The future of politics in B.C.

My take on what happened and what lies ahead is here: http://rabble.ca/columnists/2013/05/capitalists-win-all-others-lose-bc-e...

[url=http://rabble.ca/columnists/2013/05/capitalists-win-all-others-lose-bc-e... win, all others lose in B.C. election[/size][/url]

Duncan Cameron wrote:

The capitalists won the B.C. election. Extractive industries make big profits in the province, and have bigger plans for its future. More port facilities for coal exports to China, Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plants, new pipelines across the mountains, increased tanker traffic in the Vancouver Harbour, and through coastal waters; these environmental disasters in the making represent lucrative ventures to Liberal backers.

Corporations support the BC Liberals as a form of insurance protecting shareholder privileges. Most of the business and commercial world follows the corporate lead. ...

Thanks Duncan. Always look forward to reading your expert opinion on neoliberalism. As Duncan said the NDP still won a significant 39% support. British Columbians are still smart voters as far as I am concerned. The NDP won a significantly large share of the vote and proportionally so as well. It's the Liberals who were disproportionately rewarded with excessive power by an electoral system that is broken. And as Duncan hints at, money and corporate influence should have no more influence on the vote than ordinary citizens. One citizen should equal one vote. "Dollar democracy" is not the real thing.

Skelly's 42.6% was more than any NDP leader not named Dave Barrett

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Columbia_New_Democratic_Party#Election_results

The NDP did lose 4 in a row between Barrett and Harcourt. But all three victories were due to vote splitting.

The Liberals (Socreds) did not 'win' but the NDP lost and the Libs beat the split. If the cons did not have a dinosaur as a leader their vote probably would not of collapsed so much and siphoned enough of Libs to let the NDP win like with Barrett, Harcourt and Clark.

The NDP should hope the BC Cons get a better leader or a new party starts up to split with the libs.

If that fails the NDP need to figure how to get more than their usual 40 ish percent. (That is why they can only win with splits like Wilsons Libs in 1991 or his PDA in 96 along with some BC Reform votes)

I wonder if a young leader in mid to late 20"s would be good? I dunno if this is a good comparison or not but many NDP MP's from Quebec are young , so I dunno if that is the way to go or not. Any party that can get the young vote (not just support but actually show up and vote) would win by a landslide.

I hate to say it but to many boomers/'old fogies' running for office and that turns a lot of people off.

I think going young, re-branding under a different name even, talk more about issues that effect non boomers (as most boomers vote right wing anyway) like marijuana, education, transit, jobs, how they will work towards solving the high youth unemployment, student loans and some sort of forgiveness, lower voting age to 16 like Brazil, even lower drinking age to 16 or 18 etc etc

Malcontent wrote:

The NDP did lose 4 in a row between Barrett and Harcourt. But all three victories were due to vote splitting.

The Liberals (Socreds) did not 'win' but the NDP lost and the Libs beat the split. If the cons did not have a dinosaur as a leader their vote probably would not of collapsed so much and siphoned enough of Libs to let the NDP win like with Barrett, Harcourt and Clark.

The NDP should hope the BC Cons get a better leader or a new party starts up to split with the libs.

If that fails the NDP need to figure how to get more than their usual 40 ish percent. (That is why they can only win with splits like Wilsons Libs in 1991 or his PDA in 96 along with some BC Reform votes)

I wonder if a young leader in mid to late 20"s would be good? I dunno if this is a good comparison or not but many NDP MP's from Quebec are young , so I dunno if that is the way to go or not. Any party that can get the young vote (not just support but actually show up and vote) would win by a landslide.

I hate to say it but to many boomers/'old fogies' running for office and that turns a lot of people off.

I think going young, re-branding under a different name even, talk more about issues that effect non boomers (as most boomers vote right wing anyway) like marijuana, education, transit, jobs, how they will work towards solving the high youth unemployment, student loans and some sort of forgiveness, lower voting age to 16 like Brazil, even lower drinking age to 16 or 18 etc etc

Agreed... many youth voters are so apathy for some reasons...... like low voter turnout. i think they need pick NDP leader is youth like Niki Ashton.

eta: I hate when non-youth ppl says young ppl have no experience if s/he become NDP leader etc.

