Thoughts on BC Politics and More

The BC Conservatives are sounding the alarm after receiving multiple filings in the BC Supreme Court in which U.S.-based Indigenous tribes are relying on DRIPA, UNDRIP, and the Interpretation Act to assert greater recognition of Aboriginal rights and direct involvement in British Columbia affairs. “This is a clear and growing sovereignty crisis,” said Scott McInnis, Critic for Indigenous Relations. “The Premier himself has referred to the DRIPA situation as an existential threat to British Columbia, and has said amendments are non‑negotiable. We are now seeing exactly why.” Court cases reveal that American tribes are attempting to leverage DRIPA to gain standing and influence inside BC. “It is becoming increasingly clear that DRIPA is being weaponized in ways never transparently disclosed to British Columbians,” McInnis said. “Allowing U.S. tribes to expand their reach into BC governance is deeply concerning and completely unacceptable.” One notable case, brought by a group of Alaskan ...

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says the prime minister has "wasted an entire year" deliberating a potential new oil pipeline out of Alberta — criticism that comes after Mark Carney said a new pipeline is "more probable than possible." "He's been prime minister for a year and he still hasn't even made up his mind whether he supports a pipeline," Poilievre told reporters at a news conference in Toronto on Sunday morning. "He's wasted an entire year" ... CLICK HERE for the full story 

Canadian Affairs has been exploring what Canada can learn from Australia’s health-care system.  Canadian Affairs chose Australia as the focus for its series for two reasons: Australia ranks first in the Commonwealth Fund’s latest ranking of 10 high-income health systems, and Canada shares numerous structural similarities with Australia. A defining feature of Australia’s system is its hybrid model: Australia has a robust public system for most medical services and drugs. But its private sector also plays a key role.  Experts say the success of this hybrid model depends on how the balance between public and private care is managed ... CLICK HERE for the full story 

Peter Menzies: Canada's walled content garden has collapsed Many years ago, as a naive new CRTC commissioner, I attended the Canadian film and television industry’s annual Prime Time convention in Ottawa and posed a question. I asked Glen O’Farrell, who led the Canadian Association of Broadcasters (CAB) for many years, if there was a plan or if anyone could foresee a time in a future, more populous Canada — even 50 years from now — when the nation’s film and television industry could thrive without dependence on government subsidies. The answer was a firm “No.” Such a day will never come. Thus began my journey into the mindset of the regulated broadcasting and cultural content-production industries: What exists today will remain as it was in the beginning and ever shall be ... CLICK HERE for the full story

The story the trucking industry has been telling Canadians for years is simple: there’s a critical labour shortage. Not enough drivers. Too few willing hands to move the goods that keep our economy running. The solution, we’re told, is to bring in more migrant workers.  But a new report from Teamsters Canada blows a gaping hole in that narrative. The report exposes something far more familiar to anyone paying attention to Canada’s labour market: we’re not facing a shortage of workers, but a shortage of decent jobs ... CLICK HERE for the full story

During the last debate, candidates discussed how we would respond to civil unrest following the repeal of DRIPA. I’ve been on the front lines of this fight, and I want to be clear with you about what leadership looks like. When protests turned into fires on the steps of the Legislature during the Wet’suwet’en blockades, I was there calling on then-Premier John Horgan to act. I said the same thing then that I’m saying now: The rule of law applies in British Columbia, and as Premier, I will enforce it. Fairly, firmly, and without hesitation. Let’s be honest about what’s coming. Repealing DRIPA won’t be quiet. It won’t be easy. There will be protests. There may even be attempts at illegal blockades. But here’s the difference: under my leadership, the government will not stand by. We will: ➤  Uphold the rule of law—consistently and without exception ➤  Ensure law enforcement has the backing they need to act ➤ ...

