Most pundits including me (have we ever been wrong?) believe that Campbell will step down in 2011 and, in my view, get his reward with a high 6 figures or better job in the energy business for whom he has done so many nice things. If he does, the leadership will be open (there’s a brilliant statement for you!) and we’ll see if the Premier has any favourites in or out of cabinet.

I’m going to assume he has but that they’re confined to one man, about which more in a moment.

Outside cabinet, two names make some sense, Carole Taylor and Dianne Watts, the Teflon mayor of Surrey. Both have, in addition to their talents, the positive factor of being women to be compared and contrasted with the NDP lady who probably still be in charge.

Permit me to digress. I’m told by some NDPers that I’m seen as disliking Carole James. Quite the opposite – I like her very much. In a system that was civilized, and minority governments were the norm, she would make a damned good premier in my view. The fact is that we have a legislature reminiscent of a nest of adders and government comes from the premier’s office, not the House.

What about inside cabinet?

The next couple of cabinet shuffles will tell the tale.

The one man with the royal jelly combined with political smarts (they don’t always go together) is Mike Dejong. He also is the most effective of Cabinet adders when he’s free to fight. He’s thorough and vicious reminding me of when Margot Asquith said of David Lloyd George “he never saw a belt he didn’t hit below”.

As attorney-general he’s in that strange anomaly, a cabinet minister whose guns must be spiked. To be an effective A/G one must be above the fray and Dejong has proved remarkably good at that. He is also turning out to be an effective A/G thus one of the only cabinet ministers – hell, he is the only cabinet minister who’s effective.

If Campbell sees Dejong as his blessed, hand picked successor, Dejong will stay as A/G thus out of harm’s way. If Campbell doesn’t want him to take over the corner office, he will switch him to Children and Families or Finance minister or some other handy graveyard of political ambition.

Why wouldn’t Campbell lay hands on Carole Taylor (in a political sense, silly)?

First, one must consider whether or not Ms Taylor wants the job. Her husband has not, I’m told, been in perfect health and she’s getting on a bit. She may see the chalice as sufficiently poisoned to wish it upon someone else.

Second, she quit Pinocchio’s cabinet over fiscal concerns she had as Finance Minister. To seek the big job she will have to deal with that issue. If she seeks the leadership while supporting Campbell’s fiscal policy, she puts herself on the same plane as Mr. Dejong and will upset members who want to eradicate all memory of Campbell.

If she denounces Campbell’s fiscal policy she will piss off the remaining Campbellites.

What about Diane Watts?

She may not even be a Liberal but, of course, that’s a trivial point with that ever pragmatic group. Of more interest is her ability to sign up delegates from her interesting but tiny base of power in Surrey.

Is Ms Watts any more than a pretty face who mesmerizes the media?

We’ll find out more in the coming months.

There is another name, of course – Christy Clark. She has been a great talk show in the sense of always being kind to the government. Her husband is the quintessential backroom boy in the party.

Christy Clark is a possibility but she too has to live with the facts she quit Pinocchio’s government and somehow lost the NPA nomination for Vancouver Mayor to Sam Sullivan. It wasn’t just that she lose but she, her hubby and the “machine” were convinced she would win.

For now, keep your eyes on what Premier Campbell does with Mike Dejong

Postscript: Look for Ralph Soltan, the best business brain in the entire Caucus (though that’s damning with very faint praise indeed) to finally make cabinet.

Why?

Because after being such a loyal soldier for so long, he now looks as if he wants to speak out on issues and not be concerned about whom he hurts. That’s one of the better ways to get into cabinet.

There’s no need to dwell on Campbell – he is a horrible premier and the people are on to him and indeed were in the last election which he won because 50% of the voters stayed home and the NDP ran a pathetic campaign.

What about the leadership or lack of it shown by Carole James?

I’ve been very hard on her because she won’t do battle with the Liberals. I’ll tell you frankly how I could be wrong.

If the Liberals stay with Campbell in 2013 – and they may have no other choice – and if they continue to be lower than a snake’s belly in the polls, Ms. James tactic of staying cool and doing spade work constituency by constituency may pay off. The prospect of a premier that’s not always in your face may be appealing. Her gamble is that she will be listened to more and more the longer Campbell is Premier – that she will be seen as a statesman (sorry Carole, I just can’t spit stateswoman, statesperson out!) at a time when that will be the very thing people want.

There are two very important considerations Ms James must deal with. Whatever her strategy, she is owed the support of the party or the pink slip. And here is where the Liberals have their best thing going for them.