The rot is at the top and not just in the leader's spot.  Moe and all the people from his era need to hand in their keys to the inner circle.  The BC party is a tightly controlled top down organization. The people in control have been in control since the early 1990's and they have only won one election in that period.  Yes I know they won government twice but they won with Clark getting less votes than the Liberals.  The only thing the party hierarchy is good at is protecting their own internal power.  They are really good at beating down anyone who tries to influence the party but keep failing in the only game that really counts.

The other parties lose their baggage by rebranding. The corrupt Socreds turned into the Liberals promising open government, the even corrupter Conservative party of Saskatchewan morphed into the Sask party.The NDP in both provinces has to run on ever mistake they have made since the 1960's while the governing parties only have to live with their recent past.

The question is what did the NDP offer the people of BC? They offered minor tinkering and nothing more. This in the face of grinding poverty and a rush to make BC the carbon capital of the world.  Given its top down organization and subsequent lack of vision the NDP has no chance at overcoming the inherent media bias. If they somehow became a more open and grass roots party then they could develop a vision that might stand a chance of getting positive results. In the meantime look for Moe and his friends to appoint a committee to study what went wrong and their role will not be in the terms of reference.

Gee Jan I was talking about a provincial party in the province I live in and the party that I have years of personal experience in.

I am too old to start a youth movement. For me to try and start the youth led party that needs starting in BC would be as stupid as me trying to start and lead a woman's movement. In the political realm I find it best to understand where ones limits are. Sihota and the cabal that controls the BC NDP central office are the problem and have been the problem for quite some time. The people in that inner circle are the "pragmatists" that insist that the party message must be tightly controlled and moderate. They keep insisting on employing the same strategy because winning elections is the main point of politics. The ironic part of the story is they keep losing winnable elections with the same strategy. To me elections are about making real change in government. The Dix led party offered no fundamental change just better government.  Apparently that was not enough to gain it any votes and in fact they lost votes. 

Since the safe middle of the road campaign has lost the popular vote in the last FIVE elections I say run from the left it can't get any worse than it already is. Hell if somehow the party could get youth to believe it would make a difference it could win with just an up surge in that vote.

The only change that I can see with the absentee ballots is that the NDP has inched into the lead, by 5 votes, in Maillardville-Coquitlam, with counting still in progress.

Apparently it's not enough that a mathematically absurd electoral system is law of the land - a true majority of voters in B.C. have been disenfranchised by a fascist setup with Liberals, corporations, and corporate-friendly newz media rigging elections. Even so the junior Libranos only beat the NDP by 5% of the vote. It's the same old same-old: British Columbians can't be trusted with democracy same as the setup here in Puerto Ontario where Liberals are running the province into the ground on behalf of Bay St bondsalesmen and corporate welfare bums.

On the other hand, the "message" does not necessarily have to appeal to the true majority - the ones who voted against the junior Liberals in B.C.  And the 48% of eligible voters who stayed home on election day? I think the junior Liberals have done an excellent job of disengaging them from the political process.  And many of them will understand that they are numerically eliminated by the bad electoral system and frustrated by the lack of democracy in general.

Logic says that whatever the corporate-sponsored Liberals pawned-off on voters in the campaign is what the NDP should focus on next time. Catchphrases like the ones the Liberal newz media machine used are, apparently, effective enough to win a "landslide" by 5% of the actual vote. I think 5% is what the NDP should focus on next time and balance their efforts with an American-style negative campaign. They attacked Tommy Douglas and CCF with lies and deception, and so I think BCNDP should probably think about squeezing off a few torpedoes toward the corporate-Liberals waterline for maximum effect. And there are so many negatives with a Liberal government that the NDP should have had a field day on the water. It's a dirty electoral system that warrants dirty politicking imo. Until a real electoral system is the law of the land anything goes imo.

The final numbers for 2013 are:

Lib   44.14%

NDP  39.71%

Grn   8.13%

Con   4.76%

The Libs have 49 seats, NDP 34 and Green 1

I hardly call this a complete disaster for the NDP as some are suggesting on this thread.  In fact there is very little movement at all amongst all parties. To suggest a victory for the Greens is absurd.  They lost the election and will not get one thing they wanted out of this same Liberal government.     

