As rumored in this blog last week, Dan Brooks is out as leader of the provincial BC Conservative party
What will the party do next? How will it get ready for the election expected early next year?
Or will it?
Stay tuned….
As rumored in this blog last week, Dan Brooks is out as leader of the provincial BC Conservative party
What will the party do next? How will it get ready for the election expected early next year?
Or will it?
Stay tuned….
With the recent announcement by Dan Brooks of his intention to re-seek the the leadership of the BC Conservative Party, my readers have asked me a number of questions . They deserve answers.
To Wit:
One reader asked : Since Brooks quit and then announced his intention to run again, will he have to pay the $5000 entry fee? ( Why wouldn’t he, he quit the job causing the party to incur the cost of the leadership convention in the first place. )
Another reader asked: Since Brooks quit citing the lawsuit as one of the main reasons for stepping away does this mean the lawsuit is behind him and if it’s not will he quit again if it doesn’t go his way? ( I have no idea except to say that the whole thing is supposedly set for trial in November of 2016 and if things do not go his way quitting again would really leave the party in a lurch? Oh right. That’s happened once before.)
Another reader asked : If Brooks was implying that a settlement of his lawsuit was near, would he be so quick to give away his negotiating position in that lawsuit by announcing that the law suit didn’t bother him anymore and by extrapolation would he be so quick to give away the party’s in the event he was successful in the leadership race should he have to negotiate on their behalf for any reason? ( Who knows, you would have to ask Dan?)
A further reader asked : There are emails being sent out that contain Brooks endorsements. Does this mean Brooks has been vetted and given the green light? ( I don’t know, I don’t sit on the board.I have no have no idea where he got his email list. )
Finally a reader asked : The emails that have been sent out by the Brooks group ( including a news release) don’t give me an opportunity to unsubscribe. Doesn’t this violate Canada’s anti-spam legislation? ( I don’t know I am not a lawyer but the fines for breaching this are huge)
So it seems the Brooks candidacy has more questions than answers at this point from both the BC Conservative board and Dan Brooks.
I would imagine the answers will be forth coming soon.
Or maybe not.
Stay tuned.
Most likely fearing the byelections that the Premier called moments ago and that have been discussed as recently as last week in the mainstream media , BC Conservative Leader resigned his position yesterday.
Brooks resignation follows his thumping in the previous provincial election, several resignations on the provincial board, lack of funds raised by his team and most notably the recent lawsuit launched against him and certain member’s of his leadership contest team for smear letters written against candidate Rick Peterson.
The allegations have yet to be proven in court and come up for trial in November of 2016.
The board in the announcement of his resignation applauds Brooks for staying on at least until the Party`s February AGM.
There are a lot of us who think he should leave now and the harder the door hits him in the rear on the way out the better.
The party is not dead. Brooks resignation opens the doors for some exciting candidates to step forward.
I have heard a lot of chatter about new leaders in the last 24 hours.
It will be an interesting to see who steps up.
That discussion is for another day.
Today is for Dan Brooks.
Good riddance!
There is a total vacuum at the top of the BC Conservative Party.
The Leader, Dan Brooks, is AWOL. No media presence. No visits to Party members. No profile.
Only two news releases in the past six months.
Almost every director elected to the Party board last November, including the president, resigned only weeks into their mandate.
There is no fundraising, no money, no momentum. What’s up?
Here’s maybe a clue as to why Brooks has walked away from the Party.
One year from now, in November of 2016, he’s scheduled to be in BC Supreme Court along with his former leadership campaign manager, Barry Sikora. Sikora is listed on the Party website as a regional director from Surrey.
In the 2014 BC Conservative leadership campaign, two anonymous smear letters against Brook’s leadership rival, Rick Peterson, were sent out to all 4,000 members of the BC Conservative Party across the province.
Following a Vancouver Police Department investigation and an internal Party report, Peterson filed a defamation claim against Brooks, Sikora and Sikora’s printing company, Classic Impressions Inc., alleging that the three parties were responsible for the production and dissemination of the anonymous letters, which attacked Peterson’s personal, political and professional reputation.
A November 2016 court date before a judge and 12-member jury is locked into place. Sources tell me that Kristy Fredericks, elected Party president in November of last year, abruptly resigned her post weeks after assuming her duties, along with every member of the board that she brought with her on the “Dan Brooks youth slate” at the November AGM, when she learned about the extent of the allegations.
Nothing has been proven yet, and it is only in court that the full details will be released.
It could get ugly. How ugly? Check out the current political defamation case playing out right now in BC Supreme Court, involving former Liberal MP Blair Wilson, who claims that anonymous claims against him amounted to “character assassination” . Here’s the link:
And here’s a quote from that story – bold italics are mine:
“The named defendants in the case include Bill Lougheed, former MLA Judi Tyabji, political strategist Mark Marissen, who is the former husband of Premier Christy Clark and political blogger Steve Janke, who published an anonymous letter detailing allegations against Wilson and forwarded to Elections Canada. Tyabji, who had conversations with Lougheed and O’Connor and was allegedly motivated by an ambition to remove Wilson from his MP’s job, was in court Wednesday representing herself.”
