Mary Polak: BC Liberal Goals are “Aspira-tional”

What do you mean Polak said our Goals are “Aspira-tional”? That was supposed to be kept secret!

I didn’t make that up. Those words came from the mouth of Transportation Minister Mary Polak when she was describing the targets set by her department and questioned by auditor general John Doyle.

This is the same Mary Polak that told us during the HST discussion that BC had the lowest provincial sales tax rate in Canada conveniently leaving out the fact that Alberta has zero.

“Aspira-tional goals she said will be kept on the books to what; fire up the staff who know they don’t have a hope of hitting them.

What about setting some realistic goals with a realistic budget that we can all review and evaluate?

Speaking of budgets,I wonder if balancing the budget is “Aspira-tional” to this BC Liberal Government?

One can only imagine the ” aspira-tional” smoke and mirrors that will come out of Polak’s colleague Finance Minister Mike de Jong when that document is released.

What next? Maybe having an election in May will be “Aspira-tional” and that date will be changed when the house reconvenes in the New Year.

With these people you never know.

BC Liberals: The Smoke and Mirrors Continue!

Smoke and Mirrors BC Liberal Style.

How do you hire somebody in the middle of a hiring freeze?

Simple do it the BC Liberal way.

Shift one employee somewhere elsewhere and tell the world you have a vacancy in that shifted position.

The BC Liberals did just that today with the hiring of Ben Chin into Sara the mouth piece’s old position.

Chin is the former aide to Dalton McGuinty. He worked there when McGuinty’s crew was known as the Fiberals. He should fit in well with the Clark team!

That also makes him a dyed in the wool Liberal, yet another piece in the Clark turn to the left.

Hiring Liberals and spending money that is not there.

How does that make you feel if you are a Conservative?

BC Liberals Dig Us Deeper In Debt!

Goofy: This Isn’t Fair!

Inept Premier BC Liberal Premier Christy Clark has been warning voters and taxpayers that today’s economic update was going to be full of bad news,

It was. The current year deficit has grown by $328 million.

According to current Finance Minister Mike De Jong is a delay in the closing of the sale of Little Mountain housing project. Dejong said he does not expect that to close until June.

DeJong then followed in Clark’s footsteps and said no matter, we will balance the budget next year as in February.

unbelievable.

Here are a few things glossed over by both Premier Clark and Finance Manager de Jong.

1) Gone is the $40 million or so revenue from the Telus sign deal at BC Place or whatever you want to call.

2) Whether you were for or against the privatization of the Liquor Distribution Branch,getting caught with their hand in the cookie jar cost the Liberals $700 million which the previous Finance Minister had used in last years budget to project a balanced budget this year.

3) The piece de resistance ( although expenditure wise it pales in comparison to the above numbers) the $15 million your proud government just spent telling you how great they are.

Lets be clear about this too: As you are reading this thinking they are wasting your money, it’s beyond that. They are into your credit cards ( we don’t have any money) so it’s a lot worse.

To give this some context for you.Yesterday Toronto Mayor Rob Ford lost his job for using his letterhead to raise $3,100 for needy children while the BC Liberals used their letterhead to not only blow another $15 million to raise votes for themselves, but also sink you are your family $328 million further in debt.

Where is justice when you need it?

The Rise of the Greens!

Close But No Green Cigar Liz!

The people have spoken and the Stephen Harper led Conservatives have won two out of three seats in today`s by-elections.

The big story out of the by-elections tonight is the rise of the green party who took 25% of the vote in Calgary and at least 35% of the Vote in Victoria.

Is this a trend or is this a mini protest vote against all of the parties.

I think this is a protest vote period!

In Calgary some are pissed at the Conservative Party of Canada but a lot walked from Justin and his team after some blazing gaffes in the past week.

The folks in Red are probably crying in the back rooms over what could have been.

The Razor thin NDP win in Victoria with a somewhat safe NDP seat going down until the final polls is a poke in the eye to Tommy Mulcair and dutch elm disease. ( Traditionally the Conservatives have never been much of a factor in this riding and in fact it used to be a Liberal seat that David Anderson occupied).

