Thoughts on BC Politics and More

Are any of our parties principled or just groups of people desiring power? Maybe that sounds harsh and partisan, but that is the question we need to be asking our governments. Equally, we need to ask parties that are not in power if they are principled or just desperate for power. Maybe we live in a time where none of our leaders have principles, plans, or ideas and instead power and position is what it all boils down to.   Here's what I believe. The answer to all of those questions is yes .    Chrystia Freeland, Mark Carney, Pierre Poilievre, Jagmeet Singh, and all the rest of them aren't in it for noble reasons. The only question left is were any of them ever in it for noble reasons? Honestly, and call me a jaded cynic but I do not think so.    Our politicians are no different than young horny male university students looking to hook up. They will say whatever they need to say to get laid. Yeah, that's cynical. It is also so very true. ...

Twenty years ago, an NDP government triggered a flight of investment from mineral exploration and mining in BC that lasted more than a decade when, in 1993, it ring-fenced the massive undeveloped copper-cobalt Windy Craggy deposit with a new provincial park. Windy Craggy, still a sore point for miners and prospectors in BC, was invoked last week at the Association of Mineral Exploration (AME) Roundup conference during a technical panel discussion on the new rules coming for claim staking. The changes have raised fears that another NDP government could usher in another “lost decade,” in which investment in mineral exploration flees to other provinces and countries ... CLICK HERE for the full story  

Despite ongoing promises from the provincial government that it is making progress to fix BC’s crumbling health-care system, the work doesn’t appear to be happening fast enough. “There are currently 700,000 patients in British Columbia who don’t have a family doctor,” said Dr. Charlene Lui, a family physician in Burnaby and president of Doctors of BC. “That’s unacceptable. Really, every resident of British Columbia deserves a family doctor.” The numbers are sobering and a reminder the system overall needs a lifeline ... CLICK HERE for the full story

According to the recent Abacus Data poll of 1,500 Americans, a slight majority (52%) say the USMCA (United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement), negotiated under President Donald Trump, has been good for the United States, while only 10% feel it has been bad. This sentiment is even stronger among Trump’s own voters: 65% believe USMCA has benefited the country compared to just 7% who disagree. These findings underscore how critical it is to remind Americans—and Trump supporters specifically—that the USMCA, also referred to as CUSMA in Canada, is ultimately Trump’s deal - and as the President would likely tell you - nothing he does, nothing he builds, and nothing he negotiates is bad. Seriously, take a read of his remarks the day the agreement was signed (January 29, 2020) ... CLICK HERE for the full story

For a couple of weeks now I’ve wrestled with what to do about the unique data coming from Frank Graves, one of the country’s most prominent pollsters for decades. Could it be true? Should I just leave it be? Graves, like all pollsters, is accustomed to the blame-the-messenger criticism that comes when his findings rankle. But lately, and particularly in recent days, the comments have taken on a menacing toxicity, something other pollsters wouldn’t often experience. The reason: Graves tells me his findings suggest “there is a reasonable chance he” – meaning Pierre Poilievre, and by extension his Conservative Party – “might lose the election now.” You read that right ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Quebec Premier François Legault has put the father of the province’s controversial religious symbols law, Simon Jolin-Barrette, in charge of dealing with the federal government. Buckle up, Canada, this could be a bumpy ride. “(In Canada), it has long been ‘What does Quebec want?’ From now on, Quebec is not waiting for anyone to move forward,” Jolin-Barrette told the National Post ... CLICK HERE for the full story  

The BC Conservative Party is criticizing the province’s campaign finance laws after learning a union supporting the BC NDP spent nearly half a million dollars on advertisements in the lead-up to the last provincial election. Disclosures published by Elections BC on Tuesday reveal the Hospital Employees’ Union (HEU) spent more than $470,000 in the three months before the election on TV, radio and social media advertisements, many of them sharply critical of the BC Conservatives and their leader John Rustad. That spending — a record for third-party advertisers in recent elections — is legal ... CLICK HERE for the full story

