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Submission WIEBE-0764 (Online)

Submission By John Wiebe
AddressDelta, BC,
Organization
Date20040628
CategoryDemocratic government
Abstract
We have too many layers of government, and a system in need of change.  The party system does not work effectively to represent the interests and needs of constituents.  Power is concentrated in the hands of the Premier. [2 pages]

Submission Content

We have too many layers of government, and a system in need of change.  The party system does not work effectively to represent the interests and needs of constituents.  Power is concentrated in the hands of the Premier at the Provincial level, and in the hands of the Prime Minister at the Federal level, leaving the MLAs and MPs virtually powerless.  The general public has no direct say in choosing the Premier or Prime Minister. 

My suggestion is as follows:

  1. Do away with electing MLAs and instead have the Mayors and Reeves act as the MLAs for their municipalities.
  2. Separately elect a Premier for the province.  Candidates for Premier must have previously been elected to a public position, and cannot serve more than two terms as Premier (fixed four year terms).
  3. Do not appoint Ministers for each Ministry.  Instead have the Ministries report directly to the Legislative Assembly through their Deputy Ministers.  This does away with Cabinet and puts the Legislative Assembly and its members in control, as it should be.  (As an aside, a careful analysis of the value of each of the current 19 Ministries would in my view eliminate at least eight of them, having worked in both the public sector and private sector).
I believe that this approach would have a number of important benefits:

  1. Make municipal officials more important.
  2. Provide better representation of municipal and regional interests at the provincial level.  It would also give the municipal officials a better understanding of provincial issues.
  3. Give the general public the opportunity to choose the Premier.
  4. Reduce empire building within the provincial bureaucracy.
  5. Give greater control to the general public.
  6. Reduce the overall cost of government significantly.
  7. Provide a much more responsive and democratic process of government.
There would definitely be a learning curve involved on the part of everyone, and a need to put aside party ideology and parochial interests.  This approach would also represent a significant change to our current system and would be challenging to implement. 

In my view, tinkering with the current system will not provide any real benefits.  It is time to reform the system to make it more responsive and democratic. 

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