Posted May 30, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: BC Liberals
BC Liberal MLAs apparently were given a deadline of May 2008 to decide whether they wanted to run again in the 2009 election or not.
One such casualty of this deadline will be Katherine Whittred, the MLA for North Vancouver-Lonsdale.
This news was from Langley Politics, who subsequently got that from North Vancouver Politics. A small world we live in!
Posted May 26, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: Legislature
This week will make the last week of the legislature - it will adjourn until potentially a fall session, but it is not known whether the government will hold one or not.
There are a lot of bills on the order paper which have not been discussed. Pursuant to the May 6, 2008 motion on notice, they will be be disposed of. This includes the following:
Bill 20 Oil and Gas Activities Act
Bill 21 Medicare Protection Amendment Act, 2008
Bill 24 E-Health (Personal Health Information Access & Protection of Privacy) Act
Bill 29 Environmental (Species & Public Protection) Statutes Amendment Act, 2008
Bill 32 Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement Implementation Act
Bill 37 Carbon Tax Act
Bill 42 Election Amendment Act, 2008
Bill 43 Miscellaneous Statutes Amendment Act (No. 2), 2008
Most controversial will be the Election Amendment Act, which will legislate the spending limits which has had a lot of heated debate in the media.
It is inevitable the NDP will scream about due process at the closure of all these bills without “proper debate”. In a majority government situation the debate does not change the inevitable (the bill gets passed), but they forgo the opportunity to embarrass the government in the process.
Posted May 26, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: Legislature
Last week was a very special week in the Legislature - they sat during a holiday week and they also sat on the Friday. This was in response to the BC Liberal party forwarding a motion to add the four days in response to them wanting to pass many more bills though the Legislature before it closes on May 29.
The first question in question period for the four days were the following:
B.C. Ferries board remuneration
B.C. Lottery Corporation management of casino transactions
B.C. Lottery Corporation management of casino transactions
Retention and Recruitment of Corrections Officers
These questions did not gain the NDP much traction in question period, but an interesting moment was later on the May 23, 2008 question period where Stan Hagen was hammered on the issue of the BC Place roof - apparently there was a “deflation alert” earlier (May 14, 2008) where there wasn’t enough pressure in the stadium to keep the roof afloat.
The transcript is quite amusing to read. NDP MLA Norm Macdonald (Columbia River-Revelstoke) begins with a rather innocent-sounding question:
N. Macdonald: I have received information that the B.C. Place roof recently had a noticeable deflation and a deflation alert. Will the minister confirm that there have been recent problems with the roof of B.C. Place?
Obviously he’s got a good script - if the minister answers “no”, then he will provide the appropriate evidence showing that he’s either lying or is ignorant of what is going on. If the minister answers “yes”, then there will be some follow-up about “not informing the people” or something more nefarious.
The minister responds:
Hon. S. Hagen: I’m afraid the member opposite must have found some old newspapers because the deflation that took place was in December of ‘07.
Hagen just fell through a huge trap in the door here and received the following response:
N. Macdonald: PavCo has just confirmed that the alert took place. We’ve also been told that the roof deflation alert came on May 14, two days before the Premier and the minister held a news conference about the future of B.C. Place.
Now, I would assume, as the minister responsible, that his expectation is that he would be kept informed about anything that happens to the roof of B.C. Place, since that is the site of the opening of the Olympics and will be a venue viewed by over a billion people. So my expectation is that the minister would know about this.
Can he confirm that that roof is not dependable and that that roof is not going to be the sort of roof that we should have when the Olympics open and that the reason we cannot make a decision on that roof that is appropriate is because this minister has bungled another file and that we do not have time to make proper decisions about what should happen with the roof of B.C. Place?
After Hagen gave some rather stock responses as to the “record of the government” and such, the pack of NDP wolves smelled blood and started to pile onto Hagen, who by this point knew he was toast:
D. Chudnovsky: There was a deflation alert two days before the announcement. Was the minister aware of that or not?
…
S. Simpson: On May 14th there was a deflation alert on the B.C. Place Stadium roof. Was the minister aware of that alert? Yes or no.
…
H. Bains: The question is very simple. The minister should be on his file. The question is: there was a deflation alert issued on May 14 — does the minister know or not?
…
J. Kwan: PavCo has confirmed that two days ago there was a deflation alert at B.C. Place Stadium. Does the minister know of that alert or does he not?
…
M. Karagianis: Two days before the government made a report, on May 14 there was an alert of a deflation of that roof. Will the minister confirm that in the House today for us, please?
Shortly subsequent to this, Michael Sather’s question refused to play ball and asked a question about a death in Maple Ridge shortly before time expired. MLA Sather is on our suspected list of not running for the NDP again and instead will be going into municipal politics.
If the NDP could ask questions like this all the time in the Legislature, the BC Liberals would be in a lot more trouble. It was made painfully obvious that Stan Hagen had no idea that there was a so-called “deflation alert” in BC Place, which strongly implies that his portfolio had little to do with the decision to improve BC Place. This means that the Premier’s office took the entire job itself.
Will this result in an election issue? I could see the issue of BC Place being one.
