First candidate down

Posted April 20, 2009 by Sacha Peter
Category: NDP, Scandal

NDP candidate Ray Lam for Vancouver-False Creek got “outed” by not deleting some racy pictures off his Facebook profile. Couresty of a comment by BJ, you can view the “racy” pictures here (just don’t do it at work to be on the safe side).

False Creek is a probable BC Liberal riding in this election, so it won’t damage the NDP too much other than likely boosting the membership of young potential members that might think that the NDP is literally a “party” first and “political” second.

As far as I know, this is the first “scandalous” removal of a nominee after the writ was dropped. There are surely more to come as new candidates are vetted and screened by the opposing party members. Any juicy material will likely be withheld until after April 24th, as that is when nominations close.

The Vancouver Sun quoted:

Liberal Mary McNeil demanded the photos be immediately removed and called for a public apology from Ray Lam, candidate for Vancouver-False Creek, saying the pictures were “offensive and demeaning.”

This is the wrong approach politically; it would hint that McNeil would call for the removal of content that she doesn’t approve of in other instances. This remark likely cost her a few votes.

Inevitably, it is up to voters to decide whether such pictures are appropriate or not. Lam had no choice but to resign (to avoid dilution of the NDP’s messaging in the future) but I would suspect that in Yaletown (which is a socially liberal area) most people wouldn’t care. Provincially, however, is a different story.

Paul Hillsdon has some interesting commentary on the matter – I disagree with his conclusion that Lam shouldn’t have resigned (he had to for the good of his party), but Hillsdon provides some interesting colour commentary on four other points that I agree with.

The one conclusion is the following – don’t put digital pictures of yourself in compromising positions no matter how “private” you think they are. They will get out.

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All-candidates meetings

Posted April 14, 2009 by Sacha Peter
Category: NDP

Anybody that has worked on a campaign know that all-candidates meetings at the federal and provincial level has little to do with genuine debate – it generally is about stuffing the audience with as many supporters as possible and being able to cheer on your preferred candidate. If the moderators make the mistake of allowing the public to ask questions, the questions that will be asked will be as supportive to the candidates’ platform. Finally, everything will be digitally recorded and any comments made that could be considered incriminating will be put instantly up on Youtube and will be attempted to be made into a huge issue.

Candidates have much more to lose than to gain by going to these events. Incumbent candidates especially have more to lose.

The public is generally aware of this; as a result, candidates lose very little by not showing up, especially if their presence is “visible” elsewhere in the election campaign and they are not seen as “hiding”.

I observe with great amusement (courtesy of the Public Eye Online) that the BC Liberal candidate in Victoria-Beacon Hill, Dallas Henault, challenging Carole James to show up for an all-candidates’ debate in the riding. James, quite correctly, is probably not going to show up.

On Geoff Sharpe’s weblog on this issue (who is siding with the BC Liberals), he posts about this issue, but the BC Liberals themselves have smartly keep their mouths shut about this issue because as I commented, I doubt Premier Gordon Campbell would want to be going to all-candidates’ meetings in his riding. I would love to see him debate with the leader of the Sex Party, who is running in Vancouver-Point Grey.

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Looking at the “scrap the gas tax” backlash

Posted April 14, 2009 by Sacha Peter
Category: Analysis, Economy, Environment, NDP

The BC Liberals are firing the first shots in the yet-to-be-formalized election period, with respect to the NDP’s positioning on their declaration of scrapping the carbon tax.

Rather, it was the environmental lobby groups (most notably the David Suzuki Foundation) that went against the NDP for their stance on the carbon tax, but quite a few others piled in.

This policy decision was a very interesting choice for the NDP, and I generally think it will be a net positive for them, although whether it is a “small” or “large” net positive will remain to be seen in terms of how they perform in the rest of their campaign.

The reason is because people that are generally inclined toward the environment as single-issue voters are much more likely to vote Green than to vote for the NDP, and even less likely to vote for the BC Liberals. The simple election calculation is that the NDP already bled most of their environmental support in 2005, and likely did not stand to gain much by supporting a tax which polling indicated about half of British Columbia did not like. I have not seen a recent poll on the question of the carbon tax, however – this may have changed.

