Cancelled fall legislature a disservice to public

VICTORIA - You’re getting short-changed by the Liberals’ decision to cancel the fall session of the legislature.
House leader Mike de Jong confirmed the government is pulling the plug on the session, which was to start Oct. 2 and run until the end of November.
The government has no legislation to pass, he said, so there’s no need. "We're not sitting just for the sake of sitting or passing laws just for the sake of passing laws," he said. "That's not how I measure a successful government."
Fair enough. More laws does not equal better government. In fact, sometimes the public would be well-served by fewer big new ideas from government.
But a successful government can be measured by its willingness to account for its actions and policies. And any government can be improved when MLAs - from all parties - have a chance to raise questions and concerns on behalf of their communities.
The Liberals are shutting down an opportunity for those kind of useful debates.
Gordon Campbell introduced fixed fall and spring legislative sessions in 2001. That was a useful improvement. In the past sessions had been called and ended at the whim of the party in power. When the heat got too much - either  summer heat or political heat - the government could shut the legislature down. The legislature only sat for 40 days in 1996, when the newly elected NDP government was taking a kicking over its false campaign claim of a balanced budget.
The Liberals hinted this might happen in last year’s Throne Speech, which said fall sessions were intended to deal with unfinished business from the spring.
Politically, the move probably makes sense. There’s a sharper focus on the government when the legislature is in session. The opposition uses Question Period each day to grill ministers about policies and problems, and reporters and columnists are watching closely. The government faces a daily risk of bad-news stories. (The Liberals deserve full credit for doubling the length of Question Period to 30 minutes, a major improvement.)
But cancelling the session brings another set of political problems. NDP leader Carole James was quick to accuse the Liberals of “running away from the public" and trying to avoid accountability. Anytime an issue emerges over the next few months James will be reminding people that the legislature could have worked at finding solutions if the sitting hadn’t been cancelled.
Leaving politics aside, the cancellation is a loss for the public. The accountability that the legislature provides is important. Without it, issues can be ignored and problems can fester.
Until last fall’s legislative session, for example, the government had insisted that everything was fine in the ministry of children and families, despite evidence of mounting problems that were leaving children at risk.
It took daily hammering by the NDP to force the government to admit that the system, battered by budget cuts and mismanagement, was in fact failing. Without the session, and the forum it provided, the Hughes inquiry and badly needed improvements might have been stalled. Children and families would have suffered as a result.
And while the focus is on Question Period, the legislature provides a forum for all MLAs - Liberals and New Democrats - to raise issues important to their communities.
There’s no shortage of issues. Communities across B.C. are struggling with homelessness, addictions and mental illness. Health care remains an issue. Forest-dependent communities are waiting for information on how the softwood lumber agreement will affect them. De Jong said that even with the cancelled session, the legislature will sit for a fairly typical number of days this year.
That’s not true. The legislature sat for 42 days in the spring. That will be the third fewest days sine 1991. The average for the last decade is about 63 days.
A much shortened session might have made sense. But the public, and MLAs, are poorly served by the decision to cancel the entire sitting.
Footnote: The legislature may be recalled for one day in the fall. A special committee is seeking a candidate to become the child and youth officer, a new advocacy and oversight position recommended by Ted Hughes in his report on child protection problems. If the committee comes up with a recommendation, the legislature would have to approve the choice.