The aftermath of the January 17 legislature session

Posted January 18, 2009 by Sacha Peter - Link
Category: Legislature Comments Off

I fell asleep before the legislature closed that day, and I suspect some of the clerks did as well (the last entry in the Hansard transcript was around 3:30am – (note this post was written about 1pm on January 18). However, apparently bill 47 did pass in the morning.

There are a couple things that are clear – the NDP has limited procedural tools to oppose the BC Liberals in the legislature, and filibustering is one of them. There were repeated times that BC Liberal members brought up points of order to tell the speaker to get the NDP members to talk about “on the topic” matters, but in doing so this caused more debate which prolonged the time it took for NDP members to speak in second reading.

The two parties had an interesting response to the marathon session.

BC Liberals: NDP Shows Dishonesty and Hypocrisy on Olympic Village – most notable in the press release was a quote of:

Among the debate lowlights was comments from NDP Nanaimo MLA Leonard Krog who equated giving Mayor Robertson and his council these tools as “rather like giving scissors to a small child.” (Hansard, Jan. 17).

As the only available Hansard script currently available is the Blues (a draft copy which they convienently say up top that “Use of this transcript, other than in the legislative precinct, is not protected by parliamentary privilege, and public attribution of any of the debate as transcribed here could entail legal liability”, the BC Liberals should hope that the final version represent these words accurately. That said, even small children have to learn how to walk with scissors one day. Or is the BC Liberals implying that Leonard Krog thinks Gregor Robertson and Vancouver City Council are small children?

Certainly when one watched the video of the debate at 12:00 to 1:00am (when I bothered to tune in), there were multiple comments from the government end that were clearly said just to insult the speaker. This was most effective on NDP MLA Sue Hammell, who should probably realize later in retrospect that such insults are designed to get the speaker to go “off message”.

The NDP had the following: Arrogance Inc.: Olympic Cost Overrun Edition with a corresponding report (local copy). The report is a parody with some amusing comics and other amusing anecdotes, but the NDP also commit the same error as quoting material from Hansard blues, and on the last page, they apparently are predicting a Monday sitting of the legislature, when they quoted:

Number of days the legislature has sat since May 2008: 5 (including the all-night session Jan. 18/19, 2009)

The all-night session was on January 17/18.

This is the result of political theatre written under sleep deprivation conditions, and it’s more amusing to read with the mistakes in them.

Will the day in the legislature or Bill 47 make any difference in the next provincial election? Unlikely. But it sure is entertaining for political junkies to see their elected politicians forced up at 4am in the morning delivering speeches that almost nobody is going to be listening to.