Premier Christy Clark, how do you like her so far?

[NAB]

""B.C.'s privacy watchdog is demanding the government change four pieces of legislation - and in one case scrap a bill altogether - because of concerns over personal privacy and government transparency.

Information and Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham has sent four critical letters to provincial ministers this month - the most recent on Friday afternoon - chastising them for a host of problems in their bills.

It's rare for an independent watchdog such as Denham to raise so many red flags in such a short period of time, and the Opposition NDP says it is an indication of sloppy government work being rushed through the legislature in the final days of the spring session.

Denham has asked the government to withdraw its Emergency Intervention Disclosure Act, which would let emergency workers get court orders to compel blood samples from people in high-risk situations.

The legislation doesn't strike the right balance, Denham wrote, and infringes upon a person's liberties by forcing them give blood samples, potentially against their will.

"Removing an individual's right to control their bodily integrity is the most intrusive form of privacy infringement," the commissioner said in a May 3 letter.

Denham also targeted a government bill designed to lower generic drug prices and enshrine the PharmaCare program in law, saying it reduces transparency and gives the health minister too broad an authority to disclose personal information.

Changes to the Coastal Ferry Act, which boost the powers of the independent ferry commissioner, are a "step backward" for transparency because they let the commissioner choose not to publish some of the financial documents B.C. Ferries uses to justify fare hikes, Denham wrote in a separate letter on Friday.

The commissioner expressed "deep concern" about the Animal Health Act, which the government said would improve response to an animal disease outbreak. Denham said it overrides Freedom of Information legislation and removes the public's right to access certain records on animal testing.

Denham also raised alarms that the animal legislation gives the province's chief veterinarian "unlimited powers" to collect and use personal information in an emergency, and provides the minister too much power to make regulations in an emergency.

But those concerns appear to have been brushed aside by the Agriculture Ministry. "As for the commissioner's outstanding concerns, the ministry respectfully disagrees with her interpretation," it said in a statement to the Times Colonist.

NDP House leader John Horgan said in his seven years as an MLA, he had never seen so many objections, in such a short period of time, from a privacy commissioner. Combined with typographical errors found in other government bills, the legislation shows signs of "shoddy work," Horgan said.

There are only eight sitting days left for the legislature this spring, with more than 20 bills yet to be fully debated. "If we can't review this stuff in some detail, the chances of bad legislation passing is very high," Horgan said.""

http://www.timescolonist.com/health/Pri ... story.html

[flamingfingers]

There are only eight sitting days left for the legislature this spring, with more than 20 bills yet to be fully debated. "If we can't review this stuff in some detail, the chances of bad legislation passing is very high," Horgan said.""

Mr Horgan, sir: The arrogant, deceitful, lying Liberal government under both Gordon Muir Campbell and now our unelected 'premier' Christine Joan Clark have been passing 'bad legislation' for the past 10 years! Please reassure us that during the early part of NDP governance in 2013 you will amend the d(b)astardly legislation and truly make the past decade of "Rape and Disparity" open and transparent. Thank you.

[The Green Barbarian]

Mr Horgan, sir: The arrogant, deceitful, lying Liberal government under both Gordon Muir Campbell and now our unelected 'premier' Christine Joan Clark have been passing 'bad legislation' for the past 10 years! Please reassure us that during the early part of NDP governance in 2013 you will amend the d(b)astardly legislation and truly make the past decade of "Rape and Disparity" open and transparent. Thank you.

and yet we already know the NDP are back-tracking on their promise to get rid of the carbon tax. Any hopes that the NDP will be either "open and transparent" or will amend or change anything are far-fetched, I'm afraid. The next provincial election we are going to be forced to choose between two different but equally stinky buckets of smelly poo as our options, unfortunately.

Dear Mr. Horgan - please find a way to get rid of the deceitful, lying Adrian "I am not a chipmunk" Dix as your leader, and install the rightful heir, Farnworth, to the throne of the NDP leadership. Only then will we have a hope of getting rid of the carbon tax, and also having a leader in this province who isn't a memo-forging scumbag or a liar. Thank you.