The NDP probably looked at the federal election results in British Columbia and judged the carbon tax and its impact (weighed against the fact that the Liberal Party was running a weak leader in Stephane Dion). The real question is – how many “single issue” voters are there with the carbon tax, and how many “multi-issue” voters are there that would be tipped with the promise of getting rid of the carbon tax?

Most people (except the media) generally tune out what the environmental groups have to say as the alarm bells have been rung too many times to be effective; the only news is that the apparent perception that the environmental groups were solid support for the NDP has been confirmed, but this is just revealing something that has been the case for awhile.

One negative aspect of this tactical choice by the NDP is that the government gives out a $100 cheque for anybody making less than $30,000 income a year (or $35,000 joint income if you are married; which is really a penalty on marriage). The BC Liberals will argue this. This is a rational argument, but the opponents of the carbon tax have made it beyond numbers, and have been quite successful at that.

Lower gasoline prices have also mitigated the problem somewhat for the BC Liberals; they will not be nearly as fortunate in 2013 when it is very likely that fuel prices will be much, much higher (here’s a hint for everybody – you may wish to hedge your price on energy consumption by looking into investing in some oil and gas companies).

In general, the government would have saved themselves a lot of pain had they just increased the motor fuel tax by 2.4 cents a litre and phased in subsequent increases in future years. This would not cover natural gas, coal, etc., but this could have been worked around.

The NDP, as an alternative, have been proponents of cap-and-trade, which is a less transparent system of greenhouse gas emission taxation, although public perception is generally not aware of this. What is odd, however, is that the government has already enacted a form of cap-and-trade, via Bill 18 (2008), the Greenhouse Gas Reduction (Cap and Trade) Act.

Finally, something powerful is the effect on ordinary voters, opposed to special interest groups, when they do the mental comparisons – if the NDP made the ballot question “Do you want to scrap the carbon tax?” it may be highly effective for them in the very swingy interior regions (e.g. the Cariboo).

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NDP releases platform

Posted April 14, 2009 by Sacha Peter
Category: Analysis, NDP

On April 9, 2009, the NDP released their platform. This document is available (NDP Site, Local Copy) for download. It is 1.5 megabytes and 56 pages.

The first thing that strikes you when you open the file is the large colour picture of NDP leader Carole James. Of particular note was that she is not smiling – which undoubtedly was a specific choice by the people who put together this document. One would politically infer that she is “serious” if she’s not smiling. This is an interesting choice and I wonder if any polling was done on the matter. I also think it was a correct choice, since the document is inferring that BC has “problems”, and there is no reason to be smiling if this is the case. A non-smiling photograph is much more consistent with the story the NDP is trying to weave.

Anybody picking up a paper version of this document will see the picture, and this is why the front page of the document is important.

The table of contents is also revealing – the top three topics are “Investments, Opportunity and Jobs for the Future”, “Making Life More Affordable for Everyday Families”, and “Taking back BC”. This isn’t normally the order that things would be presented in an NDP platform – health and education (although content-wise is the largest number of pages) is in the middle.

The first page in each chapter of the platform is an attack page stating the government’s policies, followed by how the NDP will proceed to make life great. The NDP also quote what they will be attempting to turn the ballot question into, which is “Who can you trust to put the needs of average families first?”. I think this is the wrong approach by the NDP – almost nobody trusts politicians to do anything anymore, so using the word “trust” is incorrect.

The “big ticket” item that the NDP have adopted with their policy platform is getting rid of the carbon tax, or what they phrase it as the “gas tax”. A search of the document for “carbon tax” only reveals quotes by other people using that phrase. I always wondered why the NDP would use the “gas tax” terminology when the federal Conservatives have already done a lot of work in the last federal election campaign by attacking the federal Liberals’ proposed “carbon tax” (via the Green Shift). I am guessing the NDP did their polling and determined that people associate the two together, but this is tough to say. The NDP might have done it to hedge their message with respect to environmentalists (that would presumably be in favour of such a tax). Will this have an electoral impact? Tough to say – instinctively it would have a greater effect in the more rural ridings.