It probably took Jack Layton crying out from the grave to rescue this seat.

The message here is that all parties better their act together before 2015 especially the opposition.

In fact today Joyce Murray entered the Liberal leadership race with her plan of only running one opposition party candidate against the Conservatives in the next election.( She means run either a Green,Liberal or NDPer)

I can imagine the backroom fighting,

I can also imagine it never flying.

Just wait until the blame game starts tomorrow!

Ford Kicked Out Of Office; Maybe!

The Globe shows a picture of Ford Surrounded By Police-What Next?

A judge today has ruled that Toronto”s Mayor,Rob Ford have to vacate his seat leaving the city mayorless, maybe.

Maybe because their is a 14 day reprieve for Administration purposes.

Maybe because Rob Ford might get a stay of the order should he decide to appeal.

The judge took great pains to ensure that the judgement reflected that there was no corruption involved but rather ignorance of the law.

A big difference for sure!

Between this,the Grey Cup and today’s by-elections this will be an intersting day in the city known as the big smoke.

While the Kids Starve the BC Liberals Play Their Games!

The BC Liberal Past 24 Hrs.Started here.

A monster horror show of a day by anybody’s standards is just another day at the office for the BC Liberals.

To Wit : The Christy Clark team, as they were winding down their night yesterday were digesting the news that they were once again caught with their hand in the cookie jar regarding the Anti-Dix web-site. Likely as they were tucking themselves in, blackberries went off with the news that BC Liberal-South Abbotsford Abbotsford executive had resigned en masse over the forced nomination of candidate Daryl Plecas.

After tossing and turning all night I would imagine they awoke wondering what next.

What next would have been more stunning news from the land of BC Liberal booze where Gary Mason exposed the Rich Coleman collect a donation for a tax refund scheme.

Think that was the worst news of the day? Think again.

For Premier Christy Clark and her party who have spent her entire leadership career strumming the ole banjo and singing families first comes the news that BC owns a 14.3 per cent child poverty rate, the second worst in Canada.

The report says to cure child poverty the BC Liberal government must attack child poverty with the same gusto that they attack jobs.

Lets hope not. On November 2,2012 the job report was released indicating that BC had lost 11,000 jobs, more than any other province.

Just another day at the office for Clark and her inept bunch.

The Great Debate About All Candidate Debates!

With Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi calling out Conservative Candidate Joan Crockatt for not participating in a by-election all candidates debate, I thought today would be a great time to tell you where I stand on all candidates debates during elections.

As some one who has been fortunate to participate in politics and live in a lot of major centres in Canada I can tell you that these debates all have one thing in common.

It is this: They are a waste of time!

The first thing you would see if you went to one would be all the wanna be politicos,campaign managers, candidates and party volunteers.

What you would be hard pressed to find would be actual voters who want to learn about the issues.

The reason for this is that these debates are stacked with political volunteers who ask their candidates softball questions to make them look good. Most people know that.

The average person get their news from the internet because there is no time to give up 2 or 3 hours for a partisan debate.

If you are the frontrunner( no matter what party) it is a night of all three parties ganging up on you.

Another thing, in my experience is that everybody and their dog wants to host a debate.

In the last federal election I can recall being invited to at least 8.Most of these are devised by people or groups whose sole reason for being is one issue.

Do I ever recommend candidates participate in an all candidates debate? If it is hosted by a Chamber of Commerce or Board of Trade then yes. They are mediated properly and keep partisan bs to a minimum.

In truth and in fact, politicians and voters would be much better of engaging on the door step.

Firstly a candidate will reach more voters by door knocking.

Secondly,the discerning voter can ask the questions they want answers to and demand an answer. Most good candidates will either know the answer or if they don’t say so and promise to get back to you.

All candidates Debates? They are a big waste of time and Naheed Nenshi made my case for me.

The Christy Clark BC Liberal Government Reaches a New Low!

We all missed a game changing opportunity!

I am not talking about a flashy new poll being released, I am talking about excluding Amanda Todd’s mother from the conference on bullying. How dumb can you get?