[flamingfingers]

The sins of Adrian Dix Fact or fiction
One year from the next provincial election
By Michael Smyth, The Province May 13, 2012

Last week's eruption of Mount Krueger was one of the more spectacular verbal volcanoes the B.C. legislature has witnessed in a while.
Hot-headed Liberal Kevin "Boom Box" Krueger - the undisputed loudest man in the legislature - blew his stack with a rant-for-the-ages against the Liberals' many enemies.

His fiercest attacks, however, were reserved for NDP Leader Adrian Dix, who Krueger said was unfit for office due to his "pattern of deceit."

Do Krueger's attacks have merit? I sat down with NDP house leader John Horgan for a blow-by-blow breakdown of Krueger's blasts.

The "Duffel Bags" of money
During last year's NDP leadership race, Dix supporters showed up at party headquarters with stacks of completed membership forms and wads of $10 bills to pay for them.

A cellphone video of NDP MLA Mable "The Staple" Elmore famously emerged, showing her stapling money to forms, as the eligibility deadline ticked down for new members to vote for a leader.

The last-minute tactics angered Dix's leadership opponents, especially MLA Harry Lali, who threatened to sue over Dix's "contaminated" campaign.

It's all red meat now for the Liberals' razorfanged pit bull.

"You win a leadership by delivering duffel bags full of cash?" Krueger asks.

"Where is the integrity?" But Horgan, who also ran for the NDP leadership, said the party cleared the Dix campaign of wrongdoing.

"There were no duffel bags. There was a box of memberships," said Horgan.

"Mable was working for Adrian. There was a deadline. You've got a table full of stuff in a campaign room. Someone said, 'We've got to be at the office in 25 minutes. Gather everything up and let's go.'

"The party did an audit and found nothing inappropriate."

The "Lost" SkyTrain ticket
On March 3, Dix was caught by transit cops riding SkyTrain without a ticket and was let off with a warning.
Dix said he bought a ticket and lost it. He said he paid cash for the ticket, so there's no record of a debit or credit-card payment.

"Baloney," says Krueger. "Adrian Dix says he rides public transit hundreds of times. If that's true, why doesn't he have a monthly pass? Then he wouldn't need to worry about a 'lost' ticket."

Krueger said Dix could use his MLA travel allowance to pay for a monthly transit pass. So why didn't he?

"Because he also takes SkyTrain for personal reasons, and he doesn't want to charge taxpayers for that," counters Horgan. "He submits receipts for any trips taken on MLA business."

Well, the receipts he doesn't lose, that is.

The "Memo-to-file"
On March 2, 1999, police raided then-premier Glen Clark's house, searching for evidence of corruption in the granting of a casino licence to one of Clark's neighbourhood friends.

That very night, Dix produced a "memo to file" which said Clark had instructed him to ensure he play no part in approving the licence.

It was later revealed that Dix, then Clark's principal secretary, had back-dated the memo to eight months earlier.

"How do you falsify a piece of evidence in a criminal matter and then present yourself as a candidate for premier?" Krueger asks.

But Horgan points out Dix testified at Clark's trial - where Clark was found not guilty - that he had written and back-dated the memo long before the police raid.

"It was not as part of a criminal proceeding, as Krueger alleged," Horgan said.

Dix testified he wrote the memo in "September or October" of 1998, and back-dated it to July of that year. He said the memo was based on his handwritten notes of an earlier conversation with Clark - notes that he destroyed.

"It was wrong to have done it," Dix told the judge. "It was sloppy. That wasn't the correct thing to do, but it's what I did."
"People make mistakes," Horgan said. "We're human beings. You admit them and move on."

But I doubt the Liberals will move on. The election is exactly one year from tomorrow. Based on Krueger's rant - and Premier Christy Clark's refusal to rein him in - Dix is in for a rough ride.

AT LEAST THEY AGREE ON THE MEDIA
The Liberals and New Democrats may have > been at each other's throats last week, but at least they agreed on one thing: both complained about media coverage.

"A number of members of the press gallery are really quite lazy - they ignore Adrian Dix's record," Krueger told CKNW's Bill Good.

But Horgan took a swat at the media, too - for paying too much attention to Krueger. Horgan went on to add he was "troubled" that reporters paid more attention to Krueger than the swearing-in of two new NDP MLAs, byelection winners Joe Trasolini and Gwen O'Mahony.

