Harper’s drug flyers a dishonest abuse of tax dollars

The federal Conservatives seem set on confirming many people’s worst fears with their sleazy, dishonest and just plain stupid direct mail pieces to millions of Canada homes.
And at the same time, they’re playing fast and loose with taxpayers’ money, pretending that partisan promotional material is legitimate communication between MPs and the public.
You’ve seen them. The flyers are cheap looking single sheets, with a picture or two of Steven Harper and a headline on some issue. Then there’s a ballot, with an arrow aimed at Harper’s name.
And the flyer likely came to your mailbox from some Conservative MP you’ve never heard of in another province.
MPs can send mail at no cost; the government compensates Canada Post. The intent is to let them keep their constituents informed. (You can write MPs without putting stamps on the envelopes too.)
But these aren’t information pieces. And they’re not going to the people MPs represent. They’re political ads, masquerading as legitimate communications.
A lot of people voted for Harper’s party because they were sick of seeing these kinds of abuses. They wanted a moral, conservative government that respected the rules and the need to spend taxpayers’ money responsibly. They expected better.
And other people voted for them because recent Liberal governments appalled them. Some worried a Conservative government might impose an aggressive social conservative agenda, but decided to trust Harper.
And a flyer that has attracted a lot of attention has made a lot of them figure that was a mistake.
It has a picture on the outside of a syringe laying a playground, and a big headline: “Safe?”
Inside, there’s a jail door and more headlines: “Junkies and drug pushers don’t belong near children and families. They should be in rehab or behind bars.”
The Liberals let thugs and drug pushers write the rules, the flyer says. The Conservatives will “keep junkies in rehab and off the streets.”
It’s really offensive, perhaps mostly because the flyer assumes Canadians are both dumb and lacking in basic compassion. While many Canadians might be sick of dealing with the effects of addiction, they are not stupid.
The language in the flyers tells part of the story. A junkie is someone you sweep off the street, into the garbage. An addict, someone with a mental illness, they are people – someone’s son or daughter. And most of us – most of the time – see that.
And the wording of “keep junkies in rehab and off the streets” is plain dishonest on two levels.
No party – including the Conservatives – has called for compulsory detention and treatment for people with addictions.
It wouldn’t work, it raises a slew of rights issues and Canadians wouldn’t stand for government round ups of thousands of people in B.C. alone.
The capital region has 1,500 to 2,000 injection drug users, and thousands more with other addictions. Would a Harper majority government send squadrons out to drag them all off to rehab?
And where, exactly, would they go? There are about 100 residential spaces for the entire Vancouver Island. How would the Conservatives increase treatment capacity 40 or 50 times?
While the government is promising to lock up thousands of people, addicts who want to get clean today and seek help are being told there is no space for them and sent back to the streets.
And this all came as Health Minister Tony Clement accused the Canadian Medical Association members of unethical conduct because the organization supports safe injection sites. All the legitimate research shows the sites reduce sickness and death and connect users with other services, including treatment. There are no negative consequences.
But Clement doesn’t like the idea, so Canada’s doctors are accused of acting unethically.
There is a lot to be said for a true conservative party – one that respects individual rights and taxpayers’ money and approaches problems pragmatically.
Too bad Canada doesn’t have one.
Footnote: It’s odd, really. The Conservatives’ dishonest flyers might be appealing to a minority who already would likely vote for them. But in the process, there are scaring away the voters Harper needs to win a majority – moderate Canadians who just want competent, pragmatic government.

Campbell’s raises a poke in eye for public

There is no way in the world Gordon Campbell can justify the giant pay increases just handed to government senior managers.
Not that he bothered to try.
No owner of private business would throw his own money around so irresponsibly. A corporate exec who did would be grilled by the board.
About 150 people are eligible the big increases. Assistant deputy ministers are in line for retroactive raises of 22 per cent, in one jump. The new top rate of pay for the job is $195,000.
Deputy ministers - the chief operating officers of ministries - are in line for 35-per-cent raises, taking them to $299,215.
And the deputy minister to the premier, the top manager in government, gets a 43-per-cent raise in pay scale, from $240,000 to $348,600. That's a $108,600 raise, equivalent to seven years of full-time work at minimum wage.
Organizations sometimes have to pay big money to get the best talent. That's why some NHL team will end up paying Mats Sundin $8 million a year to play hockey.
And market forces could apply equally to the need to pay a big premium to attract the best scientists, doctors - or managers.
But well-managed organizations only spend the money when they have to.
The Campbell government has offered no argument that it needs to send salaries skyward to attract competent people. The only justification offered in the news release on the increases was a desire to make B.C.'s pay scale for top managers one of the highest of any government in Canada.
In fact, the government didn't issue the release until a Friday after the increases had already taken effect. Campbell was off in China, unable to explain or defend the huge pay hikes. The best other government reps could do was note that not all senior managers would necessarily get the raises.
There was apparently some sort of salary review, but the government hasn't released it.
These are not catch-up increases, needed because pay scales have been neglected.
Managers have been getting raises every year. And just two years ago, the government announced major increases and the promise that the pay scales would stand until 2010.
In that round of raises, the top pay for deputy ministers was increased by nine per cent and for assistant deputy ministers by 40 per cent.
So, since the 2005 election the government has handed senior managers pay scale increases of 50 per cent to 70 per cent.
But there has been no evidence of high turnover or difficulty filling these positions. While some of the jobs are demanding, the compensation - before these extraordinary increases - put them in the top one or two per cent of wage earners. And many of the jobs don't pose the kind of challenges that justify the pay scale.
And the incumbents all took the jobs knowing what the pay scales were and presumably considering it acceptable.
The cost of the increases is estimated at some $4 million a year.
But that's just the start. The government increased pay for MLAs by 29 per cent - and the premier by 54 per cent - last year. Defenders of the increase noted that elected representatives were falling behind the bureaucrats. This opens the door for more increases.
And everyone working in government, starting with managers one level below, can now make the argument that they too need increases for just the same reasons.
The raises, and the way they were introduced, show a remarkable disdain for the public. Campbell had to know that there would be anger and concern.
Yet he made no effort to explain, defend or justify the extraordinary windfall for those at the top of the public service period. There was no indication that government even felt a need to justify its actions.
It's a far cry from the political party that campaigned in 2001 on the need for accountability and responsibility in spending taxpayers' money.
Footnote: The whole affair should be discouraging for the NDP, which has made a questionable pledge to roll back the increases. It suggests the Liberals feel they can thumb their noses at the public and still win next May's election.

Government stalling on broken police complaints process

It could have been funny, if it weren't such a serious issue.
B.C.'s police complaints process is broken. Four years after the police complaints commissioner started changes were badly needed to make the system work better, and 18 months after a review recommended 91 changes, the government hasn't acted to fix it.
So the B.C. Civil Liberties Association and other groups that help people who feel they have been wronged by police announced a boycott.
From now on, they will encourage people with complaints to sue the officers or force involved.
Police don't like the idea. Tom Stamatakis, head of the Vancouver police union, warned the court process would be costly and time-consuming. It would take too long to get decisions, he added. "By the time you get to an outcome, you lose the opportunity to learn from it."
Stamatakis should spend some time with Thomas McKay and his family.
On April 23, 2004, McKay was celebrating the end of the college year. He was arrested for causing a disturbance and being intoxicated in public. At the police cells, in handcuffs, he was pushed or tripped to the floor. He suffered a serious head injury.
McKay's father believed unnecessary force had been used. Within four days, he filed a complaint with the Victoria Police Department. That's the start of the current process.
But there are no timelines in the legislation. Victoria police didn't complete their internal investigation for 19 months - an inexplicable delay. The officer had done nothing wrong, the force found.
Police complaints commissioner Dirk Ryneveld examined the internal review and concluded further investigation was required. That's part of the process too.
He took only three weeks to ask for the review. But it took Victoria police 10 months to review their own investigation - and come back with the same conclusion.
That's 2 1⁄2 years, with little to show.
The police complaints commissioner still wasn't satisfied with internal review and ordered a public hearing on the complaint.
That began last month, more than four years after McKay's father went to police with a complaint his son had mistreated and injured. (The hearing was adjourned until fall because of McKay's continuing problems from his head injury.)
It's not likely the McKays would be buy Stamatakis' argument that the current system delivers results in a timely way.
The case is not an aberration. Delays are the norm.
Those aren't the only problems.
In February 2007, former appeal court justice Josiah Wood delivered a review of the complaints process the province had commissioned.
On a key point, his report pleased police. He didn't feel that B.C., like four other provinces, should create a separate investigative unit to deal with complaints.
Police could continue to investigate themselves, with officers from another department doing the review in some cases.
But he also recommended 91 changes.
Woods also audited 294 complaints against the 11 municipal police departments covered by the provincial policy as part of his review. (RCMP detachments, even those providing municipal policing, do not accept the province's complaint process.)
He found 19 per cent of the complaints had not been properly investigated. In some cases, complaints that clearly should have been upheld were dismissed.
The more serious the complaint, the greater chance of a flawed or incomplete internal review by police.
Wood's audit found, for example, that 38 per cent - more than one-third - of complaints that police used excessive force weren't properly investigated.
The finding makes it hard to accept the recommendation that police should continue to investigate themselves.
What's even harder to accept is the government's inaction on Wood's recommendations and the changes sought by Ryneveld.
With a fall legislative session unlikely, change could be put off until next year, 2010 or indefinitely.
We ask police to do a tough, sometimes dangerous job and give them considerable powers. It's necessary that their be a process to guard against abuse of those powers.
And in B.C., that process isn't working.
Footnote: The RCMP won't accept the B.C. complaints process and its own is hopelessly inadequate. Those who feel they have been wronged can complain to the RCMP Commission for Public Complaints. But the commission relies on the RCMP's own investigation and the top Mountie routinely rewrite its reports to eliminate criticism of officers' actions.

