penticton, campaigning in the Trail-Castlegar area and soon heading up the Nakusp Valley.

The first-time politician said the “tipping point,” for her to enter the race came after the headlines surrounding the Liberal’s handling of what is now dubbed the “SNC-Lavalin Affair.”

“I’ve been really watching the erosion of democracy over the years. It doesn’t really matter, the ruling party in power, it has been consistent with lobbyists having too much influence, corporations having too much interest in government policy. So, I decided I want to do something about that,” Howse said.

Green party policies, including commitment to government transparency and the proposal to eliminate “whipped voting,” essentially towing party lines in Parliament votes, attracted her to the Greens.

She is aware of the statement-vote characterization of the Green Party, and admits she entered the race to make a statement, though the prospect of winning a seat with the Green Party continues to improve as the party gains popularity, statistically. The statement-vote sentiment has led to the Green Party of today, which according to independent pollsters like 338 Canada, is tracking as high as 10 per cent nationally, unprecedented numbers in the party’s history.

“I did, I think, enter to make a statement, but now as I’ve become more involved with it and actually learning the whole political process as a candidate, which was new for me, it has become more exciting,” Howse said. “Every time I meet people they are saying ‘I used to vote for so-and-so, I am done doing that, I want to vote where my values lie.’”

Howse emphasized that her campaign started as a statement, but she is “absolutely in it to win.”

Liberal candidate Connie Denesiuk will be joined by MP for Vancouver South Harjit Sajjan in Trail on Aug. 28.