British Columbia Moderate Democratic Movement

The British Columbia Moderate Democratic Movement is a minor political party in the Province of British Columbia, Canada. Its current status is unclear:

• In 2004, it joined with the British Columbia Democratic Alliance, the Citizens Action Party and Link BC to form the British Columbia Democratic Coalition.
• This coalition merged with the Reform Party of British Columbia and All Nations Party of British Columbia on January 15, 2005 to form a new, centrist political party, Democratic Reform British Columbia.

Despite this, the BCMDM nominated two candidates in the 2005 BC election: James Solhiem won 123 votes (0.61% of the total) in the riding of Chilliwack-Sumas, and David Michael Anderson won 235 votes (1.20% of the total) in Chilliwack-Kent.

The party's website has not been updated since mid-2004.

Platform

The platform proposes^[1]:

• Education
  • forgivable student loans to cover tuition]fees for B.C. residents
  • increased funding for school boards
  • greater autonomy for school boards to create new programs, subject to provincial standards

• Healthcare
  • paying practitioners for "promotion of wellness rather than the treatment of disease"
  • creating regional treatment centres covering all stages of care from diagnosis to treatment

• Economics
  • a B.C. business development bank to assist the creation of new businesses
  • an "Idea Development Centre" to help entrepreneurs develop business plans and gain funding

• Governance
  • opposing the privatization of public assets, and returning already-privatized assets to public ownership
  • requiring all Members of the Legislative Assembly to attend monthly town hall meetings in their communities
  • increased transparency, including access to information measures making all government, Crown corporation and public-private partnership records open to public inspection
  • laws to hold public officials accountable for what the party called "fiscal mismanagement and misleading budgets"

• Justice
  • to "ensure violent offenders are removed from our streets"
  • increased use of restorative justice, halfway houses, and intense supervision for first-time non-violent offenders

• Forestry
  • ensuring raw logs are processed in the community in which they were produced
  • funding forest management to prevent and control wildfires
  • ending the "self-policing" of forestry companies

• Environment
  • maintaining the ban on bulk water exports
  • funding scientific research as the basis for all environmental decisions
  • increasing penalties for environmental violations, and putting funds raised directly into park maintenance and habitat protection
  • investing in pollution control research

• BC Hydro
  • "fairly priced electricity" through investment in new generating facilities for BC Hydro, to replace aging facilities nearing the end of their life

See also

• List of British Columbia political parties

References

1. ^ The BCMDM's platform

External links

• Moderate Democratic Movement site

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