Binky
05-14-2005, 08:57 PM
As part of our ongoing election coverage, the Langley Advance News is providing free space for local provincial candidates to clarify their views on issues facing Langley voters.
Rich Coleman, B.C. Liberal Party
Law and Order
It has been my privilege to serve as British Columbia's Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General since 2001. In that role, I have had the opportunity to make communities like ours a safer place to live.
The biggest change our B.C. Liberal government made was to build a long-term plan for public safety. Instead of looking at interim or band-aid solutions, we worked with the law enforcement community to determine their needs and develop a strategy.
We launched the Bait Car program, which has been successful at catching car thieves in the very act of stealing an automobile. We implemented the PRIME computer system, which gives police officers real-time information about ongoing investigations and work in neighbouring jurisdictions. When police officers told us how frustrating it was to coordinate information on major crimes between detachments, we moved to integrate several serious crime investigation units. We set aside more than $122 million to hire 215 new RCMP officers throughout B.C., the single largest increase in provincial policing history.
Our government also established an AMBER Alert program throughout B.C. When an AMBER alert is given, police gain the assistance of thousands of broadcast listeners and viewers, an invaluable aid in helping them find abducted children. The plan provides law enforcement agencies with another tool to help recover children and apprehend suspects.
Steve Davis, Platinum Party
Teachers' contracts
Langley teachers' contracts should be negotiated by Langley School Board, instead of by the provincial government, as is currently the case.
The Provincial Government does not need to control our schools, and through the current methods, they do just that. The people of the community should have the say in how their children are taught, and in helping the local school boards negotiate teachers' contracts, they will have that ability. There is too much government in the school system these days, and not enough community.
Shane Dyson, NDP
Environment
Langley has one of the most fragile environments in the province. Not only do we live in one of the most polluted airsheds in the country, but thousands of families depend on wells for clean drinking water.
As someone who lives adjacent to the Salmon River and uses a well, I'm very aware of the threats to our environment. According to Langley Township figures, there are more than 5,000 private wells in the Township, and up to 60 per cent of the Township's water comes from groundwater sources.
The Campbell Liberals eliminated the Ministry of Environment during their first days in office, and cut more than 1,000 environmental protection staff. They have lowered drinking water protection standards through staffing cutbacks, de-regulation, privatization and the off-loading of environmental responsibilities onto municipalities. These harmful policies do nothing to enhance our once high standards of regulation and monitoring.
In order to improve groundwater regulations and management, we must restore the services of the Environment Ministry and improve enforcement of air and water quality standards.
The New Democrat environmental plan will enhance our ability to keep our water and air clean and ensure the sustainability of our natural resources for future generations.
We will work with communities to improve rail and transit options, reduce urban sprawl, and support regional land-use planning processes.
Andrea Welling, Green Party
Transportation
Do I support the Highway One and Port Mann Bridge expansion project?
Yes, to reduce congestion, and no because there is no plan in place for an increase in public transportation and reducing traffic and drivers on the road.
Marc Emery, Marijuana Party
Ending Prohibition
If you don't like marijuana, if you don't like those who use it and you are leery of its effects on youth, then you really should want to end the prohibition on marijuana. You'd really want to agree that we should regulate the production and distribution of marijuana and control and tax its sale through a B.C. government regulated and licensed outlet system along the lines of a B.C. Cannabis Control Outlet.
Otherwise, if marijuana stays illegal, it commands huge lucrative sums, and it induces tens of thousands of young people in B.C. to earn fast money and big money selling pot. If pot was legal, at $25 an ounce or so, there would be no incentive for teenagers to deal pot.
Nor would they as likely be pressured by other students to buy pot. Nor would pot have the black market mystique of forbidden fruit.
In the current, unregulated prohibition, the pot seller on the street may be selling other, more hazardous drugs, endangering the young, the desperate, the naive. Gangs would not be able to exploit these lucrative prohibition profits in a legal environment.
Our civil liberties, our police priorities, would be greatly improved by ending prohibition.
Road tests should be impairment tests based on reflexes, alertness, coherence, and competence, not by urine and blood tests by the roadside.
Prohibition manufactures "crime," and by and large, we punish young people as a consequence. We trust adults to make decisions on their health by allowing them to eat questionable foods, drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, drive fast cars, own a gun, and the social contract we are all making is that we make our own decisions about our own body, and criminal law only has a role if we directly harm or intimidate other individuals.
We do not have any other law like the marijuana prohibition where Canadians are jailed "for their own good."
Prohibition is purely discriminatory and ideological.
And it creates far, far greater harm than it is able to deter.
Langley Advance (CN BC)
Copyright: 2005 Lower Mainland Publishing Group Inc.
