BC Politics

NorthReport wrote:

Christmas comes early to Premier John Horgan and the NDP

Horgan 51% support!

 

Government of British Columbia Report Card November 2019

 

https://insightswest.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Rep_IW_2019BCGovtReportCard_25Nov2019.pdf

Horgan has been in office for a long time. He has had time to make decisions that alienated people. He has to contend with the Site C dam, LNG, issues with the teachers, and a possible transit strike. To have over 51% approval despite all of this is a remarkable achievement.

The case for ecosocialism

I know I’m a settler, not invited to this land by its original peoples, I know I’ve got a lot of work to do here to get right with Indigenous people and my own conscience. For me, helping to start the BC Ecosocialists is part of that work.

So here we go. I’m Geoff Berner. I’m a Jewish folk singer, writer and activist. I was born and raised in Vancouver, B.C.

I’m here as a member of the board of Canada’s newest party, the BC Ecosocialists, and I have the honour and daunting responsibility of having been asked by the others on the board to be the first to speak.

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Here’s what my friends tell me, everywhere I go: Things are getting worse, and nobody in power seems to want to do anything about it.

My friends in Ymir, near Nelson, showed me how the NDP-Green government is set on logging their precious watershed for only a million dollars’ worth of timber. Their NDP MLA ran for office, promising to protect their water. They are devastated by Michelle Mungall’s lies.

My friends on the Gulf Islands tell me the fishery there is nearly finished, because of poor management, fish farms and warming waters, and what licences remain mostly belong to Jimmy Pattison, the evil billionaire whom Premier John Horgan likes to bear hug.

My friends in Cawston, in the Similkameen Valley, tell me about the struggles of small farmers to stay afloat when everything is set up in favour of the big, corporate, Roundup-spraying agribusinesses. And they tell me about the routine and well-known financial, physical and sexual abuse of workers hired to pick the crops, in a province run by the NDP, a party that was once founded to give workers power. What a cruel joke that history has become.

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I went up and played a benefit outside Fort St. John against the Site C dam. The NDP and Greens try to gaslight the people opposing these policies, but we know the NDP and Greens promised to stop Site C and LNG. We have the video footage. How cynical and awful do you have to be to betray a promise like that, and then pretend you never said any such thing? It’s hard to imagine for ordinary people who don’t lie for a living.

My Indigenous friends tell me of the lies and the ongoing colonialism and racism they face. Their dark and sophisticated dry humour reminds me so much of Jewish humour in the face of antisemitism. They mock the obviously insincere lip service that the NDP-Green government pays to reconciliation and Indigenous rights, all the while helping industry continue to snatch and despoil more land. And this government continues to do the same to Indigenous children, snatching them into a foster care system that is bigger and just as abusive as the residential school system that these official people now make costless apologies about and cry crocodile tears over. It’s disgusting.

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So what are we going to do for these kids? Just tell them that the Liberals would be worse, so suck it up? That the Greens were right to prop up austerity and the doubling of our carbon output? Because it could be even worse?! Is that our message to the youth?

I marched with these anxious young people against the climate catastrophe, with 200,000 in the streets of Vancouver, my hometown, and there they all were, full of hope, and also outrage and frustration. And How dare you! And no one to vote for. No one to vote for.

I watched, agog, as the same politicians that are doubling down on fossil fuels and austerity, effusively praised these kids, who were literally begging for their lives.

Is that the best we can do? Leaders like that?

Were we made to be dominated by corporate power? Were we made to step over our fellow human beings in the street? Were we made to sigh and shrug, when our friends, our relations, tell us, “I don’t know how I’m going to pay the rent this month. And I don’t know how I can deal with all this debt.” When they say, “I keep having to work more, but I’m so traumatized by what’s happening at work that I don’t know how much longer I can keep it up.” Were we made to sigh and shrug when the scientists duly report AGAIN, as they have been for 40 years, that everything around us is fucking dying? People, were we humans beings made for despair?

No. We were not made for that. We refuse to accept that. As a point of human honour, we refuse this death cult that our society has become, that our political parties have become.

So we have set out to do something. We don’t know if it’s going to work, but we’re going to try.

And when a bunch of us got together to collaborate on policy, in every category, we set ourselves a question:

What if we just decided not to be assholes about everything? What if we acted like everyone, every person, really mattered? Mattered as much as Jimmy Pattison.

..every time you turn around there's another lie exposed.

Clean B.C. is quietly using coal and gas power from out of province. Here’s why

British Columbians naturally assume they’re using clean power when they fire up holiday lights, juice up a cell phone or plug in a shiny new electric car. 

