The B.C. Liberals are demanding an apology from a New Democrat MLA who compared the shootings on Parliament Hill to B.C. government legislation on pollution.
Nanaimo NDP MLA Leonard Krog said in the legislature that both the Ottawa shootings and the B.C. government鈥檚 proposed legislation to gauge pollution on liquefied natural gas projects are affronts to democracy.
鈥淵ou know, the media [have] made much today of what happened in Ottawa from the angle of an assault on democracy and how terrible and awful it is, and I do not for one moment diminish what happened in Ottawa,鈥� Krog said on Wednesday.
鈥淏ut when legislation comes into this chamber that gives this enormous regulatory power to cabinet, in defiance of the rights of the people 鈥� who are represented by the members in this chamber to debate the bills that come before this House 鈥� that is an assault and an affront to democracy which is palpable, which is real and which is occurring once again in this chamber in a more significant way than, perhaps, we鈥檝e seen in other bills.鈥�
Krog was taking exception to how a substantial portion of the government鈥檚 LNG greenhouse-gas legislation will allow it to set future rules through regulations passed by cabinet.
Liberal MLA and former RCMP officer Mike Morris called Krog鈥檚 comments unacceptable and on Thursday demanded an apology.
Morris said Krog and NDP leader John Horgan should 鈥渟how the proper respect鈥� toward the Ottawa tragedy by apologizing.
On Thursday, Krog defended his comments. 鈥淚鈥檓 sorry that the Liberals have chosen to interpret this as somehow me equating the death in Ottawa with what has happened here, but that was not my intention,鈥� he said.
