The federal election is Monday, but there's a good chance some of you still aren’t 100% sure of your decision.
With that in mind, PentictonNow chatted with all five South Okanagan--West Kootenay candidates over the past 48 hours for this, our last-minute candidate wrap-up.
We asked the same five questions of each candidate and they offered their replies. Note that we approached them with no advanced warning and conducted our Q&As verbally, giving them little chance to prepare scripted responses.
Here in Part II, it's Conservative candidate Helena Konanz.
Tell us about yourself, your accomplishments, why you're the best candidate, and why you feel the need to run again?
I have a really interesting background and that's one of the reasons I think it’s important I run, because people with diverse backgrounds are important to represent everyone in the riding.
I played professional tennis in my twenties. I traveled the world, played Wimbledon and the French Open, and I'm also a seven-time Canadian champion. I worked for Nike in Portland, and I've run a small business here in Penticton for 25 years. I'm also a small business coach with Community Futures.
I was on city council for seven years, on the board of the Regional District, and I'm a mom of two and have been married for nearly 30 years.
I feel like I've done so much good work in the community, and I really would like to continue that, but as a member of parliament.
Between soaring temperatures, wildfires, and choking, lingering wildfire smoke, summers are becoming increasingly difficult in the region. How will a vote for you and your party help change this?
We need to stop being surprised every year that we have fires and smoke and even floods. We have to accept that there is climate change, and we as Conservatives do accept that. We're making sure people know climate change is important.
You'll see that on our platform where we have some really good initiatives on climate change. For example, instead of a carbon tax, we have a carbon savings account. It's less of a stick and more of a carrot to incentivize people to drive less.
We also need to have our firefighters ready right away, every year. This year the NDP government in Victoria waited too long to announce a state of emergency, and that needs to change.
Home prices and rents in the region were already onerous, then along came the pandemic to drive them into the stratosphere. How will the situation improve for folks who currently can barely afford rent, never mind a downpayment, with you as the MP?
I worked on this diligently while I was a city councilor. We worked on increasing the housing stock. It makes sense that the less housing you have, the more prices will go up. It's supply and demand.
So we need to make sure we're adding to the housing stock. The Conservatives will be incentivizing builders to build a million homes in Canada in the next three years.
But we're also going to work with local government to bring in developers to build rental stock because that's very important too. I'm proud to say as a councilor, we brought in at least a couple hundred units of rental housing.
How would you and your government deal with the pandemic going forward? Where are your priorities? (Mask mandates, vaccination passports, economic recovery, etc?)
The Conservatives want Canadians to know we're going to support provincial mandates. There's nothing we can do about them. They've been created by the provinces.
But we do believe things like vaccine passports are just one tool in the toolbox. For example, rapid testing is barely being used in Canada compared to other countries. And we don’t understand why.
Essentially, we have to continue to mask and distance, but we have to also make sure we're using all the tools. I am vaccinated, my family is vaccinated, and we encourage people to get their vaccines. We want to get to 90% vaccination. But at the same time we understand that Canadians have the right of choice.
Is there anything we didn’t cover (Indigenous issues, crime, opioid crisis, homelessness, etc) that you feel is critically important and would like to discuss?
I believe there are a lot of local issues that have been ignored by our current member of parliament, for the last six years. For example, crime. We have one of the worst crime rates in BC here in Penticton, and throughout our riding they're having troubles with increased crime rates. There's no reason people should feel afraid to leave their homes.
There's different things we can do, including addressing the drug crisis which can lead to crime. We have one of the worst overdose rates in Penticton. So that needs to be addressed through housing and through the wraparound services that were promised by the NDP government when we built this first-stage housing in Penticton and in Grand Forks and throughout our riding.
The wraparound services include mental health services, drug treatment services, and also security. Security for the people who have issues with mental health, and also for the community. I will work with all three levels of government to make sure we address this issue.
