Letter: BC NDP, Liberals — a too long dysfunctional relationship
By Letters to the editor
To The Editor,
As the mantle is being prepared to be passed down from King John to Prince David for the coronation of the new leader of the BC NDP, we should all pause to reflect.
One item of reflection should be how the BC NDP (no relation to the Federal NDPs) and the BC Liberals (no relation to the Federal Liberal party) are appearing to act more and more like an elderly couple who have been together too long in a dysfunctional relationship.
The constant bickering and sniping between the two goes on and on, but they know that it is in their own best interest to stay together. After all, one of them wins one time, and the next time, the other comes up on top. The only losers of course, are the BC electorate. And in truth, what is the difference between the two parties anyway?
When the NDP were in opposition, David Eby was going on about the Draconian nature of the Civil Forfeiture Act, which the Liberals introduced. But lo and behold, after coming to power, Eby did not think that it was such a bad idea after all.
How about Murray Rankin coming out about how the Liberals were making it harder to access Freedom of Information with the changes they made to the act? But when the NDP recently introduced further changes to make it even more difficult to access government information, he did not have anything to say.
As far back as 2007, Adrian Dix was all over the Liberals for problems with the health care system. Patients on gurneys in hospital hallways, lack of staff, etc., etc., blah, blah. The only thing that has changed under the NDP that things have gone from bad to worse.
And lest we forget Katrine Conroy, the Minister of Forests. Under both the Liberals and NDP we continue to log old growth forests, ship off raw logs to be processed in other countries, and turn saw logs into wood pellets to be burned as fuel.
I would not want to leave out John Horgan (aka Mr. Dithers) and his Ozymandias moment, also referred to as Site C. I remember his “We need to take a closer look at this” which translates as “How many votes can we buy by sitting on the fence until after the election.”
So far as Horgan’s dismissal of the democratic process goes, one does not have to look any further than his disregard for the referendum initiated by him in which a large majority voted in favour of doing away with the biannual changing of the clocks.
Both the NDP and Liberals have played around with the idea of an electoral system to replace our current first past the post, which only a few democracies still use.
But until such time as the system is changed to better reflect the will of the people, we will remain caught up in some obscene version of Groundhog Day, where nothing substantial ever changes.
Yours truly,
Hayward Kirsh, Kaslo, BC
