Category Archives: Politics

Rafe: Of course Christy Clark is guilty of conflict of interest…so is Commissioner Fraser

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

The term “conflict of interest” poses difficulties for many people. That’s because lawyers make money by confusing simple things. If one has a public duty and private interest in the same area as that public duty, it’s a conflict, plain and simple. It does not mean that this person is a crook or making illegal profits, although they’re not excused if they do, just that they mustn’t be in a position where they can do so. There is no presumption of innocence involved – just conflicting interests.

Quid Pro Quo

Martyn Brown, former aide to both Premiers Christy Clark and Campbell, recently stated:

[quote]No corporation, no industry, no union gives the level of money that they give to politicians without expecting special consideration in return, and they do get it…For the Liberals, the housing industry, construction industry, real estate, the liquor industry, energy industry, certainly the mining industry, big forest industry — all gave exceptional amounts of money, and they got exceptional attention.[/quote]

Clark caught in the Act

The Members Conflict of Interest Act seems easy to understand:

[quote]2 (1) For the purposes of this Act, a member has a conflict of interest when the member exercises an official power or performs an official duty or function in the execution of his or her office and at the same time knows that in the performance of the duty or function or in the exercise of the power there is the opportunity to further his or her private interest. [Emphasis added – RM][/quote]

2 (2) defines “apparent” conflict of interest, but since the greater includes the lesser, it’s irrelevant in my view.

Premier Clark raises large sums for the direct benefit of herself and her government from those who thrive on benefits from the government she leads. What is even remotely confusing about that? Her actions are clearly covered by 2(1)

Is that hard to grasp?

Playing dumb

Commissioner Paul Fraser
Commissioner Paul Fraser

Apparently it is for Conflicts Commissioner Paul Fraser who said, “I am unable to conclude that the donations received by the Liberal Party in the circumstances described amount to a ‘private interest’ for the premier.”

Let me get this straight. The party and the premier need money so they can get elected and Clark can get paid $195,000 per year and perks. She goes to fundraisers, using her considerable ability to raise money from people who want favours in exchange. The Liberal Party, including the generous donors that benefit so hugely, pay Ms. Clark an extra $50,000 per year for her services.

According to Mr. Fraser, Clark is not acting as premier when she attracts all those wealthy patrons with open wallets, but as a politician!

Really! If all the Liberal Party needed was a politician, they could use Rich Coleman. They don’t use Coleman because, even if he covered himself with molasses, he couldn’t draw flies, let alone wealthy ones.

Commissioner in his own conflict?

I remember you when you were smart, Paul. But I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, since you don’t think that the fact of your son’s long and close friendship with Clark and that he is a politically appointed Deputy-Minister in her government places you in a conflict of interest! Hell, Paul, you’re probably right. I mean, who would ever dream that a lawyer making $269,000 a year from a legislature made up largely of Liberals would consider it in his interest to keep those Liberals kindly disposed towards him?

Governor General in same boat

This entire area of the behaviour of our “betters” reeks with hypocrisy. You will remember the story of lawyer David Johnston, in a decision that defied belief, rescued Brian Mulroney from questions on his taking a bag full of money from a crook in a New York hotel room in the middle of the night and, then, by one of those amazing coincidences Canadian politics are known for, was appointed Governor General of Canada by the Stephen Harper – who had put him in charge of the Mulroney investigation and was relieved as hell that Mulroney couldn’t blab.

That story brought forth a response to criticism of Johnston, from Andrew Coyne in MacLean’s, who said:

[quote]”It’s true that it was Johnston, as adviser to the Prime Minister on the terms of reference for the Oliphant inquiry, who recommended against including the Airbus scandal in its mandate, a decision that looks all the more baffling in light of the judge’s findings: not only that Brian Mulroney took hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, shortly after leaving office, from the very man from whom he was accused of taking bribes while in office, but that he lied about it, up to and including his appearance before the inquiry. Regardless of whether Mulroney was personally involved, the circumstances surrounding the Airbus deal are so suspicious that, even 22 years later, they cry out for an inquiry — not in spite of the passage of time but because of it. Johnston’s reasoning, that Airbus, having once been the subject of an RCMP investigation, was “well-tilled ground,” is simply unsupported by the facts: the RCMP had only just begun their investigation when it was shut down by the leaking of the infamous “Swiss letter,” a calamity from which it never recovered. [Emphasis added – RM][/quote]

For all this clear and severe criticism, Coyne rejected any suggestion that there was a quid pro quo, to clear Lyin’ Brian and become G-G. And maybe there wasn’t but, goddammit, it looked awful.

A different standard

Now yesterday Coyne had this to say about Clark:

[quote]And yet Clark’s only reaction has been to shrug, at all of it: the dinners, the corporate and union donations, her own cut, on the grounds that it has all been disclosed. After all, say her supporters, can you prove there was some quid pro quo? This has things exactly backward. This is not a criminal trial. It is not up to the public to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that their leaders are corrupt. It is up to the premier, as the holder of a public trust, to conduct herself in such a way as to prevent any such suspicion arising. People should not have to wonder about these things, as if integrity in office were just another issue to be weighed against tax cuts and health care. It should be a given. [Emphasis added – RM][/quote]

Couldn’t have said it better myself. My only question is, how come it applies to Christy Clark but didn’t apply to Johnston?

A cynic might suspect that while Coyne doesn’t give a fiddler’s fart if Christy Clark and her supporters don’t like him, he cringes at the thought that the eastern Canadian establishment, upon whom he so clearly depends, might think badly of him and that he might lose his role as the national media suck.

The “Smell Test”

There is a better test for these issues shorn of legalese crap – does it pass the “Smell Test”? What would the folks in the pub say?

An imprecise test to be sure but anyone with half a brain and no conflict of interest themselves would say that both the Johnston/Harper/Mulroney and Christy Clark cases stink to highest heaven and that Andrew Coyne and Paul Fraser ought to repair to the nearest pub and put their conclusions to the smell test.

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Rafe: What it would take for the NDP to start winning

Canada, Politics
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Outgoing NDP Leader Tom Mulcair at the party's 2016 convention in Edmonton (USW/Flickr)
Outgoing NDP Leader Tom Mulcair at the party’s 2016 convention in Edmonton (USW/Flickr)

I’ve watched the NDP with considerable interest since it’s foundation in 1961 as an amalgamation of organized labour and other left-wing groups. I thought that it would form government within a decade because  the Conservative Party would fold and go away, the Liberals would move to the right, leaving the NDP on the centre-left in position to win the big prize. Not for the first time, I was dead wrong. There were times, however, as after the Mulroney romp of 1984 and the Tory wipeout in 1993 that the time seemed right – but it was not to be.

Why?

It’s not that the NDP haven’t had influence – they have, especially during the Liberal minority of the 70s. The problem is that the NDP, like most political parties, has power as its raison d’être.

Why hasn’t that victory happened?

Nagged by that question, the NDP nationally is in a period of introspection, with a lame-duck leader, Tom Mulcair, for two years. What should they discuss?  I have a couple of ideas.

A party of factions

Be warned that this analysis is most unprofessional and based on gut feeling rather than political science.

I’ve always doubted that the NDP ever became a “real” party even after their exhaustive amalgamation process in 1960, when the CCF joined labour to form the present party.

Every party has factions and the leader’s main job is to bring them together, especially at election time. The Liberals and Tories are much better at this than the NDP – perhaps because they are used to winning, know what it takes and, therefore, are far less likely to fall back on principles when votes are at stake. Not especially honourable but effective.

Dave Barrett as BC NDP premier
Dave Barrett as BC NDP premier

I had the great honour to be invited to Dave Barrett’s 80th birthday a few years ago and the large crowd was really interesting to behold. It wasn’t a matter of who was there but who wasn’t. At NDP conventions these divisions are more visible than that those of other parties.

I want to stress that this is not a criticism but simply an observation of priorities, the groups of people each party puts together.

In the NDP, I would argue that this inability to coalesce is because supporters are unwilling to abandon the notion that occupation counts as much as political allegiance as the criterion of loyalty. If I were leading the NDP, God forbid for both of us, I would concentrate on this problem so that at least at election time, the NDP would look like a political party, not a coalition of otherwise not terribly friendly tribes.

Lessons from Labour?

The temptation is to look at the UK and ask how it is that the Labour Party took power there 25 years after it was founded, yet 55 years after the NDP was founded and nearly 85 years after its predecessor was started, that party is a perennial distant also ran.

