My job as your MLA is to represent your views in the Legislature in Victoria. You tell me what is important to you, and I do my best to put forward those priorities. This is an important part of ensuring that our democracy is functioning. You need to have faith that your MLA is working for you.
But the most important part of a functioning democracy is the active participation of citizens. As we’ve seen across the world, people are standing up to governments that are not listening and demanding that they be heard.
In British Columbia, there have been a number of examples of citizens getting active and sending a clear message to government.
Locally, residents have been really clear that they oppose private river-diversion projects. In the Columbia Valley, for instance, the consistent and vocal opposition to the Glacier Howser project has made it very difficult for the company and the government to proceed.
And across the province, 700,000 British Columbians signed a petition against the HST which was implemented against the wishes of the people. In fact, it was the BC Liberals’ insistence that they would not bring in the HST, and their betrayal of that promise immediately after the election, that upset British Columbians the most.
Over the next number of months, British Columbians will have many opportunities to send a message to their political representatives. There is the federal election on May 2nd, the referendum on the HST which begins in June, and likely a provincial election in the fall.
If we do nothing else as citizens, we all have a responsibility to vote. You can also volunteer on an election campaign, attend all candidates’ meetings, and ask the candidates tough questions.
Ultimately, you make the decision about who is in charge. Make sure your choice puts the public interest, both for the present and the future, at the top of the agenda.
All too often we have been given written assurances by this government only to find their intentions were completely different. For example, there were written guarantees by the BC Liberals not to give away BC Rail nor to introduce the HST. We all know how that turned out.
And now we are seeing that the BC Liberals are also not living up to their promises around water.
At the constituency office, many of the issues that are brought to our attention deal with water. The inadequacy of current legislation and the cuts to personnel has made these issues difficult to deal with.
Recently, hundreds of British Columbians participated in a provincial government process to modernize the outdated Water Act.
The process started with a February 2010 Discussion Paper that broadly outlined key challenges to British Columbia’s supply of clean and safe water for human health, our environment and economic well-being.
At the outset of the process the Minister responsible gave written assurance that the BC Liberals would not consider privatizing a life-sustaining public resource into a privately held and tradable commodity. California’s experimentation with water markets was a disaster.
In the most recent discussion paper released in December 2010, the BC Liberal government indicated what direction it planned to take for its Water Modernization Act. The BC Liberals are now talking about embracing the already discredited water market approach.
This is a huge mistake. British Columbians need to be able to have confidence that our Water Act will be modernized to the benefit of the public rather than allowing water to become a private and tradable commodity.
We all must do everything we can to stop this trend. Water is essential to life. We cannot allow this government to give private business control of our water.
Take a moment to learn more about the proposed Water Modernization Act, and find out what you can do to make sure that British Columbia’s water stays in public hands.