Call for election probe a had ‘gaq’

Dear Editor:

The out-going North Vancouver District council voted 4-3 to ask the municipal affairs minister to examine the third-party negative advertising in the civic election. Three of the four who supported the motion were not re-elected.

Municipal Affairs Minister Jim Doyle said he had concerns about said advertising. That is not surprising, given that his government brought in 2 provincial gag law in 1995. The fed-

eral equivalent has been fought successfully in the courts, and Qrtawa has introduced yet more third-party restrictions.

In 1995 the official opposition voted against the provincial g5g, and as a member of that opposition I oppose the North Vancouver motion. J a hen that the citizens who placed the ad endorsing, seven candi six of whom were clected, should have included a contact. nuinber:of people to call. Their cam- _Paign, however, was quite legitimate in a democratic clection.

One might question whether the North Vancouver motion is ia order, It certainly, in the words of Councillor Janice Harris, ; “sour grapes.” ”In ct, it makes one gag.

ma waver Capi

Yenconver-Capilano

Pe wont fsx He to thank al of who voted for me and sup-

elections. .

On.acr Poste. note; 1 would tke wo congrticthe f : Task Force for bringing important. public right to the forefront: The public’s right to access and freely along

¢ waterfront will not go q ‘the responsibility of the next generation, of hard

, community spied volunteers to carry on the work. of. the voting public want to improve our waterfront : at is’ large statement in itself. I am sure the “concerned would have been very concemed if more of you tumed

Out and voted, because I am confident most of you who dida’t .

favoured many of the recommendations mad to ss and freedom to walk along our shores.’

f the mew Elections Act,

ted white, mp.

Wednesday, December &

TWO IMPORTANT BILLS

The Nisga'a Bill, and the new

i Elections Act, are both back in the

House this week. As a result, i decided

| to give you a brief update on the status

of those two Bills.

ELECTIONS ACT (C-2)

In my role as the Reform Critic for Bill C-2, during Question Period on November 17th | asked the Minister responsible for (Hon. Don Boudria), why he was persisting with a

| “patronage-ridden, gag-law contami-

nated, piece of yesterday's legislation”. | suggested that he “throw away the Bill and start again from scratch".

The language was strong because Question Period is “showtime”, and nobody really expects to extract a sensible

, answer from the Government side, but the

language did convey an important mes- sage. As mentioned in my report of November 24th, the new Elections Act retains a system of biatant patronage

J appointments for the political party faithful,

places limits on election campaign adver- tising by “third parties” (that’s you), and reinstates an illogical "50 candidate rule"

for a pasty to have its name on the ballot.

Despite weeks of committee hearings,

| which sometimes ran until 10 or 11 o'clock | at night, and included input from the

media, broadcasters, political parties, the Chief Electoral Officer, and the public, the Govemment has squandered an opportu- nity to modumize the Act, and to make it

exception, which | will write abcut nent

1 week, the Minister did little more than re-

number the paragraphs in the old Act. In

- addition, it now aaems likely that the

Liberals will invoke time limits on debate of

the Bilt in the House. What « sad com-

montary on the state of our democracy

) that a new Elections Act, which should

be # politically-neutral place of legista-

i thor, is going fo be remmed through ell

‘sages, over the , chieesons of the

COMMITTEE STAGE.

The committee stage for Bill C-2 ended I on December 1st, but during thé “clause _ by clause" consideration of the Bill, when” @ach and every clause of the 254 page Bil -

-was discussed and voted on, | counted up ‘to 95 people at.a time in the comniittes

- Foomi.:The group included MPs from all

an amendment suggested by the MP rep- resenting the PC Party, Andre Harvey. He put forward a suggestion which clarified the application of Clause 2 of the Bill, only to be promptly informed by the “watchdog for the Minister”, Liberal MP Gar Knutson, that “...the Government would be opposed to this”. immediately after Gar made this statement though, one of the Minister's legal experts pointed out that the clarification suggested by Mr Harvey was already included in another clause of

the Bill. At this point, | could not help inter- ]

jecting with the question, "Mr Knutson, you sald the Government disagreed with this. Do you want fo take it out of | the Bill now?".

Such interchanges are not uncommon during clause by clause consideration of a Bill, because the Goverment always seems to start from a position of automat- ic opposition to any and all amendments which come from other parties, even when they are both logical and desirable.

BILL ¢-9 Just as frustrating, for many of the same reasons, is the process being ussd by the Govemment to ram through the Nisga'a Bill.

It too, is also back in |

Parliament following the committes hear- |

ings held in BC two weeks ago, and has {

been. subjected to ongoing and spirited }

debate, not only from the Reform Party,

but also from a number of cther interestad ;

groups. The Gitanyow First Nation, for’

Aggreseion’, and mainstream’ coftumnists. | across Canada have recently begun ques- tioning the wisdorn of the deal.

q

y.

, 1999 — Nerth Shore Hows - &

Christmas season Capilano College's very own "A" Band and vocal ensemble, Nite Cap, present a Christmas concert packed with traditional jazz classics and popular tunes that will warm the heart. Appearing for one night only, they will perform on Friday, December !7 at 8 p.m. in the Capilano College Performing Arts Theatre. Don't be. disappointed. Call 990-7810 today for tickets.

> The wilderness Is ;

sailing

With backcountry adventures becoming more and more popular, there is an increasing need for skilled outdoor leaders. Those with adventuraus spirits should come to an_ information meeting for

reserve a seat, call :

Unfortunately though, the protests appear J” > Continues

fo have come too fate. One hundred per- : § cent of the power to pass the Bil rests with: the Prima Minister, and he has made it | clear thet he wants the Bill through the House before Christmas. We have tried every procedural trick in the book to hold up passage of the BH, some of which you

and on television, but it Is 2 baie we can.” not, in the end, win. :

Only time will tell who was right and. who was wrong with respect to predicting the long term effects of the Nisga'a Treaty, but at this stage | am still walting for s one to identify for’me a: single | indian

‘by a treaty, whe the standard of ving Is.

anvvshere ‘close to the standard of. fiving: found off-reserve. In: Partiament,: | have twice asked the Minister of Indian Affairs to:

; identify such a reserve, and ha ‘has failed.

to give an answer. The reason ts obvious.”

». despite almost $100 millicn per yea revenues, about 85% of the Band tive on welfare and’ |

are coming

ia week's mail for the .