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Liberals need to amend their allegiances
e-KNOW Editorial
A municipality without people is a town with no soul.
Those without souls are generally considered evil, or at the least extremely unfortunate.
So why is it that the provincial government would consider amending legislation to allow for the establishment of a municipality that will not have any actual residents?
The provincial Liberals last week launched the first reading of Bill 41, the ‘Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 2), 2012, which if approved would mean a resort municipality could be established, without residents. Which presents the next obvious question: who will serve on said municipality’s council, who will be mayor and who will serve on the nearest regional district board?
In politics, optics are everything and what we are seeing from all this are some extremely sketchy and unsavory examples of a government that has once again drifted far, far away from the pulse of its people. What seems good in Victoria during a heady day of fist pounding, blustering and cat-calling just comes across as freakishly stupid to most folks beyond Hope, on the best days.
If passed, Bill 41 will give the province power to appoint a mayor and council and to set election dates etc.
Basically, the province is shoving forward potential legislation that will allow them to willy-nilly hand over the keys to the henhouse to any ole fox with enough money to create a buzz around a scheme or proposal in B.C.’s backcountry.
Wait for it!
It’s all for Jumbo Glacier Resort – obviously, unless those secretive cads in Victoria have something else up their sleeves that they need to create such a potentially dangerous and spectacularly imbecilic piece of legislation for.
What century are we in?
Over the centuries, as we peruse the pages of history books, we find countless examples of how human greed and the endless pursuit of big bucks by those who already have big bucks have seriously screwed things up. The environment is the first victim to consider, but there are so many other examples of how mankind has ignored ‘doing the right thing’ in favour of ‘doing the wrong thing so a few cronies can make some loot.’
And this would just be another one on that terrible and sorry list.
Once again the tall-foreheads in Victoria who only listen to those who speak their language (party line etc.) are proving to us all again that mankind remains a puny-witted animal bent on nibbling its world to oblivion, one slack-assed, greed-driven nibble at a time.
At last Friday’s Regional District of East Kootenay board meeting, most Columbia Valley directors stated their complete objection to Bill 41, for the right reasons. They’re not against it because it smells like the Jumbo skunk has peed all over it; they’re against it because it makes a complete spitting mockery of ANY and ALL elected officials.
What do we need elections for when government can just appoint whomever it wants to in order to get whatever the money-makers want?
“In this scramble to enact legislation to facilitate the Jumbo real estate development, the provincial government demonstrates its intention to undermine the Local Government Act and to disenfranchise the public from the right to participation guaranteed under the Act,” noted Electoral Area G director Gerry Wilkie.
“The concept of a Mountain Resort Municipality designation for the Jumbo Valley is ridiculous,” added District of Invermere Mayor Gerry Taft. “There are no residents, and even if the resort was built as proposed by the developer, there would not be a population large enough to have an election. It is clear the Mountain Resort Municipality without residents is not about providing municipal services, or even about governance – its only purpose is to avoid public process on land use zoning and rubber stamp the wishes of the developer.”
Stop and think for a moment as to who exactly would be ‘appointed’ by the province to represent the populationless resort municipality of Jumbo, or Obertoville.
Do you think it might be someone whose only purpose is to boot open as many legislative doors and circumvent as many processes as possible in order to achieve the finest profit margin?
Imagine the RDEK board table, with another seat added – the Jumbo director. This person would be able to cast a vote on a myriad of subjects dealing with the important day-to-day operations of this region – like all the other ELECTED officials.
Never mind the fact that would be categorically unfair to all the other communities that grind through elections every three years, it just flat out looks bad and it really, really smells.
And we are hoping, with fists clenched and temple veins pulsating, that people are paying attention to this latest example of a Liberal government that is so overrun by lobby interests that it has lost hold of any ethical centre bar. Speak out and be heard.
Such a precedent leaves us frightened. What will be next from this pack of loons? Just govern the frigging province and quit kowtowing to corporate elitists, even if they are your bread and butter and have you by the balls.
Anyone who would vote for such a thing is clearly bought and sold and the best interests of British Columbia, its residents and, more to the point, the residents of this region who will suffer the brunt of any wrong-doings or failures, are secondary in nature. When it comes time to head back to the polls – those callous and ignorant decisions will bite you on the ass.
Argue it off all you want – that it will be good for this or that. Just know that the mechanism that has allowed smoke to be blown up butts ad nauseam the past decade is making weird noises and vast numbers of electors are hearing it.
We’ll give the final words to Taft, who has been up to his chin with Jumbo for far, far too long.
“Developers who wish to re-zone land have to follow a process that includes public hearings and a final decision by officials who are accountable to the residents who elected them. This legislation would empower a minister to give developers a special status that bypasses the democratic process and undermines the ability of local citizens to control development. The ability of the proposed Jumbo Resort, and other potential developments, to bypass the land use process and get their own municipality status without residents is an affront to local communities. This is far beyond a bad idea. The loss of democracy is a slippery slope, even slipperier than some land speculators and receding glaciers,” Taft stated.
It may be a cliché but it really would equate to handing a fox the keys to a henhouse.
And are we not all a little wiser than that?
Ian Cobb/e-KNOW
