Premier Horgan to bring down the curtain on Virtual UBCM convention today

Premier Horgan makes the final convention address
for 2020 for UBCM at 1:15 this afternoon

He kind of crashed the party earlier this week, calling a provincial election Monday and taking some of the narrative of the week away from the Union of British Columbia Municipalities and their four days of convention making. 

But today, as is the tradition, the Premier of British Columbia will be one of four keynote speakers of the day, putting a wrap on a most unusual year for convention goers.

Also speaking today will be Margaret Atwood, Jonathan Wilkinson the Federal Minister of Environment and Climate Change as well as Green party of BC leader Sonia Furstenau.

Yesterday, BC Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson addressed the delegates. 

Mr. Horgan's speech to the convention is scheduled for 1:15PM, with forty five minutes blocked off for his commentary and overview of the provincial-municipal dynamic.

The week long virtual convention has seen delegates from across the province log on through online options to participate in the annual conference, the traditional in person festival of politics altered dramatically owing to COVID.

The participants however, moved forward this year, taking in planning and information sessions, keynote speakers and the big work of yesterday of the wide swath of convention resolutions to explore and adopt or dismiss.

The list of their work yesterday on those  resolutions can be reviewed here.

Yesterday was awards night for the UBCM, with a number of local governments across the province honoured for their work in a range of categories, four winners and four honourable mentions made for the 2020 list of achievement.

As we outlined last month, Prince Rupert had no motions up for consideration for this years convention, though North Coast Regional District did get two motions onto the Agenda.

The motion towards revisions of the Grant in lieu of taxes process was endorsed by the convention, while their motion towards support for Helipad Hospital construction was not endorsed, with the motion referred back to the UBCM executive.

At last weeks Prince Rupert City Council session, Mayor Lee Brain offered up some thoughts on what was ahead for the Prince Rupert delegation, which while participating remotely this year still had plans for a full week of participation.

One element of the week long virtual festivities was to be the opportunity to discuss local issues with provincial officials, though with the call of the election of earlier this week, any meetings set to take place with Cabinet ministers probably were scrubbed as they departed for their constituencies and their individual quest for re-election or in more than a few high profile cases, retirement.

How the late change to the program thanks to the Premier's election call affected the Prince Rupert plans is not know at the moment.

So far, the Mayor and Council have kept a low profile during convention week, with no messages of their own on the progress of the event and what they may have achieved during the week of virtual political meetings.

For some further background on this years UBCM convention see their website here, as well as their twitter feed which has provided for updates and features through the week.

You can get a sense of some of the activity of the week from our UBCM archive page.