provincial | Political Insider

Pigs at the Trough! #bcpoli #canpoli

In a continuation of the theme from yesterday’s blog post ( and every newspaper I have seen) people are very upset at the pay hikes given out by the Christy Clark government before they were even sworn in.

Phone lines were jammed on the talk shows this morning with people calling in to show their disgust. Kind of reminded me of those same calls that came in over the HST. You recall that episode was not to pretty for the BC Liberals.

People said after the election that Clark was a good campaigner but a lousy governor and she would revert to the later quickly. I don’t think anybody realized how quickly it would start.

You would have thought that in the name of screwing the people over they would have at least waited until after that election was done.

Except that Clark and her team are extremely smug and arrogant and could care less about what the people think.

Patronage and payback are at the top of her list. ( More on that in a later post)

This event in itself shows that she really doesn’t get it.

The voters in Westside-Kelowna ought to do her and her government a favor a teach her a harsh lesson now.

They should show their angst for both losing the MLA they voted for a few weeks back and for this terrible act of managing the taxpayers money.

They should take advantage of this golden opportunity and vote against her.

A loss here will no doubt cause the party to give her the boot and just maybe they will get their act together and get a good leader that believes in honesty and transparency.

But then this is BC and these are the BC Liberals so who knows what they would do.

The Christy Clark Team: Let the Spending Begin! #bcpoli #canpoli

New BC Liberal Cabinet, same old Sneaky BS!

Even before they were sworn in, the new Christy Clark Government signed an order in cabinet giving raises to some of their highest ranking insider bureaucrats!

This sneaky act comes at at time when not only did they promise transparency but as Clark was publicly telling then to watch spending.

She obviously speaks out of both sides of her mouth.

I can only imagine the reaction of the teachers when they are told to shut up , sign the 10 year contract and that there is no money for salary increases or the seniors who have to cough up the new user fee for the wheelchairs to pay for these raises.

Where on earth is the BCNDP while all this is going on? Are they not the opposition?

Given their disastrous results in the election ( they were supposed to win the polls said), you would think they would be all over this.

Unless of course they are busy licking their wounds!

Clark Cabinet: Stilwell and Sullivan Get Stiffed ! #bcpoli #bccabinet #canpoli

With a chance to start fresh and let bygones be bygones Premier Christy Clark has chosen to keep the hurt happening and stiff Dr. Moira Stillwell and Sam Sullivan out of cabinet positions in her new cabinet unveiled today.

Sullivan was a former mayor of Vancouver who has hands on experience with Government management and would have been a great fit with the new cabinet.

The handling of Dr.Stilwell leaves more to be desired in that if you recall she was a former BC Liberal leadership aspirant who was passed over in Clark’s first cabinet. She most recently served as a Minister of Social Development.

With her background Dr.Stilwell should have be named Minister of Health.

But no; In Clark’s world a former Environment Minister ( Terry Lake) is more qualified for that portfolio?

Could it be Clark is getting even for the good doctor speaking out over the premier’s transgression with the red light during the election?

This coming from a premier who spoke of respect in one of her opening lines in her speech?

There is about as much chance of Dr. Stilwell getting respect in BC Liberal circles as is their budget actually balancing.

Not going to happen.

If you are interested here is the list from today’s announcement:

Deputy Minister, Minister of Natural Gas Development and minister responsible for housing: Rich Coleman

Minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation: John Rustad

Minister of Advanced Education: Amrik Virk

Minister of Agriculture: Pat Pimm

Minister of Children and Family Development: Stephanie Cadieux

Minister of Community, Sport and Cultural Development: Coralee Oakes

Minister of Education: Peter Fassbender

Minister of Energy and Mines and minister responsible for core review: Bill Bennett

Minister of Environment: Mary Polak

Minister of Finance and Government House Leader: Mike de Jong

Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations: Steve Thomson

Minister of Health: Terry Lake

Minister of International Trade, minister responsible for Asia Pacific Strategy and Multiculturalism: Teresa Wat

Minister of Jobs, Tourism and Skills Training and minister responsible for labour: Shirley Bond

Minister of State for Tourism and Small Business: Naomi Yamamoto

Minister of Justice and Attorney General: Suzanne Anton

Minister of Technology, Innovation and Citizens’ Services: Andrew Wilkinson

Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure and deputy house leader: Todd Stone

Minister of Social Development and Social Innovation: Don McRae.

