Environment minister has full control over Conservation Service. No independence, no oversight!

The BC NDP don’t want to confront the reality that their environment minister Hon. George Heyman has full control of the BC Conservation Officer Service (BC COS).

As it is laid out in s. 106 of the Environmental Management Act, the service is “under the direction of the minister.” His colleague, the public safety minister and Solicitor General does not have that extraordinary power over other constables working in municipal police services.

The environment minister is maintaining a situation that is unsafe for the members of the BC COS, their policing partners, the public, and nature.

As the minister of public safety told me this week, all the environment minister needs to do is ask for the BC COS to be officially designated as a police or law enforcement service under the Police Act.

Why is this BC NDP government so reluctant to ensure the BC COS has independence in their investigations and proper arms-length oversight? Not some made up alternative process as this environment minister is apt to do, but rather the Office of the Police Complaints Commissioner, that is mandated to provide oversight of all other constables with unlimited appointments.

I imagine the BC NDP don’t want their environmental record to be freely investigated. What is the minister hiding? Why won’t he require the BC COS to meet the basic expectation of British Columbians for independence and oversight?

[Transcript]

A. Olsen:

Today I ask my question on behalf of nature and more than 600 bears and their orphan cubs.

The B.C. conservation officer service is essentially the Environment Minister's own little army. It's a heavily armed service of special provincial constables with unlimited appointments, no constabulary independence, no arms-length oversight.

Unlike other constables, under section 106 of the Environmental Management Act, the B.C. conservation officer service is "under the direction of that minister."

As I learned from the Environment Minister's colleague this week, the only way for the conservation service to have basic independence, the basic independence and arms-length oversight that British Columbians expect from people with those unlimited appointments, is for the Environment Minister to ask. So in my response today, will he turn to his colleague and ask that the B.C. conservation service be designated a police or law enforcement service effective immediately?