Paul Reitsma (born January 22, 1948) is a former member of the

Legislative Assembly of British Columbia The Legislative Assembly of British Columbia is the deliberative assembly of the Parliament of British Columbia, in the province of British Columbia, Canada. The Legislative Assembly meets in Victoria, British Columbia, Victoria. Members ar ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, for the electoral district of

Parksville-Qualicum Parksville-Qualicum is the name of a provincial electoral district in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of British Columbia. It was first contested in the 1991 British Columbia general election, 1991 election. Following ...

. He was born in 1948 in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. Reitsma served as the mayor of

Port Alberni Port Alberni () is a city located on Vancouver Island in the province of British Columbia, Canada. The city lies within the Alberni Valley at the head of the Alberni Inlet, Vancouver Island's longest inlet. It is the location of the head offices o ...

and Parksville, prior to his move to provincial politics. Reitsma was elected in the 1996 BC provincial election for the

BC Liberals The British Columbia Liberal Party, often shortened to the BC Liberals, is a Centre-right politics, centre-right provincial political party in British Columbia, Canada. The party currently forms the Official Opposition. Subsequent to the 2020 Br ...

, defeating

New Democratic Party of British Columbia New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created. New or NEW may refer to: Music * New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz Albums and EPs * ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013 * ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...

incumbent

Leonard Krog Leonard Eugene Krog is a Canadian politician and lawyer in British Columbia, who currently serves as Mayor of Nanaimo. Prior to his tenure as mayor, Krog served in the provincial legislature, and was first elected in the 1991 general election r ...

. In early 1998, Reitsma was accused of writing letters to newspapers under assumed names, praising himself and attacking his political opponents. A Parksville newspaper had asked a former

Royal Canadian Mounted Police The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; french: Gendarmerie royale du Canada; french: GRC, label=none), commonly known in English as the Mounties (and colloquially in French as ) is the federal police, federal and national police service of ...

handwriting expert to compare a sample of Reitsma's handwriting to that of letters to the editor submitted by a "Warren Betanko", and then ran a story entitled "MLA Reitsma is a liar and we can prove it". Reitsma was ejected from the BC Liberal caucus although he chose to remain as a member of the BC Legislative Assembly. However, he resigned his legislative seat on June 23, 1998, when it appeared that a

recall Recall may refer to: * Recall (bugle call), a signal to stop * Recall (information retrieval), a statistical measure * ''ReCALL'' (journal), an academic journal about computer-assisted language learning * Recall (memory) * ''Recall'' (Overwatch ...

petition led by proponent

Mark Allan Robinson Mark Allan Robinson (born January 20, 1975) was the proponent of the first recall petition in Canadian history to remove an elected politician that reached the required threshold to force a by-election. Robinson was born in Penticton, British Col ...

had enough signatures from the electorate to recall him (thus result in a by-election to elect a new MLA).

References

External links

BCForums
{{DEFAULTSORT:Reitsma, Paul Dutch emigrants to Canada British Columbia Liberal Party MLAs Mayors of places in British Columbia People from Parksville, British Columbia People from Port Alberni 1948 births Living people