That’s the message conveyed in advertisements for the CleanBC initiative launched by the NDP government, which has spent $3.17 million on a CleanBC “information campaign,” including almost $570,000 for focus group testing and telephone town halls, according to the B.C. finance ministry.

“We’ll reduce air pollution by shifting to clean B.C. energy,” say the CleanBC ads, which feature scenic photos of hydro reservoirs. “CleanBC: Our Nature. Our Power. Our Future.” 

Yet despite all the bumph, British Columbians have no way of knowing if the electricity they use comes from a coal-fired plant in Alberta or Wyoming, a nuclear plant in Washington, a gas-fired plant in California or a hydro dam in B.C. 

Here’s why. 

BC Hydro’s wholly-owned corporate subsidiary, Powerex Corp., exports B.C. power when prices are high and imports power from other jurisdictions when prices are low. 

In 2018, for instance, B.C. imported more electricity than it exported — not because B.C. has a power shortage (it has a growing surplus due to the recent spate of mill closures) but because Powerex reaps bigger profits when BC Hydro slows down generators to import cheaper power, especially at night.

“B.C. buys its power from outside B.C., which we would argue is not clean,” says Martin Mullany, interim executive director for Clean Energy BC. 

“A good chunk of the electricity we use is imported,” Mullany says. “In reality we are trading for brown power” — meaning power generated from conventional ‘dirty’ sources such as coal and gas. 

Wyoming, which generates almost 90 per cent of its power from coal, was among the 12 U.S. states that exported power to B.C. last year. (Notably, B.C. did not export any electricity to Wyoming in 2018.)

Utah, where coal-fired power plants produce 70 per cent of the state’s energy, and Montana, which derives about 55 per cent of its power from coal, also exported power to B.C. last year. 

So did Nebraska, which gets 63 per cent of its power from coal, 15 per cent from nuclear plants, 14 per cent from wind and three per cent from natural gas.   

Coal is responsible for about 23 per cent of the power generated in Arizona, another exporter to B.C., while gas produces about 44 per cent of the electricity in that state......

..final post from this piece

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Counting carbon emissions from B.C. power imports

That adds up to a lot of carbon.

In 2017, the latest year for which statistics are available, electricity imports to B.C. totalled just over 1.2 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, according to the B.C. environment ministry — roughly the equivalent of putting 255,000 new cars on the road, using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s calculation of 4.71 tonnes of annual carbon emissions for a standard passenger vehicle. 

These figures far outstrip the estimated local and upstream emissions from the contested Woodfibre LNG plant in Squamish that is expected to release annual emissions equivalent to 170,000 new cars on the road.

Import emissions cast a new light on B.C.’s latest “milestone” announcement that 30,000 electric cars are now among 3.7 million registered vehicles in the province.

“Making sure more of the vehicles driven in the province are powered by BC Hydro’s clean electricity is one of the most important steps to reduce [carbon] pollution,” said the November 28 release from the energy ministry.

On of the few things the BC NDP has done as promised. It is a major tax shift away from the working poor who mostly paid the MSP premiums. People with jobs that included benefits will not see any real change.

 

NorthReport wrote:

https://www.straight.com/news/1150036/vancouver-1st-vsb-candidate-quits-party-over-anti-sogi-video

October 12th, 2018 at 2:09 PM Not exactly breaking news and no comment WTF

Jean Swanson: Close-up look at who runs Vancouver City Hall

Who runs the city? I got a good look at a recent Vancouver city council session.

City staff had recommended that council approve—at its November 26 meeting—a grant to Landlord B.C., a landlord lobby group, to administer an energy retrofit program for older apartment buildings that would make this critical rental stock better for the environment while keeping existing tenants in place.

Living in the demoviction and renoviction capital of Canada, I appreciate the importance of these kinds of renovations. Even though I wasn’t keen on the program being administered by a landlord lobby group, I decided I’d vote in favour if the city could ensure that rents in the renovated apartments would remain affordable.

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B.C.’s rent control laws apply only to existing tenants. When a new tenant moves in, landlords can increase their rents as high as the market will bear. My fear was, and still is, that landlords of renovated buildings will have a profit incentive to evict their current tenants using one excuse or another.

So I proposed an amendment to the staff recommendation calling for buildings that got grants to have vacancy control. That is, the rent controls are applied to the unit, not the tenant, so landlords can’t raise the rent as much as they want.

