Local anti-HST organizer Eddie Petrossian carries a sign as he walks to meet former British Columbia premier Bill Vander Zalm before boarding a ferry in Tsawwassen, B.C., on Wednesday June 30, 2010, to deliver anti-HST petitions to Elections B.C. in Victoria.Darryl Dyck/ The Canadian Press
The ubiquitous stick figures in the B.C. referendum on the HST, as well as the barrage of numbers from both sides are confusing just about everyone. The referendum is turning into a poll on whom you can trust, says an editorial in the Peace Arch News.
Do you trust Fight HST, which play well to emotions, and the NDP, who have been attacked for faulty math? Or do you trust advertiser-conscious media pundits, who say that what's good for business is good for the rest of the province, the newspaper asks.
The newspaper had particularly harsh words for the provincial government. "In the current believability stakes, the BC Liberals come off about as popular as a teen who - not content with taking the family car without permission and wrapping it around a tree - now presents us with the repair bill and a sanctimonious lecture on vehicle maintenance."
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With the mail-in ballots for the HST going out to voters June 13, Walt Cobb says Premier Christy Clark should not call an election before 2013, the legislated fixed date for the next provincial election. Ms. Clark replaced former premier Gordon Campbell this spring and has said she would like to call an election this year in order to receive her own mandate from the voters.
Mr. Cobb, a former Liberal MLA and former Williams Lake mayor, writes in the Williams Lake Tribune that most people he speaks with do not want a provincial election. The Liberals and NDP have changed party leaders but the party platforms have not changed, he writes. "We just had a federal election, both provincial parties just had a leadership vote, the HST referendum us coming up, and the municipal, school board and regional district elections are this fall. Is that not enough for one year," he says.
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Liberal MLA John Les's proposal to restore some trust in the Senate by electing the Senators has received some support from the Chilliwack Progress. Mr. Les introduced a private member's bill that would allow B.C. to elect a senator to fill the vacancy after B.C. Senator Gerry St. Germain retires next year at the mandatory age of 75.
"For too long the Canadian Senate has had all the appearance of a private club, where its promise of lifetime membership was seen as the ultimate reward for party fidelity. It has been political tradition for the Prime Minister of the day to stock the Senate with selections who were sympathetic to the governing party's views," Greg Knill writes in the newspaper. "Still, there is hope. It is expected that the Conservatives will introduce changes that will give provinces greater say over how candidates for the Senate are chosen. The Private Member's Bill introduced by MLA Les serves as an important step toward that necessary reform."
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Northerners are angry over government spending on a new roof for B.C. Place and a new transit line in the Lower Mainland while health care facilities remain sub-standard. The hospital morgue in Haida Gwaii is in a portable trailer, hospital staff prepare cancer-treating medications in a small shed outside the building and physiotherapy patients are directed to old rundown house on wooden supports. However the B.C. government spends $500-million on a new roof for B.C. Place and has made a commitment to the $410-million transit line from Coquitlam to Vancouver.
"You can bet the government would stop at nothing to make things right for those people down south, should they face such a travesty of health care. And yet, since it is actually happening here in the north in Haida Gwaii, the general response from the minister is 'we'll get around to it,'" Shaun Thomas writes in Prince Rupert's The Northern View. "It's sad when the dryness of sporting fans and the convenience of travel seems to take precedence over adequate care for residents of the province."
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Despite what northerners may think, Liberal backbencher Norm Letnick sees health care as the government's top priority. Mr. Letnick was recently appointed chair of an all-party legislative committee to identify health care challenges for an aging population over the next 25 years. "There is nothing as important to people in my riding, or the people of British Columbia, as the health care system," Mr. Letnick told the Kelowna Capital News. The committee is to consider the supply of doctors and nurses, health care infrastructure and the demands on the system.
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Meanwhile in federal politics:
An editorial writer for the Prince George Citizen raises the question of trust with regards to the selection of Canada's next Auditor-General. Sheila Fraser has been recognized as the most trusted public official in Canada, the newspaper says. In appointing her successor, the Conservative Party should drop the notion of partisan politics. "In the short game, hiring someone potentially critical of government may not appear to be the best political strategy, but in the long run it creates a culture of trust. And when Canadians trust you, they vote for you - isn't that what politicians live for?" the newspaper says.