But comparisons are odious. In the UK, Labour came to power as part of the self-destruction of the Liberal party that started in World War I, when Lloyd George usurped the premiership from Asquith. The first Labour government, under Ramsay Macdonald, in 1924, a minority, lasted but nine months. Macdonald returned to power—this time as the largest party—in 1929 but was quickly overwhelmed by the Great Depression, which badly split the inexperienced Labour cabinet trying to find solutions. In 1931, Macdonald formed a National Government in which only two of his Labour colleagues agreed to serve, the majority being Conservative MPs. It was dissolved in 1935.

In 1945, Clement Attlee became the first Labour leader to have a majority but lost it in 1950. A fair assessment would be that the first Labour leader to be a legitimate contender, election after election (the Liberals now a spent force), was Harold Wilson in 1964.

Still, the party has been subject to splits, the most important being the Liberal Democrats in 1988 and the present Scottish Nationalists. Under Tony Blair, Labour won massively in 1997 but only after a break with organized Labour and rebranding itself New Labour, a party of the centre.

Though comparisons are dangerous, it’s fair to say the UK experience has got some lessons within it. The alliance between the NDP and Organized Labour, while never as strong as in the UK, is there and a win/lose situation. The win comes from huge funding but the lose comes in the suspicion of Labour influence by much of the general public, not excluding union members.

The myth of worker support

Any union leader reading this, in public at least, would protest that the rank-and-file are solidly behind the NDP. But that’s not true, wasn’t true in Great Britain and probably never will be true. It is a myth by which unions kept enormous clout with the Labour Party until John Smith greatly lessened it and Tony Blair won with New Labour in 1997. When John Horgan recently apologized to a powerful labour leader for changing party policy without telling him, it demonstrated that Union leaders still have considerable clout with the NDP.

It is not, therefore, a fair fight. Liberals and Tories may lose portions of the swing vote but, by and large, they keep their core support – the very essential thing the NDP doesn’t do well. If they did, they would win elections.

What, then, can the NDP do about this?

Prepare to offend

It’s not easy because it requires offending ancient allies, notably Labour. Moving the party to the right offends many NDPers not in unions, who are traditionalists and want the party to remain as close to academic socialism as possible. That is the bad news.

The good news is that most of those annoyed people have nowhere else to go. Even better news is that issues previously seen as owned by the left are now spread across the political spectrum, the most obvious being environmentalism but including most social issues. People who hitherto would rather have been caught in a house of ill-fame than vote NDP, are prepared to be made welcome.

A clear choice

It seems to me, then, that the NDP face a pretty clear choice: Either they change their concentration to the new, larger and less committed audience or they retreat into dogmatic exclusivity.

Many would vastly prefer the latter. To them, their beliefs are almost religious and to amend them for political convenience would be unacceptable hypocrisy. Others, however, would like the chance to do something other than bitch.

The NDP has had some first rate leaders, both political and lay, but to stay in power has required almost inhuman tact and has sapped the party’s strength.

Deliberate and introspect, folks, but sooner or later you must your choose: Do nothing, remain pure and lose, or take positive steps, get a little dirt on you and win.

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Search for future Governor General raises ghosts of Canada’s scandalous past

Politics
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Former Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and outgoing Governor General David Johnston (Canada 2020/Flickr cc licence)
Former Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and outgoing Governor General David Johnston (Canada 2020/Flickr cc licence)

This is not a new story – it goes back to 2008.

In that year, the quintessential Toronto, true blue lawyer, David Johnston, received a call asking if he would write the terms of reference for a public inquiry.

Prime Minister Harper had, with considerable reluctance, committed himself to an investigation into allegations that his Conservative predecessor, Brian Mulroney, had taken illegal payments from the German lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber and the investigation threatened to turn into a media circus. Johnston, the careful lawyer and quiet compromiser, agreed to define the inquiry’s parameters: what questions should be asked, and which issues were out of bounds?

The undisputed facts

In 2010, Rick Salutin wrote this in the Globe and Mail, a version the facts no one contradicts:

[quote]In 1997, former prime minister Brian Mulroney received $2.1-million from the federal government over a case in which he’d been mentioned in leaked RCMP documents as a suspect in a corruption matter. He denied under oath having much to do with a bagman and scamp named Karlheinz Schreiber. But it later emerged that he’d taken large amounts of cash from him that he kept secret. Under the pressures of minority government, more details surfaced until Prime Minister Stephen Harper reluctantly agreed to a public inquiry. But, crucially, he called on David Johnston to define its limits.

He set them narrowly, excluding any examination of the role of Airbus, a huge European company Karlheinz Schreiber acted for, and which got a $1.8-billion order from Air Canada while it was still a public firm in the Mulroney years. Airbus gave Karlheinz Schreiber more than $20-million of the Canadian funds it received to distribute as he saw fit among people who had made the deal happen. The real question for the inquiry was: What did Brian Mulroney get the cash for, and was it connected to Airbus? The inquiry was prevented from asking because, said David Johnston, that was “well-tilled ground.” But it wasn’t really. The RCMP hadn’t been able to make Airbus officials testify, for instance; an inquiry could. And when striking new evidence emerged from a Mulroney crony at the inquiry, it wasn’t pursued due to the narrow terms. [Emphasis mine – RM][/quote]

(Incidentally, Johnston received $1400 per day to do this report and when Harper saw Johnston’s work, he said, according to his biographer, John Ibbitson: “Whatever we paid him for this, it wasn’t enough.”)

Harper has never denied making that remark showing that, if nothing else, he was more honest than Mulroney – though that is damning with very faint praise indeed.

Well-tilled ground

Andrew Coyne, after the Salutin article, came unconvincingly to Johnston’s defence but agreed that these were the facts:

[quote]It’s true that it was Johnston, as adviser to the Prime Minister on the terms of reference for the Oliphant inquiry, who recommended against including the Airbus scandal in its mandate, a decision that looks all the more baffling in light of the judge’s findings: not only that Brian Mulroney took hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, shortly after leaving office, from the very man from whom he was accused of taking bribes while in office, but that he lied about it, up to and including his appearance before the inquiry. Regardless of whether Mulroney was personally involved, the circumstances surrounding the Airbus deal are so suspicious that, even 22 years later, they cry out for an inquiry — not in spite of the passage of time but because of it. Johnston’s reasoning, that Airbus, having once been the subject of an RCMP investigation, was “well-tilled ground,” is simply unsupported by the facts: the RCMP had only just begun their investigation when it was shut down by the leaking of the infamous “Swiss letter,” a calamity from which it never recovered. [Emphasis added -RM] [/quote]

Why do I raise this now, nearly 6 years after the events?

Because the facts are more important now than they ever were. And there are many. And they are a serious blot on the national escutcheon.

Cleaning House

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has asked Canadians for their views on who should replace Mr. Johnston when he retires. It’s a damned sight more important that he concentrate on the process by which this important part of the constitution is appointed. We’ve been fortunate that major constitutional problems have not emerged from our ongoing slap-happy, politically inspired appointments.

I look at the case of Mike Duffy, swamped with 31 charges, all relating to rank political goings-on in a House of Parliament which has no other noticeable purpose. The trial lasted 62 days – not including all of the highly stressful days the court wasn’t sitting – only to have all charges thrown out contemptuously by the trial judge.

Then I see Brian Mulroney, treated and consulted with as if he were an honoured former head of government, invited to all manner of Official Functions, acting as if he had always served his country with the utmost integrity. ‘Lyin’ Brian, as he is aptly called, makes Richard Nixon look like a choirboy in comparison yet spends his days basking in flattery and honour, always looking for more.

Tough on crime

I then consider the attitude of the “hang ’em high” Conservative Party towards crime by the rabble – the Supreme Court of Canada will be busy for years tossing out their flint-hearted laws. While those sanctimonious bastards would jail the poor who steal bread, they compromised the office of Queen’s Representative in order to save a crook like Mulroney from even a trial – a man who cheated the public of more than $2 million with a phoney libel claim, to say nothing of taking $300,000 in a paper bag from Schreiber, another crook. Apart from all else, how is it possible to libel a man like that?

The appearance of propriety

Governor-General David Johnston visits Victoria (Province of BC/Flickr)
Governor-General David Johnston visits Victoria (Province of BC/Flickr)

I consider the process for selecting the Governor-General. I don’t say that Mr. Johnston made his recommendations to emasculate the Mulroney hearing in exchange for the Governor Generalship. There’s a little matter of absence of proof here. The problem is, it sure as hell looks that way to a lot of people and you can’t blame them for seeing it that way. It just mustn’t appear as if the Governor-Generalship might have been a pay-off but that thought crossed a lot of minds.

