One year has passed since the majority of Vancouver Island and the Sunshine Coast shifted from shades of Tory blue to socialist orange and liberal red. For North Island-Powell River member of parliament Rachel Blaney, the past year has been one of listening, learning and fighting. The Peak caught up with Blaney on her most recent visit to Powell River to talk about her first year in office.
It has been a year since you won the seat. How has the last year been?
It’s been incredibly inspiring. One of the best parts of this job is the honour you get to travel around the riding, hear stories from constituents and meet so many people working so hard. It’s been a tremendous year.
What have been some of the challenges? What’s been the hardest part of the job?
There’s a big learning curve and travelling back and forth to Ottawa has been a significant change to my life. I’m so grateful for the amazing people who have helped me along the way.
With such a large riding, it’s a challenge to spend time in every community. How much time have you spent in Powell River in the last year?
Quite a lot, actually. MPs are in Ottawa for 26 weeks of the year, and I have the third largest riding in BC. This week it’s two days in Powell River, one day in Port McNeill, one day in Kyuquot [northwestern Vancouver Island] and then in Campbell River and Comox for a day. It is always a challenge to get to every place. There’s been so many events all over the riding I wish I could participate in, but I can’t. It’s great to have an office in Powell River. We’ve received a lot of positive feedback. People are able to come in and have their issues addressed quickly. I’m everywhere as often as I can, but not often enough. I’d be in every community for more than I actually am, but my staff do a great job of continuing to keep that connection strong. When I’m in Ottawa, I still call into the riding when issues arise. I call people up and have good conversations. We’ve had bills that people are really interested in. You just have to be creative. If your focus is to connect with your constituents, then you make it happen regardless of where you are.
How has your perception changed over the past year of what the most important issues are in the riding?
One of the first things I did after the election was send a mailout to all the households in the riding asking people what my main focuses should be. The return on that was very significant; we received a lot of responses. The number one concern that came up was seniors’ issues. People are very concerned about seniors living in isolated and rural communities and what that means in terms of access to services and health care. One of the things I’m doing right now is town halls on seniors’ issues. The focus is to go out to as many communities as we possibly can to hear about each place’s uniqueness. We’re going to continue in the new year in Powell River and other communities as well. I really want to make sure that when I speak in Ottawa the needs of the riding are very clearly stated. We’ll continue to do that. I’m going to continue to push these issues in the House of Commons. We’re in this together. I’m the person who gets to stand up in the house and say things, but I can only do that if I’m communicating with people in one format or another.
Has it been frustrating to be an opposition backbencher MP?
There are a lot of opportunities to speak up and I make sure I take advantage of all of them. I don’t have a problem crossing the floor to talk to different ministers. During question period the opposition’s job is to hold the government to account, but my job is also to represent the riding and I don’t have a problem working with ministers to solve constituents’ problems. We were not successful in keeping the Comox communication centre open, but we made it harder for the government to close it. I stood up and asked questions and when we made a motion in the committee to actually research this, that study went through. It happened, so it was good to see that if you keep standing up you can make action happen. We didn’t get the results we wanted but we made them struggle to make that decision.
I can spend a lot of time wishing I was in this seat or that one, but my obligation is to the people who sent me here, the people in the communities that I serve, and I will not be deterred from that.
You have three more years in your term, what do you hope to accomplish?
Since I was elected we’ve held 19 town halls and focused on issues relevant to the riding. It was amazing in the very beginning to do the disability tax credit town halls and see some of those people, who really need it, get the benefits. Those moments, making sure services are working, are really profound. I’ll continue building on that. Other things we heard very clearly that are important are affordable housing and climate change. I’m really interested in working with all parts of the community and I want people to know they can call and we can actually move things forward. We may not always get the results we want, but I won’t give up. We’ll continue to look at what this riding needs and we’ve had an increased re-visioning, probably as a whole country, on the question of who we are in terms of our resource-based economy. So now what? We really need to be having those conversations. I don’t know that anyone has the answer. We have some overwhelming desire to see a cleaner economy grow and build, one that has good paying jobs. I will be fighting hard to make sure rural and remote communities are not left out of that conversation. I have a lot of concerns that urbanized communities are heard first and we forget about the small communities, but we cannot forget about them, because in so many ways it is communities our size that can get things done extremely effectively, because they all work together. Another area that I’ll be spending more time on in the coming years is income inequality. We’re looking at a world that is becoming increasingly harder for so many people to survive in. That conversation cannot stop. We need to look at what we can do differently so we don’t see so many people in poverty.
