All posts by Rafe Mair

About Rafe Mair

Rafe Mair, LL.B, LL.D (Hon) a B.C. MLA 1975 to 1981, was Minister of Environment from late 1978 through 1979. In 1981 he left politics for Talk Radio becoming recognized as one of B.C.'s pre-eminent journalists. An avid fly fisherman, he took a special interest in Atlantic salmon farms and private power projects as environmental calamities and became a powerful voice in opposition to them. Rafe is the co-founder of The Common Sense Canadian and writes a regular blog at rafeonline.com.

Rafe: Weaver would be crazy to make pact with Christy; NDP should have nailed Libs on economy, LNG

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The three BC leaders at the televised debate (Photo: Broadcast Consortium)

It’s May 10, 2017 as I write this, an appropriate date to examine the election, being the anniversary of the Nazi invasion of France and the Low Countries in 1940 and the day Winston Churchill came to the rescue. Like then, much of the information during the campaign was questionable and virtually all of the mainstream media suppositions by a lamentable herd of trained seals unable to report intelligibly or intelligently. The stage was set by 16 years of kissing the backside of the provincial government, the print media distinguishing itself by managing to avoid the number one story of the times – their own newspapers’ deal with the oil industry ensuring that the latter always looked good in the newspapers and governments that wanted good press would be kind to the fossil fuel industry.

How annoying it was to hear the Global gabbers pontificate that when one party, with 100 votes cast, had 46% and the other 44%, thus the former had a “two point lead” – a piddling, meaningless statement. They used the same method with 5000 votes cast where that 2% was a substantial and perhaps final margin. In baseball, it’s percentages of hits per at bat; in politics it’s the number of hits that count. One might have expected the political pundits might have picked that up somewhere along the way.

Clark’s true economic record should have been downfall

There can be no doubt that all three parties lost one way or another. The Clark Liberals, with enough money to launch a small country, couldn’t buy a majority. The NDP, with the manifest sins of the Liberals to work with, couldn’t get a majority. The Green party with an electorate in the mood for environmental reform, managed three seats, all on friendly Vancouver Island.

That the Liberals sort of won had far less to do with their good record than the gentleness of Mr. Horgan on issues he wasn’t comfortable with, like money. That analysis runs contrary to what the media has said which is strong, if not irrefutable evidence that I’m bang on.

Courtesy of Norm Farrell/In-sights

If I may be so bold – and this is my blog after all – I warned Horgan a couple of years ago that he was letting the Liberals off the hook in the very area they claimed a monopoly on wisdom, handling our money. Their constant fallback position was that the NDP always wantonly run up public debt and drive away business. This allegation doesn’t stand up to a moment’s scrutiny, so why did it prevail in the election?

The answer is that the issue has the NDP spooked. It’s been repeated so often they believe it themselves!

The list of Liberal fiscal shortcomings is lengthy but I would have thought that doubling the provincial debt in 16 years and essentially bankrupting BC Hydro in the bargain would have been enough. Liberal construction overruns alone make Glen Clark’s “fast ferry fiasco” look picayune by comparison; add Site C, the issue that dare not speak its name, and it’s a wonderment that the Liberals got any votes at all. In short, what the Liberals got was that which Mr. Horgan could have got had he campaigned on issues and not spent time showing what a sweet guy he really is, despite nasty Liberal rumours about a nasty disposition.

NDP dropped the ball on LNG

Harken back for a moment to the LNG issue, which is where Horgan went politically bonkers. In politics, you simply do not take an issue completely out of play in order to look like a candidate for political sainthood. LNG was an immense and highly embarrassing failure for Clark so why did Mr. Horgan not beat up the Liberals on that point?

“Why”, he said, “we can’t be against everything”. Any politician with the faintest idea of what he was doing would have said “we’re in favour of development of our natural resources consistent with sound environmental practices and evidence that each development is in the best interests of the public of British Columbia”.

If he had done that he could have won my riding for one. Moreover, it would’ve left it open to him to raise hell about massive expenses of the Liberal government in chasing this ever-disappearing will-o-the wisp, guaranteed by Christy, no less, which would make us rich and relieve us forever from all debt. He could then have shown Christy Clark to be a legitimate object of ridicule – and ridicule is one thing a politician cannot survive. Horgan and his party couldn’t employ this massive weapon because, of course, he could hardly attack Clark’s bumptious bullshit about something he and his party supported!

How the Greens lost too

The Greens lost in a rather different sense of the word. They were in a province which has become more alive environmentally in the last 10 years than anywhere else in Canada. Not only was there the LNG plant in Squamish but the huge issue of Kinder Morgan and related undertakings. And in this atmosphere they took three seats, all on Vancouver Island, the Green “stronghold”, and none even close to where many of the environmental desecrations are planned.

I have no doubt that had the Greens been able to whisk Elizabeth May away from Ottawa, they would not only have done better, they would have been serious contenders throughout the province.

The elephant in the room

When all’s said and done, the Liberals “won” because there were so many minor issues to divert attention from massive Liberal mismanagement, a diversion not achieved by Liberal cleverness but NDP cowardice, arising from their willingness to believe that their dealings with fiscal matters would be laughed at by voters conditioned to believe implicitly in NDP fiscal incompetence.

In addition, there was the lazy excuse that the public simply doesn’t understand big figures and colossal losses.

That may be partly so – but only partly. Had Mr. Horgan hammered at the absolute falsehood that the Liberals had actually balanced the budget, had he translated the tragedy of BC Hydro into huge rate increases, and had he expressed the doubling of the provincial debt in terms of higher taxes and diminished social services, spiced with that extraordinary YouTube presentation of Christy congratulating her parents for leaving their children no debt and promising the same fiscal rectitude for BC, then I have no doubt the public would have understood fully.

With the exception of independent papers, the media was appalling at presenting issues with coherent analysis. To think that the Campbell energy policy which ruined so many rivers and set BC Hydro on a path to bankruptcy went unmentioned in the mainstream media from its launch in 2003 until now, speaks volumes for the decline of that once-honourable profession.

Where do we go from here?

As to what will happen now, I have no more idea than anyone else except that I can say what should not happen. The Green party would be mad to unite with the Liberals, just as a suitable way for them to reward Dr. Weaver with a cabinet post for his all his political kindness to them. It’s to the left not right Greens must look if they are going to gather public support.

The Green party have a glorious opportunity to expand both in terms of numbers and appeal to thinking British Colombia if they avoid the future machinations of the BC Liberal party. It would make a great deal more sense if they were to support, short of a coalition, a minority NDP government, should that prove numerically possible.

I close with this observation – you might consider that any one of the three leaders was successful but that’s only because you’re comparing them to two losers. In their respective fields, they each failed by substantial underachievement, least so Weaver, who now must demonstrate that the Green Party can successfully move onto the Mainland and to other regions and his next move will tell.

I hope they can – and do.

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Rafe: It’s got to be the NDP to replace Lyin’ Liberals…but LNG complicates matters

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NDP Leader John Horgan

Like a large number of people in the WestVancouver- Sea-To-Sky constituency, I am breaking the usual rules – I want the NDP to form the next government but I am passionately opposed to Woodfibre LNG which the NDP candidate supports. If I were to support her, my neighbours, with every justification in the world, would lynch me, as I would them were they to vote NDP.

Protection of Howe Sound is a huge issue and while our very strong position should, one would think, bring major party support, not so. This isn’t a NIMBY issue but a dedication to save BC’s most southern fjord and one of the worlds great natural beauty spots now recovered from past industrial waste thanks in large measure to citizen measures. Howe Sound, with its killer whales, humpback whales, salmon, herring, seals, sea-lions and other sea life back, is seen as a British Columbia treasure to be protected by all decent British Columbians.

Overall, I’m supporting the NDP

This is the 3rd election where I’ve publicly supported the NDP. I am still asked, weren’t you a Socred minister, an oppressor of the working folk and a greedy capitalist lining his own pockets at the expense of the poor?

Minus the hyperbole, yes. I ran for the Socreds in 1975 and again in 1979, won both elections, and spent over five years in the cabinet. During that period Premier Bill Bennett fully supported me and my deputy minister, Tex Enemark, as we modernized BC’s antediluvian consumer laws, completely overhauled the liquor laws, established the hugely successful cottage wine industry, and forced Chartered Banks, who claimed exemption because they were federally chartered, to obey our laws. When I moved to Environment, I negotiated with the City of Seattle, stopping them from raising the Ross Dam and saved our beautiful Skagit River from ruin, stopped the killing of wolves – which enraged all ranchers, nearly all of whom were Socreds – and, to the outrage of the mining industry, placed a moratorium on Uranium exploration and mining. As Health minister I brought in Homecare and Palliative care.

I assure you I relate all this only to show you my personal experience with the bad, old Socred capitalist pigs and tell you that under the present Liberals, such radical socialistic notions wouldn’t have stood a chance.

What’s really happened is that public attitudes towards former “lefty” issues like the environment, health, social services have changed dramatically and are no longer the private preserve of the left. At the same time, the heirs to the deceased Social Credit Party, the BC Liberals, have lurched to the right – far to the right of the Bill Bennett Socreds – while the NDP cast aside the old time rhetoric and stopped scaring people in the Centre. The Green Party has, sadly, moved from true Green to playing political spoiler hoping to win a balance of power.

