Premier insists BC is getting attention following TOIFA
Posted April 8, 2013 6:05 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Despite what the critics say, the premier insists BC is getting lots of media attention in India after hosting the Times of India Film Awards. An article published earlier in the Times of India newspaper made no mention of Vancouver, which hosted the event.
An update to the Times of India website, an article mentioning both Vancouver and BC Place has been published.
“You go through the picture gallery, every single picture says where they were,” says Premier Christy Clark. “And every article except the one you’re pointing to mentioned Vancouver.”
BC used $11 million of taxpayer money to host the awards show honouring the best in Bollywood, India’s extremely popular movie industry.
Clark says success of the Vancouver show shouldn’t be judged based on one article in the media.
“The money that we spent on it wasn’t just for the awards show, it was for all the marketing around that,” she says.
“Times of India reaches 90 million people a day,” she stresses.
“And they have been talking about British Columbia for months and months.”
Clark is reminding voters that events linked to the awards show included a global trade forum and a women-in-business forum.
About 40,000 people watched the event live at BC Place on the weekend, but the event has not been seen in India. It was recorded and is scheduled to air in about two weeks.
“There are going to be about 400 million people who watch that show and see Vancouver, and see British Columbia,” adds the premier.
“We need to put our province on the map with the fastest growing middle class in the history of humanity. 10-years ago we went to China, we’ve grown our trade with China by 1500%.”
And the premier is predicting “we are going to do the same thing over 10 years with India.”
She says the NDP laughed at the Liberal government’s efforts to open doors to trade with China, but that relationship helped keep workers in this province employed after the US economy tanked in 2008.
