Throne Speech to be read in Victoria today
Posted February 11, 2014 8:07 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VICTORIA (NEWS1130) – The BC Legislature resumes sitting today and Liberals are promising a heavy agenda this session. It all gets started this afternoon with the Speech from the Throne.
“What you’re going to see is the government is focused on what they’ve been talking about for quite sometime now, which is LNG, LNG, LNG,” says OMNI TV political reporter Kim Emerson.
“A couple of the other things you’ll see in the throne speech and going forward into the legislative session is the Chinese apology for the head tax and various other transgressions against the Chinese people over many, many years. That will be one of the focuses that they look at in the Throne Speech and the session.”
Emerson also expects to hear some talk about teachers and the province’s desire to have a 10-year agreement.
“You will not see anything in there about the government losing twice at the Supreme Court with the teachers. That won’t be there; their focus will be on the positive of trying to obtain a 10-year agreement with them. They will also talk — and crow, a little bit — about having achieved five-year agreements with various unions within the government and saying how they will have labour peace going forward throughout the term of their government.”
“You’ll see some changes coming forward with the liquor act and they’ll talk about how they’re going to be bringing liquor regulations in line with the 21st century, like so many other areas around the world, for all of our visitors and everyone else,” adds Emerson.
“You’ll likely see some fruition come from a white paper that they’ve had going for awhile now, dealing with more proactive ways to deal with people who have disabilities. You’ll also see the Water Act come in, where people who are using groundwater — in some cases, commercially; they’ll start to be charged for groundwater. But they want to know who’s got their ore in the water and everybody, even private well owners, will have to tell them that they have a private well, even though they won’t be charged for it — yet. You know that will be coming down the road.”
Provincial budget
The BC budget comes out one week from today. We asked Emerson if he has any predictions.
“Essentially, they’re balancing their budget on hopes, wishes, and prayers; by that, I mean they’re putting onto the books sales of land and buildings that the government has sold off as surplus — or is in the process of selling off as surplus — and that is how they’re balancing the budget,” he tells us.
“For all intents and purposes, it’s on a razor’s edge. You’re looking at about $130 million, maybe, to the positive. Even if it’s a little bit to the negative, they can still claim it’s a balance budget because you’ll never exactly have it down to the penny as a balanced budget anyway. But a lot of that is on future sales of land or holdings that they have; things that haven’t gone through yet.”
“Yet, we’ll see when the budget is released just how much of that they’ve actually accomplished. They have done a fair bit already and we haven’t been able to determine at this point whether some of that has gone at firesale prices or whether it’s gone at legitimate market value prices. But that’s where they’re using their work to balance the budget: those sales of land and different holdings. And that show no sign of letting up,” adds Emerson.
“The other thing is Bill Bennett has been in charge of trying to find $50 million in savings within government, which causes all kinds of grief for ministry staff, as they try to focus on ‘How can we save money here? How can we cut back? How can we do no hiring? How can we do all of these things and show that we’re trying to do our part to help them out?'”
BC NDP leadership
As for the BC NDP, Emerson says the party needs to get past their navel gazing. “Adrian Dix hasn’t shown he’s able to do that at this point but they will rally behind him; he is their leader until they select a new one.”
“The problem they’re going to have is anybody who steps forward — if things go the way that they’re supposed to — they won’t hold a critic’s portfolio anymore. That means some of the best people that they have to hold the government’s feet to the fire won’t be able to do that because they won’t hold a critic’s portfolio… they’re kind of going to be disadvantaging themselves by declaring to become a [leadership] candidate. But that’s clearly something that has to happen, certainly as we get closer towards the end of the session; the session’s going to run through until May,” he explains.
The Throne Speech will be delivered Lieutenant Governor Judith Guichon just after 2 p.m.
