Peter Neville - BC Conservatives

[Castanet News]

This thread is for the candidacy of Peter Neville - BC Conservatives.

[mileslehn]

Mr. Neville is one of the strongest candidates for the BCCP and as such should be elected because he is connected to the Federal Party. Remember Conservatives vote Conservative not Liberal, don't split the vote, listen to the PM, no Conservative government supports Carbon Taxes.

[strikes&gutters]

Mr. Neville is one of the strongest candidates for the BCCP and as such should be elected because he is connected to the Federal Party. Remember Conservatives vote Conservative not Liberal, don't split the vote, listen to the PM, no Conservative government supports Carbon Taxes.

Don't try to confuse voters even more than the BCC's already are attempting to.

The way they have been trying to use the Federal Conservatives name for their own gain islaughable. I'm surprised they don't show up in blue sweater vests!

Just for everyone else's info....

There are NO ties between the BC Liberals and the Liberal Party of Canada.

There are NO ties between the BCC's and the Conservative Party of Canada.

I am Federal Conservative myself, always have been, and to compare BCC to CPC is, as they say "like apples to oranges"

[Ginsing]

I have met all but the Green Candidate for the Westside Kelowna riding. I must say that Mr. Neville is the person I will, at this point, vote for and last would be the Liberal Candidate. Peter is able to think on his feet and does not just spout out the party line as the Liberal Candidate has been doing. The NDP candidate is also very impressive but leans to left for me. Mr. Neville you will have my vote on May 12th and I am not even a Conservative. As far as vote splitting goes, who cares, this is about selecting the best person to lead our riding and that is how I am going to vote. One interesting note I saw on a news website a report that Stockwell Day is supporting and helping a Conservative candidate down south. If true, maybe there is a link growing between the Federal and Provincial Conservatives.

[TJ05]

Peter Neville’s statement that single mothers should be able to adopt out their children as a means to fight child poverty is irresponsible and shows how this party is out of touch with regular citizens and has not thought through its policies,” says Stewart.

He is referring to comments made by Westside-Kelowna BC Conservative candidate Peter Neville, who, in response to a report on poverty and homelessness in the Central Okanagan stated: “Because most children who live in poverty are the children of single parents, single mothers should have an option to adopt their children,” (Kelowna Capital News, April 30/09).

As a single mother I can assure you that I will not vote Conservative and will encourage others
to do the same. It is sad in this day and age that there are still individuals that have that kind
of backwards thinking. I have a good job,and I support my child and myself just fine. I do wonder
though if Mr Neville would say the same to single fathers.

[puterbrother]

Peter Neville’s statement that single mothers should be able to adopt out their children as a means to fight child poverty is irresponsible and shows how this party is out of touch with regular citizens and has not thought through its policies,” says Stewart.

Oh PLEASE !
Wouldn't it be nice to have the "freedom to choose".We don't have enough of that.Think about it.If your life was in a downward spiral and heading for the street,would you want to drag your kid(s) down with you or throw them a life preserver? Give them the opportunity to have a good life.I'd do it.It would be better than being wards of the state.Hasn't that been done before ? Like back in the 40's ? British kids to Canada ? Peter Neville did say "option" didn't he ?

[TJ05]

Wouldnt it be far better to have a realistic solution such as having funding set aside for single
parents to upgrade thier job skills so that they could provide more for thier children?


puterbrother said:

Give them the opportunity to have a good life.

Since when is it that a child will not have a good life being with a single parent? Being in a two
parent family does not mean the child will have a better life. Sad to see that thier are others
in kelowna that have the same backwards thinking as Peter Neville.

[SHOZDIJIJI]

Do your self a favor and vote NDP. 4 more years of Liberal lies and we are done for. Good bye Hydro, goodbye water rights....Health care will be in the sewer (it's circling the drain as I write this ) Can the Consevatives save this no way......

[mekathy]

you can't be serious, yep back to the days of the NDP and BC being a have not province. Think not.

[usquebaugh]

you can't be serious, yep back to the days of the NDP and BC being a have not province. Think not.

[mekathy]

glad you find reality funny.

[usquebaugh]

Actually, I laugh when people forget that the NDP left the Liberals with a surplus... That being said, Neville's comments about single parents are disgusting.

[Liberty and Truth]

Actually, I laugh when people forget that the NDP left the Liberals with a surplus... That being said, Neville's comments about single parents are disgusting.

