Thoughts on BC Politics and More

A commentary by a former ­senior associate member of the University of Oxford. British Columbia’s Bill 9 does not remove the right of access to information, but it risks making that right harder to use in ­practice. That should concern anyone who believes government should be answerable to the public, not insulated from it ... ... delays are not, by ­themselves, a reason to ­narrow public rights. More often, they reflect under-resourced access offices, weak records ­management and outdated s­ystems. If government cannot process requests efficiently, the answer is to improve capacity, not reduce accountability ... CLICK HERE for the full story 

It was not the 2025 that BC Premier David Eby expected. “I guess one of the big takeaways from this year is that things aren’t going to settle down,” Eby told The Tyee during an interview in his wood-panelled legislature office. “I kept saying to our team here, you know, eventually things will settle down and we’ll all be able to catch our breath, but it has just been one significant international event after another hitting British Columbia.” He listed U.S. tariffs on softwood lumber and flooding in the Fraser Valley as examples. “You name it, it has been a very eventful 12 months" ... CLICK HERE for the full story

BC’s premier says companies and investors are gaining confidence in major project proponents in the province, despite some economic uncertainty that remains. “I mean, 2025 was a really difficult year for a lot of British Columbians and it didn’t have to be,” Premier David Eby said at a press conference on Wednesday. “The year started for me with, in many ways, with some tweets on Truth Social, and it ended with the actual impact of those tweets on British Columbians, especially in the forest sector.” However, Eby is optimistic heading into 2026. “BC is indeed positioned to be the economic engine of our country’s economy going forward,” he said  ... CLICK HERE for the full story

The premier said the government is reviewing the court's decision: "It will take some time for us to come up with the appropriate amendments, but clearly amendments are needed." Opposition politicians and a business group are urging the British Columbia government to recall the legislature in order to repeal the Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples Act after the province's Appeal Court ruled in favour of Indigenous groups over the mineral claims regime. Trevor Halford, the interim leader of the Conservative Party of BC, said Monday the uncertainty can't drag on until the next session of the legislature in February. "Reconvening the (legislature) is appropriate, when a court decision creates urgent legal, or constitutional consequences requiring immediate legislative action," Halford said, standing just outside the closed doors to the main legislative chamber ... ... in Vancouver on Monday, Eby said the government is reviewing the court...

Eight years before landmark Cowichan legal decision, lawyers debated alerting private property owners From the outset of its landmark claim for Aboriginal title, the Quw’utsun (Cowichan) Nation claimed its beef was not with private property owners. In May 2017, lawyers for the Quw'utsun, the federal Crown, B.C and Richmond spent two days in a Victoria courtroom debating the merits of notifying more than 100 Richmond landowners about the legal battle that would see a judge grant Aboriginal title over their land eight years later ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Back-to-back overdose surges have prompted the BC Conservative Caucus to call for an immediate end to decriminalization and a reversal of the government’s drug-enabled policies. On November 21, Vancouver Fire Rescue Services responded to 54 overdose calls in a single day, the highest in its history. Firefighters now average 45 overdose calls daily, with major spikes during income-assistance week. Three days earlier, the Cowichan Valley saw 80 overdoses in 24 hours, exhausting local naloxone supplies. Statement issued by Critic for Mental Health and Addictions Claire Rattée: “Vancouver’s highest-ever overdose call volume is a devastating warning that this crisis is only getting worse. If this government’s approach worked, we would see results, but we don’t. “Vancouver has the most concentrated access to safe supply, overdose prevention sites, decriminalization, and every harm-reduction measure the government champions, yet more people are dying than ever. Policies that n...

During the fall session of British Columbia’s Legislature, Premier David Eby’s NDP government has routinely used its majority to block the tabling of private member’s bills from OneBC, the two-MLA, Conservative splinter party. That changed Nov. 26 when OneBC house leader Tara Armstrong’s “Secure Procurement in Respect of China Act” passed first reading by a vote of 84-4. Armstrong proposes banning the B.C. government from buying goods and services from China when comparable goods and services are available from Canadian or democratic allies. Armstrong also proposes the government disclose the dollar value of contracts with Chinese businesses. The only four MLAs to vote against were three members of the John Rustad-led Conservative caucus who represent Richmond ridings — Hon Chan, Steve Kooner and Teresa Wat, — and Conservative opposition house leader Aaliya Warbus ... CLICK HERE for the full story

The second-to-last week of the fall legislative session began with a last-minute addition by a government that showed every sign of making things up as it goes along. The bill, introduced Monday, removes a provision in the Mental Health Act that has been targeted by a court challenge going back almost a decade. The passage declares that where a patient is detained in a designated treatment facility under the Act, “treatment authorized by the director is deemed to be given with the consent of the patient”  ... CLICK HERE for the full story

There is a touch of absurdity in the new “Look West” economic master plan for B.C. that the NDP government dropped this week. It puts huge emphasis on speeding up and streamlining permitting, reducing ­barriers and delays and “removing ­duplication across regulatory frameworks.” It sets a wonderful goal — clearing away all the backlog of projects awaiting government permits. But what raises eyebrows is the fact that the government is giving itself 10 years to meet that goal ... CLICK HERE for the full story  

“ The recent convictions of the Drug User Liberation Front (DULF) founders in the B.C. Supreme Court confirm that the procurement and trafficking of illicit drugs carried out through their so-called “compassion club” were illegal under Canadian law. These convictions are a significant development, but they cannot be the end of the story. The court record makes clear that DULF’s activities did not occur in isolation. They operated with the knowledge, support, funding, and authorization of senior officials within the BC NDP government and the provincial health system.| Evidence presented in court shows: Senior Vancouver Coastal Health officials wrote letters supporting DULF’s model , fully aware that it involved acquiring and distributing illicit drugs. Provincial health authorities granted DULF special designations and exemptions , even after Health Canada refused to authorize the program. The province provided significant taxpayer funding and supplied a government-owned site ...

