In an interview with Black Press on Oct. 21, Todd Stone — the BC United MLA for Kamloops-South Thompson — explained the new electoral boundaries which became official in September 2023 following a lengthy process of consultation throughout the province. He also shared some key concerns regarding wildfire mitigation and building a better plan for inevitable wildfire seasons in the future.
Describing the changes for the two MLAs in the Kamloops-Thompson region, Stone said the new Kamloops-Centre riding, which will be where MLA Peter Milobar will transfer to for the next election campaign, encompasses the city’s urban core. It includes the surrounding neighbourhoods of Aberdeen, parts of Sahali, Dufferin, Thompson Rivers University area, North Kamloops and Brocklehurst with a population of approximately 60,680 residents.
“The electoral area I will be campaigning in will be the new Kamloops-North Thompson riding which now includes the neighourhoods of Rose Hill, Valleyview, Dallas, Barnhartvale, Batchelor Heights, Westsyde, and Rayleigh. This new electoral area will also include the rural communities of Barriere, Clearwater, Pritchard and Chase, which is equal in constituents between the two newly designated areas.”
The boundaries will result in Kamloops-Centre being a small, 100 per cent urban-based riding that is 144 square kilometres. The other riding, Kamloops-North Thompson, consists of 70 per cent of the population in the area Stone currently represents in his role as MLA for Kamloops-South Thompson.
“The new Kamloops-North Thompson riding will be the suburbs that are more rural in nature. They really want the urban areas grouped together and suburban-rural areas grouped together. A much larger riding geographically, but comparable to Kamloops-Centre in demographics,” said Stone.
Moving to the topic of highway safety impacting the North Thompson, Stone referred to his former role as the Minister of Transportation when the Liberal government (now the BC United Party) was in power in B.C. He feels he is “intimately familiar” with the challenges of the Highway 5 corridor, which has become what he calls “massively worse” in the past seven years.
“We will be putting out a very detailed transportation plan that will speak to the kind of investments BC United will bring forward,” he says. “A plan that will include accelerating several additional passing lanes and four-lane sections on the corridor between Kamloops and Clearwater and then north of Clearwater as well.”
Stone refers to the relationships he has established over the years when it comes to working with Simpcw First Nation chief and council and the mayors of Barriere and Clearwater. “I’ve been very supportive of the issues they’ve highlighted from a safety perspective along the Highway 5 corridor. I’ll amplify a lot of what their concerns are.”
He points to the work that Simpcw First Nation is doing in the North Thompson. “It’s so inspiring to see how they are liaising in the valley and their focus on partnering. They have a plan as a community. They are looking after their own and all those around them. It’s something we hear about from business, government leaders and others who talk about what they are doing with admiration all around the province.”
With regards to this past summer’s wildfire season, Stone says what do we do to prepare for a fight and how people recover from wildfires is the question.
“Certainly [Barriere mayor] Ward [Stamer] knows what he is talking about. He’s got very extensive first-hand experience when it comes to fighting wildfires. He’s done a lot of work on this file, and we received some positive feedback from him the same day we released our party’s policy on wildfire management. There is a lot of alignment between what the mayors like Ward think need to happen.”
Stone points to a few key areas when explaining the proposed plan that will be presented by the BC United party in the upcoming election. He says there must be significant investment and overhaul of the B.C. Wildfire Service (BCWS) in order to “shift the mandate” to one that is overwhelmingly focused on putting out fires “hard and fast when they start and are small so they don’t get out of control.”
Stone emphasizes there is a “tremendous amount of red tape and paperwork,” as well as rules and regulations that impede rapid response to wildfires in the province. He feels there is a need for the government to focus on providing additional dollars to build out a provincial fleet of aerial assets, which include planes and helicopters to complement the contractors who are engaged every year.
“We really need to transition the BCWS into the year-round service that Premier Horgan had promised but [which] has never really come to fruition, and make sure we are engaging with the contractors much more broadly in B.C. No matter what the BCWS says or what the province says, Mayor Stamer and we as MLAs hear every summer about all kinds of contractors with assets — whether those are private firefighting services, water trucks or excavators — that are not engaged.”
He says that sometimes it’s “inexplicable” that these contractors aren’t engaged when they’re needed most, adding that many were prevented from being involved this year due to “bureaucratic delays,” with all kinds of contractors being denied and told they did not have the correct paperwork. Many of those contractors are now claiming they submitted paperwork in the off-season, before the wildfires were underway.
“There were forms and paperwork and locating paperwork standing in the way of contractors working, which is totally wrong,” says Stone. “That isn’t the way you respond to an emergency.”
He believes it’s imperative to rely on local expertise, and refers to the mitigation efforts by Simpcw First Nation and the many families living where they have for “hundreds of years” who have experience in logging and are often volunteer rural firefighters who already have basic certification.
“We would invest in building-out literally an army of local volunteers that the province would fund and support with state-of-the-art equipment, training, and certifications,” says Stone. “The Australians have a model they put in place years ago called ‘Fireies’ and all their training, certification and equipment is taken care of by the state. We could do the same in B.C.”
Both Stone and Milobar plan on being in the North Thompson together during Remembrance Day on Nov. 11.