Welcome to “Cloverdale In Conversation,” a regular feature with a local newsmaker. This week, Kevin Falcon is our guest. The three-term MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale represented this riding from 2001 to 2013. He took a hiatus from politics for several years, but is now back after recently winning his bid to be leader of the B.C. Liberal party.
Kevin chats about his life, politics, and what he’d do for B.C. if he was elected premier. He also says he’s really looking forward to getting back to Cloverdale soon to reconnect with some familiar faces.
Malin Jordan: Tell me a little bit about yourself, where you grew up, that kind of stuff.
Kevin Falcon: I grew up on the north shore of Vancouver. I grew up in a family of six boys. My mom was a nurse and my dad was a small business operator.
I was very fortunate to go to Vancouver College for high school. And because we were a large family of modest means, they allowed us to go to school for no tuition. I worked my way through Simon Fraser University and worked at the Vancouver shipyard as a security guard. I graduated from university and went into the business world. I was involved in real estate investment, before I went into politics, but I also had a communications company located in Cloverdale.
MJ: Was it the communications company that got you connected to Cloverdale?
KF: Yeah, that’s exactly right. I also have other connections to Surrey that go back to when I was a student in university. I was involved in municipal politics in Surrey. I ran Dianne Watts’ first campaign when she ran for council. Same with Doug McCallum when he first ran for council, way way back when. So I’ve been involved in Surrey for a long time.
MJ: What riding will you run in in the next election?
KF: I will make sure that I run in an NDP-held riding. My responsibility as leader is not to look for a so-called “safe seat,” but to try and win back a seat from the NDP.
MJ: When did you first run in Cloverdale?
KF: 2001 was the first time I got elected as the MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale. I proudly served that riding for three elections. I announced my retirement from public life in 2012, when my eldest daughter was just turning three, and my wife was about to have our second daughter, Rose. I wanted to make sure I was going to be present for my kids and not be an absent dad. Politics can be very hard on families because you have to be away a lot.
For the better part of a decade, I’ve been working in the private sector for a company called Anthem Capital. We make investments in real estate development, but we also invest in natural resources and operating companies, high tech companies, etc. So I oversee our investments right across the whole range. And I was most proud of the fact that we are major investors in Surrey, especially in housing, and we’ve built hundreds of homes, mostly townhomes in the Fleetwood area.
MJ: Speaking of housing, what would you do to make housing more affordable for British Columbians?
KF: This is such an important question. The NDP government has no clue what they’re doing. They introduced a whole slough of taxes in the 2018 budget and said this was going to be their solution to the housing crisis. In fact, housing has gone up every year they’ve been in power, and this year is the highest it’s ever been. It’s an utter policy trainwreck.
So, I’ll do two big things differently. One, I will bring in legislation to force local governments to do their bit in ensuring that we get much more new supply into the marketplace, particularly around planned or existing SkyTrain stations. This is absolutely critical, because unless we get far more supply in the market, the demand with limited supply is going to continue to see an escalation in pricing.
The second thing is, I’m going to look at the housing market through the lens of a first time buyer. And I’m going to strip out all of those unnecessary costs that are imposed by government, both provincial and municipal, I can’t do anything about the Feds, and make sure that we are providing affordability for first time buyers in our province.
It’s a tragedy that we’ve got a whole generation of young people that have largely given up on the dream of homeownership. And that is just totally unacceptable.
MJ: I often hear people say, “foreign buyers drive up the cost of housing.” Is there any truth to that? And if so, what could you do to try and cool that off?
KF: Yes, there is some truth, but it’s generally overstated. Today, the government has all the stats. So you can look up and see what the percentage of foreign buyers are. But the reason why it’s very important not to buy into that too much, is that over the last two years, during COVID, we’ve had virtually no foreign buyers buying into the market, because none could travel here. And yet, we still have the highest housing prices ever. Foreign buyers typically represent less than five per cent of the buyers in our market. And I think the NDP have tried to use that as an excuse for their utter failure to deal with the real issue, which is a housing supply issue.
MJ: Changing speeds a little bit, you had talked on RedFM about the hospital site in Cloverdale. After I wrote my story about your comments, I’ve gotten more than a dozen emails from people that have all said the same thing, basically, they’re not fond of that location. Obviously you wouldn’t stop the hospital if shovels were in the ground. But if a Liberal government was elected, and the Cloverdale Hospital had yet to be started, would you move it?
KF: I am very supportive of building another hospital in Surrey. So I want to be clear about that. However, we have to stop calling this a hospital. It’s an urgent care centre, not a full-fledged hospital. It is not another Surrey Memorial Hospital. There’s going to be five operating rooms. They’ll have some cancer services, a childcare centre, lab services, etc. But there’s not going to be any of the full suite of services you would expect at a real hospital.
