George Abbott has now thrown his hat into the ring.
The Christy Clark rumours were in full force yesterday. Let's see if she's gonna go for it.
Also rumours today of another outside high profile candidate coming. Since many of the 12 MLAs didn't show up for Abbott's announcement that Abbott proclaimed, (he's a small "l" Lib), could it be Carole Taylor (also a small "l" Lib)? She hasn't denied any rumours.
why would you hope anything positive about the BC Liberals and their actions?
I will cheer for whoever would be the most unattractive, abrasive and unelectable person the BC Liberals could possibly choose.
Who do people think that would be?
While not official, it looks like Christy Clark is now going to jump into the Lib leadership ring. At what appears to be the end of her 4-year tenure as the afternoon radio talk show host of CKNW, she sent out some signals in that regard - she thanked staff and listeners for that period of time and stated that she will take time off over the next few weeks to "seriously" consider entering the Lib leadership race.
I personally heard same and it certainly sounded like she was saying good-bye.
According to the G & B:
She is said to have lined up one of the top backroom organizers in the country, Ken Boessenkool, to run her campaign. Mr. Boessenkool has close ties to the federal Conservative Party and Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose successful 2006 campaign he helped mastermind.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/gary_mason...
Now that I don't get. She's a well known federal Lib whose ex-husband was also the BC federal Lib organizer for Martin. In fact, her ex-husband was later the BC campaign chair for Dion.
According to a well connected provincial Lib:
I can confirm here that she has had extensive polling done that some of her backers tell me shows Christy head and shoulders above any of the current contenders.
http://alexgtsakumis.com/2010/11/26/christys-thinking-about-it-until-nex...
And according to a current online Globe and Mail poll (FWIW):
From the current list of likely contenders for B.C. premier, who would get your vote?
George Abbott - 13%
Christy Clark - 76%
Rich Coleman - 1%
Mike de Jong - 2%
Kevin Falcon - 3%
Moira Stilwell - 4%
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/bc-liberal...
Clark is likely going for it. She is known to be abrasive and confrontational. I hope that NDP party brass has the wherewithal to review her previous "positions" as CKNW radio host over the past 4 years in order to counteract same.
why would you hope anything positive about the BC Liberals and their actions?
Did you read my post carefully? To re-iterate:
[quote]She is known to be [u]abrasive and confrontational[/u]. I hope that NDP party brass has the [u]wherewithal[/u] to review her previous [u]"positions"[/u] as CKNW radio host over the past 4 years in order to [u]counteract same[/u].
Well, you did not have the "NDP party brass" in your post when I wrote that, and I see you have now changed it. Frankly, it is pretty damn disingenuous of you to pretend you did not change it and insert NDP. For you to state I did not read something that was not there speaks volumes.
Another gift from the BC Liberals. You go Christy girl.
Millennium Development defaults on $71 million-plus West Vancouver project loan
http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Millennium+Development+defaults+milli...
There you have it folks - she's in.
Christy Clark to announce candidacy the week of December 6th
CivicScene has just received word that Christy Clark will announce her candidacy for the BC Liberal leadership the week after next.
Sources say that she will spend next week submitting her letter of resignation to CKNW, working out the terms of her departure, and filing the necessary paperwork with the party.
CivicScene has also learned that Mike McDonald, the former B.C. Liberal caucus communications director in Victoria, is rumoured to have accepted the job as Clark's campaign manager.
McDonald will be known to some political observers from the allegations of the defense team in the Basi-Virk trial, which claimed that he was supervising political dirty tricks directly out of a government office, including stacking phone calls to talk radio shows on CKNW. These allegations, made by Kevin McCullough, the former lawyer for Bob Virk, were of course never proven in court.
http://civicscene.ca/christy-clark-to-announce-candidacy-the-week-of-dec...