LIBERALS' DRINKING PARTNERS
So just who's smearing who around here? > While the NDP complain about Krueger's "character assassination" of Dix, the Liberals say the NDP are doing plenty of mudslinging of their own.

The New Democrats demanded the government cancel the privatization of the province's Liquor Distribution Branch because a company associated with Liberal insider Patrick Kinsella was bidding for the contract.

"Less than a year after the new premier comes to office, after winning the leadership race with Patrick Kinsella as one of her key advisers, this has been fast-tracked to get it done before the next election," said NDP critic Shane Simpson.
Liberal house leader Rich Coleman said the bidding process is fair, and called Simpson's comments "the most demeaning, insulting and disgusting" he had heard in his 16 years at the legislature.

Read more: http://www.theprovince.com/news/sins+Ad ... z1urOsB62g

[The Green Barbarian]

Dix testified he wrote the memo in "September or October" of 1998, and back-dated it to July of that year. He said the memo was based on his handwritten notes of an earlier conversation with Clark - notes that he destroyed.

"It was wrong to have done it," Dix told the judge. "It was sloppy. That wasn't the correct thing to do, but it's what I did."
"People make mistakes," Horgan said. "We're human beings. You admit them and move on."

:dyinglaughing:

People make mistakes all right, but not ones of this magnitude, and expect to be handed the premier's chair after making them. The NDP screwed up big time by making this memo-forger their leader. There is still time to kick this lying bum out, and put in Farnworth, but they have to act quickly.

[Urbane]

"It was wrong to have done it," Dix told the judge. "It was sloppy. That wasn't the correct thing to do, but it's what I did."

Sloppy. Heh heh . . .

[George+]

put in Farnworth, but they have to act quickly.

Why would the NDP do that?
They are way ahead in the polls both in personal and in party popularity.
Any Dix stuff is "peanuts' compared with the Fibs and not to mention someone who illegaly
blockaded the Fraser River.

How about Diane Watts to replace...you know who??

[The Green Barbarian]

Why would the NDP do that???

So they wouldn't have a memo-forging scumbag as their leader?

[flamingfingers]

There may be big changes coming to B.C.

Bill 52: Motor Vehicle Amendment Act received second reading in the B.C. Legislature last week and, surprisingly, there hasn’t been much media coverage on it.

Don’t let the lack of media attention stop you: I encourage you to read it. You can find it at the following link: Bill 52.

…snip…

Also consider that the Courts are backlogged because they have been under-funded. As I discussed in a previous column, Justice system in crisis, the B.C. government has, over many years, reduced Court budgets and has not addressed the shortage of judges.

So, let me get this straight: rather than restoring budgets and putting money into the justice system, the plan is to create an alternative process that does not allow for the same procedural protections to those accused of motor vehicle offences? Alright then.

There are more proposed changes in Bill 52; some about how ICBC can charge additional premiums. I encourage you to read about it.

And don’t let me persuade you into believing that the law is bad: you may like the changes. Just think about it and research it for yourself.

And don’t blindly have confidence in your government to always pass good laws.

http://www.castanet.net/edition/news-st ... .htm#75194

[sooperphreek]

bill 44 is worse

[Logitack]

wow, what a surprise, bill 52 and bill 44, bill 22... and of course the incompetent liberals are going to ram these bill through, all 20 or is it 21 bills now in the last few days. Of course they arent allowing much scrutiny and debate, now going with 3 sessions to handle the number of bills.

[NAB]

The more I read about this stuff, the more convinced I become that the Liberals/Coalition have pretty much given up any hope of forming the government after the next election, ....and have now embarked on a program to leave the biggest, most poorly thought through and incomplete mess possible for their successors to have to deal with. Totally "vindictive" is the word that comes to mind.

And today we have..

Clark's government has grab-bag style

By Les Leyne, Times Colonist May 15, 2012

What is Premier Christy Clark's government all about?

People make their judgments based on their personal impressions of the woman or on the policy announcements she makes.

But the legislative package her government has introduced in the current session gives another look at what the B.C. Liberals under her leadership are trying to do.

It's a grab-bag assortment of ideas with no discernible theme so far. But that's no particular reflection on her.

The legislative agenda is nearly always a mishmash of ideas from all over the map. The bureaucracy always has a list of problems that need fixing. Politics drives a few more ideas into law. And circumstances dictate still more.