There used to be a federal program that did this. It was called the Residential Rehabilitation Assistance Program, and it provided money to landlords to upgrade single-room-occupancy hotels in exchange for rent control.  So there was even a precedent for what I proposed.

To my surprise, my amendment passed.

A few minutes later, all the councillors received another surprise—an email from Landlord B.C. saying that if my amendment stood, they wouldn’t participate in the program.

A few minutes after that, Coun. Lisa Dominato said in light of the email, she wanted to rescind my amendment. Though Coun. Pete Fry argued that vacancy control would provide security for tenants and was consistent with the goals of the publicly funded program, and I uged council to find another body to administer the program, my amendment couldn’t be saved.

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Literally a few minutes after Landlord B.C. complained, the mayor and council changed a vote to do what the landlord lobby wanted. You can watch it all unfold in the video below.

(self-delete. dupe post.)

NorthReport wrote:

Christmas comes early to Premier John Horgan and the NDP

Horgan 51% support!

 

Government of British Columbia Report Card November 2019

 

https://insightswest.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Rep_IW_2019BCGovtReportCard_25Nov2019.pdf

51% overall prosperity for his coalition government.  The poll had the BCNDP at 35%, only three points ahead of the BC Liberals.  If the BC Conservative vote obediently collapses in the name of return a "free enterpriser" party to power(btw, is "enterpriser" actually even a word?), The BC Liberals will have a better than even chance of winning.

Don't get me wrong, I'd like to see the BCNDP make solid gains at the next election(or, if it falters, for the BC Ecosocialists to rise dramatically, absorb the combined BCNDP and BC Green votes and form a majority left-wing government), but it doesn't help anything to prevent polling data as saying something it doesn't say.

Escape of 20,000 non-native salmon on B.C. coast threatens wild stocks, farm phase-out plan

The escape of an estimated 20,000 non-native fish off Vancouver Island demonstrates the urgent need to phase out ocean-based farming and calls into question the federal government's own five-year deadline, say wild salmon advocates.

Stan Proboszcz, science and campaign adviser with the Watershed Watch Society, said the salmon escape may have ecological impacts on already struggling wild stocks.

"It's incidents like this that make it pretty clear that we really do need the federal government to move on removing farms from British Columbian waters. This is just another stressor on wild fish, so we just hope that we see a plan very soon," he said Monday.

He said Atlantic salmon can compete with wild Pacific salmon for food and habitat, as well as spread parasites and viruses.....

That is a very good analysis Left Turn.  I parked my vote with the BC NDP last election because they promised a process to get to PR and then they set up a referendum system that many feel was designed to fail. They love to be the dictators in a majority government. When I see the RCMP attacking the camps on the BC NDP backed fracked gas pipeline I cannot conclude anything other than that their commitment to UNDRIP is no more real than their commitment to meeting the critical CO2 reductions. We will never recover the aquifers in the North East that are being poisoned, as we chat, for short term economic gain that is primarily going to foreign owned corporations. The BC NDP is an extractionist party so they cannot be an Eco-socialist alternative.

I live in a riding where the most likely outcome is a BC Liberal win as the Greens eat away enough NDP support to cost them the seat but not enough to win it themselves. If the BC Eco-Socialists run a credible candidate in my riding I will be voting for them.

The Angus Reid Premier popularity rankings for March are out, and they show a very dramatic shift. After 3 years near the top of the pack in public approval, Horgan has slid 10 points in popularity to 47% and is in the middle of the pack. Note that support for the NDP has dropped off dramiatically from how peopel voted in 2017. Here is why I believe the hill Horgan has to climb to win a majority has become steeper, if not insurmountable:

1) The soft green vote. There is a longstanding history of tension between the NDP and the environmental movement going back to its last time in government. In 2017, the NDP worked very hard to win over these voters, and the Greens still won 3 seats, and in Burke Mountain, had a margin of victory that exceeded the gap between the first place Liberals and the then-incumbent NDP MLA. Pipelines to the coast were a major issue for this group of voters. Horgan promised to fight this pipeline, however it is a fight he has been losing in the courts and with the federal government, and now it looks like this pipeline will go through at the end of the day. The recent tensions over the gas pipeline are another reason. I'll expand on this idea in the following paragraph. For now, I'll state that a soft green voter might say, well, I voted NDP and still got the same Liberal policies, why not vote Green even if it costs the NDP the seat? Which brings me to:

2) The Liberal Party. This is a government that was never popular, which left the province in a mess, who has an unpopular leader obviously speaking for the upper classes and tone deaf to every day BCers. The gas pipeline has breathed new life into this party. Why? Remember how Christy Clark tried to build an LNG pipeline? There's a reason that project failed. Instead of jumping on its grave, the NDP revived it. This is not going to win over any Liberal voters. Instead, the Liberals will be able to claim credit for pusing through something that they were doing. Imagnie for a second, a right-wing government using tax dollars to subsidize a project like LNG. I think the opinion on these boards would be near universal that the government should instead use those funds to create jobs in renewable energy and land restoration. Why couldn't Horgan have done the same? Furthermore, the crisis in the forestry sector has begun to make headlines in recent years. It's true that the Liberal policy is largely to blame and the areas affected mostly vote Liberal. Unfortunatley, the NDP hasn't significantly grappled with this challenge, they haven't made any major changes in policy direction from what the BC Liberals were doing, and with the crisis continuing, there is no reason for these people to give the NDP a second look. Furthermore, the NDP has been losing seats to the Liberals in the Interior since its highwater mark in 2005. I don't know if the Liberals can take the remaining NDP seats in the area, but it makes their path much more difficult.

TransLink implements cost saving measures

TransLink today announced a series of cost-saving measures to preserve Metro Vancouver’s transit system along with a commitment from the Province to ensure near-regular service can be restored by September. TransLink is losing $75 million per month with ridership down by 83% while still providing transit services for essential workers. This rate of financial loss is not sustainable.

Given the significant financial challenges facing the regional transportation authority, TransLink and its operating companies today announced the following cost-saving measures:

• Implement further suspension of transit services on Bus, SkyTrain, SeaBus, and West Coast Express, beginning this week.
• Issue temporary layoff notices to 1,492 employees. These employees work in various positions at TransLink, Coast Mountain Bus Company, and British Columbia Rapid Transit Company.
• Reduce senior executive salaries and Board remuneration by 10%.
• Reduce organizational costs and program expenditures, including:
  • Deferral of the 2020 Major Road Network operations, maintenance and rehabilitation program funding to municipalities.
  • Deferral of 2020 service expansions.
• Spend cash reserves to sustain current essential service operations through to the end of 2020.

“This has been an incredibly tough decision and one we do not take lightly,” says TransLink CEO Kevin Desmond. “We’ve done our best to try and reduce costs through other means, but TransLink is losing $75 million per month, and we’re left with no other options. It’s not lost on me what an impact this decision will have on the lives of our employees and their families. I fully expect those affected will be recalled once TransLink returns to regular operations, which we are now planning for back-to-school in September, if consistent with provincial guidelines.”

B.C. proposal would give hospitals right to detain youth who have overdosed

The B.C. government has proposed changes to its Mental Health Act that would allow people who are under 19 to be hospitalized without their consent for up to seven days following an overdose.

The changes, which passed a first reading in the legislature Tuesday, are designed to help young people who are in crisis and provide enough time for them to be stabilized and discharged with a plan to voluntarily connect with health services and support, said Judy Darcy, B.C.‘s Minister for Mental Health and Addictions.

“They would not have forced treatment. There would be voluntary treatment and, very importantly, medical staff would work with youth to develop a care plan upon discharge from the hospital,” Ms. Darcy said.

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In a statement on Tuesday, B.C. Chief Coroner Lisa Lapointe questioned the wisdom of making such legislative changes without ensuring adequate treatment is available.

“Without an established, evidence-based, accessible system of substance-use treatment services, I am concerned there is the potential for serious unintended consequences as a result of these legislative amendments, including the potential for an increase in fatalities,” Ms. Lapointe said.

Several reports, including a 2016 report by then-children’s advocate Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, have documented a dire shortage of specialized treatment for B.C. youth dealing with drug and alcohol addiction.

The proposed changes don’t address the lack of residential treatment beds for young people in parts of the province, says Rachel Staples, whose son Elliott Eurchuk died of an overdose in the family’s Victoria home on April 20, 2018, when he was 16.

“It is a step in the right direction, but I think it is a little short-sighted, because there are still no treatment beds, particularly on Vancouver Island,” Ms. Staples said Tuesday in an interview.

“So even if a child decided of their own volition that they wanted to go into treatment, the [treatment] beds are still siloed, meaning that they’re regional, and the wait lists are three to four months, if not longer,” she added.

