Posted March 31, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: Parties
March 31, 2008, is the deadline for all political parties in BC to hand in their 2007 annual reports. This will be the best opportunity to look at the internal states of party finances before the lead-up to the election. There will be analysis here when the reports are available on the Elections BC site - available on April 1, 8:30am April 4, 9:00am.
Posted March 26, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: Analysis, Environment
The Mayor and Council of Fort Nelson, a town in the far northeast of the province, has called upon the government to give an exemption to northern communities from the carbon tax because they consider their fossil fuel consumption to be a non-discretionary expense given their geographical location.
The province is very unlikely to respond to their request, mainly because of how the legislation is structured - for example, according to the revenue neutrality aspects of the carbon tax, corporate and personal income taxes would decrease. There is no way that the province would also offer differing rates of taxation depending on the region.
The issue of the carbon tax is part of a larger issue which divides the province - the urban-rural split. Currently, the BC Liberals have 6 MLAs elected from the northern regions (considered to be roughly Prince George and above). Although two of these ridings (Peace River North, Peace River South) are safely BC Liberal ridings, the other ridings are contestable by NDP candidates. It should be noted that Peace River North and Peace River South were also both elected BC Reform party candidates in 1996.
A loss of 6 MLAs would result in the loss of a majority in the legislature (using 2005 boundaries).
The government has to be very careful at balancing the fine line between the urban and rural interests of the province. Currently their emphasis on environmental and aboriginal affairs has continued to marginalize the NDP, but at the possible expense of alienating rural voters.
I do not foresee this alienation resonating too deeply enough to harm the BC Liberal party’s chances for another majority government in 2009, but it is something to watch for.
Posted March 18, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: Polls
Link, Ipsos-Reid:
Nothing has really changed since the last data point:
BC Liberals 46%
NDP 34%
Green 16%
The poll was conducted March 5 to March 10, and consisted of 800 people.
In the 2005 election, the BC Liberals received 45.8% of the vote, the NDP received 41.5% of the vote and the Greens got 9.2% of the vote. The NDP’s performance in 2005 in terms of popular vote was better than all of their previous majority governments and is second best. Only in 1979 when Dave Barrett lost to Bill Bennett did the NDP receive more popular vote (46%) and the NDP still lost the election.
The NDP desperately need a right-wing split part in BC in order to be viable. So far, this isn’t happening. They also have their own left-wing split party to worry about, the Greens.
Posted March 17, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: Legislature
The NDP have managed to find a single topic to debate on - Ken Dobell. The first question in the last four days of question period included:
Government relationship with Ken Dobell
Government relationship with Ken Dobell
Government response to actions of Ken Dobell and Jessica McDonald
Government response to actions of Ken Dobell
It remains to be seen whether the Ken Dobell issue will “stick” with the public or not. Somehow I doubt it.
Five government bills came into the legislature. Two of these passed very quickly by the government and opposition:
The Housing Statutes Amendment Act; and
The Musqueam Reconciliation, Settlement and Benefits Agreement Implementation Act.
The other three bills are:
The Small Business and Revenue Statutes Amendment Act, which contains minor updates to the various provincial tax acts - this is unlikely to go through much scrutiny; and
The Labour and Citizens’ Services Statutes Amendment Act, which amends the employment standards act with respect to farm workers and updates provisions with respect to the Freedom of Information Act - this will go through a bit of opposition scrutiny as they have been using the FOI act to obtain information which to score points off the government from; and
The Transportation Investment (Port Mann Twinning) Amendment Act, which needless to say, is directly related to the Gateway project and will be a focal point of debate.
Finally, there was a motion in the legislature to approve the Electoral Boundaries Commission report for the revised electoral boundaries which respect the rural boundaries attached to the last appendix in the report; this means there will be 85 seats in the 2009 election up for grabs and this will get the parties scrambling to find 6 new candidates. The ramifications of this being approved are still to be fully analyzed by myself, and presumably the political parties.
The Legislature will be on a two week break for Easter.
Posted March 14, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: News, Olympics
Today, the Vancouver Province reported that the official airport of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics is… Vancouver International Airport!
This gave me a good laugh.
It would have been nearly as funny if it was Boundary Bay Airport.
Posted March 10, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: Legislature
The NDP continue to be without direction in question period - compare this to the House of Commons in Ottawa, where the Liberals have been consistently asking questions about Chuck Cadman-related issues.
We have the following first questions asked by the NDP:
Forest industry jobs in B.C.
Funding for school playgrounds
Services at Retirement Concepts seniors facilities
Government action on farmworker safety
The NDP have to realize that without following up or having a coherent plan with regards to their questions, they will not be able to accomplish their goal in opposition, which is making the government look bad.
There were a few significant pieces of legislation introduced - legislation concerning the electoral reform referendum in 2009, legislation concerning the governance of elector groups in municipal elections, and a change to the Forest and Range practices act. There is nothing too controversial in these pieces of legislation, although electoral reform proponents will no doubt be disappointed that the government funding toward public education of the referendum will amount to $500,000, which will buy a few brochures.
The big argument in the legislature was the motion to amend the format of the budgetary estimates - this was protested by the NDP heavily in that it would reduce the amount of debate significantly. The NDP tried using the “arrogant government” argument which may have traction if they actually keep it up. Judging by the lack of their cohesion in question period and in the media, I seriously doubt they will.
Posted March 2, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: Legislature
Question Period consisted of the following (first asked) topics:
Cleaning services at health care facilities
Services for children and youth
Koksilah Elementary School closing
Call for independent investigation into ICBC vehicle sales
Four completely different topics - looks like the NDP is still going nowhere in opposition.
NDP MLA Leonard Krog raised a point of order regarding the issue concerning the Basi and Virk trial. He was claiming that “the Premier knowingly misled the House on May 28, 2007, by stating that the Premier’s office was not involved in the review of documents when he knew that a process that included the Premier’s office was in place since 2004 and continued until at least 2007.” The speaker rejected the point of order and the breach of privilege accusation on a ruling Thursday. I would not expect this issue to disappear anytime soon.
Finally, the Supply Act (No. 1), 2008 (Bill 3) and Supply Act, 2007-2008 (Supplementary Estimates) (Bill 4) were introduced and went through Royal Assent after all the members granted approval in a single day. These bills are incidental to the budget and do not contain anything specific other than estimates of future expenditures.
I must confess that I thought the NDP would be stirring up more trouble than they have currently. Right now the only thing they are banking on is the outcome of the Virk-Basi legislature raids, but other than that they are a rudderless ship.