Coming up: Cabinet Day! #bcpoli #canpoli #bccabinet #christyClark #adriandix

Given His performance in the Recent election ,Clark should give him a cabinet post!

This is no ordinary cabinet day, it is being done with a twist.

Departing from usual tradition,The BC Liberal government is announcing their cabinet in Vancouver as opposed to stately Victoria.

Why? Is it because Clark thinks Victoria culture is so sick she wants to stay as afar away from that as possible or is it more likely she is looking for the grandiose photo-op to give her by-election a kick-start?

So what about the cabinet? Will it be large or small?

Given the BC Liberals propensity to spend money coupled with so many people wanting to get in , I would hedge my bets on large.

Who will get in?

Likely Coleman, Mike de Jong, Shirley Bond, Mary Polak and the usual suspects.

If Coleman has any say at all Peter Fassbender will be there to carry his water bucket.

What about Marvin Hunt,Amrik Virk,Suzanne Anton and a whole host of the new one term wonders elected this past May?

What about long time MLA’s Moira Stillwell ( Not to be confused with the other newly elected Stillwell) and Gordon Hogg. Where will they wind up?

What about Adrian Dix? Given his performance in that May election Clark should find a spot for him, after all he handed her the election on a silver platter.

Clark to Call By-Election in Westside-Kelowna!

As discussed earlier this week the by-election that the Premier hopes will catapult her into the house for a spring session will be called this afternoon.

It will be held in the riding of Westside-Kelowna.

As usual Alex G Tsakumis was bang on with his piece wherein he said it would be in this riding.

Well done Alex!

What will the BC Conservatives do?

Stay tuned….

The Senate: Rumour Du Jour #bcpoli #canpoli #senate

Once the current senate turmoil in Ottawa involving Senators Duffy and Wallin blows over, a strong rumor out of Surrey suggests former BC Liberal Finance Minister Kevin Falcon will be appointed to the Senate.

Should this happen it will quash the other rumor, namely that Falcon is going to run in the new riding of Cloverdale-Langley ( or whatever it is to be called) against already declared candidate former MP Gurmant Grewal.

We shall see!

BC Politics: The Week Ahead! #bcpoli #canpoli

Will somebody please step aside so I can call a by-election.

The first week of June is shaping up to be an interesting week in BC politics what with the official election results being finalized on June 5.

Premier Christy Clark has some interesting choices to make given she has said that she will name a cabinet later this week ( June 7) and decide what riding she wants to run in to attempt to get entry in the house. Astute political junkies will recall Clark lost her seat in the recent provincial election this past May 14th.

The most likely day for her to call the by-election would be Thursday June 6. Given Clark’s penchant for photo ops that day also happens to coincide with the 69th anniversary of DDay and would make a wonderful opportunity for her to call the election and claim in her heart she is a DDay vet.

She has to win this and of course she will. They will choose the easiest possible seat to run her in despite all the bravado from the NDP about running a candidate against them. (Actually they don’t all say that just some of them).

It is rumoured to be Fort Langley Aldergrove where current MLA Rich Coleman is purporting to be offering to step down. If true, Coleman will still have Peter Fassbender on the inside to watch over things while he gets ready to run for the leadership when Clark is dumped.

What about the BC Conservatives? That decision has not been made yet and will probably be made at an upcoming board meeting later this week. My take, shockingly, is that we should respect the mandate that the premier and her party have received from the people. That means I don’t think we should run a candidate. The party has a wonderful chance to hold this government accountable over the next few years. The NDP won’t,they will be to busy looking for ways to dump Dix and rebuild their own party.

The Premier has demonstrated over the past 2 years that while she is a good campaigner she is a terrible governor. ( Her pipeline announcement this week is an example of that,declaring opposition to the project even though all the tests haven’t been done)

You can bet at some point down the road the Premier and her team will come on board with the pipeline. It will happen about the same time as they come to the realization their balanced budget ( 2013 edition) is not really balanced and they need the revenue to save face. ( How do you spell HST anybody?)