Kindergarten for three-year-olds a great idea

I've been doing newspapering work for quite a few years, in quite a few places. It's like building sand castles below the tide line in some ways. The best column is forgotten in a few days.
But ask me what I'm proudest of, and I can answer in a flash. It started with a column and ended with a letter from a premier.
Columns can come easily. This one did. I was standing outside a school portable on a freezing day in a suburb of Saint John. (The one in New Brunswick.)
I'd lined up to register our ferociously bright daughter for a great kindergarten.
New Brunswick was and is a have-not province. Kindergarten wasn't part of the school system. If you wanted your child to go, you had to pay.
And I looked at the line of parents, and thought this was crazy. We were affluent and had been able to give our kids a lot already. Now, we were setting them up for success when they started Grade 1.
But in Saint John's scruffier neighbourhoods, or in rural communities, the children who really could benefit from kindergarten didn't get the chance.
Imagine how awful it would be to show up for the first day of Grade 1 and find out a bunch of the other kids - the ones who had been to kindergarten - knew what to do, and you didn't. You're six. You figure you're just not as smart.
That was the column, and it was good. I was in charge and our papers kept on writing about public kindergarten.
I left Saint John for a job in another province. But a few months after I'd headed down the road, New Brunswick introduced public kindergarten for all five-year-olds. And Frank McKenna, the premier of the day, sent a kind note saying that when he had wavered on the change - an expensive hit for a poor province - he had reread some of the pieces from our newspaper.
Which leads, in a twisty way, back to B.C. In the throne speech in February, Gordon Campbell committed the government to "assess the feasibility and costs of full school day kindergarten for five-year- olds."
Campbell also promised a look at much more aggressive agenda - optional day-long kindergarten for four-year-olds by 2010, and for three-year-olds by 2012.
It was a bold commitment. But the government appears to be taking a serious look at a great new approach to early childhood education.
Research from the jurisdictions around the world that have tried such early schooling has been overwhelmingly positive. Children benefit academically and socially and the results are long-lasting. Almost all children make gains, but the help is greatest for those kids who start with disadvantages.
Which shouldn't be surprising. A child who grows up in an affluent home, perhaps with a stay-at-home mom, with parents who have experienced academic success, has a lot of advantages heading into school. Those children have likely done art classes and reading groups and already made a lot of progress.
A kid from a poor home, perhaps with parents who don't read all that well themselves, is likely to have much tougher time in those first critical years in school.
The Education Ministry is seeking public comments on the idea. (You can participate; the website is www.bced.gov.bc.ca/ecla/.) There's been big interest and the deadline has been extended to Aug. 15.
It's a big project and there are lots of questions, like who would teach and what it cost to provide places for 80,000 thee and four-year-olds.
Perhaps the program could start in a targeted away - offered wherever schools consistently perform poorly on FSA tests, for example.
But this is an opportunity to build a brighter future for the province and give a lot of children a better chance to the most of their abilities.
Footnote: Her's one sign the government is serious. The Education Ministry, which had effectively encouraged school closures through its funding program and by requiring districts to come up with large chunks of cash for capital projects, has now told school districts to hang on to underused properties in case space is needed for new kindergartens.

Innovation in severance, anyway

Les Leyne continues to mine the salary disclosure forms for public sector agencies and discovers that the B.C. InnovationCouncil devoted almosthalf its salary budget to severance payments to executives, including a CEO who only lasted seven months and manager who resigned voluntarily but got severance anyway.
Read it here.

Government’s attack on mentally disabled a moral failure

There's room for disagreement on lots of policy issues.
But when government passes a cabinet order so it can abandon people with developmental disabilities to the streets - or worse - that's just callous, and irresponsible.
We're not talking about borderline cases.
These are people who, by the government's own assessment, need support in making their way in life and face face terrible risks without it. Two court decisions have found the government has a legal duty to them.
But, on the recommendation of Premier Gordon Campbell and Children's Minister Tom Christensen, cabinet issued an edict this month that freed it from obeying the court rulings.
The issue is straightforward. The government has passed laws setting out its responsibility to help people who are genuinely unable to make their way in this world.
But the cabinet didn't really want to provide the support.
So an arbitrary rule was created. No matter how badly a developmentally disabled adult might need assistance, no matter how severe the problems or clear the looming disaster, if he scored 70 on an IQ test, he was cut off services.
Parents could spend years fighting for help for a young person with mental handicaps and serious problems - autism, FASD, emotional trauma. The support - social workers' time, housing, work programs - could be working, giving hope to all involved.
Everyone - doctors, counselors, family, social workers - might agree the young person couldn't make it on his own. They might even agree that without support he would be a danger to others, destined for the streets or jail.
But despite all that, the government said the magic IQ score of 70 absolved it of all responsibility. The same rule denied help for older people with disabilities when their parents, some in their 70s or 80s, could no longer provide the needed support.
A IQ of 70 to 80 puts a person in the bottom 10 per cent of the population in mental functioning. In a competitive society like ours, that's a big disadvantage. Add other problems and the situation is dire.
That's what the courts found when a Victoria mother challenged the policy. Her adoptive son, whose IQ was just over 70, had been receiving intensive daily support. Without it, the agency's own psychologist warned, the young man's disability, FASD, autism and other problems would make him a threat to himself and others in the community.
But Community Living B.C., the agency delivering services to the developmentally disabled on behalf of he government, said it would him he turned 19.
The B.C. Supreme Court ruled the arbitrary IQ cutoff violates the law setting up Community Living B.C., which said it was to provide needed services to help people independently. It didn't say needed services, unless the person scored over a certain level on an IQ test. The government challenged the decision in the B.C. Court of Appeal and lost.
The courts noted the government could pass a cabinet order exempting itself from the requirement.
But Christens said that would be wrong. A solution would be found.
But the cabinet shuffle took responsibility for services to adults with disabilities away from Christensen and handed them to the new Housing and Social Services Minister Rich Coleman.
Wrong became right and Christensen and Campbell signed the edict giving the government the right to deny help based on an IQ test.
Coleman says it's a temporary measure. Another pending lawsuit meant the government had to do something.
Which is rubbish. The lawsuit could have been delayed with an interim promise of continued services. The government consulted no one before making the change, which it didn't announce publicly.
And it has had two years since the court ruling - and five years since cabinet minister Linda Reid acknowledged the arbitrary IQ standard was wrong and should be changed - to deal with the issue.
Now people with serious disabilities, who could live successful lives, are being punished terribly for the government's.
It's one thing to disagree with government policies - that kind of debate is normal and healthy.
But this is a question of morality. The government, for no good reason, has placed itself above the law and chosen to make people whose lives are already difficult suffer
Footnote: Coleman and Campbell didn't consult the B.C. Association for Community Living, the Children and Youth Representative or anyone else on the change. Coleman's bleak record as a cabinet minister has been attributed in part to a failure to consult with those directly affected by government decisions. This decision has added to fears about his new role of minister for gambling, alcohol sales, welfare, the disabled and housing.

Poor people and lottery tickets

A comment on the gambling post - see below - included a link to this interesting study that looked at why the biggest buyers of lottery tickets are the people who can least afford to waste the money.

B.C.'s online gambling plan means more problems

The nice people at B.C. Lotteries have just offered me $5 to try online gambling.
"Pay for Play Promo Cash," they called it in the e-mail. If I go online to gamble, the corporation will match the money I spend up to $5.
The Crown corporation's marketing people are just doing their job. It has a goal of recruiting more gamblers every year and increasing the average amount each one loses. That's how the business grows.
But it seems risky - or perhaps just destructive - to try and lure people into online gambling, with its great risks of addiction or problem gambling.
Especially for this government. In opposition Gordon Campbell opposed gambling because it destroyed lives and families and created a province of "losers." The party promised to halt gambling expansion.
And then did the opposite, including the introduction of Internet gambling in 2005.
It's a risky kind of kind of gambling to be promoting through e-mails sent to thousands of people like me.
A study released last week found online gamblers "play" more frequently and bet more aggressively than those who go to casinos. The study, by professors from the University of Western Ontario and the University of Nevada, found Internet gambling participants gambled much more frequently and risked more than people who went to casinos or bought lottery tickets.
Their gambling was easier to hide from family and friends and more likely to become part of their daily routine.
All in all, a higher risk activity with a greater likelihood of problems for the gamblers and their families.
The study concluded that governments should consider getting into the business, perhaps in partnership with casino companies, to protect gamblers from the risks of semi-legal Internet betting sites.
That might justify B.C. Lotteries early ventures into Internet gambling.
But the study raises some questions at the same time, starting with the wisdom of trying to offer cash to people to come online and bet.
B.C. Lotteries sets targets for the number of new gamblers - people who bet in some way each month - that it wants to recruit. Those have been public, part of the corporation's service plan, until this year.
Last year, for example, the corporation planned to use ad campaigns and promotions to recruit 240,000 new regular gamblers in B.C. (In fact, the number of gamblers dropped as a result of the scandals that hit the corporation.)
The government sets out to lure people who had stayed away from gambling and into buying lottery tickets or putting money into slot machines down at the local bingo hall.
Or into gambling online, a kind of betting that attracts younger participants.
B.C. Lotteries has set some significant limits to reduce the potential damage from its Internet gambling. Participants can't transfer more than $120 a week into their gambling accounts, so an individual's losses are limited to $6,240 a year, assuming he hasn't managed to set up one or two accounts in other peoples' names.
The corporation has controls to ensure gamblers are 19 and bar themselves from future betting on the site.
But the study suggested greater safeguards: Cross-checking new users with a list of pathological gamblers; having the site send messages when people have lost a lot of money or are playing long hours; and clear and large numbers on screen to tell the gambler how much he had lost during a betting session.
More fundamentally, it recommended government-controlled Internet gambling as a necessary evil. If people wanted to bet online, better it was regulated.
That's different than setting out to persuade people who otherwise wouldn't gamble that they should start betting.
Online gambling hasn't worked that well for B.C. Lotteries. The goal was to hit $18 million in revenue last year, but it fell short at $14 million. But the corporation still hopes people will be betting $48 million a year by 2010.
And some of that money is going to come from individuals and families who really can't afford to join Campbell's club of "losers."
Footnote: B.C. Lotteries online offerings include Keno and round-the-clock sports betting as well as "interactive games." These involve bettors, by letting them do things like click on balls to try and keep them aloft. But the clicking is actually meaningless in terms of the outcome, which is determined by a computer as soon as the bet is placed. Like the whirring and spinning of slot machines, it's just a way of keeping people involved so they lose more money.