Clark’s Keystone Kops have to go

Let’s get down to cases.

Courtesy of Norm Farrell/In-sights

I frankly cannot understand how anyone would want another four years of the gross incompetence and lack of truthfulness that we’ve endured since 2001. In my opinion, the Campbell/Clark bunch is the worst government I have ever seen in this province. The massive Keystone Kops bungling of the LNG mess in itself should be enough to see the back of them for quite a while. It all was so reminiscent of Peter Sellers and a Pink Panther classic farce. The Liberals’ 16 years are unblemished by a single success story.

What sticks out, however, is the good economic situation they inherited and the bloody awful mess they are leaving. They have doubled the provincial debt in 2016 $ and have so mismanaged BC Hydro that it’s a corporate tragedy that truly beggars description. The Independent Power Policy has been a huge political pay-off to wealthy supporters, all at the expense of the Public. The lingering memory I carry is of a premier whose mind is seldom, if ever, troubled by telling fibs, from small to big.

It may well be, of course, that many of you really don’t place clean government very high on the list. I happen to think it’s essential to good government. Perhaps the Liberal endemic dissembling comes from the docile unto supportive media, but that scarcely justifies the Liberal government under both Campbell and Clark – particularly the latter – being incapable of telling the truth. I’m not interested in perpetuating that sort of leadership.

LNG is NDP’s weak spot

The situation on the Kinder Morgan line and similar environmental intrusions by the federal government themselves are enough for me to vote for someone else. When it gets to BC Hydro and Site C, I run the risk of being rude by saying I can’t understand how anyone could vote for a government involved in such preposterous policies.

Yes, I support the NDP, with considerable reservation, which is dwarfed, however, by the brutal inadequacies of the Liberals – combined with their corruption.

Horgan has produced an idiotic policy of favouring LNG without any criticism and that has taken away a number of opposition opportunities, including the one in my riding, but elsewhere too.

No politician with half a brain would have said, “We can’t be against everything, so we’re for LNG” – a preposterous proposition when you think of it. The reason you are for a policy isn’t because it’s a good one but because you can’t be against everything! It wasn’t necessary that he be opposed, just committed to an open inquiring mind judging each proposal on its merits. In taking the position he has, Horgan has foreclosed some of the serious issues concerning LNG, such as fracking, for example, or discharges into the air or waterways, or tanker traffic, as in the case of Howe Sound, which, by every standard imposed, is too narrow for tanker traffic. As I write this, the polls show a small Liberal lead has overtaken a large NDP advantage, which may reflect a public not satisfied that Horgan has their confidence to even be more competent than Clark!

Horgan still the best choice

John Horgan meets Rob Ashton of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union at Lynnterm docks in North Vancouver (BCNDP/flickr cc licence)

For all that, politics is a comparative game and compared to the record of the Campbell/Clark government, particularly the financial wreckage they have piled up, with his shortcomings, to me John Horgan still looks like a much better choice to lead the province.

The Green party has been disappointing in my view. I find myself very attracted to the green concept and can only wish that my advice to Elizabeth May had been followed and that she had taken over the BC party, but that was not to be.

Dr. Weaver’s position on so-called “run of river” and IPPs has been so non-green as to disqualify him in my view from that appellation. He has done well in the debates and the party has gone from being one of principle to one of grabbing for seats, hoping to gain a place in a coalition government.

A disappointing campaign, all around

I must say that this entire campaign has been very disappointing in too many ways. The Liberals have not made any effort to justify their record, the NDP have shown very little ability to restore confidence and bring us a competent government and the Green party have switched from being idealists to opportunists.

I close very simply by saying one must deal with that and if one is adult, under these circumstances there is absolutely no way they could support a dishonest and utterly untruthful government.

I understand that politicians have been known to gild the lily on occasion. A certain amount of wriggle room between truth and falsehood is traditionally accepted. But with this premier it’s well beyond a joke. She seems temperamentally incapable of telling the truth and I’m not prepared to vote for such a person.

I’m not so naive as to think that political supporters don’t get perks or that if you’re bidding on a government contract, donations aren’t helpful. But this government, with its policy of Independent Power Producers, has taken graft to a new level and has all but bankrupted BC Hydro, doubled the provincial debt and ruined the jewel in our corporate crown. Are we to overlook this?

Finally, let me dispel two myths. The Liberal government is only not lying when they talk about balanced budgets – because no one likes to use that word but it’s as close to lying as “damn” is swearing. Ask yourself this: The government has gone further into the hole by $71 BILLION in the last four years – how in hell can you do that with balanced budgets?

Easy – don’t put the bad stuff like BC Hydro or ICBC into the budget balancing game! Their losses are part of the huge provincial debt but, using the old adage “figures don’t lie but liars can sure as hell figure”, you can work miracles with a balance sheet.

Given the fiscal catastrophe created by the Campbell/Clark government and their lie-infested corruption, I consider they have forfeited any right to a position of public trust.

The NDP are inexperienced in leadership but not in government, with a number of MLAs who are clearly Cabinet material, some with cabinet experience. If they do no more than restore truth and integrity, support of Horgan and Co will be worth it.

As an old friend used to say when wondering about taking a chance and approaching a comely lass, “what the hell, take a chance…Columbus did”.

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Rafe: Christy Clark’s LNG promises are nothing but hot air

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Premier Christy Clark at her government’s LNG conference (Province of BC/Flickr)

We have all been screwed, blued and tattooed in the riding of West Vancouver-Sea-to-Sky, and let me tell you how this affects every British Columbian in every region of the province.

Just as Kinder Morgan would use the Salish Sea as the  sewage disposal and latrine for Tar Sands bitumen; just as the Pacific NorthWest LNG proposal for an export terminal on Lelu Island would kill BC fish; just as all proposed LNG plants in BC are ecological disgraces, Woodfibre LNG is in clear violation of Canada’s agreement on Climate in Paris in November, 2015. I’ll speak of other problems with Woodfibre LNG in a moment.

Christy’s LNG lies

Christy Clark, who seems pathologically incapable of telling the truth, constantly trills the mantra “the greatest single step British Columbia can take to fight climate change” is to export LNG.  This excessive verbal crap is so typical of this woman as you will see in this quote from a well known and mighty respected geologist and shale gas expert, David Hughes in an interview with the Squamish Chief last year. Dr. Hughes was asked this, point blank question:

[quote]Q: One argument is we are not being fair to the people in China who are suffering from coal production and that liquefied natural gas from here will save them from that.  [/quote]

Here was his answer:

[quote]A: “On a full-cycle emissions basis, the planet would be better off if China built state-of-the-art coal plants rather than burning B.C. LNG for at least the next 50 years. It is true that at the burner tip gas produces about half the CO2 of coal. But you have to consider full cycle emissions from the wellhead to the burner tip for gas. The hydraulic fracturing process and the supply chain – pipelines, processing plants – emit considerable amounts of methane, which is 73 times as potent as CO2 on a 20-year timeframe and 25 times as potent on a 100-year time frame (because methane leaves the atmosphere more quickly than CO2). Plus, about 20 per cent of the gas must be burned to provide power for the liquefaction and shipping process. [emphasis mine -RM]

If you compare full-cycle emissions from B.C. LNG burned in China to a state-of-the-art Chinese coal plant, which runs at 46 per cent efficiency (compared to 33 per cent efficiency for an old coal plant), B.C. LNG is 27 per cent worse than burning coal over a 20-year timeframe and seven per cent better on a 100-year timeframe. So, you’d need to wait more than 50 years until you break even, while suffering from the effects of increased greenhouse gases in the meantime.[/quote]

Christy Clark, I should explain, has a rule: never read on once the word “however” appears.

Trudeau’s no better

If, like me, you have wondered why Trudeau has steadily and, one might say, violently swerved away from the commitments Canada made re: Climate change at Paris in 2015, here is a multiple choice: 1.  Sunspots;  2. A mickey slipped into his ginger ale; 3. It was in French, an alien tongue; 4. The oil industry had him by the balls and started to squeeze.

This story of April 21 last in the National Observer may be used to help you answer:

[quote]The Trudeau government and the oil patch are in agreement: Canada needs to delay plans to reduce the heat-trapping pollution that causes climate change because those actions will cost too much.

It’s a stunning retreat from key promises and statements made by the government since its election in 2015. And it has left some environmentalists wondering whether Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is following the Trump administration’s race to the bottom on climate policy.

Environment Minister Catherine McKenna confirmed the news on Thursday during a conference call with reporters. She said that Canada would introduce plans that would delay tackling emissions of methane — a powerful heat-trapping gas — from the oil patch by two years, the CBC reported.[/quote]

Compare this with an earlier story by the National Observer noting:

• The amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere continues to accelerate upwards despite global efforts

• The last two years had “unprecedented” increases

• Canadian CO2 extraction is playing an oversized role

The primary driver of global warming, disruptive climate changes and ocean acidification is the ever-increasing amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere.

In the pocket of the oil lobby

The plain fact, shorn of the political double talk and statements of lofty motives is this: The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), who control the Postmedia newspapers with their notorious “mutual masturbation” agreement, needs only to whisper “jump” and Trudeau and Clark, in perfect harmony, cry back “how high, sir, and when?”

