Elections BC approved a recall petition against Premier David Eby..The attempt is spearheaded by Vancouver’s Salvatore Vetro, a local actor and retired HandyDART driver..Any registered voter in BC can apply to have a recall petition issued for their electoral district, as per the Recall and Initiative Act..All the proponent has to do is submit an application form, a $50 processing fee, and a statement of 200 words or less on why they feel the member should be recalled..The application must be approved if the aforementioned criteria is met; Elections BC does not have discretion to evaluate applications on any other criteria..Vetro’s petition will be issued on January 17 in the Vancouver-Point Grey electoral district and must be returned to the agency no later than March 20. To be successful, his canvassers must collect signatures from 40% or more of the voters eligible to sign the petition. That's 16,449 voters..An eligible signature means it comes from the hand of a voter currently registered in the Vancouver-Point Grey electoral district, one that was also registered on general voting day for the last provincial election on October 24, 2020..The Recall and Initiative Act was adopted in 1995. Since its conception there have been 27 unsuccessful attempts, including two in the Vancouver-Point Grey district against former premier Gordon Campbell in 1998 and 2003. Both petitions against Campbell failed because they didn’t make the deadline..One particularly noteworthy recall attempt was against BC Liberal MLA Paul Reitsma in 1998, securing more signatures than necessary, but Reitsma resigned before the signatures could be verified..The reason behind Vetro’s recall attempt revolves around Bill 36, also called the Health Professions and Occupations Act, which will further consolidate the various colleges under a more collective framework and fundamentally change how colleges function..Calling it “groundbreaking legislation,” the province says Bill 36 will streamline the process to regulate new health professions, provide stronger oversight, and provide more consistent discipline across the professions..However the act has been met with widespread criticism from British Columbians across the ideological spectrum, proving to be one of the more unifying issues in the province’s recent history..BC currently has 15 health colleges providing a regulatory framework for 25 health professionals. The act will whittle the number of colleges down to six..The merging of colleges, which is nothing new in BC, is not where the backlash stems from, but rather changes to how the colleges are governed and regulated..Under the act, the board members who hear and make decisions regarding professional misconduct will be appointed by the province, as will the superintendent tasked with overseeing the colleges..Concerns of more smoothly imposed vaccination requirements under the act have also been vocalized by some advocacy groups. An exchange between BC Health Minister Adrian Dix and and opposition member Shirley Bond on the matter of vaccination mandates in the context of Bill 36 can be viewed here..“The people will come together and take decisive action to dethrone premier Eby,” Vetro told the Western Standard.."He's a dictator, not a leader.”.Vetro founded the BC First Party in 2010 as an alternative to the BC Liberals and New Democrats, however it gained little momentum..“In short, our goal is to develop for BC a smaller, more efficient, less wasteful, less intrusive system of government, similar to the Swiss system of direct democracy. A system where the MLAs are answerable to the people, not a political party, a premier, corporations, unions, or some other special interest group,” he wrote in a 2013 Georgia Straight piece..Vetro was also chief financial officer for the successful petition against a harmonized sales tax implemented by Campbell's government in 2009.."One of my proudest accomplishments was being part of a core group of six organizers who fought to get rid of the harmonized sales tax, and won, against all odds," he writes on his personal website.