David Johnston is a skilled, successful lawyer, an academic, a man everyone considered to be highly qualified -yet, somehow, he expected people to accept the question as to whether or not Mulroney got a payoff from Karlheinz Schreiber as a “well-tilled field”.  It’s hard to believe – no it is impossible to believe that Mr. Johnston really thought that and my theory is that he’s so wired into the eastern Canadian establishment, he couldn’t bring himself to upset the apple cart when, with the stroke of a pen, he could put his friends out of their misery.

Three possibilities

There are really only three possibilities – that there was a deal; that, contrary to all the evidence, Mr. Johnston is as dumb as a sackful of hammers; or that he acted like all Central Canadian establishment people, heirs to the Family Compact tradition, and put the stability of society as he knew it ahead of the need to bring one of his own to justice.  Any one of these possibilities is as good a reason as any to find a better way to select the Governor-General.

Mr. Johnston may not have had a deal in mind but former Prime Minister Stephen Harper certainly did as demonstrated by his remarks about how well the party was rewarded for the amount of money Mr. Johnston received. If you let that sink in a bit, the realization strikes you that the corruption is so widespread and so endemic to the governing classes that those involved don’t even think about it anymore.

Where was the media?

Most of all, however, this sordid story tells us something about us as Canadians and how little we demand of those who tell us the news.

This should have been a major scandal from the get-go and explored thoroughly by all of media to the fullest.

Instead, there was the Salutin story in the Globe and Mail (a 20 year employee, he was fired shortly after); a couple of passive accounts in other papers and the apologia by Coyne in Maclean’s magazine. For the little value it was, I wrote the story here in stark terms, had a hell of a time getting it published (not by this paper) and, of course, it wasn’t read where important people live. 

Rafe: How does Oil-boosting Postmedia boss get into news Hall of Fame?
Paul Godfrey (Photo: Samja Frkovic/Flickr – Victoria Rose)

Perhaps it goes too far to say we get the Media we deserve but we care so little when the largest newspaper chain, in Canada, Postmedia has a written mutual masturbation agreement with the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers; it scarcely raises an eyebrow that the Vancouver Province is a partner of Resource Works, no more than shills for Woodfibre LNG; we put up with newspapers that endorse the Harper government almost to a paper – not because they could demonstrate any good in the man, but because those were the boss’s orders; and we don’t seem to care when Postmedia, going broke as fast as it can, has a CEO who presides over the firing of hundreds of employees while pocketing nearly $2 million himself in bonuses.

Is it any bloody wonder that the authorities believe they can charge Mike Duffy with 31 crimes when nobody in the country takes the justice system seriously enough to complain at its excesses? And the Crown Counsel certainly don’t have to worry about catching hell in the media. Thank God, they still run the risk of catching it from the bench.

The fix is in

No, the Johnston/Harper/Mulroney extravaganza was just a passing incident in the Canadian political panorama and not to be taken seriously by anybody. At least that’s how the media treated it. Yet the deal was fixed for the former prime minister just as it was for the disgraced Gordon Campbell. Both men were amply rewarded by the country for their trouble, in keeping with our long tradition of rewarding well-fixed lawbreakers.

The man who fixed it so neatly was given the number one cushy job in the country, the shenanigans of the prime minister of the day were rewarded by media endorsement for re-election, the disgraced ex-prime minister spends his time in cutaway coats and striped trousers as an honoured guest at official functions, the public of Canada is stuck with a bill for millions of dollars, and the Real Establishment hears not a nasty word from our tame media, which, I might add, is owned by this same Ontario three-piece suit mob who make and break laws as it suits them.

But, it’s a non-story. Two prime ministers, a governor-general and a crook on the run, plus a paper bag full of cash, and it’s of no interest to Canadians. Right!

While all this merriness rolls on, Justin asks Canadians to consider carefully who should be our next G-G, even without knowing whom he owes favours to.

Canadians are so busy telling ourselves what a wonderful country they have they never pause to consider that conduct that’s part and parcel of our daily political and economic life is considered shameful in most civilized places.

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Rafe: NDP’s Horgan too quick to dismiss Leap Manifesto

Energy and Resources, LNG, Oil&Gas, Politics
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BCNDP Leader John Horgan touring Metro Van Pipes in 2014 (BCNDP/Flickr cc licence)
BCNDP Leader John Horgan touring Lynnterm docks in 2014 (BCNDP/Flickr cc licence)

I  have a question or two for NDP leader John Horgan, given recent developments.

Let me be clear: I have no animosity towards Mr. Horgan – we only met once and just by accident. At that time, several years ago, Mr. Horgan stated that he favoured LNG because “the NDP couldn’t be against everything”. This illogical nonsense guides him still.

Still searching

I’m doing as many British Columbians are doing – looking for someone to support in 2017.

I certainly can’t vote for the incompetent, destructive, featherbrain in power; I thought I had a home with the Greens until I learned that their leader supports the Liberals’ IPPs policy, which destroys rivers and is bankrupting BC Hydro, so I had reconciled myself to the notion that this old Socred could vote NDP…but they lost me by uncritically supporting LNG and by the obvious political naiveté of its leader.

Mr. Horgan, how could you get this far and not understand basic politics?

Christy Clark stated, not long ago, that she represents the majority of British Columbians, or words to that effect. The incredible fact is that she does Mr. Horgan, but that’s not because of her, it’s because of you, sir.

Christy Clark, up against a reasonably presentable fence-post with hair, wouldn’t have a chance but you’ve managed to split your supporters and so alienate the great number of people who would have supported you to avoid the Liberals, that you and your party will probably lose to this quintessence of incompetence.

Kow-towing to unions

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

Any winning leader must keep his supporters onside while not alienating too many “floaters” who have no party allegiance. This is fundamental – Axiom I for every party. Your party should have learned that from the many decades the old Socreds thrashed you regularly.

But you’ve scared the hell out of people. While it’s expected that an NDP leader will be concerned about labour unions, when he becomes so obsequious as to all but genuflect in public and before a union leader to apologize for changing party policy without his consent, it’s just too much, even, I suggest, for many members of unions.

Why not take the leap?

What I would really like to ask you today, Mr. Horgan, is why you have not seen the obvious way out of your difficulty – the Leap Manifesto?

Typical of the NDP, they cosseted the far left with the word “Manifesto” pissing off a lot of people they didn’t need to. But that’s minor. I’ve read the document with care – have you? It offers a reasonable blueprint for getting us all out of the difficulty posed by the coming demise of the fossil fuel industry.

But you would have no part of it, saying:

[quote]It’s a document that I don’t embrace personally. There are elements in the document that make sense and there are elements that make no sense for British Columbia. So we won’t proceed under any kind of manifesto in the next 12 months under my leadership.[/quote]

Can you not be more specific? Of course parts will annoy unions dependant on the fossil fuel industry but it’s just a discussion document and if you were to encourage the widest possible debate, it could turn out to be a brilliant political maneuver. Yes, you’d  have a harder time from some disgruntled supporters but you’d get support outside the party and the party generally would come along because they want to win and they’ve  nowhere else to go.

Moreover, have you considered how much the public think of Naomi Klein, and indeed the Lewis family? And David Suzuki?  More than they do of you, Mr Horgan. Is it good politics to stand against them just to stay in favour with one or two union leaders?

Bucking history

Here are the parts that I presume are the sticking points which make you say this document is not appropriate for British Columbia, being a resource-based province:

[quote]Shifting swiftly away from fossil fuels so that Canada gets 100 per cent of its electricity from renewable resources within 20 years and is entirely weaned off fossil fuels by 2050.

No new infrastructure projects aimed at increasing extraction of non-renewable resources, including pipelines.[/quote]

Here’s where your opposition is fatal. It’s a year before the election and opposition to fossil rules won’t lessen. More scientific evidence will likely be adverse. And this puts you and those of the NDP who support you out of sync with history. No politician can buck history for long and survive.

Can you not comprehend that the world is against you on this, including a great many traditional supporters of the New Democratic Party? If you had political savvy and vision, you would support Leap and work with union leaders and, indeed, with community leaders generally. The Leap Manifesto proposes that we wean ourselves off fossil fuels and ease the hardship that will impose on the many employed by the industry. What could be wrong with that, especially if it was a non-partisan, community effort?

No one expects that we’ll be off fossil fuels tomorrow afternoon, Mr.Horgan – the object is to avoid wasting time making adjustments, thus making matters worse. People expect that leaders will take us down that path in reasonably expeditious fashion, while making the changes as smooth as humanly possible for those impacted by them.