You may believe BC’s Premier Prevaricator, Christy Clark, that Woodfibre LNG is all about BC just trying to help China and the world solve climate change difficulties, but as the Duke of Wellington, at the height of his fame, said to the man who hailed him as “Mr. Robinson, I believe”, “Sir, if you believe that, you’ll believe anything”.

Howe Sound too dangerous for LNG tankers: leading scientist

Howe Sound is British Columbia’s most southern fjord and one of its justly famed beauty spots. Once polluted by a Squamish pulp mill and Britannia Mines, the treasures of my boyhood – the whales, salmon runs, the seals, sea lions, dolphins and porpoises had mostly left. The sea flora and shellfish were disappearing. It looked as if Howe Sound had lost much of its distinctiveness forever.

But ordinary people joined government with hard work and their own money and we know what happened! The herring returned and the salmon runs with them. Killer whales, humpback whales, seals, sea lions, dolphins and porpoises returned. Divers told of rejuvenated plants and the revived shellfish populations.

Courtesy of Eoin Finn

Before May 9, I and others will tell you more about the phoney environmental assessment which missed more than it covered. We’re left with unacceptable emissions in the atmosphere and ground level, hot, polluted emissions into the Sound into the habitat of the recovered sea life and dangerous LNG tankers which will be ever-increasing. And guess what folks? Howe Sound is too narrow for LNG tankers! And who says so is pretty interesting.

The leading global expert, Dr. Michael Hightower, of world-renowned Sandia Laboratories of New Mexico, the United States government and – get this – the tanker industry’s own professional organization, The Society of International Gas Tanker and Terminal Operators (SIGTTO). They all say too narrow and disagreeing with them are Sukanto Tanoto, the Indonesian jungle burner, bully landlord and convicted crook who owns WFLNG, Justin Trudeau, Christy Clark, John Horgan and to round out that gathering of experts, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.

And how are we all being screwed, blued and tattooed? 

Both parties with a chance of forming a government favour WFLNG and while Dr. Weaver, leader of the Greens, has spoken critically about WFLNG, worry beads are being fingered at the possibility of the Greens, holding a balance of power, might join Christy in coalition with WFLNG approval being a bargaining chip.

With uncertainty about Greens prevalent at the moment, that leaves an unknown Independent – a chap named Tristan Andrew Galbraith who owns “Critter Get Ritter,” a pest-control service in Whistler…and, who knows, a pest control expert may be just what voters will be looking for.

You’ll know more about him I suspect in the days to come.

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Rafe Mair: How Liberal myths about the NDP distort BC’s political history

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Christy Clark (Province of BC/Flickr and John Horgan (BCNDP/Flickr)

Let’s look at some political myths and near-myths.

The BC Liberals are hammering away at the NDP, saying that the last time they were in office,  it fiscally ruined the province; this from the government that in 16 years, in 2016 dollars, has doubled the provincial debt.

They say that when they took over in 2001 from the NDP, the province was in catastrophic financial shape. In fact the NDP left a surplus of $1.5 Billion.

The Liberals claim they have had 5 straight balanced budgets.

Well, you can have one too. Form a little private company, put your house and car in it, give it the money to make payments, and, presto! Your household budget is balanced. That’s precisely how the Liberal government operates – if you simply take BC Hydro and ICBC out of the picture, their budget is nice and balanced.

Your company is in lousy shape, of course,  and your banker will soon catch up to you. Governments  don’t have to worry about things like that because they are hugely valuable customers and the bank knows the government always has the taxpayer to soak. 

Cartoon by Greg Perry

As so often is the case, the cartoon tells it best, as surely is the case here, proved by Greg Perry.

Dave Barrett, the first NDP premier, was the bête noir of my era and while he certainly wasn’t a great premier, was much better than we admitted, with several accomplishments still very evident, including the Agricultural Land Reserve, ICBC, along with very important reforms in the Legislature. He did some dumb things like buying Ocean Falls, a Victoria restaurant thereafter known as Barrett’s Beanery, Panko Poultry – giving the opposition the marvellous nickname Pinko Panko, “All Left Wings and Assholes” – and Swan Valley, a huge agriculture failure he somehow escaped blame for.

It’s too easily forgotten by the Right that, contrary to their allegations that Barrett favoured unions, he lost the 1975 election because of back to work legislation. In spite of solemn and learned pronouncements by Socreds of the day, like Rafe Mair, a Kamloops lawyer, the sky didn’t fall, business didn’t move en masse to Alberta, and communism was somehow kept at bay.

I’m going to leave out Bill Bennett because I was part of that government, except to observe that, contrary to opposition rumours, the hospitals didn’t close, the poor were not sent to workhouses, nor were unions disbanded and their leaders thrown in jail.

Bill Vander Zalm unquestionably destroyed the Social Credit Party, opening the way for Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark and was a first class, all-time example of how not to govern by consensus.

Rita Johnston was not there long enough to be judged and was the unofficial sacrificial lamb for everything associated with Vander Zalm.

Mike Harcourt was a weak premier, unable to handle a scandal he had no part in. I believe that his successor, Glen Clark, was a very good but most unlucky premier. The Fast Ferries were a mistake that was made to look worse by the giveaway price Campbell sold them for, but chickenfeed compared to any of half a dozen by Campbell/Clark.

If a fair-minded person does any research, it’s obvious that the Dimitrios Pilarinos scandal should have borne by the Crown for showboating in the original search of Glen Clark’s residence, intolerable delay, and proceeding on a paucity of evidence of wrongdoing – bloody stupidity, yes, but, as the trial judge said, “There is nothing in his conduct that crosses the line from an act of folly to behaviour calling for criminal sanctions.”

Dan Miller was simply a short stand-in but Ujjal Dosanjh indicates a justifiable reason one might be leery of the NDP – but more to do with the party than the premier.

Unity has never been the NDP’s strong suit and anyone who attended the leadership convention that made Dosanjh leader can attest to that. The dissension, which almost seemed funny at the time, carried over into government and from, my vantage point, Dosanjh was dead on arrival at the premier’s office.

What is the current state of affairs? The NDP lost in 2013, blowing a huge lead by choosing the last few days to hold their traditional eating of their young. How secure is Horgan, given his tepid-at-best record as Opposition leader? Would he lead a stable NDP Government, an oxymoron?

Libs stick together, no matter the consequences

The Liberals are the very opposite – they remain loyal when sane and sensible people would long before have thrown the leader under a bus, but you have to ask yourself if this philosophy, though directly opposite that of the NDP, is really any better if it just perpetuates the term of a lousy premier? For it sure as hell isn’t superior morality at work, but a huge desire to win – no matter what the consequences – that transcends all other considerations. Any damned fool, myself included, knows that if these were normal times, Christy Clark wouldn’t have a prayer in a leadership race but, at election time, all leadership failings are not only ignored, but the Liberal party, with its long tradition of lying through its teeth to win, goes to work on this speciality with an experience none can come close to, much less match.

You will not find a word coming from Liberals about the real issues, the actual – not phoney – fiscal situation; you will think that there never was a BC Hydro or ICBC, and you can forget about integrity, honesty and truthfulness. Needless to say, social services like mental illness, violence against women, kids in need, homelessness, health lineups and so on won’t even be hinted at. You will hear the carefully manicured mantra about balanced budgets, job creation, and the destruction of the province if the NDP are elected.

Why your local MLA doesn’t matter

If there is such a thing as mass hypnosis, it’s evidenced in the notion that the quality of the candidate should be the determining factor. Every day I read the comics online, having long ago given up making charitable donations to Postmedia, and every day I see ads for our Liberal MLA and allegations about his many achievements on our behalf. In fact, he’s done nothing that each of his colleagues haven’t done or, put another way, if our MLA was a scarecrow or a fencepost with hair, they would have as much right to take credit. Whenever I hear someone say Joe Blow or Sally Slim would make an excellent MLA, I ask, “Why?”

This will be hard to swallow, folks – unless your MLA winds up in Cabinet, they will have ZERO influence upon policy or statutes and if a cabinet minister, unless one of three or four key ministers, not much. When that road is built or the grant goes to the local sports event and you are the MLA, by all means, take credit, because the public is probably dumb enough to believe you. In fact, you know full well that the money came because the party wants the seat and couldn’t care less about whose ass occupies a government seat in the Legislature.

To put it bluntly, policy and legislation are made in the premier’s office, with a bare handful of ministers involved. It’s passed in a cabinet meeting where the ministers know that if they cross the premier they’ll be out and on the backbench, their car will be gone, so will 1st class travel and their pay cut in half. When former US House of Representatives Speaker Sam Rayburn said, “to get along, you must go along,” he knew what he was talking about.

When the bill is voted on and you are a government MLA, you vote yes. If you don’t, the penalty can be as high as being thrown out of caucus and the party. I beg of you to understand that there is not a particle of democracy involved and your MLA could be replaced by a voting machine operated by the premier’s foot with no loss of democracy – for the simple reason it was never there in first place. Under our so-called “Responsible Government” system, it’s the party, not the individual that counts. Thus, I leave you with this irrefutable advice:

Vote for the party and don’t trouble about who your MLA is because it just doesn’t matter.*

* Any who would like my paper on Responsible Government, free of charge, please contact the publisher.

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Rafe: Christy Clark must go!

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British Columbians have had enough of Christy Clark, says Rafe Mair (Province of BC/Flickr)

The Christy Clark government and Clark herself must go!