Cabinet betrays young disabled adults who badly need help

I'll deal with the issue in a column, but here's the first response from the B.C. Association of Community Living to cabinet order signed by the premier that's disastrous for disabled people in the province who badly need support.
Two court rulings have rejected a government edict denied support to people with IQs of 70 or above, even if they were assessed as needing help.
So cabinet, instead of its obligations, simply passed an order exempting the government from its own rules.


BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: GOVERNMENT QUIETLY TURNS ITS BACK ON VULNERABLE YOUTH

New Westminster, B.C., July 23, 2008 - The BC Association for Community Living (BCACL) is deeply concerned by recent changes made by the provincial government to the regulations of the Community Living Authority Act, in regards to I.Q. eligibility requirements. This is the Act and regulations that guide the work of Community Living BC (CLBC), the crown corporation that is responsible for supports and services to people with developmental disabilities in BC.

Faced with a second court case filed by the Community Legal Assistance Society (CLAS) on behalf of a youth who did not meet CLBC's eligibility criteria based on I.Q., the provincial government has changed the regulation to enshrine an I.Q. of 70 or below as a criterion for receiving services. The change was made without any community consultation or notice.

This effectively means that those youth with significant social or behavioural issues - in particular young adults with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) or autism who have an I.Q. over 70 and who require individualized support - are left to fend for themselves. Too often this is resulting in youth being forced to leave a safe home and at worst, the criminal justice system becomes the default support system.

Community advocates have been unanimously urging government, across all ministries, to move away from traditional psychological assessment tools that focus on I.Q. and to develop mechanisms that effectively and equitably assess individual needs. Instead of resolving the issue, the government, with the stroke of a pen, has removed any hope of recourse for families who are desperate for services for their young adult children. This is devastating for many families.

"This regressive step by the government is only a further example of the sweeping changes that happen behind closed doors, without any community consultation and at the expense of those most vulnerable," says Laney Bryenton, BCACL Executive Director. "It is completely unacceptable that vulnerable youth will be denied the services they so desperately need to achieve independence."

 

Big pay for small executive jobs at B.C. Rail

Among the surprises in last week's release of figures on management pay in the B.C. public sector was news that the B.C. Rail CEO Kevin Mahoney received $570,000 in total compensation to run a business with $18 million in revenues, fewer than 30 employees and not much to do.
Sean Holman has been on the story over the last week and Les Leyne weighs in with a column in today's Times Colonist.

The unofficial official 2010 theme song

I caught Geoff Berner up at the Vancouver Island Music Fest a couple of years ago and was impressed with his quirky, biting songs and sharp wit.
He's written a theme song for the 2010 Games, with one of those infectious choruses that will be sure to get you singing along. Check it out at his website..

Watchdog finds bungling, negligence in forest deal that enriched company

After the auditor general's devastating report on the government's incompetence and negligence in removing vast tracts of prime Vancouver Island land from a tree farm licence, things shouldn't have got much worse.
Within hours, they did.
Current Forests Minister Pat Bell responded to the report as if he hadn't read a single word.
Instead of accepting the recommendations, or offering a fact-based rebuttal, he attacked Auditor General John Doyle, an Australian chosen for the independent post by a unanimous vote of the legislature. "If Mr. Doyle thinks this is the way we do business in Canada, he's dead wrong," Bell blustered.
It was a lame attempt to divert attention from the most damning auditor general's report since the fast ferry scandal.
And a written response from the ministry, while it raised some sound points, did nothing to refute the auditor general's main findings.
Last year, then forests minister Rich Coleman handed Western Forest Products a big gift. The international corporation wanted the government to release 70,000 acres, including prime real estate along the coast of Victoria, from tree farm licences.
The land had been protected as working forest and managed under the same rules as Crown land. In return, the government had provided extra harvesting rights on Crown land.
Getting the land out of the tree farm licence meant up to $200 million in windfall gains for WFP, which could sell it for real estate development, export more raw logs and work to lower environmental standards.
But for communities, the change meant loss of wildlife habitat, green space and other economic opportunities.
All development planning became irrelevant when Coleman signed the deal and what had been 280 square kilometres of protected green space was opened for subdivisions.
The auditor general found Coleman made the decision without knowing how much the deal was worth to the corporation. He didn't seek compensation - normal in such deals - because he wanted to company to get all the benefits.
Coleman thought Western Forest Product needed the money to strengthen its balance sheet.
But he didn't how much it needed, or whether other sources besides the taxpayers were available or what Western Forest Products would do with the windfall.
And he made the decision without any consultation with affected communities or other stakeholders and without information on the costs to the public.
Coleman got a five-page briefing note from the ministry and said OK. He's never offered any explanation beyond saying the company needed the money and supporting it was good for the coastal forest industry. But Coleman could never produce an analysis or cost-benefit study to justify the decision.
In fact, the auditor general asked Coleman for a meeting as part of his reviews so he could understand the minister's thinking. Coleman refused. (Which makes Bell's bluster more ridiculous.)
The auditor general found the removal was made "without sufficient regard for the public interest."
The government failed to do the most basic due diligence to see if the company really did need assistance.
And the watchdog found the government failed to make any effort to assess whether the gift to the corporation would be of any public benefit, whether in protecting forest jobs or in some other area.
Coleman had made the decision based on a five-page briefing note, which Doyle found was "incomplete" and "did not make a persuasive case for allowing the land removal."
The option of compensation wasn't even considered in the material.
"There was no explanation of how allowing the land removal was in the public interest," the report found.
And Coleman was ultimately responsible.
"The minister was the final check in the process and the statutory decision-maker but, given the importance of the decision, he did not do enough to ensure that due regard was given to the public interest," the auditor general concluded.
It's a devastating report, one that finds both incompetence and negligence.
Footnote: Bell's bizarre reaction included a complaint that there were no recommendations in the report, as if a call for basic competence and diligence was not enough.
Coleman's place in cabinet should be in count as a result of the report, particularly given the sensitivity of his new role responsible for welfare and services for the disabled.
Premier Gordon Campbell also faces some tough questions about his role.

AG finds Coleman, government failed to protect public interest while enriching forest company

The auditor general's report on the government's decision to remove 70,000 acres of private land from tree farm licences on southern Vancouver Island to clear the way for real estate development offers a brutal critique of an incompentent process. Former forest minister Rich Coleman failed in his duty to protect the public interest, the auditor general found.
I'll have something up this evening, but in the interim there's a Times Colonist editorial here and a Les Leyne column here.
Both are well-worth reading.

Khadr video confirms Canada’s disgrace

Most of us haven't paid much attention to the case of Omar Khadr, the Canadian captured by U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan in 2002.
Khadr, then 16, was shot twice in the back during the fight; the Americans believe he threw a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier.
Since then, he's been a prisoner, mostly at Guantanamo Bay, the detention centre the U.S. set up in Cuba to escape its own and international laws on the treatment of prisoners.
Other western countries, including Britain and Australia, have repatriated their nationals from Guantanamo because of concerns about prisoner abuse and the lack of rights.
Canada, even though Khadr was a boy when he was captured, hasn't made any effort to bring him here to be dealt with in our courts.
And the Canadian government has insisted that it was monitoring the situation and Khadr was being treated humanely.
That probably reassured a lot of people, who then felt they didn't need to think much about the case.
Khadr said he was tortured, but both the Liberal and Conservative governments said everything was fine.
Except the Canadian government lied to us.
CSIS and Canadian Foreign Affairs officials questioned Khadr in 2003 and 2004, when he was still not old enough to vote here.
The government knew then that the Guantanamo interrogation experts had decided to soften up Khadr before the Canadian officials arrived.
For three weeks, the teen was moved to a different cell of holding area every three hours night and day. That's three weeks with no real sleep or human contact.
I'm no expert in international law. But I'm a parent, and if a child of mine were treated that way, I'd call it torture.
And I'd certainly call any government that said the treatment was "humane" both dishonest and morally bankrupt.
The U.S. interest in Khadr is understandable. His parents were Islamic extremists who lived in Toronto and Pakistan. His father was killed in an anti-terrorist raid in 2003. Omar played with Osama bin Laden's children.
When he was captured, less than a year after the attack on the World Trade Centre, the U.S. was desperate for any information on bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
So interrogators started questioning the 15-year-old as soon as he regained consciousness in a U.S. military hospital at Bagram in Afghanistan.
The first U.S. interrogator told Michelle Shephard of the Toronto Star that it was "neat" to watch Khadr's vital signs change on the life support machines as he answered questions.
Humane treatment, says the Canadian government.
Khadr's interrogators at Bagram included U.S. Sgt. Joshua Claus, later convicted of maltreatment and assault in the killing of another prisoner - an innocent Afghan taxi driver - during questioning. Claus says he didn't torture Khadr; censored statements by Khadr suggest he did.
Given that governments lied about humane treatment, it is hard to accept claims that Khadr was not tortured.
This week, the videos of the Canadian officials questioning of Khadr were released by court order.
They show no torture.
But they do show what you would expect: A scared 16-year-old, trapped indefinitely in a detention centre, threatened and sleep-deprived, who thinks the Canadian officials are there to rescue him.
He soon learns that's not true. The hidden camera captures him pleading with them to "Help me" or "Kill me." The words aren't clear.
The bare facts should shame Canadians. A child soldier brainwashed by his parents - anyone who knows 15-year-olds knows they are mostly big kids - is captured.
The evidence on whether he threw the grenade is uncertain.
He's abused and says whatever his captors want to hear.
While Guantanamo Bay prisoners from every other western nation are repatriated, Canada won't ask for Khadr's return and questions him - after three weeks of abuse - and turns the results over to the U.S.
And the federal government - under both the Liberals and the Conservatives - lies to Canadians about Khadr's treatment and won't make the simple effort to have him returned here to face a legitimate court.
Footnote: The video released this week made headlines around the world. Most of the coverage focused on the abominable treatment Khadr had received, the pathetic state he was in and the Canadian government's inexplicable failure to do the right thing.

