The latest opinion poll from Angus Reid Public Opinion shows that a new paradigm in BC politics has held and even increased in the last three months, most notably with a widening gap between the NDP, now up 2 to 42%, and the Liberals, down 3 to only 28%, which in an election held now would produce a large majority for the NDP; but also important is that support for the Conservatives went sideways, up only 1 to 19%, and for the Green Party was up 2 to only 10%.
Rafe gives Christy some advice - like keep charging the HST, ignore public and First Nations anger over fish farms, private power, pipelines and tankers: "I have good news for our premier. If what I’m about to say is wrong, you have nothing to worry about. You see, Premier, I have this radical notion that the mood of the voter has changed – you evidently don’t, making it obvious (sorry to talk as if you are a slow learner) that if you just paddle along, down the happy old stream, why the voters, so afraid of the bad old NDP, will put you right back in government in 2013."
As has been well said, one is entitled to one’s own opinion but not to one’s own set of facts. Let me try using the truth, leaving the benefits of policy open to everyone’s own opinion. I say to you, however, that on four material issues - issues that go, as the lawyers say, to the root of the matter - the government, either through ministers or the Premier himself, lied.
Written by Rafe Mair
- Wednesday, 22 September 2010
Let’s get this straight minister - you didn’t make a mistake, you lied. You had two briefing papers, one written on at your request, that 2 months before the election, gave you the skinny on a HST policy for BC.
Written by Administrator
- Thursday, 02 September 2010
Article by CBC News. "The documents show that senior bureaucrats in the B.C. finance ministry had briefed politicians on the HST as early as January 2009." Read article
Written by Rafe Mair
- Thursday, 02 September 2010
I have been saying publicly that the Premier and Hansen telling us that the HST wasn't even on the "radar screen" was bullshit. And it was demonstrable bullshit before the document proving it was obtained by Freedom of Information request.
Article by Michael Smyth in The Province. "The lawsuit should never have been launched. There was no way a judge was going to go down in the history books as squashing the very first successful citizen-initiative petition ever achieved in Canada."
Read article
"4. Campbell then ordered finance ministry officials to 'go out and find
out how we're going to meet the budget target.' Next day they:
a) Cancelled plans to add a $600-million roof to BC Place.
b) Sought to borrow another $1 billion at the very attractive interest rates available to government.
c) Fired off a fast e-mail to Ottawa, asking what was the standing offer for transition funding on the HST."
Because it’s certain that the anti-HST committee will reach its statutory requirements, two interesting questions arise: first what the government will do; and second, if they don’t call a referendum, what will the “anti's” do then?
In the wake of the bogus deal Enbridge attempted to foist on the Gitxsan people of Northwest BC last month to help pave the way for its controversial proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, the community has banded together in inspiring fashion - with camcorders and the Web as their weapons of choice.
Watch this series of clips by independent filmmaker Craig Delahunt from the Cohen Commission, including a key hour of testimony from the final day of ISAv hearings and interviews with experts outside the Commission.
See how the Gitxsan are banding together in a moment of crisis, following the unauthorized deal with Enbridge signed by rogue treaty negotiator Elmer Derrick.
The Tsilhqot'in First Nations and their supporters fought for and won an injunction at the BC Supreme Court to keep Taseko Mines from commencing work on the controversial proposed Prosperity Mine.
Video from the Natural Resources Defence Council - narrated by Hollywood actor Kevin Bacon - on the battle to protect BC's iconic Spirit Bear and its habitat in the Great Bear Rainforest, from the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline and supertankers loaded with Alberta bitumen.
Damien Gillis on the proposed doubling of Deltaport and conversion of prime farmland, fish and wildlife habitat into an industrialized Foreign Trade Zone.
Several hundred concerned citizens and First Nations gathered recently in Burnaby to speak out against KinderMorgan's plans to pipe 700,000 barrels a day of Tar Sands bitumen to supertankers in Vancouver's harbour.
Part 2 of Rafe and Damien's discussion on Shaw's EVOTV. In this episode, the pair talk wild salmon and aquaculture, private power and environmental politics in BC.
Rafe Mair and Damien Gillis discuss The Common Sense Canadian and their coverage of key environmental and public policy issues in BC and Canada on Shaw's EVOTV, with host Irma Arkus.
The Musgamagw-Tsawataineuk peoples of the Broughton Archipelago recently gathered in the village of Gwayasdums in response to a serious breach of protocol by Marine Harvest. They emerged united, with renewed resolve to rid their territory of open net cage salmon farms.
Smart meters are a tax-payer rip-off and pose serious health threats to British Columbians, a crowd gathered at BC Hydro's Vancouver headquarters heard from the spokespeople of an number of organizations opposed to the provincial government-mandated program. (2 min)
Biologist and Peace Valley Environment Association representative Diane Culling discusses the enormous consequences of the proposed Site C Dam - including the flooding of prime farmland at a time when the province faces major food security challenges. (3 min)
The Wilderness Committee's Joe Foy picks apart the BC Liberal Government's faulty case for Site C Dam - discussing better alternatives to power our future needs and the enormous cost of a dam whose real purpose is to subsidize shale gas and coal mines.