I am not a socialist but neither are the NDP. Of course, we must have a thriving economy that supports our necessities and has room for earned luxuries. What we can no longer do, if we wish to have a British Columbia useful for enjoyment of life, is let entrepreneurial ambitions and corporate influence on government trump all other values.

Even if you do place the economy above all else, you have to examine the Clark Keystone Kops’ self-proclaimed business acumen, which, even in these good economic times, has doubled the provincial debt and ruined our former crown jewel, BC Hydro, and, having bankrupted it in all but name, committed it to a further $10 billion for Site C for power we don’t need and for which we have no customers

If you’re thick enough to believe that the Liberals’ declared balanced budgets are remotely honest, leave now – you are beyond salvation and will obviously believe anything.

This is my bottom line: Let’s just say that there were no other issues of consequence than these in this election. Would you reelect any government that had doubled the provincial debt in the past 14 years and had presided over the ruination of the largest and most successful public corporation in the history of the Province?

Remember, the Liberals not only kept this secret – the horrific debacle that has ruined BC Hydro has been exposed entirely by private citizens. The IPP issue, the ruination of rivers, the loss of fish, the outrageous sweetheart deals in favour of private power donor pals of Christy to the huge cost to Hydro ratepayers. The pay-offs to cronies was dealt with in the elections of 2009 and 2013 only by private citizens like Tom Rankin, Damien Gillis, Joe Foy of the Wilderness Committee and others including me, who spoke all over the province and have consistently written about it since and acquired their evidence from public-spirited people like Norman Farrell, Arthur Caldicott, and Erik Andersen, all private citizens. And at the end of the day, nothing from the Liberal party loyalist, Suzanne Anton, the pliant Attorney-General, not a resignation from any of the guilty, just massive incompetence with a load of political pay-offs thrown in.

This wasn’t rocket science – it was obvious, easily understood, oozing with incriminatory evidence from every pore. The Liberal government in a dozen years fucked up (no other term works) BC Hydro financially as well as ruining scores of rivers, without sufficient protest from Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition or a soupçon of help from the Mainstream Media or the Greens. We know that the Green Party leader, Dr. Weaver, who’s about as green as last year’s Christmas tree, supported ruining the environment with so-called “run of river projects” because, without bothering to first look at one like the Ashlu, he proclaimed this outrageous environmental evil “clean, green power!” Here you have a hugely successful Crown Corporation, very popular, with a monopoly, a large customer base, ruined financially by this government, yet if it weren’t for a handful of persistent private citizens, over a decade of never quitting, no one would ever know!

As economist Erik Andersen said very recently:

[quote]I continue to stand by my words of several years ago. The board and management at BC Hydro have been either economic and financial illiterates or dutifully following the orders of those not having the public’s best interests in mind. [emphasis added][/quote]

All this plus, in constant dollars, the government virtually doubled the real provincial debt with Christy Clark, in four years, while pretending to balance budgets.

One has to wonder what else we don’t know!

I’m hard pressed to think of a single accomplishment of this bunch on the fiscal side and on the social services side their incompetence and lack of concern or even elementary decency borders on the cruel.

What about Horgan and the NDP?

BC NDP leadership race down to John Horgan
Time to give the NDP’s John Horgan a chance, says Rafe Mair.

I have no doubt that Mr. Horgan is an honest man and that alone makes him my choice as premier. I know many of his backbenchers and have no doubt of their integrity. I tell you straight that I’m very disappointed in some of Horgan’s stated policies, especially in my riding – specifically the proposed Woodfibre LNG at Squamish.

But I have learned some things over the past 8 1/2 decades, one being that you never really know about a new leader until they’ve had a chance. The premier’s office, in Samuel Johnson’s great phrase, “concentrates the mind wonderfully”.

On the other hand, there’s nothing left to know about Christy Clark. There can surely be no doubt that she’s the worst premier with the worst government in living memory. I would rather support someone for whom there is reasonable hope, and who couldn’t possibly be worse, than have the certainty of 4 more years of Christy Clark.

I don’t know about you but I often look at what’s seen as a minor thing in making my judgment on a person’s character. As we learn here from Mike Smyth, Christy Clark has cost taxpayers, not the Liberal Party, folks, for “photography: $923,374 to be precise, for the salaries and massive travel expenses of two full-time photographers to take still photos and videos for the government.

“The pictures and videos provide positive content for the government’s social-media channels on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.”

With typical raw, blatant hypocrisy, here’s what Premier Clark says in her latest Liberal Party election pledge:

[quote]Controlling government spending is the foundation, it’s the bedrock, of what we’re trying to do.[/quote]

This woman is not only vain and incompetent beyond description, she’s incapable of telling the truth as she makes us look like fools to the rest of the country and beyond.

Again, Cromwell’a words in dismissing the Rump Parliament seem so apt: “You have sat too long for any good you have been doing lately… Depart, I say; and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!”

Amen.

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BC Hydro’s real debt has grown 1337% under Liberals…Shouldn’t someone call the cops?

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The Keystone Kops (1914)
The Keystone Kops (1914)

I start this exercise with a couple of general comments.

The detailed information available on the “progress” of BC Hydro since the Liberals took over in 2001 would be very difficult to pull together if we were left to government confessions of error or sleuthing by the NDP opposition. In fact, in this regard, the public are greatly indebted to Norman Farrell, Arthur Caldicott, Erik Andersen, Tom Rankin, John Calvert, author of Liquid Gold, Damien Gillis, myself and, on the question of Site C, people like Harry Swain, who have been steadily reporting and commenting, faced by stony silence from the government, since 2007 or earlier.

The Sun and the Province papers in Vancouver, with their mutual masturbation agreement with the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, have been in a coma where the government is involved, thus I think it imperative that The Tyee, The Common Sense Canadian, In-sights, Desmog Canada, and Laila Yuile be singled out and congratulated for providing a constant flow of information demonstrating the all-but-formal and clearly deliberate bankrupting of BC Hydro by the Campbell/Clark government.

Liberals raise Hydro’s obligations by $74 Billion

The hard fact is that under the Liberals, BC Hydro’s real debt – including all its obligations – in constant dollars has increased by 1,337%, from $6 billion in 2005 to $80.2 billion today. This total comes from Hydro’s most recent annual report (2016) and is made up by the following three categories:

  1. Regulatory (Deferral) Accounts: $5.9 Billion
  2. Long Term Debt: $18 Billion
  3. Long Term Private Power (IPP) Contracts: $56.3 Billion

It must be noted that since the Liberal reign began in 2001, Hydro hasn’t been hit by a depression, a burst dam, a substantial labour dispute, a diminution of its customer base, nor any other calamity that could explain this huge increase in debt. In fact, according to Premier Clark and the brains of the outfit, Deputy Dreamer, Rich Coleman, thanks to Liberal policies of perfection, we had absolutely Sooper-Dooper times. Just how their largest trust from the people, BC Hydro, went $74 billion in the goo and de facto bankruptcy on their watch simply isn’t dealt with, on the the theory that if no one heard the tree fall in the forest, it never happened.

BC Hydro HQ
BC Hydro HQ

During this period, Hydro has been borrowing large sums to pay yearly dividends to the Minister of Finance for his annual cooking of the books to make it appear that BC has a balanced budget, a noteworthy piece of fiction in a government noted for fiscal legerdemain.

In fact, this has been a government that doesn’t just employ puffery or exaggeration, it lies through its teeth, as if lying was its default position. I raise this because in a moment I’m going to talk about a criminal investigation being required and in such matters, believability is a critical factor and I tell you plainly that neither Clark nor Coleman can demand to be accepted as truthful people on their public record.

Unforeseen catastrophes aside, there are only three possible answers as to how Hydro could lose all this money: grossly negligent management, money being wrongly spent, or money exerting undue influence on decision makers.

In law there there’s a maxim, “res ipsa loquitur” meaning “the thing speaks for itself”, and I suggest the pissing away of $74 billion does speak loudly and fairly to bloody awful management; yet it hardly seems likely that there wasn’t some culpable conduct somewhere in the mix. There may or may not be a fire but there’s a hell of a lot of smoke. Moreover, never forget that this is a tightly controlled Crown Corporation and the government runs it using its own pet poodles.

The fix is in

BC Liberal Legacy: A Huge Debt Burden
Former Premier Gordon Campbell and Finance Minister Colin Hansen

Let’s turn to Premier Gordon Campbell’s radical change of policy in 2002, which forbade BC Hydro from creating any new hydro power of its own (except Site C, as it had been on the books for decades), with new power to be produced on a tiny scale – no more dams or big environmental devastation. Dr. Andrew Weaver, the leader of the BC Greens who has always supported this scheme, told me they only used water wheels! There would be no damage to the streams involved and they would be run by small “mom and pop” operations.

Well, it turned out a tad differently, with rivers blocked, with what sure look like dams, huge pipes, a substantial powerhouse, a notable lack of waterwheels, river banks demolished, fish runs destroyed, trees knocked down and run by little “Mom and Pop” operations such as Ledcor and General Electric. Incidentally, this substantial environmental loss is not computed and included in the $74 Billion loss.

These teensy-weensy “Mom and Pop” operations called Independent Power Producers (IPPs) got a very good deal, in fact the sweetheart deal of all sweetheart deals, such that if you gave the same to your family, the taxman, once he stopped laughing, would disallow it!

