The Province’s Finance Committee was in Williams Lake Wednesday morning at the Pioneer Complex to learn about the community’s budget priorities for the coming year.
Donna Barnett is the MLA for the Cariboo Chilcotin.
“I sincerely hope they were listening to the concerns and I believe they were because I bring them up every day I can in the House; I bring them up estimates in each Ministry, question period. It is a priority for me and it’s priority for all of the citizens that we represent.”
Presentations to the Committee most of which had to do with the aftermath of the wildfires according to Barnett were made by the resource and forestry industry, the Chamber of Commerce, and also the Mayor of Williams Lake on behalf of the City.
Barnett says we need to help our small businesses, we need to help our citizens, and we need funding to help us get back to normal.
“We know in the next 1-2 years the forest industry is going to take another hit so we’re looking at the longterm, but what we need is tax relief, funding, and community policies,” says Barnett.
“And by community, I mean involvement of all the citizens of the Cariboo-Chilcotin. We need a new hospital, we need more funding for all our universities to make things grow.”
Information collected through the consultation process will be used to inform the Committee’s recommendations to Minister of Finance, Carole James when she is putting together the 2018 budget that will be tabled in February/March.
The committee which began its tour on September 25 in Vancouver will end on Friday in Nanaimo.