Another Steve Rant

1) Fall Sitting of BC Legislature

Today, Hon. Mike DeJong (Minister of Aboriginal Relations) announced that a Fall Sitting would not take place. The NDP Opposition immediately pounced on the government cancellation of the Fall Sitting. Personally, if there isn't work to do then really it is a judgment call on business to be considered and money used to have the House sit. Obviously the government felt that it wasn't appropriate use of taxpayers' money to have the House sit while the government has no business to propose to the House. 4 Government Bills remain on the Order Paper however the Government has decided that those Bills can wait until Feb of '09.

2) Increasing numbers of Directors sitting on the CRD Board

In today's Quesnel Cariboo Observer, Mayor Bello stated his intention to ask the CRD to increase Quesnel's representation on the CRD Board from 1 to 2. Allow me to pick apart why his logic is flawed. Right now, 16 Directors from Areas A-L (12 Directors) with 4 others from Quesnel, WL, 100 Mile House and Wells (4 Directors) comprise the CRD Board of Directors. The Board has 2 Voting system (Corporate/Stakeholder - Weighted/Unweighted). Unweighted means each Director gets 1 Vote. Weighted Votes are when financial matters are considered. Each Director is assigned a number of weighted votes. The actual formula for weighted votes are: "1 Vote = 2500 persons living in each Electoral Area/Municipality". Therefore, Williams Lake would get 5 Weighted Votes, Quesnel would receive 4 Weighted Votes and the 12 Electoral Areas would be assigned 1-3 weighted votes per Electoral Area, depending on actual population numbers in said Electoral Area. The problem with Mayor Bello's logic is that he complains he is outvoted 4-1 at the Board table, however if he were to work with the Northern Directors and not to act like "Holier than Thou" attitude towards the Directors', I believe that more would get done in the North Cariboo. The same would apply to the Central/South Cariboo regions. At the end of the day, municipal Directors need to work with the rural directors to get things done for their City/District, not increase number of directors at the CRD Board table. The Regional District system of local government works fairly well, although minor tweaking would be a good thing. Also, inviting First Nation Bands' to sit on the CRD Board I think would be a good thing, however that would have to be negotiated with the local First Nations' Bands as to weighted votes, participation in Functions, etc.