Courtesy of the Rush:
In a story we ran recently, Cariboo-Chilcotin MLA Donna Barnett stated she thinks $15 millions of taxpayers’ money spent by her own party on, ’Jobs Plan’ ads is too much.
Charlie Wyse, the NDP candidate for Cariboo-Chilcotin heard that and the statement eventually came up in the legislature this past week as MLA’s returned to the house for the first time since last May.
Well, the NDP is putting forward a bill that would ban the use of taxpayer dollars on partisan ads and they want Barnett’s support, but it seems as if they won’t get any such thing.
Says Donna Barnett: “You don’t need legislation. That’s why you elect members of government. That’s why you put people there, to make decisions. Are we going to legislate everything? Now [Adrian] Dix says he wants to legislate corporate and union donations? What kind of a free country do we have when everything is legislated?”
Barnett continues by saying, “It is government’s responsibility to make decisions for the people of British Columbia. To hide behind legislation is not the right thing to do. You are elected to make decisions and if those decisions are not the decisions the public feels are in their best interest, the public will judge that. Let’s not keep hiding behind legislation like the NDP have always done and always wanted to do.”
Barnett reiterates her thought that $15 million is too much but clarifies that it should not be banned outright. She says the government does have to get their message across after all.
The NDP’s bill would also require the Auditor General to approve all government ads, taxpayer funded or not.
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