No point pretending

There is no point in pretending that the move away from fossil fuels isn’t going to happen and happen pretty quickly. The leader, the statesman, recognizes that the best policy is to control events and not be controlled by them while the demagogue tries to avoid reality for short-term advantage.

The most important consideration of all, Mr. Horgan, is that bringing united public support for a commitment to as quick an end to our reliance on fossil fuels, while caring for those hurt by the inevitable, dramatic changes, is the right thing to do.

BC's gift to the world- Premier Christy Clark
Premier Christy Clark at a government-hosted LNG conference (Flickr CC Licence / BC Govt)

It’s astonishing that the NDP will likely appeal less to the average voter than will premier Clark, considering her breathtaking incompetence, the massive debts that she’s run up, the bankrupting of BC Hydro, the destruction of our rivers, the wreckage and folly that is Site C, not to mention the embarrassment she’s brought herself and us over LNG.

You’ve abandoned the high ground of saving the environment, leading the province carefully and thoughtfully through the perils but likely have given the polluters the chance to escape unscathed and another four years to make it infinitely worse, while driving us deeper and deeper in debt.

Not your fault Mr. Horgan?

Then just whose fault is it, pray tell?

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Rafe: Gutless Horgan caves to union, apologizes for opposing LNG project

Energy and Resources, LNG, Oil&Gas, Politics
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BCNDP leader John Horgan (BCNDP/Flickr)
BCNDP leader John Horgan (BCNDP/Flickr)

Apparently, according to Alberta Premier Rachel Notley and BC NDP leader John Horgan, we have a new doctrine in Canada which essentially says that Jobs Come Ahead Of Crisis When A Powerful Union Leader Says So.

Any free society, as part of its basic philosophy, permits citizens to better themselves, legally, and to withhold their labour. At the same time, no society can permit those rights to endanger society as a whole. Moreover, it can hardly be permitted because society hasn’t been able to control some of its segments, like the bastards exposed by the Panama Scandal. That behaviour exposes the weakness of people, not of the philosophy.

Horgan’s about-face shows humiliating weakness

Having once been a cabinet minister in a Socred government, I risk being called anti-union if I offer any criticism of a union. There’s a distinct odour of Senator Joseph McCarthy in an allegation that because one belonged to a certain group, they therefore can be assumed to have certain beliefs. I support unions, have been a member of three, had formal election endorsements from two, and I couldn’t have been elected, twice, in Kamloops, a union town, if I was anti-union.

What I’m on about is the humble, indeed humiliating volte face when John Horgan met with the union, and its powerful leader whose support, more than any other, made Horgan the NDP leader.

This from the April 14 edition of the Toronto Globe and Mail:

[quote]B.C. NDP Leader John Horgan met with his toughest critics on the party’s liquefied natural gas policies, and said his party’s official rejection of the Pacific Northwest LNG proposal could yet turn to Yes.

Mr. Horgan was speaking to the annual convention of the BC Building Trade unions in Victoria on Wednesday, where he sought to diffuse anger from his party’s labour allies over his decision to ask the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency to withhold approval for the proposed Pacific Northwest LNG plant near Prince Rupert.

The NDP Leader apologized to union leader Tom Sigurdson for sending the submission to the regulatory agency without giving him notice that the party had come out against the proposal.[/quote]

Many, evidently including Mr. Horgan, think there’s an easy, gradual way to deal with the fossil fuel/climate crisis so nobody ever has to make a sacrifice quite yet. Forgive the indiscreet example, but that’s like the young boy, who, being warned he’ll go blind if he keeps playing with himself, promises to quit just as soon as he needs glasses.

One leap forward, two bounds back

I heartily congratulate the NDP in Convention for, barely, passing the Leap Manifesto and ask Notley, Horgan and company, “What’s the equivalent of needing glasses to inform us we must now act?” Doesn’t this, at least in principle, make abundant good sense?

Of course Premier Notley has a problem, but letting it fester, indeed helping it get worse, is scarcely the solution. In spite of 70 years of Alberta arrogance towards less well-off provinces, we all have a societal obligation to help. And we must do that as part of the same Canadian way Albertans were so grumpy about when they were rolling in petrodollars.

What we do not have is an obligation to suffer the fatal consequences of “business as usual”. Someone has to explain that to Ms. Notley and Mr. Horgan, who must then stand up to those who would put themselves first.

A Canadian problem

The solution lies in accepting the fact that this is a national problem affecting every single Canadian and that those who will be most directly affected need the assistance of the rest of us. Just what form that takes must be worked out but we have to make a start, which the Leap Manifesto does.

Beyond a reasonable doubt

Tom Sigurdson
Tom Sigurdson

What the hell do Mr. Horgan and Mr. Sigurdson need for evidence? Ninety-seven percent of the world’s scientists dealing with this problem confirm that we have a crisis which, unattended, will be fatal.

Of course there are doubting Thomases – articulate ones. If you’re one, here’s my answer.

As a lawyer, I can assure you that there isn’t a proposition ever propounded that I couldn’t make a case against.

Are you a “round earther” – I guarantee I can make a hell of a case for it being flat.

Believe in God? I can rally no end of scientists, including Richard Dawkins, to refute that.

In support of God are many of the world’s greatest thinkers, including Albert Einstein.

Mr. Sigurdson (I take it you have precedence in the NDP), Mr. Horgan, the scientists have done more than meet the civil onus of “on a balance of probabilities” but have satisfied the criminal test of “beyond a reasonable doubt”.

Beyond “a shadow of a doubt”? Perhaps not, but it’s impossible to think of any proposition that meets that test.

But Mr. Sigurdson, Horgan, if you’re wrong, if your “scientists” are wrong, everything is lost. And if the 97% are somehow wrong, we have still made the world a hell of a lot better, safer, cleaner and nicer place to live.

One might reduce the argument, then, to this: “Better safe than sorry”!

Gentlemen, we are all in this together, including you!

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Rafe: NDP’s LNG reversal is a game-changer for BC election

Energy and Resources, LNG, Oil&Gas, Politics, Western Canada
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Rafe- NDP's LNG reversal is a game-changer in BC election

Important events don’t always seem to be so. So it is with the changes last month in both the Green party and the NDP.

Going back, say a fortnight, the ruling Liberals were unpopular as hell, led by an airhead who likes to have her picture taken and ride in airplanes. Despite that, I would have said – indeed I think I did – that she still had a very good chance of winning next year’s election, if only because of Mair’s Axiom I, “you don’t have to be 10 in politics, you can be a 3 if everyone else is a 2.”

Not only was John Horgan a 2 at that point, he was harried by the Green party who showed every sign of moving into second place, a humiliation that would have damaged the NDP for a considerable time to come.

The Green party was basking in the huge popularity of its national leader, Elizabeth May, undoubtedly the most popular politician in BC and perhaps in Canada. No one seemed to care that voters didn’t really know who the provincial leader, Dr. Andrew Weaver, was – let alone what he really stood for. A substantial number of British Columbians, wavering between voting Green or NDP didn’t like the NDP from another movie. That was the moment for the Greens to make a clear, concise, and comforting statement of their policy emphasizing, of course, the environment.

Dr. Weaver seemed reluctant to support the environment too enthusiastically because he wanted to demonstrate that the party has other strings to its bow – an awkward problem, to be sure, because the Green party is seen by many to be a one-trick pony. This changed somewhat when Elizabeth May arrived and gave a fair impression that even if no one else did, she knew what the she was doing. That’s why I suggested that the BC party drop Weaver and co-opt Ms. May and that if they did, their success in the next election could be truly remarkable.

Weaver blows it stumping for private power

BC Green MLA Andrew Weaver
BC Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver

In any event, Dr. Weaver destroyed himself on a talk show on 1070 CFAX in Victoria with host Ian Jessop . The issue was the Gordon Campbell Energy policy of 2003 as carried on by Christy Clark. Under this policy, the right to make new power was taken from BC Hydro and given to so-called Independent Power Producer (IPPs), who were permitted to destroy beautiful rivers in order to make the power.

In the 2009 election, this was a non-issue in spite of the efforts of some of us to make it one. One person who supported this government policy was Dr. Weaver, then a professor at the University of Victoria. To us going around the province speaking against the policy, that was a pain in the ass but no big deal.

Fast forward to last December 17 and Dr. Weaver appeared on the Ian Jessop show where the main question was his Party’s stand on IPP’s. This issue was  finally getting traction because economists like Erik Andersen had publicized the fact that the policy had all but bankrupted BC Hydro and many prominent environmental groups pointed out the horrendous damage done to these rivers, the fish and other wildlife that depend upon them, and at the ecology around. The public, slowly, step-by-step, was becoming au fait with this issue.

