The B.C. legislature would sit for 71 days this year, if an election were not already set in law for May 12.
Provincial politicians are scheduled to meet in Victoria for 47 days in the spring starting on February 10, and 24 days in the fall, according to the recently released parliamentary calendar.
But once the writ is dropped for the May election, which has to happen 28 days ahead of voting day, the house will stop meeting and won't gather again until after the new government is sworn in in June.
That cuts 25 days from the legislative calendar, bringing the total number of meeting days down to 46. That's 10 fewer days than the legislature sat in 2008, a year when the Liberal government canceled the fall sitting before reversing itself and recalling the house for five days to address the global economic slowdown.
Andrew MacLeod is The Tyee’s Legislative Bureau Chief in Victoria. Reach him here.
6
Login or register to post comments
G West
3 years ago
Why meet at all?
The Premier is confident he can solve all the province's problems without any consultation or legal advice. Perhaps we can look forward to a lot more legislation being overturned by the courts.
The Legislature is just something inconvenient where Campbell has to avoid answering any difficult questions in public.
It's much easier to just not show up or to let de Jong or Oppal take the difficult questions.
Every question gets the same answer from this government anyway
quarry bay
3 years ago
Canwest global media
In fact we should really just cancel Victoria legislature forever,Campbell can just ram everything through,there is no debate,the media,the CKNWs/sun/province/chek/shaw/ and every other BC media source lap up Campbell`s drool!
What is the point,Campbell and Jessicca Mcdonald can do it all themselves! Outsource all our hydro needs,outsource and privitize roads,healthcare,BC can become a service based economy,we see how well it worked for George Bush!
Gag laws,Third party advertising laws,laws against BC hydro from producing its own power,wcb has been gutted,no one will report about the 10.000 workers that have been bankrupted!
Luke/Happy/Rman I hope you are all F____ng thrilled!
Curt
3 years ago
and they complained the "toilet bowl cleaners" were overpaid
Well take the days and hours for a normal work day and Gordo and his clan are making over $400 an hour. Pretty good for nothing. No wonder they don't want to sit.
Unbelievable crooks.
BC Mary
3 years ago
Desperate politicians often do stupid things
Offer to buy out 138 homeowners just doesn't make sense
BY BRIAN LEWIS
THE PROVINCE - JANUARY 6, 2009
After dumping on Delta in a number of ways over the past few years, the Gordon Campbell government is now in full-blown damage-control mode as the spring election approaches.
But desperate governments often do stupid things, as the Tsawwassen power-line fiasco demonstrates.
Despite solid arguments to the contrary, Victoria and its B.C. Transmission Corp. accomplice recently completed construction of a high-voltage transmission line on 36.5-metre industrial power poles across the backyards of more than 100 homes in a Tsawwassen neighbourhood.
To make a long story short, this was part of the Vancouver Island Transmission Reinforcement Project, which replaced a much smaller, lower-voltage transmission system that ran through the same backyard right-of-way.
Prior to construction, Victoria and the BCTC repeatedly ignored viable options to bury the power-line system on the existing route or reroute it along another right-of-way to nearby Deltaport.
And now Campbell's government is offering to buy the 138 Tsawwassen homes that sit directly on the right-of-way.
According to Cec Dunn, co-chair of Tsawwassen Residents Against Higher Voltage Overhead Lines, this attempt at mitigation will likely cost taxpayers far more than if Victoria had buried the power line in the first place. {Snip} ...
Give the Campbell clan an Olympic gold medal here in the Jumping to Conclusions event.
{Snip} ...
"It's now acknowledged world-wide that long-term exposure in the two-to-four milligauss range more than doubles the risk of leukemia in children," Dunn adds. {Snip} ...
[But here's the rub: our own battered BC Hydro will be expected to do the dirty ... ]
... the actual purchasing will be done by B.C. Hydro, so none of this will appear on the government's direct books.
http://www.theprovince.com/opinion/Desperate+politicians+often+stupid+things/1145469/story.html
No wonder the Campbell Government isn't keen on enduring Question Period in the BC Legislature.
Grumpy
3 years ago
BC Mary it does make sense!
The safest Liberal seat in the province is about to crash dive faster than the Titanic. Viki Huntington will win easily running as an independent, but guess what, if she runs as a Liberal - hocus~pocus the NDP will win!
Campbell is a firm believer in the free enterprise system and that votes cam be easily bought!
lynn
3 years ago
Democracy reduced to murky curds and whey
Yes, under the Campbell regime, the BC Legislature has definitely become "meatless".