Thoughts on BC Politics and More

The Alberta New Democratic Party (NDP) is set to take another step Monday towards replacing outgoing Leader Rachel Notley as membership sales close and the party’s membership list will begin being finalized. The end of the day marks the last chance for candidates to sell memberships. Tuesday will mark the start of the “persuasion period” where the prospective leaders will pitch their platforms to those members, including through three debates in the weeks to come .... CLICK HERE for the full story

With Donald Trump’s trial (the first of four potential criminal trials) starting this week, it seems like a good time to take a look back at B.C.’s own history of senior elected officials who ran afoul of the law – or nearly did so. The three most famous British Columbia politicians to face police investigations are doubtless the NDP’s Glen Clark, the Social Credit Party’s Bill Vander Zalm, and the Liberals’ Gordon Campbell. All three found themselves in legal trouble at various points in their tenure .... CLICK HERE for the full story

In October 2017, the day after I found out my dad had died from an accidental drug overdose, I picked up my camera and loaded it with a roll of film. Photography is how I make a living and it’s also how I process my experience of the world. In the immediate days after my dad died, I often felt the weight of dissonant, opposing emotions. Our relationship was complex and thus created polarizing memories that can bring a smile to my face or overwhelm me with sadness. Creating double exposures was a way for me to express the contradicting and fraught emotions I was experiencing ... CLICK HERE for the full story

If the next federal election is called today, it will be fought over the existing 338-seat map. If it is called tomorrow or any day afterwards, it will be the new and expanded 343-seat map that will decide the outcome. In addition to the five extra seats that are up for grabs, most ridings have also seen their boundaries change. Some haven’t seen any changes and some have changed only a little, but others have seen some significant changes that will have an impact on the results. So let’s take a look at which riding's have seen the most changes  ... CLICK HERE for the full story

The fact that child killer Allan Schoenborn has successfully changed his name under BC laws has prompted finger-pointing among politicians. BC Premier David Eby told media Thursday that in 2002 when opposition leader Kevin Falcon was the Minister of Deregulation he removed regulations under the Name Act that ensured name changes would be published publicly in the BC Gazette ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Health Minister Adrian Dix insists there are no plans to have overdose-prevention sites at all BC hospitals, but how a provincial task force will standardize rules around patient drug use in hospitals remains unclear. “Smoking anything, least of all serious illicit drugs, is not allowed in hospital, and drug use is not allowed”. There were 10,200 people in hospital on Thursday, some of whom are living with addictions, but there are other patients and staff who must be protected from second-hand smoke and any other drug-related harms, he said . . . CLICK HERE for the full story

BC is well down the path of implementing one of North America’s strongest climate plans. And though a number of key policies continue to be developed—including the oil and gas emissions cap, an emissions cap on natural gas utilities and measures to reduce vehicle kilometres travelled by 25 per cent—many CleanBC policies are now substantially advanced. The plan is working: B.C. has seen a meaningful decline in emissions following a 2018 peak—and in spite of a growing population and economy .... ... Which raises the question: What, if anything, should the next government do from here? ... CLICK HERE for the full story

The catch and release of a suspect in Tatjana Stefanski’s death has left her family so fearful they have left their home.... ... Gaudreault wants to make one thing clear – this is not the fault of the police. “I would like everyone to please understand that the problem lies at a way higher level than the police. Trust me they are doing all they can do within laws and regulations do not lash out at them" ... CLICK HERE for the full story

 ... In our democracy, the majority has the right to make decisions, and the minority has the right to oppose those decisions and offer other choices. To take it a step further: The official Opposition has an obligation, a responsibility, to provide cohesive policy alternatives in the next election. This is not happening in British Columbia today. Blame personalities and egos. With a lengthy list of major issues facing the province, this year’s election should be hotly contested. It should allow voters to pass judgment on the platform of Premier David Eby, who has not won an election, before giving him free rein for another four years. His platform has been clear. Does it face up to the huge challenges we face? There are bold initiatives, but there are also problems worthy of debate ... CLICK HERE for the full editorial