She should have been front and center showing those people the scars of her childs death.

Premier photo-op and crew have dropped the ball once again.In fact we all did.

This was an opportunity to set politics aside and do the real work to make life more bearable for the kids in the province.

Instead a meaningful conference once again becomes a political football and a huge fumble for the Premier of our province.

You would have thought she would have been a little smarter given the vote she wants to recover is the women’s vote.

I recall, when my granddaughter was killed last October and I was in Comox for the funeral, there were a number of stories written in the local papers about kids, girls in particular committing suicide in the area. The deaths were not necessarily attributable to bullying but symptomatic of a larger problem that affects kids in this day and age.

I think there was three in the space of a month.

Something needs to be done and it has to be a lot more than the political hi-jinks of the last week.

Part of the problem is that we all stand back and accept this stuff from our politicians again and again.

We go to the polls like sheep and vote based on party lines. Those that don’t vote are making a statement albeit the wrong one.

All of us need to get involved,get outraged, be it at the next election or even now and ensure everybody knows that the status quo is no longer acceptable.

Folks did over the HST and it made a difference.

Otherwise we will get more of the same under the guise of change.

In the coming weeks I will write a post describing what I think people want and desperately need in their governments today.

We need to make real change and make the Amanda Todd’s of the world’s lives mean something.

We need to do more than what the BC Liberal government has been doing.

It’s time for real change and that time is now!

Polls show Harper and His Team Headed in the Right Direction:Up!

A Picture Is Worth a 1,000 Words?

You can say what you want about Stephen Harper and his Conservative team but after all the Omnibus bills and what have you they are headed in the right direction.

That would be up, up by 1 % in the most recent poll.

This poll was also conducted after the first round of negative Tommy advertising put out by the Conservatives.

There will be all sorts of crying that the poll is not legitimate( There always is) or that it is too far from the next election to matter, but this poll confirms one thing.

It confirms what the media has been saying since the last election and it’s why the poll hasn’t been discussed that much today.

It’s this: The MSM Pundits have been predicting that the Liberals ( Marijuana Bob,Justin and Crew) are splitting the socialist vote with Tommy( gotta love the Carbon Tax) Mulcair.

The MSM hates it when they are right and the Prime Minister and the Conservatives come out on top.

It’s a good warning for the two opposition parties. They have a little over two years to get their act TOGETHER or risk being steam rolled.

Personally I don’t think any merger will happen until after the 2015 election. The Liberals and the NDP are made up of some pretty strong-willed members( especially the NDP) and they will sit tight and see what happens.

Contrary to an earlier poll I think Justin will have to spend at least one term in opposition where at leat he will be able to negotiate any merger or whatever from a position of strength.

What do you thinkwill happen on the way to Election 2015?

Christy Clark: More Troubles Ahead on BC Rail!

Scenes from a BC Liberal Nightmare: The Birth of BC Rail.

Did Christy Clark break the law in 2003 with her handling of the BC Rail issue?

John Van Dongen thinks she did and accordingly has asked Conflict of Interest Commissioner Paul Fraser to conduct a formal inquiry into the matter.

Van Dongen’s request of the Commissioner was done in the form of a 24 page letter.You can peruse it here.
Seems Like MLA Van Dongen has done his homework.

So has Blogger Alex Tsakumis.

He has written a number of outstanding articles on the subject, the most recent of which is here.

The evidence is clearly pointing to Clark having involvement in BC Rail where she ought not to have.

Clark says she will cooperate with the commissioner during any inquiry yet she knows full well that any inquiry by the commissioner must come before the house to be voted on.

First and foremost the problem there is the Premier conveniently prorogued the house so unless she recalls it there would be no vote until the spring.

Secondly, the premier holds a majority in the house and her party would most likely vote down any potential inquiry the commissioner requests.

What she needs to do is to take leadership of the issue,recall the house and call an inquiry herself.

Failing that she should come clean and explain her involvement in BC Rail and what the conflict that she suggested was.

Of course coming clean would no doubt lead to her stepping down.

For BC and the families she allegedly cares about its time to do the right thing.

What do you think will happen?