FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 31, 2005

The toughest part of any political party is when people you admire, such as Barb Smith and Shirley Abraham who were stalwarts with Reform BC, are no longer with you.

On November 7, 2004 I first met Tom Morino and other members of the BC Democratic Coalition (BCDC) along with a few members of the All Nations Party of BC (ANPBC) in a joint meeting with the Reform BC board in Kamloops. I was led to believe that because of the depth of our history, our foundation and reform brand name both parties would join Reform BC and do two things. Set up a policy committee between one member, each from the three parties, to help bring the ANPBC on board with Reform BC and secondly explore the possibility of adding the word Democratic to Reform BC. A Reform BC Annual General Meeting (AGM) was then called for January 15, and after our meeting, gather together in a joint assembly, with BCDC and ANPBC to adopt that decision.

During the days that followed many emails flowed back and forth between the three parties. It wasn't until we got closer to January 15, that I realized that Reform BC resolutions submitted at the day of the AGM were not submitted to the Party in the required time frame prior to the date set for our AGM. The only document presented at the assembly, for the three parties to discuss, was a draft Constitution and Policy Direction submitted by the BCDC who had already registered the name Democratic Reform BC with Elections BC

Members of Reform during our AGM took a straw poll and those who decided to join the new party gave up their membership in Reform BC, as per our Bylaw 1.1, a member cannot join or hold membership in another provincial political party. Some decided to join the new party others, Charlotte and Walter Hagen, Gerry Rehwald, Ross Eccles and myself stayed on the board with Reform BC. It was unanimous that the Reform BC membership list would not be given or used by any other political party to solicit its membership.

Reform BC rejects the current initiative referendum on Electoral Reform. See our written submission.

Reform BC rejects guaranteeing four seats in the Legislature exclusively for Native Indian people. We encourage, without discrimination, any citizen of British Columbia to seek election.

Reform BC rejects Kyoto as a fraud upon the citizen and argues that the Kyoto protocol is based on politically motivated manipulation of climate data and science in which carbon-driven climate models fail to explain any known climate sequence. The World Glacier Monitoring group in Zurich shows, that instead of global warming, more than 55% of the 625 mountain glaciers under observation since 1980 are getting colder and growing. http://www.iceagenow.com/Growing_Glaciers.htm

Reform BC will be developing a platform for candidates to run on in the May 17, 2005 election