NDP sells out environmentalists for politics, labour movement

Now that the election is officially under way and the NDP has released their platform, it’s hilarious watching them try to skate out of the fact that their environmental policies are so wrong that former friends in the environmental movement are dissing the NDP from every corner.

First Tzeporah Berman, one of the most respected environmentalists in this country, let alone this province, said the NDP were off their rockers denouncing green power production. Then John Horgan of the NDP tried to deny that his party would kill all run-of-river power projects, in one of the funniest radio flip flops ever.

And now a whole group of major BC environmentalists, including the prestigious David Suzuki Foundation, get together to say that eliminating the carbon tax was a daft idea. Oh, and did you read the report from Mark Jaccard of SFU who says the NDP’s climate change policies would exempt about 65 per cent of BC’s emissions, and would cause company closings and the loss of 30,000 direct and 60,000 indirect jobs.

Media and blogger coverage of this has been everywhere. But perhaps our favourite article was from the Globe and Mail’s Gary Mason, who called the NDP’s policies “shortsighted,” “uninspiring,” “wrongheaded” and “dangerous.” As Mason says:

“So what if it was a position fundamentally at odds with the views held by a vast swath of their supporters? Or that it made a mockery of the NDP's core values?

Was this the best the New Democrats could do to distinguish themselves from the provincial Liberals? …it might gain the NDP a few votes in the north, they will come at a terrible cost elsewhere.”

Why are the NDP against environmentalists? Because their public union backers don’t want any energy, green or otherwise, developed in BC unless it is under their control. So they chose labour over green and over youth who see the future in environmentalism.

Carole James and the NDP. Wrong party, wrong leader, wrong time.

Comparing the abysmal record of the NDP to now....Part 4

Investment and jobs are most important to an economically vibrant province. The final years of NDP government showed just how abysmal they were at managing our provincial affairs.

click the chart for full size

It’s simple – BC outperformed the rest of Canada under the Liberals and our province failed miserably when the NDP was in power.

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

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

Sue Hammell and her NDP family secrets

NDP MLA

Current Position: Running for re-election as NDP MLA, Surrey Green Timbers. Appointed NDP Community Services critic by Carole James.

Past Positions: Was Minister of Women’s Equality in NDP governments.

Family Connections: Married to long-time NDP Director of Organization John Pollard, who best known for being impatient in ferry lineups. Sue was a senior organizer for Glen Clark’s leadership.

Family Secrets: Rumours persist that Hammell has set a record for hiring, firing and resignations of constituency assistants during a four year period (2005-2009). What is most interesting is that there were no grievances officially filed by the BCGEU who represents the NDP caucus staff.

To see more NDP family profiles click here.

Harry Lali and his NDP family secrets

NDP MLA

Current Position: Running for re-election as NDP MLA, Yale-Lillooet

Past Positions: Minister of Transportation under Premier Glen Clark

Family Connections: Perhaps the fiercest Clark defender in the 1990’s, Lali is closely associated with the NDP’s left wing and has close, ongoing relationships with Adrian Dix, CUPE President Barry O’Neill and Moe Sihota.

Family Secrets: Lali was a senior economic minister in the Clark government and can take his share of blame for the BC economy falling from first to worst.

John Horgan and his NDP family secrets

NDP MLA

Current Position: Running for reelection as NDP MLA, Juan de Fuca. Appointed NDP Energy Critic by Carole James.

Past Positions: Chief of Staff to NDP Premier Dan Miller, political staff for Premier Glen Clark, Ministerial Assistant to Minister of Employment and Investment Glen Clark

Family Connections: Following a low profile career on Parliament Hill working for one-term NDP MP Lynn Hunter, Horgan reached his full potential under Glen Clark. His friendship with Adrian Dix and Ian Waddell helped Horgan play a senior role in the Clark government. As British Columbians were breathing a sigh of relief following the defeat of the NDP, Horgan took his large taxpayer-funded severance package and got busy in the “private sector.” Horgan partnered with current Carole James Chief of Staff Ian Reid and Ian’s current second in command Mary O’Donaghue to form the consulting firm Ideaworks.

Family Secrets: Where to begin? Horgan was one of the most influential staff members during the 1990s. Fast ferries, fudge-it budgets, job losses… Horgan was there the whole time. We think Horgan’s role in the decade of decline has been underappreciated.

Dawn Black and her NDP family secrets

Current Position: NDP star Candidate for New Westminster

Past Positions: Director of Vancouver Cabinet Offices during Glen Clark government. NDP MP on Jack Layton’s and Audrey McLaughlin’s team..

