Editor:

Regional districts were brought into being in 1965 supposedly as a government for the rural area of B.C. Prior to that the rural area was governed by Victoria through the Local Services Act. B.C. remains the only place in all of North America that has the regional district structure as local government. The rest have counties of one form or another. In fact, you will find counties in many countries such as Europe, China, etc.

Now not trying to be a lawyer or expert but being affected it is easy to see there is substantial differences between counties and regional districts. An example using the four western provinces all but B.C. have counties. Members on the legislative body of the counties are all duly elected from the residents of the county. There is no municipal influence on the counties’ legislative body or vice-versa, they are totally independent of each other. Under the county system both the municipalities and the country have total self-government and are equal.

The regional district legislative body is made up of elected rural directors and appointed municipal directors. That municipal director now sits on two legislative bodies in the same government area. This certainly appears contrary to the local provincial laws and the charter citing Canada as a democratic society. Now neither the rural elected director or the appointed municipal director have to reside in the local municipality or regional district. A resident of Canada and B.C. is all that is required now to be elected to local government in B.C. This may not sound too serious but to some but looking at our local regional district, Eileen Benedict is the chairperson of the board - she is elected to Burns Lake Council and elected as Francois Ootsa Lake rural director on the board. This egotistic double-plus dipping totally ignores democratic principals, rural urban issues, conflict of interest and what does it say for the leaders we are supposed to look up to.

Remember, regional districts were brought in as a form of local government for the rural area. Looking at the make-up of our regional district board the Bulkley Nechako has eight municipal appointed directors and seven rural elected directors - 11 municipal votes and nine rural votes. While this looks bad the capital regional district (Victoria) board has a total of 22 directors, 19 municipal and three rural, a total of 72 votes - 62 municipal and five rural. Clearly the regional districts are a financial bonanza for the municipalities and their urban media and a subversive insult to the rural areas.

It is mind boggling to think this can go on in a democratic country such as ours. An urban biased media carry much of the blame. Not many rural people understand the regional district’s questionable structure and should not feel bad as I can name two provincial politicians, one a municipal critic that didn’t understand or know about it until it was just lately brought to their attention. The media does not make it a front page issue, quite to the contrary.

Van der Zalm as minister of municipal affairs and as premier attempted to change the rural local government to counties but was opposed by the municipalities. Municipalities and First Nations have self-government, why are we, the rural people, denied that right? My suggested heading ‘Regional Districts, Legal or Mobs?’ might sound a bit strong, radical to some but it is a fact, if it is not a constitutionally valid legislative body then it is a mob. The rural people are not second class people and are entitled to a legitimate self government, period.

Eugene Bekar

Smithers, B.C.