Welcome to B.C., Premier Notley, or, does the NDP have a death wish?

Recent converts are always keen to prove their zeal

We are talking no more than a few hundred permanent jobs and a few thousand temporary jobs in all of BC. And many of those won't be British Columbians. North Report, how could this possibly be worth it?

the linked article has nothing to do with Rachel Notley.

 

quizzical wrote:

the linked article has nothing to do with Rachel Notley.

 

Not only that, but Rachel actually has made a significant effort to create and preserve jobs-to the point that she feels obligated to be vehemently anti-Leap on jobs grounds.

Premier Notley's popularity has ONLY plummeted because oil prices have plummeted globally due to Saudi overproduction.  There was nothing she could possibly have done to prevent that situation from happening.

NorthReport wrote:

When is the NDP going to wake up and realize that the party is over, and that their best chance of effectively creating change is from with the Liberal party. 

Why stop there? Wouldn't it be even more awesome to join the Conservatives to stop the Christian Heritage Party? 

NorthReport wrote:

One thing we can always count on in Canadian politics is for the NDP federally and provincially to regularly shoot themselves in the foot.

By constantly running against jobs the NDP are continuing to assign themselves to the dustbin of political history.

And when the voters tire of the Trudeau juggernault the right-wing will be the main alternative.

When is the NDP going to wake up and realize that the party is over, and that their best chance of effectively creating change is from with the Liberal party. NDPers need to join forces with the Liberals to keep Harper's replacement at bay. 

The Liberals?  As in...the party with even LESS internal democracy than the NDP?

The solution is for a separation between the leapers and loony left on one hand and the saner, pragmatic elements of the NDP on the other. The problem with that is that the leaper are like a middle aged offspring living in one's basement: they refuse to take responsibility but insist on drinking up the old age pension.

swallow wrote:

NorthReport wrote:

When is the NDP going to wake up and realize that the party is over, and that their best chance of effectively creating change is from with the Liberal party. 

Why stop there? Wouldn't it be even more awesome to join the Conservatives to stop the Christian Heritage Party? 

It seems to me that there is a difference in that the Christian Heritage Party has no chance of forming a government while the Conservatives are the current government in waiting to the Liberals and will most likely eventually replace the Liberals as government if we continue operating under our current two-party FPTP system. Like it or not, in our two-party FPTP system the Conservatives and the Liberals are the two big tent parties at the federal level representing the centre-right and the centre-left. Unfortunately once again FPTP has marginalized the federal NDP and other parties like the Greens. Many on the centre-left see how FPTP works so half of the people who voted NDP in 2011 are backing the Liberals since the federal Liberals are the party that is in position to actually implement some left of centre ideas.

I think NorthReport is a strong advocate for the working class and is not allowing partisan politics to override his support for that class even if it means criticizing the NDP, a party he has very strongly supported in the past. I agree that the NDP needs to be recognized as the strongest political party in representing the interests of the working class. Unfortunately in the last BC election Christy Clark and the BC Liberals were seen by very many in the working class as being their best bet. Hopefully the BC NDP prevents a repeat of this situation in the upcoming election here in 2017. Personally I think the BC NDP will be able to run a much better election this time around and I think they have an excellent shot at forming a government here in 5 months. My hunch is that the BC NDP will win a tiny phoney FPTP majority government in 5 months. I also hope they will establish some kind of electoral reform during their first term in time for the next BC election in 2021.

kropotkin1951 wrote:

JKR wrote:

I think NorthReport is a strong advocate for the working class and is not allowing partisan politics to override his support for that class even if it means criticizing the NDP, a party he has very strongly supported in the past. I agree that the NDP needs to be recognized as the strongest political party in representing the interests of the working class.

North Report is a strong advocate for the building trades. They are of course working class but they are not THE working class. Spewing the oil and gas industry's flat out lies about job creation with the pipelines and LNG does a disservice to the vast majority of the working class who want economies built locally where they live. A few years of some workers making big money in construction camps is not going to change anything for the vast majority of the working class who will still be facing with nothing except sales and service jobs. That is before you look at the climate change issue and sane people know that expanding the tars sands for export is the worst possible way of creating jobs.  

I agree that the NDP should be seen as the party that best represents the entire working class. In the last election Christy Clark donned a hard hat, made unrealistic promises about LNG, and spent much of the election visiting work sites and presto she became the fighter for the working class. The BC Liberal campaign was based on smoke and mirrors but in the end it worked and the BC Liberals won from far behind because the NDP could not counter the false narrative that the NDP was the party of "no" to job creation. I think the NDP has to be seen in the eyes of the public as being better at creating good paying jobs than the BC Liberals. I think this includes jobs in areas the NDP is very strong in like health care, education, building green infrastructure, social housing, public transit, public recreation, social services, etc....

Neither did your hero Trudeau.

BTW...if you support the Liberals now, does that mean you support the BC Liberals as well?  You know, the people who've given that province fifteen years of environmental devastation while fanning anti-First Nations prejudice, ignoring violence against women & rape culture, AND driving up the jobless rate and homelessness?

NorthReport wrote:

Meanwhile back in the real world.........................but he did nothing to stop it.

Albertans chant 'Lock her up' about Rachel Notley at rally against carbon tax

Conservative leadership hopeful Chris Alexander said he felt 'uncomfortable' during chant

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/chris-alexander-lock-her-up-chant...

The suggestion he felt uncomfortable fits with the whole post truth lie at will environment we are seeing from the right.

He wagged his finger in time to the chant. Any public speaker knows that a palms out fingers-spread gesture means stop and conducting with your finger is encouragement.

Only those well past any desire for truth would go along with the uncomfortable bs.