She was the front runner in the NPA nomination battle with Sam Sullivan back in 2005 too. She (and the capital-L liberal wing of the party) managed to loose that race to Sullivan, despite Sullivan being a well known capital-C conservative in.... the City of Vancouver. So I'm not sure how well she'll play in the Interior, let alone the Valley. I think her and Mark Marissen's organizational abilities are very overrated. Not to mention the fact that she'll have George Abott to contend with for the support of the liberal part of the party. And despite the fact that she has a lot of name recognition, she's very polarizing. People within the Liberal Party, let alone the general public, seem to hate her or love her. I could see her winning if she's learnt her lessons from her foray into municipal politics, but at the same time it seems to me that Abott and Clark, let alone Moira Stillwell (not sure where she'd be on the spectrum) will be splitting the liberal vote... and I think the BC Liberal party is more conservative than it is liberal. On the other hand, to hedge my bets, perhaps a lot of conservatives have been disaffected, which could explain why the leader/rudderless BC Conservatives are hovering around 10% in the polls.
http://www.rabble.ca/babble/news-rest-us/kevin-falcons-death-thousand-kn...
Only 3% for Falcon?
http://www.rabble.ca/babble/news-rest-us/kevin-falcons-death-thousand-kn...
B.C. Health Minister Kevin Falcon [b]says selling health care to rich foreigners[/b] can make money for the province. (B.C. Legislature)Bold added for emphasis.
Read more: B.C. to market health tourism
Ole news I know.....but to understand the things that followed with Arnold's appearance in carrying Torch for the Olympic games in Vancouver Park, you have to understand that not only were they smooshing Arnold but he was Gordon Campbell's friend.
An aggressive expansion of B.C. energy exports is expected to be a major part of the new Clean Energy Act that Mr. Lekstrom is slated to introduce this spring. He said getting past the California green restrictions is critical to those plans.See:Decision pending on Site C hydro megaproject“We can’t sit back and expect to get into the California market without doing some work,” he said. “It’s urgent.”
Patrick Mason, president of the California Foundation on the Environment and the Economy, headed the delegation visiting B.C. last week.
In an interview Monday, he said the group was impressed with B.C.’s regulations on run-of-the-river projects. “I’ll be telling the environmental groups on our board they really should take a look at them before they make up their minds.”
You ever wonder about those pictures of Campbell with Arnold. California is broke, so how would one gain by selling them anything? But that's not the point. Read in Knives article quote and added emphasis, and you will understand exactly what I mean.
Why not run a story about some communities that have transmission lines running through them and promises made to give them electricity as part of the deal?
"News flash" those communities now have hydro. Nice photo op for Penner. Great deal finalized after how many years? Oh, and to legitimize "run of the river," they connected this to their communities . Deal done.
Whose pocket books were lined with self interest in and advanced of, had knowledge of what the Liberals were to do with Run of the River?
oops double post
Here's a new public opinion poll with an 800 sample size commissioned by the Christy Clark campaign.
Pollster is Gandalf Group from Ontario. Never heard of them. Just released on Global BCTV News. Because it's from a Lib campaign, might be better to take it with a grain of salt.
http://www.draftchristyclark.ca/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/leadership-su...
http://www.rabble.ca/babble/news-rest-us/kevin-falcons-death-thousand-kn... Only 3% for Falcon?
Mr. Charismatic, better know as Kevin Falcon comes in at 3%. So much for charisma.
Well Campbell, a man with all the charisma of a smoked BC salmon did pretty well.
Well Campbell, a man with all the charisma of a smoked BC salmon did pretty well.
That's insulting to smoked salmon.
Christy Clark is set to announce her leadership bid tomorrow morning at SFU's downtown campus: http://www.christyclark.ca/stream/
Apparently she's already been added to the list of contenders on the B.C. Liberal website: http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/capitaldiary/archive/20...
Initially scheduled for Monday, but Carole took over top billing that day.
Now Wednesday, same time as Bob Simpson's announcement.
Poor Christy, she just can't get any alone time with the media. 
BC Liberals out Christy Clark as contender online
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/bc-liberal...
Just like with the NDP yesterday, Ipsos has a poll out today ranking Lib leadership contenders on a net positive/negative score;
Overall voters:
[img]http://www.ipsos-na.com/images/news-polls/media/5069-1-lg.jpg[/img]
Lib voters:
[img]http://www.ipsos-na.com/images/news-polls/media/5069-2-lg.jpg[/img]
Looks like Christy has already delivered a big fuck you to the voters of BC. She doesn't want to allow a referendum on the HST and thinks there should be a free vote in the BC Legislature. Maybe we should recall her if she ever gets elected.
