Friday, May 05, 2017

BC Election Going Down....Your Best Friday Night Read.

SomePunditsHave(ALot)MoreToSay
ThanOthersVille


Rather than bothering to read the Dean argue with himself, sans actual data, as he heads to the horse race betting window to buy a cheap quinella ticket fronted by a reduced Clarklandian majority, I suggest you instead go and read a pundit who actually has something to say about something that actually matters.

That would be Merv Adey:

...An ABC (Anybody But Clark) vote is not worth the cogitation required because this election is down to the energy of volunteers now and the “Get Out the Vote” machinery…. To my mind, the workers for all three campaign are sufficiently energized to put out their best effort.

So I’m asking the undecided to think about it… When it comes to the ethical and legal failures I’ve spent the last two years blogging about, no informed voter can possibly accept the BCLiberal record. But the time for me to recount it all and complain of mainstream media laziness in some quarters (not all) ?? That’s over.

The fact the BCLiberals are close to being returned is evidence of a real right-wing and centre right natural leaning of the province.

But consider the NDP…On day one of a Horgan mandate, you get the end of donor dollars unduly influencing government policy to the detriment of 98% of us… You get the end of the Wild West not only of political donations, but also defunding of public education and the Wild West of environmental pillage with shockingly reduced returns to the public treasury..

As soon as big money, corporate AND union donation end, we get a start to a government in which need, and the greatest benefit to the public as a whole dictates public decision making. We get a start to having wide concerns about public accountability listened to and not dismissed.

There… that’s done. I’m not done. Whatever the result next week, I will blog as needed when something I feel is wrong with government. I will agree on policy more often if Horgan wins, so I may get a bit quiet in such as case… But I promise integrity and accountability will remain my top concerns….

Think. Vote. Get others to the polls if you can.



If this election campaign has shown us one thing it is that the words of principled amateur pundits are worth a gazillion times those of the local pros.

Go figure.


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And then, of course, there is Ron Obvious (who clearly did not receive an interview from Patrick Kinsella and Mark Jiles' number one horse) taking a huge bit out of Chichester Cathedral...In Kamloops!...Sheesh.

Please note: I am not talking about the non-stenographic local proMedia reporters here....Those folks have the most worth of all, particularly when they are unleashed by editors who have been shamed into doing so when outsiders (i.e. a guy named Levin) get the ball rolling...OK?


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15 comments:

Scotty on Denman said...

Okay!

Anonymous said...

would i lie to you?
We all say things to get elected?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uhpu2N4rQZM

Anonymous said...

Vancouver Sun
Editorial: Good managers of economy, Liberals deserve to be re-elected

How did they somehow forget to mention the BILLIONS in Enron accounting?

Anonymous said...

http://ipolitics.ca/2017/04/07/postmedia-doing-power-dive-into-bankruptcy-conrad-black/

Anonymous said...

Good managers of the economy...sheer utter nonsense!
100 billion in debt and rising, countless scandals involving taxpayer dollars, these people make Bernie Madoff look honest.
4 more years of Clark and the Liebrals and we'll be broke as a province. Where has all the money gone?

e. a. f. said...

Not only, where has all the money gone> but we didn't any services out of all that money being spent. it didn't do on hospitals, doctors, nurses, paramedics. It didn't go on affordable housing for working families and/or seniors. It didn't get spent on the 8 kids who died in care. It didn't go to feeding the one in 5 kids in this province living below the poverty line. It didn't go to school programs to feed hungry kids. the money went on building transmission lines for one company $855M. it went to building a road for a mining company, $25m; it went on IPPs at B.C. Hydro where they buy electricity from their "friends" at 10 cents and sell it at 3 cents. yes, well come to the good business practises of the b.c. lieberals, who ran up a debt of over $150 BILLION, with not much to show for it. welcome to Detroit North, especially if the interest rates go up 2%. we won't be able to afford to live here, the homes all sold off to foreign investors. Perhaps we will see the mass migration of North Americans to South America.

Anonymous said...

Vancouver Sun
Editorial: Good managers of economy, Liberals deserve to be re-elected

Documents* show the BC Liberal's $3 billion Massey Bridge boondoggle will cost $12 billion.

* https://www.dropbox.com/s/2vqq7554vifx0i0/Massey%20Bridge%20%2412%20billion.pdf?dl=0

Anonymous said...

Vancouver Sun
Editorial: Good managers of economy, Liberals deserve to be re-elected

Gordon Campbell creates a structural deficit...

"After Gordon Campbell became Premier, British Columbia began to favour the use of contracts as a way of conducting government business. Because these have provisions that relate to performance by contractors, payment commitments that follow are not reported as debt in government accounting. Instead, the obligations are hidden in annual financial statement footnotes and ignored in other reports.

Crown corporations follow the same approach."

"Why the use of contracts instead of conventional financing? Bonds must be disclosed plainly as debt in the province’s annual report whereas contracts get buried in Auditor’s notes to the financial statements. This has political advantages for government leaders who wish to pretend they are not 'leaving the kids with debt.'"

https://in-sights.ca/2017/05/05/to-count-or-not-to-count/

RossK said...

Anons-Above--

Thanks for the fisking of the fine folks at the VSun.

Put another way, we are Ireland, leveraged to the hilt, circa 2008.


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Hugh said...

Sun Editorial:

"The B.C. Liberals have pledged to maintain this momentum with a competitive tax regime and by cutting red tape (one regulation must be eliminated for every new one put in place)."

Some regulations are good things, like food safety, banking etc.

Hugh said...

They say we 'need' GDP growth, as in: even more traffic congestion, more ugly condo towers etc. As if congestion isn't bad enough already.

We 'need' to have BC Hydro spend $9 billion and flood 83 km of the Peace River for non-existent power demand. Gotta grow the GDP. What a con job.

Anonymous said...

Heed on BC video

http://thebreaker.news/opinion/heed-speaks-part2/

e. a. f. said...

we ought not to be too harsh with the Post Media gang. from their perspective the b.c. lieberals are good for the economy, their economy when you factor in all the millions of dollars the provincial government spent at Post Media on their ads telling us tax paying citizens a lot of lies. yes the b.c. lieberals have been very good for the Vancouver sun and province's economies. with out all that advertising Christy clark bought from them, they could have gone out of business.

RossK said...

Excellent points Hugh, thanks.

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eaf--

You can almost hear the VSun editorial board members' stage whispers pleading with the good Ms. Clark to spike that blue ribbon e-graft pay-to-play panel with all the right types of cronies....errrr...experts.


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Anonymous said...

http://www.usw.ca/news/media-centre/articles/2017/bc-liberals-bad-for-workers-bc