Advocating for direct democracy with the BC Refederation Party, Port Alberni resident Dan Cebuliak is running for MLA in the Mid Island-Pacific Rim riding in the upcoming provincial election.
Having started out as a political activist during the 1981/82 recession with the Organization of Unemployed Workers, then finally moving to Alberta to work in Alberta’s oil industry until 2004, I then moved to Chetwynd, B.C. and set up my woodworking business, where I was doing quite well until the 2007 recession hit. By 2010 I had lost my house and my tools, eventually winding up on the streets for 18 months, where for the first six months, until an engineer I met on the streets began asking pointed questions at me. He then mentioned that while I lost my house and other investments, the banks of Canada got a $114 billion bailout and the executives received huge bonuses.
It was then, and there, that I made up my mind to change the system that allows people to lose their homes, investments, and living in extreme poverty. Coupled with the knowledge I learned in the 1980s, my experience on the streets I began what turned out to be years of research.
I worked another 18 months in Alberta, then in late 2013 moved back to Port Alberni, where I had discovered underemployment and unemployment were running rampant, and homelessness was on the increase. I had become the new social activist, where it seems no one was wanting to meet person to person any longer; I became an activist on Facebook.
It is here that through my activism I was approached by the BC Refederation Party. After discussions over the course of the year, I was asked to run in this election. The BC Refederation Party was a good fit; it had no ideology to follow, common sense and logic, and those running have one goal in common, direct democracy.
The number-one policy with the BC Refed is to have the citizens create a constitution of BC, made in BC by British Columbians. It reads; Declare the citizens of this province to be the sole source of political rights in BC thus allowing the citizens to write a constitution that will define and limit the powers they grant to government. We almost have that in BC with the Recall and Initiative Act brought in by the NDP, and promised to be fixed by the Liberals. It never was.
Our other policies for this election are improved education, healthcare, land and water protection, and above all with a BC Constitution all resources to be manufactured and secondary manufactured in BC, keep our jobs here, and also provide more and improved opportunities for our youth. Our resources need to be managed. By shipping our resources out, the province loses royalty revenue, and this must stop. More info http://bcrefed.com/ or cfle@outlook.com.