The idea of a vote is one of the options contained in the referendum legislation - VanderZalm has indicated that if the current executive council - ie Cabinet where to do this and call for the vote and not wait for the referundum he would drop the recall initivative. Will try and find his press release on this topic - such an option would also save the taxpayer some $30 million.
Well Campbell, a man with all the charisma of a smoked BC salmon did pretty well.
That's insulting to smoked salmon.
Yes, salmon are at least useful.
[deleted]
How effective will provincial Liberal leadership candidate Christy Clark's messaging be on the campaign trail?
Now that the Liberal field is pretty much set, it seems to be shaping up to be a Clark vs. Falcon fight. Clark clearly has the most support among the general public but I get the sense that Falcon has more support among party diehards. It's amazing, though, how Campbell's former right-hand-woman is able to portray herself as an 'outsider'.
Stilwell and De Jong will be the also-rans. Abbott has an outside shot at coming up the middle as a compromise candidate. Even if he doesn't end up as king, he will most likely be the king- (or queen-) maker.
ETA: hey, I read somewhere that Clark and Mark Marissen are splitsville. True?
I think its old news that Clark and Marrissen are divorced - that happened years ago.
No one is going to be a "king (or queen)-maker" because this is a one member one vote process for the BC Liberals with everyone filling out a preferential ranked ballot. The days of having a delegated convention where the person in third place "throws" his or her support to one of the top contenders - are long gone.
Actually it could still be very relevant to have the third place finisher's support, because they could always encourage their supporters to rank one of the other candidates higher than the other. It's way to early to guess, but it's fun so I'll do it anyways. If I had to geuss, I'd assume that Abott would preference Clark over Falcon, assuming Abott is third and vice versa. On the other hand I have no idea what any of their relationships with each other were like, so it's hard to say whether or not personality would win out over ideological preference.
The problem is how to actually communicate that preference recommendation to all of your supporters. Again, this is not a convention where a candidate who drops out can make a big production out of walking across the room to whoever they support (like Gerard Kennedy did with Stephane Dion in 2006) and then have delegates of the person who dropped out be descended upon like piranhas...no this will be an OMOV process where BC Liberals will be filling in their ballots sitting at their kitchen tables. The only way that Abbott (to use your example) becomes a king- or queen-maker is if he and Christy Clark (for example) made an explicit pact sometime before anyone started casting their ballots where they explicitly raised their arms together and requested that their supporters preference each other AND where mailings and mass e-mails were sent to all BC Liberal candidates from the "Clark-Abbott ticket" telling them how they should fill in their ballot. Unless candidates do something really explicit like that - there is not really anyway to control or even guide where members second preferences will flow.
PS: Did you see that Clark's campaigner manager Ken Boessenkool (who is a close personal friend of Stephen Harper's) had to quit today after the federal Tories put out some sort of edict barring any of their people from getting involved in the BC Liberal leadership race.
I think it would be more implicit; by not strongly attacking an opponent one could signal a preference, by strongly attacking an opponent a negative preference.
There will probably be a bit of that - but my point is that such a subtle strategy may have a very limited influence on how people actually fill in their ballots sitting at their kitchen tables. I assume that all the people running to lead the BC Liberals are in it to win - they will atta ck whoever they think is their biggest threat.
But its easy to exagerrate how much of this positioning gets filtered down to the rank and file members who vote. I remember the ONDP leadership contest when Andrea Horwath won - people were putting forth all kinds of half baked theories about how for example - since Peter Tabuns and Michael Prue's campaign managers hated each other - somehow that was going to cause thousands of people scattered across the province who are totally disconnected from the gossip who were supporting Prue to rank Tabuns at the bottom of their list - it didn't happen.
I suppose that one thing that COULD happen is if there starts to be some sort of explicit "anyone but Falcon" or "anyone but Clark" theme and people start a bit of a sub-campaign directed at telling people who they should always rank LAST.
PS: Given that the BC NDP will also have an OMOV process - all the same considerations will apply to that race.
