The Legislature Raids

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Tide Turning Against Premier Photo-op - Even Mainstream Media
   
Written by Rafe Mair
 Common Sense Canadian - Oct. 7, 2011

Will wonders never cease? Was that a mild reproof of Premier Photo-op in Mike Smyth’s column the other day?

Was that a mild criticism of the Liberals in Vaughn Palmer’s column last Wednesday?

Then was that an out and out criticism by Mr. Palmer in this Thursday's paper over her half-baked idea to have the trial of those accused of the Stanley Cup riots before the TV cameras? (This bright idea was to televise the trials of the rioters, overlooking the little rule we have in this country of presumption of innocence - a concept that doesn’t seem to phase the government that gave the police the right to investigate, charge, try and convict a suspected impaired driver on the spot, then sentence him and enforce the sentence. The reason that process hasn’t been tested in court is that the accused is deprived of his right to go to court.)

And, the saints be praised, I was stunned by that editorial in the Province this past Wednesday that told the premier, in so many words, to get off her ass or someone else (never to be named, of course) might take her job away.

This is like the day Walter Cronkite criticized Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam policy, such that Johnson knew that if he had lost Cronkite, he’d lost the country. When the loyal troopers at the Sun and Province turn their guns - even if only popguns - at you, there is definitely trouble in River City, Madam Premier. (If there was any remaining doubt as to the direction things are headed for Premier Photo-op, yesterday, Mr. Palmer dissected the grim poll numbers of Ms. Clark's party, now trailing a full 7 points behind the NDP.)

What’s next? Sun Editorial page editor Fazil Mihlar, a Fellow of the Fraser Institute, giving Erik Andersen, the economist who has exposed the fiscal folly of BC Hydro/Private power program, an op-ed piece?

Will my old “pal” Wayne Moriarty of the Province give an op-ed piece where Rex Weyler, a founder of Greenpeace, can tell that which the media won’t tell, about pipelines moving highly toxic Tar Sands bitumen to Kitimat and Vancouver and the certainty of spills on BC's land and seacoast?

Premier Photo-op still has her charming smile coming from every possible orifice in these papers, but criticism in the Postmedia press! Can the Age of Miracles be far off?!!! 

Speeches from the Throne are pretty bland affairs but to give one praising Private River projects in light of all that’s happened and to fail to make  mention of the environment has even got to our aforesaid friends in Fox News North.

I wonder when the media is going to admit that all their nonsense about the Liberals being good stewards of the public purse has been exposed as bunk (I’m trying to clean up my language, folks) – that they have tripled the provincial debt since those NDP wastrels left office and that in fact it was the NDP in 2001 that last had a surplus?

Don’t peddle that crap about the Recession; evidently they had not noticed the stock market crash and the crumbling of banks and brokers. If the government didn’t see the Recession coming, they obviously weren’t paying attention. Then, let them be reminded, that when they brought in their deceitful 2009 budget, which they knew was phoney, they then ran the election on it.

Moreover, in the NDP years there was the Asian flu which destroyed our export market and neither the media nor the Liberals cut them any slack.

Seventy years ago the boxing great Joe Louis remarked about his upcoming heavyweight fight with Billy Conn – “He can run but he can’t hide” – that’s as true today as it was then and the Premier would do well to bear it in mind.

One used to be able to brush aside concerns of the “environment” – it was a left wing issue; it was only what my Dad called “parlour pinks” that gave a damn. That’s no longer the case and, as part of the environmental movement, I can tell the Liberals flat out that they will be hounded by it unless they, in a miracle rivalling Lazarus rising from the dead, change their ways.

The further problem is that they have been so economical with the truth, nobody believes what they say no matter how or when they say it. The Campbell/Clark government has lied through its teeth for a decade and not only is that a tough habit to break, but no one believes you anyway if you do. They’re like the clock that strikes 13 – you never ever trust it again.

I and others have tried to tell this premier and her government that not only are environmental issues many and varied, there is a steady but certain coming together of those who take these issues very seriously. “Divide and Rule” is no longer possible. As we’ve been saying for some time – these issues are not matters of “Left” and “Right” but right and wrong. And we stand shoulder to shoulder in these battles.

If the media finally starts doing its job it will expose the fact that the Campbell/Clark government’s Energy Policy (you were there ma’am) has taken BC Hydro to the brink of bankruptcy while ruining our rivers for power we don’t need, which BC Hydro must buy and take a huge loss on.

It will expose the fact that BC stands to have its sacred heritage destroyed by pipelines from The Tar Sands, be it on land or from tankers on our coast. The logic cannot be refuted – if you take a risk without any limitation of time or times you take it, you no longer have a risk but a certainty waiting to happen. Ms. Clark, you and your candidates will be hearing that a lot from now until election day. (Mercy of mercies, please call a snap election - the sooner the better off the province will be!)

Then there are fish farms and farmland – huge issues led by people like Alexandra Morton and Donna Passmore, whose supporters, including us at The Common Sense Canadian, will back them to the hilt.

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