Dr Weaver evidently didn’t know this and clearly was taken by surprise when Ian asked whether or not he and the Green party still supported this Liberal policy that had destroyed so many rivers and all but bankrupted BC Hydro. Weaver babbled and the more Jessop questioned, the more he babbled. I suggest that you listen for yourself here – starting around the 41 min mark.

Far from trying to make things better, Dr. Weaver took to blaming me and a column I wrote and got into a slanging match, on Facebook would you believe, with publisher Damien Gillis. Whether or not he was right or wrong – he was wrong as hell – the point is, this was not a time for shrill name-calling but damage control; time for party to come to grips with this question and declare themselves against the IPP policy and in favour of public power and keeping BC Hydro solvent. That simply didn’t happen.

Now, silently, the NDP slipped into the game.

Horgan steps up to the plate

Photo: BCNDP/Flickr
John Horgan (Photo: BCNDP/Flickr)

Late last March, John Horgan, the leader, wrote the federal minister of Environment, announcing his Party’s opposition to Pacific NorthWest LNG and, while doing so, laying out four conditions that had to be matched before his party would give approval to any LNG project. The first three are pretty routine but the fourth one, a sort of omnibus clause, covers damn near any environmental eventuality one can think of. It states that “BC’s air land and water must be protected and resource development must be as clean as possible.” It then gives specific numbers with respect to greenhouse gases.

As a one time legal beagle, I don’t see how the NDP can make any exceptions to that blanket guarantee.

The scene has changed

It’s no mystery why this revelation was made privately: John Horgan wanted to save face. He’d have a hell of a time getting an appropriate motion from a convention because so many put jobs before the environment, as we saw in the 2009 election. Union members won’t understand that jobs can never trump the environment and that the terrible shape the world is in is proof of that. The Party knows this but never wants to start quite yet. They’re like the lad who is told that if he doesn’t stop masturbating he’ll go blind, and who in turn responds, “I’ll quit just as soon as I need glasses”.

In any event, the NDP have now pushed the Greens out the environmental field entirely.

Will their deeds match their words?  We’ll see when other LNG proposals come to their table.

But the scene has changed and, as has been so well and truly said, in politics, six weeks is an eternity.

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Rafe- Weaver, BC Greens should quit supporting private river power sham

Rafe: Weaver, BC Greens should quit backing private river power sham

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

It’s been a disappointing week. We all have them.

In a moment, I’ll get to my frustration with the BC Green Party and its leader Dr. Andrew Weaver – but my disappointment started with a letter from Fair Voting Canada (FVC) in answer to a letter from me offering support in their fight for reform of our voting system.

As you know, the Trudeau government has set up a committee to hear evidence in order to bring forth a bill to change the system from First Past The Post (FPTP) to some form of Proportional Representation (PR).

Though it has nothing to do with their bleated moral virtue but everything to do with getting past the next election still under FPTP the Tories tendentiously insist that there must be a referendum.

I have a manuscript into the publisher on the Canadian Constitution which really could be called “the constitution for dummies”. Meaning no disrespect, it’s an uncomplicated look at how we run things and puts forward some options for reform. I offered this book to FVC, no strings attached, but then we hit upon a serious problem.

System be left to reform itself

My position was taken after considerable study and some 40 years of experience in the field at the highest level. I examined FPTP, PR, Alternative Voting, and STV as recommended by the BC Electoral Assembly in in 2008.

While FVC and I came to the same conclusion, FVC would not have a referendum but would leave implementation entirely to the Parliament of Canada – which is saying to Mr. Trudeau and his whipped Liberal caucus.

It seems to me, and I hate to use this word about such sincere people, that it’s pretty hypocritical to call for “fair voting” and deny the vote to people on the very issue at stake. The morality is scarcely improved by the fact they agree with Trudeau’s position but, intended or not, is “we know best” elitism. I want the same thing but know that unless it comes from the people, it will never really be legitimate and never fully accepted.

Obeying the elites

The reason – I would call it an excuse – that FVC gives is that it will be too late, thanks to the delays of the Harper government, to hold a referendum in time for the next election. Therefore, goes the reasoning, the lousy system we used to let this crowd in, because time is awkward, will be replaced by one we who know best have selected!

This smacks of the discipline Canadians traditionally impose upon themselves in favour of the pronouncements of the elite. It just goes back, I suppose, to British autocracy as represented in our Constitution, which doesn’t talk about liberty, but “peace, order, and good government”. Somehow, even in 2016, we’re prepared to obey the elites rather than think for ourselves. The elites know that, so don’t trouble us with things like referenda.

I ask FVC and their allies like Leadnow: What the hell are you afraid of? How can you possibly want to improve a democracy by denying democracy and then pretend that you have actually reformed the country?

Greens don’t get it on Hydro

My second disappointment was with the BC Green Party and in particular its leader Dr. Andrew Weaver.

I consider myself a Green, though not a Party member, and am a huge fan of their national leader Elizabeth May. My attraction to the Greens is that they honour the environment with political muscle while at the same time recognizing that people must work, live and eat. Unlike other parties, they don’t see these as mutually exclusive ideas.

I have tried to meet with Dr. Weaver on a number of occasions but it hasn’t happened. My quarrel with him and the party is a very simple one.

In 2003 the Gordon Campbell government brought in the infamous “energy plan” which essentially did two things – it denied BC Hydro the right to make any new power other than Site C and mandated that all future power must be made by private power companies – euphemistically branded Independent Power Producers (IPPs). Their power would be sold to BC Hydro at inflated prices with our crown corporation forced to take all the power the private companies produce, whether they need it or not.

Construction of a private power project on the Ashlu River (Photo: Range Life)
Construction of a private power project on the Ashlu River (Photo: Range Life)

This was sold by the Campbell government as being environmentally neutral because the companies would all be little “Mom and Pop” operations, the rivers wouldn’t be dammed, just an unobtrusive little weir, and the flow of water unimpeded. Therefore, we could expect no environmental damage. At the time I kept and still have the video of Finance Minister Colin Hansen peddling this crap.

I came into the picture, along with Damien Gillis and others in 2008. I was on a sharp learning curve mainly because I could not believe what I was being told.

It was not long before I found that these IPPs were very substantial operations. The weirs were large obstructions, whether called a dam or not; the water flow was seriously impeded (up to 95% of a river’s flow diverted through large pipes or bus-sized tunnels for miles); when the salmon runs came up the river, it was low water and the artificial channels built to accommodate them were a bad joke. The foliage around the rivers was destroyed for the purposes of the “dam” and transmission lines, there were trees cut down and roads built and so-called “Mom and Pop” operations were mostly subsidiaries of large, mostly American companies, who took our money out of the country. The whole program as started by the Campbell government and perpetuated by Clark was bullshit.

IPPs are a financial scam for BC

I consulted with a number of people, including highly-regarded economist Erik Andersen, and saw that the financial arrangements BC Hydro was forced to make were ruinous, and would inevitably lead to bankruptcy in a fairly short period of time.

Putting this all together, Damien and I, working on behalf of the Save Our Rivers Society, were joined by others – and I particularly note Joe Foy of the Wilderness Committee – and we toured the Province, often speaking at meetings put on for the same purpose by COPE 378, during the 2009 election, telling people, chapter and verse, what was going on. The story we told, as I related above, just seemed too preposterous for people to believe. No government would be so careless of the environment, so negligent about BC Hydro and its finances as we were stating. Evidently, Dr. Andrew Weaver, now leader of the Green party, couldn’t accept the obvious either, and campaigned vigorously on behalf of the Liberal energy policy, ignoring the easily available information I had, declaring it was “clean energy”.

I wouldn’t now hold this against Dr. Weaver if he had taken a little time to see what has happened since but he hasn’t and still supports the Liberals on this point.

Rates soar as Hydro buckles under private debt

It’s just as Erik Andersen and other economists predicted, except much worse. Rivers, salmon runs, aquatic life and vegetation have been destroyed, just as Joe, Damien and I predicted.

On the economic front, I don’t think I have to tell you what has happened to BC Hydro. It has been well reported and must have been seen by Dr. Weaver. As a direct consequence of this economic catastrophe visited upon BC Hydro by the Campbell/Clark energy policy,  that Weaver supports, our once great Crown corporation is now de facto bankrupt.

