Carole James and her NDP family secrets

Current Position: NDP MLA for Victoria-Beacon Hill, NDP Leader

Past Positions: NDP Leader

Family Connections: James won the NDP leadership in 2003 by receiving the backing of all major public sector unions. These remain key supporters of her as the election disclosure will show.

Family Secrets: Upon becoming leader, James set about to build a staff and caucus of former Clark era people. Her two Chiefs of Staff, David Perry and Ian Reid, were senior advisors during the Glen Clark years. Those in her inner circle like Adrian Dix, John Horgan, Maurine Karigianis, Harry Lali, Sue Hammell, Bruce Ralston and Mike Farnworth all served as MLAs or senior staff in the 1990s. James spent a lot of time talking about a new kind of politics but has run the most negative campaign in memory.

Michael Sather and his NDP family secrets

Current Position: Running for re-election as MLA in Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows

Past Positions: Sather recently ran to become Mayor for Maple Ridge where he finished a distant third. He was an assistant to NDP MLA Bill Hartley during the 1990s and has also worked for NDP Members of Parliament.

Family Connections: Sather has had trouble getting along with his political family. In 2007, he took a principled position that angered his boss and was suspended from caucus.

Family Secrets: In 2008, Sather ran for Mayor in Maple Ridge, promising that if he won, he would resign as MLA. He didn’t win, and now decided to run for MLA again and support such progressive policies as getting rid of the carbon tax.

Bruce Ralston and his NDP Family Secrets

NDP MLA

Current Position: Running for reelection as NDP MLA, Surrey Walley, Appointed Finance critic by Carole James.

Past Positions: Party President, BC NDP.

Family Connections: Ralston is one Finance critic and potential Minister of Finance that the union movement can get behind. Not only has he worked in the union movement himself, but his spouse, Miriam Sobrino, is a senior staff person for a major public sector union. Ralston has never been shy about exploiting his union connections and recently was caught begging for paper clips from his union friends.

Family Secrets: Ralston was an impassioned defender of Glen Clark and the NDP during the 1990s. He was the point person in defending the party during the dark days of the Bingogate scandal and didn’t publicly disagree with a single Glen Clark initiative. And now Carole James thinks that he would make a great Finance Minister under a “new” NDP government

VoteSmart launches 2nd Phase - All in the Family

This morning we unveiled the second phase of our VoteSmart BC campaign at a press conference in Vancouver. The campaign will feature television, radio and internet advertising (along with a continued social media presence) linking the current NDP to the 1990s NDP that hurt small family-owned businesses throughout the province.

Check out the new television ad that will start airing tomorrow

Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArYVu3qnRDE

Comparing the Abysmal Record of the NDP to now....Part one

This is the first of a series of blog posts using economic facts to compare the NDP’s performance while in power in the 1990s to the past six years of the BC Liberal government.

The growth of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is one of the most important indicators of economic health, and shows how well our provincial economy performs in terms of jobs and investment and the likelihood of improved incomes and living standards.

Source: BC Financial and Economic Reviews

This chart compares the final seven years of the NDP and the first six full years of BC Liberal government. There is no comparison. During the NDP’s reign BC badly under-performed as our province’s s growth fell behind the national average by a whopping 25 per cent. On the other hand, since the Liberals took over, GDP growth has exceeded national growth by almost 25 per cent.

Carol James and the NDP. Wrong party. Wrong leader. Wrong time.

Good Bridge, Bad Bridge - NDP flip flop on Port Mann

In 1993, an NDP member rose in the Legislative Assembly to state clearly that the Port Mann Bridge needs to be twinned. The transportation minister Art Charbonneau said:

“…we need to twin the Port Mann Bridge…When we are able (to do this)…then we will have resolved the traffic congestion problems around that area, while allowing a safe and efficient transportation system.”

But back in the present day of 2009, the NDP transportation critic Maurine Karagianis continues to reject the new Port Mann Bridge and the 8,000 jobs that will be created during construction. In fact, in Question Period this week she called the Port Mann Bridge project “…a colossal waste of taxpayers' money.”Gee, has traffic congestion eased in the past 15 years? We certainly keep seeing more cars and trucks queuing up to get into or out of Surrey over the Port Mann. Do the NDP have special rose-coloured traffic cameras that show them a different picture? Or are they trying so hard to distance themselves from the 1990s that they lost sight of common sense?

Carol James and the NDP. Wrong party. Wrong leader. Wrong time.
www.votesmartbc.com