Doug Clovechok has settled into his new office in the basement of the B.C. legislature, starting from the bottom with the rest of the B.C. Liberal MLAs who won the most seats in the May election but found themselves in opposition as the new fall session began.
Defeated in the 2013 election by incumbent NDP MLA Norm McDonald, Clovechok said he lost in part because a B.C. Conservative candidate took enough votes to keep the result from being close. After that, he said he worked for constituents in the region as a kind of unofficial MLA, dealing with people who believed they weren’t getting the representation they needed. That work, and McDonald’s decision to retire from politics, secured him the seat.
“I’ve been fortunate to have a lot of interesting jobs in my time, and so far, touch wood, this is the best one,” Clovechok said in an interview.
As B.C. Liberal tourism critic and a former tourism business operator, Clovechok said he has pressed Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Lisa Beare to provide more support for businesses that are struggling and have lost much of their peak season revenue.
“They’re throwing pennies that should be dollars,” he said.
Clovechok says his constituency has been hit hard by the forest fire season, and he has a fire burning near his own home. Smoke conditions and national media coverage combined to put people off, including toursists and people from Alberta who own vacation properties.
“There are communities that are like ghost towns.” he said. “People aren’t playing golf, they’re not coming at all because of the smoke.”
He said the forest industry in Columbia River-Revelstoke is doing well despite a shortage of fibre, with lumber, plywood and other producers working together to share the available supply.
Like other B.C. Liberal MLAs, he is watching as an NDP government implements policies and ramps up spending, much of it initiated by the former government. Among those things is more than $300 million in new education funding.
“I’m a big fan of teachers, and I was a teacher at one point in my career,” Clovechok said. “I’m happy to see that there are more teachers being hired. Prior to the NDP taking government, we were well on track to hiring 3,500-plus new teachers.”
Clovechok awaits his opportunity to voice other concerns about the NDP budget.
“The budget is heavy on the spending side, with very little talk about investment, how we’re going to create and maintain jobs,” he said.”It adds $1 billion in spending over the next three years, and that’s going to be coming from taxpayers.”