He got caught, did a new political calculation and that is what made him feel uncomfortable.

josh wrote:

The chant clearly shows that the NDP has a death wish.

Huh? What?

I can't imagine how one side's behaviour shows (clearly or otherwise) anything about the wishes of the other.

I certainly do not expect those who disagree with me to be the best representatives of my aspirations nor the reverse.

josh wrote:

Just trying to get the thread back on topic. ;)

aahhh. Well okay.

But then we woudl have to determine if the OP is saying the NDP is dead or that it wants to be. I have been unclear on that. Why would you wish for what you already have?

josh wrote:

Have no idea.  Just as I have no idea how NR went from NDP flack to NDP hater.

I think it may have something to do with the 2013 BC provincial election and the 2015 federal election.

Notley is making the case to BC. She argues that the pipelines will add 1 billion to BC's GDP.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/alberta-premier-rachel-no...

Basement Dweller wrote:

Did she say what $1 billion in GDP means to the average British Columbian? Do people even know what our GDP is and how much a percentage increase this would be? I know we can look this up, but if you asked some random citizen how much our GDP is, they would have no idea.

As an Albertan I was hoping the BC residents here would just say thank you. At that point I would just reply, " you are welcome". Just funning ya.

Basement Dweller wrote:

Oh yippie yahooie, our lives have changed because of it in so many wonderful ways. :P

Interesting point.

Trump might stick or he might give the right a bad name for a generation and be gone in 4 years -- even hobbled in two.

Basement Dweller wrote:

Did she say what $1 billion in GDP means to the average British Columbian? Do people even know what our GDP is and how much a percentage increase this would be? I know we can look this up, but if you asked some random citizen how much our GDP is, they would have no idea.

I had to look it up and apparently BC's 2014 GDP was 237,188 millions,  BC's exports were 93,215 millions.

So even using the enflated numbers Notley is channeling from the oil industry the reward certainly does not seem to equate very well with the risk to the Salish Sea.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Canadian_provinces_and_territories...

kropotkin1951,

I saw those numbers earlier and I didn't have time to research it more before I had to go to work. I'm not really sure what I think of Notley, right now. What she said was a total BS marketing ploy.

Does she think British Columbians are stupid? Or that we have such low self-esteem to agree to be taken advantage like this?

 

kropotkin1951 wrote:

jjuares wrote:

Notley is making the case to BC. She argues that the pipelines will add 1 billion to BC's GDP. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/alberta-premier-rachel-no...

Apparently the oil industry writes her speeches on the subject much like they write Clarke's. Pie in the sky economics offered up in favour of a deathbed industry that is killing us all. Of course if you talk about job creation by building a locally based sustainable economy the oligarchy gets its shills to excite useful idiots who go on social media sites to dismiss sound ideas as pie and the sky and exporting bitumen as being in the national interest

hmmm, sounds like I am being described as a " useful idiot".

JKR wrote:

Unfortunately, I think if Notley didn't support the pipeline, the Alberta NDP would fall way back into fourth place in Alberta politics behind the PC's, Wildrose, and even the Alberta Liberals. As it is she will be lucky to keep her party out of third place in the next election. I think her only chance at staying in power will be if the PC's and Wildrose split the vote again and the Alberta Liberals stay under 5% of the vote as they did in the last election. My guess is that in two and a half years there is going to be only one NDP government in all of Canada and that government will be west of Saskatchewan and not in Alberta.

The latest poll, done before the pipeline announcement showsthe NDP would sweep Edmonton and be competitive in Calgary, in fact a tie with WR there. This announcement helps a lot. If the NDP loses the carbon tax will be dropped and there will be a revival of the coal industry.

..from the current. more about the myth of prosperity that is supposed to make tarsands expansion worth the damage and risks. and imo the carbon tax is pointless if pipelines are built. this would just be another in a long line of measures that can never live up to it's claims.

Economist warns insufficient oil demand hinders Trans Mountain pipeline

quote:

Rubin, a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation and former chief economist at CIBC World Markets, explained his skepticism in an interview with The Current's guest host Kelly Crowe.

One of the main selling points of the pipeline has been that it will give Canadian bitumen access to Asian markets. But according to Rubin, the economic advantage of selling oil to Asia has been over-stated. 

"The reality is that Asian markets pay less, not more, for the bitumen that Canada wants to sell than U.S. refineries," he told Crowe.

Rubin pointed to Mexican Maya Crude, saying the product, which is similar to oil sands crude, sells for $8 per barrel less in Asian markets than American markets.

It's all about jobs.

..it has been shown many times already that while jobs are important pipelines, fracking and the tarsands are not the way to go. 

Green Economy Articles

quote:

Renewables surpass fossil fuels with new installations

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA),  in 2015, an astounding 90% of all global electrical power capacity added was attributable to renewables.   

In the US, in 2015, renewables represented 68% of new electrical generation capacity installed.

But no country is changing the energy/economic paradigm more than China, the world’s largest energy consumer.  In 2015, nearly 100% of newly installed electrical capacity in China was represented by renewables – attributable to a record of $110.5 Billion in investments for that year.

quote:

E-buses can cover over 1,100 km in 24 hours Also on e-buses, there are the Proterra electric buses, manufactured in California and South Carolina.  These e-buses can travel over 1,100 kilometres in a 24-hour period with the support quick charging points along a route, at less than 10 minutes/charge.  Another option is that of a range extender, allowing for 90 minute charges in a bus depot and, hence, fewer requirements for charges along a given route.  Tests conducted in the US by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory have found these buses to be very efficient and reliable, that is, they live up to the range claims of the manufacturer.