MLA's Week -- November 16-19, 2015

After a full week away from their work the week before (November 9-12), MLA's returned to Victoria on Monday to tackle what would turn out to be some final odds and ends before they head off onto their fall and winter break.

All in all, it was a pretty short work week for the province's elected officials, with the final week of the Fall Session making for but two days of work, consisting of four sessions in total before MLA's bid adieu to the Legislature.

British Columbia Legislature calls it a wrap for 2015

North Coast MLA Jennifer Rice was able to get onto the speakers roster for one of the two Question Periods of the short work week, raising for the Legislature the issue of the Canadian Fish Company decision to close the Prince Rupert canning lines.

As we do at the end of each week of the Legislature session, we outline some of the main notes of interest from the North Coast MLA's work week.

Owing to the short week of work, Ms Rice was formally listed once in the archive of participants for the five sessions of the Legislature in the House, or those related to House Committee work listed for the week of November  16-17.

Ms. Rice's main contributions to the Legislature week in Victoria came through a Question Period appearances on Monday afternoon.

In that session, the North Coast MLA brought attention to the issue of the announced closure of the Canadian Fish Plant canning lines in Prince Rupert, noting for the Legislature of the large number of potential lost jobs that could come from that decision.

Ms. Rice addressed her main comments towards the Liberal Government's Agriculture Minister Norm Letnick, who has responsibility on fishing issues for the Government. And while he expressed some empathy at the prospect of the lost jobs, he mostly mad use of the conversation to revisit the Liberal government plans for job creation through LNG and Site C development in Northeast British Columbia.

Canfisco closure raised in Monday session of Legislature

Ms Rice is also a member of the Committee on Children and Youth, and while that Committee did not meet this week, they do however have a Vancouver session planned for Monday.

The North Coast MLA was also featured as part of the news cycle in Northwest British Columbia as she outlined her disappointment at not being included in the upcoming Symposium on Highway 16 issues hosted by the Provincial Government, a session that she says she plans to attend anyways as an observer.

B.C. northern leaders complain they weren't invited to Highway of Tears gathering
Highway 16 Transportation Symposium next week

Unless there is an emergency recall of the Legislature, the province's MLA's will now be away from their Legislature duties for the remainder of 2015 and until early 2016, with the Legislature expected to be called back into session sometime towards the middle of February.

There is more background on the North Coast MLA available from our MLA's Week archive as well as our General Archive on the Legislature.