Are we selling off gas resources too cheaply?

Six months into the year, and the B.C. government has sold almost $1 billion worth of gas leases.
That’s just short of the record total for all of 2007. Which on one level is good news. The $970 million collected so far will pay for services or be put toward the province’s debt. On the other hand, we’re making a lot of money selling off non-renewable assets. It’s a bit like like a farm family who decide to sell more and more of the property to cover today’s bills, until there is nothing left for the next generation.
The companies will pay royalties to the province on the gas they pump out of the ground, if their search is successful.
But those too are finite - the money will only flow into the provincial coffers as long as the gas flows from the wells. Then what happens? And the topic of royalties raises a whole other issue. One reason the companies are buying leases and licences in B.C. is because we’re selling off the gas more cheaply than Alberta, our main competitor. We’re charging about seven per cent less than our neighbour, according to one industry expert.
And that’s because last year Alberta decided the public should get a larger share of the record profits energy companies are making. After independent reviews found the province was not getting a fair price for the oil and gas under the ground, Alberta’s Conservative government raised its royalty rates.
B.C. had a similar royalty plan, perhaps a little more generous to the companies to encourage development. But the government hasn’t raised rates here to get a better deal for the public.
Last month, B.C.’s deputy minister for oil and gas told an industry conference in Calgary that the only changes B.C. is considering are incentives - royalty cuts - to encourage companies to invest in infrastructure and deeper wells. The comments won a round of applause.
One problem in all this is that governments face a conflict of interest. Natural gas royalties are forecast at $1.2 billion this year, on their way to topping corporate taxes as a revenue source. The industry provides a lot of good jobs. All governments are always looking ahead to the next election. That means there is an incentive to sell off resources now, at the expense of the future. The lease sales are done by auction, so the companies are paying the going rate. But setting royalty rates - the cut the government takes when gas is taken from the ground - is just as subjective as setting a price for a used car you want to sell.
Make them low, and you can encourage more development now. But if they’re too low, the resource is sold too cheaply and the public loses out. (There’s no need for haste. The gas is likely to get more valuable with each passing year.) That’s why Alberta raised its rates. The government received two public reports - one from an independent panel of experts and another from the province’s auditor general - that found it was selling off energy resources too cheaply, shortchanging the public by up to $2 billion a year. The B.C. government hasn’t done that kind of review.
As you read this, some communications staffer is probably writing a letter Energy Minister Richard Neufeld will sign that points out - rightly - that royalty cuts have resulted in much greater gas development. The letter will also likely say that the Energy Ministry regularly reviews royalty levels to make sure they’re appropriate. But if you ask to see those reviews, you won’t get them. And there simply has not been an independent, open review like those the Alberta government conducted. An independent royalty review would make good sense. So would a heritage fund - a place to set some of these revenues aside for the future.
Partly, that’s simply prudent. These are non-renewable resources. It’s risky to build government spending on revenue that might not be there for our children. And a heritage fund would reduce the temptation for governments to grab the cash and jobs now, even if it means selling resources too cheaply. Footnote: A coalition of environmental groups called for the establishment of a heritage fund in 2004. And the B.C. Progress Board, a business-oriented body set up by Premier Gordon Campbell to provide advice, called for the province to look at setting up a heritage fund for a share of oil and gas revenues in 2005.

For kids in care, a court date is more likely than a grad dance

Bob Ritchie is one of the interesting people I only know because I write a column. We've never met, but he's a prolific writer of letters to the editor and e-mails to politicians and journalists.
Ritchie lives in Qualicum; he's 78 and worked for B.C. Hydro, in an office job.
And he cares passionately about a lot of issues, from the need for a tougher stance on crime to what he sees as a crisis in the state of children and families in B.C. He looks at life in the province, and the future, and doesn't like what he sees.
I don't always agree with Ritchie, but I admire his commitment and bold approach to solving problems, and always read his e-mails with interest.
So do a lot of other people. A quick bit of research found he had raised issues publicly some 60 times in the last 12 months, with letters to the editor in papers around the province or mentions in columns or news stories. (And that is in what has been a very tough year for him personally.)
And I respect him. He gave me a shot this week, an e-mail with this subject line: "Paul please show me that you really care. I would sure like to get more out of reading your articles. You have seemed to have lost interest. Bob."
Ouch.
I haven't lost interest. It does get exhausting being fierce all the time, as Ritchie expects. It takes a lot of research to build an airtight argument. And I don't want to seem like a crabby nag.
But Ritchie is right. It is important to keep raising the issues that really matter.
Which leads, in a roundabout way, to a speech by Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond last month.
The province's Representative for Children and Youth offered a preview of a massive research project that tracked the lives of 50,000 children born in B.C. since 1986.
The first results confirmed Ritchie's point that we need to do so much better. The data showed, Turpel-Lafond said, that children taken into the government's care were more likely to end up charged with a crime than to graduate from high school.
Think about the teens you know. How many end up facing in trouble with the law?
For adolescents receiving services from the Ministry of Children and Families, 44 per cent end up facing criminal charges.
More than one-third of children in care tracked by the study ended up serving time in jail. That shows major problems, given how hard the courts work to keep young people out of prison.
Of course, children in care very often start off with some big handicaps. Fetal alcohol effect (a big concern of Ritchie's), learning disabilities, emotional problems from neglect or abuse, or health problems from a rough infancy - these are going to take their toll.
Still, are their years in care improving their chances of success - of graduating from high school, instead of into the criminal justice system, for example?
For some youths, certainly. But the statistics suggest not for most of the children in care.
There are lots of areas for improvement. But there's a basic principle behind the failures.
Lots of kids only graduate from high school because their parents encourage, push and grind them. If they skip school or bring home a dismal report card, their parents lean on them any way they can. And the kids make it.
And lots of teens get in the same kind of scrapes with the law that kids in care do. But their parents sweep in and pull them back from the brink. They provide the support the courts are looking for when deciding whether to divert the case to some resolution outside the criminal justice system.
Not kids in the government's care. We've decided not to care enough about them.
OK, Bob?
Footonote: Practically, children in care as young as 13 end up with little support if things go sideways.
Foster parents can't track them and the ministry doesn't know what's going in their lives.
Turpel-Lafond notes almost 600 teens in care, as young as 16, are on "independent living" agreements, living in rooms or cheap apartments on their own. It is a formula for bad choices and worse outcomes.
The full report is to be released this fall.

Hospital food, blogging and politics

My column today in the Times Colonist takes a look at an online campaign for better hospital food and the effective use of the web by a Langley township councillor, as well as musing a bit about the ways the Internet and free software like blogger have opened doors for people concerned with politics and policy.