This is hardly just Rafe Mair or Damien Gillis talking. Readers of The Common Sense Canadian have seen the evidence build over the past few years as we reported it. The tragic figures are now common knowledge and available on the Internet. You have all seen the numbers and know the terrible shape BC Hydro is in. As a reminder, here’s blogger Norm Farrell’s explanation:

[quote]…from 1996 to 2016, purchases from independent power producers (IPPs) soared by 839% to 14,877 GWh, which cost about $1.3 billion in the current fiscal year. According to BC Public Accounts, the obligation to IPPs is $1.85 billion in the year ended March 2016.[/quote]

Alas, that’s not all. We have Site C which will certainly cost more than $10 Billion to produce energy we don’t need, and without any customers unless Christy Clark comes up with an LNG industry to supply countries that don’t need it, in a world market with a massive glut of gas.

Weaver still backs IPPs

Sadly, while Dr. Andrew Weaver has spoken out of late against Site C Dam, he and the BC Green Party fully support the Campbell/Clark energy policy and the continued enriching of the rich while bankrupting BC Hydro. If you wish to confirm this, listen to the Ian Jessop Show on CFAX from December 17 1 PM slot (the second interview, start listening around the 41 min mark). It’s worth the trouble.

There, you will hear Dr. Weaver still praising private power – only criticizing the Liberals’ lack of environmental monitoring and enforcement. What he fails to recognize or admit is that this industry has never been monitored, nor any protections enforced, since day one, which is precisely what we’ve been warning for nearly a decade now. This is not some mere wrinkle or oversight – it’s exactly how a privatized system is designed to work.

I’m keenly disappointed. I honestly believed that a party had appeared that British Columbians could support and I no longer believe that. I have written to Dr. Weaver and advised him of that.

The result, then, at this moment in time, is that the Christy Clark government has had a huge stroke of luck, assuming that John Horgan and the NDP don’t follow Damien’s advice here a few days ago – and they show no signs of doing so. Better the party loses an election than the leader loses face.

This, then, is the extent of the tragedy and you can understand, I think, why this is a disappointing moment.

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The NDP's only shot at winning in BC: Embrace the NEW ECONOMY

The NDP’s only shot at winning in BC: Embrace the NEW ECONOMY

Economics, Energy and Resources, Fracking, LNG, Oil&Gas, Politics, Renewables, Western Canada
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The NDP's only shot at winning in BC: Embrace the NEW ECONOMY
BCNDP Leader John Horgan has a tough row to hoe to win the next election (BCNDP/Flickr)

The following is Damien Gillis’ rebuttal to colleague Rafe Mair’s recent piece, “By Backing LNG, the Horgan NDP lost election before it began”

I agree with my colleague Rafe Mair on most things – including his commentary that John Horgan and the NDP’s choice to back LNG has been a political disaster. The only real difference between Rafe’s and my views on the subject is that I still think they have a shot, a slim one albeit, to win next year’s provincial election. But only if they own up to their mistakes and quickly embrace a new, winning narrative.

Magic formula

That narrative is simple. It’s the only one they can win with and it’s so simple and powerful that if they pick it up, short of a Monica Lewinsky-level scandal, it will return them to government. This is it:

[quote]New Democrats, New Economy

[/quote]

Why is this the perfect slogan? It does everything the NDP needs it to. It promises an economic vision and jobs – the things people most want to hear. It contrasts them with the Liberals’ dowdy Old Economy – a shortsighted, failing vision based on fifty-year old ideas like big hydro dams and oil and gas.

It promises the single most popular and alluring of election outcomes – the very thing that brought Barack Obama, Justin Trudeau and many other usurpers to power: Change. Finally, it sets the stage for protecting the environment and the economy at the same time – the Holy Grail of Canadian politics today. I’m telling you, roll with this slogan, backed by a solid campaign, and you win.

It’s the economy, stupid

In the aftermath of the NDP’s catastrophic loss under Adrian Dix last time around, I penned a post-mortem titled, “It’s the economy, Stupid NDP” (based on American political guru James Carville’s famous slogan to that effect). I stand by every word to this day. The main points I made therein are:

  • The NDP didn’t deal with the ballot box issue of the campaign (and more often than not the key issue of all campaigns): the Economy.
  • The NDP failed to tell a compelling story, while the Liberals spun a powerful “jobs” meta-narrative. Sure, it was all bullshit, as we now see, but it worked at the time. They were going to deliver untold “prosperity” to British Columbians by building a brand new LNG industry. The NDP, by contrast, had no vision, no story to offer.

Nice guys lose elections

The latter was easy pickens. You can be a strong, respectable, principled leader and still attack your opponent wherever justified. Christy Clark and her Liberals are unpopular and vulnerable, but you have to be willing to get your knuckles a little bloody in politics. You have to be willing to draw attention to the fact that Christy Clark failed three times to get a university eduction; worse yet, that she got stripped of her student presidency and fined for cheating in a campus election at SFU – hardly irrelevant when gauging her political character today.

Christy Clark commemorating new Port Mann Bridge - as it rang in at 550% of the government's original cost estimate of $600 million (Province of BC/Flickr)
Christy Clark commemorating the new Port Mann Bridge – as it rang in at 550% of the government’s original cost estimate of $600 million (Province of BC/Flickr)

You also have to be willing to remind voters that this government has increased our real debt from $34 Billion to well over $170 Billion since it came to power – much of that owning to a whole, new category of taxpayer obligations it invented to sweep sweetheart private power contracts and PPP construction deals under the rug (that’s not even counting the likely $20 Billion tab coming if Site C gets built).

You have to be willing to say that this government couldn’t manage its way out of a wet paper bag – pointing to a pattern of more than doubling initial estimates for major capital projects like bridges, highways, transmission lines and convention centres.

You have to be willing to tick off a long list of scandals, from triple-deleted emails and healthcare firings all the way back to illegally broken teacher contracts and BC Rail (hey, if your opponents are happy to go back to the fast ferries well, two decades later, over what now seems a paltry cost overrun by comparison to today’s boondoggles, well, then, BC Rail and legislature raids are more than fair game).

All of these things are fair game – not only that, they need to be brought up, in fairness to the electorate. But I digress. Back to that winning formula: The New Economy.

A golden opportunity missed

Asian LNG prices set to tumble further
LNG is a sinking ship (Jens Schott Knudsen/Flickr)

Nearly three years ago, I began doing townhall presentations around BC on the myths of the Liberal LNG vision. Armed with the latest data from Bloomberg and respected global and local energy analysts, I predicted that the bottom would fall out of the Asian LNG market long before we got to it (I said $8/unit, where the break-even point is around $12 – today it’s fallen even below that, with predictions of $4-5 over the next year, meaning it’s impossible to make a buck at LNG).

The response I heard from NDP MLAs at the time was, “We can’t say ‘No’ to everything.”

No, you can’t. But you can say “No” to stupid ideas and “Yes” to good ones. Had the NDP picked up on this intel 3 years ago, they may have taken a political hit in the short term, but by now, a year out from the election, they’d be looking like geniuses who could shamelessly crow, “We told you so!”

Say “Yes” to good ideas

Randall Benson is a former oil sands worker who runs a successful solar company and training program (Iron & Earth)
Randall Benson is a former oil sands worker who runs a successful solar company and training program (Iron & Earth)

So, the flip-side of that coin is what you say “Yes” to. You say “Yes” to renewable energy. I don’t mean rip-off private power projects and old-school, destructive dams – rather our abundant geothermal potential, wind and solar.

You embrace a group like Iron & Earth – oil sands workers lining up to retool their skills for clean tech.

It’s no big leap for an unemployed gas pipeline welder from Fort St. John to weld wind turbine components instead, or for an oil sands electrician to wire up roof-top solar. We have the workforce – we just need to shift it from an old, shrinking economy, to a new, burgeoning one.

All around the world, except Canada, the leading industrial nations are getting it – investing tens of billions in renewable energy and reaping millions of new, green jobs. As our contributor Will Dubitsky recently noted, “according to the International Energy Agency, in 2015, an astounding 90% of all global electrical power capacity added was attributable to renewables.”  Translation: nine tenths of the market for new electricity in the world today is clean tech, not fossil fuels. Pipelines, oil sands and fracking are on the way out. Why stake your future on a losing, outmoded idea?

Get creative

You also say “Yes” to the creative economy. Vancouver now has the biggest digital effects industry in the world and a booming tech sector – driven by the great lifestyle the region has to offer and a growing cluster of skilled people and hubs of activity and resources. Mayor Gregor Robertson is embracing and nurturing this trend, while Christy Clark has shown half-hearted acknowledgement at best. In the last election, her government also ran against the film industry – which is now thriving again in today’s low-dollar environment.

