Early work on logging DL33 before it was halted by protestors several weeks ago

A guest blog by Phil Carson of Coombs, BC:

Why should we care about 150 acres of Coastal Douglas Fir forest with an uninspiring bureaucratic name like DL 33?  Alberta’s tar sands have already turned 1000 times as much boreal forest into a heart wrenching industrial waste land.   The British Columbia government removed a forest 1000 times bigger just from Vancouver Island’s Tree Farm Licenses 44 and 39, exposing the old growth forest ecosystems and their endangered species to the whims of a single logging and development corporation, Island Timberlands.

What makes DL33 a special treasure is shared by a Snow Leopard, the Cathedral of Notre Dame,  Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa,  Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata’ or a Blue Whale.  They are rare irreplaceable wonders of creation.  You can’t measure the value of a songbird by the pound and you can’t measure the value of the wondrous lifeforms and miraculous interconnections of an ecosystem by the acre.  Like the Snow Leopard and the Blue Whale the Coastal Douglas Fir (bio geo climatic zone) is ICUN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) red-listed, critically endangered, globally imperiled, less than 1% left on the planet.

The Convention on Biological Diversity is an internationally legally binding treaty opened for signing at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Canada became a party on June 11, 1992. Biodiversity – The Insurance Policy for Life Itself shouts Canada’s website (www.biodivcanada.ca). It goes on:

“An important component of this wealth is Canada’s biodiversity – the variety of genes, species and ecosystems and the ecological processes that allow them to evolve and adapt to a changing world.

“Canadians care about biodiversity because it touches their lives, and their livelihoods, in very direct and personal ways.

“Canadians have rallied to support their special places and species at risk because they instinctively understand the aesthetic, recreational, spiritual and cultural importance of biodiversity.”

According to the website, Canada seems to get it, yet why did the Federal and British Columbia governments promote the destruction of one of the last remaining stands of older Coastal Douglas Fir  by the Nanoose First Nations?  The Regional District of Nanaimo, the Association of Vancouver Island Municipalities and Coastal Communities, the Mount Arrowsmith Biosphere Reserve, the Arrowsmith Parks and Land Use Council, the Western Canada Wilderness Committee, Scott Fraser, local MLA, and many others practically begged the BC Ministry of Forests and Premiers Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark to find another source of economic development than the few dollars this tiny forest would provide.

The forest and all the flora, fauna, insects, and micro-organisms that make up this very beautiful, rich and unique ecosystem is in the process of being destroyed.  Let’s rally now to prevent a similar fate to the rest of our very rare and very precious old growth forest left of Vancouver Island.  DL33 will not have died in vain.

Story by Damien Gillis: Ancient Douglas Fir Grove on the Chopping Block Today

I have a new book called The Home Stretch published online through Amazon.com for the modest price of $9.99 (apparently $10 is too high but 9.99 is just right.)

This book arose out of research I did for my TV show on JOY-TV called “The Search.”

OK, the book is about religion … but it’s not a religious book – it’s an unskilled layman’s look at the religions of the world. It came about because I think that most of us, upon learning we’re going to die (I still think they’re going to make an exception in my case) start a long search for the best way out of this mess.

The book is guaranteed to piss off those who are certain theirs is the only way to go but I hope it will interest and challenge most people and even get a laugh or two along the way.

Why online?

Simple – though I’ve had 8 books published, I as a BC writer don’t get manuscripts returned anymore (that I can handle) but utter silence from those who (by their own admission) made money on my past humble efforts.

Downloading is easy and cheap and I might even make a small return on my efforts – which you must agree is better than zilch.

Merry Christmas even though you don’t buy my book, but my bonhomie is considerably more sincere to those of you who go to Amazon.com and shell out the lousy nine+ bucks to buy my outstanding and ridiculously under priced book.

“It’ll work if one thing happens; that the people here, particularly the young people, get out and vote in the next election.”