A great weakness in the carbon tax sales job

I filled up the Neon on the way home Monday, saving about 70 cents by avoiding the carbon tax that kicked in Canada Day. The service station was doing a booming business.
Which suggests that the Liberals' carbon tax works. If people are topping up the tank on a sunny afternoon to avoid paying the 2.3-cents-a-litre tax, then maybe we'll make other changes. We'll bike to work or share a ride one day a week, or cut down on the number trips to the stores on a weekend.
The carbon tax is one of the most interesting public policy issues in a long time, exposing a lot of contradictions.
Premier Gordon Campbell has been cast as the green defender, the champion of social engineering and government's wisdom.
And NDP leader Carole James has aligned with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation in opposing the Liberals' carbon tax.
The NDP stance looks mostly like political opportunism. The NDP favours a carbon tax levied at the wholesale level, not retail. Instead of 2.3 cents at the pump, the tax would be hidden in the cost of gas. Not much of a difference.
The New Democrats are on stronger ground when they note that big industries that release greenhouse gases without burning fossil fuels are exempt from any taxes on their emissions. (Like energy companies that flare off gas from wells.)
That regulation is to come - sometime - under a new cap and trade system. It will set emission limits for industries and companies. If a company can't make its limit, it will have to buy credits on the market to offset its excess emissions.
Mostly though, it looks like the New Democrats have decided to ride the wave of public anger without worrying too much about policy distinctions.
It's a bigger wave than I expected. One of the arguments made by critics is that the tax is irrelevant. Gas prices have risen 45 cents a litre in seven months - what's an extra 2.3 cents?
But that's not the way a lot of people see it. They see the government piling on when they're already having a tough time.
You reap what you sow, St. Paul wrote. And the Liberals spent a lot of their first term sowing the idea that government was a bad thing. Campbell liked to tell audiences that one new deputy minister told him she could cut her staff by one-third - and do a better job.
The message was that government was self-serving or incompetent, certainly untrustworthy.
But the sales pitch for the carbon tax relies heavily on trust in government. And the Liberals are struggling in their efforts to win people over.
Ipsos-Reid surveyed British Columbians on the carbon tax in the week before it was introduced. A narrow majority - 53 per cent - agreed that putting a price on greenhouse gas emissions is a good idea.
It was an almost even split when people were asked if they would be willing to pay higher fuel taxes if they were offset by an income-tax cut.
And 61 per cent doubted the B.C. carbon tax would change peoples' behaviour.
The poll also found 82 per cent thought the government should be targeting major industrial emitters instead of bringing in the carbon tax.
And the poll found the public isn't buying the Liberals' claim that the tax is revenue neutral - that the $631 million to be collected next year in taxes on gas, heating oil and other fuels will be offset by other tax cuts.
Only 19 per cent of those surveyed said they believed that would happen. The sentiment that it's a straight tax increase was shared by 57 per cent of British Columbians.
That's a problem for Gordon Campbell. Right now, he needs people to trust in government.
Footnote: Support for the carbon tax is strongest on Vancouver Island, where 23 per cent of those surveyed agreed it was the best way to curb climate change. The north, where only 12 per cent agreed, and the Lower Mainland, at 15 per cent, were the least supportive.
The Liberals will be helped a lot if gas prices stabilize (and if heating fuel costs don't rise higher by fall). But if they keep rising, the public will likely be slow to let go of their resentment.

Campaigning for healthy, tasty hospital food

Is hospital food crappy? Does it have to be? Bernard von Schulmann, fresh from his son's recent birth, says it is and it shouldn't be. He's started a blog betterhospitalfood.com to press for better tasting, healthier food and more choice in B.C. hospitals.

Worries about shuffle's effects on disabled

Mostly, everyone involved seems confused by the shuffle of services for mentally disabled adults out of the children's ministry and a new ministry for poor people, the addicted and mentally ill, housing, gambling, alcohol sales and people with developmental disabilities.
The only sure thing is that there was no consultation. This was planned a by a few people who figured they didn't need to listen to anyone else (notably the people who needed the help, and their families, and those who worked with them).
Here's a positive reaction from one group, and concern from the BC Association of Social Workers, which consistently offers quite useful observations from those who work on the frontlines. (And which is, despite its mandate to represent the issues of members, not obviously self-serving in its analysis.)
Also, for general edification, a note from children and families deputy minister Lesley du Toit on the shuffle.

For the change.

Picking up the pieces: Positive changes for children with special needs

Port Moody, B.C. June 26, 2008

The B.C. Association for Child Development and Intervention (BCACDI), which represents and advocates for agencies providing services to children and youth with special needs and their families in B.C., is encouraged by the move of services for children with special needs back to the Ministry for Children and Family Development (MCFD) from Community Living B.C. (CLBC). “This is a change that will see children's services re-integrated into the Ministry that is responsible for all children”, says Bruce Sandy, Provincial Advocate. “A host of government and other reports have pointed out the damage that service fragmentation was causing families and children due to long delays in accessing supports, the absence of appropriate supports, and constant confusion regarding who should be providing services. Many of these barriers will now be eliminated”.

“The operative word in “special needs child” is “child”, says Alanna Hendren, Vice-President of the BCACDI Board. “We have worked for many years to have people in the community recognize children with special needs as children first, so they are not defined by their disability but by their potential. A move back to MCFD shows that the government now supports this view and intends to re-integrate services for children with special needs”.

The Ministry for Children and Family Development has been working with the community, including BCACDI to develop a strategic plan and framework for action for services for children and youth with special needs that works across the Ministries of Children and Family Development, Education and Health to ensure that all services are integrated, coordinated and focused on the best outcomes for each child. This plan has been endorsed by each of the Ministers involved in addition to the Minister of State for Child Care and the Premier.

BCACDI will continue to monitor and work on behalf of service agencies and stakeholders as the children's services are transferred back to MCFD over a transition period. This will be on the agenda for our upcoming meeting with Minister Christensen.

Concerned.

Confusion and Chaos: What else will the new "Super Ministry" of Housing and Social Development offer our most vulnerable citizens?  

The BC Association of Social Workers questions how the provincial government's continuing organizational change will contribute to better services to the public, and in particularly to its most vulnerable citizens. The newly created Ministry of Housing and Social Development will now assume gargantuan responsibilities for income assistance, mental health services, housing, services to adults with developmental disabilities, landlord-tenant disputes, transition houses and licensing and monitoring of gambling in BC.

Just what - and who - will be served by collapsing services and programs to vulnerable populations into a "super Ministry"?   The Hughes Report was clear that the child welfare and social service system cannot withstand any more organizational change. The Representative for Children and Youth, Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, has been equally clear that organizational change and service gaps are creating huge and long-lasting real life and systemic impacts for vulnerable and at-risk populations of individuals, families and communities.
 
Child poverty and homelessness are on the rise. Individuals and families are already struggling to access income assistance, mental health services and community support services. Their difficulties in doing have been exacerbated by the staggering and chronic systemic changes and shuffling of responsibilities along with the instability of leadership and oversight of these public services. We are deeply concerned that in the creation of this "super Ministry"? it will be that much easier for individuals to fall through the gaping holes that already exist for marginalized citizens.  
We share in the BC government's five great goals with particular attention to number 3: Building the best system of support in Canada for persons with disabilities, those with special needs, children at risk and seniors.  
We believe this goal and these interests are best served by continuing to provide continuity of service for income and employment assistance through a stand alone Ministry, such as the current Ministry of Employment & Income Assistance (MEIA), maintaining strategic operational planning within one organization and utilizing the strength of senior leadership available within MEIA.
 
We further encourage the BC government to leave responsibility for Community Living Services to adults with developmental disabilities within the mandate of the Ministry of Children & Family Development to allow further time for Community Living BC to solidify and stabilize itself as the Crown agency responsible for provision of services to adults with developmental disabilities and their families. With the move of adult services from MCFD to MHSD there will be a further disconnect between the continuity of services and supports, which will have lasting impacts on generations to come.
 
We also renew our commitment to working collaboratively with the BC government, its leaders and other important stakeholders and leaders to strategically stabilize, innovate and renew the social service, mental health, housing and child welfare systems so that BC can truly offer all children, youth, and families the best future possible as BC prepares to enter the light at centre stage of the international and global media and community.

And the deputy minister's comments.

From: Erickson, Jennifer MCF:EX
Sent: Tue 6/24/2008 4:56 PM
To: MCF All Exchange mailboxes
Cc: Burns, Heather PAB:EX; Greschner, John RCY:EX Subject: Message from the Deputy Minister


Dear colleagues:

As you may be aware, the Premier shuffled his Cabinet yesterday. The shuffle did not impact either of our ministers; Minister Tom Christensen and Minister Linda Reid will continue in their current roles as Minister of Children and Family Development and Minister of State for Child Care respectively.

However, responsibility for Community Living British Columbia (CLBC) was moved to the newly created Ministry of Housing and Social Development. MCFD will assume responsibility for children's services currently delivered by CLBC. This change will not take effect immediately and we have already started working with CLBC to ensure that the best interests of children are protected through the transition phase.

Some of the communication that was released yesterday with details about the shuffle was unclear about the location of current ministry programs. I just wanted to be clear that Early Childhood Development, Youth Services and Child and Youth Mental Health all remain responsibilities of this ministry and will not be moving. Other than the move of CLBC, there were no other changes to the current ministry responsibilities.

Kind regards,
Lesley du Toit
 

Shuffle angers supporters of disabled adults

It's been a rough and chaotic seven years for people with mental disabilities and their families in B.C.
And once again, they have been plunged into uncertainty. Without warning or consultation, responsibility for the $680 million worth of services was swept out the Ministry of Children and Families and into the newly created Ministry of Housing and Social Development.
The main advocacy group calls the change a shocking betrayal.
The clients and their families had big hopes when the Liberals were elected in 2001. They stayed optimistic despite cuts to services for the developmentally disabled.
Most cheered government plans for Community Living BC, the new Crown corporation created to deliver services, and promises of more choice and control for those with mental disabilities.
And then it fall apart, in a tangle of mismanagement, shoddy planning and ministerial fumbling.
Community Living BC would be delivering services by 2003, said then minister Gordon Hogg. It wasn't. In 2004, a report found there was no real plan for the Crown corporation.
It eventually started operating in 2005 and immediately found it had too little money. Waiting lists climbed into the thousands. Exhausted parents - some in their 70s - were told there was no help available for their mentally disabled children. People were pushed from group homes.
But families held on to the hope that, with some stability, things would improve. The cabinet shuffle changed that.
Community Living BC had been under the Ministry of Children and Families. That was intended to allow a smooth transition. Children with these kinds of disabilities received services from the ministry and Community Living BC until they turned 19, when the Crown corporation took over.
But with no warning or consultation, services for adults with mental disabilities were swept over to Rich Coleman's new ministry last week.
No one saw this coming. And no one outside government - and few inside - know what it means.
It wasn't until almost 5 p.m. on the day after the shuffle that children and families deputy minister Lesley du Toit sent ministry staff an e-mail confirming Community Living B.C. was going. It would now only provide services to adults.
That would mean, du Toit continued, that children and families would have to figure out how to deliver services to the 8,000 children who would be dropped by Community Living B.C. (Du Toit also responded to "unclear" communication on program shifts in the shuffle. If government employees couldn't figure out what was happening, the public didn't stand a chance.)
The B.C. Association for Community Living is the main advocacy group for thee people. It has supported the government's efforts, even when things went wrong.
Until now. The shift to the new ministry "undermines the government's commitment and vision to provide a seamless, life-long system of support for people with developmental disabilities," it said.
The association was "shocked and disappointed at the separation of the service delivery system for children with special needs and adults with developmental disabilities." Families had been betrayed.
It all suggests a decision made without consultation with the most knowledgeable people - the ones who use and deliver the services. Parents, hoping for a good life for their developmentally disabled daughter graduating from a special school program. Or wondering what will become of their son when they aren't around to house and care for him.
No one had proposed this kind of change. It was dropped like a hammer from the blue. And now the community wonders if the government has lost interest in Community Living BC and a family-centered approach to support. (And families wonder about Coleman's interest and expertise in their issues.)
It all suggests arbitrary change made in an autocratic way, and yet another lurch in direction for both the children's ministry and services for disabled adults.
It might make sense. So far, there are more questions than answers.