CBC/Radio-Canada’s new CEO, Marie-Philippe Bouchard, is warning that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s pledge to defund the state broadcaster is an “existential threat” to its survival that could “cripple” its programming in both official languages. Bouchard said that if Poilievre were to slash $1 billion of the organization’s $1.4 billion annual government subsidy, the French services of CBC might not survive even if the English service was eliminated. “The math just doesn’t work. There’s a serious risk that it would cripple not only the English service but also the French service. So I’m just having difficulty reconciling all of that" ... CLICK HERE for the full story

BC Conservative forests critic   Ward Stamer, MLA for Kamloops North-Thompson, is demanding that Attorney General Niki Sharma unequivocally denounce the reckless and criminal act of tree spiking in Fairy Creek. The recent RCMP bulletin warning of ceramic tree spikes in the area has raised serious concerns about the safety of forestry workers. “This is not just an act of vandalism - this is attempted murder,” said   Stamer. “Hardworking British Columbians in the forestry industry are already facing serious challenges with NDP mismanagement pushing our industry to the verge of collapse. Now, their lives are being put at risk by depraved fanatics who have no regard for safety. Tree spiking is a reckless, despicable act, carried out by those who have no respect for human life or the livelihoods of the people who rely on our forests.” Tree spiking involves embedding metal spikes into trees, which can cause sawmill equipment to explode on impact, sending deadly shrapne...

The NDP government’s refusal to fund provincial 911 and emergency communications services across the province could leave us vulnerable in the case of a major emergency, such as a natural disaster. This was the message delivered by Elenore Sturko to a group of 10 South Island mayors and councils who protested the downloading of the cost for services provided by E-Comm 911. Local municipalities are currently forced to shoulder the burden for provincial emergency communications. “Most British Columbians don’t know that the province isn’t funding the services provided by E-Comm or that we don’t have a provincial emergency communications network,” said Elenore Sturko, Official Opposition Critic for Public Safety and the Solicitor General. “ There are communities in B.C. that currently do not have access to 911 services. This is outrageous after eight years of an NDP government ." E-Comm 911 is a private company that is contracted to provide 911 emergency communications servic...

Before she was elected as the MLA for Langley-Willowbrook last fall, Jody Toor misrepresented her medical credentials to get a job as chief medical officer for a local company that offered “psychedelic therapy” for people struggling with mental health. In a piece published yesterday, The Tyee did a deep dive into Toor’s medical and academic credentials and found no record that she had earned an MD degree ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Two doctors groups in British Columbia say there is a “wait-list crisis” for specialists that is severely compromising the health and well-being of residents ... nearly 1,000 specialists  found that about 1.2 million patients are waiting too long to see a health expert in areas such as cardiology, neurology, orthopedic surgery, and urology ... survey respondents say their wait-lists have grown longer in the last two years, placing additional strain on practitioners and their patients ... CLICK HERE for the full story

There is yet another twist in the ongoing saga of last October’s provincial election. In an exclusive interview with 1130 NewsRadio, the losing BC Conservatives candidate in Surrey-Guildford, Honveer Randhawa, says he’s retaining legal counsel to push back against Elections BC after the agency announced it was pausing its investigation into alleged voter tampering. On Tuesday, the electoral body shared that the “allegations in Mr. Randhawa’s January 3 complaint to Elections BC are substantively the same as the allegations made in the court petition” ... CLICK HERE for the full story

