A mining executive is seeking a provincial seat in North Vancouver, prompted by what he calls destructive policies by the ruling NDP.David Splett, candidate for the Conservative Party of British Columbia in North Vancouver-Lonsdale, is married with three sons. Two attend UBC and the youngest just began studies at the University of Alberta. He says none of them expect to live in BC after graduation.“There’s no chance that they’re ever going to be able to afford a home here. And with government bureaucracy and overregulation, there’s just no path for them to own a home here,” Splett told Western Standard in an interview.“Why am I running? It’s because of the fact that I’m hearing this story over and over again. There seems to be a wagon train of youth leaving British Columbia. Someone had to step in, so I paused my career,” Splett said.Splett grew up in Regina and lived there for part of last decade while employed with Mosaic. More recently he was CFO of Calibre Mining Corp. As one who has overseen many projects, he finds “huge blowouts” by the province inexcusable.“BC Hydro Construction of Site B dam went from $8 billion to $16 billion. The Sky Train extension went from 3.9 to 6 billion. They were going to build a bridge to replace the Massey Tunnel. They abandoned it after they spent $100 million and then they came up with a new plan to spend 4.2 billion to put in new tunnels. And it goes on and on and on,” Splett recounted.“We've got a tax and spend government in British Columbia. Fiscal management is an afterthought to them,” he said.Splett said concerns about affordability, health care and government drug supply are common at the doors. He said he and Conservative Leader John Rustad advocate the same “common sense” approach on drugs and other issues.“Alcoholics Anonymous has 100 years of experience with this stuff, and they don't say, ‘Well, we're going to go out and we're going to buy all the alcohol that an alcoholic needs.’ That's not recovery,” Splett said.Splett also found Premier Eby’s response to last year’s million person march for children “truly worrisome.” The premier said protesters were intolerant and bigoted people who were not welcome in the province.“It's shocking because there's some words that are bandied around by the NDP frequently: intolerant, racist, extremist, … with anyone who disagrees with the ideology. And parents have a right to be concerned about the sexualization of their children,” Splett said.“They're not doing a very good job in foster care. There's no reason that parents should trust them in terms of keeping secrets either,” he added.In 2019, Dr. Wallace Wong told a crowd at the Vancouver Public Library that he had 501 orphans and foster children in his gender therapy practice handed to him by the Ministry of Social Services, and that demand was “soaring.”Splett said his consultations with an NGO for foster children revealed that half of the children who graduate out of foster care from BC are homeless. He called the stat “frightening.”“How do we help these kids? At this juncture, we need to be thinking about it. This becomes the feeder system to the Fentanyl crisis,” the candidate said.Splett is running against NDP incumbent Bowinn Ma, MLA since 2017 and current Minister of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness. Splett said his long career in mining across three decades and 20 countries leaves “a chasm about a mile wide” between her work experience and his..The Conservative said British Columbians are worse off under the NDP “by virtually every metric” and believes developing resources is vital to a turnaround.“The government isn't allowing timber (permits). I'm an expert in mining. It takes 25 years to get permitted to operate in British Columbia. And they've already said petroleum is persona non grata,” Splett said.“When you're talking about a 60 to $70 billion export economy in British Columbia, and 40 billion of it is those three areas–you better pay attention to it.”