Shuffle panned by community living group

As people get a chance to look at Rich Coleman's new ministry, concern is mounting about the government's intentions for some disadvanted British Columbians. I'll take a look in a post soon, but here's the response from the BC Association for Community Living. They are not happy that responsibility for adults with mental disabilities is being shuffled out of the Ministry of Children and Families.

The good and the bad of the cabinet shuffle

It's always a bit weird writing about cabinet shuffles. In our system, where the premier or prime minister is king, even ministers don't have that much influence.
And I'm not sure many people could name more than a handful of the 22 cabinet ministers in the Liberal government.
But it does matter. And there are both welcome and worrying developments in the new cabinet unveiled by Premier Gordon Campbell this week.
Start with the good. Colin Hansen is back in finance after three years in economic development, while hanging on to responsibility for the Olympics. Economic development should have been a good job, but when the government is philosophically inclined to leave most decisions up to the private sector, there's not much to do..
Hansen shone in past stints as finance minister and health minister, where his command of the issues was almost freaky. Reporters would ask about obscure local issues in scrums and Hansen would offer informed, detailed and sensible responses.
And while he was obviously partisan, he was never abusive or foolish inside or outside the legislature. I usually left encounters glad he was the health minister. (I'm not so sure he always left glad I was a journalist.)
His credibility and intelligence should help in defending the carbon tax and - like his predecessor Carole Taylor - Hansen is unlikely to be easily bulldozed by the premier.
Then on to more one of those, I've got good and bad news stories. The good news is that Rich Coleman was moved out of the forests ministry, a change unlikely to be lamented by anyone in the sector.
The forest challenges are huge, and many are beyond government's control. But Coleman did more harm than good and appeared indifferent to mill closures and the loss of thousands of jobs. It was hard to see why the government even had a forest ministry, if it didn't want to take any real role. (Coleman did get the government to spend $15 million on an arena in his riding, with the argument if was a good way to showcase B.C. wood products.)
Pat Bell moves from agriculture to forests. It will be a big challenge, but at least as a Prince George MLA he has a connection with the industry and the people who depend on it. He's more likely to listen and try to develop positive ideas.
The bad news - or maybe just the question mark, to be kinder - is Coleman's new job, which looks a little like a ministry of things Rich would be interested in. He keeps housing, an area has shown some interest and accomplishment in. But he also gets welfare and job training and support for people with disabilities and gambling and liquor sales.
There's little in Coleman's record to inspire confidence in these areas, In fact, while John Les took the blame, Coleman was solicitor general while the Coroners Service went off the rails and lax enforcement undermined the security of both casino gambling and lottery ticket sales in the province. There aren't a lot of accomplishments to point to offset the stumbles.
Back to good news, I'm glad of the return of Kootenays MLA Bill Bennett to cabinet, this time as tourism, culture and arts minister, and the addition of Peace River MLA Blair Lekstrom as community development minister (although that's not much of a job, except for the pine beetle responsibilities that are cobbled on).
Both are smart, will speak their minds and stand up for thbeir constituents and are from outside the Lower Mainland. They will be valuable around the cabinet table.
The other additions, replacing the ministers who have decided not to run next year, are Mary Polak, Joan McIntyre and Iain Black.
I have no real idea how well they will do. Backbenchers on the government side are an enigmatic lot. Black championed the cause of keeping kids in car seats longer. Polak seemed nice.
And that's the shuffle.
Footnote: MLAs, after giving themselves a big raise, are paid $98,000; full cabinet ministers $147,000, more than 95 per cent of the people they represent. And the job brings a different work life. There are staffers to brief you and plan your day and help you look smart. You go to big meetings. It's seductive.

A first look at the cabinet shuffle

I'll post a column in the next few hours, but the Times Colonist has tomorrow's editorial online today.

Carbon tax opposition a challenge for Liberals

After a recent column on donating the coming $100 carbon tax rebate to a good cause, a reader in Nelson e-mailed.
His money is spent already, he wrote, going to the 22-per-cent increase in heating costs he's facing this winter.
Count him as opposed to the tax. And the same day Ipsos Reid released a poll that found most British Columbians shared his view.
More than I expected, and they were also more riled up than I would have predicted.
The carbon tax looks like a potentially serious problem for the Liberals, with the election 11 months away.
So far, the issue hasn't had any effect on their support. The Ipsos survey, done between June 5 and 10, found the Liberals at 47 per cent of decided voters, the NDP at 33 and the Greens at 16. (In the 2005 election, the Liberals got 46 per cent of the vote, the NDP 42 and Greens nine per cent.)
The carbon tax doesn't take effect until July 1. If people are opposed now, they'll be crankier when gas prices rise another 2.4 cents a litre on Canada Day.
The NDP is trying to score points on the issue. Leader Carole James kicked off an "Axe the Tax" campaign this week.
It's a crassly opportunistic move. The New Democrats are on record as supporting a carbon tax. Their opposition to this particular version rests on pretty flimsy ground.
At the same time, the federal Conservatives are bashing Stephane Dion's carbon tax, which is more modest than Campbell's, in their typically hysterical way. Left and right are united against the tax.
The Ipsos poll confirmed that. The poll found 59 per cent of British Columbians oppose the carbon tax. Significantly, 45 per cent said they were strongly opposed.
And a majority of voters who identified themselves as supporters of all three main parties - even Green supporters - opposed the tax. Islanders and people with universities were split evenly on the carbon tax, but in every other group - the Lower Mainland and the rest of the province, men and women, rich and poor, old and young - more than half were opposed.
It looks like the Liberals underestimated the backlash (as I did). Premier Gordon Campbell avoided the whole subject in speeches to northern mayors and the party's business supporters, hoping the issue would go away.
It hasn't. Now he's accusing the NDP, with good reason, of playing politics. The tax is important to reduce emissions, he says, and been offset by other tax cuts for all British Columbians.
Some Liberal MLAs think the government needs to do a better job of explaining the tax.
That will be tough. An ad campaign could backfire, prompting complaints taxpayers' money was being wasted to sell an unpopular tax.
And suspicion about the promise of revenue neutrality runs deep. The carbon tax is designed to reward people who change their behaviour to cut their gas and oil consumption. A Lower Mainland resident, for example, can switch to public transit. That's not likely possible for someone living somewhere outside Mackenzie.
The carbon tax still makes sense. It's a small way to change behaviour and at least initially the tax cuts will offset the costs for most people.
But politically, this is a poser for the Liberals.
Tax revolt campaigns tend to play well, even when they make little sense. (Who could really argue the New Democrats would beat the Liberals in cutting taxes?)
And the Ipsos-Reid poll results are worrying. The breadth of the opposition to the carbon tax - and the depth - suggests problems. Liberals supporters might be less keen on showing up to vote. Undecided voters might decide James deserves a vote.
The Liberals might pull some Green supporters, but politically the carbon tax looks a risk.
It's odd. Campbell's big political problem turns out to come when he goes all green.
Footnote: Federal politics are spilling over in a big way. The Harper government launched a total war against carbon taxes even before Dion's proposal was out, ranting about a "tax on everything" and mocking the notion of tax shifts or revenue neutrality.
And the provincial opposition brings a rare unity - business groups, unions, Canadian Taxpayers' Federation and the NDP all stand together.

How did Big Pharma win Round One?

I posted a link to a column by a family doctor on the provincial government’s plan to destroy a UBC initiative that helped control Pharmacare costs and save lives.

