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Let’s hope this “change” election leads to real change

Oct 21st, 2015 by

Photo: Justin Trudeau/Facebook

Photo: Justin Trudeau/Facebook

It was an election by younger people if the faces on TV are any indication. Mind you, at my age, almost everyone looks young!

It was also an election of change which inevitably means that “strategic voting” took the place of selecting the person that voters think will do the best job.

Nowhere was that more obvious than in my riding of  West Vancouver, Sunshine Coast, Sea-To-Sky Country where the unpopularity of Prime Minister Harper and his local toady, John Weston, saw the Liberals (usually an endangered species here) swamp the Green candidate – a very good one indeed and former first class mayor of Whistler – who until a week ago seemed to have a reasonable chance. As soon as it became clear he couldn’t win, his supporters, panicked at the prospect of re-electing Weston and Harper, flocked to the Liberal, notwithstanding her wishy-washy stand on the proposed, hugely unpopular LNG plant in Squamish. Continue Reading »

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My choice is the Cubs

Oct 17th, 2015 by

Jake Arrieta

Jake Arrieta (Photo by Jayne Kamin-Oncea – USA Today)

Having become sick to death of the election, my thoughts turned to baseball.

First off, let me say that the Blue Jays obviously have not only a good team on paper but a good one in the clubhouse and that’s extremely important. They have a great spirit, although it’ll be interesting to see how that holds up if their pitching doesn’t.

I am no closer to being a fan than I ever was. As I have said before, I don’t know why the hell I should have to be just because the team is located in Canada. The majority of their followers are Johnny’s-come-lately who, like Canucks fans, have a great interest in the Blue Jays if they are winning and next to nil if they aren’t.

If you look at CBC Internet and the two papers today, you have to look pretty hard to see that Kansas City beat Toronto last night. I think that’s the sort of crap that pisses me off more than anything because, would you believe it, the most complete and fair coverage is in the Toronto Globe and Mail this morning. Continue Reading »

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Democratic reform is the real change that must come from Canadian election

Oct 16th, 2015 by

The Centennial Flame on Parliament Hill in Ottawa (Jamie McCaffrey/Flickr CC licence)

The Centennial Flame on Parliament Hill in Ottawa (Jamie McCaffrey/Flickr CC licence)

If Canadians don’t see a commitment for major change from Monday’s winner, the nastiest and most divisive election in our history, by far, will be for naught.

Change is never easy and the results are never perfect. What one looks for is improvement and the ability to make future changes in case what you’ve done didn’t work out or further refinement is required. The fact is that through neglect and abuse of the system, our very institution of freedom and democracy, Parliament, has become the sword of autocracy.

What must change?

Caucus discipline has gone too far

Parliament, that is to say MPs, must be supreme again. When you think about it, nearly all our problems can be attributed to the unrestrained dictatorship of the Prime Minister. We don’t intend to elect a Supremo, but that’s what we in fact do. Continue Reading »

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Bill C-24 and finding out you’re a second-class citizen

Oct 15th, 2015 by

After a lifetime of speaking his mind in politics and media, these very acts could now get Rafe Mair – and a whole lot of other, suddenly “second-class” Canadians thrown out of their country (photo: Youtube/CMHABC)

After a lifetime of speaking his mind in politics and media, these very acts could now get Rafe Mair – and a whole lot of other, suddenly “second-class” Canadians thrown out of their country (photo: Youtube/CMHABC)

What a way to come to the end of a long life!

Thanks to Bill C-24, a breathtaking piece of legislation that the Conservative Government somehow snuck past most Canadians last year, I am now a second-class citizen, though born a sixth generation Canadian. Actually, that part doesn’t matter since the point is I was born an unqualified Canadian citizen.

What did I do to deserve this punishment?

My sin is that my father, in 1906, was born in Auckland, New Zealand. He came to Canada in 1913 as a child, grew up in the West End of Vancouver and married my Mom, a fifth-generation Canadian, in 1930. Then I made my fatal error. On December 31, 1931, in Grace Hospital, Vancouver, I was born.

How I became a second-class citizen

Fatal error because at that second my Dad passed his citizenship of birth on to me by operation of the law of New Zealand. No one asked my opinion. Continue Reading »

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Strategic voting, electoral reform, and the Green Party

Oct 12th, 2015 by

Green Party candidates Ken Melamed and Elizabeth May. Photo by Rik Jespersen, The Local Weekly

Green Party candidates Ken Melamed and Elizabeth May. Photo by Rik Jespersen, The Local Weekly

The critical question that arises out of the political campaign at this point is whether or not “strategic voting” is going to kill the Green Party.

There’s no doubt that they are hurting badly at this point. Stephen Harper has forced voters to where they believe they must must consider any possible strategy by which they can get rid of him and see “strategic voting” as the only way. (For political neophytes, if any exist in this country, that simply means voting for the person you think is best able to defeat the candidate you most don’t want, even though you may not like the person you are voting for.) In my constituency the general feeling is that the incumbent, John Weston, a Tory, must be tossed out and at this writing, the Liberal candidate seems to be favoured to do that over the Green. I might also add that a very substantial part of the electorate is very impressed with the Green candidate, Ken Melamed, but campaigners tell me that on the doorstep people are worried about voting for him lest he split the vote and let Weston back in. Continue Reading »

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LNG shill, Province blogger practices shabby journalism

Oct 9th, 2015 by

Screen capture of Regulator Watch video, in which host Brent Stafford (left) attacks Dr. Eoin Finn (right)

Screen capture of Regulator Watch video, in which host Brent Stafford (left) attacks Dr. Eoin Finn (right)

I am pleased to see that Brent Stafford, shill for the Postmedia Group and Resource Works and their unqualified support for Woodfibre LNG, has chosen to respond in the social media to articles of mine written in this publication.