Contact: editorial@langleyadvance.com
Website: http://www.langleyadvance.com/
Rich Coleman, B.C. Liberal Party
Law and Order
It has been my privilege to serve as British Columbia's Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General since 2001. In that role, I have had the opportunity to make communities like ours a safer place to live.
The biggest change our B.C. Liberal government made was to build a long-term plan for public safety. Instead of looking at interim or band-aid solutions, we worked with the law enforcement community to determine their needs and develop a strategy.
We launched the Bait Car program, which has been successful at catching car thieves in the very act of stealing an automobile. We implemented the PRIME computer system, which gives police officers real-time information about ongoing investigations and work in neighbouring jurisdictions. When police officers told us how frustrating it was to coordinate information on major crimes between detachments, we moved to integrate several serious crime investigation units. We set aside more than $122 million to hire 215 new RCMP officers throughout B.C., the single largest increase in provincial policing history.
Our government also established an AMBER Alert program throughout B.C. When an AMBER alert is given, police gain the assistance of thousands of broadcast listeners and viewers, an invaluable aid in helping them find abducted children. The plan provides law enforcement agencies with another tool to help recover children and apprehend suspects.
Steve Davis, Platinum Party
Teachers' contracts
Langley teachers' contracts should be negotiated by Langley School Board, instead of by the provincial government, as is currently the case.
The Provincial Government does not need to control our schools, and through the current methods, they do just that. The people of the community should have the say in how their children are taught, and in helping the local school boards negotiate teachers' contracts, they will have that ability. There is too much government in the school system these days, and not enough community.
Shane Dyson, NDP
Environment
Langley has one of the most fragile environments in the province. Not only do we live in one of the most polluted airsheds in the country, but thousands of families depend on wells for clean drinking water.
As someone who lives adjacent to the Salmon River and uses a well, I'm very aware of the threats to our environment. According to Langley Township figures, there are more than 5,000 private wells in the Township, and up to 60 per cent of the Township's water comes from groundwater sources.
The Campbell Liberals eliminated the Ministry of Environment during their first days in office, and cut more than 1,000 environmental protection staff. They have lowered drinking water protection standards through staffing cutbacks, de-regulation, privatization and the off-loading of environmental responsibilities onto municipalities. These harmful policies do nothing to enhance our once high standards of regulation and monitoring.
In order to improve groundwater regulations and management, we must restore the services of the Environment Ministry and improve enforcement of air and water quality standards.
The New Democrat environmental plan will enhance our ability to keep our water and air clean and ensure the sustainability of our natural resources for future generations.
We will work with communities to improve rail and transit options, reduce urban sprawl, and support regional land-use planning processes.
Andrea Welling, Green Party
Transportation
Do I support the Highway One and Port Mann Bridge expansion project?
Yes, to reduce congestion, and no because there is no plan in place for an increase in public transportation and reducing traffic and drivers on the road.
Marc Emery, Marijuana Party
Ending Prohibition
If you don't like marijuana, if you don't like those who use it and you are leery of its effects on youth, then you really should want to end the prohibition on marijuana. You'd really want to agree that we should regulate the production and distribution of marijuana and control and tax its sale through a B.C. government regulated and licensed outlet system along the lines of a B.C. Cannabis Control Outlet.
Otherwise, if marijuana stays illegal, it commands huge lucrative sums, and it induces tens of thousands of young people in B.C. to earn fast money and big money selling pot. If pot was legal, at $25 an ounce or so, there would be no incentive for teenagers to deal pot.
Nor would they as likely be pressured by other students to buy pot. Nor would pot have the black market mystique of forbidden fruit.
In the current, unregulated prohibition, the pot seller on the street may be selling other, more hazardous drugs, endangering the young, the desperate, the naive. Gangs would not be able to exploit these lucrative prohibition profits in a legal environment.
Our civil liberties, our police priorities, would be greatly improved by ending prohibition.
Road tests should be impairment tests based on reflexes, alertness, coherence, and competence, not by urine and blood tests by the roadside.
Prohibition manufactures "crime," and by and large, we punish young people as a consequence. We trust adults to make decisions on their health by allowing them to eat questionable foods, drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, drive fast cars, own a gun, and the social contract we are all making is that we make our own decisions about our own body, and criminal law only has a role if we directly harm or intimidate other individuals.
We do not have any other law like the marijuana prohibition where Canadians are jailed "for their own good."
Prohibition is purely discriminatory and ideological.
And it creates far, far greater harm than it is able to deter.
Langley Advance (CN BC)
Copyright: 2005 Lower Mainland Publishing Group Inc.
Contact: editorial@langleyadvance.com
Website: http://www.langleyadvance.com/