The NDP traditionally assassinate their leader. At the best of times they are at each others’ throats and these are not the best of times. Many blame Ms James for losing the last election and that, I can tell you from personal and close up observation, is unfair. After one fiasco that I was present at – the famous media flight over private power sites which was a shambles – I told her personally and in writing that whoever was running her campaign had a death wish for her which was clearly true. The NDP, if they want to win the next election – and it’s not always clear that they do want to win – they must either tell Ms James now that it’s time to go or rally behind her and her strategy.

What the NDP must do is make their decision now and base it on the assumption that there will be a new Liberal leader and if it’s Carole Taylor, Diane Watts or Mike DeJong it’s sort of like “new pitcher, new strikes” – a new game where past performance won’t much count…

What these numbers also tell me is that there is a golden opportunity here for a middle of the road party. This won’t likely happen as long as some who hate Campbell but loathe the NDP think that the public will vote for a party connected to Stephen Harper and run by Harperite Randy White. There’s a reason why Gordon Wilson, upon becoming leader of the BC Liberals, quickly seceded from the main party. He understood that British Columbians will not vote for a Liberal party or Conservative Party that’s a suburb of the national party. He knew that if he kept the federal association that the worst thing that could happen in a campaign was his federal leader endorsing him or, God forbid, campaigning for him. This rule doesn’t apply to the NDP because no one thinks the NDP will ever be the federal government.

These polls show two things for sure – the Liberals better get rid of Campbell before 2011 has passed and the NDP must either support Ms James or find someone they can all support and soon.

The government of BC’s handling of this issue has been disgraceful.

As soon as Gordon (Pinocchio) Campbell took office he began to deal with the moratorium the NDP had placed on the development of new fish farms. He started by returning all fines paid by fish farms for shoddy practices.

Then in full possession of the facts about Atlantic salmon escaping and crowding wild salmon off the spawning beds AND in full knowledge of the terrible impact of lice from fish farms on wild salmon smolts, he lifted the moratorium. For nine years Campbell and his ministers have maintained that fish farms were safe in the face of all the independent evidence to the contrary. The only fair description of the Campbell government is that they lied through their teeth.

In this prevaricating policy the Canwest media were in their camp. The fish farmers PR flack had steady access to their op-ed pages. First class writers on these two papers, writers who specialized in outdoors matters, wouldn’t touch the issue. Bad news about fish farms was buried in sidebar comments. Alexandra Morton, the hero from Echo Bay who started the research into the sea lice problem was ignored while turncoats like Patrick Moore had access to space.

We live in a country that gives Orders of Canada to the likes of Conrad Black, Alan Eagleson and Brian Mulroney and tries to put Alexandra Morton behind bars for “illegal testing”.

On June 17, Alex was honoured with an honourary Doctor of Science at Simon Fraser University. That to me, and I think Alex, was a higher compliment than the highly political Orders of Canada and Orders of BC would ever be.

I, along with many friends and compatriots watched Alex receive her honour and there wasn’t a dry eye amongst us.

Canada could do with fewer Mulroneys, Blacks and Eaglesons and with a hell of a lot more Dr. Alexandra Mortons.

It must always be remembered here that we’re not dealing with presumptions of innocence when judging whether or not a person is fit to be a cabinet minister. Rather it’s a question as to whether or not his conduct compromises his position as a Member of Her Majesty’s Council.
Clearly Premier Gordon Campbell is well within the confines of his duty to leave Mr. Les on the Backbench.

What must, however, astonish us is how Mr. Campbell can apply these standards to Mr. Les and not to others, including himself.

There is, of course, the Premier’s own conviction for drunk driving. One doesn’t need a fertile imagination to wonder what Campbell would have said had he been in Opposition and an NDP premier done the same. In fact no guess work is required – some of the best speeches on cabinet morality came from Opposition Leader Campbell’s lips when he laid down sacred principles for the NDP to follow when their conduct was in question.

One of the clearest examples of when a premier/minister must resign comes when it’s alleged, with reasonable evidence, that they didn’t tell the truth. Admittedly, what is truth or what is what in law is referred to a mere “puff” is not easy to demonstrate in politics. Getting elected and staying elected – that which most politicians deem to be their main task – often brings out the apple polisher. Government information releases are invariably spun until sufficiently vague as to move them from being falsehoods to being partisan – a distinction not easy to define. Having said that, the Campbell government and especially the premier, have told a number of untruths; they have persistently stated as facts that which they new were not true.

