Thoughts on BC Politics and More

My heart is heavy. I fear for the future of our country. To me, Canada is a powerhouse, indivisible, not because we are all the same, but because are all so different and we love each other for what we bring to our society.  The one end result of this era I want is a strong, united Canada. I embrace the people who live in the arctic, I love our first nations, I embrace the truckers who had the freedom to make a blockade and their right wing supporters, I embrace those who want French first and most importantly, I endorse all Canadians. I want to share some of my family political background to help illustrate the view. Tommy Douglas (shown with my mom in the photos), whom many consider to be the greatest Canadian ever, was a close family friend. At a time when I was learning how to stack wooden blocks (poorly), my entire family was working hard with Tommy to bring social justice and unity to Canada. If you skip my political posts and think I should just stick to tech...

Some history keeps repeating itself. In 1926, J.S. Woodsworth was leader of the “Ginger Group,” a number of disgruntled MPs who would go on to help form the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), predecessor to the New Democratic Party. In exchange for long-term support to stay in power, the prime minister at the time, William Lyon Mackenzie King, offered Woodsworth a cabinet position and some progress towards creation of public pensions. Woodsworth refused the offer. He preferred to negotiate whether to prop up King’s minority Liberal government on a case-by-case basis as bills came forward in the House of Commons. Using this strategy, Woodsworth was able to secure the introduction of public pensions as well as more generous unemployment insurance for workers ... CLICK HERE for the full story

The BC Liberal Party "Troll" truck has been showing up at NDP campaign stops in recent days A friend and acquaintance asked me today, " If the BC Liberals are Liberals, then why do the use Federal Conservative 'blue' so prominently on their signs and advertising?   Isn't the Liberal color supposed to be Red? " Let me say, before going further, this individual has not lived in Canada for all that long, and so someone asking the question made perfect sense. I said to them, and I'm paraphrasing now, "BC is kind of a weird place. For a long time we had Liberal party ... the Conservative party ... and then after awhile we had the CCF, which eventually became the NDP. Now the Liberals were Liberal in every way ... the Conservatives were Conservative in every way ... and the CCF was the peoples party made up of socialists, unionists, and what I'll call social democrats. With a Conservative / Liberal coalitio...

Sandy MacDougall ... AKA the Sidewinder Today, as mentioned on my Social Media feeds on Saturday, we have a new contributor to "Thoughts on BC Politics and More -- it's Sandy McDougall, AKA the Sidewinder.  Today, he shares his thoughts on being a 'conservative'. I have always considered myself a conservative person, both socially and politically but this is by my own definition which will almost certainly clash with other people's views of conservatism. In general terms, being politically conservative means exercising caution when considering change, following traditional ways, and having a practical and ethical social conscience. Being socially conservative means following much the same philosophy in terms of environment and lifestyle. In my view, a conservative approach to social issues must be inclusive and reflect a strong social conscience. It has always annoyed me that the NDP and its predecessor, the CCF, portray themselves as the only ...