Last week in the Legislature - April 14-17, 2008

Posted April 21, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: Legislature

Question period was punctuated by the events in Merritt. The first questions asked were the following:

Handling of domestic violence cases in justice system
Ferry fares
Funding for child protection services
Government action on domestic violence

The only issue that will resonate with people (mainly of Vancouver Island, which is still present an NDP stronghold) is ferry fares, but other than this, the NDP is once again without political strategy.

A flurry of bills were also introduced into the Leg:

Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2008
Local Government (Green Communities) Statutes Amendment Act, 2008
Wills, Estates and Succession Act
Environmental (Species and Public Protection) Statutes Amendment Act, 2008
Resource Road Act
Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Emissions Standards) Statutes Amendment Act, 2008
Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement Implementation Act
Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act, 2008

This leaves 16 bills left to reach third reading. As there are only 16 days left in the legislative calendar before the spring session closes, either the government will have to invoke cloture or will have to let some bills sit on the order paper until the fall session starts in October 6 (and the fall session, if it is held, will be for six weeks or 24 days of time). It is likely the government will pass the more politically contentious bills in the spring, and keep the “feel good” legislation (or the boring legislation, such as the Miscellaneous Statues Amendment Act) for the fall.

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Last week in the Legislature - April 7-10, 2008

Posted April 13, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: Legislature

The first questions in Question Period once again were fairly scattered. The topics were:

Funding for Royal Columbian Hospital
Homelessness
Deaths of children in Merritt
Investigation into tree farm licence land removals

So once again the NDP are directionless with their attacks - not surprising. It was surprising that such little press of the ICBC CEO resigning made its way into the house.

There were many bills introduced. A fair quantity were related to the health field, including:

Medicare Protection Amendment Act, 2008
Health Care Costs Recovery Act
Public Health Act
E-Health (Personal Health Information Access and Protection of Privacy) Act
Health Professions (Regulatory Reform) Amendment Act, 2008

I have not had time to read these 5 pieces of legislation.

Also, we have the following acts introduced:

Public Safety and Solicitor General (Gift Card Certainty) Statutes Amendment Act, 2008 - Self explanatory regulation dealing with gift cards.
Electoral Districts Act - Making the 85 electoral districts official.
Oil and Gas Activities Act - A huge piece of legislation creating an oil and gas commission in the province.

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Last week in the Legislature - March 31-April 3, 2008

Posted April 6, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: Legislature

Obviously the big news was John Les’ resignation, and this was reflected in the first question of question period. The topics of the four first questions asked last week were:

Police investigation of former Solicitor General
Investigation into ICBC vehicle sales
Investigation into ICBC vehicle sales
Funding for Royal Columbian Hospital

John van Dongen was appointed as acting solicitor general and his first answer in question period was:

I was appointed to this position about an hour ago, and I’m going to take the question on notice.

I’ve never seen somebody take a question under notice in question period before, so this was a rather ‘new’ procedure.

And on Wednesday, he came with a rather refreshing paragraph, on the issue of the ICBC used vehicle sales:

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for the question. I want to begin by confirming that the issues that have arisen at the research facility in Burnaby, operated by ICBC, are unacceptable. They’re unacceptable to our government. They’re unacceptable to me as the minister responsible. They’re unacceptable to the board and management of ICBC.

As minister responsible, on behalf of the government, on behalf of the board and management of ICBC, and on behalf of all of the employees of ICBC who were not involved in this activity, I want to apologize, first of all, to the purchasers of vehicles that may have been deficient or where there was improper disclosure. I want to apologize to all the people of British Columbia, who have a right to expect integrity within the operations of their Crown corporations.

The entire performance of John van Dongen has been nothing but exemplary in his first week in office.

Apparently on Thursday the big issue was health, but this will change again on Monday when the NDP will try to dissect the fallout concerning the resignation of ICBC CEO Paul Taylor and a fair chunk of the executives.

