Saturday, February 22, 2014

MLA Rice seeks BC Government commitment to Highway of Tears Shuttle

The British Columbia Legislature returned to work this month, a Speech from the Throne and Budge the launching point of the new session for 2014.

With the ceremonial and administrative items out of the way, the Legislature has returned to the day to day current of business, committees, discussion and debate and of course the always fascinating bit of theatre that makes up Question period.

The first few days of the new Legislative session have provided for morning and afternoon sessions in the Legislature and the North Coast's NDP MLA, Jennifer Rice, addressing her first concerns of the new Legislative session.

Ms. Rice made use of some of the Morning Question Period of Tuesday. to seek some answers from the Government on the topic of a shuttle bus between Northern BC communities.

You can review her questions from the Legislature record, her inquiry begins around the 1050 marker from the legislature Blues..

The proposal submitted by the Highway of Tears Symposium report (page 20), was mentioned as part of the Oppal Commission on Missing Women and Ms. Rice sought an update from the Justice Minister Susan Anton this week.
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Ms. Anton did not provide a particularly concise answer to the question, instead deflecting the theme toward a review of some of the progress that the BC Government has made on the issue, providing little in the way of background on her note, that the Government was "working with communities in the North to establish safer ways for people to travel."

We're not sure why an update on the shuttle bus initiative couldn't be outlined in response to the question, it being a topic that has been under discussion since the last election campaign came to an end.

It does seem like a fairly simple question to answer and for the Government side to just repeat some of the old lines of the last year doesn't seem particularly of use in solving the issue.

The Justice Minister may wish to seek out an update from her staff, as we suspect that the issue will be brought up for discussion again in the near future.

With the debut of the 2014 session of the BC Legislature, we will follow the work of the North Coast MLA through our MLA's Week Archives and from our anchor page on Legislature developments.

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