In what has to be either an incredible coincidence, or a direct attempt to stop a Challenge to the Parking Exemptions to the Mayor, MLA's, and the rest of Mayor Allan Lowe's "political friends", no commissionaires showed up on the day the Constitutional Challenge went to court.

When no commissionaire shows up to "testify" about the time and place of the issuing of a ticket, the matter is thrown out on the grounds of "lack of prosecution".

The City [and Province] was hoping that the Charter Challenge would stop here.... however the Challenge went through because the details of the summons were not challenged in order that the court would be forced to deal with the Charter Challenge. Unfortunately [as you see by the Supreme Court and BC Court of Appeal judgments], the City found other devious ways to keep these unlawful Acts and Bylaws in place.

Please also note that the City has approximately 3800 meters, all charging about a dollar per hour. That means that the City makes up to 15 Million dollars per year through meters alone: Adding fines and sales from confiscated vehicles, the total rises to something approaching 100 Million plus.

Bylaws to be enforced municipally instead of provincially: Plant

Tuesday, October 07, 2003
BC Attorney General Geoff Plant

VICTORIA (CP) - Disputes over parking tickets or animal licensing infractions could soon be settled by the same local municipalities that wrote the law, as opposed to impartial provincial court judges, Attorney General Geoff Plant confirmed October 7.

The "Local Government Bylaw Enforcement Act", introduced in the British Columbia legislature, is designed to deny due process and "allow provincial courts to focus on more important cases", Plant said. Plant said it is "no longer justified to put a $25 parking ticket complaint before a judge that's being paid $160,000 a year". "We need to rethink our justice system in terms of process expectations," he said. "I think that $25 parking tickets are not the same as murder charges," he said. "The court inevitably has more and more important things to do than deal with $25 parking tickets."

A pilot project to establish the business case for a municipally-run dispute system will be set up in some Vancouver-area communities within the next six months or one year, Plant said.

"We do believe that we should be able to find a way to make this work across the province at some point over the next couple of years," he said.

Until now, British Columbia's provincial courts have handled all disputed bylaw offences from parking and dog licensing to more serious offences involving health and safety issues, he said.

[What an interesting statement from the Crown's representative of Law enforcement!! It happens to be completely at odds with what their lawyer said in R. v. Jebbett. The Crown lawyer, in that case, argued that parking bylaws were indeed about safety. Perhaps they were confused? Perhaps they were lying?]

Plant said the bylaw disputes have contributed to backlogs. He denied the new law was yet another step of the government to download court costs to municipalities, and ultimately to property owners.

Plant said the system would end up paying for itself because communities will use increased revenues from parking tickets and other bylaw infractions to support the system set up to protect revenues from parking tickets and other bylaw infractions. Essentially we have the municipality running the whole show from writing the bylaw, to issuing tickets, to settling disputes; so expect large increases in parking fines once we get the system in place.

The Union of B.C. Municipalities issued a statement wholeheartedly supporting the new law. "Our bylaws will now be more enforceable and disputes will be dealt with promptly and fairly, from our perspective" said president Frank Leonard, who is also the mayor of Saanich, and is exempt from all parking bylaw enforcement, as is Attorney General Geoff Plant.
 

Plant said the law will result in bylaw enforcement officers writing more tickets because they will no longer worry about the cases getting bogged down in an overloaded court system.

Leonard said the ticket revenues "won't just be used as a cash cow for local governments".

"The goal of bylaw enforcement is compliance, not tickets," he said. "What neighbours want to hear is we solved the problem."

[Yeah right, Geoff! I'm sure the fact you collect millions of dollars from parking enforcement has no baring whatsoever on your decisions. Pity, though, that you don't mind violating the law in the process.]
© Copyright  2003 BC Revolution - R. Polton.
 

[Note: Just in case you missed it, we'll say it again: Neither Geoff Plant, nor Frank Leonard face ANY parking fines where they "comply" or not... They are above the law, according to City Bylaw, and the Highest "Court" in BC.]

Plant claims, in the letter at left, that the issue of law raised is not within the jurisdiction of the Attorney General. This is complete NONSENSE!

The BC Government (under the Attorney General) governs and creates ALL ACTS dealing with municipal powers, and it is their duty to make sure municipalities stay within the boundaries of the so-called SUPREME law, aka Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Magna Carta.

(Note, in fact, the below photo insert, where Plant addresses questions to Bill 65, which sets NEW criteria for how municipalities issue alleged bylaw infractions.

Do you think the exemptions to MLA's receiving free parking were dealt with? Should they have been?

 Why not write the Minister (who is exempt from the bylaws remember?) and ask him.

If you are not satisfied with his answer, join  the revolution in the defence of the rule of law.
 

Is this another example of how our courts are handcuffed and possibly influenced by corrupt governments, and the judges themselves?

Friday, March 21, 2003

The B.C. Court of Appeal has overturned a $1-million judgment against the City of Victoria.

Pacific National Investments sued the city over two water lots on Songhees land in the Inner Harbour.

The company bought the property from the province in the 1980s. The agreement came with conditions PNI build various services into the property.

PNI planned a three-storey structure over part of the harbour. The project planned for a main-floor commercial space and two floors of luxury condominiums.

The city initially rezoned the property in 1987 to allow for the project. Council "downzoned" it in 1993, eliminating the residential component and restricting the building to one storey.

That spelled the end of the project and sparked the lawsuit by PNI, which included a claim of "breach of contract".

The Supreme Court of Canada ruled that zoning decisions of municipal councils aren't binding on future councils.

Though PNI lost the breach-of-contract portion of its lawsuit, a B.C. Supreme Court justice allowed the company's claim that the city had unlawfully benefited from installation of services and amenities offered to the city by the province.

The city was ordered to pay just over $1 million as compensation to PNI.

The B.C. Court of Appeal overturned the award.

The decision renewed public concern that the BC Court of Appeal is being influenced by various levels of local government.