We were to sail on September 3 out of Dover which meant a flight from Vancouver to Gatwick thence to the ship. We flew Air Transat which we’d done before and the flight was fine – it was the baggage. As we were to be away 3 weeks we had two full cases and two full carry-ons and to make a long story short were dinged nearly $500! Lest you think we took our rock collection with us, when we returned via Air Canada there was no add-on, simply baggage tags saying “heavy”. Evidently when Charter carriers give baggage limits, believe them!

We got to London at 6:45AM and our pre-arranged car was there and waiting. The trip to Dover would cost 120 pounds by train and would have involved a lot of heavy lifting. Our car cost us 98 pounds which gave us a lovely car and a driver who did all the lifting. The company is Airport Pickups London, 011 44 20 8688 7744.

We stayed at a really neat hotel in St Margaret’s Bay called The White Cliffs Hotel which had a superb dining-room. At dinner we had what turned out to be a great bonus – Judy Crater, whom we didn’t know, came to our table having overheard that we were sailing on the Sojourn vessel the Sojourn and introduced herself. Husband Dick arrived and we agreed to share a cab to the ship. They became our dinner companions on the trip, we did some excursions and we became very good friends. The Craters live near Boston, were Democrats, and we soon found that our politics were in the same ballpark (dinner tables can become unpleasant when there is always a political argument in the wings). We also had a common interest in healthcare, Judy and Wendy being nurses, Dick a retired Hospital CEO and I Minister of Health. We’re all baseball fans and our new Boston friends politely refrained from talking hockey. In this spirit I kept my comments about the faltering Red  Sox to a minimum! Happily we’ll get together again in early 2012 in New York City.

Let me tell you about Seabourn – it is all-inclusive so there is no concern about tipping, The Sojourn only took 400 passengers, and it had that indefinable feeling of “laid back” about it. Dinner is when you want it with the choice of three restaurants and excellent food. Neither Dick nor I are small men and we’re both diabetic meaning a battle to lose weight and lower blood sugar numbers when we got home!

Wendy and I have cruised in most parts of the world except the North Atlantic so when our Cruise Specialist, Brandon Biss of Cruise Web sent us the info on the Seabourn trip we signed up.

Here is the itinerary: Start in Dover, then Leith (Edinburgh) Bergen, Norway, Lerwick (Shetland), Faroe Islands, Heimaey Island, Iceland, Greenland, L’Anse Aux Meadows, cruise down the St Lawrence finishing in Quebec City.

I don’t intend a long dissertation on each and every stop but just give you an idea of what this trail of the Vikings in the North Atlantic was like. In that context I can tell you that everywhere we went had a fascination of its own which is not to say I would like to spend two weeks in Greenland but could easily do so in Iceland. (The story is that Eric (The Red) when putting together his colony in Greenland so named it as a lure for immigrants then named Iceland to discourage les autres!)

Edinburgh, a favourite of mine, gave us a nice day for a “hop on/hop off” bus tour. Edinburgh is a grand city for a bus tour or, indeed, walking as it’s a small city geographically. Dominated by Edinburgh Castle (where Mary Queen of Scots gave birth to the future James I of England), the Royal Mile from the Castle to Holyrood Castle encapsulates much of the city’s history. Princes Street, right across the park from the castle is a must for shoppers. For those who prefer to do so, it’s a walking city.

Bergen was once part of the great Hanseatic League and is Norway’s second largest city. It was one of the jumping-off points for Vikings. It’s a pretty city whose main history (other than the Vikings) seems to be that it was always burning down.

I fell in love with Shetland (No! It’s not THE Shetlands) about 25 years ago when I visited for “troot” fishing. It is barren but beautiful as only the barren can be. The heather, late this year, takes the breath away. We did indeed visit a herd of Shetland ponies which are mean little bastards but somehow retain the reputation as gentle little creatures for little children to ride at birthday parties. The main – hell, only – town of Lerwick is a charming place with lots of stores selling local wool products at reasonable prices. It is said that Shetlanders are fishermen who raise some sheep while its southern neighbour, Orkney (NO! not The Orkneys) is inhabited by shepherds who fish.

