Friday,

February 14, 1992 — North Shore News - 9

As usual, B.C. plays the buffoon

SOMETIMES IT’S embar-
rassing to say you are a
British Columbian.

We may be better at some
things than the other. people, but _
when it comes to self-government,
we are the Hicks from Hicksville.

When we get in a swivet about
scmething that everybody under-
stands except us, the rest of the
country still pats us on the head
and says ‘*There, there, now. You
go and have a nice hot cup of
tea.””

An MLA who expects to
become Speaker of the B.C.
Legistature, and doubtless should
not, is the latest to contribute to
the Barefoot B.C. Boy image.

She brought about the firing of
awoman from the staff of the
Speaker's Office because the
woman had worked for Social
Credit members.

’ The premier came back at ‘the
time this new absurdity surfaced
at the Legislature Buildings
(Parliament Buildings, as the Brit-
ish Columbians call them), atid he
elevated the level of debate with a
private parliamentary procedure
known as kicking ass.

The lady who would be Speaker
saw bright light. So did the NDP
cabinet minister who had sup-
ported her shenanigans.
Everybody now perceives that it
was all a lamentable error and
that the less the newspapers talk
about it the better for all concern-

You can hear the voices of
Social Crediters of the last gov-
ernment, ‘‘If only the newspapers

St. Pierre.

Paul

PAULITICS & PERSPECTIVES

wouldn’t report what we are doing
everything would be fine!”

One tries to imagine this sort of
thing happening in the jurisdic-
tions of Mike Romanow in
Saskatchewan, Joe Ghiz in Prince
Edward Island or Bob Rac in On-
tario. Somehow, irnagination isn't
up to the challenge.

This is the sort of thing that can
only happen in B.C. and some of
the Third World countries of
Africa and Asia. The best we can
say is that here it usually doesn’t
happen out of matice or partisan-
ship but is born of unabashed ig-
norance.

This particular ignorance is the
inability to distinguish between a
parliament and a government.

The general public and newspa-
pers frequently mistake political

Old library site’s future

NORTH VANCOUVER
City is currently considering
the fate of the old city
library site at 135 West 12th
St.

By Anna Marie D’Angelo
News Reporter

‘Ald. John Braithwaite said
Wednesday that council was
waiting for a staff report to
discuss options for the site.

NVC director of development

eS
NORTH VANCOUVER
CITY COUNCIL

services Fred Smith said the
long-term use of the old library
site would be included in the up-
dated official community plan.

He said city staff may recom-
mend the site’s zoning change
from institutional! to medium-
density residential (three-storey
apartment).

The zoning of the adjacent
property, formerly a church and

parties Jur governments and sug-
gest that any elected member of a
governing party is a member of a
government.

A few government party

--~ ~ members are always happy to > -- >

permit that error to go uncor-
rected. However it remains un-
true, and without tremendous re-
jigging of our political systein, it
will never be.

True, under the British
parliamentary system, government
members are chosen from elected
people with the same faithfulness
that under the American system
they are not.

What adorns British parliamen-
lary government and makes it, at
least to some of us, far superior
to the American system, is that
above government there stands a
body of elected citizens who can,
overnight, dismiss a government
and demand that a new one be
created.

Of this supreme body, ordinary
people elected by the ordinary cit-
izens as their representatives, the
Speaker of the House is the
greatest among equals.

As a hundred of them have said

“a hundred times, a Speaker is not

a servant of the government or of
a political party. He answers only
to the House itself.

A Speaker is usually chosen
from within a government party,
but not always. On the day he or
she is officially selected and drag-
ged, with ritual struggling, toward
the Speaker’s chair by the Premier
and the Leader of the Opposition,
it is customary for him to sit on
the Opposition side of the House

considered

now housing Naylor Communica-
tions Ltd., will also change to
medium-density residential if
council accepts the staff recom-
mendation.

The old library has been used
for municipal storage in recent
years.

A meeting to gather public in-
put on al! aspects of the updated
Official Community Plan, in-
cluding any zoning changes to the
old library site, has been postpon-
ed until the end of March.

The current plan was approved
in 1980.

MALL-WIDE

VanCOUVeER CenTReE Malt

- Under the Birks Clock at Georgia & Granville

Ti

to await the call.

All this may seem quaint old
buncombe, but it serves a real
purpose in parliamentary debate.
As the most respected member of

the House, when a Speaker rises ~~

everybody else instantly takes his
seat to listen,

This happens just about every-
where except in British Colum-
bia‘s Legislature. Here it is by no
means uncommon to find an
MLA and a Speaker both on their
feet at the same time, shouting at
each other,

B.C. politicians like to call this
the rough and tumble of debate.
Irisn’t.

It is loutish stupidity and one of
the reasons that school children
who attend sessions in Victoria
invariably comment on the bad
manners of MLAs.

The children are right. They see
that the emperor has no clothes.

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A lack of respect for the House
and its Speaker carries over from
here to the national Parliament.

One B.C. MP, Bob Wenman,
Conservative, distinguished

himself by Stiting out inte the ai-

sle of the House and shaking his
fist at a Speaker.

Another, lan Waddell, New
Democratic Party, was the first
man in a century to be brought
before the bar of the Canadian
House and named for disgraceful
disrespect.

The British Columbians,
Canada’s rube band.

It wouldn’t be so bad if we
flouted the old British traditions
because we have better.ones to put
in their place. We don’t. We act
from simple ignorance and thosé
mountains are so damned high we-
don’t hear other people laughing
at us.
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