Posted May 23, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: Referendum
On Friday, the question on the referendum was finalized. It will be:
Which electoral system should British Columbia use to elect members to the provincial Legislative Assembly?
• The existing electoral system (First-Past-the-Post)
• The single transferable vote electoral system (BC-STV) proposed by the Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform
In 2005, the question was:
Should British Columbia change to the BC-STV electoral system as recommended by the Citizens’ Assembly on Electoral Reform?
• Yes
• No
This is a very subtle shift in that proponents or opponents cannot simply say “Vote YES” to this or “Vote NO” to that, which is a much easier marketing message than saying “Vote for BC-STV”. The acronym is much more difficult to remember.
This was reflected by Attorney General Wally Oppal in the May 23, 2008 morning debate:
The question is different from that in 2005 in that it removes some language that we heard was perceived as biased in favour of a yes vote — particularly words like “change” and “recommended by.” In addition to a number of complaints received during and after the 2005 referendum that the question was not as neutrally worded as it could be, a post-referendum study by the NRG Research Group queried the neutrality of the question.
This is very correct and all things being equal, will likely result in a lesser result for the STV. Right now I think it will be very close to 50/50.
Posted May 22, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: BC Liberals, NDP
Former owner of the Vancouver Canucks and Vancouver Grizzlies, Arthur Griffiths, made his plans to run for the nomination of the Vancouver-West End riding. It is very likely he will be able to secure the nomination as he does have quite a bit of name recognition amongst Canucks fans. Whether it will bring him votes is another matter.
Vaughn Palmer has a scathing article as to Griffiths’ chances in the riding as he points out the poll split from the previous election was adverse to the BC Liberals.
The math is not good in the West End, but it is not insurmountable - Mayencourt would have lost 35% to 48% if the 2009 riding boundaries were in the 2005 election.
Competing against Griffiths is a parks commissioner - 27 years old and running for the NDP, his name is Spencer Herbert and he is currently part of the COPE slate.
So we have Griffiths, who has some name recognition and presumably some cash, vs. a young NDP parks commissioner that has the advantage of being in an NDP-friendly territory. Griffiths will need to play it smart in order to squeak out a victory in this riding.
Posted May 20, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: Polls
Innovative Research Group survey, ending May 15, 2008 - 853 British Columbians:
BC Liberal - 47%
NDP - 36%
Green - 12%
This is at odds with the previous Mustel survey (BCL 54%, NDP 37%) and is a good indication of the survey volatility involved. The BC Liberals will only have to worry about getting re-elected if their ballot (not necessarily polling!) results come within 4% of the NDP figures - the distribution of NDP voters is significantly more efficient than BC Liberal voters.
The data also comes with leadership preferences - not surprisingly, Gordon Campbell comes off as “more of a leader” than Carole James (specifically 43% compared to 11% of those surveyed for Campbell vs. James), which is a far cry from two elections ago where Campbell used to be the liability for the party.
Source: Globe and Mail, Justine Hunter, May 19, 2008
Posted May 15, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: Polls
Mustel Group poll, ending May 9, 2008 - unknown sample size.
If an election were held today, who would you vote for?
BC Liberals - 54%
NDP - 37%
This implies that the Green party (who have been nearly silent since the coronation of their new leader, Jane Sterk) are sitting as less than 10% support.
At this stage it is clear that the BC Liberals have accomplished their goal of “not screwing up” three years into this term, and it’s just a matter for them to close the deal. Inevitably the 54% will go lower over the next few months, but as such they are likely headed toward a majority government. The only question is how many seats they will capture.
Bernard Schulmann has a very succinct analysis of the situation - although he is projecting an outcome that is assuming the 54% poll number is maintained until election day.
On the opposite side is Vaughn Palmer, with his article, How could the Liberals lose the election? Let’s peek into the crystal ball - he pieces together a (stated) improbable scenario where the NDP could squeak their way to victory.
It would be be more conceivable that the NDP only retain 10 seats in the next legislature than the opposite scenario of the NDP taking back control as pictured by Vaughn Palmer. However, I would not put either scenario’s probability at this point in time at zero.
Source: Vancouver Sun, May 10, 2008, Miro Cernetig.
Posted May 15, 2008 by Sacha Peter
Category: Legislature
This week in the legislature was filled with second reading debate on many bills, but nothing terribly exciting outside of question period.
In question period, we had the following first topics asked:
Government action on forest industry
Government action on forest industry
Government action on forest industry
Softwood Lumber Agreement
The theme is obviously on the forest industry. Wednesday’s question period was prominent since the same topic was asked three times over the past three days, plus the Premier himself stood to answer a couple questions, getting in his sound-bites for the cameras.
It’s difficult to tell the tone of questioning by just reading Hansard, but when you see a lot of “Interjections” and the speaker telling everybody to shut up, you can tell it’s a heated chamber.
The NDP are accusing the BC Liberals of doing nothing for the forestry industry and it is interesting to see whether it will actually stick or not. I know that the body of knowledge of the forest industry (e.g. how to operate sawmills, pulp and paper, etc.) is leaving in droves to get into a much more lucrative field - oil and gas.