The Day After Electoral Blues

With the re-election of Gordon Campbell,for a third term,the only thought that comes to mind is why did I even bother voting.

Notice I did not say Liberals or Gordon Campbell & his Liberals. After all in our system,i.e parliamentary democracy  one vote’s for the party rather than a particular -member of  the legislative assembly-(MLA).The leader of said party holds all the cards,basically he or she is a dictator.

MLA’s otherwise known as backbencher’s serve one purpose. In fact they are but a body attached to a hand that goes up or down signifying  yea or nay,depending on  the wishes of King Gordo.

Read David Schreck’s latest blog post for the details as a former insider & MLA I imagine he knows of what he speaks.

Now for the meat & potatoes.

Rafe Mair points out why King Gordo’s re-election hurts ,indeed it’s akin to a knee-capping.

1. Fish farms win,this will have huge consequences for the very survivability of wild salmon stocks.Being that B.C is a province built on salmon/fishing ,this is particularly galling.

Last night was a terrible one for the environment. Alex Morton, who has laboured so hard to save our salmon from the predation of fish farms must be bitterly disappointed, as am I.

2. Our rivers & the very notion of public input/stewardship.When I think of this one,I am reminded of Suzuki et al who helped  tout King Gordo as some kind of green/environmental warrior while accusing the NDP of  being lacks on the environmental…lol.

Private power generators will increase dramatically. The Bute Inlet project, larger in environmental impact than Site “C,” will be approved shortly. When that happens, there will be no turning back. The message I tried to get out and failed in was getting people to understand that BC Hydro is compelled to buy that power at hugely inflated prices that it cannot come close to getting on the market. At present, Hydro has given out contracts amounting to $31 BILLION dollars, rising with each new private power licence and, here’s the rub, for energy we can’t use because it comes with the spring run-off when BC Hydro has full reservoirs thus lots of power. The private power will go to the U.S. and the process, unless reversed, will spell the end of BC Hydro.

3. STV.In that there will be no talk of electoral reform, proportional representation for at least a decade. Rather we will continue to play the FPTP game,even though we all know  the deck is stacked.

Read Rafe Mair’s ,It Hurts,and Here’s Why

For the definitive list of everything that King Gordo has slashed and burn, read Geoff Olsen’s column in the Courier…

Who shut down or reduced funding for independent offices like the provincial Ombudsman, the Information and Privacy Commissioner, and Elections B.C.? Who cut air and water quality protection, gutted the Forest Practices Code, lowered standards for wildlife protection, presided over the expansion of industrial fish farms resulting in the decline and possible extinction of wild west coast salmon, and plans to reduce B.C. park rangers to a skeleton crew? Who downloaded costs onto municipalities, eliminated the Independent Office of the Child, Youth and Family Advocate, and did a 23-page review of all persons receiving disability benefits? Who attempted a 60-day, pre-election gag law? Who continues to champion the small business community, but has turned a deaf ear to merchants destroyed by the Canada Line? Who hiked his own salary by 54 per cent?

Wait there’s  more…

Liberals’ dodgy megaprojects, from Gateway to the proposed $40-million clamshell over Robson Square. As for the new, $900-million convention centre, that leaky boondoggle alone is twice the price of the former NDP government’s three fast ferries, a nautical scandal from the reign of Glen Clark. Remember that one? It wasn’t the fast ferry scandal that forced Clark out of office, however. What did the trick was a media-led witch-hunt over Clark’s deck, and a conspiracy theory involving his neighbour who built it.

Yep, a damned deck.

Still not done the list just goes on and on,like that damn bunny…

Who is it that engaged in the secretive privatization of public assets? Who restructured B.C. Ferries and brought in U.S. CEO to head the company? Who presided over the dismantling of B.C. Rail? Who has given up our greatest crown jewel of all, B.C. Hydro, allowing private operators to take a crack at power generation? Who gave over the administration of our public electric utility to Accenture, a U.S.-branded company located in an offshore tax haven in the Bahamas?

Read Gordon Campbell’s Liberals privatize,capitalize,destroy

And who can’t remember King Gordo’s sustained attacks on the basic rights of working people that ended in a supreme court ruling.Then there was the so called training period that let business get around the minimum wage laws. After all it takes hundreds of hours to learn how to flip burgers.500 hundred to be exact,or the entire summer school break,the self serving nature of that piece of slave legislation was about as subtle as a bull in a china shop.

And of course one can not forget the infamous Bill 42 ,rammed through by King Gordo.The list of King Gordo’s failings and lies just goes on and on.

Last but not least the truth of the big lie...i.e that worn-out, thread bare talking point about how the NDP is supposedly fiscally irresponsible…

Indeed the Liberal’s build their campaign on that house of cards year after year.With nar a peep from the corporate media,gee what a surprise.

Surprisingly, they revealed that the defeated New Democrats had recorded what was then the biggest-ever surplus — $1.6 billion in the Consolidated Revenue Fund, and $1.5 billion in the summary accounts — in B.C. history.

But the public accounts received little attention from the news media because a few days earlier, on July 23, Campbell had made a pre-emptive strike by releasing the report from his fiscal review panel. And that report, written by Thomson and others hand-picked by the newly elected premier, stated that the New Democrats had left a potential deficit of almost $5.3 billion that could appear three years’ hence.

Read more @ The Tyee

Update ; Alarm bells go off:Elections chief on on low B.C voter turnout.

Chief electoral officer Harry Neufeld said he is disappointed and alarmed by the low turnout of voters for British Columbia’s May 12 election. “Quite frankly the 50 percent mark to me is where the alarm bells go off,” he said.

Only 48 percent of eligible voters cast a ballot in the election, the lowest turnout in decades…Read @

Well I sure as hell hope the alarm bells are ringing…indeed when the numbers are added up we find that Campbell’s  “majority government” was in fact,supported by only 23% of all eligible voters.

Yep you read that correctly 23% !