In today's newsletter:
• Vancouver Sun columnist Vaughn Palmer argues that Premier David Eby has centralized more power in his office during his second term, taking control of municipal relations and housing strategies while introducing overlapping ministries and roles that could complicate coordination on infrastructure and local government issues.
• Calgary Herald columnist Don Braid suggests that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's plan to temporarily scrap the GST on Christmas-related items and other goods is a bold, cheesy, and laughable political move aimed at winning over voters before the next election.
• Contributor Arron Neal says that society undervalues the invisible labor of caregiving, which disproportionately falls on women, and advocates for better support through workplace flexibility, affordable childcare, and shared caregiving responsibilities to reduce the burden and create more equitable opportunities for mothers. |
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David Eby ignores calls to decentralize power out of premier's office |
VICTORIA — David Eby started his second term as premier by centralizing more power in his office, this time to control provincial dealings with municipalities, regional districts and other local government organizations.
The premier did not highlight the shift when he announced his new cabinet lineup Monday. It was confirmed on page 2 of the 47-page cabinet order setting out the responsibilities of the premier and his 27 ministers.
“The duties, powers and functions of the minister of municipal affairs respecting strategic relations and consultations with local government, local government organizations and others are transferred to the premier.”
The fine print of the accompanying government news release added that “the Union of B.C. Municipalities and local government relationships will move to the intergovernmental relations secretariat in the office of the premier.”
The transfer of municipal relations to the premier’s office undercut Eby’s decision to combine the ministries of Housing and Municipal Affairs into one ministry under Ravi Kahlon, housing minister in Eby’s first term.
The combination was a natural one, the premier argued. It was crafted to “ensure that the rules that govern municipalities and local governments are consistent with our housing goals,” he told reporters. “Putting those together in the same ministry reflects that they are directly linked.”
Kahlon has been in charge of implementing the NDP government legislation to take control of local zoning, abolish single-family neighbourhoods, and impose density whether municipalities like it or not.
Some mayors and councillors went along, others resisted. Particularly when Kahlon published a list of “naughty municipalities” that were not responding to the housing edicts as quickly as the province expected.
Eby was perhaps hoping to create a buffer between the minister and local government leaders by taking direct charge of the relationship through his own office, something he did earlier on housing, health care and Indigenous relations.
But in fairness to Kahlon, the minister was only implementing legislation that Eby envisioned.
The provincial override of municipal powers, the one-size fits all legislation, the naming-names approach — all of that was conceived and driven out of the office of the premier.
The premier’s power grab left the new minister of housing and municipal affairs in charge of “financial and other support to local governments, management of cross-government programs related to local governments, and consultation with ministries, agencies, other governments, First Nations and other interested parties,” as Alec Lazenby of Postmedia reported Thursday.
Kahlon defended the shift of responsibilities, saying it will free him to devote more attention to providing provincial assistance in developing sewers and other needed infrastructure for housing development.
But in another shift announced this week, development of schools, hospitals and other provincially funded infrastructure will fall under a new ministry headed by Bowinn Ma.
Her Ministry of Infrastructure consolidates capital planning, funding, development, land acquisition, administration, procurement, delivery and oversight for eight ministries. Supposedly it will reduce costs and expedite approvals.
“We’re going to be able to, between our two ministries, make sure that the social infrastructure, hospitals and schools, are being done in communities in a more effective and efficient way,” Kahlon said.
He hopes. But despite the commitment to effectiveness and efficiency, the new Ministry of Infrastructure will be working alongside the existing Infrastructure B.C. and the B.C. Infrastructure Benefits.
On the theory, presumably, that where one agency devoted to infrastructure is a good thing, three would be even better.
Plus the premier has appointed a new minister of state for local government and rural communities. She’s Brittny Anderson and Eby said she, too, will be charged with “taking on that relationship with local governments, ensuring that we have the rules that are going to deliver the housing.”
Cynics will be forgiven for imagining that an infrastructure-seeking local government will get the runaround from Kahlon’s Ministry of Housing and Municipal Affairs, Ma’s Ministry of Infrastructure, with side trips to the minister of state for local government, Infrastructure B.C., and B.C. Infrastructure Benefits.
As for Eby’s role atop all this duplication of effort, some local government leaders expressed doubts about the premier’s ability to take charge of the relationship to the degree that is necessary to expedite action and approvals, particularly on housing.
This week’s news release said that strategic relations and consultations with the Union of B.C. Municipalities and the province’s 161 municipalities and 27 regional districts will be managed by the intergovernmental relations secretariat in the premier’s office.
The secretariat has a budget of just under $4 million and a staff of a dozen or two to manage its main responsibilities for dealing with other provinces and the federal government.
Eby may have freed up resources for adding new staff last week, when he abolished the $1.8 million planning and priorities secretariat in the premier's office, a redundancy inherited from John Horgan.
For the most part, Horgan preferred to delegate responsibility to front-line ministers. Eby was urged to do the same after almost losing the election and some observers thought he might actually give it a try.
Not likely, given the latest consolidation of power in the premier’s office. |
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Thank you, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Canada needed a belly laugh and you came through.
Axing the GST on Christmas trees is so shameless, so hilariously cheesy, so predictably Trudeau, that one can only hoot at this latest effort to climb out of the political pit he dug for the Liberals, write Calgary Herald columnist Don Braid.
The GST will be lifted from Dec. 14 until Feb. 15 on almost anything a family might buy at Christmas, including food, some booze, toys, restaurant meals (also takeout), snacks, toddler car seats and much more. |
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