Sound familiar? I’m no legal expert, but part of this Blair Wilson case seems very similar to charges currently levied against Brooks and Sikora.
It’s clear to me that the fortunes of the BC Conservative Party under Dan Brooks’ leadership are on hold until this gets cleared up. If Brooks or his campaign manager were found to have a role in the anonymous smear letters against Peterson, it’s lights out for the Party in 2017.
And maybe this is why the Party Leader has decided to hide under a rock, hoping this all blows over.
Good luck with that.
Leadership races are always interesting no matter what party you belong to. They present themselves as a time for renewal and a time to attract new people into the process that maybe haven’t been involved before or awhile.
Additionally, the goal should (and must be) to attract the best and the brightest to get involved not only to lead the party from backbenches, or no benches, but to also attract the best and brightest people into a leadership role in their community.
To get the best and brightest fundraising should be in place as should a good set of policies. Then a leadership race can begin with the best person hopefully chosen as Leader.
It seems common sense, but then nothing should ever be taken for grant, and so I also say that a leaders job is to undertake to increase fundraising, further develop policy, and no matter what the party standing is in the house, hold the current government accountable.
If the party has seats in the house ,questions should be asked, and scrums should be held, with the media ensuring that all the people are represented. Should the party not be in the house, they can hold the government accountable by press releases, social media releases,radio interviews, or even traveling to the House and arranging media meetings outside house when a relevant issue arises etc.
The success of this all revolves around leadership, and that means as I said earlier, having the right leader and the right policies in place to get the job done. This is easier said than done.
A recent review the the BC Conservative constitution ( provincial party) shows this:
Section 11.02 The Leader can only be removed from office by resignation, death, incapacitation, or the
vote of sixty percent (60%) of the Party Members in good standing who vote in a
universal mail-in ballot.
Another way of saying this is that once a leader is elected he or she only needs 40 % of the current members to vote in favor of his or her leadership role to stay in the job. That seems to me to be setting the bar awfully low. It means that a leader would only have to get a few people to vote to save his or her job especially if the party or it’s members is disillusioned.
The question to ask my readers is what do you think the correct percentage is in order to attract talent and correct mistakes in the leadership process?
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!
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!
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.
Today was a good day for the BC Conservative Party up-to and including the incident where John Van Dongen left the party.
The party elected Voice of Reason Al Seibring as president, Christine Clark as Vice President,Linda Bellamy as Secretary and re-elected Treasurer Lambert Leung .
Also elected were a whole host of new directors including Dan Denis,Dennis Beliveau,Daniel Brooks and Douglas Machan.
All the instigators of the last week were not elected and lots of new blood was elected to the board.
John Van Dongen left the party ( I told you that might happen in my post yesterday) and so the party has a chance to get some work done and elect some MLAs next May.
Van Dongen worked hard on the BC Rail file but he also worked hard at disrupting board meetings with his monthly ” I am getting elected with or without your help threats”.
During his goodbye speech John Van Dongen mentioned that the BC Conservatives did not work as a team. This is a concept that Van Dongen himself doesn’t understand as his demands on the board above illustrate.
Could we have done more to pacify him? Probably but he could have done more during the by-elections to help us too.
Sure losing an MLA is a blow but in this case the party is better for it!
Thoughts Anybody?
It seems every Friday we end with a blog post detailing the Shenanigans, Gaffes and Bulls*t Premier Christy Clark and her Government are responsible for..
Every week we get hand delivered a new set of lies . It’s almost as if you can go to the BC Liberal web site,enter your email or subscribe and get straight to your inbox this weeks nonsense.
It’s simple just set up a Google Alert and every night like a horror movie your Blackberry or iPhone goes ping and you can see first hand what Christy Clark screwed up that day.
Be prepared,each nights Alert is a long list.
This week I have received a plethora of stories from such authors as Ales G Tsakumis , Warren Kinsella and Michael Smyth. Tonight no doubt I will get one from Lindsay Kines.
Sometimes I even get my own, although this week I entitled my Blog Piece about the fumbling of the Clark Government: Stephanie Cadieux should resign! I don’t have an Alert set up for her because, well, she is irrelevant.( I heard her on the radio a day or so later and she sounded even more incompetent on that medium)
This brings us to a piece by Justine Hunter discussing the BC Liberals trying to work out their differences with the BC Conservatives.
No matter what Fantasy land Phil Hochstein or John Reynolds live in, this will never happen.
The Clark Government don’t know how to tell the truth and certainly will never earn my trust.( or the voting public’s for that matter)
A child could be drowning in the Fraser River and Clark and her entire cabinet could form a chain and pull the kid to safety. The public’s reaction: So what; they were probably looking for a photo-op and tossed the kid there in the first place!
Nothing can save these people because they have passed the point of no return. Certainly no BC Conservative I have ever met would want to join up with them.
Why would we. These people are arrogant and corrupt as we shall see if we ever get lucky enough to have a full inquiry into BC Rail.
They need to be flushed away in the next election.
For a lot of us with Christy Clark in Google Alerts it can’t come soon enough!
What are your thoughts?