On page 9, the NDP propose repealing “Bill 43″, but readers of the original Green platform should now know this is an ambiguous reference – it’s referring to the Greater Vancouver Transportation Authority Amendment Act, 2007. Unfortunately for the NDP, they refer to it as “Bill 42″ on the same page.

Most used cliche joke in the province:

BC relies heavily on the wealth generated by rural and resource communities, but Gordon Campbell can’t seem to see beyond Hope.

The residents of Hope must get really tired of hearing variations of this.

On page 11, the NDP platform discusses “Fight for longer and better EI protection”, although this is a federal jurisdiction issue. In all fairness to the NDP, the government has been caught a few times making announcements saying they will “work with” the federal government to change certain federal legislation (which rarely happens as a result of one province’s request).

Page 15 – the NDP has virtually copied the government’s actions to date with respect to First Nations (recognition and reconciliation).

Page 17 – Barack Obama’s name is used in print.

Page 19-20 on the minimum wage:

Under Gordon Campbell, BC’s minimum wage hasn’t increased in eight long years, and now ranks dead last in Canada in terms of purchasing power.

What is “in terms of purchasing power” mean? Opposed to what? The only other province that has a lower minimum wage is New Brunswick, and their minimum wage will go up to $8.00/hour on April 15, 2009. Are things in BC that much more expensive than in New Brunswick? Would love to know what statistics they are using with this.

Page 30:

Strengthening human rights protections by establishing a Human Rights Commission, and enhancing preventative actions such as community anti-racism and discrimination programs, including a provincial anti-hate hotline.

Creation of a Human Rights Commission will turn off a lot of potential swing voters.

Page 36:

Getting tough on smoking by banning cigarette sales in pharmacies, stopping the flavouring of cigarillos, and piloting programs that provide free access to nicotine replacement therapies.

Requiring clear food labeling to reduce harmful carcinogens, toxic substances and genetically engineered foods. Toxins in our environment are a growing cause of cancer.

The first promise is quite worthy of experimentation (nicotine replacement therapies), but the second promise is completely misguided. Increased life expectancy, not toxins, is the growing cause of cancer in society. The state of California has implemented ridiculous labeling requirements that virtually have everything telling you that they are a carcinogenic risk – such labeling is completely useless.

Page 49:

While economic experience does not prove that “tax cuts pay for themselves,” strategic tax cuts and capital investments that spur growth do return revenue to the government.

Loved how they engineered this sentence together. The next paragraph has the words “tax cuts focused on consumer and business spending have greater immediate impact” which I don’t believe has ever been spoken in an NDP platform before.

Pages 52 to 55 contain the numbers. The NDP project a $877M deficit in 2009-2010 if their plan is implemented, which is slightly higher than the government’s projected $495 million deficit.

Overall thoughts:

Other than removing the carbon tax and providing a one-year tax holiday for small business owners, the vast bulk of the policy mentioned in this platform was fairly “NDP routine”. Most of it is consistent with their strategy of appealing to lower income voters. I think the spending initiatives are a lot more expensive than what they present in the platform, but then again, I think the government’s projected $495 million deficit is going to turn into at least a billion, if not more, if they get re-elected again. It was a surprisingly moderate document from the NDP and a lot of the line items are difficult to pick away at. For example, their entire health care platform seemed to read very well (although it would very likely cost a lot more than they said it would to implement). It was also low on the environmental side, probably because the NDP realize that their radical environmentalist section has already moved to the Green party and they were unlikely to get them back without compromising the rest of their base.

Will this platform swing voters to vote for the NDP? I don’t think it was designed to do that, except for the pledge to get rid of the carbon tax. There will have to be other dynamics in play in order for the NDP to win this election other than their platform.

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NDP Platform is out

Posted April 11, 2009 by Sacha Peter
Category: NDP

The NDP released their platform on April 9th (available here) and I will analyze it later tonight. I also have placed it in the Platforms page.

