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◆ NEWS Postal resumes in Kitimat, P. 2 ◆ NEWS Oil opinion shifts, P. 6
◆ SPORTS Rampage defeat Steelheads, P. 23 ◆ CLASSIFIEDS, P. 16-22
Free FRIDAY, November 29, 2013
Volume 8 Issue 21
TMC 20,700
Law would keep rural ridings from chopping block
Making the news in…
Available December 2
By Tom Fletcher THE NORTHERN CONNECTOR
VICTORIA - The B.C. government is accepting public comments until Jan. 15 on a proposed bill to restrict the number of MLAs to the current level of 85, and to maintain the current rural and northern seats regardless of population. Current law requires an independent Electoral Boundaries Commission to be appointed in May 2014 to consider changes. The government discussion paper is posted here. The last review in 2008 recommended that an urban population shift should result in a reduction of one seat in the Cariboo-Thompson region and one in
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northern B.C. The government intervened keep those seats and increase the total constituencies from 83 to 85. The B.C. Liberals and NDP agreed that northern constituencies could not get any larger and still be represented by a single MLA. The 2008 review, chaired by B.C. Supreme Court Justice Bruce Cohen, added seats in the Okanagan, Fraser Valley, Surrey, Burnaby-Tri-Cities and downtown Vancouver. It concluded that keeping all the rural seats was not consistent with the principle of representation by population. Premier Gordon Campbell intervened in the last electoral boundaries review to keep rural seats from being eliminated.
ANNA KILLEN / THE NORTHERN CONNECTOR
TERRACE - It’s been a year since Bob Erb won $25 million in a lottery and he continues to make the news. Pictured above is Erb, left, being interviewed by Reg Sherren, a national CBC TV reporter who is based in Winnipeg. Erb’s been the subject of many profiles since becoming a multimillionaire. Sherren interviewed Erb in his Thornhill home.
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VICTORIA – The first of a series of BC Hydro rate increases takes effect in April 2014, adding $8 a month to the average residential power bill. Rate increases of nine per cent next year and six per cent in 2015 are the highest of a series of increases over five years announced Monday by Energy Minister Bill Bennett. The B.C. Utilities Commission will be directed to set rate increases that total 28 per cent over the next five years, then determine what rates are needed for the following five years, Bennett said. Bennett acknowledged that
rate increases are being kept low by using a “rate smoothing” account that defers more than $1 billion of the utility’s debt. That account won’t begin to be paid down until after 2020. BC Hydro came under heavy criticism this spring before the provincial election when it forecast even higher rates than now being put in place. The provincial Liberal government then stepped in and the 2013 increase was considerably lower than first planned. The rate increase will look like this, 9 per cent in 2014, 6 per cent in 2015, 4 per cent in 2016, 3.5 per cent in 2017 and 3 per cent in 2018. Each year’s increase is a percentage of the previous year’s rates.
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