Though part of Great Britain for 500 years and nominally Scots, Shetland’s Norse background is evident in the look of the people and the native tongue which little used now, is Norse, not Gaelic.

The Faroe Islands to our great surprise, were wonderful. Our guide was an American who had come to the islands with her husband (she was paid to tell us about the Faroe Islands not her personal life she warned us – and then proceeded to do so!) was fluent in the old Faroe tongue which is very much in use. Politically the islands are nominally part of Denmark but have sufficient independence to stay out of the EU. Had they joined, they would have lost their fishing rights and this place fishes.

Interestingly, until this year they had an annual slaughter of pilot whales – this being the year that Paul Watson and the Sea Shepherd put an end of it. (If you want to know where I stand, I’m a proud member of the Sea Shepherd Society Board of Advisors) What was interesting that not a word about this was said even though one of its stamps shows a man clubbing a whale.

The history of Faroe (NOT the Faroes – the Vikings have a thing about definite articles, it seems) is much the history of Norway and Denmark and one is wise, before going there, to hit the Internet and get some background.)

These islands, barren though they are, are beautiful in the same way Shetland is, only more so!

Our next stop was the interesting island of Heimaey, part of Iceland, The interesting part is that a volcano in 1973, Eldfell, added a large amount of land and would have blocked up the main harbour, Helgafell, had the citizens not diverted, by way of water, the lava flow. We circumnavigated the island in small boats and saw the obligatory whale and puffin (for some reason one of my favourite birds.) What sticks in my memory about the small village is that their only tourist shop was closed, it being Sunday! Here they get a handful of tourists a year yet close out visitors from a cruise ship. It annoyed me, I can tell you, because I collect baseball caps and this was my only blank!

Reykjavik is a marvellous city in a remarkable country. It’s much as I had come to expect but was staggered by Godafoss Falls seen below along with an interesting touristy note taken off the ‘net.

This popular wide river waterfall on the Skjálfandafljót played a role in Icelandic history. During that time, the law speaker (named Þorgeir) for the alþing (assembly) in the year 1000 had to make a nontrivial decision whether to make Iceland Christian or not. At a time when you either converted or faced death, the decision was made to make the country Christian and Þorgeir tossed his Norse deity idols into the waterfall. Besides history, this waterfall also holds its own in scenic allure, which you can experience from both sides of the river and get up close. It’s definitely a not-to-be-missed attraction.

The tour we took was called the Golden Circle complete with geysers, waterfalls, rivers and remarkable scenery.

Reykjavik surprised me by its size and modern look. It’s a very old city and is steeped in Norse history. This is a place I could have stayed for two weeks.

The Kingdom of Iceland is a sovereign country under the Crown of Denmark.

Qaqortoq, (try pronouncing that with or without a mouthful of porridge!) Greenland is a small yet attractive village that rates well with me because I could and did get a baseball cap! Erik “the Red” showed a keen wit calling this place Greenland! It’s a place I wouldn’t go to for its own attractions but wouldn’t miss when following the Vikings.

Our next stop was to be L’Anse Aux Meadows, Newfoundland, the famous Viking “Vinland” however we were in the tail-end of a major hurricane and the skipper decided to head through Sable Passage into the peaceful St Lawrence thence to Saguenay, Quebec. The problem was that L’Anse is very shallow so tenders would be needed and the water was too choppy for that.

Saguenay is a city in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region of Quebec, Canada, on the Saguenay River, about 200 kilometres north of Quebec City and was a very happy surprise.

We did a little bus tour that sounds pretty corny but in fact was great fun.

First we visited a small, independent soap company whose head, and the spokesman, was a comedy act itself worth the visit. Then we saw a glassblower, not the kind you see at the fair, but an artist who made a glass beluga before our very eyes. Then we saw a sheep farm that makes goat’s cheese. I guess you had to be there but we all enjoyed ourselves immensely.

