The last week of the Legislature

Posted May 26, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: Legislature

This week will make the last week of the legislature - it will adjourn until potentially a fall session, but it is not known whether the government will hold one or not.

There are a lot of bills on the order paper which have not been discussed. Pursuant to the May 6, 2008 motion on notice, they will be be disposed of. This includes the following:

Bill 20 Oil and Gas Activities Act
Bill 21 Medicare Protection Amendment Act, 2008
Bill 24 E-Health (Personal Health Information Access & Protection of Privacy) Act
Bill 29 Environmental (Species & Public Protection) Statutes Amendment Act, 2008
Bill 32 Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement Implementation Act
Bill 37 Carbon Tax Act
Bill 42 Election Amendment Act, 2008
Bill 43 Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 2), 2008

Most controversial will be the Election Amendment Act, which will legislate the spending limits which has had a lot of heated debate in the media.

It is inevitable the NDP will scream about due process at the closure of all these bills without “proper debate”. In a majority government situation the debate does not change the inevitable (the bill gets passed), but they forgo the opportunity to embarrass the government in the process.

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Last week in the Legislature - May 20-23, 2008

Posted May 26, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: Legislature

Last week was a very special week in the Legislature - they sat during a holiday week and they also sat on the Friday. This was in response to the BC Liberal party forwarding a motion to add the four days in response to them wanting to pass many more bills though the Legislature before it closes on May 29.

The first question in question period for the four days were the following:

B.C. Ferries board remuneration
B.C. Lottery Corporation management of casino transactions
B.C. Lottery Corporation management of casino transactions
Retention and Recruitment of Corrections Officers

These questions did not gain the NDP much traction in question period, but an interesting moment was later on the May 23, 2008 question period where Stan Hagen was hammered on the issue of the BC Place roof - apparently there was a “deflation alert” earlier (May 14, 2008) where there wasn’t enough pressure in the stadium to keep the roof afloat.

The transcript is quite amusing to read. NDP MLA Norm Macdonald (Columbia River-Revelstoke) begins with a rather innocent-sounding question:

N. Macdonald: I have received information that the B.C. Place roof recently had a noticeable deflation and a deflation alert. Will the minister confirm that there have been recent problems with the roof of B.C. Place?

Obviously he’s got a good script - if the minister answers “no”, then he will provide the appropriate evidence showing that he’s either lying or is ignorant of what is going on. If the minister answers “yes”, then there will be some follow-up about “not informing the people” or something more nefarious.

The minister responds:

Hon. S. Hagen: I’m afraid the member opposite must have found some old newspapers because the deflation that took place was in December of ‘07.

Hagen just fell through a huge trap in the door here and received the following response:

N. Macdonald: PavCo has just confirmed that the alert took place. We’ve also been told that the roof deflation alert came on May 14, two days before the Premier and the minister held a news conference about the future of B.C. Place.

Now, I would assume, as the minister responsible, that his expectation is that he would be kept informed about anything that happens to the roof of B.C. Place, since that is the site of the opening of the Olympics and will be a venue viewed by over a billion people. So my expectation is that the minister would know about this.

Can he confirm that that roof is not dependable and that that roof is not going to be the sort of roof that we should have when the Olympics open and that the reason we cannot make a decision on that roof that is appropriate is because this minister has bungled another file and that we do not have time to make proper decisions about what should happen with the roof of B.C. Place?

After Hagen gave some rather stock responses as to the “record of the government” and such, the pack of NDP wolves smelled blood and started to pile onto Hagen, who by this point knew he was toast:

D. Chudnovsky: There was a deflation alert two days before the announcement. Was the minister aware of that or not?
…
S. Simpson: On May 14th there was a deflation alert on the B.C. Place Stadium roof. Was the minister aware of that alert? Yes or no.
…
H. Bains: The question is very simple. The minister should be on his file. The question is: there was a deflation alert issued on May 14 — does the minister know or not?
…
J. Kwan: PavCo has confirmed that two days ago there was a deflation alert at B.C. Place Stadium. Does the minister know of that alert or does he not?
…
M. Karagianis: Two days before the government made a report, on May 14 there was an alert of a deflation of that roof. Will the minister confirm that in the House today for us, please?

