2013 British Columbia General Election Thread

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Which party will you vote for in the 40th British Columbia general election?

Poll ended at Mon May 13, 2013 11:51 am

Liberal (Christy Clark)
7
54%
New Democratic (Adrian Dix)
2
15%
Conservative (John Cummins)
1
8%
Green (Jane Sterk)
3
23%
 
Total votes: 13
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Robbie
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With the recent sales tax change in BC and with the provincial election coming up as it's tentatively scheduled for May 14, 2013, have you thought about which party will you vote for this time?

The Liberals have held the majority for 12 years since May 2001. But with the unpopular HST and with Gordon Campbell resigning in March 2011, the Liberals may not win this time. But it looks like the NDP opposition also has their own controversy with Adrian Dix replacing Carole James two years ago.
祝加拿大加式足球聯賽不列颠哥伦比亚卑詩雄獅隊今年贏格雷杯冠軍。此外祝溫哥華加人隊贏總統獎座·卡雲斯·甘保杯·史丹利盃。還每年祝溫哥華白頭浪隊贏美國足球大联盟杯。不要忘記每年祝溫哥華巨人贏西部冰球聯盟冠軍。
改建後的卑詩體育館於二十十一年九月三十日重新對外開放,首場體育活動為同日舉行的加拿大足球聯賽賽事,由主場的卑詩雄獅隊以三十三比二十四擊敗愛民頓愛斯基摩人隊。
祝你龍年行大運。
恭喜西雅图海鹰直到第四十八屆超級盃最終四十三比八大勝曾拿下兩次超級盃冠軍的丹佛野馬拿下隊史第一個超級盃冠軍。
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squishy35
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Can't Vote for Dix and the NDP. Overwhelming sense of doom if that scenario plays out. Very possible chance of a minorty gov't this time around. Which party is anyone's guess.
South Pender
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Don't think there's the slightest chance of any outcome but an NDP victory. Liberals have made mistakes, and now we're in for four years of spending, quashing of needed investment and revenues, and an eventual massive government deficit.
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Sir Purrcival
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Yep, Got to think that the NDP pretty much has this locked up and they did it without really having to do a thing. They just had to sit back and watch the Liberals implode. I doubt that given time, they will be any better. It is one thing to talk about governing, it is another thing to do it and one thing is certain, it isn't unions that give a region it's economic drive, it is business. Without business, unions would be just a bunch of unemployed people. The NDP tends to make businesses nervous and that puts them in a catch 22 situation. Their power base comes largely from organized labour, but the economy depends on employers being able to make solid profits. If they favour one to the detriment of the other, they are bound to lose either their support base or the economic movers and shakers in the province. either way, they lose in the long run unless economic times are really good, something that generally is shaped by forces beyond their control.
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Toppy Vann
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South Pender wrote:Don't think there's the slightest chance of any outcome but an NDP victory. Liberals have made mistakes, and now we're in for four years of spending, quashing of needed investment and revenues, and an eventual massive government deficit.
This is not the same Adrian Dix who was part of the errors of the Glen Clark gov't and who put his contribution to their failures to work every day.

Much like I am sure Glen Clark today (successful business exec with Jimmy Pattison now) would not be the same bold, brash and person who would get into the fast ferry building without the right plan - Dix is the same.

This version of Dix 2.0 is older, more mature and more aware of what won't work and what they won't do if they win. In fact on a FB page I made a comment about the Dave Barrett huge agenda pre-1972 (where they didn't expect to win but did) and a major NDP Union leader commented critically that Adrian has no new ideas and not much of a change agenda.

If you notice he is not making big promises like used to be the case when the NDP were in Opposition like in former times.

Why is there no big agenda? Because Dix knows the state of finances of the Province and knows if he wins it won't be pretty what he is looking at. And he will want what every Premier and gov't wants in its first term - a second one! He is playing not to lose and I suspect he is very much aware that making big promises that can't be kept will harm him.

The Liberals have run of gas, steam, ideas and no matter how much I admire Christy Clark personally it is a leaky ship without a crew of officers that need to be replaced.
"Ability without character will lose." - Marv Levy
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Sir Purrcival
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Agree with you completely in the playing not to lose POV. I guess that makes sense for them but the flip side of that is that there is nothing to be held accountable to either for the voting public.

For example: Will the NDP

Look again at subsidy for the film industry?
Oppose the Northern Gateway pipeline under any circumstances or are they willing to consider new proposals.
Call an inquiry into the BC Rail issue
Figure out how to deal with critical shortages of personnel in the health care system.
Raise Corporate Tax rates
Increase Provincial Income tax on high income earners.
Fund a badly in the red transit system

I'm sure everybody has their own list.