Our last two days were in Quebec City where Wendy had not been. We did the usual touristy things, the Plains Of Abraham, Montmorency Falls, the Old City and we stayed at the Chateau Frontenac. It was way over our financial heads but, I suppose, I did get my baseball cap, the most expensive I’ve ever seen around the world.

We had been warned – and indeed it had been my past experience – that the citizens were anti Anglo and went out of their way not to speak English. Nothing could be further from the truth. Our last night we visited an Irish Pub, inventively called St Patrick’s and had a whale of a time. Everywhere we went we met friendly faces that cheerfully handled English.  Apart from the ridiculous cost of the Chateau, a wonderful way to close out a wonderful vacation.

What about the overall trip?

We loved it and if it wasn’t the best we’ve ever taken, I can’t think of what was.

We’ve sailed the North and South Atlantic and the North and South Pacific and in doing that you must be ready for some rough weather. In fact, you must expect that anywhere you sail. We had some very rough weather starting in Faroe and ending in the St Lawrence. For someone partially disabled like me, getting to and fro can be a challenge. But it’s no big deal when you consider what you saw and did.

The “all inclusive” aspect of the cruise is great. You don’t have to worry about the tipping. I remember our first cruise where tipping was entirely optional and the last morning the waiters were all but throwing food at us! Evidently most passengers had not come up to the staff’s levels of expectation. Either all inclusive or a built in 15% is the best way to go.

On a cruise such as ours, it’s all but obligatory that you do some research. You will get bumph on the ship but it’s better if you spend an hour or so on the ‘net doing your own thing.

We prefer smaller ships – although they may be rougher – if only because you can dine when you wish. This trip we dined with our new friends when we felt like it whereas on larger ships you will be part of a table of, perhaps, 8 and over a few days, much less weeks, relations can be strained – especially if you are a bit argumentative (although I’m not saying that I am of course!) You can get relocated but that’s embarrassing and you can always get a table for two but you have that every day at home.

Excursions can be very good or very bad and they’re never cheap. There are several things you can do.

• always “Google” the places you will see. It’s always so much better if you know what you’re going to see so you can ask each other if you really want to visit a cigar making factory in the Dominican Republic. Wendy and I will often swallow hard and pay the price of visiting a place we’ve always wanted to see, or seems to be right up our alley then simply not take excursions in ports where we can walk on shore and do our own exploring.
• if you have a good cruise agent, as we have, ask them for what knowledge they can glean
• consider joining another couple in a city, say, and get a cab, splitting the fare – this can be a terrific way to see the sights.

Remember that cruise ships provide a lot of entertainment possibilities such as lectures, bridge rooms, a library, swimming pool(s), exercise rooms and so on.

A word about travel agents. I will get the local agents pissed off by saying that I found Cruise Web online after what I considered a badly handled trip. I hit the Internet then contacted every cruise line I could find, doing my due diligence. It begat a great relationship and I have the one thing I want the most – a phone number if I need help. As time goes on, your agent gets to know, instinctively, what you’re looking for and, more importantly, what you’re not looking for.

In closing, we learned a great deal about the Vikings, a group that had such an impact on so many sailing in such flimsy craft and made two new friends – it doesn’t get any better.

It started when I was a little boy of 8 when my cousin Hugh Bardon and I stood on 41st Avenue to watch King George and Queen Elizabeth whiz by so fast that had I sneezed I would have missed it. Naturally I took this as a personal snub. So did Hugh.

But I came to admire the King and Queen in World War II as they had a substantial impact on morale.

In all events, I love the British pageantry – no one else has their professionalism – and think the system is a good one compared to any other. Presumably the alternatives would be the Prime Minister as Head of State which would be impossible under a parliamentary system or an elected president which would mean politicizing the office. My personal choice would be to have the Chief Justice of Canada but it’s highly unlikely she would have the time for all the ceremonial stuff.

What brought this on?

A couple of days ago, when on the groceries brigade and was checking out I saw the usual tabloids. I saw a story that said that Prince Charles and Camilla were splitting and she was getting 300,000 quid.