... Canada is sparsely populated, and much of the population is gathered in cities very close to the border with the United States, they raise important questions about the exercise of political power and its legitimacy, forms of governance, and, ultimately, sovereignty. By what methods did Canada come to be, and by what right does a small and relatively concentrated group of people, most of whom live down by the Great Lakes or along the St. Lawrence River, lay claim to almost ten million square kilometres of the Earth’s landmass? It is easy to draw lines on maps. Anyone can do it. If you want those lines to represent some sort of generally accepted reality, two things must be true ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Who wants to be the leader of the BC Green Party? Anyone? ... Anyone at all? It’s a question now rippling through BC politics, after Green leader Sonia Furstenau resigned Tuesday and the party’s only two MLAs refused to take her job ... ... It wasn’t Furstenau’s job to figure out who should step up and lead the next generation of Greens. That should have fallen to the elected MLAs, Rob Botterell or Jeremy Valeriote. Except, apparently, neither is willing ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Tuesday, Justice Hogue’s long-awaited Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference (PIFI) finally dropped. It leaves the shortest of all possible runways to implement it before the selection of a new Liberal leader (and prime minister) and an upcoming federal election. The headline of the report is that foreign interference is an increasingly sophisticated and growing problem in Canada’s political processes and broader society. Hostile ideological opponent states do seek to direct resources and funnel votes behind preferred candidates, deploy retaliatory disinformation campaigns—the real threat to democracy that the PIFI underlines—against politicians who have criticized them, and commit crimes on Canadian soil to intimidate and silence their diaspora populations. But none of this is a real surprise to anyone who lives in the real world, Hogue herself concedes. Fortunately, she concludes, we have been lucky: there have been no catastrophic democratic subversions…yet CLICK HERE ...

In the aftermath of any investigation or report designed to uncover wrongdoing, one of the most essential expectations is that it will result in accountability. However, Justice Hogue's recent report falls short in this critical area, leaving many questions unanswered and responsibilities unaddressed. Despite detailing some key issues and identifying systemic flaws, it fails to hold specific individuals or organizations directly accountable for their actions, and this lack of consequence undermines the broader goals of justice and reform ... CLICK HERE for the full report

Addiction Medicine Canada, a collective of over 30 addiction medicine clinicians from across the country, has written a letter to B.C.’s Minister of Health Josie Osborne with a set of guidelines on how to curb the diversion of opioids prescribed under “safe supply” programs. Elenore Sturko (MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale and Critic for Public Safety) and Claire Rattée (MLA for Skeena and Critic for Mental Health & Addictions) call on the health minister to immediately commit to the recommendations of Addiction Medicine Canada and stop prescribed hydromorphone from getting into the hands of youth and gangs once and for all. “ We are mere days away from the U.S. government’s planned implementation of 25% tariffs on Canadian exports. Part of the reason for these tariffs is because the NDP government has been fueling international organized crime through their taxpayer-funded ‘safe supply’ programs for the better part of a decade ,” said Sturko.   “ When our American neighbours s...

As Canada has become a target of U.S. President Donald Trump, the majority of Canadians say they believe that the country’s international reputation has gotten worse, according to a new Nanos Research survey. “Let’s face it, we’ve been a punching bag for Donald Trump on the international stage,” Nik Nanos, chief data scientist and founder of the Nanos Research Group, said in the latest podcast episode of Trend Line. “It seems like every time he has a press conference and he talks about tariffs, we’re at the top of the list. ... The numbers reflect that”  ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Friends of Hong Kong, a non-partisan diaspora group that withdrew from Ottawa’s Foreign Interference Commission a year ago over concerns it would whitewash Chinese interference and endanger diaspora groups, has issued a blistering rebuke of Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue’s final report. The group argues the 16-month inquiry fails to show the federal government can counter foreign interference. In a statement detailing their misgivings, the human rights group says the final report “only serves to deepen our serious reservations regarding our government’s willingness and ability to tackle foreign interference" ... CLICK HERE for the full story

In the 1965 movie Genghis Khan , there is a scene where a messenger rushes into the Chinese imperial court with the news that a town called Ho-pei had been captured by some rebels. The town is too far from the capital for the emperor to know where it is, so a huge map is bought and spread out in front of him. Meanwhile, there is much panicked hubbub among the courtiers, so the emperor says, “ The situation does cause concern, but there is no reason for alarm”. My takeaway from this scene was that a leader must know exactly how much reaction any situation deserves, and when. The caveat here is that in politics, the reaction need not be intended to resolve the situation – and in fact, may have been designed to exacerbate it. Whichever the case, one would expect adequate coverage and analysis of their decisions and actions. At a more basic level, one would expect that there would be decisions and actions to cover and analyze. Sadly, in today’s Canada, neither is of these in ev...