In terms of bills that were introduced, we have:

Utilities Commission Amendment Act, 2008 - Legislation that will require the BC Utility commission to consider other varaibles, such as electricity demand in the province. The key paragraph is the following:

(4) The commission, in accordance with subsection (5), must conduct an inquiry to make determinations with respect to British Columbia’s infrastructure and capacity needs for electricity transmission for the period ending 20 years after the day the inquiry begins or, if the terms of reference given under subsection (6) specify a different period, for that period.

Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Renewable and Low Carbon Fuel Requirements) Act - Self explanatory.

Greehnouse Gas Reduction (Cap and Trade) Act - Self explanatory.

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John Les resignation - Analysis

Posted April 1, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: Analysis, BC Liberals, NDP

How should the political parties play the John Les saga?

From the BC Liberal perspective -

It was an incredibly correct and timely decision to have an immediate resignation from office by John Les. One wonders what would have happened if he had another cabinet position (other than solicitor general) whether he would have done the same thing. Chances are John Les doesn’t know whether he will be charged or not - if the certainty of this is high then he will have no choice but to resign his seat in the legislature.

This is the extent of damage control that the BC Liberals can perform - Wally Oppal explaining the virtues of the criminal justice branch in question period is the best they can do.

If anything, this will distract attention away from the Ken Dobell case. For the BC Liberals, this is bad since the Dobell case is a dead issue for the NDP.

From the NDP perspective -

There are now two data points for the NDP to play with - the Basi-Virk case (if this indeed gets tied to elected officials) and now the Les case. Some other analysts will point to Ken Dobell as being a third data point, but this is a known quantity and will be irrelevant in 2009.

The Basi-Virk and Les case have uncertain outcomes and are not being exploited to full effect by the NDP, mainly because they do not know what will be happening. However, if they are playing for the maximum effect in 2009, they have to establish the timelines of each respective case - when Basi-Virk goes to trial and if/when Les gets charged (if this is the case). The NDP likely do not have any more information on the case than most of the public does, so they will have to take a gamble.

They have made allegations in question period (March 31, 2008) to the effect of:

M. Karagianis: Well, it is reasonable to think that the public deserve a better answer from this government than that.

For nine months the Solicitor General has been under investigation, and this government is claiming they’re completely ignorant of that. How many other cabinet ministers are currently under special investigation?

Did Karagianis have anybody in mind?

I don’t think the NDP know if anybody else is under investigation, but if they did some sort of directed accusation it would cause every media person in British Columbia to mine information relating to whatever that accusation might be.

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John Les resigns as Solicitor General

Posted April 1, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: Analysis, Scandal

Last Friday (March 28, 2008), John Les suddenly announced his resignation as Solicitor General due to allegations that he was under investigation by a special prosecutor pertaining to illegally benefiting from some land deals performed when Les was mayor of Chilliwack.

There was surprisingly little further disclosure from anybody else involved, which raised quite a few questions. The criminal process is known, so this leaves quite a few more questions.

During question period on Monday (March 31, 2008), it was exclusively about the Les resignation. We now know the following:

At 5:00pm, the Attorney General’s office was made aware that a special prosecutor from the criminal justice branch of BC has been investigating John Les since June of 2007.

From the criminal justice branch, we have the following quotation:

It is a general practice of the criminal justice branch to make an announcement of the appointment of a special prosecutor only if the matter is, in our judgment, already in the public domain and circumstances that necessitate such announcement to maintain the public’s confidence in the administration of justice.

The decisions to announce the appointment of a special prosecutor and the timing of those announcements are made solely by the branch without any involvement or influence of the Attorney General, Deputy Attorney General, or any other public official outside the branch.

This leaves the following question: What was the catalyst to announcing that Les was under investigation? Was this going to be going imminently into the public domain (i.e. charges will be pressed) or is it because of the “public confidence” clause?

Also, the 5:00pm on Friday timing is highly suspicious - normally politicians reserve this time to bury as much bad news as possible (especially if the Monday is a statutory holiday) - was there any political knowledge on when this information would become public domain?

I can’t tell whether there’s anything deeper here or whether the special prosecutor will be packing up shop and not announcing any charges.

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