While I don't expect definitive answers to any of these questions, I am definitely getting tired of the deafening silence reverberating through the halls of NDP Central. If they don't want to gutter snipe with the Liberals, I applaud that but at least show that you have a direction that you plan to travel. Give us something. Even Cummins has at least said he would look at Ferry's and costs. What do the NDP see as the most pressing priorities? How do they envision tackling those problems? Time for Mr. Dix to start to anti-up. I am sure that he is going to run into one very big road block and that is how to pay for things. If he is counting on getting that revenue from business, he best tread carefully. Businesses have picked up and left before when the climate here became too costly, and they will do so again at the drop of a hat. It''s a cinch that Unions will be expecting some payback for their members and that is going to cost too. That money has to come from somewhere or he is going to have to disappoint some folks. Personally for the good of the province, I wouldn't mind seeing all of us do some collective belt tightening. I think the following might be smart directions to go

A small increase on taxes for the highest wage earners, a small increase in the corporate taxation rate.
A long term approach to transit and it's development. (picked a preferred modality and develop it (buses, ground based rail, subways, whatever focus on one primarily).
A reduction on tolls for truckers
A fast tracked route to certification for qualified medical practitioners from other jurisdictions coupled with assignments to rural areas for at least 3 years
A meaningful emphasis on apprenticeships for needed trades and technical jobs
A better funding model for school districts that take into account how the districts are supposed to pay for agreements made by the government and unions.
A harder line on the exportation of unfinished products in forestry and mining, either tax credits for finished products or exportation taxes on raw materials.
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Toppy Vann
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Some very good points Sir P.

Not sure of the views of them on these things but they might want to fight the feds for the job training stuff which is looking to be set up simply as a federal govt way to be dispensing largesse.

A new gov't of any stripe in BC has to take the reality of economy and the budgets as they are now - health care, education etc - which eat a lot and then decide where they can make a difference. There are some not so great economic realities at present and the systems are very hard to change or get efficiencies in.

Where I am not happy with the federal gov't is that this new approach is not about developing new industries or assisting SMEs - the bulk of our business but about helping with the equipment for training (a good thing too). But what we need more of in Canada and just like the USA is more research and development and innovation. Not just gov't spending - that has gone down too under the Tories as they don't see the spin offs and jobs. Canada is some 18 out of 31 countries in R&D spending by all sectors incl. gov't. That to me is where new jobs and industries can come from. Major corps are awash with cash but won't invest as they haven't got the customers to buy - how do gov'ts incent their spending on innovation is a good policy question.

We need those skills trainings to be focused on good jobs but we need good new ones that pay.

Gov'ts need to recognize - all levels - that the consumers are maxed out now in the west. While the consumers need help - the gov'ts keep shifting costs on to them and raising rates for everything including higher education.

Whoever wins is not winning the election at the best of times!
"Ability without character will lose." - Marv Levy
TheLionKing
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The Liberals will be decimated in the election. After the experience of Glen Clark I will never vote NDP ever again. Liberals don't deserve my vote either.
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notahomer
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jcalhoun wrote: ...Incidentally, I recently read the book "The Big Shift" by John Ibbitson and Darrel Bricker. A breezy read but quite perceptive: about power shifting to the West in Canada, and new electoral realities. (In brief: the West + Ontario suburbs = majority. It's the new electoral math, leaving Quebec, downtown elites & their ilk out of power). Anyone reading this thread (even Toppy) would find it interesting. Available at your library.
...
I'm on the wait list (yes at the Vancouver Library!). I'm looking forward to reading it. I'm been a political junkie since I was about 5-6 years old. IMO, there still is some of that anti-West bias in federal politics that is rooted in being elected (and re-elected). So, I'm looking forward to "The Big Shift" to see if it can impact my perspective.
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Toppy Vann
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http://thetyee.ca/Views/2009/04/23/BCEcon/


This article in The Tyee is about the various gov'ts and the economy. I will let it speak for itself. Our perceptions based on biases and limited information and possibly sound bites in the news can be very misleading. It is the old political adage. If you say it enough times it doesn't matter if it is true - it will work as the electorate and average worker don't have the time to research this stuff and of course that is how gov'ts get elected.

No gov't is as bad as it seems and no gov't is as good as they seem to some.


BC's imperfect mirror of Canada

The chart also shows that B.C.'s rate of economic growth generally adheres to that of Canada as a whole. That is, when the nation's economy expands, so does that of our province. And when Canada's economy weakens, British Columbia's does as well.

