NDP MLA Corky Evans is calling on the Campbell government to reinstate the Buy B.C. program and logo, the most successful food and beverage initiative ever jointly undertaken by the provincial government and the agri-food industry.

“The Buy B.C. program was initially launched in1993 but quickly dismantled in 2001,” said Evans, the Agriculture and Lands critic. “The program has proven tremendously successful at increasing consumer awareness of local food products.”

In 1993 the province developed, with industry, Buy B.C. to promote local food to consumers over imported products. It proved to be a benefit to the economy and to farming as a business and worked to replace subsidy programs and tariff law with free market consumer choice.

“Countless surveys have told this government what farmers, retailers and the Opposition already know – that British Columbians want Buy B.C. back,” said Evans. “However, this government has chosen to ignore the voice of the people by looking for a brand-new brand to start all over from the beginning.

“It's fiscally ridiculous, and it's impossible to justify. Farmers don't want some brand-new idea, they want what they know works. Farmers like what works, and they know that what worked was Buy B.C.”

During the years of the Buy B.C. program, B.C. was the only province in Canada that saw an increase in both the number of producing farms and the number of commodities that those farms produced.