April 3, 2003

Late Night for Forestry - A Repressive Regime?

Gas station attendants, hospital workers, convenience store clerks, police officers, and dozens of others we take for granted work all hours of the day and night. Who would have thought that MLAs in BC would work similar hours?

At 8:55 PM on Monday, March 31st - the last day and last three hours of the fiscal year - Mike de Jong (whose salary depended on the outcome of debate) said "I move that the House at its rising stand recessed for 15 minutes and continue to sit thereafter until adjournment." The government with its overwhelming majority forced the Legislature to continue to sit until Bill 28 passed and was proclaimed law sometime after 11:00 PM.

What was the urgency of passing legislation containing the most substantial changes to forestry policy in BC in the past half century or more? As MacPhail said in debate, government knew when it introduced its budget on February 11, 2003, that it was going to set aside $275 million from fiscal year 2002-03 for its policy changes. The Auditor General may find that to be a strange bit of accounting. The urgency for ramming the Bill through the Legislature before midnight on March 31st was to assure that $275 million could be booked to fiscal year 2002-03 as a trust fund even though the money may not be spent for another two or three years. In other words, the Campbell government not only engaged in Enron style accounting, but it abused the rules of the legislature with a late night sitting so as to force passage of the enabling legislation in the last three hours. They could have passed it next month and made it retroactive, but the Auditor General probably would not have gone along with that scheme - which raises the question of why he would go along with Monday night's sham.

The Campbell government has given much lip service and little substance to the topic of legislative reform. Fixed calendars mean nothing more than forced closure of debate. Even with forced closure (Standing Order 81.1), the Campbell government, with 77 members vs. Joy MacPhail, found it expedient to use its majority to violate the Standing Orders of the BC Legislature and force a late night sitting to pass the Bill. Bill 28 exempts de Jong from the rules surrounding cabinet minister's salaries, and it exempts government from the rule of law regarding suit for damages by the companies who are about to lose millions from broken contracts.

The double standard is troublesome. If the NDP had done anything close to what the Campbell government pulled off on March 31st, the Liberals would have demanded their heads. The companies whose shareholders have been damaged remain silent. Is that due to fear of a repressive regime that uses its majority to break contracts, or is it due to loyalty to the party they financed?