Media Advisory of Press Conference: Bill 22 Stands to Increase the Opioid Crisis and Youth Deaths; Bill 22 Must be Withdrawn

Posted on July 24, 2020

WHAT: The Union of BC Indian Chiefs, Health Justice, and BC Civil Liberties Association are hosting a press conference urging the provincial government to withdraw Bill 22. Bill 22 proposes amendments to BC’s Mental Health Act to create a new form of detention and involuntary health care in BC for youth who have experienced an overdose.

Speakers will address key concerns with Bill 22, including:

• Involuntary detention, including use of restraints, of youth for up to 7 days following an overdose, without the consent of a youth or a parent/guardian.
• Lack of comprehensive and meaningful engagement with Indigenous peoples, contrary to the principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
• Harmful impacts of coercive healthcare on youth who use substances during an opioid overdose health crisis.
• Establishing a comprehensive voluntary system of substance use services throughout BC.

WHEN: Monday July 27, 2020 at 10 a.m. PST

WHERE:  Via Zoom, media registration opens at 9:45 am. Simultaneous livestream through UBCIC Facebook page.

SPEAKERS:

• Jennifer Charlesworth: BC’s Representative for Children and Youth
• Kukpi7 Judy Wilson: Union of BC Indian Chiefs
• Kali Sedgemore: member of ‘Namgis First Nation, OPS youth peer and outreach worker
• Hawkfeather Peterson: BC/Yukon Association of Drug War Survivors
• Garth Mullins: Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, Crackdown Podcast
• Laura Johnston: Health Justice
• Meghan McDermott: BC Civil Liberties Association

epaulo13 wrote:

Media Advisory of Press Conference: Bill 22 Stands to Increase the Opioid Crisis and Youth Deaths; Bill 22 Must be Withdrawn

Posted on July 24, 2020

WHAT: The Union of BC Indian Chiefs, Health Justice, and BC Civil Liberties Association are hosting a press conference urging the provincial government to withdraw Bill 22. Bill 22 proposes amendments to BC’s Mental Health Act to create a new form of detention and involuntary health care in BC for youth who have experienced an overdose.

Speakers will address key concerns with Bill 22, including:

• Involuntary detention, including use of restraints, of youth for up to 7 days following an overdose, without the consent of a youth or a parent/guardian.
• Lack of comprehensive and meaningful engagement with Indigenous peoples, contrary to the principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
• Harmful impacts of coercive healthcare on youth who use substances during an opioid overdose health crisis.
• Establishing a comprehensive voluntary system of substance use services throughout BC.

WHEN: Monday July 27, 2020 at 10 a.m. PST

WHERE:  Via Zoom, media registration opens at 9:45 am. Simultaneous livestream through UBCIC Facebook page.

SPEAKERS:

• Jennifer Charlesworth: BC’s Representative for Children and Youth
• Kukpi7 Judy Wilson: Union of BC Indian Chiefs
• Kali Sedgemore: member of ‘Namgis First Nation, OPS youth peer and outreach worker
• Hawkfeather Peterson: BC/Yukon Association of Drug War Survivors
• Garth Mullins: Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, Crackdown Podcast
• Laura Johnston: Health Justice
• Meghan McDermott: BC Civil Liberties Association

..the press conference ended about 10 min ago on this very important topic. it exposes the war on drugs mentality of the bc gov and horgan in particular. the bill excluded the participation of youth and relevant people on the ground as well as rightful title holders. but don't take my word for it. :) check it out for yourself as the recording is already available.

    Link

Not good:

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The union representing B.C. teachers is asking the Labour Relations Board to step in and force the province to address teachers' concerns about working conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The B.C. Teachers' Federation (BCTF) filed an application Thursday under section 88 of the Labour Relations Code, which the union describes as a "rarely used provision" of the law.

"The employer is taking advantage of your professionalism, the high expectations you put on yourselves and your caring for students," BCTF president Teri Mooring wrote in a message to teachers Thursday evening.

"I know many of you feel unsafe and the government is failing to ensure school districts are doing everything they can to ensure you and your students are as safe as you can be."

Section 88 of the code allows the board to take action to settle differences between employers and employees when they arise during the term of a collective agreement.

In the application to the Labour Relations Board, the BCTF calls for the board to "assist the parties on an expedited basis to resolve these urgent concerns and prevent labour unrest."

A teachers federation should not be that frustrated with any government, let alone an NDP government, that it feels it needs to take issues to the labour board to resolve.

Aristotleded24 wrote:

A teachers federation should not be that frustrated with any government, let alone an NDP government, that it feels it needs to take issues to the labour board to resolve.

This is BC where the teachers spent a decade fighting the government in the courts. They know their rights.

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/b-c-teachers-win-landmark-supre...