In simple terms, BC Hydro must take all the power IPPs produce and pay 3 times the market price. They must buy whether they need it or not and, if you guessed that means during the Spring runoffs – when the bulk of their power comes and our electrical demand is at its lowest – Hydro must buy all their power even though their own reservoirs are filled to overflowing and didn’t need it, you’d be right. If you also guessed that Hydro must have to sell a lot of excess power at large losses, you get a gold star on your report card!

Losing 72 cents on the dollar

Citizens for Public Power member and SFU professor John Calvert explained it like so:

[quote] B.C. Hydro announced the outcome of its 2006 tender call for electricity from private energy developers. The results were startling. Not only had B.C. Hydro agreed to buy three times the power requested in the tender, it had done so at locked-in prices far above projected market rates…

…The core of that policy was laid out in the 2002 Energy Plan, which prevents B.C. Hydro from building new generation assets, and transforms the Crown corporation from a generator of publicly-owned electricity to a purchaser of energy from the private sector.

The rationale for this change is hard to fathom. The old policy worked very well. By generating its own power, B.C. Hydro ensured that ratepayers enjoyed, on average, the second lowest electricity prices in North America. This is because prices were based on the historic cost of production, not the current energy market price…[/quote]

Flash forward a decade to Norm Farrell’s update on the situation:

[quote]…over the past decade, amounts paid to IPPs have tripled. Independent power producers, more than doubled deliveries to BC Hydro, and the utility was forced to dump surplus power outside the province, with trades sales at an average, since 2005, of just 28% of prices paid private producers. And that loss is made worse because of Hydro’s collection and distribution costs.

Then years later, for every dollar we pay them, we lose more than 72 cents.

Consumer demand was not growing, private power supplies were rising and export markets were soft. BC Hydro could only dump power outside the province for little revenue or reduce its internal production. Again, the utility’s own reports lead to a conclusion.

The following numbers are drawn from BC Hydro’s annual and quarterly reports and from U.S. Department of Energy market recaps. They demonstrate that in nine months, BC Hydro paid more than $600 million above market to independent power producers – having purchased the power from IPPs at $85,261/GWh, while the market for selling electricity to the US market was just $28,930 CAD per unit. Unfortunately, the rate of loss is accelerating…

…Dr. Calvert’s warnings were insufficient and subsequent Liberal actions even more egregious. The professor noted early independent power producer (IPP) contracts locked BC Hydro (and BC taxpayers) into financial commitments of up to 40 years. Recently, contracts have extended to 60 years and all are indexed to protect suppliers against inflation. Some required large public expenditures for distribution. Calvert said IPP prices were double the market value but they’ve since risen to even more.[/quote]

Now here’s a little observation from Mr. Farrell that will make you feel warm and fuzzy all over: “We also know that, instead of costing between $400 million and $500 million every year, IPP payments have climbed beyond $1.3 billion yearly, a number that has increased 188% since 2011 when Christy Clark was appointed Premier.”

Now, none of this would have been possible if this the recipients of this government largesse with our money didn’t have friends on the inside. Campbell before her knew and now Clark knows that BC Hydro’s potential profitability and financial strength guaranteed corporate raiders would attack, seeking to convert public wealth to private. To be successful, they needed cooperation of modern political rulers and, whether explained by incompetence, philosophical bent or desire for covert rewards, the Liberals have cooperated fully.

It will only get worse

Even if the Liberals are given the boot in May, Hydro’s skyrocketing debt won’t stop here. Additional costs already baked into the crown corp’s plans will see its obligations rise to the hundred billion dollar range in the coming years. So serious is the problem that BC Hydro alone could cost BC its prized triple-A credit rating, as The Times-Colonist reported – albeit belatedly:

[quote]…projects like Site C are pushing up B.C. Hydro’s debt levels, and adding to concerns about the province’s overall ‘high debt burden’ compared to its peers, Moody’s also wrote in its credit opinion. B.C. Hydro’s debt has increased from $8.1 billion in 2008 to a projected $18.1 billion last year, and there is a further $20 billion expected in the future for infrastructure projects, a $2-billion annual upgrade program and the Site C dam.

‘The anticipated increase in debt continues to pressure the province’s rating since it raises the contingent liability of British Columbia,’ wrote Moody’s…[/quote]

And that’s assuming Hydro keeps Site C on track at $9 Billion – which is impossible to believe, given the Liberals’ track record with major capital projects more than doubling in cost. Dams are especially prone to wild cost increases (see Muskrat Falls), as recent geotechnical issues with Site C illustrate. Hydro is trying to tamp down concerns over a 400 meter-wide tension crack at the dam site, but locals have been warning for years about the unstable ground upon which the project is being built.

Grandson helps destroy grandpa’s legacy

The father of BC Hydro, WAC Bennett
The father of BC Hydro, WAC Bennett

Ironically and to me sadly, among today’s political facilitators of the utility’s destruction is W.A.C. Bennett’s grandson, and my late friend Bill Bennett’s son, BC Hydro Chair Brad Bennett, who is, I’m told, is a Liberal apparatchik and close Christy Clark pal. Another is Hydro CEO Jessica McDonald. She was Deputy Minister and confidant to Gordon Campbell in 2006 when the premier’s office invited predators to get rich on electricity.

 The companies give generously to the Liberals but it’s hard to get full and accurate figures since, as we now know from Elections BC, who recently sent their investigations of Liberal fundraising to the RCMP, donations are often laundered through individuals, and companies have been known to lie through their teeth on this subject.

One way to get a general picture is to go back to 2008 when the long-term contracts were handed out and there was a call for independent power projects, 75 proponents registered with B.C. Hydro. From July 1, 2008 to September 30, 2010 – when B.C. Hydro was making its decisions – 14 proponents donated $268,461 to the Liberals. Ten of the 14 were successful.

Shouldn’t someone go to jail?

The duties and powers of the Attorney General, Suzanne Anton, for the purposes of this article, are set out in admirable simplicity by the ATTORNEY GENERAL ACT. Under Section 2, Duties and Powers, article b) states:

[quote]The Attorney General must see that the administration of public affairs is in accordance with law.[/quote] 

Bearing in mind the enormity of the losses and complete lack of explanation by the government for this incredible emptying of the public purse, where is the Attorney General?

By the simple statement of the law as quoted above, her duty is clear. By long tradition, she sets aside her political role – especially when evidence of a crime comes to her attention – and it is reasonable to assume colleagues are involved.

Christy Clark being sworn in as Premier of British Columbia in 2011, surrounded by her cabinet (Province of BC/Flickr)
Christy Clark being sworn in as Premier of British Columbia in 2011, surrounded by her cabinet (Province of BC/Flickr)

I place before you my opinion in plain terms. There is a great deal of money involved here and plenty of people who feel entitled to share it. We have a premier who, in a political context, has the morals of an alley cat. The deputy premier, also in charge of gas, is hardly any better. It’s surely fair to say that when politics is involved, a fairy tale is second nature, their default position.

The death of BC Hydro has nothing to do with the ordinary risks of the business world and there are no events beyond human control here. Of considerable importance, the premier and the minister in charge are struck dumb on the question of how a thriving monopoly on power could rack up $74 billion in unwarranted costs, with a full clientele and the means to meet all demands.

Ms. Anton, if you don’t order a full enquiry forthwith on the evidence before you, in light of the statutory requirement of the Attorney General Act and your sworn oath to “see that the administration of public affairs is in accordance with law”, it would be open to fair conjecture that this inaction is to protect your political colleagues.

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Rafe- Death of the newspaper has a happy flipside

The Shattered Mirror: What caused the fall of mainstream media – the Internet or shoddy, sycophantic corporate journalism?

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Rafe- Death of the newspaper has a happy flipside
“Nine-year-old newsie and his 7-year-old brother ‘Red.'” (1915 Photo: Lewis Wickes Hine/Shorpy)

OOOOH CANADA, WE STAND ON GUARD FOR WE …

On January 27, an outfit called the Public Policy Forum released a report call the The Shattered Mirror, dealing with the state of Canada’s media. It was quarterbacked and written by Edward Greenspon, best remembered as editor of the *”Toronto Globe & Mail”. Discovering the terms of reference takes some doing and this is the best I could find:

[quote]When the Public Policy Forum (PPF) began thinking about a study on the state of the news media in Canada, in early 2016, the headlines were all bad. Within a fortnight in January 2016 alone, Rogers Media and Postmedia announced new rounds of staff reductions, Torstar revealed plans to close its printing plant, and Confederation-era newspaper titles in Guelph, Ont., and Nanaimo, B.C., were shuttered, the first of six daily papers to close, merge or reduce their publishing schedules before year’s end. The situation wasn’t much better on the broadcast news side, where revenues, especially in local television, followed the downward track of the newspaper industry, inducing the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to step in.

A parliamentary committee was formed. News companies and industry associations queued up with complaints of inequities in the marketplace. Some made requests for public assistance.

The Government of Canada contracted with the PPF, a non-partisan and independent think-tank, to assess the situation and make recommendations on what,if anything, should be done. The object was not to defend any mode of news delivery, but to evaluate the risk to democracy.” (Emphasis added)[/quote]

The Public Policy Forum mandate states “to serve as a neutral, independent forum for open dialogue on public policy, to encourage reform in public sector management and excellence in government”. I’ll have a look at “neutral, independent” in a bit.