Re your post-script that's interesting. It really puts a lie to the idea that Clark is as much of a liberal/moderate as she's been painted as. Then again, considering how knee deep she was in the cuts of the 2001-2005 period, I always thought that was a little rich. Yes, she's socially liberal and yes she has federal Liberal connections, which are more tenuous now that she's divorced, but that doesn't mean she isn't a right-wing extremist on economic matters.
As for the fact that it's essentially an ATV contest doesn't make it that hard to to get that message out. Of course it's harder than a delegated convention, but that sort of thing happens all the time in electoral systems where they use that system for voting. There's also a certain unofficial sense of that, even if there are no formal pacts. During the 2008 Vision Vancouver contest, which admittedly Gregor Robertson won out right on the first ballot, there were rumours that Councilor Louie was courting former NPA commissioner DeGenova for his second place preferences. Louie denied it, because most left-leaning Vision members would've ranked DeGenova dead last after Robertson and Louie. It seemed like more of a whisper campaign designed to make Louie look bad, by associating him with DeGenova, amongst the progressive base of the party, which would give Robertson more of a boost. Regardless of, it was pretty clear that most Vision members would've ranked DeGenova last.
In the end it didn't matter because DeGenova was a distant third and Robertson won on the first ballot. But had DeGenova made it to the second ballot it would've been pretty clear that he would've been crushed by second preference supporters from either one of the more left-leaning candidates (Louie and Robertson). The only way DeGenova could've won would've been to have won an out right majority, or such a near majority that a few eccentrics from the vanquished (either Louie or Robertson) candidate would cross over and support him. Admittedly though, I doubt the differences between the Liberals are as stark as the differences between Robertson/Louie vs. DeGenova.
PS: Don't forget that Mike DeJong is also a contender in the Liberal race and he is more of a Tory from the Fraser Valley - so his peoples preferenced will also matter.
Given that the BC NDP will also have an OMOV process - all the same considerations will apply to that race.
The Libs are changing their voting process to a weighted point system whereby each riding will have equal weight (100 points) to fairly balance the province and give more influence to rural BC, which I think is a good idea.
That method also might be better for the NDP as opposed to the OMOV process. The last thing we want is for rural BC constituencies to think/feel that they are being treated unfairly. Remember the federal Libs signing up ~10,000 - 20,000 faux instant members in the riding of Newton-North Delta about 10 years ago?
As for the Lib candidates, here's their current respective Facebook "likes" since they all jumped into the ring:
1. Clark - 996
2. Abbott - 321
3. Falcon - 272
4. de Yong - 193
PS: Don't forget that Mike DeJong is also a contender in the Liberal race and he is more of a Tory from the Fraser Valley - so his peoples preferenced will also matter.
de Jong has a large base in the Indo-Canadian community and according to an Indo-Canadian talk show host on a local Metro Vancouver radio station, Clark apparently is supported by a ratio of 9 - 1 in that community based upon calls and e-mails that he has received to date.
Edited to Add: Deyong won his Abottsford seat as a Lib in a 1994 by-election against Socred grand dame Grace McCarthy by the slimmest of margins - when the Socreds still had a caucus. That by-election loss basically spelt the end of the Socreds.
I do not agree at all with the weighted system. Representation wise, rural ridings already get a super deal. Now they want to have a multiplier effect to the super deal! Democracy is supposed to be about representing people, not square kilometers. And I see the rural bonus as a sneaky way of loading the dice to give white conservative men more input. They are just trying to dilute the east indian and chinese membership who mostly live in the small but very populous ridings.
Pocket boroughs are an attack on fairness, and the points system compounds the attack. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotten_and_pocket_boroughs
Given that the BC NDP will also have an OMOV process - all the same considerations will apply to that race.
The Libs are changing their voting process to a weighted point system whereby each riding will have equal weight (100 points) to fairly balance the province and give more influence to rural BC, which I think is a good idea.
That method also might be better for the NDP as opposed to the OMOV process. The last thing we want is for rural BC constituencies to think/feel that they are being treated unfairly. Remember the federal Libs signing up ~10,000 - 20,000 faux instant members in the riding of Newton-North Delta about 10 years ago?
