I believe, as I think most people out there do, that it is the job of the government to govern. Governing is done from our provincial Legislature in Victoria. By abandoning the fall session Premier Campbell and his Liberal MLAs are telling British Columbians that they don’t want to govern.
Politics, and being accountable, is all about tough questions. It is so arrogant of Campbell to think that, as premier of this province, he can avoid tough questions by refusing to show up to work. Contrary to what the Campbell Liberals would like British Columbians to believe, there is plenty of work to be done in the Legislature this session.
For starters, First Nations leaders have been working for several years to get a key piece of legislation passed that would develop a legal framework for relations between the province and British Columbia’s First Nations peoples. This legislation could help remove much of the uncertainty around land use which has made businesses reluctant to invest in British Columbia. It would also give First Nations peoples greater financial security by enhancing revenue sharing agreements across the province.
On Saturday, Sept 13 the First Nations Leadership Council celebrated the first anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Declaration, which was overwhelmingly adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on September 13, 2007, with 144 States voting in favour of adoption (only 4 against including Canada), affirms basic standards for the survival, dignity and well-being of the indigenous peoples of the world. Now is the time for our government to show their support for this declaration by making legislative progress on First Nations issues.
We need to meet and debate where we need to go with our provincial Port strategy….there are many missing initiatives that our region must have as soon as possible…before we “miss the boat on port expansion” ….as this Premier was warned last year!
Yet, Campbell says there is nothing to be done.
Homelessness, affordable housing and a fair minimum wage are all issues that could be dealt with in a fall session. Yet, Campbell doesn’t want to face the outrage that people in this province have expressed about the massive wage increases he gave his top bureaucrats even as he continues to deny the lowest paid workers of this province their first raise in eight years.
Campbell doesn’t care about seniors on fixed incomes who are trying to do more with less; he doesn’t care about young people struggling to pay for skyrocketing tuition fees on a minimum wage that hasn’t increased in eight years, and he doesn’t care if what he does looks arrogant or undemocratic.
If there is nothing to be done, this fall, as the Campbell Liberals claim, then why did they hammer several pieces of vital legislation through the house in the spring? Campbell’s gas tax was rammed through into law with only ten minutes of debate. Maybe if Campbell had been in less of a rush to get his decrees passed, and had actually taken the time to listen to the concerns that New Democrat MLAs were trying to raise, he wouldn’t be spending millions upon millions of our tax dollars on commercials to convince us that spending more money at the grocery store and at the pump is good for us.
There are reasons why we have debate in the legislature. Even a majority government is expected to listen to the concerns and criticisms of the Opposition. The point of a democracy is not to elect an autocratic Premier, but to elect a government which carefully considers all options and listens to reasoned debate before moving forward with legislation.
The worst and most arrogant aspect of all of this is that Campbell actually introduced legislation for fixed dates for fall sessions. Like Stephen Harper, who broke his law of a fixed election date, apparently the rules are only meant to apply to those less deserving, not to premiers like Gordon Campbell.