What’s Happening at the Legislature?

Politics

Apr 23

Guest: Alec Lazenby, Vancouver Sun

On this edition of Journal, we lift the curtain on the chaos of the NDP in British Columbia.

If you are shaking your head in disbelief at some of the stunning flip-flops and bad policy choices of our current provincial government, you are not alone.

Decriminalization: a disastrous policy now abandoned.

How about the infamous Land Act, which would have given First Nations co-control with the government of all the Crown land in the province? It was so controversial that it disappeared.

Premier David Eby loudly and repeatedly said that private property wouldn’t be affected by the aboriginal title agreements being negotiated – until a judge ruled in the Cowichan decision that maybe private property could be affected after all.

Another court has now ruled that the provincial system for mineral claims staking violates their own act, saying that all BC laws and regulations MUST be consistent with the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (DRIPA).

Interesting that David Eby was the Attorney General at that time, who helped draft those very words – “MUST be consistent.”

Realizing that the act would now have to be rewritten, Premier Eby presented changes that he said were urgent and non-negotiable – until they weren’t, and instead there would just be a 3-year pause on the troublesome phrases.

Then the Premier declared even this pause motion to be a matter of confidence, meaning the government would fall if it didn’t pass. Then lo and behold, he changed his mind yet again and announced it wouldn’t be a confidence vote.

Then the 3-month pause became 1-month and now it's completely off the table for this legislative session.

What is going on in Victoria? To help make sense of it all, Alec Lazenby, one of the top reporters covering the provincial government for the Vancouver Sun, joins us.