The BC government announced its 10-year plan to grow the province’s economy and investments. The plan, called ‘Look West‘, aims to face the challenges brought on by the U.S. tariffs, according to the government, and strengthen the economy while speeding up and diversifying key sectors. “British Columbia can get big things done, which is why our province is vastly overrepresented in the list of major projects Ottawa is fast-tracking,” Premier David Eby said in a statement on Monday. “This plan sets big goals as we make BC the economic powerhouse of Canada to create great jobs and drive prosperity in every corner of the province”  ... CLICK HERE for the full story

A phrase tagged on to the end of a motherhood resolution supporting transmission lines, at the NDP’s weekend convention, will prompt some curiosity. In mild, understated fashion, it calls for a degree of state ownership of resource industries, in the form of provincial equity buy-ins to companies. The premise is that government should advance an ambitious plan to expand the electrical grid and power resource industries. That’s already underway, as the NDP has been trumpeting the planned North West Transmission Line as a transformative industrial development for the ages. The kicker line was: “The BC NDP will call on the provincial government to seek to maximize benefits for the people of BC by negotiating return on investment for the public in the form of public equity stakes”  ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Bulkley Valley–Stikine MLA Sharon Hartwell is calling on Housing Minister Christine Boyle and BC Housing to immediately halt construction of what she calls an “experimental shelter” being forced on the people of Smithers without consultation, safety planning, or accountability. “This so-called shelter is not a solution. It is a reckless social experiment being imposed on a northern community that has already been stretched to the limit,” said Hartwell. “Families, doctors, and small business owners were blindsided by a $700,000 decision made in Victoria without consultation or care for local impacts. People are angry and they have every reason to be.” The shelter, funded through BC Housing, is being installed near homes and medical offices without community input. The site will also include a tent that will support the provision of so called “safe supply” drugs for users of the shelter. In a letter to government, local physicians described it as “deeply irresponsible and p...

The Association for Mineral Exploration (AME) is raising concerns about BC’s Heritage Conservation Act Transformation Project.  The purpose of the project is to update the Heritage Conservation Act (HCA) to ensure it is consistent with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and improve how the HCA is implemented in a way that benefits all people in BC.   According to the provincial government, The Heritage Conservation Act (HCA) encourages and enables the protection and conservation of sites with historical, cultural and/or archaeological value in BC. These sites hold physical evidence of how and where people lived CLICK HERE for the full story

Standing in front of hundreds of public officials who are legally prohibited from operating in the red and fretting about how tough it is to reduce the gigantic deficits you are running is a bit … awkward. But that was Finance Minister Brenda Bailey’s lot in life this week at the Union of BC Municipalities convention. There wasn’t what you’d call a “wave of sympathy” from the local leaders, who spend months every year chopping costs to make expenses match revenue. It felt more like “cry me a river”  ... CLICK HERE for the full story

... The premier also discussed the fiscal headwinds facing the government in advance of the financial update scheduled for Sept. 15. “Significant sources of revenue for the province are down,” said Eby, citing forestry and the real estate sector. “We’ve seen a slowing global economy, which has a depressing impact on resources that we bring to market.” The Sept. 15 news release will also update the effort to rein in spending and contain a deficit forecast to be in the $10-billion range this year ... CLICK HERE for the full story   

On the Coast’s Soapbox Social panelists Mo Amir and Kyla Lee weigh in on BC's growing debt, looming strike votes and John Horgan’s new biography ... CLICK HERE for the conversation 

The largest shipyard in Canada is criticizing BC Ferries for a flawed procurement process it says was tilted from the start to award new ship construction contracts to the government of China. Davie shipyard, the oldest and highest-capacity shipyard in the country, says BC Ferries never gave Canadian builders a real chance at competing for the billion-dollar contract to build four new large ships. “Unfortunately, the procurement criteria were heavily weighted toward the lowest price, effectively favouring Chinese shipyards" ... CLICK HERE for the full story 

RECONCILIATION IS something we must take seriously, because it’s important, but sometimes it can get a bit silly because governments have a way of messing it up. Case in point is Okanagan Falls, a community of about 2,200 people on the south end of Skaha Lake in the Okanagan Valley ...  ... a lot of its residents want more local control of development, so they narrowly voted in favour of incorporation a few months ago. Since then, the provincial government has thrown a wrench in the works, hinting it might require Okanagan Falls to change its name to an Indigenous one when letters patent are completed ... CLICK HERE for the full story

IMAGE CREDIT:   Interior Health website   Kamloops-Centre MLA and Critic for Finance Peter Milobar and Kamloops-North Thompson MLA Ward Stamer are calling out the NDP government for leaving cardiac patients in the Thompson-Nicola region waiting decades for life-saving services — while local residents are forced to raise millions to fill the gap.   The ICCHA-WISH Fund and Kamloops residents have already raised over $2 million for Royal Inland Hospital (RIH), purchasing state-of-the-art equipment and attracting specialists. Yet critical cardiac services are delayed until 2040, forcing over 1,000 patients a year to endure hours-long transfers to Kelowna General Hospital — delays that can mean the difference between life and death. And now, with a recently departed cardiologist, Kamloops will have no cardiac care between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. “The NDP’s answer? ‘Schedule’ your heart attack at a hospital two hours away — as if medical emergencies run on their timetab...