For Clark, The bigger minefield lies with the choosing of her new cabinet. Usually the cabinet that is chosen gives you an idea of which direction the government is going.

In this case I would think that even though Clark has won a majority, the party will keep her on a short leash.( Remember she still has no seat and is a left leaning liberal in a caucus full of right leaning conservatives).

Think also to various gaffes Clark has made over the past few months. She ran a red light that was disclosed during the election. Caucus member and MLA Moira Stilwell spoke up against this. Stillwell is one of the brightest MLAs the party has. What will become of her?

Gordon Hogg took on Rich Coleman over the mess during the botched casino affair. What will happen to Him?

How many of the new MLA’s will be content to thank their lucky stars Adrian Dix and crew screwed up so badly and they got elected.

What if Clark decides to follow her Liberal ways and take the government even more left?( Remember they now agree with the NDP on the pipeline) What will become of the Conservative hopefuls in that BC Liberal Caucus?

Those who are not thrilled can always take out membership in the 8:01 club can’t they?

The week ahead in BC Politics is shaping up to be very interesting and the decisions made will shape the province for the next 4.5 years. ( Assuming the next election is in the fall to allow for proper budget debate)

Stay tuned, I will be here to dissect the different events as they unfold and thank you for reading!

Ian Tootill is actually a Nice Guy! #bcpoli #webelieveinbc

The big question people keeping asking me since it happened is this ” Was it really necessary to fire Ian Tootill for the comments in the caption above?”

In reflection and hindsight no it wasn’t and I goofed.

Read that again please: I goofed.

The media is relentless and I should have handled them better. I learned and I will next time.

What I should have said to all concerned was this: Ian was merely asking a question and the intent of that question was blown out of proportion. If you don’t like what he said ( I am not a fan of invoking the H word) then don’t vote for him.

Instead in the heat of the moment I canned him. Wrong decision. I let him down and the party.

He went through this whole period with class supporting the party all the way. He is a nice guy.

The next question to be asked of me was/is yes but you were pretty quick to fire the candidate who had the personal problem you know the one alleged to be drinking and driving.

Actually I was right to do that but not necessarily for the reason you think.

He was terminated not just for those allegations but because he never bothered to check in and tell me there was a problem. In fact,to this day I have never heard from him. He just disappeared.

So,I ask how can you tell the world that you are going to be a responsible government if one of your own candidates won’t even pick up the phone and tell you he screwed up? You can’t and he was done.

Next you fired Mischa Popoff didn’t you? Yes and he took no bull from that. He shouldn’t have either because I goofed there too!

The comments that he made, although I disagreed with what he said, were already fit to print in a Kelowna Daily newspaper. If they were good enough for that family newspaper to run than they should have been good enough for me.

Okay but you fired one more didn’t you, you know that guy that referred to the premier and the Madam Justice as a bitch.

I did and if that was all he said I could have dealt with it. But of course it wasn’t.

You see further down the list on the same Twitter account where those two things were said were some terribly nasty things that both invoked the “H’ word and made a mockery of the Picton case.

They were inexcusable and while I have no doubt not representative of the character of the person who said them, I could not stand behind them, nor could I allow the party too either.

So you were right on two and wrong on two, why bother with the explanation?

The answer would be two fold namely that Tootill and Popoff deserve an apology from the guy that led the campaign and fired them . This is my way of doing that.

Secondly and perhaps more importantly ( especially in Tootill’s case) their name needs to get cleaned up on the internet.

If my SEO works out than Ian Tootill is a nice guy will replace some of the crap about him getting fired.

He deserves as much!

The BC Liberals: One of the First Things they should do! #bcpoli #canpoli #@christyclark

Now that the numbers are settling in and the future looks fixed for the next 4.5 years with a BC Liberal majority (I say looks because this is BC and things can change in a heartbeat) what should the BC Liberals do?

They should run out and find a safe BC Liberal seat for their leader to run and try to regain entry into the legislature with right?

Not necessarily because there is no guarantee that she would win or that a new MLA in a safe seat would want to step down. (Do you really think Andrew Wilkinson or Gordon Hogg would want to fall on their sword for Clark?)

