Kelowna News

The second session of the 39th Parliament of British Columbia was launched Tuesday with a speech from the throne that emphasized the steps government will take to propel British Columbia's Olympic momentum to create jobs, improve the environment and support families with children.

"In the year ahead we will build on our Olympic momentum with action that will reward the generations that follow," says Premier Gordon Campbell.

"We must ask how we can best lead change for our grand children's advantage. New support for families with children is at the centre of our economic and social agenda. We will initiate new supports for families with children that will increase productivity, enhance competitiveness and give parents new choices.”

Campbell says a new budget will set the foundation for the province we want in 2030, with a far-seeing agenda that advances this government's Five Great Goals.

"Our government's economic mission is clear: We must foster job creation with faster approvals, lower costs, open trade and labour mobility. Productivity and competitiveness are the keys to growing people's pay cheques and re-asserting our role as Canada's job-creation leader."

Local MLAs Steve Thomson (Kelowna-Mission) and Norm Letnick (Kelowna-Lake Country) say the Okanagan stands to benefit from some of the items mentioned during the Throne Speech.

“I think there's some very interesting opportunities for the Okanagan,” says Thomson. “The one specific thing I think is very exciting for Kelowna is the Open Skies Agreement. That has real opportunities, I think we would be one of the airports in the province that would really benefit from that.”

Thomson says the Olympics will bring great opportunities to promote the Okanagan's tourism and economic and agricultural activity.

“I think residents will see the Throne Speech as setting an agenda and a vision for the government to lead and to continue to be the lead province in the economic recovery that's to come.”

Letnick says one of the items during the Throne Speech was a tribute to public servants who have passed away this last year.

“One of the first things was a tribute to the people who have fallen over the last year and one of those was Brian Given and it was a nice tribute to all the public servants, including Brian,” says Letnick.

He says one area of interest is the One Project, One Process approach to environmental assessments of projects.

“In many cases now we have two environmental assessment processes that are completed on processes and that of course is very expensive and time consuming, so what we are going to be looking for is for the federal government and other provinces and territories to work with us to pursue amendments to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act to create a unified federal provincial review process that does away with redundancy and unnecessary cost.”

The throne speech highlights a number of initiatives to strengthen B.C.'s economy and provide more support for British Columbia families.

See some of the highlight's of Tuesday's Throne Speech