provincial | Political Insider

Frank Klees Says Good Bye! #onpoli #canpoli #bcpoli #klees

Frank Klees: Premier Wynne: Do the right thing and give Ontario a Christmas Present; Give them the gift of an election!

One of the neat things about having lived in most major cities in Canada is that you get to meet lots of interesting people.

When you follow politics as close as I do, you also meet lots of politicians both good and bad.

Frank Klees is a good one!

I first met Frank Klees when he became an MPP in 1995 and I was a fundraiser for the party with the likes of Jim Ginou,Gord Walker and John Craig Eaton.

I met him after a presentation he did for a small group of us in the Albany Club. In fact I slipped him my card and told him I would be glad to help him if he ever needed it.

For those of you that don’t know, those were the days of the Common Sense Revolution.

I watched Klees move up thought the ranks through cabinet and take a couple of runs at the leadership. ( helped him from all the way out here in BC!)

He is the consummate team player and one of the best politicians I have had the pleasure of calling my friend.

Ontario will miss Frank more than they realize. He is a tireless MPP who goes to the wall for constituents and holds the current government’s feet to the fire.

Frank ,Thank you for your years of service. I have appreciated your work and all that it has taught me.

You have been a mentor form afar.

Prime Minister Harper would be on the right track to reach out to Frank and ask him to put his retirement off a bit.

He would be a great MP.

Ontario By Elections-Good measuring sticks for all Parties! #bcpoli #onpoli #canpoli

The upcoming by elections in Ontario could be used as a fairly important measuring stick as far as a potential full-on spring election in that province goes.

There is a lot at stake for all parties.

For the Tim Hudak lead Progressive Conservatives these votes will tell the tale of the shape they are in heading into the full on election. Are Hudak’s troubles behind him? We’ll soon know.

For the Andrea Horwath lead NDP these votes provide a chance to be taken seriously. A hammering at the polls here and they are in trouble.

There is a lot of discussions when by elections are called and whether they are important to the government of the day.

With the Forum poll released today maybe the Liberals internal polling is even worse and maybe these elections are more important than we are lead to believe.

Why else would the Liberals trot out Justin Trudeau to campaign at this early stage if they weren’t?

For the Kathleen Wynne lead Ontario Liberals these byelections are all about survival. Should they get their heads handed to them in February it could be a bellwether to defeat down the road.

It won’t bode well for Trudeau either, if he can’t turn the tide!

NDP Parties Canada Wide: 2013 is Not a Good Year! #bcpoli #bcndp #bcleg #onpoli #canpoli

No Way Am I Giving Up The Best Job I Ever Had!

No wonder the Andrea Horwath Ontario NDP government is propping up one of the most corrupt governments in Ontario’s history.

It’s not because of what they can pry out of the government to keep them afloat ( gas plants be damned eh!).

It is because 2013 is a bad year to be a dipper!

They got hammered in the recent BC election, got hammered last night in Nova Scotia (no matter how much of a spin Lori Turnbull tries to put on it) and are getting killed in the polls that once gave them a ray of hope.

Should Andrea do the right thing and pull the pin on this scandalous Liberal government rest assured the people of Ontario will either lose their minds and vote in a majority Liberal government or do the sane thing and vote in a renewed Ontario PC team. The NDP will once again be on the outside looking in.

The NDP desperately needs a decent platform to take the voters minds off the failure of that parties government during the Bob Rae years.( the voters will remember, fair or not,the mess the NDP made when Rae was premier just as the voters remembered the problems of Dix’s past).

You get imagine the negative ads in the can about the NDP and Rae days etc.

Nope, If Andrea pulls the pin on the minority government in Ontario she will be another statistic in a bad year for the NDP.

Despite all the blustering and saber-rattling I would expect that there will be no Ontario election until at least the spring, that is until 2013 gets in the NDP’s rear view mirror.

Will I be right?

Christy Clark: In My Heart I Want A Bridge #bcpoli #canpoli

What’s in this Premier’s heart this week?

Hot on the heels of my post last week, who is the worst premier, BC Premier Christy Clark returns to center stage with her speech saying that construction will begin in 2017 with a new bridge to replace the George Massey Tunnel.

So where will the money come from, who will pay, why do we need it and what’s in it for Clark.

When asked the cost the premier had no idea nor did she allude to how we were going to pay for it. She simply said that it will be along the same lines as the Port Mann Bridge.

No doubt there will be tolls because as we all know by now , in her heart BC Premier Clark runs a toll booth with the tolling of the Port Mann and the Golden Ears.

What else is in it for Clark? The next election is in 2017 and if shovels hit ground Clark will be able to snag votes from those commuters who will thank her in kind by reelecting or electing new BC liberal MLAs.

Those for the project go on the record and say that the bridge will be built for a couple of reasons firstly that the existing tunnel only has a life span of about 10 years and might cause a little mayhem in the event of an earthquake.

Secondly they say that replacing the tunnel with a bridge will allow for more ships to pass by.

Most people gloss right over that with a typical for sure it will.

What you should be asking and what is key to what’s in it for Clark is what will be on those ships that the new bridge will allow to pass.

If you said oil and gas you would know really what’s in it for Clark and why she will stop at nothing to get it.

Kinda like building a pipeline with the end piece first, isn’t it?

She wouldn’t do that would she?

Dix Is Done ! #bcpoli #canpoli

No Shocker here. Adrian Dix has stepped down as leader of the BCNDP and will hang on until a successor is chosen.

This is the right thing to do on two fronts.