For me the future of politics in BC, will revolve around Christy's "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for greater economic prosperity": that is, her one trillion dollars in economic activity and 100 billion dollars in government revenue and a debt-free province in thirty years because of LNG exports to Asia. If she can make this absurd fantasy happen, all the corruption associated with the BC Liberals will be overlooked. If it drains the government of resources to subsidize the building and the provision of the enormous amounts of energy required for liquefying natural gas and is stillborn or withers away just like the Tumbler Ridge coal bonanza did, the Liberals will be in deep trouble electorally. So far, it is looking like another Tumbler Ridge scenario because, just as the Japanese promised long-term coal deals at high prices while doing similar deals with Russia and Australia and then walking away from its Tumbler Ridge contracts leaving BC holding the bag, the current very high Chinese LNG prices are likely to fall dramatically with the growing competition of deals with Russia (a 30 year deal has already been done), Australia, and Qatar. 

The Liberals are putting nearly all their economic eggs in one basket as reflected in the fact that they plan to split off LNG from the energy ministry to create a "Ministry of Natural Gas Development". If all the LNG plants go ahead, the energy involved in liquefying natural gas to minus 162 degrees Celsius is almost as much as the provinces current consumption. Goodbye carbon dioxide reduction objectives. When combined with the burning of this LNG if it reaches Asia, it's hello global warming. 

Quote:

As well as finalizing deals to bring natural gas from the northeast to one or more terminals in Kitimat, the new ministry and secretariat would be charged with establishing a second corridor across northern B.C. “to service LNG facilities in and around the Prince Rupert area.”

Other elements of the strategy include working out a deal with the federal government to “ensure one comprehensive environmental assessment process for LNG developments,” and securing the necessary level of cooperation from affected First Nations in return for ensuring that aboriginal people (along with other northern B.C. residents) will be “first in line for the LNG jobs of the future.”

Nor does that exhaust the immediate challenges ahead.

LNG terminals need enormous amounts of power to chill natural gas down to minus 162 degrees centigrade, the target temperature for transporting it by oceangoing tankers. In most places in the world, this is done by consuming sizable quantities of natural gas to “squeeze and freeze” the rest, via a process known as direct drive.

But the Liberals (again quoting the platform) want to “ensure B.C.’s facilities are the cleanest in the world,” which is not a reference to the need for improved custodial standards. Rather they are concerned about greenhouse gas emissions and will be discouraging producers from too much reliance on fossil fuels as a source of power.

Instead the government is pledged to get going on “new power sources for LNG manufacturing, including Site C, that will secure future energy for consumers.” Site C being the proposed hydroelectric dam on the Peace River, which would not be up and running for a decade at the earliest.

Not surprisingly, the would-be builders of multi-billion-dollar terminals would like to know when substitute power would be available, at what price, and how reliable it would be, before they commit themselves to long-term contracts in a volatile global market for commodities.

So it is not as if the Liberals can go on working through their options in private and voicing generalities in public, as they have done for the better part of two years.

They need to deliver the goods. If they don’t, their mandate could evaporate as quickly as LNG at room temperature.

http://www.vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/Vaughn+Palmer+Liberals+un...

Therefore, the NDP needs to continually ask where Christy is in terms of delivering on her trillion dollar promise. One way or another LNG is going to determine the future of this province. 

I'll ask the same question here that I asked in the Adrian Dix thread:

Aristotleded24 wrote:

Is it possible that the 2-party system in BC (and possibly Saskatchewan) is preventing the renewal of the parties? Consider this:

As long as the NDP remains in the first or second position, it is one of the main options, and thus is attractive to power-seekers and "hangers on," which tends to have a stifling effect on the grassroots. In BC's case, perhaps too many people in the top ranks of the NDP feel that they'll win eventually on their own, and don't have to listen to other people, and the "why-doesn't-the-NDP-ever-listen-to-its-members?" question is always going on. However, on the East Coast, the traditionally marginal position of the NDP in Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick has forced the party to work hard and think outside the box, as a marginal party is not attractive to careerists. As a result, the NDP in all 3 provinces is having increased polling success as of late. Here in Manitoba, the NDP rebounded quite quickly after being knocked into third place in 1988.

Thoughts?