As for the Lib candidates, here's their current respective Facebook "likes" since they all jumped into the ring:
1. Clark - 996
2. Abbott - 321
3. Falcon - 272
4. de Yong - 193
Looks good on ya Christy.
Where's your buddy Gary Collins hiding?
You and Gary seemed to bolt the BC Liberals around the same time.
Funny dat!
What's that smell, eh?
Dave Basi took lobbyist's bribes for years, court documents state
http://www.theprovince.com/news/Dave+Basi+took+lobbyist+bribes+years+cou...?
It is in the times colonist in Victoria tuesday too. I think the reason Christy Clarke is getting back in to politics is the same reason that campbell stayed so long. It is to stickhandle the bc rail scandal. But now wikileaks comes along (there are other leak wikis now too!). It is a whole new layer of accountability. I BET they will find back ups of the emails campbell ordered destroyed and I bet some people (lots of people) kept backups of their emails to campbell (to cover their asses). Backups could be wort millions of dollars!
Just the thought of that is probably giving campbell, clarke and Collins really bad sleeps and horrible gnawing stress.
Looks good on ya Christy.
Where's your buddy Gary Collins hiding?
You and Gary seemed to bolt the BC Liberals around the same time.
Funny dat!
What's that smell, eh?
Dave Basi took lobbyist's bribes for years, court documents state
http://www.theprovince.com/news/Dave+Basi+took+lobbyist+bribes+years+cou...?
I heard Kevin Falcon on CBC radio yesterday. He wants to get rid of the pesky Agriculture Land Reserve status that is preventing natural gas industry expansion. Basically, he wants to hand North Eastern B.C. over to the oil companies.
Falcon is my pick for Liberal leader because he can't open his mouth without being sarcastic and mean-spritied. This will not serve him well in an election campaign.
Another BC Liberal failure.
BC Chief Coroner delivers a big fuck you to the BC Liberals
Whoever the BC NDP critic for this area is they should be all over it like a dirty shirt.
'Different vision' prompts resignation of chief coroner
Diane Rothon only on the job since April
http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Different+vision+prompts+resignation+...
Good work Leonard and you go Christy!
Come on Kevin Falcon - release some more of the dirt on this "Wacko Jacko" vicious right-wing opponent of yours.
B.C. Rail's toxic cargo poisoning Clark's bid
"Despite mounting questions about the B.C. Rail corruption scandal, Christy Clark says she won't call a public inquiry," NDP justice critic Leonard Krog said.
Former government insiders Dave Basi and Bob Virk are serving two years of house arrest after pleading guilty in October to corruption charges in the government's $ 1-billion sale of B.C. Rail to private-sector rival CN Rail in 2003.
Although Clark herself has not been formally accused or directly implicated in any wrongdoing, her brother, consultant Bruce Clark, has been mentioned prominently in court documents, including search warrants released this week.
Police found confidential government documents in Bruce Clark's home during their investigation.
Christy Clark's ex-husband, Liberal organizer Mark Marissen, was also mentioned in the case. During the investigation, Marissen was visited by police, who gave him a letter saying he was not implicated but may have been the innocent recipient of key documents.
Clark herself may very well have been called to testify at the trial, judging by statements made by defence lawyers during pre-trial wranglin. g.
I have no doubt Christy Clark and the rest of the cast of characters in the affair breathed a huge sigh of relief when Basi and Virk entered surprise guilty pleas in October's controversial plea bargain, in which the government agreed to pay the pair's $6-million legal bill.
The plea bargain came just as former finance minister Gary Collins was to take the witness stand. The government, of course, denies they agreed to the deal in order to shut down a politically toxic trial.
Clark's oft-repeated position on the matter is that she and her relatives were never charged with anything, and the bad guys are doing time. "It's case closed," she said this week.
Not according to her enemies, who will keep hammering away, and asking whether she's resisting a public inquiry to protect herself and her family.
"Christy Clark sat around the cabinet table when the B.C. Liberals broke their promise to the people of British Columbia and sold off the railway," Krog said. "She was a potential witness in the trial, yet wants to shut down the public's questions about the scandal."