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came to the CHEK Media Centre on Friday for a sit down chat with CHEK’s Rob Shaw. In the one-on-one interview, Trudeau discussed issues affecting Vancouver Island, including drug decriminalization, housing, and public safety .... CLICK HERE for the full story and interview

Premier David Eby has lately found his daily agenda, keyed to an election year, is being hijacked by questions regarding matters he would rather not discuss ... ... Many of the questions Tuesday had to do with the fallout from the government’s ill-fated experiment with decriminalization of hard drugs. Eby struggled and scrambled in his responses, showing the New Democrats really don’t have a handle on how to deal with the diversion of safer supply drugs to the illicit market or the use of hard drugs in hospitals .... CLICK HERE for the full story

Randy Sunderman, the newly-announced BC Green Party candidate for Kamloops Centre, says issues related to climate change, healthcare, cost of living and housing will define the next provincial government. Backed by a group of supporters — family members, friends and neighbours — as he announced his candidacy at Riverside Park on Thursday, Sunderman said a future provincial government needs to focus on new ideas and sustainable approaches to such pressing issues ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Over 70 years ago, W.A.C. Bennett changed B.C. politics by quitting the British Columbia Conservative party in 1951 and taking over a fringe populist group called the Social Credit League, a centre-right party later known as the Social Credit party. The Socreds under Bennett ran the province for 20 years. Today, John Rustad, the MLA for Nechako Lakes who was once with BC United and is now leading the Conservative Party of BC, seems to be following in Bennett’s footsteps ... CLICK HERE for the full story

British Columbia’s natural resource industries—forestry, mining, energy and agri-food—are being buffeted by many challenges. A weaker global economy is weighing on some commodity prices. Multiplying and increasingly complex regulatory requirements continue to raise operating costs. In forestry, the aftermath of the pine beetle infestation, forest fires and government logging deferrals are all hurting the industry. The vaunted low-carbon transition is routinely linked to upside opportunities in some resource-based industries, but it also brings a risk that Canadian jurisdictions will lose out to competing jurisdictions that prefer to advance emission-reduction goals using “carrots” rather than the battery of “sticks” that appeal to Ottawa and Victoria. Capital investment is already shifting to other jurisdictions because of costly and uncertain climate policies ... CLICK HERE for the full story

The revelation that a notorious BC child-killer has changed his name and is seeking to keep his new identity secret has drawn widespread condemnation. A review hearing for Allan Schoenborn, who killed his three children in Merritt, BC, 16 years ago, revealed Wednesday that Schoenborn legally changed his name in February ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Three years ago, Oregon became the first American state to decriminalize possession of illicit drugs. But this month, in the face of widespread drug consumption on city streets and a growing number of overdose deaths, the state’s legislature reversed direction ... ... Part of the problem in Oregon was that such a major reversal of direction demanded far more thought and preparation than was given. Law enforcement agencies were confused as to their role. Adequate treatment services were not set up. The public weren’t brought on board. There are signs that the same lack of foresight is the case here ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Is Canada finally beginning to arm itself against the new era of geopolitical disorder? The dollar figures in the federal government’s new defence policy, reprised in Tuesday’s budget, suggest so. But a closer look indicates otherwise. Greater urgency and speed are needed ... CLICK HERE for the full story

British Columbia is going in the wrong direction under the NDP, government cannot be trusted and affordability is the top issue for the next decade, according to an opinion poll commissioned last August by Government Communications and Public Engagement (GCPE) ... ... the 133-page report, released under the freedom of information law, said most respondents continue to feel the government is failing to make life more affordable. They said BC households typically spend around $3,500 a month on major expenses, mostly on housing and shelter, and some have little or nothing to spare. “Nearly half of younger residents do not think they could cover an unexpected $500 expense,” Leger reported ... CLICK HERE for the full story

  For nearly three decades, Michael Guy’s family did everything they could to keep him alive ... It was a fight Judith and Stefan came to believe was one they were fighting alone, and would eventually lose .... .... “He literally just walked out onto the street, and there was no housing, there was no recovery area, there was no one to even meet you to say, ‘Hi, you just completed detox. What do you need?’ You literally just stepped out and no money, wrong day for the bus, and you’re left sitting there, a raw, beaten-up piece of human” .... CLICK HERE for the full story