THE 1990s: BC UNDER THE NDP

In comparison to its wild performance with Social Credit in the 1980s, B.C.'s economy in the 1990s under New Democratic Party government was, well, bland. The NDP recorded two years of four per cent-plus growth (4.5 per cent in 1993, at the beginning of their decade in office, and 4.6 per cent in 2000, at the end), and just a single year under two percent (1.3 per cent in 1998). All of the remaining years were between two and four per cent.

Surprisingly -- in light of criticism fostered by B.C.'s business community, and perpetuated by Gordon Campbell's BC Liberals -- not once during the New Democrats' tenure did British Columbia record negative economic growth. That's in contrast to the sharp downturn in 1982 with Social Credit, and the current recession under the BC Liberals.

How, then, to explain the perception that the 1990s was a period of economic decline, a so-called "dismal decade"?

Look again at the chart above and note that B.C.'s annual economic growth, from 1987 through 1993, and then again in 1996, exceeded that of Canada as a whole. But in 1994 and 1995, and then again from 1997 until 2001, the B.C. economy under-performed Canada's. It is that latter period, the last four years of New Democratic Party government, that NDP critics point to as proof of their alleged incompetence and mismanagement.

Let's remember two key points about B.C.'s economy during the 1980s and 1990s. First, both decades were marked by a decline in global commodity prices, from which B.C. arguably suffered more than most other Canadian provinces.

Second, B.C. had that historic population boom from 1987 to 1997. Because Canada's economy was much weaker than B.C.'s over the period, thousands of workers from across the country moved to the Pacific province in search of employment.
[quote]THE EARLY 2000s AND THE BC LIBERALS
A striking feature of the chart above shows that both the New Democrats in 1991 and the BC Liberals in 2001 "inherited" a relatively weak provincial economy when they first took office. Yet it's difficult to blame either of their predecessors -- Social Credit in the first instance; the NDP in the second -- for the circumstance.

That's because in 1991, as both the Canadian and American economies fell into a deep recession, B.C. maintained weak, but positive economic growth. When the New Democrats were sworn into office in November 1991, the province arguably had already started its recovery, albeit from a very low point.

And in 2000, the New Democrats' last full year in office, B.C. recorded economic growth of 4.6 per cent. By the time Gordon Campbell's BC Liberals took the reins of government in May 2001, the U.S. was in the early stages of a recession, and then on September 11, terrorist attacks in New York City, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C. rocked an already shaky American economy. The economies of Canada and B.C. also weakened, but remained in positive territory and rebounded in 2002.
[/quote]

[quote]Campbell Misled Public on NDP Finances

In 2001 the incoming premier called NDP finances “worse than we anticipated.” His briefing binders, gained by The Tyee through an FOI, told him the opposite.
By Will McMartin, 20 Apr 2005, TheTyee.ca

The numbers in the binder confirmed the strength of B.C.’s economy at the time, and the astonishing transformation of the province’s fiscal situation. It was a financial picture even better, in fact, than the rosy scenario the NDP had based its budget upon three months earlier.

A surplus topping $1.5 billion. That is what the figures in the binder recorded for the fiscal year 2000-01, the last full fiscal year of NDP government.

Among the details: The newly revised forecast of the consolidated revenue fund surplus was nearly $1.4 billion — an increase of $85 million over what was estimated in the NDP budget three months earlier. Net income for B.C.’s Crown corporations was now pegged at $185 million — a gain of $21 million. And since the ‘forecast allowance’ was not required, another $150 million automatically went to the bottom line. (The ‘forecast allowance’ is a cushion built into the annual budget not meant to be spent except under unforeseen circumstances.)
[/quote]
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KnowItAll
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its just a damn shame that christy clark has to pay the price of campbells assinine workings. She is being held accountable for things campbell did, or got rolling, or failed to do, or things people that he put in place did afterwards,etc.

It is ignorant of media and voters to expect CC to clean up Campbells mess in two yrs. To not give her a full term to turn things around is a travesty.

I called Campbell a major minus, to say the least, long before most of the people and media of BC woke up to it. Now, still, and for some time to come, CC, the liberals, and the people of BC are paying the price for ever electing Campbell.
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TheLionKing
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Christy has made her share of blunders since assuming the mantle. How many Chief of Staff has she fired ?
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Toppy Vann
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KnowItAll wrote:its just a damn shame that christy clark has to pay the price of campbells assinine workings. She is being held accountable for things campbell did, or got rolling, or failed to do, or things people that he put in place did afterwards,etc.

It is ignorant of media and voters to expect CC to clean up Campbells mess in two yrs. To not give her a full term to turn things around is a travesty.