The Cowichan ruling exposes a province-wide property rights breakdown that threatens homeowners, investors, and Indigenous communities alike. The ongoing feud over property rights that the Cowichan ruling triggered creates neither a "White" problem nor an "Indian" problem — it generates a land certainty crisis that threatens every British Columbian. Most of the rhetoric out there avoids that, but some of it treads onto racial grounds or carries those undertones, whether conscious or unconscious ... CLICK HERE for the full commentary

  In BC, residential electricity customers pay almost twice as much as big businesses.  As demand for power spikes, the cost of infrastructure and daily use is only going to go up... CLICK HERE for the full story

... While he is emphasizing his usual campaign priorities including his leadership experience and plans for the future, Black also revealed a philosophy that he has yet to speak of publicly. While in the forest-sector dependent community of Castlegar, Black told Castlegar News that if he were eventually elected as premier, he would like to re-locate some bureaucrats from Victoria to the areas rich in the resource sectors they represent. “Why is the chief forester of British Columbia in Victoria, why isn’t that office out where the forestry is?” asked Black. “We need to get senior officials, that impact the livelihoods of our communities, out of Victoria and in offices elsewhere ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Nationally, Léger puts the Liberals at 48%, unchanged from its late-March survey. The Conservatives gain three points to reach 37%, while both the Bloc Québécois and the NDP stand at 6%.  In other words: movement at the margin, but no meaningful dent in the Liberal lead. Regionally, the Liberals continue to dominate in the country’s largest provinces. Léger measures an 11-point Liberal lead in Ontario (51% to 40%) and a 20-point advantage in Quebec (47% to 27% for the Bloc) ... CLICK HERE for the full story

A commentary by a former ­senior associate member of the University of Oxford. British Columbia’s Bill 9 does not remove the right of access to information, but it risks making that right harder to use in ­practice. That should concern anyone who believes government should be answerable to the public, not insulated from it ... ... delays are not, by ­themselves, a reason to ­narrow public rights. More often, they reflect under-resourced access offices, weak records ­management and outdated s­ystems. If government cannot process requests efficiently, the answer is to improve capacity, not reduce accountability ... CLICK HERE for the full story 

The first two debates with all five candidates featured tough attacks. Conservative Party of BC leadership candidates have used the first two debates with all five hopefuls to make a pitch for what sets them apart.   CLICK HERE for the full story 

The BC government says several construction contracts for long-term care homes that were delayed as part of February’s budget have now been cancelled, as has the contract for Phase 2 of the Burnaby Hospital redevelopment. Mayors, hospital foundations and the provincial seniors advocate have all protested the decision, saying it means needed health-care resources won’t be built even as demand continues to grow ... CLICK HERE for the full story 

Scott McInnis, MLA for Columbia River-Revelstoke, and Critic for Indigenous Relations, is calling on the NDP government to abandon the third failed version of its Heritage Conservation Act overhaul, after municipalities, builders, developers, and the business community rejected it for the third time in a row. "This isn't a one-bill problem. It's a pattern," said McInnis. "Negotiate in secret. Consult after the fact. Ignore the pushback. We've seen it on DRIPA, on the Mineral Tenure Act, and now three times on the Heritage Act. At every step, this government has chosen secrecy over consultation, and every time it has blown up in their faces." The latest revisions, drafted on a 30-day timeline to meet the government's own deadline, were rejected by UBCM, the Urban Development Institute, the BC Business Council, the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association, and the City of Kelowna. UBCM asked the province to pilot the changes before rolling th...

The federal government’s Spring Economic Update is a remarkable document casting economic success against a backdrop of crisis. Despite a trade war and the impending doom of a renegotiated CUSMA, the economy in 2025 was surprisingly robust, growing the second-fastest in the G7 and nowhere near the apocalyptic scenarios of massive drops in GDP and unemployment surges forecast in early 2025 ... CLICK HERE for the full report 

Image Credit: Seniors Advocate BC     “ Eight years. That is not a wait time. That is a system failur e” Seniors in British Columbia are now waiting years, not months, for access to long-term care, according to figures confirmed during Health Estimates this week. Brennan Day, MLA for Courtenay-Comox and Critic for Rural Health and Seniors’ Health, says the numbers paint a clear picture of a system falling behind the needs of a rapidly aging population. “Yesterday, after repeated questioning, the Minister finally confirmed that 7,829 seniors are currently waiting for long-term care in British Columbia,” said Day. “That’s an 11 percent increase in just one year.” The delays are not measured in weeks, they are measured in years. Across the province, average wait times now exceed a year in many regions. In Vancouver Coastal Health, the maximum wait time has reached 2,825 days, nearly eight years. “Eight years,” said Day. “That is not a wait time. That is a system failure.” At...