Family Connections: Dawn is also very connected within the NDP. She was an enthusiastic supporter of both Audrey McLaughlin and Glen Clark during their leadership campaigns. Her son David is a senior official in COPE378 and a long time executive member for Jack Layton’s NDP. David is married to NOW Communications senior account manager Maya Russell. Remember how much money NOW Communications made from government work in the nineties?

Family Secrets: Remember the fast ferries? Record private sector job loss? The fair wage policy? Jobs for Timber? These were all Cabinet Decisions. Dawn was the director of the Vancouver Cabinet Offices. And now she is back as part of the Carole James team.

To see more NDP family members go to http://www.votesmartbc.com/node/100

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

Arnie makes Carole James's Port Mann flip flop look even sillier

With Arnold Schwarzenegger praising the BC Liberal Government for doing Public Private Partnerships (P3) well, it seems all the sillier to look at how Carole James flipped her position on building the Port Mann Bridge component of the provincial Gateway Program.

James and her MLAs have gone out of their way to diss the bridge twinning project, going so far as to call it “…a colossal waste of taxpayers' money.” Of course, back in the 1990s the NDP were pushing for the bridge to be twinned, but obviously holding one opinion for any length of time is hard for the NDP.

And now the Georgia Straight caught James out again for a flip flop. Despite her 2007 talk of the Port Mann twinning being a bad way to spend public money, she told the Straight last month that now it seems like a good idea to her:

“You have to have a bridge. You have to have a crossing across there. It's very clear that the traffic is high enough that you need to have a bridge there.”

So it was no surprise that James’ flip flop brought out B.C. transportation minister Kevin Falcon to call a spade a spade. He termed it one of the “most extraordinary backflips I’ve seen in politics.”

Falcon added:

“I have sat for two years and listened to Carole James and the NDP say this would never get done, just like I had to listen to them say for two years that the Canada Line would never get done. So as we deliver the Canada Line ahead of schedule and on-budget, and as we move this project forward—and it’s going to be on-schedule and on-budget—I imagine I’m going to hear the same thing from the NDP.”

Carole James and the NDP. Wrong party, wrong leader, wrong time.

Rub a dub dub, Only 2 business people in a $30 billion tub....

Carole James spoke yesterday to the Business Council of BC in an attempt to make nice with business, but despite her protests that she’s different from the NDP of the 1990s, no one was buying it.

James said if she were in charge, she’d build homes, instead of the kinds of infrastructure projects starting now that can help turn our economy around. She made it clear that she plans to change the labour code, likely eliminating the democratic rights of workers and making it easier for unions to organize. That is no surprise given the NDP’s intimate relationship with big labour, but is hardly the kind of thing a business audience needs to hear to have any trust in someone who wants to lead this province during an economic crisis.

She told the Business Council that she would “study” green projects like run of river hydro, which really means she’ll make the approval process so cumbersome as to put an end to them. She says she’s going to consult with business, but that’s political code for “I’m making changes and they’re not good for you.”

There have been a lot of questions lately about the NDP’s lack of any experience in the private sector, and how they could possibly run the province’s economy with no business experience among their candidates.

So we listened closely when James was asked about the complete lack of business experience in her field of candidates. And we couldn’t help laughing uproariously at her answer. It seems there are a whopping two candidates (among 85 ridings!?) with experience in the private sector – a lawyer and a farmer. Oh sure, that instils confidence, doesn’t it?

No matter how many times she claims to be different from the NDP of the 1990s, the NDP who destroyed our province’s economy, she’s not different. She’s surrounded by the same people and making the same mistakes.

Carole James and the NDP. Wrong party, wrong leader, wrong time.

Comparing the Abysmal Record of the NDP to Now… Part three

Putting more money into people’s pockets to spend on themselves and their families is a record of which the BC Liberals should be especially proud.

When the NDP was in power “Tax Freedom Day” arrived in BC more than two weeks later than it does now.

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

A nice wednesday bit of NDP inconsistency

The NDP’s energy critic, John Horgan was on CKNW last Friday trying to dig his way out of a hole. Guest host Michael Smyth asked why the NDP(click the link to listen), who have come out strongly opposed to independent power production (IPP), support an IPP in Lytton.

Horgan touts the old party line that the NDP would put a moratorium on IPPs (despite environmentalists like Tzeporah Berman being in favour of them). But maybe not the ones already approved. Huh?

Smyth calls him out, saying “But, look, I thought you said the other day that you like this Lytton project because they need the power there, they’ve been having brownouts there and that it’s a good project in that respect. Now you’re telling me you wouldn’t approve it.”

And Horgan has the audacity to claim he’s being consistent.

Horgan: I'm not changing my position, Mike, but this is a much larger debate than a small micro-hydro project that will service a community that's underserviced today…the fact that the First Nations in Lytton have a power purchase agreement from B.C. Hydro, a contract to provide electricity to the community, means that that debate is over. The debate that we should be having….