We can start with the statements in the election 13 months ago about the state of the province’s finances. When then Premier Clark brought in a budget in 1996 then called an election based upon it and won, when it was obvious the budget was fudged, opposition leader Campbell had no trouble seeing that the Premier and his cabinet had knowingly not told the truth. The Liberal Opposition howled like stuck pigs. The discrepancy  was several hundreds of millions of dollars.

When the Campbell government went to the people in May of 2009 based on a budget deficit of some $700 million it became known as out of town votes were still being counted that it was about four times as high. By Campbell reckoning Glen Clark lied but Gordon Campbell simply made an error in arithmetic.

When Mr. Campbell assured the voters in 1996 and repeated in 2001 that he would not sell BC Rail – and did so because he would lose heavily in many areas if he did not take this stance – then couldn’t wait to do just that on becoming Premier, he committed a falsehood made worse by his trickery in pretending that a 990 year lease wasn’t a breach of his promise.

Probably the most egregious falsifying the facts has come with his energy policy and here there can be no doubt.

He and his ministers have said over and over again that BC was a net importer of energy when the Federal Energy Board showed otherwise.

He and his ministers have consistently said that the companies to be involved would be small, mom and pop operations whereas the very opposite is the case and huge international corporations are the benefactors.

He and his ministers claimed that there would be no damage to the environment when even the smallest of projects have done enormous permanent damage to the rivers and the ecologies they support.

Campbell and his ministers have said over and over that private energy is needed to make BC energy self sufficient by 2016 when the fact is that this private energy only can be created during the run-off period when BC Hydro doesn’t need it.

Let me pause here so we can all catch our breath – the cornerstone of the Campbell government’s energy policy is obtaining private power for BC self sufficiency when that private power comes when our energy company, BC Hydro can’t use it! At this point BC Hydro, our own company, owes some $40 BILLION to private power companies for power they can’t use! Worse, because BC Hydro must buy this power at double what they can sell it for, they are compelled to export it at a huge loss!

Without any question, the Campbell government has been untruthful on the fish farm question since they removed the moratorium in 2002. It’s been demonstrated beyond doubt, by documentary evidence recently uncovered, that the government knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that fish farms posed a huge danger to wild salmon and possessed documentary evidence of that.

The plain truth is that the Campbell government has wallowed in deceit and sharp practice from the outset. It is this which makes it hard to understand why Gordon Campbell would impose upon Mr. Les a much higher standard of morality than it imposes on itself on its day to day governance of the province.

Cartoon by Ingrid Rice.

Voters are mad as hell, but that’s a long way from building a serious ‘third party.’

There is a lot of chatter about a significant new party coming to B.C. politics. Given the appalling state of governance and opposition, such a discussion is not surprising.

Gordon Campbell and his so-called Liberals are in high odor indeed and have created a number of issues that will still be around to haunt them in 2013, the time of the next election.

The NDP are high in the polls but that is much more reflective of Campbell’s unpopularity than the popularity of Carole James & Co. In fact the NDP have got to hope that in 2013 that the Liberals will be so unpopular that, like 1991, a fencepost with hair could beat them. But, as reflected in this space before, the NDP can’t run their affairs on the assumption that Campbell will be around but on the worst case scenario, namely that the Liberals will be led by Carole Taylor or Diane Watts. There is absolutely no indication that the NDP will change leaders. If they do, it will probably be too late. The NDP have always had the habit of eating themselves into a bad stew when they select leaders.

So doesn’t this all point to a new party that might make a serious difference in the next election or even win?

Unhappily for the province the answer is no.

Bring back Socreds?

Let’s start off by acknowledging that the BC Greens would lay claim to “third party” status today. But their base has proven to be too limited to surge to prominence in the next election. Who else then might?

The first possibility some mention is the comeback of the Socred or Reform parties. I’m told that the old Social Credit party is under the control of two or three people and is in no position to present itself, as it did in Bill Bennett’s day, as a middle of the road populist party. That’s sad and brings back the past where in 1991 Rita Johnston bested Grace McCarthy for leader with an election coming up. I think most “pols” would agree that if Grace had been around in the 1991 election she probably wouldn’t have won but would have held the party together sufficiently to have a sizeable opposition such that in the election following they would be competitive. But that’s not what happened.

The Reform Party is for — and I avoid a lawsuit — the optimistic misfits who always dominate the early going with any new or revived party.

What about the Progressive Democratic Alliance, the dream child of Gordon Wilson who, alas, has not been in the legislature during Campbell’s reign. The PDA is not going to be the answer nor will Gordon Wilson try very hard to revive it.

The most talked about alternative is the Conservative party under former federal minister, Randy White. It won’t work for a number of reasons not the least of which is that they would always have to deal with the federal Conservative wing for whose peccadilloes they will be obliged to explain away.

Gordon Wilson’s war

It’s instructive to look back to 1987 when Gordon Wilson became leader of the BC Liberal Party. Immediately upon taking the chair, Wilson began to remove any and all connection between what until then was a national party with a provincial wing and create a new independent party. He also knew that his party always had to look independent to be independent and he got lucky when the Meech Lake Accord came down which would have, amongst other things, have given Quebec a special constitutional place in our national affairs. I got to know Gordon very well during this period and can tell you that he it may have looked like political opportunist but he genuinely opposed it. He got behind Newfoundland premier, Clyde Wells, the leading anti Meech politician and a very popular symbol of opposition, especially in B.C., to the deal. Sincere though Wilson was, the presence of the Meech Lake Accord was serendipitous and got Wilson known and respected and helped the BC Liberal party to look to voters like a B.C. party.

Wilson got lucky again during the leaders’ debate in the 1991 campaign which he worked very hard to be part of and succeeded.

Working from a physical position between Mike Harcourt for the NDP and premier Rita Johnston and was able to get off this zinger as Harcourt and Johnston quarreled — “this is a perfect example of why nothing ever gets done in Victoria.” He of all people knew that under our system all decisions are made by the premier’s office and that the function of the Legislature is to rubber stamp government legislation and policy. In fact, however, it would become the campaign’s most successful slogan which Wilson converted into 17 seats, up from zero. At that, though Wilson’s new party went from zero seats to 17, he was a long way from winning.

NDP’s vote ceiling?

It’s instructive to look at past election results were you’ll see that the NDP garner about 40 per cent of the vote — the exception being the trouncing they took in 2001 when they got 29 per cent and two lonely MLAs. When there are no viable other options and it’s a two horse race, they lose. When there are viable alternatives, such as 1972 and 1991, they win, with the exception of 1996 when with 42 per cent they managed to win against the Liberals who had 46 per cent. The conclusion, in my view, is that in a straight fight between Carole James against a Carole Taylor or Dianne Watts, without a viable third party in the race, the NDP will lose. With a viable third party — and the key word is viable, the Liberals have a good chance of winning in spite of their brutal record.

Let’s go back to Randy White and the Conservatives. The first question is how do they position themselves to the left of the Liberals which is where they must be to have any hope of achieving any electoral success?

How does Randy White build a team, especially when history tells us that any new party attracts the eccentric, to put it mildly? I see no evidence that White himself has any personal charisma and there’s no evidence that any such people are lining up to support his party.

How does he raise any serious money? The business community will look for the best prospect of a friendly government and will support the Liberals, especially if they have a leader who can dissociate themselves from the mess Campbell leaves. The unpalatable truth is that you need money, and lots of it, to fight in all constituencies.

Perhaps White’s most serious problem will be to cut loose from the national party while looking to members of that party for funds. Funding problems also exist, big time, for a new party.

Too soon to place wagers

Most of the forgoing has Gordon Campbell leaving before 2013 and that’s not certain, for many reasons the major one being that leaders who don’t want to go are very hard to dislodge. By 1988, Bill Vander Zalm had become a very unpopular leader of the Social Credit Party and the dissidents wanted to turf him out at the annual conference that year held in Penticton. The knives were out and there was provision in the constitution to remove a leader in a secret ballot. The backroom weasels moved a motion that whether or not there had to be an open vote to do so before any secret leadership vote could be taken! Vander Zalm stayed. Likewise, if Campbell wants to stay, he’ll probably stay creating the same sort of divisions in the party that faced the Socreds after Vander Zalm left.

The NDP face a similar problem although they are so fractured at the best of times that they’re more used to it. As long as James’es numbers stay high, her supporters, especially party president Moe Sihota, will probably fight her fight successfully.

It’s all so like a horse race; who has the best post position? What shape will the track be in, fast, muddy or maybe sloppy? How good is the manager, namely the jockey? And what about the campaign committee, the trainer, the veterinarian, the grooms?

As we ponder our betting options, my wager is that we’ll know a lot more about the race by this time next year.

The polls showing Premier Campbell in deep doo-doo came out before the Site “C” decision. God only knows what the results would have been if they had been taken afterwards.

Site “C” demonstrates beyond doubt that Campbell hasn’t been telling the truth in two critical areas of his energy policy. B.C. is NOT a net importer of power which is the fundament of that policy. BC Hydro is sometimes, though not always. Moreover, counted as imports is the energy it buys abroad at low use times and re-sells in peak periods. It can do this because it can “store” energy as water in a reservoir. This isn’t importing — it’s flipping, and at a nice profit too. You would think that Campbell and his crowd would know something about flipping.

The fact is that BC Hydro is not the only provider of energy in B.C., and when you include — as you must — energy produced by Alcan, Teck Cominco and Fortis, British Columbia is a net exporter of power.

Of more concern ought to be the Campbell government’s mantra that private power will be used by British Columbia to make it energy “secure.” This is plain and simply a falsehood, a falsehood the mainstream media simply can’t grasp.

This is key, for if private power was needed for our own vital needs that would be a very serious matter, and the debate about damming our rivers would be different. The egregious nature of this falsehood can easily be seen thusly: the power to be produced by two large private “run of river” projects, the Bute Inlet and KlinaKilni projects, is considerably more than can be produced by Site “C.” So why isn’t Campbell fast tracking these undertakings, thus avoiding the need to do Site “C”?

Because they can only produce their power during the run-off when BC Hydro doesn’t need it.

In short, when Gordon Campbell told us that the decision to give our rivers away was so that private power could help us be energy sufficient in 2016, the truth was otherwise.

If you needed more proof of this, Site “C” provides it once and for all.

Why Campbell’s plummet won’t hurt Libs

Now to the polls.

At first blush they look terrible for the Liberals, but in fact, while they’re terrible for Gordon Campbell, they are a blessing in disguise for the party. Campbell doesn’t give a damn because he’ll quit next year or maybe the next at the latest and no doubt be offered a lot of money on boards of directors of energy companies — he’s earned it. For the party, however, the numbers bode well, if in a back-handed sort of way.

Carole James, despite the brave assertions of Moe Sihota, the NDP president, can’t win the next election unless the Greens and/or a new party split the vote. Given a couple of years before the May 2013 election, under a new leader the Liberals, while they won’t be rid of Campbell’s corrosive stain could, given the right leader, win again.

James’s problem is that she’s too nice and too decent for politics which, especially in British Columbia, is a blood sport. When she took her seat in the House as leader of the opposition, she wanted to improve the atmosphere — make things more grown-up and polite, you might say. However noble and admirable that was, it betrayed her ignorance of how the system works.

It’s really simple. Under our system, backbench MLAs on both sides are political eunuchs. Former U.S. speaker of the house Sam Rayburn said, “To get along, you must go along,” and sadly that’s the truth of the matter. I’m not saying that backbenchers don’t ask tough questions at caucus meetings — I’m sure they still do as they did eons ago when I was there. In the end, however, they do precisely what they’re told.

How the blood sport is played

Why do you think that government MLAs always vote for their government’s bills?

If they don’t, not only will they never make cabinet, or parliamentary secretary or even the sinecure known as the “Whip,” they risk being thrown out of the caucus and even the party.

The importance of what I’ve just said is this — the only purpose of the legislative chamber is for the opposition to spill blood figuratively instead of actually.

Good oppositions hold the government’s feet to the fire. They try to divide the government; they try to embarrass them. They want the media to show the public what idiots the government and especially the cabinet are. (You would think that would be easy with this lot in power.)

In that sense they have more freedom to make their mark with these two provisos — if they do so other than what the leader wants, they’re writing themselves out of a future cabinet, and while it may be fun to bray at the government, it’s not much food for the soul.

The object of the leader of the opposition is not to make the House a safe place for little school children to be, but to make the government sweat.

It’s to her great credit as a person that Carole James can’t do this, but it’s the death knell for her as a leader.

Premier Watts?

The Liberals will have a leadership contest in May of 2011 and they will elect Diane Watts, mayor of Surrey, as leader, and failing that, Mike DeJong the attorney-general.

Diane Watts will be preferred in a woman-to-woman fight, plus she’ll be able to say, “I’m not responsible for that horror story called the Campbell government and just look at what a wonderful mayor I’ve been.”

I hope I’m wrong. Carole James as premier would probably do a decent job — it’s not as if she has a tough act to follow.

The problem is she has to get there first and I don’t think she can do it.

“Run of River, better stated as private power initiatives, will not supply power to BC Hydro because it produces its power during the run-off when BC Hydro doesn’t need it!”

This is the question Premier Campbell must now answer -

Now you have admitted that private power will not be going for BC consumption but for export, and now that you’ve approved Site “C” to produce power for our use, will the private rivers policy, which destroys our rivers to supply power in the United States, be ended with no new licenses to be issued?

Tom Paine, the “media” catalyst for the American Revolution, rallied Americans with the stirring words “these are the times that try men’s souls”.

Are these words applicable to British Columbia, its governments and the farmed fish issue?”

I say, clearly yes, with this difference – Paine was rallying for an armed revolution while those who oppose fish farms in BC waters rally for changes within the confines of our democratic system.

ALEXANDRA LEADS THE FIGHT – AS USUAL

Alexandra Morton, who surely needs no introduction, has led the fight to save our wild fish from destruction by sea lice from farmed fish pens for nearly a decade. She has done this with a media that has deliberately refused to deal with the matter. Her fight has been relentless so that even the government’s servile hand maiden, the BC mainstream media, has finally been forced to report that there is indeed a problem.

Here’s what Alexandra Morton has to say:

“We cannot match the corporate fish farm PR machine, nor their lobbying power. So I am simply inviting people to make themselves visible by joining us on foot, electronically and by mail. This will be peaceful, colourful, musical, fun, family oriented. Unless we all stand up and become visible, government will continue to degrade the laws of Canada to the benefit of the salmon farming industry, as suggested in the most recent throne speech.”

The forces of protest and boycott have finally united their efforts and the call for action is for a major ongoing demonstration starting on Earth Day, April 22. I’m not going to outline the proposed action here but will do so when final plans in place. What is important at this point is to understand what’s brought this about, namely a tissue of ongoing blatant lies by the Campbell government now joined in pathetically ignorant enthusiasm by the federal government.

THE CAMPBELL GOVERNMENT LIED ABOUT ESCAPES!

When I first got into the fish farm issue in 2001 the concern was the escapement of Atlantic salmon into our waters. The government opened by denying that it was happening. When that lie was disposed of it they said that no Atlantics were moving into BC Rivers – while independent biologist Dr. John Volpe, who leads the Seafood Ecology Research Group at the University of Victoria, refuted this statement by simply going into the rivers and counting Atlantics by the hundreds. Atlantics don’t breed with Pacific salmon but they do force our fish off spawning beds and they are spawning there and experts fear that they will establish themselves.

ALEX ARRIVES ON THE SCENE

In 2002 I first came into contact with Alexandra Morton, who lived in Echo Bay in the Broughton Archipelago when I learned of her concerns that sea lice from Atlantic salmon fish farms were attaching themselves to and killing migrating Pink and Chum Salmon smolts, especially the former. Alex had been testing migrating smolts and the evidence was there – sea lice from nearby fish farms were doing to wild salmon smolts just what they had been doing to wild Atlantic Salmon and Sea Trout smolts in Norway, Scotland and Ireland.^*

The federal Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s response was to threaten to throw Alex in jail for illegal testing!

POLITICS TRIES TO TRUMP SCIENCE

From that moment on, politics took on science. Independent peer reviewed study after study after study verified Alex’s findings – sea lice from fish farms were slaughtering Pink salmon smolts especially and that it was only a matter of time, and not much of that, before the runs would be wiped out.

The government handled these points as a Josef Goebbels might have – it simply denied the obvious facts and said that the “science” was on its side. This plain lie was especially pernicious because many of the public want to believe their leaders and don’t want to believe that the Gordon Campbell government could lie through its teeth. Spin, yes, but surely their government wouldn’t just plain lie!

But they did lie and they still do. Not only can they not get any independent science to back them, they consistently refuse to discuss the issue. As Dr John Volpe, has bluntly stated: “the debate is over.” UBC’s Dr. Daniel Pauly, Director of the Fisheries Center at the University of British Columbia, named by TIME as one of the world’s top 50 scientists, agrees and calls Alex “a spunky hero”.

THE NORWAY SCENE

The former Norwegian Attorney General Georg Fredrik Rieber-Mohn, who authored Norway’s original sea lice policy, has recently stated unequivocally that Norway’s policy on sea lice, which the industry successfully lobbied to weaken, has failed miserably and that lice from fish farms were wiping out Atlantic salmon runs; and that the policy must change dramatically. Even the largest shareholder in Marine Harvest – the world’s largest salmon farming company and #1 in both Norway and in British Columbia – agrees that we must move the farms. In 2007, when he was fishing on the River Alta – one of Norway’s most majestic wild salmon rivers – John Fredriksen made a plea as a passionate angler to relocate open net cages to save wild salmon. This from the world’s #1 fish farm entrepreneur!

ENTER THE FEDS

Still the Campbell government denies and denies and is now joined now by the federal government as Fisheries Minister Gail Shea, who last August attended a worldwide fish farm convention in Oslo, encourages even more fish farms for BC! Here we have DFO, mandated to protect our salmon, at the same time shilling through the minister, for those who would destroy them!

THE COHEN COMMISSION AND THE FRASER SOCKEYE

Mr. Justice Bruce Cohen has a broad commission to look at the catastrophic wild salmon situation in BC. It’s of critical importance that we the public of BC show how much our wild salmon mean to us. Mr. Cohen must know our resentment that government fish farm policy has not lonly led to hugely depleted returns of Pinks and Chum but, strong evidence indicates, has permitted sea lice from fish farms to kill sockeye migrating from the Fraser River where the 2009 returns were catestrophically low.

THE PUBLIC LOSES PATIENCE

How long can decent British Columbians who love their province stand idly by as its very soul, the Pacific salmon, is deliberately slaughtered by foreign corporate interests that are encouraged to do so by the two senior governments?

Haven’t we all shown the patience of Job with these politicians who clearly put the interests of donors to their party coffers ahead of those of the people they’re elected to serve?

Has the time not arrived where we British Columbians must take action, action sustained until we’ve rid ourselves of these disgraceful companies who profit hugely from our enormously important assets and the governments that support them?

THE TIME IS NOW!

I say it’s long past time. We have been robbed blind by Marine Harvest and others with the connivance, indeed the encouragement, of our governments. Surely we must act with firmness, conviction and steadfastness starting now!

The public must be informed of those who market farmed salmon and restaurants that serve them and be encouraged to boycott these places in favour of those who do not.

We must march in protest in ever increasing numbers and occasions; we must also demonstrate against those who supply fish farms, especially those who provide feed from small fish populations from South American waters, which have consequently been wiped out or dangerously depleted.

This is, of course, an economic issue and a health issue as well. Marine Harvest and friends make hundreds of millions literally stealing our assets; study after study say that wild salmon are far healthier to eat than farmed ones full of chemicals and colourants.

THE CRUX OF THE MATTER

“THE WILD SALMON BELONG TO THE PEOPLE OF BRITISH COLUMBIA AND THEIR SAFETY IS CRITICAL TO OUR ENVIRONMENT; THEY ARE THE SOUL OF OUR PROVINCE AND OUR SOUL IS NOT FOR SALE”

It is time, past time for citizens of BC to rally around Alexandra Morton and fight this fight to a finish – a finish that will put paid to the Atlantic salmon fish farms in our province.

^*It should be noted that Atlantic salmon and Sea Trout smolts are considerably larger than our wild salmon smolts so are hardier when they meet the lice, fortifying the point that our salmon are at an even greater risk than they are.

Alexandra Morton

Here’s an Article by Rafe at The Common Sense Canadian which tells us that even the former Attorney General of Norway and the owner of the world’s largest salmon farming company agree that salmon farms must be moved out of migration routes.

Goal: Sending our energy south for private profits

Hobbling BC Hydro so private firms can profit big is bad public policy.

Two Simon Fraser University professors, both experts in power issues, have written scathing critiques of the Campbell government’s energy policy.

First, they affirm the argument I’ve been making for over a year — that BC Hydro is being forced to buy private power at up to double its market value, sell it at a huge loss, and then, assuming that this idiotic government tubes Burrard Thermal as our backup power, it has buy back that power at high import prices!

Here’s how Professor Douglas McArthur confirms that opinion on his blog PolicyCentre.ca:

“Private hydro produces most of its power in the spring and summer when B.C. already has a surplus of power from BC Hydro’s already established plants. It doesn’t need more power in the spring and summer when the runoff is high. But the government is making BC Hydro buy the power from these producers at inflated prices, even though it will have to turn around and sell it into export markets at much lower spring and summer market prices. Then, in the winter, BC Hydro will have to buy very expensive power from producers in the U.S. The private hydro producers will make a lot of money, Hydro will lose huge amounts of money on the whole complicated deal, and BC Hydro customers will make up the difference in higher rates… [The] government explanations just don’t add up when subjected to scrutiny. If this was happening in India or Pakistan we would be raising no end of questions.”

