The Legislature Raids

Skookum1 has left new comments on your post "BC Rail political corruption dominates over the leadership race ..."

Nope we need new blood, new voices, and if not a new party or two, then the courage to elect "strong independents". A house full of Independents, even, would go a long ways to nailing the right-wing coalition extremists and left-wing political eunuchs in their respective (or perhaps more fittingly, mutual) coffin. A houseful of Independents actually representing their constituents and having to collaborate to form a government, with no partisan ideology holding control over cabinet OR the House.....

...then we'd have the parliamentary system as it's supposed to be.

It would mean candidates worth their salt who could garner enough support from the public in their areas to not need party financing or party associations in order to win. Strength of character and accomplishment etc....would take a lot of dough to combat corporate campaign financing and union campaign financing on the other....but the monopoly, the bipolarity rather, of BC's political culture has to be brought to an end.

One big problem with Independent campaigns: the denial of provincial matching funds, which favour organized party candidates. A possible solution might be to charter an Independent Caucus as a party.....


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It may well be that the Clark campaign is all a spin device, meant to sell "us" on Falcon or Abbott, somehow redeeming them as the Lesser Three Evils. The party machine - or rather the corporate machine behind the two parties within the BC Liberals (Tory/Reform and fedLib) - could have fielded her simply as a ruse, to make the remaning Liberals seem more palatable and help one of them be a dark horse who took out the front-runner etc. Well, Falcon or Abbott are gonna have to mea culpa on BC Rail or forget it. It's a dance macabre crossed withmenage a trois, with GC playing the fiddle, hanging on and transmitting his core and primary guilt to others while still executing policy and major changes before he's gone. He's been awfully silent, don't you think? Not a good sign.....

And yeah I totally agree the temptation, evinced also at Bill's blog, to dump it all on Christy is very much there, even in blogspace; Abbott and Falcon aren't getting as much heat as they deserve; but then they don't have any incriminating memos about them (well, Falcon's in there, but in a subordinate, fuctionary capacity, though "in the know").

Could be the real reason, also, is they're not having an on-the-ground convention but only a televote because they don't want to face their own party membership face to face. Wouldn't it have been great to see BC Liberal members turn a leadership convention into a BC Rail inquiry? The mind reels....are there enough of them sane, and with morals, to even do such a thing, had they even been given a chance?

Also, hm, I'd like to know what was behind Alex Rebagliati's resignation from the Liberal candidacy in the Okanagan-Coquihalla riding (or was it Southern Interior?). There's more to that than meets the eye, though I think we'll hear the same "family" issues as is commonly claimed. Could have been an issue of conscience....

BTW have any of the NDP stepped forward for the leadership yet? Maybe they all feel like Carole Taylor and just don't want to put their necks out there.

Wouldn't it be interesting to see them both reduced to rumps behind, say, the Tories and the Refeds? And then the latter form a cooperative coalition to "fix BC", and leave both older parties in a bony and unfriendly Opposition. It happened in 1952, no reason it can't be done again.

Bill Bennett should rally the Tory vote on a campaign to take back BC Rail and BC Hydro. Carole Taylor - who should also weigh in on BC Rail, might want to think about joining Refed or even sidling up to Gordon Wilson and reviving the Democratic Alliance.

Any candidate or leader who doesn't talk about BC Rail is gonna get raked over the coals at all-candidates meetings (if they dare to show at any; Libs find it easier to be elected by not being available to open questioning). It's a motherhood issue, and the Liberals have grossly underestimated it, and the big media haven't been able to shut people up; it's widespread talk, and the resentment and negative judgement (of politicians) attached to it is much more vicious than against the HST. The NDP are also fools, or just hopelessly inadequate, for not having their teeth in it long ago - why expect them to start now?

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cfvua: yes, I agree, i was going to say the same thing, though was going to use the term "resignation"...."capitulation" is more like it. "Oh well, it was a great evil but there's no point in trying to fix it now"....very tug-the-forelock don't-make-waves Canadian-ness. "We know they stole it all, but might as well let them keep it" is really waht he's saying.

remember those Olympic commercials about Canadians changing and becoming more outspoken and assertive? It needs to be moer than in just international sports......

As for Tamsyn Burgmann:
Government brass fended off accusations for the next seven years, getting raked over the coals during question period and pressing through two elections with the albatross of an ongoing criminal trial around their necks.

That would be "getting raked over the coals for only the next two years", i.e. until the Joy & Jenny show was over. And yeah, that albatross was sure a burden to them in national coverage of those campaigns huh? Also in provincial campaigns.....must have been an invisible albatross.....I recall CP being among those major news agencies who did everything they could not to report on the trial, the sale, or issues arising from them, and when they did mention them soft-soaped them so ridiculously as to lose all relevance. If Burgmann had been doing her job from 2003 onwards (i.e. the one the public expects of a reporter, not the marching orders from the publisher/owner), the Liberals would have not won in 2005, and not have had a chance to win again in 2009. And given what else we know about that party's morality and conduct, it's not too far of a stretch to think that ballot boxes might even have been stuffed.....seriously.

The free ride that CP and other news agencies gave the BC Liberals was anything but an albatross. It was more like a first-class airline ticket, with complementary massage and a special lane through customs.

Holman's surrender to illegal actions and flagrant theft of public assets, "oh well aw shucks" just doesn't sit well with me....I just lost a lot of respect for him. Seems like he's just becoming another established-system toady.

Special year-end tip o'the tuque to John Wood who tirelessly forwards eye-popping news clips to major newspapers around the world. Including this, for today: 

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