As pulp mill and sawmill jobs plummet in number, British Columbia’s Forests Ministry is opening the door to more exports of unprocessed logs, including those produced from trees cut down in old-growth forests. Under current rules, companies wanting to ship raw logs from B.C. to buyers in China, Japan, Korea and elsewhere pay a “fee in lieu of manufacturing” — a penalty designed to encourage more domestic log manufacturing. But in February, the provincial government quietly lowered those fees. The reduced fees will make it more profitable to ship logs away, and although the government says it will incentivize more logging, others warn that the change risks undermining already precarious manufacturing jobs in the province’s struggling forest industry ... CLICK HERE for the full story

  Adrienne Arsenault, will take us through her conversation with Prime Minister Mark Carney earlier this week — and why a man who's fast-moving in every other way isn't rushing toward a deal with the US ... CLICK HERE for the full story  

Pierre Poilievre wants you to believe Adam Smith was a conservative. He wasn’t. This year is the 250th anniversary of Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, one of the most influential books ever. Smith, an 18th-century Scottish moral philosopher, is considered one of history’s great thinkers, and the ideas in his writings have shaped not just modern economics but modern debates about what a just society owes its members. Pierre Poilievre has marked the occasion with a National Post op-ed arguing that “free markets are moral” and invoking Smith as the patron saint of Conservative tax cuts, deregulation and fossil fuel expansion. I’d like to offer a different reading, one that is more grounded in what Smith actually wrote ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Canadians have never before seen a minority government become a majority government through a combination of floor crossing and byelections. A small increase in the number of Liberal caucus members has given the government sweeping power, all without voters having a say in a general election. Current conversations about the appropriateness of floor crossings are an opportunity for a broader discussion about electoral reform.  CLICK HERE for the full story

This blog page, which has been in existence for many years, has been replaced with a Substack page.  What you have found here, with commentaries from a number of writers on BC and federal politics, will continue ... just in a new location. If you are interested, please take a moment to subscribe at: https://substack.com/@alanforseth #bcpoli #cdnpoli

If you step back and look at the BC Conservative leadership race, which begin 81 days ago on January 16th, the real difference is not experience, it is approach. Caroline Elliott understands where voters are right now. People are tired of being managed, talked down to, and boxed into rigid policy frameworks. They want someone who reflects their concerns but can still operate in the real world. That is where she separates from someone like Kerry-Lynne Findlay. Findlay represents a more traditional style of politics. She brings experience, but also a more controlled and cautious approach that can feel rigid at a time when voters want responsiveness and adaptability. Elliott is positioning herself differently. She leans more socially conservative in tone, which connects with a base that feels ignored, but she is also showing a willingness to be pragmatic. That balance is what actually wins elections. If you are too rigid, you stall out. If you are too soft, you lose your base. The candida...

Last night, in Kamloops, I and a dozen others had the opportunity to meet with Conservative Party of BC leadership Candidate Kerry-Lynne Findlay. Including a brief Q&A, she spoke for an hour and a quarter on a number of topics, although the majority of that time was spent talking about issues surrounding the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA). Like all other candidates, however, she has been clear in stating that under her leadership, and a BC Conservative government, it will be cancelled. She also spoke to the need for all conservatives to unite and come together as a single force against the NDP government of Premier David Eby. “ We need all the conservatives. We need conservatives to come together.  I'm talking to the independents ”, Findlay stated. She then went on to discuss what can’t be done right now, a direct reference to a deal the Fulmer campaign struck with OneBC leader Dallas Brodie just days ago. “ As a leadership contender, you...