The Gazetteer – the blogger I find most consistently interesting on a lot of fronts – asked this:

“I, for one, would be interested in your opinion on how this 'decision'
 was deflector-spun out of bounds such that it has remained pretty much 
a non-story despite the fact that it will have a real and lasting
 impact on all British Columbians.
”

Good question.
The government released the pharmaceutical task force report May 21.
The Sun had a story the next day, which led with the report’s conclusion that B.C. was paying too much for generic drugs.
It noted the criticism of the Therapeutics Initiative and included a response from the Initiative and comments from Adrian Dix that Big Pharma dominated the review panel.
The Tyee covered it as well.
A week later, on May 28, The Sun had a front-page story on international criticism of the attack on the Therapeutics Initiative.
The same day Craig McInnes, a Sun editorial writer, had a column setting out the value of the Initiative and criticizing the composition of the panel.
And the next day, Andre Picard. The Globe’s stellar health columnist, defended the Initiative.
On June 4, The Sun ran an op-ed piece from drug-company funded illness groups supporting the review and quicker approval of new drugs.
Vaughn Palmer offered a balanced view June 10.
The Times Colonist ran a ferocious Colby Cosh column defending the Initiative June 16, and the doctor’s column June 18.
I didn’t look at regional papers.
I meant to write about it, but didn’t have time to read the report. Not a great explanation, but true.
There was a lack of news coverage. How much more would drugs have cost without the Iniatitive? Who was on the review panel? What do people like UVic’s Alan Cassels, who has researched pharmaceuticals, think?
But the report on the drug task force report competed for space – and reader attention – with the CBC reports on casino money-laundering and news on people turned away from shelters.
All in all, the media coverage and analysis weren’t bad, though not impressive either.
It is a complicated story to tell in a form that people will read. And it’s less immediately grabbing than an ER closure or someone getting their hip surgery delayed again. We aren't good at complicated stories.
The issue got not bad coverage. But not great, either. And the public didn't pay much attention.
One issue is the balance of interests. For the drug companies, it’s hugely important to get barriers to quick approval of new drugs pushed aside.
For the average person, defending an effective drug approval process is pretty far down the list of worries.
That suggests a bigger public role for those who have a credible voice. Like Dr. Blair.

Province to gut program that avoided costly, dangerous drug spending

One of B.C.'s great health care successes has been its management of spending on prescription drugs. A major factor has been the Therapeutics Initiative at UBC, which assesses the benefits and risks of new drugs, providing the information needed to determine whether they're worth adding to the list covered by Pharmacare.
It's a success story that has attracted praise from around the world and saved the public hundreds of millions of dollars. Now the government, pushed by Big Pharma, wants to gut the Initiative.
A Victoria doctor in family practice offers a view from the frontlines here.

Now Obama is fighting B.C. over mining

Barack Obama is not even elected president yet, and he's already picking on B.C.
It didn't get much attention, but Obama served notice that if he's elected, he'll lend his support to ban mining in the Flathead Valley in southeastern B.C.
The dispute has been bouncing in and out of the headlines since 2003, especially in Montana.
It has already proved awkward for the provincial government.
In mid-2004, Energy Minister Richard Neufeld cancelled Cline Mining's permit for a planned open pit coal mine in the Flathead, citing environmental concerns and pressure from Montana. The company's share price fell 50 per cent.
And earlier this year, BP America cancelled plans for coalbed methane development in the Flathead after taking heat from Montana interests, including powerful U.S. Senator Max Baucus.
But the battle isn't over, and Obama has signed on to the other side.
Cline has another property in the Flathead Valley, farther from the border. Montana environmentalists - and most of the main politicians - are opposed to a coal mine proposed for that site as well.
And, to add a complication to the mix, BP America still hopes to develop coalbed methane in the Elk Valley, just north of the Flathead.
The series of disputes is putting the government in a bad spot. The pressure from Montana - on the province and the companies - is significant. And a lot of people in the Kootenays support protection of the Flathead.
But on the other side, other residents aren't opposed to more mining, which provides excellent jobs.
The province wants the investment and future royalties from coalbed methane. BP said that if it had developed both the Flathead and Elk Valley properties, the investment would have been about $3 billion. The government would get $2 billion in royalties and $2 billion in corporate taxes over the life of the project, the company said.
And at some point, the B.C. government is going to have to decide how much say it will give U.S. interests on land-use decisions within the province.
The Montana crew has a legitimate interest in the future of the Flathead Valley on our side of the border (as B.C. took a legitimate interest in the air quality impact of a proposed power plant just across the border from Sumas).
The Flathead River is a prized asset in Montana. It forms the border of the U.S. Glacier National Park and offers fishing and recreational opportunities. It's that rare thing - an accessible wild river.
The case for being concerned about development in its headwaters is pretty strong.
But how far should that interest go? By taking aim at BP's coalbed plans for the Elk Valley, Baucus and the other U.S. interests are claiming influence on an area 60 kms or more from the border. And the Elk River flows into the Kootenay. It flows into Montana, where it is dammed to create a lake - hardly a wild river.
Bill Bennett is the Liberal MLA from the region and was mines minister until he resigned after a nasty e-mail exchange with a constituent.
He offered a good analysis of where B.C. should draw the line during the just-ended legislative session.
Bennett drew a clear line between the Elk and Flathead Valleys.
The Elk has been home to mining and logging for more than a century, he noted. It's not some pristine wilderness. The Flathead, while there has been logging and recreational use, hasn't been developed in the same way.
Bennett suggested that, at least for now, the status quo should prevail in the Flathead. His constituents don't want to see coal mining in the valley.
But he'd allow more mining and coalbed methane development in the Elk Valley, giving BP a chance to show how clean its operations can be.
It seems a reasonable compromise.
I wonder what Obama will say.
Footnote: Bennett might have a chance to play a larger role. A cabinet shuffle is expected in next few weeks as the premier moves out people like Claude Richmond and Carole Taylor who have said they won't run in 2009. Bennett would be a good addition, but he might be too independent for Gordon Campbell's taste or the party might decide another Liberal needs the profile more.

Carbon taxes and making the most of your $100

The province’s cautious carbon tax is starting to look insignificant as gas prices spike.
But the $100 rebate cheques designed to help sell the tax are still going to be dropping into mailboxes all across the province. And there’s the chance to do something extraordinary with that money.
Say even one-quarter of the people in the Okanagan decide to pass the windfall on – to a church, or the United Way, or an organization working with the homeless or disadvantaged kids. That’s $9.5 million – the equivalent of seven years’ worth of United Way fundraising in Kelowna and Penticton.
First, let’s consider the carbon tax. You’ll start paying it on fuel July 1, with the most obvious change an extra 2.4 cents tax per litre of gasoline.
Back in February, when the Liberals introduced the tax in the budget, it was a little controversial.
Not just because it would climb to 7.2 cents a litre by 2012. Rural communities and industry worried about the immediate impact, on gas and heating oil and the costs of transportation.
Gas prices were about $1.09 then in Victoria. The extra 2.4 cents seemed significant.
Now they’re $1.49 – a 37-per-cent increase in four months. The 2.4 cents doesn’t seem like such a problem.
The politics of carbon taxes have got quite weird. The NDP voted against the Liberals’ tax, claiming the party supports carbon taxes, just not this one.
The position doesn’t make much sense and seems politically risky. Voters who care about climate change and don’t like the Liberals are now going to have to think seriously about voting Green.
Meanwhile, federal Liberal leader Stephane Dion is proposing a tax like Campbell’s. The Conservatives have launched some silly attack ads calling it a tax grab, which they must know is baloney. (The ads aren’t helpful to the provincial Liberals, Premier Gordon Campbell acknowledges.)
The Harper crew look pretty hypocritical. The federal government collects GST on gas. The price increases of the last four months alone have meant an extra two cents a litre in sales taxes. That’s not far off a carbon tax.
And remember that in the run-up to the 2004 federal election, Stephen Harper pledged to lift the GST on any gas price above 85 cents a litre.
Ultimately, it seems simple. If you accept that carbon emissions are causing global warming and the problem is serious, then higher fuel prices encouraging conservation, efficiency and new energy sources make sense. They change behaviour.
The trick is to bring in the tax in an equitable way. On that basis, the Liberals’ plan still makes sense.
What’s looking a little less sound is their promise that other tax cuts would offset the carbon tax. It probably would have made more sense to devote the new revenue to efforts to reduce greenhouse gases.
The $100 rebate – a bribe to make people feel better about the carbon tax - makes less sense. It will go to everyone in the province, even babies. The tenuous connection is that it will somehow allow you to buy a more efficient car or insulate your basement, so you can avoid paying the carbon tax.
More likely, the rebates will be seen as a windfall by a lot of people.
And that creates an extraordinary opportunity for British Columbians. The government is sending out about $440 million in rebates (and spending $10 million to do it).
For many people, that money is badly needed and already spent.
But for a lot of us, the cheques offer a great chance to make a difference in our communities — to take a serious look at which agencies or organizations are making a difference, and pass the money on. The donation could be to organizations working on climate change, or with the homeless, or helping children.
SWhat a difference we can make, together.
Footnote: It’s not just the money. It’s a tough slog for non-profits, a constant search for money to provide the services. When a $100 cheque comes in the mail, it’s a vote of confidence, And most will welcome some questions about how they plan to use the money before you pass your rebate along.

BC Rail prosecution a travesty

The BC Rail corruption trial grows more surreal - and more remote from justice as most us understand it - with each passing month. And there have been a lot of them - 53 months since the raid on the legislature.

The Crown is fighting to keep the defence lawyers from hearing the evidence of informant. The B.C. Supreme Court justice hearing the case ruled the defence lawyers had a right to be present; the Crown prosecutor has challenged the ruling in the B.C. Appeal Court and has vowed to continue to the Supreme Court of Canada. (Money is no object, when taxpayers are signing the cheques.)

The case has long past the point at which it is bringing the entire justice system into disrepute, with much of the responsibility falling on the prosecutors.

Bill Tieleman - as always - has excellent updates on the latest hearings.