After several readings of the The Shattered MirrorI’d say that the mandate is credible so long as your notion of public sector management and excellence in government jibes with that of the upper 20% or so of the population, the late Denny Boyd’s “Higher Purpose Persons”. The recommendations make clear that the essence of the report is getting more money to the news media as it exists by taxing digital providers on the Internet.

Let’s go back to the last line of the Terms of Reference.

“The object was not to defend any mode of news delivery, but to evaluate the risk to democracy.”

It’s interesting and I think central to this critique to note that there is no attempt in The Shattered Mirror to assess “democracy” in the “Mainstream Media” today, so let’s take a peek at the industry that wants more money to take care of it, and see how democratic it really is.

Selling its soul

Rafe- Canada's biggest newspaper chain has sold its soul to oil and gasThe largest Canadian newspaper chain, Postmedia, has a deal with The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, the industry shill, which guarantees that Postmedia will support the latter at every turn. I’ve called the pact, indelicately but I think accurately, a mutual masturbation agreement. (See www.postmediaadvertising.com)

What does this deal mean in the real world?

Surely we can all agree that this is a fair and reasonable statement of the basic code by which journalism should be judged: “The core purpose of a journalist is to research, document, write, and present the news in an honest, ethical, and unbiased way”. Clearly, failure to meet those elementary standards would be to fail the principles of democracy.

In law, there’s a maxim which reverses the onus called res ipsa loquitor, which simply means “the thing speaks for itself”, so that, in the absence of an explanation, no further proof is necessary. When a newspaper or a chain makes a back scratching deal with the fossil fuel industry, it surely can be taken as producing a “bias” contrary to the principles of journalism, thus undemocratic.

What if a Postmedia newspaper, say the Vancouver Province, were to make a deal with a company promoting an LNG refinery, highly controversial in the community; would that not also take away the journalistic independence so necessary to democracy?

What if that paper became an actual partner in that project? How could it possibly report on Woodfibre LNG in an honest, ethical and unbiased way? As we all know, the Province is a formal, legal partner with Resource Works whose only raison d’être is to promote the Woodfibre LNG project.

How much news, adverse to the production of LNG in Howe Sound, do you suppose the Province or any Postmedia company is going to print? How about LNG itself? And there’s the rub – it’s difficult enough to know whether or not what is printed is valid but when media outlets simply don’t print anything on a notorious subject, it’s impossible to know what news they avoided.

A higher-up in the Vancouver Sun admitted to me that they are under orders to be supportive of the BC government and it’s common knowledge that when the NDP were last in power, Sun political columnist Vaughn Palmer roasted them at every turn and was widely credited with killing the Glen Clark government. Since 2001, Campbell, Clark and the Liberals, now in power, can do no wrong if the deafening silence of the Vancouver Sun, the Province, their editorials and columnists are to be believed.

How come? Did Mr. Greenspon raise this clear bias with them? If so, you wouldn’t know that from the The Shattered Mirror!

See no evil, print no evil

I, among others, long ago raised the Independent Power Project/BC Hydro issue, warning the Liberals publicly that this policy would not only ruin many rivers but would be the financial ruination of BC Hydro. None doubted that had the NDP brought in such a deadly policy, there would have been hell to pay in the Vancouver Sun and Province but Campbell and Christy Clark got a free pass. That is by no means the only Liberal catastrophe Postmedia has avoided raising.

BC Premier Christy Clark touring Petronas' operations in Malaysia (BC Govt / Flickr CC licence)
BC Premier Christy Clark touring Petronas’ operations in Malaysia (BC Govt / Flickr CC licence)

As this is written, we’re down to election time yet the colossal misdeeds of the Liberal government continue to get a very soft ride. The Liberals’ social services record is appalling; BC Hydro is in financial tatters; the public debt has more than doubled; the so-called “balanced budgets” are as phoney as a $3 bill; Liberal party fundraising is an ongoing scandal; now we learn that affairs of the Insurance Corporation of BC (ICBC) have been mangled by endemic Liberal mismanagement and is in deep trouble. How remarkable that a “business-oriented” government could even lose bundles with monopolies on power and on car insurance, and get away with it in the Postmedia newspapers. It’s not difficult to connect the dots between the pleasant treatment that the Sun and Province give the Liberals and the “sweetheart deal” between Postmedia and CAPP. It’s also not hard to understand why Kinder Morgan was always going to get Clark’s approval, nor a mystery why Clark supports the climate-destroying fossil fuel, LNG. Her political motto should be “money over morality”.

Old boys’ club

We’re supposed to be a country that honours, indeed demands, competitiveness in the marketplace. The Toronto Globe and Mail and Postmedia are competitors.  With Postmedia financially crippled, why hasn’t the Globe and Mail gone on a major circulation campaign and driven Postmedia to its knees and picked up the pieces at fire sale prices? That’s what capitalists are supposed to do and we even have laws to compel competition but evidently they don’t apply to the Toronto Globe and Mail.

Shattered Mirror chair Edward Greenspon (nsb.com)
Shattered Mirror chair Edward Greenspon (nsb.com)

I should remind you that the head of Public Policy Forum, Edward Greenspon, was long associated with and editor-in-chief of the Toronto Globe and Mail and clearly sees this as a “them and us” struggle between the old boys, much including Postmedia, and the digitalized forces of evil. It’s critical that the “good guys win” meaning they show solidarity rather than fangs.

If the recommendations Greenspon has made to visit GST and PST on Internet companies result in bankrupting them, and the “good ol’ boys” convince Trudeau to put the new tax money into a “completely independent” pot for “needy media companies” (guess who), why, God is in his heavens and the Luddites have won! With respect to the electronic media, that must await another day.

Let me close with a couple of questions to Mr. Greenspon.

As part of keeping Postmedia afloat, did you insist that they divorce themselves from the fossil fuel industry? Did you tell them  that they must restore journalistic principles to their entire operations? Did you insist that they hold government’s feet to the fire? That their writers must have freedom of speech restored? Did you tell Paul Godfrey, head of Postmedia, that he must pay back the $900,000 he paid himself as a bonus as he terminated employees left, right, and centre?

Lawyers don’t just look at the details of a deal but what they call the “pith and substance”. What a contract says it does and what really happens can be very different, so what Mr. Greenspon declares to be the objects and the results achieved require careful, skeptical, indeed near cynical examination.   

Bailing out a failed industry

The Shattered Mirror has bugger-all to do with democracy and good journalism and everything to do with bailing out an industry that’s facing obsolescence just as workers faced in the industrial revolution did when the cotton gin was invented. The electronic media has the same advantages the cotton gin had, being much cheaper and much more productive.

I urge you all to read The Shattered Mirror and reach your own conclusions, but I can tell you what came through to me loud and clear was that the current media industry was going to get financial relief at the expense of the new digital techniques if it gets Justin’s approval – and I suspect he had that, “nudge, nudge, wink wink d’ya get my drift” from the outset. It’s a defiance of history where the machine smashers get to keep their jobs – where the cost of failure to keep up with the times is visited on the consumers and taxpayers.

Shattered Mirror picLet me close with joining dots between the Public Policy Forum and Kinder Morgan. Do you wonder what their position would be had this BC controversy been referred to PPF? Here’s one of their projects – billed “How Canada Can Restore Public Confidence in Resource Development”, complete with this photograph I took from their website.

Trudeau fils, whose views on pipelines are such that he unhesitatingly places the interests, indeed loyalty, of BC a distant second to the prospect of winning 34 seats up for grabs in Alberta and approved the Kinder Morgan line, would love this independent, let the “chips fall where they may” study done by Public Policy Forum:

[quote]Partnering with Enbridge, ATCO Group, Cenovus Energy, Natural Resources Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, the Public Policy Forum launched an exploration of key issues and opportunities in establishing public confidence in resource development. Through one-on-one interviews and roundtable discussions with more than 80 leaders across sectors, we identified four critical factors in building public confidence in resource projects and the specific roles that key stakeholders need to play.[/quote]

And that, dear friends of democracy,  how the big kids in this country  make their fair, independent and unbiased decisions.

So, do we just let them go broke?

Let me answer this way: If they do, history teaches us that the void will be filled. But keeping them alive with government subsidies is a slippery slope to disaster. Instead of a news industry in thrall to big business generally and the fossil fuel industry specifically, they will no more wish to offend the government than they now do the fossil fuel industry, and guess what – big business and especially the fossil fuel industry plus the Liberal government will be be there, for, never forget, now they’re partners of the government too.

Now whence that democracy so dear to Mr. Greenspon’s heart?

************************************************

* This paper has no more right to declare itself Canada’s National Newspaper than does The North Shore News and, besides, it pisses them off so.

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Rafe Mair on Bill C-24 finding out you're a second-class citizen

Rafe to Justin: Kinder Morgan pipeline would drive a permanent wedge between BC and Canada

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Rafe Mair on Bill C-24 finding out you're a second-class citizen
Former BC Minister and longtime journalist Rafe Mair (photo: Youtube/CMHABC)

Dear Prime Minister,

I’ve reached a point where I can say what I please without concern for personal consequences. My age of ambition is long gone and social disapproval simply doesn’t matter anymore.

That is where I am and intend to speak my piece.