MJ: Really? I think most people think this will be a full-fledged, regular hospital.
KF: I know. That’s why I refuse to call it a hospital. It is not a Surrey Memorial Hospital. We have to be so clear about that. It’s an urgent care centre.
It’s also instructive, Malin, that the Fraser Health Authority doesn’t even support where it’s being built. That’s why they’re not putting any money into it. We need another hospital for sure, but the biggest challenge we face in the health-care system is not the structures, it’s the people to staff them: the doctors, the nurses, the care aids, the janitorial staff. If you put a hospital in a location that is difficult to access, or you have to access it primarily by car, and there’s limited bus transportation too, that’s very, very challenging to attract the most important ingredient to a successful hospital, which is people, the staff.
What I have said is the ideal location would be along or close to SkyTrain.
MJ: Do you think the NDP will get shovels in the ground on schedule?
KF: The NDP have been promising this hospital since 2017. We’re now five years later and, not surprisingly, because this is a common theme with the NDP, there’s nothing to show for it. They didn’t even have any money in their budget for it as far back as 2020. And I’m a former finance minister, so the first thing I look at is “have they got the dollars put aside?” And they didn’t.
If they get construction started in 2024, it’s possible, but that’s seven years later. Just to step back for a moment, Malin, understand something. I was minister of transportation for six years and just in that six year period, just keeping to Surrey, we widened No. 10 Highway; we widened 176 Street; we built the Port Mann Bridge; we built the South Fraser Perimeter Road; we did a $500 million expansion of Surrey Memorial Hospital.
MJ: Going back to what you previously said about problems with getting the people to staff new hospitals. The NDP has already suspended thousands of health-care workers without pay. As Omicron fades, and every other province begins to relax restrictions and end mandates, last week Bonnie Henry came out with a new laundy list of other health-care workers that will have to get jabbed or lose their jobs in March: massage therapists, acupuncturists, dentists and others. What would you do, if you were elected, about the mandates that health-care workers have to be vaccinated? Would you remove that and let them come back to work?
KF: I do not like the idea of firing critical health-care workers over issues like those mandates—especially now as we have reached a 92 per cent vaccination rate in the province of British Columbia, which we can all be proud of. But I’m very concerned about the idea of firing critical nurses, and those that work in the health-care system, at this point as we have a hopefully continuing, rapidly diminishing COVID threat. Getting people to staff this new urgent care centre is going to be an epic challenge.
MJ: Did you see the recent stats regarding drug overdoses? Do you have any ideas of how to tackle the opioid crisis?
KF: Oh, absolutely. This government is focused entirely on what they call “safe supply.” And it’s important to understand there’s no such thing as safe supply. It’s unsafe to take narcotics, period. That’s why doctors are highly reluctant to prescribe them. But (the NDP’s) entire focus is on just giving people safe drugs. And while that may be part of the solution, there needs to be way more focus on recovery, investing hugely in recovery to help these folks get off of their addictions, so that they can become contributing members of society. And the second thing I would do is a massive investment in full-time, 24/7 care facilities, probably at Riverview. We need at least 300 beds, to really look after these folks, and make sure they get the proper care and attention, both psychiatric and medical, to ensure that they’re not being left on the streets, being exploited and abused by drug dealers and others, so that they can get the proper care they need. That I think is true compassion.
MJ: Anything you want to add?
KF: Just that I’m really looking forward to getting back to Cloverdale and seeing my friends at the Chamber. I’m hopeful that I’ll get a chance to say hi to local businesses and see how people are doing. It’s been a tough couple of years, especially for small businesses, and I want them to know there’s hope, that there is a leader of the opposition that is absolutely committed to getting this province going again, getting things built, not just talking about them, but actually getting things happening on the ground for the benefit of residents.
Outside of sports and a “Cold front coming down from Canada,” American news media only report on Canadian events that they believe are, or will be, influential to the US. Therefore, when Justin Trudeau’s announcement, having finally read the room, that Canada will be reducing the number of permanent residents admitted by more than 20 percent and temporary residents like skilled workers and college students will be cut by more than half made news south of the border, I knew the American media felt Trudeau’s about-face on immigration was newsworthy because many Americans would relate to Trudeau realizing Canada was accepting more immigrants than it could manage and are hoping their next POTUS will follow Trudeau’s playbook.