The goal of Budget 2024 was simple enough: Put out the raging fire in the dumpster this government has become. Will it work before the election? Probably not. A Hail Mary rehash of the greatest hits from the government’s three-week travelling pony-show, the budget takes aim at reversing the party’s popularity plunge in the under-40 set . . . . CLICK HERE for the full story

. . . . an initiative that, not too long ago, looked to be a slam dunk for the Trudeau government now finds itself on shaky footing. In recent months, a growing number of child-care operators across the country have raised concerns about the economics of the program, with many saying that the new multilateral funding model has left them operating at a deficit and, in some cases, on the verge of shuttering their doors. Three hundred child-care centres in Alberta, for example, launched a campaign of rolling closures in late January to call attention to their untenable financial circumstances. The present impasse provides a good opportunity to take stock of how the program was supposed to work, where things went off-course and whether the $10-a-day child-care agreements can be salvaged . . . . CLICK HERE for the full story

Sometimes you need a little bit of distance from a problem to see the situation clearly. Which is why the testimony of BC’s top police chiefs to a federal committee of MPs in Ottawa this week brought into sharp focus the issue of decriminalization — specifically, it’s many, troubling, ongoing, unintended consequences. At the top of that list, the helplessness police feel to respond to the widespread open public drug use ... CLICK HERE for the full story

When Christina McCall and Stephen Clarkson wrote of former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, “He haunts us still,” the authors of Trudeau and Our Times recognized the lasting influence of the man who governed Canada for the better part of two decades. Indeed, it’s been nearly 25 years since the two wrote that line, and it’s still true today. But it isn’t just true of a larger-than-life figure such as the 15th prime minister. Dig a little bit and you’ll find that the claim applies to several politicians, including some we might not think of often these days. Take, for instance, former, short-lived Alberta premier and federal cabinet minister Jason Kenney ... CLICK HERE for the full story

... “We currently don’t have enough domestic power generation to meet the needs of today, even before additional electrification in the future. Reliance on imported energy from jurisdictions dealing with their own challenges could put British Columbians at risk of electricity shortages and higher user costs" ... CLICK HERE for the full story

The surging BC Conservatives could doom BC United and raise challenges for the NDP Six months from now Kevin Falcon is going to be staggering toward a catastrophic defeat for the remnants of the BC Liberals ... CLICK HERE for the full story

BC United is calling on the government to "listen to residents of Richmond" following an announcement of a task force to look into addiction supports in BC hospitals. On April 16, BC United launched a petition to the NDP government in opposition to setting up safe drug consumption sites in Richmond .... CLICK HERE for the full story

There is more controversy surrounding the B.C. government’s drug decriminalization pilot program after comments from two of the most senior police officers in the province. Vancouver police’s deputy chief Fiona Wilson told Ottawa’s Standing Committee on Health that police are finding their hands tied when it comes to problematic drug use unless it’s in one of the areas specifically excluded from decriminalization rules. “We now have nine exceptions to the exemption, but the reality is there are still other circumstances where the public have significant concerns about problematic drug use and when that happens, if it’s not in a place that’s an exception to the exemption, there is nothing police can do" ... CLICK HERE for the full story

For a moment, Harrison Hot Springs council looked as though it might try to save itself. Then, the moment was gone. At a closed meeting in March, Harrison council members from both sides of the village’s divide voted to address the allegations of harassment and bullying that have plagued the village for 18 months. But on Monday, as information about that earlier work became public, a brief conflict-filled council meeting dashed those hopes ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland unveiled a budget with new taxes on wealthy Canadians, a bundle of new spending initiatives, and lots of red ink on Tuesday, but also contained several measures that won’t make big headlines. The government wants to help Canadians get Taylor Swift concert tickets, disconnect from their jobs and cancel their cellphones online, among others. Here are some key policies and under-the-radar spending items in this year’s budget .... CLICK HERE for the full story