Tribunal wrong place to take hate-speech claims

The hysteria greeting a B.C. Human Rights Tribunal hearing on charges that Maclean's magazine incited
hatred against Muslims is kind of creepy.
The critics of the process are right; it is a threat to free speech. And the issues are important.
But the rhetoric and the casting of the case as the last battleground in defence of Western civilization has been
over the top. By time the hearing concluded, the public battering of the Muslim complainants started to look a lot
like a one-sided schoolyard brawl.
The case goes back to 2006, when Maclean's printed excerpts from Mark Steyn's book America Alone.
Steyn is a clever, provocative U.S.-based right-wing writer who courts controversy and recognizes its marketing
value.
The magazine made the piece a cover story, but it was pretty much ignored.
Steyn's piece argued that demography is dooming North America and Europe. The world's Muslims have larger
families and a much younger population, while the West is aging. They would end up taking over by dint of
numbers and unity.
He cited dubious examples of the looming takeover. Somehow an assault on a bus in Antwerp by three young
Moroccan men became a symbol of Muslim advances.
It didn't convince me, but Steyn's argument was certainly legitimate commentary, raising relevant issues.
The Canadian Islamic Congress didn't think so. It tried to persuade Maclean's to run a rebuttal of equal length. The
magazine said no.
So the congress, through individuals, filed complaints with the federal, Ontario and B.C. human rights tribunals.
Ontario's commission wouldn't hear the complaint, though it criticized Maclean's for not allowing a full response;
the federal process is still ahead; and the B.C. tribunal has heard the evidence and is considering its decision.
Human rights bodies, with the power to hear complaints and make judgments, are important. We've agreed that
individuals have rights, including the right to an equal chance in life. Discrimination based on race or religion or
sexual orientation or colour violates those individual rights.
People need a way to defend themselves against discrimination. The human rights tribunals were created to
provide an accessible process, one that offered a chance to reach settlements but still had the power to impose
judgments. The process is less formal than the courts.
The B.C. tribunal tends to make the news with unusual cases. But is serves an important role in protecting people
from acts of discrimination.
And that is one critical factor that is different about the Maclean's hearing. There are no acts of discrimination to
address.
The complaint is levelled under a section of the B.C. Human Rights Code that makes it an offence to say or write
something that is likely to expose a person or group to "hatred or contempt."
It's not an appropriate role for the human rights tribunal. The process - as demonstrated in the Maclean's hearing
- is too informal. The code doesn't distinguish between hate-filled rants and political or cultural argument. And the
offence can be highly subjective and based on feelings, not actions.
It is the wrong way to make any decision limiting the right to free speech.
Minorities have a legitimate need for protection from writings or statements that incite hatred against them.
That protection is already provided by the Criminal Code, which makes it an offence to incite hatred against any
group "where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace." That is a critical distinction.
The Criminal Code also sets out acceptable defences, including protection for statements made as part of an
honest debate on a matter of public significance. Again, a critical distinction.
And the criminal process ensures a rigorous and consistent approach to deciding the issue.
The Maclean's case has highlighted the major flaws in the current approach to these types of cases under human
rights' laws. The solution should be to remove these offences from the code and allow tribunals to focus on acts
of discrimination.
Footnote: Don't expect any action from the provincial government on the issue. Human rights legislation is
politically charged, with any changes watched closely by minority communities for signs protection is being
eroded. Governments are loathe to make changes that could cost them votes.

Corky Evans on life in politics

The Times Colonist had a nice editorial on the announcement that Corky Evans is retiring from provincial politics.

The Arrow Lakes News offered an interesting Q&A interview to mark the occasion.

I can't forget that Evans was part of the train wreck of an NDP government of the late 1990s; that's not a great resume item.

But he did bring a consistent view that government's role is to help make life better for the people who live in the province, not to just stand back and hope for the best.

And, as this earlier column from the Times Colonist shows, Evans is one of the best speakers in the legislature.

Bountiful’s child brides a thorny problem

You can't blame Attorney General Wally Oppal for struggling with what to do about the polygamous community at Bountiful.
About 1,000 people live in the community near Creston. They're members of a sect that split from the Mormon Church in 1930, about 40 years after it renounced polygamy. They've had a Kootenay outpost since 1946.
Their religious views clash with the values of most Canadians. Men must have multiple wives - at least three, but often many more - to be assured of the highest form of salvation.
The leader/prophet is considered God's anointed, with powers to match. (But then, so is the Pope.)
He is considered divinely ordained to order girls to marry husbands - or take them away and remarry them to someone else. There are strict dress codes and a lot of religious rules.
Polygamy is theoretically against the law in Canada; the sect acknowledges men in Bountiful have more than one wife. Prosecution should be straightforward.
But the Charter of Rights guarantees religious freedom. The courts could decide that protects polygamy.
The law does appear to trample on individual rights. It's a crime in Canada to be in "any kind of conjugal union with more than one person at the same time."
It doesn't have to be marriage. There doesn't have to be any sexual relationship. It's still a crime for three or four people to be in a "conjugal union."
It's hard to see what right the state has to poke into the way people choose to live. Add the issue of religious freedom, and the law looks dubious.
That's been the concern of the province, which has balked at laying polygamy charges.
Oppal has just hired a third outside lawyer to review the possibility of laying charges. The first two suggested asking the courts for an advance ruling on the charter issues.
Oppal appears to want a special prosecutor ready to take a chance on a polygamy charges.
While polygamy in the abstract raises issues of religious freedom, the reality is grimmer. Winston Blackmore, the prophet of the Bountiful sect, hands out the brides. He has at least 26, and more than 100 children.
What about the rights of the girls, as young as 15, handed off as brides - sixth or seventh or twentieth wives - to middle-aged men? Do they really consent? What if their husband falls from favour, and they are handed to a new man, like a piece of property?
What happens to the 40 or 50 children sired by a single male?
And, as older men are assigned all the young women, what happens to the "lost boys," the young men who grew up in Bountiful, but have no future?
There is good reason for concern. The sect acknowledges 15-year-old girls have been married off to men three times their age, on Blackmore's orders. (That would be illegal now that age of consent has been raised.)
Are they simply young women who have made an informed choice to embrace the religious beliefs they have been taught since birth? Or brainwashed or coerced victims, forced into having sex with old men against their wills?
Sorting that out is not easy. Bountiful is a closed world. It has its own school - provincially funded - and is cut off, unless Blackmore decides to allow members to speak. There are few witnesses to share their stories.
Research suggests polygamous communities are bad places for children - but so are a lot of other environments.
So what should happen? Ideally, police and prosecutors would establish other reasons to intervene. The Education Ministry could ensure the school has been adhering to the provincial curriculum. The Children and Families Ministry could be alert.
But ultimately, the polygamy law will likely have to be tested. Prosecutors should pick the best case and be prepared to demonstrate that the damage done justifies the legal ban.
And then the courts can balance the competing rights.
Footnote: Texas authorities removed children from a similar compound in April, citing fears of child abuse. But at the end of May, the Texas Supreme Court ruled the child protection authorities had gone too far and ordered them returned. The case indicates the challenges of dealing with closed religious communities.

Liberals betray democracy by forcing through bills without debate

Left, right, green or in-between, you should be appalled at the way the spring legislative session ended last week.
In the space of 67 minutes, the government forced six bills through the legislature.
No debate. No chance for any MLA - government or opposition - to ask how the new laws would affect the people they represented.
Just a rubber-stamp vote on laws imposed from above that will change the way British Columbians live, without debate or questions.
These weren't housekeeping bills. In the space of minutes, the government forced through a bill authorizing a carbon tax which will, by 2012, bring in more than $1 billion a year in taxes on fuels. (The money will be redistributed through other tax breaks.)
I think that's a good idea. But a lot of people - from Prime Minister Stephen Harper to Williams Lake Mayor Scott Nelson - disagree. Critics say the tax will be costly and unfair, hurting northern communities.
MLAs should debate a fundamental economic change like the tax. They should be able to ask questions about the effects on their communities. That didn't happen.
It took 11 minutes to ram through a bill that limits the ability of individuals or organizations to raise public policy issues in the three months before an election. Only political parties are free to communicate their views. The bill was rushed through despite Attorney General Wally Oppal's earlier promise of a full debate.
And on it went, in a process that wouldn't be out of place in Castro's Cuba.
You can argue about whose fault this was.
But everyone should agree it was a travesty. Laws were imposed on ordinary people with no debate or scrutiny. A handful of people - an inner circle of politicians and bureaucrats - dictated how we will live.
The Liberals blame the New Democrats for taking too long to debate the budget and other bills.
But the government introduce its last 10 bills with less than 16 sitting days left in the session and piles of earlier legislation still not debated.
The NDP says the government could have extended the session to allow debate on the laws. Or it could have delayed some legislation to the scheduled fall session, where the bills could have been fully debated.
Instead, it used closure to force the bills into law, with no debate, in the final moments before MLAs returned to their constituencies.
The fixed legislative session introduced by the Liberals included plans for a fall session - six weeks are scheduled this year.
But Premier Gordon Campbell has tried to avoid fall sittings. (In fact, the Liberals have not been keen on having the legislature sit at all.)
That's understandable. When the legislature is sitting, the government face daily questions from the opposition. The issues are troublesome and the media is paying attention.
When the legislature isn't sitting, the government has much greater control of the agenda, deciding when and how to make announcements.
As a journalist, it is a little embarrassing to acknowledge that the media is so dependent on the 30 minutes of question period to generate stories. But, there it is.
Despite all the finger-pointing, the government - that means Campbell - has to take responsibility for this assault on democracy.
Even if it believes the NDP took too much time debating the budget or other measures, it was the government that decided to push these bills through the legislature without debate.
It had options. The election gag law, for example, could have been introduced last year. Other legislation could have waited until the fall.
Instead, the Liberals - unlike any government in B.C.'s history - have made closure a routine way of doing business.
The principle that laws must be debated by the peoples' representatives before they are voted on is central to our democratic system.
The Campbell government's failure to accept that basic tenet of democracy betrays a dangerous arrogance.
Footnote: The expectation is that the Liberals won't call a fall session of the legislature, meaning that MLAs won't sit again until next spring. The legislature will have been in session for 47 days this year, one of the briefest in a non-election year in two decades.