With B.C. voters seven months out from a scheduled provincial election, BC United leader Kevin Falcon was in Langley last week along with local candidates.
Falcon, along with other local MPs and MLAs, attended the annual ceremony of remembrance at the Gapyeong Stone in the Derek Doubleday Arboretum. The stone commemorates Canadian soldiers who fought in the Battle of Gapyeong during the Korean War.
The opposition leader talked to the Langley Advance Times about a number of issues, from crime and courts to roads and population growth in the South of the Fraser region.
• Policing and crime
Falcon said he was focused on prolific offenders and spoke of criminals acting with “impunity.”
“I’m looking at expanding the community court option,” he said.
The Downtown Community Court in Vancouver focuses on offenders who have issues beyond their criminal charges – many suffer from drug and alcohol addiction, mental illness, homelessness, and poverty as well.
Falcon said community courts tackle seemingly lower-level crimes that nonetheless have larger impacts.
Asked about Langley’s former courthouse – closed down in the 1990s and most recently used as a health office – Falcon said it could be considered as a site in a larger scope review.
• Truck parking
Langley Township council has been cracking down on illegal truck lots that have emerged on agricultural land in South Langley. Truckers say they have nowhere to park their rigs due to a shortage of legal space in Metro Vancouver.
Falcon said people have to understand how important trucking is to the economy, and that he would allow parking on farmland, at least on a temporary basis.
“I would look at changes to the ALR Act,” Falcon said.
Small-ratio gravel parking lots on farmland would make space for truckers and give farmers another income stream, while longer-term solutions are found.
“It’s a transition plan that will help deal with the problem,” said Falcon.
• Transportation and growth
Asked about the impact of growth on major roadways in Langley, including Fraser Highway and 16th Avenue, Falcon said the current provincial and federal governments should be building more infrastructure to match the growth in housing. That includes sewers, water, power, and road infrastructure, as well as building schools in advance.
• Polling
The B.C. Conservatives have been polling ahead of the BC United for some months now, with the NDP still in the lead. A march poll by Mainstreet Research found the NDP leading with 40 per cent of voters, the Conservatives second at 34 per cent, and BC United polling at just 15 per cent.
Falcon said the numbers will turn around as people recognize that the B.C. Conservatives are not linked to the federal party of the same name.
“Many of the candidates that we’ve rejected… have turned around and run for the B.C. Conservatives,” he said.
BC United was formerly known as the BC Liberal party, but changed its name in April 2023.
He said there has always been a “free enterprise” party in B.C., whether it was the B.C. Liberals or the Social Credit Party, linking the Liberals back to the Socreds who ruled B.C. for the better part of 40 years.
He expected a reversal in the polls similar to that seen in 2012, when the NDP was initially in the lead.
READ MORE: New BC poll sees NDP in the lead, Conservatives surging within 6 points