Canada, with lots of space and lacking convenient geographical ways for illegal immigrants to enter the country, though still many do, has a global reputation for being incredibly accepting of immigrants. On the surface, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver appear to be multicultural havens. However, as the saying goes, “Too much of a good thing is never good,” resulting in a sharp rise in anti-immigrant sentiment, which you can almost taste in the air. A growing number of Canadians, regardless of their political affiliation, are blaming recent immigrants for causing the housing affordability crises, inflation, rise in crime and unemployment/stagnant wages.
Throughout history, populations have engulfed themselves in a tribal frenzy, a psychological state where people identify strongly with their own group, often leading to a ‘us versus them’ mentality. This has led to quick shifts from complacency to panic and finger-pointing at groups outside their tribe, a phenomenon that is not unique to any particular culture or time period.
My take on why the American news media found Trudeau’s blatantly obvious attempt to save his political career, balancing appeasement between the pitchfork crowd, who want a halt to immigration until Canada gets its house in order, and immigrant voters, who traditionally vote Liberal, newsworthy; the American news media, as do I, believe immigration fatigue is why Kamala Harris is going to lose on November 5th.
Because they frequently get the outcome wrong, I don’t take polls seriously. According to polls in 2014, Tim Hudak’s Progressive Conservatives and Kathleen Wynne’s Liberals were in a dead heat in Ontario, yet Wynne won with more than twice as many seats. In the 2018 Quebec election, most polls had the Coalition Avenir Québec with a 1-to-5-point lead over the governing Liberals. The result: The Coalition Avenir Québec enjoyed a landslide victory, winning 74 of 125 seats. Then there’s how the 2016 US election polls showing Donald Trump didn’t have a chance of winning against Hillary Clinton were ridiculously way off, highlighting the importance of the election day poll and, applicable in this election as it was in 2016, not to discount ‘shy Trump supporters;’ voters who support Trump but are hesitant to express their views publicly due to social or political pressure.
My distrust in polls aside, polls indicate Harris is leading by a few points. One would think that Trump’s many over-the-top shenanigans, which would be entertaining were he not the POTUS or again seeking the Oval Office, would have him far down in the polls. Trump is toe-to-toe with Harris in the polls because his approach to the economy—middle-class Americans are nostalgic for the relatively strong economic performance during Trump’s first three years in office—and immigration, which Americans are hyper-focused on right now, appeals to many Americans. In his quest to win votes, Trump is doing what anyone seeking political office needs to do: telling the people what they want to hear, strategically using populism—populism that serves your best interests is good populism—to evoke emotional responses. Harris isn’t doing herself any favours, nor moving voters, by going the “But, but… the orange man is bad!” route, while Trump cultivates support from “weird” marginal voting groups.
To Harris’s credit, things could have fallen apart when Biden abruptly stepped aside. Instead, Harris quickly clinched the nomination and had a strong first few weeks, erasing the deficit Biden had given her. The Democratic convention was a success, as was her acceptance speech. Her performance at the September 10th debate with Donald Trump was first-rate.
Harris’ Achilles heel is she’s now making promises she could have made and implemented while VP, making immigration and the economy Harris’ liabilities, especially since she’s been sitting next to Biden, watching the US turn into the circus it has become. These liabilities, basically her only liabilities, negate her stance on abortion, democracy, healthcare, a long-winning issue for Democrats, and Trump’s character. All Harris has offered voters is “feel-good vibes” over substance. In contrast, Trump offers the tangible political tornado (read: steamroll the problems Americans are facing) many Americans seek. With Trump, there’s no doubt that change, admittedly in a messy fashion, will happen. If enough Americans believe the changes he’ll implement will benefit them and their country…
The case against Harris on immigration, at a time when there’s a huge global backlash to immigration, even as the American news media are pointing out, in famously immigrant-friendly Canada, is relatively straightforward: During the first three years of the Biden-Harris administration, illegal Southern border crossings increased significantly.
The words illegal immigration, to put it mildly, irks most Americans. On the legal immigration front, according to Forbes, most billion-dollar startups were founded by immigrants. Google, Microsoft, and Oracle, to name three, have immigrants as CEOs. Immigrants, with tech skills and an entrepreneurial thirst, have kept America leading the world. I like to think that Americans and Canadians understand the best immigration policy is to strategically let enough of these immigrants in who’ll increase GDP and tax base and not rely on social programs. In other words, Americans and Canadians, and arguably citizens of European countries, expect their governments to be more strategic about immigration.
The days of the words on a bronze plaque mounted inside the Statue of Liberty pedestal’s lower level, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” are no longer tolerated. Americans only want immigrants who’ll benefit America.