How exposed is Clark here? After all, leadership candidates Kevin Falcon and George Abbott were in cabinet at the time, too. And another leadership rival, Mike de Jong, approved the malodorous plea bargain with Basi and Virk.
But the ties that bind Clark to the scandal are ties of blood and family. The risk for her is that rank and file Liberals could see it all as a festering vulnerability, and think twice about supporting her for leader if it appears B.C. Rail could become a damaging election issue.
http://www.theprovince.com/news/Rail+toxic+cargo+poisoning+Clark/3985145...
That's a very good point. If we had a public inquiry we could see what exactly is at the root of this rot. I almost wonder if the guilty plea will backfire on the government because it raises even more questions about who knew what and when. About the only person who can't be easily tied to this is Moiria Stillwell.
What is Christy Clark's marital status? Curious minds would like to know.
She's divorced from Liberal hack Mark Marrissen. I have no idea if she has a new gigolo.
Mary McNeill - Minister of Citizen Services has just announced her support for George Abbott bringing to 16 the number of MLA's supporting George.
This endorsement doesn't surprise me in that George was Health Minister for some of the time that Mary was the CEO of the BC Cancer Agency and
she also has him slated to be her keynote speaker at an upcoming fundraising dinner.
What a flake!
She'll say anything to try and win.
Christy Clark drops proposal for a free HST vote in legislature
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Christy+Clark+drops+proposal+free+vote+...
The cat's out of the bag for Christy.
Cat owned by member of Christy Clark's campaign joins the B.C. Liberals
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/bc-politic...
In a little over a week, the BC Liberals will pick a new leader. It seems clear that it will either be Christy Clark, George Abbott or Kevin Falcon. I'd like to hear what people's thoughts are in terms of which of these three people the NDP should most want to face and what their strengths and weaknesses are and what impact each of them winning would have on who the BC NDP ends up picking in April.
Here are my thoughts (with the caveat that I don't live in BC and base this purely on what I've read)
Christy Clark: At first glance she seems to be the candidate the NDP would fear the most since she scores well in the polls and seems to have some "colour" and as a big "L" Liberal might give the BC Liberals a more middle of the road small "l" liberal image (only image not reality). On the other hand, she shows signs of being a bit of a loose cannon and to have some poor political judgement. She could easily end up being another Kim Campbell style flame out. Also, she is so tied to the federal Liberals that her becoming leader could strengthen the BC Conservatives and lead to more insurgency on the far right from federal Tory types.
George Abbott: He is very much tied to the Campbell regime etc...but he also seems to be a big "L" Liberal who comes across as being a "nice guy" and is a former Poli Sci professor etc... I get the impression that his roots in the interior make him less inflammatory to federal Tory types. Hard to say what he would mean to the NDP. He doesn't seem to have the potential of having charisma like Clark, but he also doesn't have the potential of being a total flop like her either.
Kevin Falcon: I think the NDP hopes he wins. He seems to be very unpopular with the general public and to be almost a caricature of a mean-spirited righwting ideologue and is essentially the "son-of-Gordon Campbell" candidate. He is also seen to be such a Tory type that there is some speculation that if he wins the small "l" liberals in the party - such that they exist - would sit out the next election.
I think that if Clark wins its probably good for Farnworth since the NDP may feel that it needs to counter a superficially popular BC Liberal leader with a superficially popular NDP leader. If Falcon wins, I predict it helps Adrian Dix. The consensus will be that the NDP can win with anyone and why not counter an abrasive rightwing ideologue with someone who is sometimes perceived to be an abrasive leftwing ideologue - and watch the sparks fly! I'm not sure how the BC NDP would react to Abbott.
![http://www.ipsos-na.com/images/news-polls/media/5069-1-lg.jpg[/img]](http://www.ipsos-na.com/images/news-polls/media/5069-1-lg.jpg[/img]){kind=link}
![http://www.ipsos-na.com/images/news-polls/media/5069-2-lg.jpg[/img]](http://www.ipsos-na.com/images/news-polls/media/5069-2-lg.jpg[/img]){kind=link}
![http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v697/rabblerabble/kramer20slide.gif[/IMG]](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v697/rabblerabble/kramer20slide.gif[/IMG]){kind=link}