 ... Initially, $8 million was allocated to the BC First Nation to produce evidence of child remains. The money was intended for things like field work, records searches, and to secure the residential school grounds. According to minutes of a 2021 council meeting, the “budget is robust and comprehensive but what is required.” Now we learn it wasn’t quite robust enough. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government actually poured an obscene $12.1 million into the band’s coffers to recover suspected children’s graves, according to Blacklock’s Reporter . Tk’emlups dramatically announced in 2021 that it had discovered 215 children’s graves. Then the claim was tempered down to maybe 200 “potential burials.” And $12.1 million later the truth still hangs in limbo ... CLICK HERE for the full story

The British Columbia government can enact major health-care reforms — without approval from the federal government — that could shorten wait times and improve patient care, finds a new study released today by the Fraser Institute, an independent, non-partisan Canadian public policy think-tank. “These are things the province can do right now, without approval from Ottawa, to improve BC’s crumbling health-care system,” said Bacchus Barua, director of health policy studies at the Fraser Institute and co-author of Health-Care Reform Options for British Columbia. In 2023, BC was one of the highest spenders (per person) on health care among the provinces outside Atlantic Canada—yet at 27.7 weeks experienced its longest median wait time for non-emergency care since 1993 (the first year wait times data were published) ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon spent the weekend tut-tutting Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim’s new plan to halt construction of supportive housing, arguing the move will make the notorious Downtown Eastside neighbourhood even less safe. “If we're saying that we're going to not support the people that are already in the community until we wait for somebody else to do something, it's just going to cause more unrest in the community,” Kahlon told the CBC. The housing minister said he shared the mayor’s frustration that other communities in the region haven’t pulled their weight on supporting housing, “but by saying that we're not going to have supportive housing, it means more people will be homeless, more people will be sleeping in parks, and that actually is a bigger detriment to community safety than actually having housing available for them" ... CLICK HERE for the full story

The City of Williams Lake is fighting to save a biomass power plant there that is set to go dark in the coming weeks, partly due to a lack of affordable fibre, which has become an all-too-familiar refrain in BC for sawmills, pulp mills and other wood processing businesses. The Atlantic Power plant in Williams Lake burns wood waste to generate about 66 megawatts of electricity annually, enough to power about 50,000 homes ... prior to plants like Atlantic Power being built, wood waste from logging in B.C. was burned in beehive burners, and to this day, tonnes of wood waste from timber harvesting is still burned in slash piles, generating nothing but smoke and ash. Many of the EPAs signed in the 1990s expired a few years ago, and some were never renewed. Atlantic Power managed to get a 10-year extension to its contract in 2019, giving it until 2029 at least. But the company that owns the plant announced one year ago that will have to shut down, as it will no longer be eco...

A federal inquiry into foreign interference says there is no evidence of “traitors” in Parliament conspiring with foreign states, dismissing suggestions to the contrary that alarmed the public. In her final report released today, inquiry Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue concludes that while the threat of foreign meddling is real, Canada's democratic institutions have held up well against it ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Canada’s high debt will limit the use of fiscal policy to offset the impact of our next economic crisis, according to a new report from the C.D. Howe Institute. “The message from the conference is a resounding yes,” according to Lester, a Fellow-in-Residence at the C.D. Howe Institute and former federal government economist. “But if President Trump fulfills his tariff threats, Canada’s debt problem will get worse instead of better,” says Laurin. This will heighten concerns about the sustainability of Canada’s federal and provincial debt, limiting the strength of the fiscal response to a tariff-induced recession. A key conclusion from the conference, which took place well before the US tariff threats were made, was that Canada’s combined federal-provincial debt should be reduced by 10 percentage points by 2030 to ensure fiscal policy can be used to counter the effects of future economic crises ... CLICK HERE for the full story