With no fewer than nine experts listed as validating and supporting a bill revamping the oversight of lawyers the day it dropped, it looked like the legislation would be warmly received. “Welcome … gives us tools to better protect the public" ... “Makes justice more accessible" ...“Will enhance the diversity, number and affordability of legal services" And so on. But it turns out that upending the legal world won’t come without a few arguments, or, more accurately, vociferous criticisms and outright hostility ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Crashing through the thin ice of plausible deniability Perjury. Noun. The crime of telling lies when you have promised to tell the truth. In the absence of a specific amicus brief from one of the intervenors in the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in Federal Electoral Processes and Democratic Institutions, or a ruling from Marie-Josée Hogue herself, I’m going to leave the incendiary question of perjury wide open ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Will he stay or will he go? The Prime Minister has been asked countless times whether he would lead his party through the next general election, and never has wavered. With three election victories under his belt (2015, 2019, 2021), Justin Trudeau insists he will go for a fourth consecutive win — something no Prime minister has achieved since Wilfrid Laurier more than a hundred years ago . . . . CLICK HERE for the full story

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland will table her fourth federal budget today, laying out the government's plan to spend billions of dollars on housing to improve supply — a plan the Liberals also hope will boost their prospects with a crucial group of voters. Unlike past budgets, which mostly saved their announcements for budget day itself, this one has been publicized piecemeal. Freeland, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Housing Minister Sean Fraser and other cabinet ministers have been touring the country for weeks, releasing details of key budget measures ... CLICK HERE for the full story

The Liberal government faces a slowing economy and an uphill battle in the polls as it prepares to table its 2024 federal budget on Tuesday. Global News spoke to Canada’s former parliamentary budget officer ahead of April 16, who said he’s expecting a tight spending plan with little room for surprises or hotly demanded relief on cost-of-living issues for Canadians. Heading into the third budget under the government’s current mandate, Justin Trudeau’s Liberals have been on a cross-country tour plugging a series of measures that will be included in the coming year’s spending plans .... CLICK HERE for the full story

The BC NDP turning its attention, from BC United, to BC Conservatives was reported over the weekend from a variety of sources. It is the result of the surge in the BC Conservative's polling numbers and the subsequent collapse of BC United. The NDP has largely ignored the BC Conservatives, instead they opt to talk about issues directly or attack their old foes BC United. Practical politics says that parties closer to the centre tend to ultimately prevail over the long haul. They do wane but often make comebacks. A good example is the federal Liberals going from third party to government in 2015. Centrism has a lot of appeal on voting day. The NDP shifting its fire from United to Conservative is a reflection of reality. BC United did buy advertising online and radio over the last few months. Did that shift the polls back to them? Nope. The reality is today, the BC Conservatives are the party of the Opposition, and day by day the Conservatives are looking like a party not ready to fig

An RCMP report, “Whole-of-Government Five-Year Trends for Canada,” was recently made public by CBC after Matt Malone, an assistant law professor at Thompson Rivers University, received it through a freedom of information request. Malone is the founder of the Open by Default project at the Investigative Journalism Foundation, which posts over 20,000 documents acquired by freedom of information requests. Frustratingly, the report is almost entirely redacted, even though it was supposedly compiled from open sources by the RCMP’s Strategic Foresight and Methodology Team in 2022. The scraps of the report that remain deal with six issues ... CLICK HERE for the full story

It's been a tough few weeks politically for Premier David Eby and his government. From alleged kickbacks, to a rocky police transition in Surrey, the NDP could really use some political wins ahead of October's provincial election. Political strategists Maria Dobrinskaya and Ash Amali debate on how they can do that, and how the BC Conservatives can keep up their momentum   CLICK HERE for the full discussion

The BC government and the Council of Haida Nation have signed an agreement officially recognizing Haida Gwaii's Aboriginal title, more than two decades after the nation launched a legal action seeking formal recognition. The province announced last month that it had reached a proposed deal with the Haida, which Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation Minister Murray Rankin called a "foundational step in the reconciliation pathway of Haida Nation and BC" At the signing ceremony Sunday, Rankin said the agreement is "really, really important," pledging to do whatever he can to "breath life into this historic agreement" ... CLICK HERE for the full story