Then I saw Prince William and Kate in Canada and came up with this thought: suppose Chuck and Camilla are on the rocks, a horrified Queen might well have decided that he simply cannot be King. He would put the Crown in a worse position that at Edward’s Abdication in 1936. Might she have gone to the Prime Minister and, in private to Commonwealth countries that still have her as Head of State, said Charles will renounce his right of succession, then I shall retire in favour of William and Kate?

That would be a hugely popular move and would return its lustre to what Prince Phillip calls “the family firm”.

25 Influential Books on Politics: Samara will be collecting nominations from people across the country—and the political spectrum—on their picks for the 25 most influential political books of the last 25 years. Samara is a charitable organization that studies citizen engagement with Canadian democracy. Through our projects we hope to strengthen the health of our democracy and encourage others to do the same. Samara was created out of a belief in the importance of public service and public leadership.

Our work focuses on three areas: political leadership; the participation of citizens in public life; and public affairs journalism.

The books selected are, Canada Is Anyone Listening? (Key Porter), Rants Raves and Recollections (Whitecap),  and Still Ranting (Whitecap).

Mr Bamber says “Unfortunately I had to narrow it down to only three… but those 3 work great as a trilogy. I worry that as is typical of the “national” scene that a BC writer such as Rafe Mair will be overlooked, so I figure “what the bleep!” (To quote Rafe!) Please help get Rafe the recognition that I believe he deserves!”

This project’s website is:

http://www.samaracanada.com/Best_Political_Books

The page to endorse me is:

http://www.samaracanada.com/Nominate_Books

Political books from BC writers suffer greatly from being all but ignored by Indigo/Chapters which site books about as far away from potential buyers as is possible and discourage local publishers. I’m not whining just laying it out.

You can get, from www.abebooks.com, each of these books not in good condition for pennies – however the good copies get $25 for Canada: Is Anyone Listening; and $35 for each of the others. Which with the exception of Canada is considerably more than they came out at!

The attitudes of both Attorney-General Barry Penner (who should know better) and columnist Mike Smyth (who can’t, on his record be expected to) are shocking because neither of them understand the system which permits limited leaves for people found NOT GUILTY because of limited mental capacity.

Dealing with the so-called “criminally insane” has tormented legal systems the world over. If a person does not have the capacity to understand his act and to form the necessary “intent” that is central requirement of a guilty finding, what do you do with him?

For many years that person was sent to an insane asylum and forgotten about. Happily we’ve done better in recent years.

Mr Penner and Mr Smyth seem incapable of understanding that Schoenborn was found NOT guilty by reason of his incapacity to form the necessary intent. If the prosecutor had been unhappy with that finding, he should have appealed to the Court of Appeal – he didn’t so we must take it that the Crown had no objection to the finding.

At that moment Schoenborn was NOT GUILTY and was detained “at Her Majesty’s Pleasure” until he was medically certified as no longer a threat to society than any other member of the public might be.

He is then out of the court system and into medical care.

Mr Smyth and Mr Penner please read the following and commit it to memory if that be possible – Mr Schoenborn was not committed as a penalty because we impose none on those detained; he was detained for health reasons not criminal law reasons. Because Schoenborn was innocent and under enforced medical care, the questions arises – will we ever let him out and if so, under what restrictions?.

I don’t know if there is still a Cabinet Committee to affirm any releases from custody but in my time I sat on a Committee with Garde Gardom, and the late Allan Williams. Over a five year period we sat as the final decision and, I can assure you that we considered some pretty awful fact patterns.

One, like this case, involved a man who had torched his house with wife and family therein. (He was permitted limited freedom.) All three of us were much impressed by the system where candidates for release were judged on their illness. We were also impressed with the conditions imposed and the reporting the release patient had to regularly make. We often went back to the doctors involved and confirmed the cases before. None of those we judged ever offended thereafter.