Shortly subsequent to this, Michael Sather’s question refused to play ball and asked a question about a death in Maple Ridge shortly before time expired. MLA Sather is on our suspected list of not running for the NDP again and instead will be going into municipal politics.

If the NDP could ask questions like this all the time in the Legislature, the BC Liberals would be in a lot more trouble. It was made painfully obvious that Stan Hagen had no idea that there was a so-called “deflation alert” in BC Place, which strongly implies that his portfolio had little to do with the decision to improve BC Place. This means that the Premier’s office took the entire job itself.

Will this result in an election issue? I could see the issue of BC Place being one.

No Comment Yet

Last week in the Legislature - May 12-15, 2008

Posted May 15, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: Legislature

This week in the legislature was filled with second reading debate on many bills, but nothing terribly exciting outside of question period.

In question period, we had the following first topics asked:

Government action on forest industry
Government action on forest industry
Government action on forest industry
Softwood Lumber Agreement

The theme is obviously on the forest industry. Wednesday’s question period was prominent since the same topic was asked three times over the past three days, plus the Premier himself stood to answer a couple questions, getting in his sound-bites for the cameras.

It’s difficult to tell the tone of questioning by just reading Hansard, but when you see a lot of “Interjections” and the speaker telling everybody to shut up, you can tell it’s a heated chamber.

The NDP are accusing the BC Liberals of doing nothing for the forestry industry and it is interesting to see whether it will actually stick or not. I know that the body of knowledge of the forest industry (e.g. how to operate sawmills, pulp and paper, etc.) is leaving in droves to get into a much more lucrative field - oil and gas.

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Last week in the Legislature - May 5-8, 2008

Posted May 15, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: Legislature

I’m a little behind, but oddly enough there was little going on in the Legislature other than including an extra week and forcing the closure of certain bills in the house. This did not bring up too much of a media stir.

Another decision was to split up the committee of supply into three houses - supply has been going slower than usual in this session, presumably because of the material the NDP wants to gather up for the next election campaign. Paying attention to the questions relating to the supply estimates would be wise for those involved in the campaign.

The question period included the following first questions:

Child in the Home of a Relative program
Child protection services
Disclosure of documents in B.C. Rail court case
Tree farm licence land removals on Vancouver Island

More lack of direction by the NDP.

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Last week in the Legislature - April 28-May 1, 2008

Posted May 4, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: Legislature

The legislature went back into session after a one week break. Questions from the NDP continued to be scattered and on the following topics -

Funding for school playgrounds
Funding for post-secondary education
B.C. Place roof replacement
Regional aboriginal authorities

I thought there was some traction on the issue of school playgrounds - clearly Prince George got more than its fair share of revenue (as this is the seat of the Minister of Education), but the NDP failed to get traction on this issue and link it with other geographical anomalies in government funding. The other questions made no traction.

It’s only until the opposition asks questions repeatedly, day after day, that you know they smell blood on an issue. Think of what happened during the sponsorship scandal with Paul Martin back in 2005.

Right now, there’s no blood in the Legislature. This can only be good for the BC Liberals.

The government has also been very busy moving bills into the Legislature. There won’t be enough time in the spring session to get all of these bills through royal assent simply because there are 12 days left in the legislature to debate.

Reading through all of these is incredibly difficult, but a summary of the legislation can be found in the bills, and also in the speech given by the minister when the bill is introduced.

Social Workers Act
Motor Vehicle (Banning Smoking When Children Present) Amendment Act, 2008 - A self-explanatory act.
Carbon Tax Act - Another self-explanatory act, implementation of the carbon tax.
University Amendment Act, 2008 - Ratification of what seemed to be six thousand universities that the Premier announced over the past week.
Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Vehicle Emissions Standards) Act - Adopting Californian standards for vehicle emissions.
Patient Care Quality Review Board Act
Insurance Amendment Act, 2008
Election Amendment Act, 2008 - Limiting third party financing.
Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 2), 2008
Protected Areas of British Columbia (Conservancies and Parks) Amendment Act, 2008

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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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