One of the primary roles of an MLA is to represent the people in the legislative assembly of the province. Therefore, when the premier cancelled the fall session of the legislature, I found myself reflecting on the session that ended last May: a legislative session that was chaos at its best and governance at its worst.
The spring session saw a number of important and controversial bills introduced: back to work legislation for teachers; the creation of a municipal auditor general (the subject of a previous report); major changes to the animal disease reporting framework; legislation to reintroduce the PST; an overhaul of B.C. Ferries' governance structure; the creation of a Civil Resolution Tribunal; amendments to the drunk-driving laws earlier struck down as unconstitutional; and many others.
There were 35 bills in 12 weeks, with 16 of them introduced during eight sitting days in early May. In the last week of session - four days - 18 bills went through committee stage, which is the most important of all readings and where MLAs question ministers.
To push all these bills through, the government opened a second debating chamber and imposed rigid time limits on debate: on 16 bills they shortened the already imposed limit of one hour to only 30 minutes. And at the same time this was going on, we were still in budget estimates - a third chamber where members are drilling ministers on their budgets.
Governance at its worst, and democracy suspended in all but name.
Members were literally being called by staff every 15 minutes, telling us where we had to be and what was coming up next. We would rise in the house to ask a question in committee and the chair would suddenly end debate. The critic would just get started on a bill and time would be called. We would leave budget estimates to run to one chamber; run out to ask questions in the other chamber; then run back to estimates where it would all start over again. It was a farce deserving of a looney tune.
This certainly was a "sick culture" - created by none other than the premier and her cabinet. Absolutely no one else is to blame.
Government MLAs were told not to speak to the bills under closure, presumably to allow the Opposition that whole half hour to do their job. But that isn't so unusual: Liberal MLAs seldom speak unless it is a controversial, or fundamental, piece of legislation, such as the budget, the municipal auditor general or Bill 22 (sending teachers back to work), and often they are reading speeches prepared by the communications office.
Outside of those three bills, only seven government backbenchers spoke to a bill. This is out of 26 government backbenchers and 35 pieces of legislation. And these MLAs will only have heard about the legislation just before it is introduced: they know no more than anyone else in the house.
The opportunity to debate or comment on legislation is one of the cornerstones of democratic tradition. It is one of the only venues where government priorities receive scrutiny. Committee stage is equally essential as judges will often review the legislative record to determine a government's intent. The premier and her cabinet could easily have extended the spring session by a week, or held over legislation to the fall session they decided not to call.
Democracy is fragile. Democratic traditions are fragile. The people's voice can be easily ignored. And trampling on the duty of the MLA to debate legislation, and to represent the people, is an abuse of a government's power.