Stafford defends the notion that you can interview with one interviewer then have that interview voiced over by different interviewer and published as if the result was fair, ethical and accurate. He could not have made my point better than by producing the interview by a male and then showing it re-done by the very attractive Meena Mann, whom the subject, Dr. Michael Hightower – a globally-recognized expert on LNG tanker safety – had never heard of.

It must be noted that the viewer is not told about this switch and has every reason to believe that the interview was done in person throughout by Ms. Mann.

This isn’t doctoring an interview? Continue Reading »

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Niqab defence may cost Trudeau and Mulcair… but they’re right

Oct 4th, 2015 by

Photo: Flickr CC Licence / Flood G

Photo: Flickr CC Licence / Flood G

I find myself, late in this election campaign, ashamed to be a Canadian. As a longtime supporter of the rights of Quebec going back to days where I was involved in constitutional affairs in this country, I find myself utterly appalled at their creation and fanning of the “niqab” issue.

Let’s make no mistake about it, this is racism pure and simple. When I read Jason Kenney saying, “If anything’s dangerous, it would be legitimizing a medieval tribal custom that treats women as property rather than people,” I want to throw up.

What has happened to this country under Stephen Harper, the instigator of this disgrace? What’s happened to a nation famous for tolerance, understanding, and I suppose most importantly of all, minding one’s own business? Continue Reading »

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No, I am not supporting the Toronto Blue Jays

Oct 3rd, 2015 by

Roy Campanella

Roy Campanella

No, I am not supporting the Toronto Blue Jays notwithstanding the fact that the CBC and the Vancouver Sun tell me I should. Perhaps it’s that, in part, that keeps me from supporting them.

Being a sports fan of a particular team is utterly irrational. When I was a child I became a Habs fan and I had never been to Montreal. I just hated the Toronto Maple Leafs who used the CBC (whom I have never forgiven) as a propaganda machine for the notion that failure to support the Leafs was an act of disloyalty. There was a strong streak of anti-French in that attitude and I was scarcely the only Vancouver kid to pick that up. We were forced to listen exclusively to the Leafs by the CBC until into the 1950’s and 60’s and the resentment stuck. Therefore, myirrationality has me detesting Toronto teams and the Blue Jays are no exception. Continue Reading »

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Postmedia’s alternate version of energy realities

Oct 2nd, 2015 by

Postmedia BuildingYesterday in my email inbox, the chickens began to come home to roost for Postmedia – the Canadian newspaper chain.

My first letter came from a constant correspondent who gave the Official statistics for BC Hydro losses going back to the old NDP years. Since the Campbell/Clark government, the losses have been staggering and BC Hydro is clearly in huge trouble. Those who have read this publication and followed such economic luminaries as Erik Andersen know that most of this goes straight to the catastrophic Campbell energy policy of 2002 which gave the production of new power to the private sector and forced BC Hydro to pay a huge premium for this power. Amongst other things, it was a policy that took hundreds of millions of dollars per year out of the BC treasury, in addition to setting BC Hydro on a path to bankruptcy.

On the eve of Christy Clark’s election in 2011, I had this to say on my website:

What does this [Energy Policy] mean in real terms?

The bankruptcy of BC Hydro, which will remain only as a conduit by which the private producers (IPPs) funnel their ill-gotten gains to their shareholders abroad.

It means that more and more of our precious rivers will be dammed (IPPs prefer the word “weir” in keeping with the Orwellian “newspeak” that abounds with these guys), with clear cuts for roads and transmission lines.

It means that new pipelines and enlarged old ones will carry the sludge from the Tar Sands to our coast with the mathematical certainty of environmental disasters – without our government making a nickel out of it.

It means that supertankers will proliferate on our coast again with the mathematical certainty of catastrophic spills.

It means continuation of the phony environmental hearings where the public is denied its right to challenge the need for the project in the first place.

It means that the already truncated BC Utilities Commission, which oversees (or is supposed to) all energy proposals, will be abolished or maintained as a lame duck puppet of the Liberal Government

It means that the private sector will, unhindered, do as it pleases to our environment.

People like me will be jeered as being “against progress, against profit and anti-business”.

The Common Sense Canadian, over the years since its inception in 2010, has quoted scientist after scientist, economist after economist, in column after column, to back up our claims. I, along with the estimable Joe Foy of the Wilderness Committee, campaigned against this policy all over the Province in the 2011 Election. Continue Reading »

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Dear Prime Minister: Time for electoral reform

Sep 6th, 2015 by

PM Stephen Harper addresses a youth delegation (Flickr/Stephen Harper CC licence)

PM Stephen Harper addresses a youth delegation (Flickr/Stephen Harper CC licence)

To: The Rt. Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister

Dear Prime Minister,

Most issues we face today we’ve faced before.

For an older person like myself there is a strong sense of déjà vu. We’ve been through deficits and surpluses; prosperity and recessions; government overspending and  government parsimony; and there’s always a list of special issues to be replaced by new special issues in time for the next election.

The sign of a great leader is one who takes a very large, seemingly insoluble problem and deals with it in the interests of the nation. Not many have done that in our history – mostly we just muddle along, watching the United States and the UK, and keeping our heads down.

Canada stingy on constitutional reform

We’ve been shockingly inattentive to our corporate make up, or Constitution. The United States has amended its constitution 33 times since 1787. Great Britain, through its flexible constitution, is constantly amending theirs. We act as if to do so would be like performing self surgery without an anesthetic. Continue Reading »

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