Thoughts on BC Politics and More

“ Ride sharing legislation is long overdue in BC ”, remarked BC Conservative interim leader Scott Anderson several months ago.   “ While the rest of the world is embracing this transportation revolution, BC is only now staggering slowing towards legislation that’s been mainstreamed for over a decade in other jurisdiction.   This is really unacceptable ”. That situation my friends, continues still to this day. “ The NDP introduced a supposed ride-sharing framework that blocks major companies like Uber and Lyft from entering the market – and when our caucus suggested changes to make this framework workable, we were ignored by both the government and the Greens ,” says Stephanie Cadieux, deputy chair of the committee and MLA for Surrey South. “ Now several months later, the all-party committee has made the same suggestions. The NDP needs to put ideology aside and implement these recommendations to finally bring real ridesharing to BC .” ...

Yesterday (February 13th) in Question Period the B.C. Liberals went after ride-hailing. Two things here. Their attempt to own this issue while spending the better part of five years ignoring it, is a perfect illustration of politicians serving their own interests, not the public interest. More on that in a minute. The narrative built to a crescendo of questions raising the spectre of a conflict of interest of one member of the Select Standing Committee on Crown Corporations. The task of the committee is to recommend regulations to the Minister of Transportation on four key areas. What was brought out into the open yesterday, is that the father of an NDP member of the committee, MLA , owns a taxi license in Greater Victoria. Well, that is headline material and the media gathered outside the doors of the Chamber to be the first to write it. Conflict in interest? Conflict of interest is a big problem. In my business...