NDP Leader Tom Mulcair samples wine at a campaign stop at the Summer Hill Winery in Kelowna, B.C. on Tuesday, Sept.1, 2015Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press
Thomas Mulcair is promoting the NDP's plan to boost tourism as he tours British Columbia's wine country, a region hard hit by wildfires and drought.
Mulcair is promising to invest $30-million in Destination Canada over three years, as well as to reduce the small business tax rate to nine per cent from 11 per cent.
He says Prime Minister Stephen Harper cut $24-million from Destination Canada — formerly the Canadian Tourism Commission — while spending $800-million promoting his own government in advertising campaigns.
The NDP leader also says the number of Americans arriving in B.C. dropped 21 per cent between 2000 and 2014.
He's hoping to boost support in B.C.'s southern Interior, a largely Conservative region where the NDP made gains in the 2011 election.
Mulcair is also touting plans to boost training and equipment for emergency response amid one of the worst wildfire seasons in memory in B.C.
Fires have forced scores of residents to leave their homes this year.
At a rally Monday night in Penticton, B.C., Mulcair repeated a promise to restore funding to the joint emergency preparedness program.
"Just up the road in Oliver, there are 235 men and women fighting a wildfire that would cover almost half the area of downtown Vancouver," he said.
"They deserve a partner in government that will ensure they have access to proper resources and training."