I’m a native British Columbia born in Vancouver a long time ago. I have a lifetime love of my province from one end to the other and I inherited a sense of deep anger when I see unfairness.

Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna with BC Premier Christy Clark (right) announcing her government's approval of PNWLNG (Province of BC/Flickr)
Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna with BC Premier Christy Clark (right) announcing her government’s approval of Petronas’ LNG project near Prince Rupert (Province of BC/Flickr)

For as long as I can remember, I’ve resented that my province has been unfairly treated, a resentment that has increased steadily over the years. We have been badly cheated politically and economically, accompanied by an attitude of arrogance from central Canada, which runs everything, an attitude that I find irritating beyond toleration.

Start with the humiliating fact that BC has but 6 senators while New Brunswick has 10 and PEI 4. This, along with the federal government appointing our senators, who are supposed to hold that very government’s feet to the fire, is outrageous. This and the “First Past The Post” system ensures that all political power rests, unchallengeable, in Central Canada. To see how this is resented in BC, you need only look at the 1992 Charlottetown Accord, designed to make one province juridically superior, opposed, thank God, by your father, and rejected by 67.9% of British Columbians!

Because of the Senate and the First Past The Post system in the House of Commons, Central Canada invariably has the Prime Minister who, given a majority, controls all federal legislation and policy. Please don’t pretend that our lot of Liberal toadies have any power except to say “yes sir”.

Most British Columbians care little about the Governor-General since, under central Canadian arrogant navel gazing, none have ever come from this, the third largest province. The G-G is appointed either to mollify Quebec, Bay Street, or the Central Canada artsy fartsy crowd. The present Governor-General, David Johnston, a Tory Grandee, was, by an amazing coincidence, appointed shortly after he, in the pay of Tory PM Stephen Harper, gave former Tory PM Brian Mulroney a “get out of jail free card”. Lyin’ Brian was pleased, Harper was pleased, Johnston was pleased. You have to say this about Central Canada: they look after each other.

An existing BC salmon farm (Damien Gillis)
A Norwegian-owned BC salmon farm (Damien Gillis)

Under the constitution, provinces control their natural resources – except when it comes to fish. The Pacific salmon has been so mismanaged by Ottawa that one is tempted to suggest it’s deliberate. Going too far? How else can one explain the foreign fish farms, not just permitted in BC, but actively promoted by a DFO prepared to destroy the Pacific salmon by disease, sea lice, and, when they escape, crowding them off their spawning redds?

As a BC minister, I examined the history of federal involvement back to 1871 and the record is appalling. Ask First Nations, who are the past, present, and future victims of this gross mismanagement, how they see your stewardship! 

With respect, prime minister, British Columbia and Canada no longer have the same set of values. A nation can survive and prosper with great diversity. It can have many languages, a plethora of different originating cultures, all races, colours, and creeds – yet so long as there is a common set of basic values, it can form a strong nation. That is the critical point. Once that is gone the nation no longer exists in fact, no matter what the Constitution says.

The basic values of British Columbians and Canada diverge on this central question: Which is more important – our way of life, surroundings, and the environment or the growth of industry, resource extraction, and moneymaking?

It’s not all or nothing – each side will always concede a little bit of the other – but the trouble is that our side is compelled to concede virtually all while yours pays lip service only with pallid environmental rules, never enforced if they ever really get in the way. Our side accepts the need for a robust economy, but not at the cost of destroying a way of life that preserves the enormous natural benefits God gave us.

Recent Vancouver rally against Kinder Morgan (Photo: David Suzuki Foundation/Facebook)
Vancouver rally against Kinder Morgan (Photo: David Suzuki Foundation/Facebook)

We in British Columbia have learned some hard lessons, most important of which is there isn’t always another valley full of trees to chop down. The forestry industry in British Columbia, thanks to the courage of many mostly young men and women over the last 60 years, now is in sight of self perpetuation. That has morphed into an overall attitude which takes into consideration those values in British Columbia we have always coveted but are under serious attack by the industry-at-all-costs movement in Canada, of which, by the Kinder Morgan approval, you are now leader. You, the Prime Minister, are our enemy!

It has perhaps come as a surprise to you as it has come as a very unpleasant surprise to much industry, especially the fossil fuel industry, that we so highly regard our environment, especially, though not exclusively, our mountains, lakes, rivers, trees, farmland, coastline and ocean. You don’t seem to realize that Burrard inlet, Howe Sound, the Salish Sea, the Gulf Islands,  the Straits of Juan de Fuca, the west coast are sacred to Btitish Columbians. Other regions have their own sacred values and we support them in their fight to protect them, with particular regard at this moment for the Site C Dam proposal in the Peace River.

I don’t believe I draw too long a bow when I say that we understand that the French language and culture means means so much to Quebec yet you scoff at us in British Columbia because our natural blessings mean just as much to us. I cannot understand why you and other Canadians are unable to understand just how vehemently we are opposed to the Kinder Morgan pipeline and how far we are prepared to go to defend against it. We wouldn’t for a milli-second tolerate this desecration of what we hold dear by a BC Tar Sands, BC financiers and BC tanker companies – why the devil do you think we feel less resolved because it’s the Alberta Tar Sands, Bay Street and other foreign bankers or offshore tanker companies?

Mr. Trudeau, sir, you have this to answer for. Virtually all the world of science agrees that we must wean ourselves off of the use of fossil fuels. You made an instant international reputation for yourself at the Paris conference in 2015 by taking that very stand. We, in this province, took you seriously. We did not believe that the Tar Sands of Alberta, for example, would ever pose a threat to British Columbia under the clear mandate you delivered.

94 per cent opposition to Woodfibre amongst municipal candidates who answered LNG survey
Rendering of Woodfibre LNG project near Squamish, BC

Now, we find that you didn’t mean what you said. Not only have you approved an LNG plant in Squamish, against the wishes of most British Columbians, now you propose grave consequences on an infinitely grander scale, to revive the Tar Sands and place the entire risk for transporting bitumen to market upon British Columbia. Permit me, sir, to correct myself. It is not risk that we’re dealing with but mathematical certainty.

The only question is how bad the damage will be. We are not being told the truth when industry and governments make it appear as if there is almost no chance of tanker collisions, either with each other or something else. One only has to chart the world statistics, which I happen to do, to know that that is absolutely untrue. Industry and your government make it appear that even if there are spills of bitumen that the cleanup facilities are such that there is nothing to worry about. That’s bullshit, sir, and you know it!

Booms intended to corral a fuel spill near Bella Bella are blown apart by stormy weather (Photo: Tavish Campbell)
Booms intended to corral a fuel spill near Bella Bella are blown apart by stormy weather (Photo: Tavish Campbell)

We can read, we can watch television, we can hear what witnesses have to say. We know about the Enbridge/Kalamazoo spill in 2010 and we know that accident has not been cleaned up to this day and it’s unlikely that it ever will be. We know that in a very short time, bitumen sinks and no longer can be effectively cleaned up. We have also seen examples of the Christy Clark’s speedy “world-class cleanup” procedures at work and can only thank God that the spills were moderate considering the pathetic efforts at cleanup.

I don’t wish to carry on any further with that, Mr. Prime Minister, but I do want you to know, as I’m sure you do, that I scarcely speak for the people of British Columbia. Having said that, I believe that we’ve had enough. More than enough! We believe the right to our environment outweighs any so-called right to move dangerous goods over and through our province.

We say that our right to our environment  outweighs any so-called right to move dangerous goods over and through our province. That, sir, is the essential difference in values that we possess and that you possess.

I believe that this is simply a fair assessment and a warning – not in any way a threat – but I can say that if you force the Kinder Morgan pipeline upon us, as you can with your money and your soldiers, you will create a rift between my province and Canada that will never, ever heal. Of course, I could be wrong on that but, sir, I’m not wrong to observe that would be a dreadful legacy to leave when, as with all of us, you must go. You no doubt believe you understand Canada – take my word for it, sir, I understand my province that I have served at the highest level and love every square millimetre of it.  I have lived in several places and taken my fly rod with me to most others.

Mr. Trudeau, we love this province with all our hearts and souls and we’re not about to let you take it away from us.

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Rafe: BC Green candidate Lia Versaevel brings a lot to the table

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Lia Versaevel (photo: BC Green Party)
MLA candidate for Nanaimo-North Cowichan Lia Versaevel (photo: BC Green Party)

This coming election, May 9, is the most unsatisfactory one I can remember since, perhaps, 1952,  when the old Coalition broke up. Most people I talk to throw up their hands, saying such a terrible choice – a corrupt, cheating, lying, government and an opposition that hasn’t shown any leadership at all and gives no confidence they’ll be any better the last NDP bunch.

I tend to agree.

At first, I wasn’t going to do any election interviews, mainly because I knew that neither leader would be much interested and I could see no advantage to the reader in  hearing from most of the candidates, David Eby of the NDP being probably the one exception.

My own political persuasion is Green but I am not a member of the party and while I support Elizabeth May federally, I think that Dr. Weaver is a distinct liability to the BC party. His views on IPPs and BC Hydro, propounded by him since 2009, are so thoroughly discredited that his continuing to hold them surely disqualifies him as leader of any party that cares anything about the environment and fiscal responsibility.

