MLA defends constituency town hall that discussed partisan position on electoral reform

Ruckert contacted Speaker of the Legislative Assembly Darryl Plecas with her concerns, along with the leaders of the three parties represented in the legislature.

Plecas responded in a letter dated Nov. 6, stating, “given the description you provided, the costs associated with such an event would not be eligible for reimbursement from an MLA’s constituency office fund budget.”

But Milobar says that’s exactly what happened.

“None of the materials that would have had any BC Liberal authorization on them were printed by the constituency office,” said Milobar. “They were all printed off by an independent printer and paid for by the party.”

Ruckert says she didn’t like seeing a constituency event focused around a partisan presentation.

“They’re allowed to do partisan work; they’re allowed to work for their parties off the public dime. This appears to be a misuse of the public funds, because they were specifically asked that night whether this was a constituency event or a party event. They made it very clear that it was being paid for by the public,” said Ruckert.

Milobar said the event was not geared toward the proportional representation debate.

“That night, we had 50 to 60 per cent of the questions that were asked were about issues other than prop rep… in fact, the only people who asked questions around proportional representation seemed to be from Fair Vote,” said Milobar.

“None of our advertising stated a position on prop rep. In fact, it actually said to come to a town hall and discuss a wide range of issues going on in the riding — and we did. We talked about fire services in rural areas, we talked about housing at the university, we talked about water systems in the rural areas.”

by James Peters

MLA defends constituency town hall that discussed partisan position on electoral reform

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