Horgan unveils COVID Recovery Benefit for BC NDP, Liberals and Greens go on offensive

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Nanaimo RCMP officer cleared of excessive force by IIO

A Nanaimo RCMP officer did not use unnecessary or excessive force, despite breaking a woman's leg in a takedown. That is the conclusion of BC's Independent Investigations Office which looked into an incident that happened last March. That's when police were called to a mental health facility in Nanaimo, to deal with a woman who was agitated, uncooperative and possibly suicidal. The Investigations Office concluded the takedown of the woman was justified and was a "supportive push to the ground." It says the injury was unfortunate but “the move to the ground was well within the bounds of what was reasonable in the circumstances.”

Election trail update

On the election trail today, the NDP released a platform of promises, some that the Greens say are ideas stolen from them and another that BC Liberals are calling a bribe. John Horgan has promised an NDP government would pay a pandemic recovery benefit of $1000 dollars per family and up to $500 dollars for singles. Liberal critic Jas Johal is calling it a pandemic bribe.

"The thousand dollars for a family and five hundred dollars for an individual! That money was sitting there in March. To hold that money back and then to announce it now, in the midst of an election, is offensive."—Jas Johal, BC Liberal critic.

Johal sees no parallel to the Liberal promise to eliminate the provincial sales tax for a year, which will put about the same amount of money into the pockets of British Columbians as the NDP promise. Meanwhile, Green Leader Sonia Furstenau says NDP promises on pay equity, moving child care under the Ministry of Education and modifying the renter’s rebate were proposed by her party in a letter before the election was called.

"All of the proposals that are in the NDP platform today could have been worked on right now in the legislature but what we have is a party and a leader who is making it very clear that he does not want to work with others. He will take good ideas from others but he wants to work with more power and less accountability and that is not in the best interests of this province."—BC Green Party Leader Sonia Furstenau.

The party leaders will have an opportunity to debate the issues face to face on a televised debate, that will take place one week from today.

Tuesday COVID-19 update

Today's COVID 19 numbers show another new infection in Island Health, bringing our active case count to 12. There were 101 new cases, province-wide since yesterday. Two more people have died from the virus, bringing the total number of fatalities in BC to 244. Despite new cases in the triple digits, Dr. Bonnie Henry says BC is flattening the curve.

"We are opening schools, people are going back to work but we're having safe connections. We're somewhere around 45 per cent of the contacts we are having have the potential to transmit this virus. That is where we need to stay. This is what will keep us on this low and slow curve through the next few months."—Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry.