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BCNDP convention shows they still don’t get it on LNG

Nov 16th, 2015 by

BCNDP Leader John Horgan at the party’s recent convention (NDP/facebook)

BCNDP Leader John Horgan at the party’s recent convention (NDP/facebook)

Political pundits are busy analyzing the recent NDP convention and I can tell you it’s easier to interpret the entrails of a rooster. Conventions organized to look like sunny expressions of the party’s solidarity and readiness for an election usually disguise more than they reveal.

What this NDP clambake tells me is that the party is sick to death of leadership fights and “the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t” – a highly dubious substitute for skill and character.

The good news first

Starting with the good news, the party caucus has done a decent job of exposing government malfeasance, in the health and the email scandals in particular, and demonstrating the general incompetence of the Premier and her cabinet. (Not too tough considering how willingly they do that on their own.)

Unfortunately for the NDP, history tells us that these sorts of issues don’t have “legs”. When it comes to election time, the public has different considerations; from experience they expect government misbehaviour and only want to know what will happen to their pocketbook in the next four years. Election after election has proved that. Continue Reading »

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No tears from me for Arthur Topham

Nov 13th, 2015 by

It’s deja vu all over again.

A decade or more ago it was the late Doug Collins who was insulting minorities left and right, denying the Holocaust, or the extent of it, and defending his bile by saying he was exercising free speech. Tendentious though that claim was, I defended Collins in print and on the air protesting that his right to spout garbage was guaranteed by the Charter and that it was this that distinguished Canada from countries where to insult meant jail.

I despised Collins and everything he stood for and he despised me as well, singling me out for vicious columns in the North Shore News when it suited him.

Now we have Arthur Topham, a publisher in Quesnel and well known as an anti-Semite. Having a Jewish wife, Topham denies hating all Jews and, as I read his stuff, believes he is just an anti-Zionist. But Topham has now been convicted on two counts of “willful promotion of hatred” dealing with something he wrote about Jews, his favourite target. Continue Reading »

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A senior citizen’s perspective on the federal election and where we go from here

Nov 10th, 2015 by

Rafe Mair

Rafe Mair – with more than a few grey hairs (photo: Youtube/CMHABC)

Like most Canadians, I’ve a spent much of the past week or so trying to figure out what the general election really meant. As I did, a horrible thought occurred to me – my perspective might just be affected by the number of grey hairs I’ve gathered over the years!

One’s age, gender, and position in life always affect one’s outlook and that affects how you vote. Why is it so bad that my outlook is different than that of my children and grandchildren? Actually one of my grandchildren inherited my contrariness and our letters seem more like plots than the usual letters between a lovely young lady at university and her adoring grampa!

Time changes one’s perspective, if only because there isn’t much you haven’t seen. One gets, at my slightly advanced age, a strong sense of déjà vu when viewing election campaigns and their aftermath.

God only knows how many wastrels I have seen who have bankrupted the country, only to find that the next business cycle bailed out his successor and made him look like a financial genius. Continue Reading »

Posted in The Common Sense Canadian | 2 Comments »

Can the Conservative Party come back?

Nov 7th, 2015 by

A young Peter MacKay (left) and Stephen Harper join forces in 2003

A young Peter MacKay (left) and Stephen Harper join forces in 2003

Can the Conservative Party come back?

Of course, but first, the Conservative Party must return.

Sound confusing?

It’s not. The pre-Harper party wasn’t remotely like his bunch. It’s not enough to get rid of Stephen Harper if you don’t also get rid of his party, which goes back to the Faustian bargain between Harper and Peter MacKay in 2003 when Canada’s version of the “Grand Old Party” was subverted then overrun by the Reform Party, a.k.a. Stephen Harper.

The Thatcher comparison

It’s tempting to compare this situation to the UK Tories when Margaret Thatcher pinched the party from the “old guard”, but she was eventually tossed out by her caucus, while our version chose to go down with the ship rather than deal with their leadership problem. Continue Reading »

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Good start, how long will it last?

Nov 6th, 2015 by

New MP Pamela Goldsmith-Jones (Photo courtesy of Vancouver Observer)

New MP Pamela Goldsmith-Jones (Photo courtesy of Vancouver Observer)

“Regardless of the committees you’re on, the roles you have, regardless of party demands, and the partisanship that will continue to exist in this House … your one job, that you cannot ever forget, is to be a strong voice in service of the people who sent you here from your constituencies.”

Justin Trudeau to his Caucus 11/5/15

This is a courageous and encouraging mandate given by a freshman PM as he launches his reign. I hate to pick on my former MP, Conservative John Weston, but he never did understand the problem behind Mr. Trudeau’s statement. He was bewildered that he lost the election and it never occurred to him that he had an obligation to pay some heed to the wishes of his constituents even, hell especially, when he disagreed with them. He seemed to think that as long as he obtained the funding due to the various component parts of his Riding, and perhaps a little more for good measure, if not loved, at least he would be reelected.

The overriding issue for the past four years in his Riding has been the proposed LNG plant in Squamish. This proposal gave deep concern to a whole lot of his former constituents for a whole lot of reasons. Continue Reading »

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Woodfibre LNG opposition isn’t NIMBYism – it’s based on real fear

Nov 2nd, 2015 by

Photo: Flickr/KsideB

Photo: Flickr/KsideB

If you don’t think that the approval of an LNG plant in Squamish – Woodfibre LNG – was a raw political decision, you not only believe in the tooth fairy, you must be the tooth fairy herself.

The alleged “environmental assessment” by the Province, was a farce – as has been the federal process thus far. The government solemnly avers that everything is up in the air until there’s a full blown investigation with evidence taken on all matters of concern and a judicious decision rendered strictly on all the facts.

This, and I hate to disillusion you, is utter crap. I’ve attended too many environmental assessments and – forgive me for repeating myself – I would rather have a root canal without an anesthetic than go to another. They’re about as fair as a Soviet Show Trial. The sole reason for the “process” is to make a government decision appear fair and of course it does the very opposite. Continue Reading »

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On the brink

Nov 1st, 2015 by

Juan Lagares. Photo courtesy of New York Post.

Juan Lagares. Photo courtesy of New York Post.

Last night’s World Series game was really a lot of fun to watch and once again showed that baseball is a great game, I believe the greatest, because it is an anticipation sport. When the Mets were clinging to their one run lead, was anybody about to leave the park or change channels? Not a damned thing was happening but by Billy Bowlegs, something would! Even after Kansas City had its great eighth inning you still didn’t know whether or not the Mets could come back and we were all sure as hell going to wait for the last pitch to find out!

Last week I had the opportunity to listen to “Casey at The Bat.” This marvelous poem, written by Ernest Lawrence Thayer in 1888, really tells what baseball is all about – anticipation. Apart from a couple of mediocrities each making a base hit, there is virtually no action in the poem until the very last line “But there is no joy in Mudville, mighty Casey has struck out”. Continue Reading »

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Relatively sober contemplation of the 2015 World Series

Oct 29th, 2015 by

Noah Syndergaard. Photo courtesy MLB.

Noah Syndergaard. Photo courtesy MLB.

I must tell you, my friends, that I am starting to worry although I am not quite panicking.

The problem, you see, is that the World Series is in danger of ending too quickly. I love Series time but it’s rather like fall because the trouble with fall is that winter is right behind. Similarly, when the Series ends we’re in the “void”, that time between the last out of the series and the beginning of spring training.

I am at sixes and sevens in this Series because, as my loyal reader will know, I am National League supporter and therefore should be living and dying for the Mets. The problem is I am not. Continue Reading »

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Canada’s biggest newspaper chain sold its soul to oil and gas

Oct 27th, 2015 by

Bleeding NewsWell, fellow friends of freedom of the press, what now?

Agreements between Postmedia – the country’s largest newspaper chain – and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), plus an equally disgraceful deal between the company’s Vancouver Province and the LNG industry have permanently stained the organization’s journalistic credibility.

Postmedia is broke and then some. That, however, has never been an excuse for losing your moral compass. I can’t imagine Postmedia forgiving an embezzler because he was broke, yet they’re happy to abdicate journalistic standards and morality because they’re unable to pay dividends.

We all know about the obsequious and idiotic editorials the Postmedia press did while falling all over Stephen Harper and the Conservatives in the recent election. Added to this list is the Toronto Globe and Mail which, while not directly linked to the fossil fuel industry so far as I know, is obviously wed forever to the right wing and its acolytes. Continue Reading »

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So there!

Oct 24th, 2015 by

Marco Estrada

Marco Estrada. Photo by Dan Hamilton, USA Today

Dear Baseball fans who support the Blue Jays.

I offer the same condolences you would offer me as a Dodger fan and offer you our time honoured war cry, “wait’ll next year”!

The Jays had a very good year with a talented and exciting team. They have much to be proud of and nothing to be ashamed of.

I still hate the team, in the sports sense of that word. I have hated Toronto teams since I was a child and couldn’t change now even if I wanted to. Which I don’t. I love the city but can’t stand its nauseating Captain Canada complex. Continue Reading »

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