Dr. Marvin Shaffer, an acknowledged power expert also from SFU, confirms this analysis, concluding that the Campbell government “force[s] BC Hydro to look only to the private sector to develop new sources of energy, no matter how costly and low in value many of these sources are, or what cumulative environmental impacts they have.”

What’s good about this deal?

In a nutshell, then, Campbell forces BC Hydro to buy all the private power produced on a “take or pay basis” at up to twice its value at a time when its not needed, meaning Hydro must sell it at half price into the export market and buy it back at much, much higher prices if they do need power.

How do they get away with it?

The Campbell government plays upon the public’s inaccurate understanding that the Burrard Thermal power plant is a huge despoiler of the environment — in fact, it uses relatively benign natural gas for power and it’s only used in rare times of emergency with a minuscule, short-term environmental impact. [By way of aside, hospitals and media outlets have this sort of backup, and what else would one expect? So do many citizens especially in Lions Bay where I live, which is subject to power losses more often than elsewhere. No, I don't take it personally! The environmental impact of these emergency backup arrangements is minute.]

What, then, will happen to BC Hydro?

At present it’s on the hooks for $31 billion in future “take or pay” contracts which will, it’s estimated, double if the Bute Inlet private development goes through. Every new license ups the ante. So, how does BC Hydro handle this?

BC Hydro is not permitted to bring new power on stream, with the exception of upgrading its own facilities and bringing on the Site C dam. The latter is hugely damaging to the environment, and unpopular. In fact this is a “man of straw” because Campbell and company are setting up a false dichotomy: it’s either private power or Site C. This is nonsense.

How long can Hydro buy high, sell low and be deprived of its back-up in Burrard Thermal for those few days a year it requires its power?

Citizens will have to pay

Is it any wonder that the SFU professors are looking for a reason for all of this madness?

This so-called “energy policy” is indeed mad. No intelligent government would create such an idiotic scheme. In fact, in speaking to citizens around the province as I did last spring, even in the face of unassailable evidence people were reluctant to assume that any government could be so stupid. They doubted me — even though I reminded them of Mair’s Axiom I. Namely, it is: “You make a very serious mistake in assuming that those in charge know what the hell they’re doing!”

What, then, are BC Hydro’s options?

The first is obvious. It fails to meet its obligations and it is, for all intents and purposes, put into bankruptcy with its assets sold to pay off its capital debt. Now, if that seems like indigestible public policy, remember that with BC Rail, that’s precisely what happened — despite the most solemn of vows from Gordon Campbell not to do it.

The second is perhaps more likely. BC Hydro simply raises its domestic prices so that we the people — with our businesses and industries — finance the heavy losses resulting from its forced export of private power. In short, the dividends paid to shareholders of large offshore companies are being paid by us through our electricity bills, and through the cost of energy passed on to us by corporations. Think on that as your electricity bills come in!

This cannot be stated too often:

1. We do not have an energy crisis in B.C. All future needs can be met by employing conservation methods, upgrades to present Hydro facilities and Hydro putting generators on flood control dams — and by taking back the Columbia River benefits in power rather than taking it in money.

2. Even if we were short of power, how can it be replaced by private power when that power is only created at a time when BC Hydro can’t use it? Clearly, when the government says we must have energy self-sufficiency by a certain date — energy which will come from private power — they are terminologically inexactituding through their teeth!

Here it is in a nutshell. Kim-il Campbell and the pusillanimous lickspittles he surrounds himself with are shattering our environment by ruining our rivers and the animals and vegetation they sustain. They’re making out with province shareholders rich with our public resources. They’re either bankrupting BC Hydro, the most important and successful of our crown corporations, or forcing it to make the B.C. citizens pay with their own electricity bills for the immense profits of private companies.

And here’s a question for the premier that he’s utterly failed to deal with — every year BC Hydro pays the province hundreds of millions of dollars by way of dividend, which goes to our schools and healthcare. Now this money is sucked out of B.C. and into the pockets of private shareholders like Warren Buffett.

Why are you doing this Premier Campbell?

There is absolutely no sense to this policy which devastates us environmentally and fiscally, so why are you doing all this to our wonderful province which has been entrusted to your care?