The issue:
MLA's last day in legislature
WE SAY:
His last words were spoken last year
The B.C. Legislature wrapped up last week to allow MLAs to focus on their most important mission as elected representatives - keeping their jobs.
Never mind such trivial elements of parliamentary work as debating the budget the Liberal government put out last month - there's an election coming, don't you know? Spending all that time in Victoria puts a real damper on the amount of time you can spend on the campaign trail on the taxpayer's dime.
Of course, several of those MLAs don't have a campaign to go back to - just real life. For them, the end of the last legislative session of their careers is more like early dismissal.
One of those is our own MLA, Ted Nebbeling, whose career in government spanned two ministries and several trips to White Spot and Tim Hortons - his self-professed stops in Squamish whenever he was on his way to Whistler.
We were curious to see what words of wisdom Nebbeling had to leave with the B.C. Legislature after nearly 10 years in provincial politics, so we looked up Hansard to see if he made a final speech.
Nothing on March 10, the final day of the legislative session. Nothing the day before, or the day before that, or the day before that.
Out of a morbid sense of curiosity, we kept looking. We found evidence that Nebbeling had shown his face in the legislature - his name showed up on votes - but no proof that he had raised his voice.
At last, we found it - Ted Nebbeling's valedictory address to the B.C. Legislature - on April 26, 2004, during a second-reading debate on a proposed bill to allow Tourism Vancouver to introduce a levy.
It was a good contribution, too - Nebbeling brought the weight of his experience as Mayor of Whistler, which has long had a tourism levy, into the debate. We're not sure if he meant it to be the last thing he said as a parliamentarian, though.
We're not saying that a politician's success can only be measured by how many pages of Hansard they fill up. It is, however, a possible indicator of the interest Nebbeling may have had for the job.
We are looking forward to our new MLA, whoever he or she may be, to have more to say to our community and on behalf of our community, inside the house and out.
