After a busy 2023, North Okanagan-Shuswap MP Mel Arnold has his sights set on the successes and challenges to come in 2024, a year that could bring about the passing of his private member’s bill through the Senate and a new electoral district for him to run for.
Arnold confirms he intends to seek a fourth term as a Member of Parliament. But which riding the Conservative MP ends up running for will depend on when the next federal election is called.
In light of the Federal Electoral Boundaries Commission for B.C.’s reworking of the province’s federal electoral map, Arnold said he will probably be looking at running in the new Kamloops—Shuswap—Central Rockies riding, given that he lives in the heart of that riding in Salmon Arm and has been the Shuswap’s MP since 2015.
However, it remains possible that Arnold will look to lead North Okanagan-Shuswap riding once more. As Arnold pointed out, if a snap election were to be called prior to April 22, all of the existing boundaries would remain in effect until the following election.
Canadians aren’t scheduled to head to the polls until October 2025.
In the meantime, Arnold isn’t looking past his current constituents.
“I will continue to represent the North Okanagan-Shuswap until the election actually occurs,” he said.
Asked what motivates him to pursue a fourth term, Arnold said he believes “change is coming” in Canada, adding the rising cost of living is something he and his party will look to tackle.
“There’s going to be a lot of work involved in getting back to having life affordable again, and housing affordable for people, and I’d like to be part of that work that’s going to be involved.”
Arnold said addressing the rising cost of living comes down to “reducing taxes (and) reducing the government waste that has been taking place.” He took aim at the federal carbon tax, which he said the Conservative Party would axe if elected as the next government.
“It’s adding to the cost of everything,” Arnold said of the tax.
“I’ve had residents just in the past couple of weeks show me their home heating bills, and the cost of the carbon tax was as much as the actual fuel they used, because the carbon tax was added onto every process in getting the fuel to their homes. The actual fuel used was not much different than the actual carbon tax itself.”
Arnold said he and his colleagues will continue to dig into situations where government money has been wasted. He pointed to the $54-million ArriveCan app, saying “somebody could have built it for a quarter of a million dollars.”
In terms of his goals for 2024, Arnold said he would like to see final passage of Bill C291, his private member’s bill that would change the term child pornography in the Criminal Code to child sexual abuse and exploitation material.
The bill went through the House of Commons with unanimous support in February 2023, and Arnold says it is currently held up in a “logjam” of private member’s bills and other government legislation in the Senate.
“That’ll be my biggest focus is to hopefully get that through the Senate and see that become the law,” he said, adding he is optimistic it will get through in 2024.
“The term pornography typically is used to delineate material produced with consenting adults. Children are not not able to give their legal consent, so it is basically abuse and exploitation material,” Arnold said, explaining why the bill is needed.
“I believe it has full support in the Senate. I have had no one opposing it yet,” he said, adding the terminology change has already been adopted by other jurisdictions around the world.
Arnold is the Associate Shadow Minister for Fisheries and Oceans and has been tracking the threat of invasive aquatic species — particularly zebra and quagga mussels — in local waterways.
He said preventing these species from entering local waters is the only solution, as once they’ve been established, they leave beaches covered in razor-sharp shells, spelling untold tourism losses, and can even threaten Sockeye salmon runs that have been re-established in the Okanagan system by the Okanagan Nation Alliance.
Arnold said in 2024, “prevention is the big step that needs to be taken.” He pointed out that while the province has done some prevention work, it has cut back on the number of boat inspection stations and the operating hours of existing stations.
Arnold says he hasn’t advocated for an out-of-province boat ban given a lack of studies into how that would affect local tourism, but said more education and prevention measures at the B.C. borders is needed.
B.C. is coming off a record wildfire season in terms of hectares burned, and an unseasonably warm winter thus far has experts worried about the coming wildfire season. Arnold — whose Shuswap region was ravaged by the Bush Creek East wildfire — says he’s glad to hear that municipalities and regional districts are already looking at water management plans for the coming year, but said the federal government could do more to prepare for wildfires.
Specifically, he said the Liberal government’s 2021 pledge to train 1,000 new firefighters has come up short, with only about half of those firefighters trained.
Arnold also expressed his appreciation for the Shuswap communities that came together to help with the wildfire effort last summer.
“Everybody really pulled together with that, and it really showed the base of our communities is really our people.”
Asked what issue he heard about most often from his constituents in 2023, Arnold said aside from the aforementioned cost of living, housing topped the list.
“We haven’t been building enough homes, we haven’t been building enough rental homes, and how can we all work together as communities, as regional districts, as provincial and federal governments to incentivize as much home building as we can to hopefully bring the market back to where it’s affordable and attainable for young people,” he said.
“I’ve talked to too many young people over the past few months who have almost lost hope on home ownership, and that used to be the Canadian dream was to own your own home.”
Arnold acknowledged the many challenges locals endured admirably in 2023, and says he looks forward to tackling more challenges in the coming year.
READ MORE: Okanagan MPs push for more muscle in mussel protection
READ MORE: North Okanagan-Shuswap MP urges co-operation, respect amid wildfires