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Rob Howard (born 1954 or 1955) is a Canadian politician who was elected to the 39th Parliament of British Columbia as the Member of the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia from the riding of Richmond Centre. A member of the in the BC Liberal Party, he replaced retiring BC Liberal Olga Ilich in that riding, by winning the riding in the 2009 provincial election. While his party formed a majority government, Howard was not included in Gordon Campbell's cabinet but was appointed to several committees, including the Select Standing Committee on Public Accounts in the first two sessions, and Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services in the third and fourth session. Howard introduced one piece of legislation, the ''Trustee Board of the Church of God, Richmond Municipality, B.C. (Corporate Restoration) Act, 2009'' ((Pr 402 )), to retroactively restore that organization's corporate status. As chair of the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services, Howard supported Premier Campbell's efforts at establishing the Harmonized Sales Tax. Following Campbell's resignation, Howard endorsed Kevin Falcon but Christy Clark won the leadership election. Clark eventually made Howard a Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Transportation. In this position he advocated for Open Sky agreements and continued this advocacy in his post-political life by establishing the non-profit organization OpenSkies4Canada. Howard did not seek re-election during the 2013 provincial election and was replaced by BC Liberal Teresa Wat. Prior to his election to the legislature, Howard worked in property management. He served as a City Councillor in the Richmond, British Columbia for seven years. He was first elected to the Richmond, British Columbia City Council in the October 2001 by-election as a member of the Richmond Non-Partisan Association and was re-elected in the November 2002 and 2005 civic elections as a member of the Richmond First Party. He sat on council as an independent starting in 2006. While on council he advocated in favour of casino expansion, locating the Olympic speed-skating oval in Richmond, and developing a convention centre. ==Background== Rob Howard was born and raised in Richmond. He graduated from the University of British Columbia where he studied Urban Land Economics. He went on to work at Richmond Savings Credit Union for almost 20 years, and in 1994, started his own business, NCL Real Estate Management, which specialized in Property Development and property management. He is married to Trudy and has one son, Justin (Jay). Howard volunteered with the Richmond Minor Hockey Association for over 12 years, and was active with Tourism Richmond, the Richmond Chamber of Commerce, and the Real Estate Institute of BC. While his mother had served as an Alderwoman on the Richmond City Council, Howard's political career began with a civic bylaw election in October 2001. Howard, belonging to the civic political party Richmond Non-Partisan Association, was elected to one of the three available seats on the Richmond City Council. After less than a year on council, Howard left the Richmond Non-Partisan Association to join a new pro-business political party, Richmond First, which he saw as being less controlling and allowing him to make more independent decisions. He was re-elected in the November 2002 civic election, with his Richmond First party taking four of the eight council seats. On local issues, Howard was an advocate of opening Richmond to gambling facilities, which led to the River Rock Casino Resort. He was supportive of heritage preservation measures but opposed Richmond's tree preservation bylaw. He was the only one on council who preferred the elevated option for the Canada Line (then known as the Richmond-Airport-Vancouver Line), whereas the other councillors preferred the ground level option or no SkyTrain extension at all. He was an advocate for building a convention centre and the most ardent supporter of removing a 55-acre piece of land from the Agricultural Land Reserve as a possible location for it, though the removal was refused. When the possibility of the city constructing a speed-skating oval associated with the 2010 Winter Olympics came, Howard was a vocal supporter. He travelled to Lillehammer, Norway, in 2004 as part of a committee to investigate similar facilities built for the 1994 Winter Olympics. He also traveled to Pierrefonds, Quebec and Asia as part of the sister city program. He was not supportive of proposals to build a new soccer facility or financially contributing to tall ships tourism attractions. Because previous councils had made funding commitments at the expense of the city's reserve funds rather than the tax base, Howard's time on council was marked with consistent property tax increases around 3 to 4% each year. Howard unsuccessfully lobbied other councillors to hire more police officers. He became the subject of a lawsuit, along with other Richmond First councillors, alleging a conflict-of-interest occurred after they approved a rezoning allowing a controversial pub. In the 2005 civic election, he was again elected, though his Richmond First party only won three of the eight seats. He unsuccessfully lobbied his fellow councillors to appoint him to fill one of Richmond's two seats at Metro Vancouver. With not even his own party members supporting him for the Metro Vancouver seat and finding himself being alone in a number of issues, such as supporting the SkyTrain line being elevated, opposing the tree preservation bylaw, and wanting to hire more police officers, Howard left the Richmond First party in February 2006 to be an independent. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Rob Howard」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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