Do you lie for a living? What surplus are you talking about? The surplus of despair? The surplus of embarrassment at our province being turned into an economic basketcase and a national laughingstock? The surplus of debt? The surplus of people leaving the province due to our 52% income tax rate? I don't recall any surpluses during the NDP's reign of terror, other than the surplus they lied about to get elected in 1996. I only remember high taxes, huge deficits, businesses paralzyed by insane regulations that only existed to justify jobs for a bloated and lazy civil service, and a mining industry decimated by thousands of stupid regulations that had nothing to do with the environment, and everything to do with pandering to the marxist leaning environmental movement. I watched helplessly as left-wing nutballs and union king-pins grabbed control of the NDP, and the province's financial levers, and steered us straight into hell. Please tell me our memories in this province are not that short. Please.

[Peter Neville]

Re Strikes and Gutters
I never said or implied that there is a connection between the BC Conservatives and the Federal Conservative party. I did mention that one of my qualifications as a candidate was that I had plenty of political experience with the federal party including two stints as President of the Kelowna - Lake Country federal conservative electoral district association.

The BC Conservative party has deep roots in British Columbia going back to the early years of the 20th century as can be seen from my web site.

[Peter Neville]

I would like to reply to the critics of my remark anout adoption as a component of a solution to child poverty. The following is the text of my letter to the editor published in last Sunday's Capital News.

I would like to respond to Jennifer Smith’s comments as well as Jason Luciw’s report about my suggestions regarding Child Poverty at the Westside – Kelowna All Candidates’ Meeting last Wednesday. I had thought to muse about how adoption could fit into a mix of solutions for child poverty. It was my fault if I gave a different impression. I certainly didn’t intend to suggest that poor families or single mothers should be forced to give up their children for adoption.

This is not the position of the BC Conservative Party either. On the contrary, our Party supports measures to keep families together and to ease the burden of poverty. This would include measures like raising the minimum wage and tying future increases to the cost of living index, subsidized day care, providing social housing and ensuring that the levels of social assistance are sufficient. It might also include assistance with continuing education.

I feel very strongly that children should, as far as possible, be given a fair chance in life. Child poverty hurts their chances. Fairness demands that we help them.

Where adoption might fit in would be for young women, including teenagers, who are still in school or starting their careers and who become pregnant when they don’t have the emotional or financial resources to deal with a child. I think a variety of adoption options, as an alternative to abortion (which carries its own burden of anguish and potential medical complications) should be considered including open adoption and fixed-term open adoption. These options would enable a young woman to keep in touch with her child, monitor his or her progress and resume parenting her child when she is in a better position to do so. She should also make the decision as to who the adoptive parents should be and on what terms. This program would also enable the child to acquire an extended family of surrogate ‘grandparents’ to provide an extra level of support. Childless families might also be given a stake in the future, including inheritance and such a program might help knit the generations and communities together. All this at minimal expense to taxpayers.

This solution would be very empowering for the mother. She would be in control of who adopts her child, for what period and under what terms. Civil servants would only bring the parties together, gather background information and serve in an advisory capacity. She would maintain her relationship with her child and can choose to bring her progeny back into her family when she is a position to look after the child.

I could not discuss the whole, complex, issue of child poverty in a two minute segment at an all-candidates’ meeting. I was fairly sure that the other candidates would advocate for increased spending on a variety of measures (and I support these too) but I wanted to present another alternative, making creative use of lateral thinking, that would make use of resources already present such as the surplus of families who would like to adopt.

There is no question that single parent families are correlated with child poverty – especially when the single parent is a teenager. That does NOT mean that the majority of children living in poverty are the progeny of single parent families. Fathers should be properly held accountable. I am committed to support families however constituted. I certainly would not suggest that intact families, including single parent ones, should be separated just because they are poor. On the contrary, I believe the opposite – they should be helped as much as possible.

I am committed to programs that will actually work in the resolution to this difficult issue. The option of creative adoptions could form part of the solution to children living in poverty mostly as a preventative action. Innovations in the concept of adoption may create a win-win situation for the parent(s) the child and the third party parent(s) that wish the privilege of participating in a parenting role. Traditional adoptions as we know them today may be appropriate in certain circumstances and adoption innovations, such as open adoptions and term adoptions may have their own part to play in the mix.

Obviously, I didn’t express myself very well in response to this question and left my audience with a very different impression than the one I intended to convey. I apologise for that. I hope that this message will give your readers a better understanding of my position and that the policies I support are sensible and humane.

Perhaps I could paraphrase Kim Campbell's remark that an election campaign is no place to discuss policy. Perhaps an all candidates' meeting isn't either. I was disappointed that Ms. Smith didn't call me for a clarification of my remarks before publishing her rant. She might have realized that my ideas were far more subtle and quite different than the ones she suggested.

Peter Neville