I think one of the first things they should do, now that the Green party of BC has won a seat, is to grant them official party status. It’s within the rules of the house to do that and would be the nice thing to do right?

Yes but they should do it but not because it’s nice or right, right. The BC Liberals should grant official party status because it would all but guarantee them election victory in 2017.

How?

If you believe as a lot of people do that the Green vote split caused the NDP to lose a number of seats they should have won, then granting them that status will allow them to get even stronger and split the vote in even more seats in the future.

It would allow Premier Clark to further distance herself from Gordon Campbell who refused the BCNDP Official party status after they were thrashed in the polls and reduced to 2 seats in 2001.( This staement assumes that Clark does not get 801’d by her own party even though she won an election)

Thirdly and just as important; is that this election was one the NDP should have won, not just because of the polls but because of all the scandals and mayhem caused by the Liberal party. It was BCNDP’s to lose and lose they did.

Furthermore, with the rise of the Green party, this election was probably the NDP’s best and last chance to win an election in this province.

Granting first party status to the Greens would make the turmoil that was seen in the NDP with the beheading of Carol James seem like a walk in the park.

That turmoil, if you believe the BCNDP is a provincial arm of their Federal party, would also extend itself into the next federal election in 2015.

That would benefit either of the forces in the BC Liberals, Conservative or Liberal.

Extending an olive branch to the Greens and granting them first party status would be a win win for a party who likes quick wins.

BC Election 2013: The Aftermath #bcpoli

Which BC Conservative would you throw under the bus? My answer my surprise you!

What a night!

The people have spoken loud and clear ( evidently not loud enough for the pollsters to hear) and unbelievably the BC Liberals are returned to power.

The shocking result of the night?

For me it was Jag Brar losing his seat. Never saw that coming. Politics aside he is as nice a guy as you will meet.

So what happened? Christy Clark and Mike McDonald ran a great campaign ( I give credit where its due)

Adrian Dix and the NDP spent far too much time keeping quiet and yes trying to prop up the BC Conservatives rather than concentrating on winning their campaign.

They played not to lose and as happens so often in sports when you play that way you usually do lose.

I would expect at some point soon he will leave and some of his handlers will get canned too. ( Marcella Munro might be free lancing )

They should have come out swinging and hammered the Liberals on their record. They didn’t and showed weak leadership.

I had heard later in the campaign that some of their supporters were so upset at Dix that they were going to stay home or vote Liberal to do him in.

Given the result and the low voter turnout maybe thats what happened.

What else happened? The Greens won a seat and that means Jane will leave ( she said she would ) and I would expect Andrew Weaver will become leader. He won his seat and by all accounts he is great so why shouldn’t he.

I haven’t done the math yet but by all quick accounts the green split in the vote cost the NDP seats. ( you might want to check the Conservative vote, I noticed we split with the NDP in a few areas costing them seats too!).

The Green win is more interesting in that if they can build on it, the NDP may have blown their only chance to win in the foreseeable future.

It’s not all roses for Clark as she lost her seat and must now look for somebody to step down to run in another expansive by-election.

Where? Already talk of Richmond or North Vancouver.

She likely deserves a chance to run again but her party is fickle and believe me the 801 club is no figment of any reporters imagination.

Chief Soap Box orator Stockwell Day will likely be the saddest of the BC Liberal crew today. Despite his blustery rhetoric during the election about vote splitting, I think he actually wants to lead the Tomorrow’s BC Liberals and last nights result ( barring a late appearance by team 801) might have ended that.

If it has I say good riddance. If you are that scared of a vote split you should move any ways.

What about the BC Conservatives?

Who knows but one thing for sure is that this result is more of a reflection of people wanting to drive the vote out than anything we did.

What stands out in my mind? Our line from the debate: yiu are thinking that premier Clark and The BC Liberals are going to lose the election and you tuned in tonight to see what kind of Premier Adrian Dix would make.

Kinda backfired eh! They didn’t like what they saw and it hit them that the Libs were going to lose.

So if you are looking for a BC Conservative to throw under the bus than look no further than here.

After all I ran the campaign.