Today I rose in the Legislature and responded to Bill 5 (Constitution Amendment Act, 2017). The proposed Legislation moves the fixed election date from May to October and changes the number of MLA’s required for official party status from four to two.
[Transcript]
It is very interesting to be in this place, hearing the conspiracy theories, the rewrite of history and the reduction of our citizens to simple taxpayers. I respect the contribution that every citizen makes to our society, in both the casting the ballot and participating in our democracy. But I would never reduce the citizens to simply just taxpayers, as we continue to hear over and over and over in this place.
I’m pleased to be speaking today in support of the Constitution Amendment Act. This bill makes important changes that I feel are necessary and overdue to strengthen and update that very democracy which we all hold so dearly.
First, I’d like to say I welcome the change of the fixed election date from May to October. This is an important and long-overdue change that all members of this House should be able to get behind.
The B.C. Greens campaigned on changing the fixed election date to October in order to separate it from the February budget process. Separating the election date from the budget will result in significant changes in how our province is run — important changes. It will end the practise of government creating these pre-election budgets where financial goodies are trotted out and handed out to segments of the population in order to secure votes, since the May election date is only a few months before the February budget. It will also stop the budget debate from sounding like campaign stump speeches, than the recent debate on the provincial books.
I hope that this will enable more substantive engagement from all members of this House on future budgets and more nuanced and honest conversation about what aspects of the budget members support, what they don’t support and why. Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of having the February budget closely followed by a May election is that the budget cannot be passed before the election and that the Auditor General’s audit of the public books doesn’t come out before July. So it just ends up turning into theatre. The budget often gets substantially edited or rewritten even after the election, and it often bears little relation to what was promised in February. This, I believe, misleads British Columbians, or it leaves them vulnerable to being misled.
It also creates a situation where the new government, after an election, is under significant pressure to reconvene parliament and pass a new budget. I believe that we felt that this summer, the pressure that that creates, and that the government is also under pressure in their budget update to make significant changes and fulfil campaign promises. Of course, we know that in a transition of government, it takes time. And the new ministers take time to fully understand their portfolio and to understand what might be behind the walls as you tear the drywall off and find out that there might be some dry rot and some things that need to be fixed. But this is without the time that’s needed to do the policy work and the consultations necessary to marshal the evidence.
I find it quite interesting that we keep hearing about the consultations like it’s like a dirty word. The fact of the matter is, that we do need to be connecting with the various stakeholders. In fact, when the government is not connecting with the stakeholders, then we hear about how they didn’t connect with the stakeholders. So I think that it’s important that we do commit to connecting with the citizens of our province and the stakeholders to ensure that the work that we’re doing in this place is informed, it’s based on evidence, and that’s the commitment that the government makes.
The way it is now, it wastes resources and the time and energy of the Finance Minister and the public service. Most importantly, it undermines the public trust in government as British Columbians have rightly become deeply distrustful of this whole process as the budget is being put forward and then substantially rewritten after the election. Moving the election date to October will eliminate these problems, and it will create less partisan budgeting process in the future.
In my view, most decisions in politics are difficult, and it requires tough trade-offs and the weighing of benefits and drawbacks to any policy change. I’m certain that anybody who has been a minister in this House, whether current or former, can attest to the difficulty of the decisions that are in front of them.
This change, though, is an exception. I think that this change should have been made years ago, and it will create less partisan budgeting process, improve public transparency and eliminate wasted time, energy and resources in government. Most importantly, it is a step government can take to improve public confidence and trust in government.
I would also like to touch briefly on the second change this bill makes, extending official party status to any group of MLAs elected under a party banner, whether it be two or 22.
Of course, today this change affects me and my colleagues in the B.C. Green caucus, the MLAs from Cowichan Valley and Oak Bay–Gordon Head. We’re, of course, thrilled that our caucus will be represented under one party banner, and the little banner that’s going to be right under my name here that says “Independent” will be changed to the party that I ran under, the Green Party, and the values that we ran under.
But this principle of this change goes far beyond us and far beyond the Green Party. It’s the right that any group of MLAs who campaign together under a party banner and who are united by a set of values and shared platform commitments should be officially represented in our Legislature as an official caucus, a united caucus.
This is a principle of fair recognition of all parties who participate in our democracy and elect voices to sit together and work together in the Legislature with all of our colleagues in this place. It’s important that we remember that these and other changes that we pass in the House today affect not only us but all future members of the House as well.
In sum, I’d like to restate my support for this bill. It takes important steps to update and modernize our democracy. Extending party status to parties with two seats or more in this House and changing the fixed election date are commonsense and overdue changes that I hope members on all sides of this House will join me in supporting. HÍSWḴE SIÁM. Thank you.
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