British Columbia Legislature calls it a wrap for 2015

In the end, as the clock ticked down on the yesterday's afternoon session at the Legislature, it became clear that the MLA's attending to their duties in Victoria this week were about to put a wrap on their in Chamber work for the year.

An apparent rush to get out of the capital, which will see the provincial MLA's not even having to put in a full four days of work as part of their final stretch of the Legislature calendar.

Yesterday afternoon at 3:09, Government House Leader Mike de Jong rose in the Legislature, and moved for adjournment of the House, offering up no indication to the assembled congregation as to when they may meet again.

With that procedural motion, the MLA's brought an end to the Fall Session, all thirty seven sessions of it, which took up but 21 days.

The Members of the Legislature opened the Fall session on September 28th, allowing for a couple of weeks off in between, paced as they were, so as to recharge over Thanksgiving and Remembrance Days.

The British Columbia
Legislature will be silent
until February as MLA's
end the fall session

As for accomplishments of the fall session, not much of note was observed by the Victoria press corps over the course of the twenty one days.

Not much achieved in fall session

For the most part the days were given over to some housekeeping issues related to redrawing some of the electoral district borders and other low profile notes.

No major issues were taken on by the Provincial Government over the session and controversy only arrived a few times. Usually from issues involving the Transportation Minister and Family and Children's Services Minister, who for the most part were the ones on the Government side who felt the bulk of the heat over the course of the fall session.

However, for much of the session it seemed that the Opposition didn't have much on hand when it came time to take on the Christy Clark government and at times, the fall session appeared to be more along the lines of theatre than actual work.

No timetable has been outlined as to when the Legislature will meet again, but barring any form of an emergency recall, it's not expected that the MLA's will be called back to their desks until February of 2016 at the earliest.

Leaving the parting words of Minister de Jong to ring in their ears as the MLA's departed the Chamber on Tuesday afternoon: Wherever the winds may carry all members, safe travels, a la prochaine fois.

North Coast MLA Jennifer Rice
in the Legislature on Monday

When it comes to local issues, North Coast MLA, Jennifer Rice most recently raised the issue of the Canfisco Canning line closure, along with concerns related to both the topic of Highway 16 and the missing and murdered women files.

As well, Ms. Rice also introduced notes related to the recent Robinson inquiry and continued to inquire about events and actions from the Province's Ministry of Family Development.

A look at the work of the North Coast MLA during the fall session can be reviewed from our   Legislature archive page here.

A week to week guide of issues discussed in the Legislature can be found here.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review