If it’s Smyth and Penner’s position that this system should be dumped then they should say so and tell us what process we should put its place.

If it’s their opinion that the partial release in the Schoenborn case was wrong because he was not sufficiently assessed, they should say so and tell us what evidence they have to back that position.

Instead these men aimed at a public that is, of course, appalled at the case itself and was only too willing to fall in line with the criticism. This was, to put it mildly, irresponsible. The only way the AG and Mr Smyth could be right is if Schoenborn was being punished and the punishment wasn’t enough. You don’t punish those not guilty – something the Harper government has a tough time understanding.

This is not a parole matter and the Parole Board has no involvement in such matters.

Forgive me for saying again, the Schoenborn case is not about criminal law, punishments and parole – it’s about mentally ill people who are, in effect, quarantined until it’s safe to release on strictly enforced reporting strictures.

These cases are never pretty. The facts are usually horrible. As one option we should scrap the system and simply let “offenders” rot in jail. If that’s what Smyth and Penner think, well Penner is the AG and should take the necessary steps.

There is an old and very true legal maxim: “hard cases make bad law”. The Schoenborn case is a hard one but if we’re going to change the law meaning that sanity is not an issue, we will take our civilization back 200 years.

As the law stands, people like Schoenborn do not go to jail but to hospital to await a decision by a medical panel that he might be freed with limitations.

The Schoenborn case was horrible. I, no less than any decent person, was shocked. But he was found Not Guilty, confined on medical grounds until it was safe to lift the quarantine.

Mr Penner and Mr Smyth owe more to the public than chest thumping appeals to those they should be helping to understand the law in these matters.

East Toba River and Montrose Creek generating station in the Toba Valley

The following will demonstrate, as if that were necessary, that the Liberal Government has lied through its teeth.

Below is a direct quote from Colin Hansen, found by Googling “Colin Hansen, private power”

Here’s what Hansen says:

“ … where we can encourage small companies to build small scale hydroelectric projects that are run of the river, and what that means is, instead of having a big reservoir, a big dam that backs water up, and creates a great big lake, these are run of the river, so the river continues to flow at its normal but we capture some of the energy in the form of hydroelectric power from this.

Now please look at a copy of the March 8 Vancouver Sun, section C, the Business Section and look at the picture of that “small scale hydroelectric project” at Toba Inlet. Here it is: Magma Energy, Plutonic Power team up

It started when I went into the Hudson’s Bay in Park Royal North to buy some underwear and could find no one to direct me. I had to ask a very busy cashier.

I went to the right place – finally – and there wasn’t a clerk to ask about prices etc. So, I bought some which turned out to be much too expensive when Wendy looked at what I had done.

Now to pay for them, but where? There was no sign and nothing at the pay stations to signal their presence to customers.

I thought to myself that this wasn’t like the “Bay” when I was a boy.

I actually grew up on a David Spencer family. Spencer’s was our own BC store and when they were bought out by Eaton’s my intrepid Gram – who came from Cape Breton Island and detested Toronto as much as any native British Columbian did – and she forbade any member of the family to darken Eaton’s door. When I got older and Gram was gone I would occasionally go into Eaton’s and every time I had bad service and I would walk out, look to the skies, and say “Gram, you were right”. (Remind me to tell you some time of the time I tried to buy a jockstrap.)

In any event I left and walked over to Park Royal South to the cobbler’s to get some shoe work done. Now there was service! And with a big smile! And some joshing back and forth. The Hudson’s Bay people would do well to get their shoes fixed, go to Moneyworth Cobblers, and see how real marketing is done!

As I waited for the light at Taylor Way and Marine a Police car, in a lineup trying to cross Marine suddenly flashed his lights, went around the line-up and through the light, then turned his lights off and proceeded as normal.

What the hell is wrong with this picture?

I’ll tell you – in a word, arrogance. It’s like the joke about “why do dogs lick their balls?”

“Because they can.”

It’s the arrogance of power.

Then it occurred to me – this arrogance is bred out of our indifference. It’s like “living with the bomb” – forget about it and go on about your business.

