Kelowna MLA requests auditor general investigation into Small Business BC shut down

The new MLA for Kelowna-Mission says the sudden shut down of Small Business BC (SBBC) earlier this month felt “symbolic,” and a sign of the tough times.

He was one of the first British Columbian politicians to sound the alarm publicly about the significance of SBBC’s closure, and has now officially requested that it be looked into.

In an interview with KelownaNow video host Jim Csek earlier this week, Gavin Dew said he’s asked BC's auditor general, Sheila Dodds, to investigate the closure.

“Something happened here and the public needs to have answers as to what happened, who knew, when did they know and what, if anything, did they do about it,” he claimed.

And Dew believes that an investigation will find something, telling Csek that BC’s NDP government tried to hide the problem rather than solve it.

“This government allowed a crucial support service to collapse because they couldn’t be bothered to fix it. They just wanted distance from it to avoid a political scandal,” Dew speculated.

SBBC is a non-profit that was created in 1986, shortly after Expo ‘86 in Vancouver, to help support the development of small businesses in BC.

It was funded almost exclusively by the provincial and federal governments.

According to Dew, the Conservative critic for jobs, economic development and innovation, tens of thousands of businesses have gone through various programming that SBBC has provided over its 38-year history.

In the extensive sit-down interview, Dew and Csek also discussed the BC budget and the province’s record deficit of $9.4 billion.

Dew said the government has “poured kerosene on the fire of deficit spending” and had some choice words for newly-appointed finance minister Brenda Bailey.

“The minister of no jobs has been promoted by David Eby to the minister of no money,” he stated, referring to Bailey’s former role as minister of jobs.

Dew and Csek also discussed BC’s forestry industry, which the MLA said the current NDP government has brought to its knees.

“In this NDP government, we have a weak, inexperienced cabinet,” he said. “We have a forest minister who, as far as I know, has never held a job in the private sector, much less cut down a tree or plant one.”

Dew and all the other freshly-elected MLAs have not yet had a chance to get down to business in Victoria, since the legislature won’t return until Feb. 18, and he had some thoughts on that as well.

“I think it’s because David Eby is frankly terrified of what’s going to happen if we actually get into question period,” Dew said of why he thinks the NDP won’t meet until February.

“Our critics are going to run circles around one of the most inexperienced cabinets in the history of BC who are standing on the back of a shameful record of fiscal mismanagement and economic destruction.”

Dew believes a change in government and Conservative rule in BC will come in “a whole lot less than four years.”