Elections BC approves petition for Recall

The anti-HST movement, led by Bill Vander Zalm, had begun late November 2010 by starting with recalls to 2 MLAs. A recall for one MLA,  was temporarily delayed (by 5 days) due to technicality of Elections BC's recall application process. In order to remove a Member of the Legislative Assembly from office, a recall application needs to be submitted to the Chief Electoral Officer of Elections BC. The recall application was initially rejected as the application exceeded its required limitation of 200 words. The technicality, determined by the Chief Electoral Officer, was acronyms such as MLA and others needed to be spelled out fully. Since then a new recall application has been resubmitted and a petition will be issued early December.

This article had me curious as to how the Elections BC recall process worked, so I thought I would investigate a little. In researching the Elections BC website, I found that the Chief Electoral Officer administers the Recall and Initiative Act. The act enables registered voters to petition to remove a Member of the Legislature Assembly from office. It's interesting that the recall process only applies to British Columbia and no other province, so it appears other provinces do not have a system such as this to grant their citizens the freedom of removing their members of government.

Historically, since 1995, 20 recall applications had been dealt with in Elections BC. Nineteen of the recalls failed as there were insufficient collection of valid signatures. The last remaining recall was halted in the process as the MLA resigned.

Once a recall meets the requirements of the application process, a petition is issued within 7 days to the applicant (aka proponent). The applicant has 60 days to collect 40% of the registered voters' signatures of that member's electoral district and once the petition is submitted, the Chief Electoral Officer has 42 days to verify the petition. If verification and application fees meet the requirements, then the member is held from office and a by election would need to be called within 90 days. The recalled member would still have the opportunity to run in the by-election. Keep your eyes out for the outcome of the BC recall results to watch the process in action.

http://www.timescolonist.com/news/Elections+approves+petition+recall+Gordon+Head+Liberal+Chong/3907001/story.html

Health Canada Bans Lead from Childrens toys, paints, and coatings

As an uncle for 2 nieces and nephews, I feel better knowing that the federal government is taking action on making children’s’ toys safer. Lead in children’s toy products, if ingested or swallowed, can cause permanent brain damage when exposed over time. Health Canada is amending its regulations to lower lead levels in paints and surface coating materials also. Health Canada’s new regulation is among the world’s strictest. 

http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Health+Canada+bans+lead+from+children+toys+paints+coatings/3898825/story.html

BC to disclose more private sector contracts after being ordered to release details on IBM deal

The world has changed drastically over the last 2 decades as the internet provides an environment for people and organizations to share as much information as possible. There are also more expectations and demands from people researching the internet to help gather and make decisions. This expectation poses a problem for government who  has the challenge of determining what information to (or not to) share. From government’s perspective, there are privacy concerns. From the public’s perspective, especially as a taxpayer and government’s employer, government needs to be more transparent. Below is an article that indicates how difficult it can be to have government disclose information. The Freedom of Information and Privacy Commission has been  trying to acquire out-sourced contract information relating to the IBM's Workplace Services contract worth $300 million, but has been fighting to get a full un-edited contract for 6 years. Transparency promotes trust, it’s interesting reading the comments at the bottom of the article on how most citizens feel about the whole situation:

http://www.timescolonist.com/news/disclose+more+private+sector+contracts+after+being+ordered+release/3890772/story.html

Breaking Traffic Gridlock in Victoria, Langford, Colwood to Nanaimo

Traffic has become a huge issue on Vancouver Island especially in Victoria, Langford, Colwood, and Nanaimo. Check out the below story to get a good comprehensive perspective on what government plans are for dealing with these problems. I think the E&N Rail will be a great solution to breaking the traffic gridlock. There is already work underway to get things rolling! With this change, I am more open to the idea of one day moving to areas like Colwood and Langford.

http://www.timescolonist.com/news/Breaking+gridlock+look+chronic+crawl+Greater+Victoria+area/3893716/story.html

Liberals cave to Big Pharmaceutical Companies

Looks like the liberals are letting go of BC’s only independent drug review agency. Therapeutic’s Initiative evaluates new drugs on the market and was a good initiative that saved taxpayers millions annually as they helped source cheaper alternatives. This makes drugs more affordable to British Columbians. Apparently Therapeutics’ program had a huge return on investment as it generated  50 million worth of savings on a 1 million dollar operation. The initiative saved lives and now has no further role as funding has been terminated. Not getting a fuzzy feeling that this was the right move. The media has a way of spinning their stories so I suppose it's worth researching into this story a bit more. I will see what I can find.

http://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/editorials/Editorial+Liberals+cave+Pharma/3886922/story.html

Surgical Wait Time

Here are a couple of websites that was provided by a classmate that I thought was very useful. Most of us probably knows someone who is waiting for some type of surgery. Knowing the Ministry of Health's initiative to engage citizens about surgery waitlist times can help us make better informed decisions. By navigating this site, you can look across all regions on surgical waitlists, if you notice there is a shorter waitlist within a region other than yours, you may be able to ask your doctor to refer you to that region:

http://www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news_releases_2009-2013/2010HSERV0073-001421.htm

http://www.health.gov.bc.ca/swt/

BC Government's direction seems to be moving toward more information sharing. This is something I am in support of.

Certainly something to think about

Hi all, I know this is unrelated to public administration (there is a small part about government services related to pension) although found it to be a good read as far as planning for the future goes:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/personal-finance/tax-matters/ten-financial-steps-to-take-before-you-die/article1812520/

We're all faced with this at some point and it's a difficult thing to think about. I am by far the last person to get any of this done, but know I need to start seriously considering this. Are any of you this prepared?

Anyone interested in Canadian Public Administration in the News?

I recently took a Public Administration course that had a very useful discussion board that allowed me and my peers to provide and share informative and interesting news discussions on government services in Canada, particularly in British Columbia. As I found it super useful to see and understand others opinions, perspectives, and reactions to current events and issues, I started researching online to find whether there is anything similar to the discussion board we used. I feared that once my course was over that I would not have a single online site to stay connected to the people I've met and had great discussions with. To no avail on my search for a blog in my community, I was disappointed.

There certainly is a plethora of blog-related information out there, although, there was no one place I could find that I thought people would be able to post useful information on what they read in the news that could be shared amongst a community sharing similar interests.

As a result of my disappointment and frustration, I decided perhaps as it is something that I am particularly interested in, and something that does not exists, that I now have a valid reason to start my own blog.

Here is the platform of what I think should set the discussion criteria, it is the same platform used in my course:

In this blog forum, you can post the url for your news from a newspaper, magazine, online site etc that demonstrates a public administration service topic.  Ensure you post a short summary and your thoughts on the topic.  


I plan to open this blog site for Guest Bloggers and encourage you to post your thoughts. If you are interested as a guest blogger/author, please respond to me by posting a comment and I can add you as a participant. Apparently this site will only allow 100 authors. Bare in mind, I can assign you as an anonymous user. You can also subscribe as a reader and make comments to any topic.

I am a new Blogger so bare with me as I figure out how to configure this site.

If you are interested, please follow and share with those you know this blog. I look forward to creating a growing community of users and making this an interactive place for everyone to use.

Cheers,

Lee