BC Liberal leadership candidate George Abbott is rejecting NDP calls for Victoria to break apart the newly created Ministry of Natural Resource Operations.
“The adjustment of those ministries is well under way,” Abbott told Business in Vancouver. “It would create more confusion and upset to try to reverse it a second time now. So, yes, for the present time, I would continue with that change.”
Abbott said he will watch whether the change achieves benefits that Premier Gordon Campbell envisioned when Campbell announced the merger in October.
The new ministry absorbed parts of the former Ministry of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources as well as parts of the former Ministry of Forests and Range.
Some policy aspects of forestry and mines remain in the new Ministry of Forests, Mines and Lands and the Ministry of Energy.
NDP energy critic John Horgan, who is an oft-touted likely candidate for the leadership of that party, has laid into the BC Liberals for creating what he considers chaos and confusion.
“The ministries are in total chaos, without a clear direction about where they’re going,” Horgan said in December.
Abbott counters that the objective of the change was to have as effective and streamlined a government as possible.
“In short, if it’s effective, we’ll keep it,” he said. “If there’s a reason to reconsider it, I would do that as well.”