But there is the future to consider. It surely is not going to always be this way but I assume, and I hope I’m right, that the present lot in government have so soiled their nest that the political vacuum in the centre, now being filled inadequately by the NDP, will leave room for the Green party to become a substantial player.

Green space

The Greens are unlike other political parties in that they truly are a “movement” rather than a natural political entity and that brings strengths and weaknesses. The strengths have never been adequately recognized by Greens themselves. As Churchill remarked in his “wilderness years”, “I may be out of office but certainly not out of power.” Thus it is with the Greens in many parts of the world as they develop slowly but steadily into a political force. They are in many countries the conscience of the nation and the ones driving the agenda because governments are afraid of what would happen to their party if the Greens attained office. Great environmental strides have been made in Europe, South America, Australia and, when you think about it, North America as well, partly by reason of the Green presence.

Gaining office is a long, slow process and Greens must recognize that if they’re ever to succeed. With that thought in mind, I looked at a CV and the usual election crap from a woman named Lia Versaevel who is seeking election in Nanaimo-North Cowichan and I was intrigued to the point I wanted an interview. I am very pleased that I did because it turned out to be quite a rewarding experience.

A little about Lia

Lia – she’ll have to forgive my familiarity with a surname like hers – is a youthful 61-year-old teacher, who has a deep and active interest in community affairs. It quickly caught my attention that her central concern is the Salish Sea and, in particular, the fish that are there, but, more importantly, the ones that are meant to be there. What struck me is that she had a specific and very important social and commercial interest to get all “green” about. Coming from Calgary in fairly recent years, this has to be something that catches one’s notice.

I also saw that Lia had been very active in the Lions Club, which itself did not interest me very much except that she rose to be a Regional Director in what has always been seen as a business men’s club, with the little woman sort of a casual appendage for show. Obviously, for Lia, that sort of role won’t suffice.

She may, however, have a great deal to learn about how the political system is only a system for the premier, not the rest of the House and all of the things that I have written about extensively in recent years. I must say, however that she shows all the signs of being a very fast study indeed and when I went over some of the examples of dictatorship from the top she nodded her head and began to think of examples herself. I was satisfied she sensed a serious wrong even if she had not thought it all through yet herself. 

In reporting to you, I felt it important that I could say that she was not likely to just be another fence-post with hair, as all backbenchers turn out to be if they want to survive and be promoted.

I see in Lia the kind of person that a political party must have as a builder if it is going to occupy a position of power in the legislature, not just warm a seat in the chamber.

Greens face tough challenges

I personally think there is a very strong Green element in British Columbia which wants to help the Greens but is cautious, to say the least, in supporting their political party.

After the last federal election, I have no doubt that had Elizabeth May come to BC and led the party here, they would be competitive in the May 9 election. She chose not to and the local party is left with Dr. Weaver, who remains an unrepentant supporter of IPPs without concern for the damage they do or the monetary wreckage they have visited on BC Hydro. If he is a “Green”, he needs a new paint job.

In talking to Lia, I could see that she and Weaver are on a collision course, even though she didn’t completely realize it at the time. Unless I completely misjudge her – that’s happened before – she will not support the IPPs but may be reluctant to have a collision with Weaver in her first year, yet will not support this policy under any circumstances.

Regardless of how the election turns out, I believe that the government elected will need a strong Green element in the legislature and that Lia would be just such a force even on her own, although God knows it’s enough to try to make a difference in a small group, much less by yourself. People have done that though, including the federal leader of the Greens, Elizabeth May. She’s an outstanding person, of course, but she also has a movement that has a much broader appeal amongst the people than the votes indicate, which is more a criticism of the system than of Ms. May or the party.

I don’t say that Lia will be another Elizabeth May but I believe she will be a standout and, most of all, able to take a punch as well as give one and be happier in a mixup than on the sidelines.

Were I a voter in Nanaimo-North Cowichan I would without hesitation cast my vote for Lia Versaevel.

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Rafe: BC Liberals taking heavy fire, but NDP need to pour on the gasoline

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BCNDP Leader John Horgan (Flickr/BCNDP) and Premier Christy Clark (Flickr/Province of BC)
BCNDP Leader John Horgan (Flickr/BCNDP) and Premier Christy Clark (Flickr/Province of BC)

It’s not easy to write an article on politics in the quiet backwater of British Columbia in light of the tragedy in Quebec. I’m going to make this, then, a doubleheader. 

This past weekend, the initial story, of course, was all President Trump as he found new ways to prod anti-Muslims by pretending to be concerned about national security. At the same time, there was a story out of Austria that they plan to ban the niqab. To say that there is no connection between those and similar stories and the tragedy in Quebec is to be blindly naïve. This is not, of course, to say that Trump or the Austrian government are directly responsible for Sunday’s dead and wounded but it is to say that when leaders talk the same language as the bigot, it encourages the imbalanced, for whom very little encouragement is needed.

None of our business

What I find extraordinary is that anyone can get all worked up about what somebody wears on their face or anywhere else for that matter. There’s no outbreak of violence or bank robberies committed by women in niqabs. Muslim women wear it because that’s their religion and surely they’re entitled to their beliefs. It’s none of our business that we don’t care for some of the customs of Islam – if Muslims have problems with their religion then it’s for them to do something about it. Those who cry out against women would do better to take on the Catholic church, yet, during the long centuries Christianity has discriminated against women. there’s been no attempt I know of by Muslims to break into Catholic churches and insist upon women becoming priests.

There is one axiom which I’ve learned after many painful experiences, namely – it’s a pretty good idea in life to mind your own damn business.

BC Liberals taking heavy fire early on

Onto BC politics. There are three months and a bit to go before the election and no doubt there will be considerably more activity as time goes on than there is now. That said, there are some unusual aspects already.

I don’t ever remember a government being so hammered by so many people so hard and so soon. A lot of that, of course, is from social media, which has only recently become a force, but, aside from that, the mainstream media who have shown absolutely no ability to do their journalistic duty for the past 15 years are now coming out of their bolt holes and criticizing the government. The government must be pretty bad for that to happen.

NDP slow to take advantage

The NDP's only shot at winning in BC: Embrace the NEW ECONOMY
BCNDP Leader John Horgan has a tough road to hoe to win the next election (BCNDP/Flickr)

At the same time, the opposition seems to simply float. Once in a while an issue pops up but it doesn’t last long, not being a key issue on people’s minds. As I’ve said many times, John Horgan has hurt his party badly by taking LNG out of play. This should be a huge issue but won’t make the big stage unless the NDP force it. It’s such a hopeless issue for the Liberals they’re not going to raise it and Mr. Horgan approved LNG, without qualification, because he’s said, “We cannot be against everything.” This has torn a great chunk out of the NDP armoury.

Those who are anxious to see the Liberal government tossed out have no real choice but to vote NDP and it may be that Mr. Horgan’s strategy is to play possum and simply hope that the Liberals fall so hard there is no need for him to do anything except be there. That’s a very dangerous strategy, but I suspect that’s what he’s up to – unless he simply doesn’t know anything about campaigning.

Green Party not really a contender

When you reach my advanced antiquity, you’re entitled to break the rules a bit so I’m going to say that I’m sad that the Green party is not, at least so far, much of a contender. My sympathies are certainly Green and I’m not nearly as troubled as I once was by the notion that they are a one-trick pony. Having seen, in the last 20 years, the two other experienced parties with their hands on the tiller, I can’t see much to be worried about if the Greens took hold.

Rafe- Weaver, BC Greens should quit supporting private river power sham
Dr. Andrew Weaver, leader of the BC Green Party, has long supported IPPs

But they’re not going to take over this time and any seats taken will be a bonus and a surprise. I believe that their leader, Dr. Andrew Weaver, should have stayed in the classroom and left politics to someone who understands the “game” and is prepared to learn the unfamiliar areas.

Weaver was one of the early supporters of the Liberal’s IPP policy, which, as we now know (and had certified in no uncertain terms here recently by Norman Farrell), has been a disaster. It has ruined the rivers involved, including their fish, and has contributed mightily to BC Hydro being essentially bankrupt. We all make errors but Weaver has shown no interest in changing on this issue, even though expert opinion, including Dr. David Suzuki’s, is no longer with him.

On the other hand, he has the human frailty of being unable to risk losing face, so he continues in the belief that IPPs produce clean power – not because that’s so but because he’s unable to admit error. Because of that, he has all but destroyed the chances of the Green party to make the strides that, one year ago, seemed so possible.

A little humour – I just received an offer to go to a Green “do” and on the invitation was “Dr. Andrew Weaver, the current leader” will be there! Dr. Weaver, I’d be looking over my shoulder if I were you!

I regard the Green party in a slightly different light than others in the election because their realistic object is to build and secure a future and leave the attaining of office until better prepared to fight under this preposterous system we have. They are in the position where their greatest virtue will be patience and taking consolation from the fact that their support among people worldwide is far greater than their representatives in various legislatures suggests. What has happened is they are now part of policing governments and even sharing office and their influence is stronger by the year.

I look at the two main combatants as being pretty long in the tooth to be depended upon for anything new, innovative, and helpful – much like old journalists I suppose. That being the case, I believe that the Green party, if it plays its hand well – starting with dumping Weaver after the election – and works like hell on policy and membership, the public will find the party more and more attractive. But you can’t do that unless your leader is attractive.

And he isn’t.

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