If you listen to Canadian politicians, the solution to our housing crisis seems to be some combination of immigration reform and a herculean countrywide building effort. But Paul Kershaw, a public policy professor at the University of British Columbia and founder of the affordability advocacy group Generation Squeeze, says the emphasis on increasing housing supply obscures an issue politicians are less likely to address. Namely, that we, as a country, have become addicted to ever-rising home prices, largely because we've been conditioned to see our homes as financial assets .... CLICK HERE for the full story

A Kelowna city councillor hoping to represent the NDP in this year’s provincial election might not want to kick off his campaign at City Hall. But if he walks a few blocks east, north, or south of the building, Loyal Wooldridge will be heading into fertile ground for the party ... CLICK HERE for the full story

With Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland promising to keep the federal deficit from ballooning in Tuesday's federal budget, all eyes will be on the Liberals' plan to pay for their agenda — and whether that could include new taxes on the wealthy ... ... a slew of announcements ahead of the federal budget, including billions for housing and national defence, are raising a big question: How will the Liberals make the math work? CLICK HERE for the full story

Music programs, elementary-school counsellors and learning-support teachers are among the areas where trustees have made cuts in the Greater Victoria School District’s $318-million budget. Greater Victoria Teachers’ Association president Ilda Turcotte said the trustees had “a difficult task” in their efforts to produce a balanced budget as required by the province, since they were facing a $6-million deficit in the 2024-25 budget. She said funding from the provincial government isn’t enough ... CLICK HER E for the full story

Economists and experts say they're expecting the federal government to raise taxes in Tuesday's budget to help offset billions of dollars in new spending already promised in the pre-budget announcements that have been landing almost daily since the end of March. Those announcements add up to more than $38 billion in commitments over a number of years. Because $17 billion of those commitments involve loan-based programs, about $21 billion could hit the government's bottom line directly. And that figure doesn't include other new budget measures that haven't yet been announced ... CLICK HERE for the full story

BC United Opposition Leader Kevin Falcon says he would ban open drug use in hospitals, as a provincial task force that aims to standardize smoking ­prohibitions and use of illicit drugs in hospitals met for the first time Thursday. “It would take five minutes to solve this problem and just say no — absolutely no,” said ­Falcon. “No smoking of drugs, no open drug use in the hospitals, full stop, and it would happen ­immediately” ... CLICK HERE for the full story

A dwindling supply of wood fibre and the BC government’s move to create a “paradigm shift” in the forestry industry is leading to a “vicious cycle” that is scaring investment away from the province, warned private equity experts and industry leaders Thursday.  The comments, made at the BC Council of Forest Industries annual meeting in Vancouver, came following a year in which about 32 million cubic metres of wood was harvested — nearly half of what it was five years ago ... CLICK HERE for the full story

BC United has named its candidate who will take on NDP Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon in the B.C. election, Oct. 19. Amrit Pal Singh Dhot, who owns the Dhot Group, also volunteers for the Delta school district parents’ advisory council, and volunteers for Scouts Canada, will run in Delta North ... CLICK HERE for the full story

BC Conservative MLA Bruce Banman touched off a telling exchange in the legislature Thursday when he used his party’s slot in question period to launch a broad-brush attack on the NDP government. The botched safer supply and decriminalization initiatives. Kickbacks in dispensing government grants. The failure to reach a deal on Surrey policing. The crackdown on protests outside K-12 schools … CLICK HERE for the full story

  Many people have asked why I am running as the Kamloops North Thompson candidate in this Fall’s BC Provincial election, and why with the BC Conservative banner?   Well first I would like to talk a little about myself. I’m a family man, with deep roots in Kamloops North Thompson, roots that along with my parents go back five decades.   After graduating from high school, I went directly into my father’s logging business (after spending the summer months doing that work from the age of fourteen). I knew the work was hard and sometimes dangerous, but the money was good and there was lots to do, including on the job training on everything from heavy equipment, to hand falling, to trail and road building, High Lead logging and everything in between. Of course, there were never enough hours in the day, but still, I spent as much time as I could with my wife and our two daughters. It was a pleasure coaching their softball teams, and driving back and forth to the many sports and