Super, Natural BC

You say “Yes” to preserving and growing our $13-14 Billion Super, Natural BC tourism economy, which employs over 135,000 people vs. 10,000 at the absolute peak of our oil and gas industry – roughly 3,000 direct jobs for British Columbians in oil and gas extraction and maybe double that in additional support services. But you don’t do that by destroying our salmon runs with LNG plants, marring our coastal viewscapes with bad clearcut logging practices, oil tankers and LNG plants. You don’t attract people to “the greatest place on earth” if it no longer is “the greatest place on earth”.

Adding value

Gas industry contributes 0.01 per cent of BC revenues, few jobs
Two of the province’s surprisingly few gas workers – in BC’s Horn River Basin in 2011 (Photo: Damien Gillis)

You also say “Yes” to local, value-added manufacturing. You don’t ship raw logs to China and Japan – you turn them into high-grade wood products here first, employing thousands in the process.

We seem to have it set in our minds that we’re bound to be nothing more than hewers of wood and drawers of water – a “resource” economy – forevermore. That’s our lot in life and there’s nothing we can do about it. Balderdash. It’s that sort of self-determining crap we’ve been feeding ourselves for decades and which keeps us from moving forward.

The bottom line is this: Oil and gas contributes a scarce few jobs to this province, compared with other sectors – same goes for mining. Don’t take my word for it – check out this handy chart, put together with Stats BC figures, for this publication by Norm Farrell.

BC-jobs-by-sector

Oil and gas also contributes just 0.1% of our provincial revenues – partly because since 2008 we’ve been subsidizing the industry to the tune of a billion dollars a year in taxpayer-funded infrastructure and massive royalty credit-backs. Imagine, for a second, if we invested that kind of dough in building a renewable energy sector!

We all gotta eat

Site C review panel changes mind, asks for ALC's input on farmland
The Peace River Valley is home to some of BC’s best farmland (Damien Gillis)

Finally, you say “Yes” to feeding ourselves. That means you don’t flood or disrupt 30,000 acres of the best farmland we have left to build a $20 Billion dam we don’t need. Agriculture is not only essential to our survival – it’s also important economically.

Getting that land into production would create jobs at the same time as it saves consumers money from the rapidly escalating cost of importing half our food from drought-stricken places like California.

The NDP created the Agricultural Land Reserve – arguably its single greatest legacy. It should stand loud and proud for it now.

No more Mr. Nice Guy

John Horgan’s a smart guy. He’s a hell of a lot tougher than Adrian Dix too and I doubt he’ll make the same mistake of running a “nice guy” campaign. I’m also liking what I started hearing from him late last year, in terms of taking a tough stance against Site C Dam and rolling out a green economy platform called PowerBC. He needs to go much further on both of these points, but, hey, it’s a start.

Chances are…

That said, Rafe is correct that Horgan and the NDP have dug themselves a huge hole by failing to counter the Liberals’ disastrous LNG fib. So BC faces three possible outcomes next May:

  1. Despite all their mistakes, fibs and failings, the Liberals get back into power…again
  2. The NDP, under John Horgan, finally gets it together, embraces the “New Economy” and wins an election for the first time since cargo pants and Tevas were in fashion
  3. There is a very narrow possibility that the BC Greens, under the leadership of Elizabeth May – on the wild chance she heeds Rafe’s advice and takes over the BC party – come from nowhere and steal this election.

Based on our current trajectory, we’re headed for option 1 – which would be an unmitigated disaster for our economy and environment. But if there’s any chance of it being option 2, things have to start changing right now. The NDP can’t win by default – just because their opponents are so bad. The last election proved that in stunning fashion. Moreover, they don’t deserve to come to power, nor will they help the province unless they have the right vision and commitment to follow through on it.

They also must get their shop in order, as I noted in my post-mortem 3 years ago. The party’s back rooms need fresh blood and the various factions within the NDP must commit to working together and winning for once. This campaign cannot be the sloppy mess the last one was – they require a well-oiled machine to beat a slick political operation like that of their rivals. And all that starts at the top, with the party’s leader.

All of which means the ball is in John Horgan’s court. And nothing short of the future of the province hangs on his next move.

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Rafe: Elizabeth May and the Greens should double down on BC

Canada, Politics
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Federal Green Leader Elizabeth May with Provincial Leader Andrew Weaver (Green party/facebook)
Federal Green Leader Elizabeth May with Provincial Leader Andrew Weaver (Green party/facebook)

It being just over a year until the next provincial election I fret that people really have no choice.  The government is bloody awful and the opposition is scarcely a government in waiting and a lousy opposition to boot – what to do?

What about a new party “coming up the middle”,  something that pundits always talk about but almost never happens?

Wouldn’t be the first time

Well, it happened once in my lifetime, back in 1952, my 21st year. The government, a coalition of Liberals and Conservatives, was appalling, although nothing as bad as Christy’s bunch. The opposition CCF, now NDP, were led by Harold Winch, a highly respected man, their problem being that the right wing had done such a good job of demonizing them that they had a hard time attracting voters outside a select group of supporters.

Longtime Bc Premier WAC Bennett's dream is dead
WAC Bennett

The Coalition split, ran separately and, of course, the CCF ran, but suddenly there was another player in the game, former conservative backbencher William Andrew Cecil Bennett, running for something called Social Credit, which had little presence in British Columbia and no political leader.

To the amazement of all, Bennett wound up with 19 seats to 18 for the CCF and after a great deal of tooing and froing by Lieutenant-Governor Clarence Wallace, Bennett, who only became leader after the election, was premier and the Social Credit party became government – for 20 years!

A little harmless speculation

I don’t say that it’s 1952 again or, even if similarities are great, that the same thing will happen. It is, I think, both fun and perhaps even helpful to speculate a bit from time to time. If nothing else, it makes for great conversation over a beer or two.

I think that three principles prevail – my own, namely, “You don’t have to be a 10 in politics – you can be a 3 if everyone else is 2”; there’s this from former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson: “In politics, six weeks is an eternity”; and then the general proposition that “politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum”. With those thoughts in mind, let’s take a look at the Green Party as the logical third party in the game.

What would it take?

One must bear in mind, of course, that there were four parties in the 1952 election, although I don’t think it mattered much, as the Liberals were ill and the Tories terminally so.

We have questions: First, is the division in British Columbia such that people are looking for a new option?

Secondly, and most importantly, could that alternative be the Green Party, and, if so, under what circumstances?

Going on the 1952 experience, if you’d asked that question about The Social Credit League you’d have drawn a blank stare. 2017 is different in this respect – the Green Party does have a presence in British Columbia, in the nation and indeed in the world. It is the same as 1952 in that the Greens have never been close to gaining power.

There’s a second consideration, however, that arises out of the previous one. The big issue that concerns the public today – and the Green Party is the result of that concern – is the environment. This issue has taken hold around the world and no longer can the Greens be easily dismissed . The Greens’ problem is that people still see them as a one-trick pony, no matter how hard they plead otherwise. Will the public concern about the antediluvian attitudes of the others about the environment trump these concerns? Might people just say, “What the hell? They couldn’t possibly be worse than what we have and at least they’ll care about environmental matters.”

Greens have a shot in more than one riding

In 1952 there was only one constituency that Social Credit could see as a possibility, Mr. Bennett’s home in Kelowna. In BC today the prospect for the Greens is better in that Dr. Andrew Weaver, their leader, has a seat and has had a term in the legislature as a Green to get experience and strut his stuff.

There are other constituencies, very much including the one I live in, which could easily elect a Green – in fact I find it difficult to think of who else could win in the Howe Sound area. The Liberal MLA has been an appalling failure, having paid no attention to the deep concerns about the potential LNG plant in Squamish. The NDP, who might have a chance under normal circumstances, is a victim of Mr. Horgan’s commitment to LNG and are scarcely seen as friends.

The Greens ran a very good campaign in the last federal election but were victimized by strategic voting by a public that wanted to be rid of John Weston more than they cared about who they elected. That will not be the case in 2017.

LNG helps Greens

Artist's rendering of proposed floating LNG terminal in Saaninch Inlet - Malahat LNG
Artist’s rendering of proposed floating LNG terminal in Saaninch Inlet – Malahat LNG

Are there other constituencies similar to mine? I suspect the Cowichan area would be fruitful given the government’s support of an LNG plant at Bamberton in Saanich Inlet. There may be others. It’s probably true to say that most ridings have a fairly prominent environmentalist in their midst so that whatever candidate the Greens choose will be reasonably well known, a matter of great importance.

