The Written Word: Rafe Mair Feb 28th
By Rafe Mair
Thursday, March 01, 2007 03:45 AM
I’ve been asked by a group – community agitators you might call them - to tell them how they can get their environmental concerns listened to and hearing by the provincial government. They had tried their MLA with no success and wondered if they should try to meet with cabinet. These weren’t naïve people – in fact, they were all successful in their lives.
I had to tell them how I, at 44years and a lawyer, became an MLA which, I assumed, meant that I along with all other MLAs of all political stripes would sit down together and try to come up with legislation and policy fore the general good of the Province. I found out very quickly that nothing approaching that was going to happen. I was in the government caucus and the cabinet and immediately found that the Cabinet, and because he appoints them, the premier were the fount of all power. I was part of a four year dictatorship where party discipline was ironclad.
People like my group seldom got to see Cabinet and if they get to see caucus it’s only because backbench government MLAs have little else to do. Caucus, or however many of them are present, listen patiently, ask questions, make notes and that’s where it ends. It’s all over and not a damned thing has happened – nor will it happen unless the Premier wants it to.
What to do?
I spelled out the options. If their MLA is on the government side you can join the party and try to get your policy the constituency organization’s problem. This is a waste of time and effort since even if you were successful your MLA would be unlikely to do be able to do much about it unless he/she were in cabinet.
The other way is to contact the opposition MLA that is the critic for the area you’re concerned about. He/she has even less power in the Legislature than the government MLA does but at least they can vocalize on the subject, ask questions in Question Period and the like. It may come to pass that your opposition MLA becomes the government some day and will be able to change the law for you. Don’t hold your breath for that to happen because now he’s a backbench MLA expected to do as he/she is told.
This why there are protest groups and why elderly grandmothers go to jail for contempt of a court order. There are no meaningful environmental hearing proceedings, simply “information meetings” where you can ask questions, the answers to which are invariably guarded mumbo jumbo. Even where there is a so-called hearing the man making the decision works for the government.
A couple of years ago politicians made much of the “democracy deficit” in Parliament. They have done nothing about it and they’ll do nothing about the inability of ordinary citizens to have any say in policy.
And we as a country have the nerve to tell other countries to get rid other their governments and do it our way!
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Posted by: Chadermando on March 1 2007 4:45 AM
Why not vote for BCSTV and demand that it is implemented as is officially supported by 60% of the voters in this province.
If voters and not political parties decide which candidates will be successful, then you will find that the premier is no longer the fount of power.
Currently the premier controls the party and the party control the MLA's if the MLA's want any real power within the party. A MLA that is accountable to the voter and not the party is more likely to be responsible to the voter. The basis of the party and thus premier power is the power of intimidation more than anything, and the BCSTV take the intimidation out of the equation. Its no wonder both the ndp and the liberal parties oppose BCSTV.