Stepping down allows the party a shot at renewal and hanging on until a successor is chosen prevents a quack from taking over as interim leader and making things worse.

This is a classy move by Dix and he is to be congratulated.

We wonder if Moe Sihota gets the message and will get out-of-the-way?

What would you do if you were Moe?

It’s September and Silly Season Is Here! #bcpoli #canpoli

It’s Fall and all is calm but not for long. Silly season is here!

The kids are back at school and the columnists are back at work. So are the bloggers.

News and opinion goes to the forefront as the summer bids us adieu!

Political Insider will be there to follow all the breaking stories and provide opinion as to what is BS and what is not.

We will stay on top of Obama’s ( The US Mr.Dithers) and the war on Syria.

We will cover Pauline Marois as she tries to drive Prime Minister Harper and the Conservative government nuts(banquing anyone?).

Political insider will provide analysis from the BC Conservative AGM and what it means to BC.

We will discuss the fall sitting of the BC Legislature ( if there is one)

We will report from on the implosion of the Ontario Liberal Party.

You want analysis on the Federal Throne speech and what it means to the country? You will find it here.

The new riding boundaries? Look no further than Political Insider as we go inside the campaigns.

The impact of Adrian Dix flying the BCNDP coop and the search for a new leader; it will be here too! ( Christy Clark will have the house all to herself I can hardly wait; for in her heart she will be a ? stay tuned)

Silly season is here.

So kick off your shoes, roll up a joint ( we’ll cover that too) and chill. ( Imagine the boy who would be PM might not be allowed into the US now that he has admitted blunting!)

Political Insider will have all this and more as we speed our way to Christmas and the New Year.

Thanks for reading and have a great fall!

Anti-Pipeline Gang Should Rethink Their Priorities ! #bcpoli #canpoli #pipline

In the last month we have had at least four terrible accidents involving either rail or trucks that transport oil in this country.

We have has rail oil spills in Saskatchewan and in Quebec.

We have had a jet fuel spill in the Slocan Valley and most recently a life ending collision in Lloydminster Saskatchewan that resulted in a number of deaths.

You would expect that by now the environmentalists and the anti-pipeline gang would be either chaining themselves to railroad tracks or lying across roads in an effort to stop this .

But no, they are lining up against Enbridge trying to kill the pipeline.

Seems to me their priorities are a little out of whack, don’t you think?

Ontario Voters Getting Ready to Run Wynne and Company Out of Town? #ontpoli #canpoli

Time to clean up this once proud province I used to call home!

After the dust settled in the BC By-election, out comes a poll showing the Ontario Progressive Conservatives creeping up on the scandal prone Liberals in their soon to be held by-elections.

It looks like voters have had enough and they are ready to send a message to Kathleen Wynne and company and so they should.

I know you can make a case that these are McGuinty scandals but most of the people involved are those same people that sit on the bench today with Kathleen and her cabinet.

Heck even McGuinty himself, while being confused over his own email rules,went on record and said they failed as a government.

If they failed as their former leader claims they should be shown the door.

The voters in Ontario have a chance to start that process in August.

Let’s hope they do!

BC Liberals Shutdown negotiations with Teachers! #bcpoli #bctf #canpoli

Pretty soon BCTFer Susan Lambert will wish this man was Education Minister!

Rich Coleman’s water boy Peter Fassbender put a hold on the bargaining process with teachers today in hopes of imposing I mean negotiating Christy Clark’s nauseating 10 year deal with the teachers.

The proposed deal is nauseating because a) it will probably never happen b) if it ever did it would be broken or torn up long before the 10 years would be up.

In fact if they somehow imposed ( reached) a deal before the next election,it would no doubt become an election issue to cover up the eventual failure of Clark’s LNG pipe dream.

By the time all the hysteria over the 10 year deal dies down, Susan Lambert will no doubt wish she was still dealing with George Abbott rather than Premier Coleman ( should Clark somehow blow the by election) and flunky Fassbender.

Stay tuned I think this issue will get a whole lot more interesting between now and September when the kids are scheduled to return to school.

Fassbender:Madam Lambert You will take the 10 year deal or else!

Adrian Dix Blames Election Loss on those who moved on because they lost their jobs! #bcpoli #canpoli #bcndp

As crazy as it sounds,today,at the weekend conference of blame the BCNDP is holding to determine what went wrong during the May election,Adrian Dix blamed a large part of the loss on those folks who are blue collar workers and NDP supporters who lost their jobs and moved on .

This is a totally illogical statement coming from the man who, without warning, changed his position on the Kinder Morgan project which surely cost them the election. In fact it still has not occurred to Adrian that by opposing this project it would result in the loss of more of those blue collar jobs he has accused the BC Liberals of scaring off.

In fact if the BCNDP wants some hindsight into why they lost they should simply read Gary Mason’s excellent column in the Globe. It details for the most part why the Liberals won and how they came back from the dead.

From my work in the field during the election,Mason only left out one part of the NDP defeat and it was it important and it was this : After the Kinder Morgan fiasco which led to Dix’s lousy performance at the debate, my field operatives started reporting to me that Dix’s people has told them that Dix was such a wimpster they were staying home and were not prepared to vote for him.

The NDP,instead of putting the election on cruise control,should have been hammering the Liberals on their record and their litany of scandals.

As for the debate, BC Conservative leader John Cummin’s first line had a prophetic vision attached to it, just not in the way we thought. If you recall he said: You are tuned in tonight because you know Christy Clark and the BC Liberals are going to lose the election and you want to see what kind of premier Adrian Dix will make.

The people saw alright and what resulted was a BC Liberal majority!