I called Campbell a major minus, to say the least, long before most of the people and media of BC woke up to it. Now, still, and for some time to come, CC, the liberals, and the people of BC are paying the price for ever electing Campbell.
TLK is right. Christy who I personally quite admire as I knew her father. A good old line Federal Liberal and true liberal in the best sense - a fine man who provided me some sage political advice - met in his kitchen with some other Liberals. He was on MP Ray Perreault's team.

The facts are that governments after a period of time run out of steam, ideas, political capital, people and ministers who retire or get stale and eventually credibility. If it goes too far as it did here with the Liberals in office since 2001 it doesn't matter who the leader - it won't be recoverable. If I had to pick a leader I could put in place and say you are now Premier and Leader of the Libs - it might be former Min. of Finance Carole Taylor who was credible with even the BCGEU. But even she couldn't turn it around.

Rita Johnson took over for Bill Vanderzalm as Premier but it was too little too late. Kim Campbell (maybe some of her failings were her own doing as she had a chance) took over from Brian Mulroney and look what happened there.

Stephen Harper is beginning to show signs of losing the public confidence - and his tight running of the PMO and the ministers is starting to expose how unwise that strategy is for the long haul.

Other failures of incoming leaders like John Turner and Paul Martin of the Fed Libs were blunders of their own doing. Turner just looked like he lost his skills and smarts and was a decade too late and Paul Martin with the similar background became Mr. Dithers. His folks kicked out Chretien who wanted to stay until Feb but the Martin forces said they'd vote him down at the Dec. Leadership vote if he did not leave. Dithers called a commission in the few millions stolen in the sponsorship scandal and due to the daily coverage you'd have thought it was millions and millions. Chretien as he said would have called the cops in. Dithers let the gov't die the death of thousand little cuts.

There is one problem today we must fear in Canada. The kind of people attracted to political life and their little helpers and assistants. I have seen a huge change from those who want to make our provinces and countries better to self serving folks who are motivated by money and power. The assistants are not of the calibre to Ministers like they used to be in the Trudeau and Mulroney eras - these guys in many portfolios were highly successful in their careers not robo callers and dirty trick artists with limited ethics like we see now.
"Ability without character will lose." - Marv Levy
South Pender
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Toppy Vann wrote: The facts are that governments after a period of time run out of steam, ideas, political capital, people and ministers who retire or get stale and eventually credibility. If it goes too far as it did here with the Liberals in office since 2001 it doesn't matter who the leader - it won't be recoverable. If I had to pick a leader I could put in place and say you are now Premier and Leader of the Libs - it might be former Min. of Finance Carole Taylor who was credible with even the BCGEU. But even she couldn't turn it around.
I quite agree with this. Most governments do have a "best before" data, and I think that date has arrived for the provincial Liberals. Christy Clark's politics are a little different from Gordon Campbell's. She's a true Liberal; he was really a Conservative. This has caused problems in the present Liberal caucus and is responsible for many of their members leaving or choosing not to run again. Christy's moving slightly to the left, of course, opened up the door to John Cummins and a new, and, for all intents and purposes, irrelevant band of provincial Conservatives. This will cause vote-splitting on the right, and almost by itself guarantee an NDP victory (many other factors, of course, will account for this too). I too hoped that Carole Taylor would step into the ring when the Liberals held their last leadership campaign, but whether even she could have extended the "best before" date is debatable.
Toppy Vann wrote:Stephen Harper is beginning to show signs of losing the public confidence - and his tight running of the PMO and the ministers is starting to expose how unwise that strategy is for the long haul.
The media like to play up what they'd like people to see as palace revolts and any signs of disharmony they can find. Most of it is just to create interest and sell copy. It is inevitable that, during a four-year term of office, the incumbents will receive criticism, but I think we are unwise to imagine that it will continue, grow, or, in any way, affect an election more than two years away. Harper has been a successful PM, and the country knows it. His acumen in all things economic has been a boon to the country and, in small part, accounts for our present favourable economic circumstances relative to other countries, particularly the US. He'll manage this small-scale discontent of his caucus effectively and will be strong in the next election. Considering that he will be up against Mulcair and Justin Trudeau who will damage each other the most, his chances of another term look very good.
Toppy Vann wrote:There is one problem today we must fear in Canada. The kind of people attracted to political life and their little helpers and assistants. I have seen a huge change from those who want to make our provinces and countries better to self serving folks who are motivated by money and power. The assistants are not of the calibre to Ministers like they used to be in the Trudeau and Mulroney eras - these guys in many portfolios were highly successful in their careers not robo callers and dirty trick artists with limited ethics like we see now.
You may be right about this. I'm not sure about the party leaders, but some of the operatives do seem to be particularly unsavory these days.
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