What’s unknown is the leadership ability of Dr. Andrew Weaver.

Does Weaver have the right stuff?

I don’t know Dr. Weaver but what I have heard is all good – except that he supported the Liberals’ horrendous private river power program back in the 2009 election. He is not well known in the province, is not seen as a particularly charismatic individual but is very well-informed, capable, and sincere. But can those qualities be translated into a winning leader for a party that until now has been a “no-hoper”.

It’s here I make one of my famous way-out suggestions.  It won’t be followed, so there’s no possible way we’ll know whether or not I might be right. Those are the very best kind of suggestions because if either the Liberals or the NDP win in 2017, I’ll be able to say, “If only those idiots had accepted my suggestion!”

May could pull it off

Elizabeth May with the Media (T.J. Watt/Green Party of Canada/Flickr)
Elizabeth May with the Media (T.J. Watt/Green Party of Canada/Flickr)

Here is my proposal: If Elizabeth May was the leader of the BC Green party, I think it would be in there with a chance not just for opposition but who knows, a repeat of 1952?

This isn’t a knock on Dr. Weaver. He has a done an excellent job. Elizabeth May, however, is a one-off, having had considerable electoral experience becoming extremely popular right across the country. She won an enormous victory in her own riding against the Trudeau sweep and is, if my riding is any example, very popular with the grass roots. She has that mysterious charisma as all who have met and heard her will attest. It also helps that she is extremely well-informed on all major issues.

As I understand it, the Green Party’s federal and provincial wings are separate so if Ms. May were to lead the BC wing, it would require 100% cooperation from Dr. Weaver.

Having a been a politician I know that Dr. Weaver is not likely to be thrilled at the idea of standing aside for Elizabeth May or anybody else. He doesn’t have enemies in the party that I know of and no one wants to see him turfed out. Weaver’s consideration is that if May can make substantial inroads into the Canadian political situation by a strong performance in BC, the Greens as a whole suddenly gain legitimacy. I don’t believe that the Green Party can do well nationally until the voting system changes to proportional representation and God only knows when or if that will ever happen – UNLESS,  it demonstrates that it could win in a Canadian province. That would have to be the reason that Dr. Weaver would consider any sacrifice.

Unlikely story

Being a reasonable man at heart, I don’t think that Dr. Weaver is going to step aside, nor do I think that Ms. May wants to be the leader of the BC party. That doesn’t mean that Dr. Weaver should not step aside nor that Ms. May should not come to BC – they would have to put the Party first – just that I don’t think it’s going to happen.

That being so, I don’t think the Greens can capitalize sufficiently on the horror story that exists in Victoria. My opinion is very different if Elizabeth May is leader because what voters are looking for more than just getting rid of the incompetent Clark government is leadership, something pitifully lacking in Christy Clark and John Horgan and a quality they’ve had every opportunity to see in Elizabeth May.

I leave my prediction like this – with Dr. Weaver as the leader, fine man that he is, the Green Party has two chances: slim and none. With Elizabeth May as leader, they’re in with a helluva good chance.

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Politicians shouldn’t be cowed into keeping mum on Saanich LNG project, says eminent lawyer

Energy and Resources, LNG, Oil&Gas, Politics, Western Canada
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Artist's rendering of proposed floating LNG terminal in Saaninch Inlet - Malahat LNG
Artist’s rendering of proposed floating LNG terminal in Saaninch Inlet – Malahat LNG

A battle is brewing in Saanich Inlet over a proposed floating LNG terminal – long before the proponent, Steelhead LNG, has even filed its formal application. In recent weeks, an increasingly bizarre controversy has erupted over whether or not elected Cowichan Valley Regional District (CVRD) directors have the right to express their opinion on the project at this early stage.

The controversy was boiled over last month after the CVRD unanimously passed a motion put forth by district director Lori Iannidinardo to oppose the project, citing concerns surrounding air quality and shipping lanes near the region’s population (see video of motion and vote).

Keep your opinions yo yourselves, directors warned

The vote was met with warnings from Ross Blackwell, General Manager of the CVRD Planning and Development Department, as documented by the local blog Cowichan Conversations. Mr. Blackwell appears to have drawn his position from an internal legal opinion issued by CVRD Legal Counsel Peter Johnson. On this basis, Blackwell cautioned elected directors not take a public position on the project before reviewing a formal application by the proponent – or they could face legal challenges down the road.

The district staff cite several court rulings – including Save Richmond Farmland Society v. Richmond (Township) and Old St. Boniface Residents Assn. Inc. v. Winnipeg (City) – in defence of their argument that directors must maintain an “open mind” towards the project until staff has formally reviewed the proponent’s application, forwarded its recommendations to elected officials, and those directors have had time to issue a carefully considered decision.

The stuff of local politics

CVRD Director Lori Iannidinardo
Lori Iannidinardo

To some directors and local pundits, though, this has come across as anti-democratic fear-mongering. As Cowichan Conversations publisher and former regional director Richard Hughes puts it: “Speaking out on issues is the stuff and substance of local politics. It is the responsibility of our elected officials to respond and take positions on issues pending, or in play.”

Into this political and legal morass has now waded eminent lawyer Jack Woodward (lead counsel on the famed Tsilhqot’in case). In response to a query from Director Iannidinardo, Woodward recently penned the following letter – which addresses a letter written by Peter Johnson, containing his legal opinion on the matter. Woodward’s response letter is republished here from Cowichan Conversations:

[quote]Lori,

The issue Mr. Johnson’s letter deals with is bias, namely, whether the Board has expressed such a degree of bias that an application by Steelhead could never be given a fair hearing. Mr. Johnson takes a timid approach, and at the end of his letter Mr. Johnson suggests you patch things up with some kind of ameliorating statement from the Board, perhaps along the lines of: “I know we said we oppose the project, but we would still give you a fair hearing if you make an application.” I don’t think Mr. Johnson’s advice is correct on this point. An ameliorating statement is not necessary, because fairness goes without saying.

A judge doesn’t start a trial by saying: “I will give you a fair trial.”

But more importantly, I don’t think Mr. Johnson’s letter adequately presents another, very important part of the law, namely, that politicians like yourself are protected by the courts in having the freedom to make political decisions and represent the people who elected them.

In both the Old St. Boniface case and the Save Richmond Farmland case, the very cases referred to by Mr. Johnson, the council’s zoning decision was upheld by the courts despite earlier statements that were said to indicate bias.

Those cases both stand for the proposition that you are entitled to your opinions, and you are entitled to express those opinions. It is surprising to see those two cases referred to in a letter which is basically telling you the opposite.

According to the law, the rule against bias is partially relaxed for politicians like yourself who are entitled, even encouraged, to express their views robustly in the public forum. Consider these words of the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in the Old St. Boniface case (the same decision that Mr. Johnson referred to):

“I must assume that the Legislature was aware that in this capacity the members of Council will have fought an election in which the matter upon which they are called upon to decide may have been debated and on which the would-be councillors may have taken a stand some pro and some con.

Indeed, the election of a particular councillor may have depended on the position taken…In the course of this process, a councillor can and often does take a stand either for or against the development…Accordingly, it could not have been intended by the Legislature that this rule [bias] applies to members of Council with the same force as in the case of other tribunals whose character and functions more closely resemble those of a court.”

and further:

“some degree of pre-judgment is inherent in the role of a councillor.”

Lori, this is a free and democratic country. You have been elected to serve the people. You are entitled to express your views. The resolution you passed is an expression of your views as an elected politician. Our country fought wars to protect your right to express such views. You can’t be muzzled. Be fearless.

If Steelhead makes an application to the Board you must review the application on its own merits and express no bias against Steelhead.

Everyone has to be treated fairly, even Steelhead. But no application has been made, and you don’t know for sure if an application will ever be made.

You have done Steelhead a favour by telling them where you stand on LNG. If they make an application, you have to consider it fairly, on the merits, once you have read it and considered what they have to say. Until then you don’t have to worry.

I hope this helps. Don’t hesitate to contact me with any further questions.

Regards,

Jack Woodward, QC[/quote]

Issue heating up

Since the back-and-forth over the CVRD vote, several directors have shown signs of softening on their opposition to the project, while others are doubling down. And, again, considering Steelhead LNG has yet to file its application, we’ve seen nothing yet. Expect Saanich Inlet to join Howe Sound and Lelu Island on a growing list of heated regional battles over the province’s LNG vision.

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