Liberals ducking away from accountability

Oct. 2 was to be the start of the fall sitting of the Legislative Assembly but now it appears that the Liberals plan to cancel or significantly shorten the fall session despite their promise to maintain a fixed Legislative calendar.

A Legislative sitting provides a number of tools for MLAs to move constituency issues forward.  While in the House, we see ministers each day, providing an excellent opportunity to meet and make them aware of issues.  We are also able to bring up issues in question period, which ensures that ministers will take constituent concerns seriously.

By canceling or shortening the session, the Liberal government is showing its arrogance and its unwillingness to be accountable to the people.  This is just one more in a series of actions that indicates the Liberals don’t care about serving the electorate.

Since the Liberals took power, we have seen a number of significant changes to the way government operates and the mechanisms that have traditionally been in place to ensure the accountability of government.

For instance, earlier in the Liberal mandate, the office of the Auditor General saw a significant reduction to funding, lessening its ability to fulfill its mandate: to oversee government.  More recently, the Liberals appointed a new Auditor General in a manner that broke with long-standing tradition, and will forever taint the new appointee’s ability to be seen as objective.

As well, Freedom of Information requests have now become more and more expensive eliminating the possibility of an average person or constituent group being able to afford them.  Furthermore, when requests are received they are extremely delayed and most of the pertinent information has been removed.

And now the government wants to remove another opportunity for accountability.  In 2005, the BC electorate chose a strong opposition.  Voters understand the importance of balance in the Legislature and are aware of the effectiveness of question period.  Over the last two Legislative sessions, the opposition has been able to motivate the government to address issues such as the situation in the Ministry of Children and Families.  Clearly, a strong opposition makes for better government.

But this Liberal government doesn’t want to be scrutinized.  They would prefer not to answer your questions.

The canceling of the fall session just proves that ‘open and accountable’ are only buzzwords that the Liberals unpack at election time; certainly not a promise to voters that they would actually want to keep.