BC Premier John Horgan announced that he is feeling positive about the current state of British Columbia as the economy continues to gradually reopen amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
During an address to British Columbians on Thursday, Horgan said “there is great reason for optimism as we look at how our restart is going across the province.”
Horgan pointed to the fact that the province has continued to see relatively low cases of COVID-19 each day compared to earlier in the pandemic.
The premier also highlighted specific areas of the economy that have continued to rebound successfully.
“We’ve seen some really positive indicators when it comes to public transit and ferry use, all going up,” said Horgan.
“We’ve seen successes. More and more people are coming out of their homes, participating in the economy, going to restaurants, and shopping at retailer outlets.”
Another point of positivity from the premier was the increase of private sector investments to help boost economic activity. Horgan offered up the example of CN Rail making a “half-a-billion dollar investment” amid the restart of the province.
According to Horgan, there has been an uptick in private companies investing in the province because they see BC as having “successfully flattened the curve, having a skilled, dynamic, multi-cultural work force that can help them advance their business.”
During Thursday’s media availability, Horgan offered some insight into the television and movie industry, outlining that 24 different productions have resumed operations already. The premier said he is also optimistic that British Columbia will return to a full complement of productions by the end of the summer.
Education was another point of pride for Horgan.
“We are the only province in the country that got kids back into a classroom in the past school year so that we could have good data on the challenges that we’ll face come September,” said Horgan.
At the beginning of June, children across British Columbia were given the option to return to classrooms on a part-time basis to finish up the school year.
“On balance, I’m pretty excited with where we are. I know the last four months have been extremely challenging for British Columbia,” said Horgan. “We are far from out of the woods, COVID-19 is in British Columbia and we are doing our best to flatten the curve.”
Horgan concluded by patting British Columbians on the back for their resiliency.
Graham Cox