The BC Liberal party is the last party to release a comprehensive platform; currently they have one election promise announcement on the record. In 2005, they released it about a week after the writ was dropped. In 2005 the Green Party was also first out with their platform, followed by the NDP, so history will repeat itself here.

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BC Liberal and NDP 2007 vs. 2008 financing

Posted April 6, 2009 by Sacha Peter
Category: Analysis, BC Liberals, NDP

The numbers in this report have been superseded by this post.

The following is the BC Liberals and BC NDP 2007 and 2008 financing report:

Please note that the numbers are approximate, but should have an error factor of less than a percent – this is due to transcription errors due to the low resolution of the digital copies obtained from Elections BC.

The BC Liberals are in a better financial position than the NDP at the end of 2008.  The BC Liberals has about $1 million in current assets and no debt; the NDP has about $530,000 in current assets (of which $130,000 is software in development).  The BC Liberals between the end of 2007 and 2008 spent about $160,000 in software.

The BC Liberals paid off their loans by the end of 2008, and have incurred some liabilities (presumably the million dollar balance is due to incurred advertising expenses that they will be paying for at a future date).  The NDP has about $780,000 in bank loans and a line of credit.

Both parties will have to loan significant amounts of money if they wish to spend the maximum $4.4 million during the writ period.

One financial strength of the NDP is that the NDP has ownership in their own building/land – it is not known whether they own their office space or the land underneath it (or both), but the “Land and Building” column for the NDP is significant – also note that accounting principles would record the land value at cost, so if the NDP bought land many years ago, the reported number would be a lot lower than its actual value if the NDP were to sell it on the open market today (even with the slowdown in the real estate market).  Since the financing reports were required (for the 1999 year), the NDP had $625,000 of land and buildings on their books; this has increased after the 2006 report to $1.447 million.

The BC Liberal party presumably leases their office space.

In terms of the money that both parties raised, the BC Liberals raised roughly $7.9 million in gross proceeds during the year, while the NDP raised a gross amount of $2.9 million.  The BC Liberals have a significantly better fundraising machine than the NDP; the majority of this can be attributed to corporate contributions (roughly $5.1 million), and individual contributions were approximately $2.3 million.  The vast majority of NDP contributions are from individuals (roughly $2.29 million), while contrary to public wisdom, trade unions contributed nearly the rest ($627,000).  Presumably the NDP receive ’silent contributions’ via unions (through third party ads and organizational capital), while the BC Liberals would receive ’silent contributions’ through business-related third parties.

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Courting the Anglo-Indo-Sino vote

Posted April 3, 2009 by Sacha Peter
Category: NDP

The NDP just released a video titled “Fighting Gang Violence”. Normally this would be something that I would gloss over (as most political media) but what was particularly interesting is that they published it in four languages: English, Mandarin, Punjabi and Cantonese.

Other than the fact that the video is slightly too small (it should be double the resolution than the little window they have it set to) it’s a fairly good ad – the message is sharp, and to the point.

It will be very interesting to see if the NDP can get any traction at all on the crime issue.

On a side note, do you know the origin of the word “Sino”? When talking about “Anglo-Canadian” relations, you know you’re talking about England (or the UK) and Canada. “Indo-Canadian relations” means India and Canada. But “Sino”? I had to Google it up.

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Mable Elmore getting the crash course in politics

Posted March 23, 2009 by Sacha Peter
Category: NDP

Shortly after her nomination, the Public Eye outed a quote made by Mable Elmore about “Zionists in our worksites”, which she later apologized for and attributed it to a misunderstanding of language.

This did force NDP leader Carole James to answer some questions regarding the issue.

Also, the nomination battle was probably very heated, and has an aftermath.

This article has been lifted completely from the work of Sean Holman, so thank you for your reporting.

I had said previously that “The BC Liberals would have had an easier time if Sims won the nomination.” and I still stand by this statement, at least for now! It’s really tough to top Jinny Sims’ October 2005 two week teacher’s strike in terms of union militancy which would have made the campaign literature a whole lot easier for the BC Liberals and would have likely put Vancouver-Kensington on the targeted riding list.

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