Does Trump demagogue the immigration issue with xenophobic and racist tropes, many of which are outright lies, such as claiming Haitian immigrants in Ohio are abducting and eating pets? Absolutely. However, such unhinged talk signals to Americans who are worried about the steady influx of illegal immigrants into their country that Trump can handle immigration so that it’s beneficial to the country as opposed to being an issue of economic stress.
In many ways, if polls are to be believed, Harris is paying the price for Biden and her lax policies early in their term. Yes, stimulus spending quickly rebuilt the job market, but at the cost of higher inflation. Loosen border policies at a time when anti-immigrant sentiment was increasing was a gross miscalculation, much like Trudeau’s immigration quota increase, and Biden indulging himself in running for re-election should never have happened.
If Trump wins, Democrats will proclaim that everyone is sexist, racist and misogynous, not to mention a likely White Supremacist, and for good measure, they’ll beat the “voter suppression” button. If Harris wins, Trump supporters will repeat voter fraud—since July, Elon Musk has tweeted on Twitter at least 22 times about voters being “imported” from abroad—being widespread.
Regardless of who wins tomorrow, Americans need to cool down; and give the divisive rhetoric a long overdue break. The right to an opinion belongs to everyone. Someone whose opinion differs from yours is not by default sexist, racist, a fascist or anything else; they simply disagree with you. Americans adopting the respectful mindset to agree to disagree would be the best thing they could do for the United States of America.
PHOENIX (AP) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a prominent proponent of debunked public health claims whom Donald Trump has promised to put in charge of health initiatives, said Saturday that Trump would push to remove fluoride from drinking water on his first day in office if elected president.
Fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The addition of low levels of fluoride to drinking water has long been considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the last century.
Kennedy made the declaration Saturday on the social media platform X alongside a variety of claims about the heath effects of fluoride.
“On January 20, the Trump White House will advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water,” Kennedy wrote. Trump and his wife, Melania Trump, “want to Make America Healthy Again,” he added, repeating a phrase Trump often uses and links to Kennedy.
Trump told NBC News on Sunday that he had not spoken to Kennedy about fluoride yet, “but it sounds OK to me. You know it’s possible.”
The former president declined to say whether he would seek a Cabinet role for Kennedy, a job that would require Senate confirmation, but added, “He’s going to have a big role in the administration.”
Asked whether banning certain vaccines would be on the table, Trump said he would talk to Kennedy and others about that. Trump described Kennedy as “a very talented guy and has strong views.”
The sudden and unexpected weekend social media post evoked the chaotic policymaking that defined Trump’s White House tenure, when he would issue policy declarations on Twitter at virtually all hours. It also underscored the concerns many experts have about Kennedy, who has long promoted debunked theories about vaccine safety, having influence over U.S. public health.
In 1950, federal officials endorsed water fluoridation to prevent tooth decay, and continued to promote it even after fluoride toothpaste brands hit the market several years later. Though fluoride can come from a number of sources, drinking water is the main source for Americans, researchers say.
Officials lowered their recommendation for drinking water fluoride levels in 2015 to address a tooth condition called fluorosis, that can cause splotches on teeth and was becoming more common in U.S. kids.
In August, a federal agency determined “with moderate confidence” that there is a link between higher levels of fluoride exposure and lower IQ in kids. The National Toxicology Program based its conclusion on studies involving fluoride levels at about twice the recommended limit for drinking water.
A federal judge later cited that study in ordering the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to further regulate fluoride in drinking water. U.S. District Judge Edward Chen cautioned that it’s not certain that the amount of fluoride typically added to water is causing lower IQ in kids, but he concluded that mounting research points to an unreasonable risk that it could be. He ordered the EPA to take steps to lower that risk, but didn’t say what those measures should be.
In his X post Saturday, Kennedy tagged Michael Connett, the lead attorney representing the plaintiff in that lawsuit, the environmental advocacy group Food & Water Watch.
Kennedy’s anti-vaccine organization has a lawsuit pending against news organizations including The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy is on leave from the group but is listed as one of its attorneys in the lawsuit.
What role Kennedy might hold if Trump wins on Tuesday remains unclear. Kennedy recently told NewsNation that Trump asked him to “reorganize” agencies including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and some agencies under the Department of Agriculture.
But for now, the former independent presidential candidate has become one of Trump’s top surrogates. Trump frequently mentions having the support of Kennedy, a scion of a Democratic dynasty and the son of former Attorney General Robert Kennedy and nephew of President John F. Kennedy.
Kennedy traveled with Trump Friday and spoke at his rallies in Michigan and Wisconsin.
Trump said Saturday that he told Kennedy: “You can work on food, you can work on anything you want” except oil policy.
“He wants health, he wants women’s health, he wants men’s health, he wants kids, he wants everything,” Trump added.