Smyth: Yeah, but if you guys were in power, you wouldn't approve it.

Horgan: I'm not in power, Mike. You might have noticed that.

Thank heavens for that!

Perhaps our favourite line, though, goes to Smyth: “I think you’re making up your policy on the fly here.”

Carole James and the NDP. Wrong party, Wrong leader, Wrong time.

Comparing the abysmal record of the NDP to now...Part two

This is the second 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.

When the NDP was in power, people left our province – it is that simple. There was no reason to stay, as NDP policies hampered investment and job creation. In 1998 alone, this included an exodus roughly equivalent to the current population of Fort St. John.

(Source: Statistics Canada)

Since the Liberals took charge of the Province, British Columbia has attracted on average close to six times as many new residents each year from 2002-2007 as we did from 1995-2001.

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

The company they keep

Did you know that NDP is a member of Socialist International? This is a world-wide alliance of socialists who believe, we assume, all the same ideals as Carole James and Jack Layton.

Yup, there sits the NDP, along with the Sandinista National Liberation Front of Nicaragua, the New Space Party of Uruguay and Panama's Democratic Revolutionary Party.

Oh look who else is in this illustrious company -- the Democratic Socialists of America. What kind of group is this? Well, on the DSA website, they say:

“Key to economic democracy is a democratic labor movement that plays a central role in the struggle for a democratic workplace, whether worker or privately owned. In workplaces that the employees do not own – traditional corporations, family businesses, government, and private nonprofits – only independent, democratically run unions can protect workers.”

Hmmm, that sounds so much like the BC NDP. Remember the 1990s when they tried to legislate union rules onto non-unionized workplaces? If their brothers and sisters at the DSA want to force everyone who works for a living to join a union, no doubt they’d also support Carole James’ NDP when they try to get rid of the secret ballot vote when workers are choosing whether or not to join a union (imagine the peer pressure from the socialists without the secret vote!).

Just goes to show that the company the NDP keeps really does speak to their desire to prop up unions and hurt small family-run businesses.

Carole James and the NDP. Wrong party, wrong leader, wrong time.

NDP have magic wand to make clean power appear!

A recent ad in the BC NDP’s magazine, The Democrat, calls for a rally to stop independent power projects (see page 8). But prominent environmentalists have said IPPs should continue. Tzeporah Berman who heads PowerUp Canada told Bill Good on CKNW on January 22, 2009.

“I think we need to see a lot more support for green power in this province than we’ve been seeing in the public…the opposition that we’re seeing in British Columbia…to the move towards green power…needs to be rethought.”

“What I’m saying is we need to support the move to green power. We need to reduce carbon emissions, as a priority. And yes, we need to do it smart; we need to be careful about our rivers. But the fact is we need to support the move to green power.”

In seven of the past ten years, BC has been a net importer of dirty electricity from the U.S. and Alberta. Carole James’ NDP say they are for clean power, but have opposed every clean energy project in the province. They’re against all Independent Power Producers, even calling for a moratorium on every proposed project.

The NDP oppose the 45 operating independent power production projects that are providing badly needed construction and operating jobs in rural and First Nations communities. In March 2008, they called for a moratorium on future developments of power projects.

Environmentalists say we need green power. Independent Power Producers are creating green power for our province, and creating jobs in needed areas. Do we really want Carole James and the BC NDP deciding energy policy for our province?

Wrong party. Wrong leader. Wrong time.
www.votesmartbc.com

NDP in need of acronym translator ASAP, current one MIA

The NDP is running scared after the Vote Smart BC campaign launched. So scared that they’ve created a website mocking our campaign. But they’ve missed the point, and can’t even focus their attack on the right group. One email sent to promote their fake website said Vote Smart BC was launched by the “Independent Contractors Business Association”, and another said it was from the “Independent Contractors and Builders Association. We’re pretty sure they know what the BCTF, HEU, and BCNU acronyms are for, but they just can’t quite seem to zone in on what ICBA is an acronym for.

The group behind Vote Smart BC is the “Independent Contractors and Businesses Association”, something the NDP and their supporters would know if they actually took the time to read our site, or even googled “ICBA BC.” Can we really turn our economy over to a group that can’t even look up the right name for something they oppose?

Of course we really should thank them for giving us more exposure!

And for the record, ICBA is a member-based organization that represents open shop construction companies in BC. If the NDP could find our website, they’d see that we offer a full suite of member services, including affinity programs, insurance and health plans, apprentice programs, education, networking and other benefits for family-owned construction businesses in BC. Our website, in case you want to let the NDPers behind the failed attack know, is http://www.icba.ca/.