The BC government has turned down a petition to investigate Canada’s largest forestry company at a time when a federal probe into the firm faces the prospect of total collapse. The company has rapidly expanded its footprint in recent years, buying up several Canadian public forestry companies—including Domtar and Resolute Forest Products—in multibillion-dollar deals that gave them control of more than 22 million hectares of forest ... ... Wijaya’s expanded control over the two companies could have serious financial repercussions. APP took a hit to its brand in 2007 when the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) disassociated from the Asian conglomerate over concerns of deforestation. News of Wijaya’s pending control over APP prompted several environmental groups to call on the FSC to “immediately terminate” Domtar’s sustainability certificates in accordance with the group’s policy of association ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is planning a final wave of appointments to fill the 10 vacancies in the Senate before he retires in March, Radio-Canada has learned. The move would allow him to leave a mark on Parliament for years to come, as these unelected legislators will be able to sit until the age of 75. A source familiar with the matter says that the selection process for the future senators is already underway and should be completed before his departure ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has travelled to Poland to take part in the commemoration services for the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. He will stand in the place where over 1 million Jews (of the six million Jews slaughtered in the Holocaust) were brutalized and systematically murdered in an industrial-scale death factory. It was place of horrors that was purpose-built to exterminate the Jewish people. The scale of atrocities committed against the Jewish people in the Holocaust at murder factories like Auschwitz-Birkenau must pose two fundamental questions: How did humanity allow such evil to exist, and how do we prevent it from ever happening again? Based on the alarming levels of anti-Jewish sentiment in Canada, these are questions Mr. Trudeau (and even more so, his governing partners in the New Democratic Party) appear to have deliberately ignored during his Liberal government's tenure, to dangerous effect ... CLICK HER...

A broken window is plastered with a sticker bearing big, red letters declaring: “DANGER" ... police promptly arrested a man in connection with the incident, and he was charged with assault with a weapon, mischief and uttering threats, court records show. He has 26 known aliases, and dozens of charges and convictions in B.C. courts over the years, mostly for theft, robbery and probation breaches. He wasn’t held in custody after this month’s charges ... ... “We bought into the vision of the governments of the day, wanting to use investment in the community to revitalize the area,” Mahlman said. “We’ve lost millions of dollars. We’ve never made money in that store, and that’s not our point, but our point is, is that it hasn’t worked. Because they didn’t bring all the other things to bear at the same time, to help convert the neighbourhood.” London Drugs’ lease at Woodward’s ends in October, Mahlman said, and the company hasn’t decided whether it will continue operating t...

So, are the Liberals are on the upswing or not? It’s still too early to say. Yes, the debate that has been swirling among the kind of folks who read newsletters like this one continues unabated, as we all search for signs of corroboration or refutation of the dramatic polling swing that has been recorded by EKOS Research. Sadly, we lack either as no other major polling firm has put out national numbers over the last week ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Freedom of Information documents reveal NDP government’s empty calendars     Cabinet met only once, skipped one meeting   Eight cabinet ministers violated the  Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act  in November Nine parliamentary secretaries reported no work-related meetings or calls whatsoever in November   “What’s obvious from these records is that David Eby gave his entire caucus a big pay raise, and then they mostly went on vacation on the taxpayer’s dime.” ~~ Peter Milobar, Kamloops Centre MLA and Official Opposition Finance Critic   Official BC government calendars   –   required by law to be posted publicly   –   show that Premier David Eby held just one cabinet meeting in November and held few scheduled meetings or phone calls in November with any of his new cabinet ministers or parliamentary secretaries. And the majority of new NDP cabinet ministers and parliamentary secretari...

With the Liberal leadership race in full swing, the party is searching for a new leader to take them into the next election, slated for October at the latest (but most likely sooner). Meanwhile, Canadians have had time to digest Justin Trudeau’s resignation as Liberal leader—a development that has led to some, shall we say, interesting polling results from one firm in particular. Over the past 40 days, EKOS has released five separate polls showing an increasing share of support for the Liberals. In December, the Conservatives led the Liberals by a massive 26 points, with the Liberals tied with the NDP at 19%. Just days into the new year, and shortly after Trudeau’s resignation, EKOS released a poll indicating a bounce for the Liberals, who climbed to 26% while the Conservative lead shrank to 16 points. Although 26% was on the high side compared to other pollsters, it was still within reason. What followed, however, was a rapid series of EKOS polls showing the Liberals continuing t...