What this has sponsored with scarcely a whimper is a police force that can stop your car, investigate you, charge you, find you guilty and administer the punishment all on the spot. No tiresome trial, no whimpering about the “presumption of innocence” or dangerous concepts like that. All done within 10 minutes.

And what do our media say?

It’s great – it frees up all those courtrooms! (If that’s a societal advantage, why not close them entirely and let the police loose to “do their job”.

It never seems to occur to people that this moody, undisciplined bunch of taser users, dope peddling, assaulters of suspects are the very people who hand out drumhead justice on the roads of the province.

Am I soft on drinking drivers?

If you have to ask that question, you haven’t been paying attention!

What I’m against is eliminating the most basic protection a citizen has against tyranny – the presumption of innocence.

The state could make it illegal to drink and drive as has been done in Sweden. It can increase the consequences. But it cannot take away your right to a fair trial with the onus of proof resting on the state – at least it can’t if it wishes to be a democracy.

So there we are – you used to be able to find and pay for your underwear with help from the store and you used to have freedom from police bullying (with encouragement from the state it should be noted.)

We are losers as consumers and as citizens because we’ve lost the will to fight back.

We are, in short, getting exactly what we deserve.

Here again is the time I say (truthfully, I assure you), that it’s very hard to pillory people you like but as Ms. Clark evidently never learned, political journalists are supposed to do that and I must call it as I see it. That sure as hell doesn’t make me right nor have I ever claimed that.

Let’s get started with Ms. Clark threatening an early election because the public would want one so she says. That is ingenuous in the extreme and is simply another way of saying “I want to catch those NDP buggers when they aren’t ready”.

Never mind how tricky that would be Ms. Clark should know that the public is not well served by having an election before both parties – and maybe a third party – have been able to fairly demonstrate their wares. Moreover, let me give Ms. Clark a bit of advice – it doesn’t pay to be tricky. Christy should know, as anyone who has been involved in this game knows, that trickery has a funny way of coming back to bite you in the ass.

Ms. Clark has had a talk show for several years now and while I don’t listen to assy-kissy radio and couldn’t tolerate it when I was in the game myself, I’ve checked around and no one can remember Ms Clark being more than a teensy critical of her old boss and her old party. This means either that she wouldn’t criticize Campbell & Co. because she still saw them as teammates; or because she knew much of the criticism went back to decisions she as a cabinet minister and Deputy Premier made and didn’t want her to get herself criticized; or she dutifully self censored to keep her government supporting paymaster, Corus, happy.

Any way you look at it Ms. Clark was gutless. That’s not a good thing for a premier to be.

Her cowardice is borne out by her repeating that there is no need for an investigation into the BC Rail decision. Now I wonder what the reason for that could be?

As we know from the leaked Basi memorandums and the way the Basi-Virk trial ended, this deal stinks to high heaven and Christy Clark, as Deputy Premier was up to her flashing eyeballs in it. If, as most observers of things like this believe, the BC Rail deal was corrupt then it’s not hard to understand why Ms Clark wants it to go away.

I have news for Ms. Clark and all others who will be running for Liberal leader; all of you will hear plenty on this issue in the days to come.

(Only Carole Taylor is free of the stink but she maintains that she won’t be a candidate. I can understand why.)

Ms Clark has a permanently short shelf life as was demonstrated when she lost what appeared to be a slam dunk race for the NPA mayoralty race to Sam Sullivan. She is missing a very serious trait – the ability to last when the going gets a bit heavy.

Christy Clark reminds me of a race horse of my youth named Chris Junior. He used to come out of the gate so fast you thought for a moment they’d opened his stall before the others. He would get as much as 15 lengths in front, 5 or more when they reached the 5/8ths post.

Unhappily for Chris Jr., the race was 6 furlongs, not five and his collapse was as spectacular as his start.

Chris Junior never won because he couldn’t do the last 1/8th of a mile – nor can Christy Clark.