Thursday, July 3, 2008

New MLA ready for business

Backrooms column by Dan Hilborn
Published June 25, 2005


The rookie MLA for Burnaby-Edmonds is happy with the shadow cabinet position he was handed by NDP leader Carole James this week.

Raj Chouhan will be holding the Liberals' feet to the fire on the topics of human rights, multiculturalism and immigration.

"As you know, I've been active in this area for the last 30 years," Chouhan said. "My first priority is to work with those community groups to make sure their voice is heard in Victoria."

One of the first items on his plate will be trying to get the B.C. Human Rights Commission reestablished, he said. While the human rights tribunal simply adjudicates complaints, the human rights commission, which was shut down during the Liberals' first term in office, played a role in educating the public and providing legal aid funds to people who could not otherwise take their case to the tribunals.

"Now, when you have a complaint and go to tribunal, you have to defend yourself," said Chouhan, who believes the system is unfairly stacked against workers and in favour of corporations that can afford to hire lawyers to defend their practices.

"Those are the kinds of things we need to do to make sure there's a balance," he said.

Other items on Chouhan's plate include meetings with local immigrant settlement services societies to determine exactly what programs were cut back over the past four years and trying to convince the government to approve an international accreditation program.

Chouhan is still in the process of trying to find a constituency office, and notes that he had absolutely no assistance from the outgoing Liberal MLA Patty Sahota.

"She's never called me. It's unbelievable," Chouhan said. "We made several attempts to contact her and one day we got her assistant, who said we could go and look at the office. But when we went there, there was a note on the wall saying they couldn't see us."

While Chouhan has already proven that he can dish the dirt as well as any politician, he's hopeful that he can develop positive working relations with the city's three Liberal MLAs.

Since the election, Chouhan has run into Richard Lee in Victoria and met John Nuraney at a Mothers Against Drunk Drivers forum at the National Nikkei Heritage Centre. "I look forward to working with these people to make sure Burnaby gets proper representation in Victoria," he said. "It's very important we all work together."

RANKIN TO RUN AGAIN

Undeterred by his crushing defeat at the Vancouver Sun Run this spring, Burnaby city councillor Lee Rankin has challenged Burnaby NOW news editor Julie MacLellan to a rematch - this time at the Heights on the Run 10-k jog through North Burnaby on Sept. 17.

"I don't want to turn into Mike Tyson and keep coming back endlessly, but I think she owes me a rematch," said the 51-year-old councillor who finished more than 10 minutes behind the younger and leaner reporter at the Sun Run.

Of course, the challenge comes with the same $100 price tag as their previous tilt - with the loser donating that sum to the Burnaby Firefighters Charitable Association, the main beneficiary of the annual run.

Rankin also said that he'll been stepping up his fitness regimen in an attempt to redeem himself from his earlier defeat.

"I'm cutting back on the nachos and cheese and corn chips and making more frequent trips around the back yard with the lawn mower," he said Tuesday afternoon. "I'll need a secret training regimen which involves less intake from the mouth and more outtake from the large muscle groups."

This year's run has two new major sponsors - sport shoe manufacturer Fila plus the new Rackets and Runners outlet at 3997 Hastings - in addition to Scotiabank, the Heights Merchants Association, Starbucks, Canadian Springs Water and the Burnaby NOW.

A LIBERAL VICTORY

Bill Cunningham, the former federal Liberal candidate in Burnaby-Douglas and now senior advisor and executive director of the minister's regional office in Vancouver, may be a political animal, but at least he has a sense of humour about it.

"I finally ran for something and actually won," Cunningham said in an e-mail sent to this scribe about three weeks ago. "I am now on the SFU Alumni Board after running for one of the positions."

Cunningham is the freckle-faced young turk who was president of the B.C. wing of the federal Liberal party until he was appointed the local candidate by prime minister Paul Martin last summer. That appointment set in motion a series of very unusual happenings centred around the rise of Tony Kuo, who eventually settled into the role of deputy leader for the new provincial party, Democratic Reform BC.

In a very brief conversation just after he sent the e-mail, Cunningham said he fully intends to run for federal politics in the future, however, he's hoping there won't be a national election until after the Gomery Commission has issued its report.

JULIAN GETS VOCAL

The rookie member of Parliament for Burnaby-New Westminster is making quite an impression on the city he now calls his second home.

Peter Julian, the former executive director of the Western Institute for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, was recently recognized as the second most vocal of the 101 rookie MPs elected last summer.

According to Hansard, the official record of what's said in Parliament, Julian spoke a total of 130 times in the House of Commons between Oct. 4, 2004 and May 9, 2005, to join five B.C. MPS who made the top ten list of the most vocal new MPs in parliament.

Coming in at a very respectable sixth place from among the 101 new members of Parliament was rookie Burnaby-Douglas MP Bill Siksay, and at the top of the list was NDP leader Jack Layton.

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