The bills that Clark and her cabinet have introduced so far fall into three categories. There are a few popularity plays fulfilling earlier promises.

There's a handful of bills that fix previous government initiatives that either never worked or stopped working properly. And there's a big package of routine bills that make various adjustments to the big $40 billion-a-year machine that is government.

Following is a breakdown:

Promises, promises. The most obvious play for votes is the Family Day Act. It's a classic attempt to solve a First World problem by easing the desperate plight of British Columbians who have to suffer more than 90 consecutive days without a paid holiday.

She pitched it during her leadership run and is now following up on it, leaving room for a family argument on exactly which Monday in February it will be.

Also introduced was the creation of an auditor general for local governments. It was designed as another crowd-pleaser, although there was some debate about whether it will be worth the effort.

A few of the law-and-order amendments look like they were designed with the election in mind, too. There's more power to seize assets from criminals, which usually goes over well with the majority. And there's another push to clear minor cases out of the courts, with new ways to resolve small civil disputes and traffic tickets. Easing the caseload goes part way toward dampening concern about the fact criminals are evading justice because the system is so overloaded. But it buys more problems for people who want their day in court.

Fixes. In 2009, the Liberals changed the sales-tax system to spur economic growth and make the system fairer and more efficient. Everyone hated it; they rose up to vote it down. And it drove former premier Gordon Campbell from office.

So it needs a little ... tweaking.

The next chapter in the HST saga is the bill, introduced Monday, to reverse the whole nightmare and restore the old sales-tax system. The bill will make it abundantly clear once again that it's a lot easier to make a mistake than it is to correct it.

Also on the do-over list is a bill to address the belated discovery that authorities have no power to collect fines from SkyTrain scofflaws.

There's also an amendment to a key element of B.C.'s energy plan. The Liberals are relaxing the requirement for B.C. Hydro to be self-sufficient, a major policy change.


Last year's new approach to impaired driving - which puts more emphasis on immediate administrative penalties, rather than criminal charges - also gets a modest makeover, on instructions from a judge.

There's also a fairly major reversal of pharmaceutical policy. An earlier attempt to curb the cost of prescription drugs covered by Pharmacare by way of a contract with the companies didn't work. So the next effort is a bill that simply dictates the price the government will pay.

Run of the mill. Drinking in theatres. More powers for the SPCA to protect animals. New limits on civil liability. Pension-law reform. More opportunities for kick-boxing tournaments.

The rest of the package is the kind of random assortment of items that is always flowing through the pipeline that leads to the legislature.

The one insight into Clark you get is not in the content of the bills. It's in how the package was managed this spring. A last-minute jumble saw a big chunk (12 bills, with more to come) introduced in the last month. There's no hope to scrutinize them all in time, so there will be a huge argument filled scramble before the house adjourns.

Which is pretty much how she and her government roll.


http://www.timescolonist.com/Clark+gove ... story.html

Nab

[flamingfingers]

The more I read about this stuff, the more convinced I become that the Liberals/Coalition have pretty much given up any hope of forming the government after the next election, ....and have now embarked on a program to leave the biggest mess possible for their successors to have to deal with. Totally "vindictive" is the word that comes to mind.

Nab

Nab, I think instead of 'vindictive' it will be 'scorched earth'! By ramming through all these bills and invoking closure it will cost us millions, and then when the incoming party tries to work with all of this scorched earth policy and try to unravel all of the nefarious goings on of this decade old corrupt government one wonders why on earth would any party even WANT to be in power. What a horrible mess!!

[Urbane]

The more I read about this stuff, the more convinced I become that the Liberals/Coalition have pretty much given up any hope of forming the government after the next election, ....and have now embarked on a program to leave the biggest, most poorly thought through and incomplete mess possible for their successors to have to deal with. Totally "vindictive" is the word that comes to mind.
Nab

Reductio ad absurdum. It fits right in with the constant messaging on here that the current government members are all criminals, that every single thing they've done is bad, and that the province is now "destroyed."

[NAB]

Not really, because the majority of government members have very little say in what goes on at all. It is only a small percentage of them that do. The rest just clap and bark on cue and are little more than a waste of space, air, and money.

Nab