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.

Jenn McGinn and her NDP family secrets

Current Position: NDP Candidate in Vancouver-Fairview

Past Positions: NDP MLA for Vancouver-Fairview

Family Connections: McGinn is connected to the NDP network in Fairview, which includes CUPE Vice President Paul Faor and city councilor and former BC Federation of Labour Executive Director Geoff Meggs.

Family Secrets: McGinn is the latest NDP candidate to launch personal attacks in what has become the most negative campaign by the NDP in BC history. Carole James offered her usual half hearted apology.

Doug Brown and his NDP family secrets

Current Position: NDP Candidate in Kamloops-North Thompson

Past Positions: NDP Candidate in Kamloops where he upset at least one resident for his aggressive campaigning.

Family Connections: Brown has been the face of the NDP in Kamloops for years and was appointed the local media officer following the last campaign.

Family Secrets: After the NDP jumped up and down about driving offenses by BC Liberal candidates, it was revealed that Brown has had nine driving offenses of his own. Those who live in glass houses…

Business and Forestry groups warn of damage NDP win will do to economy, industry

In the past few days, business and forestry groups have issued news releases and held news conferences to warn of how damaging an NDP win could be for British Columbia’s economy. Business leaders from all stripes are agreeing that Carole James and the NDP have put out a platform that will cost jobs, business and create havoc for BC’s economy at a time when we can ill afford it.

First, forestry leaders issued a news release on May 4th setting the record straight on forestry issues. The heads of Interfor, West Fraser Timber and Canfor came together to accuse the NDP of playing “politics with the lives of the thousands of people who depend on forestry.” They credit Gordon Campbell for being a champion of the industry, and say that the NDP’s plan to open up the Softwood Lumber Agreement shows a fundamental lack of understanding that would “jeopardize the economic stability of BC companies, their employees and the communities in which they live and work.”

Then on Tuesday, the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association (ICBA) and the Canadian Home Builders’ Association of British Columbia (CHBA BC) issued a joint news release rallying everyone touched by construction in BC to ensure voters get out to the polls to stop the possibility of an NDP win.

“The NDP platform shows their hostility to the interests of home builders and home buyers, by proposing significant re-regulation that would disadvantage independent construction companies and raise prices across the board,” says Tim Kasten, President of CHBA BC. “Our industry has worked collaboratively to build a strong industry training system in recent years, but the NDP is proposing to undermine these improvements in one fell swoop. We can’t stand by and let that happen.”

Also on Tuesday, the Coalition of BC Businesses held a news conference with 13 business associations representing more than 50,000 small- and medium-sized employers held a news conference where they warned that higher taxes and higher payroll costs featured in the NDP platform will put at least 110,000 British Columbians out of work and put at risk the viability of BC’s small- and medium-sized businesses.

“The sectors of the economy we represent are working hard to keep their businesses open and keep people on the job through this global economic downturn. That will become harder with the $450 million in extra payroll costs, courtesy of the NDP’s 25 per cent minimum wage hike. Job losses are estimated at 50,000 as a direct result of the minimum wage increase.”

It seems everyone agrees that the NDP platform promises ruin for British Columbia. We have to ensure that voter turnout is high on May 12th to stop the NDP.

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

New poll has BC Liberals ahead of NDP by 11 points

Check out the data from this recently released poll

http://erg.environics.net/media_room/default.asp?aID=700

Doug Routley and his NDP family secrets

Current Position: Running for re-election as NDP MLA in Nanaimo-North Cowichan

Past Positions: A near invisible MLA, Routley was appointed as the apprenticeship critic by Carole James. When Routley ran in 2005, Ladysmith Mayor Rob Hutchins supported him. After four years of watching Routley as MLA, Hutchins is now running against him as a BC Liberal.

Family Connections: Routley was a supporter of Clark-era MLA Jan Pullinger. Pullinger is returning the favour by managing Routley’s campaign this time around.

Family Secrets: Routley was part of an RCMP probe last summer, a fact that Carole James kept close to her vest.

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.

NDP missing the bus on apprentices

The NDP campaign continues to make things up as they go along, distorting numbers and misrepresenting the facts. This week they hit on a topic very close to our hearts by claiming to support apprenticeship training. At ICBA, we sponsor about 1,600 apprentices and are very familiar with how things work in trades training.

After a bunch of misinformation from Carole James, the BC Liberals clarified the facts:

- There are currently 47,000 registered apprentices in BC, which is nearly three times the number from 2001 when the NDP were in charge of the Province.

- The BC Liberals have increased funding for trades training by 42 per cent since 2001. The NDP voted against every increase.

- The BC Liberals created the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA) so that skilled workers can have their credentials recognized in other provinces and can work freely in BC or Alberta. Carole James and the NDP voted against the agreement and continue to oppose breaking down barriers that restrict skilled workers.

-The BC Liberals introduced the $90-million BC Training Tax Credit to help employers and apprentices cover the cost of their training. The NDP voted against this program.

In their election platform, the BC Liberals promise to double the BC Training Tax Credit program, whereas the NDP Platform only commits to strike a task force, without providing any tangible support for apprentices.

We have said repeatedly that in the current economic situation many construction workers who had put off education because of the previous boom in jobs are now turning their attention to training and upgrading skills. In fact, we called for governments to bring in more incentives for retraining to help workers improve their future hiring prospects and productivity by going back to school. Good to know the Liberals understand this.

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

Jaynie Clark and her NDP family secrets

Current Position: NDP candidate in Burnaby-Lougheed.

Past Positions: One of four Directors at the BCGEU.

Family Connections: Another one of Carole James’ star union recruits, Clark works closely with her fellow BCGEU Director and NDP President Jeff Fox. She is part of the record number of union-connected candidates that Carole James has brought onto her team.

Family Secrets: Clark managed the campaign of federal NDP candidate Bill Siksay and is a staunch supporter of Jack Layton.

Bill Routley and his NDP family secrets

Current Position: NDP candidate in Cowichan Valley

Past Positions: President of IWA local 1-80.

Family Connections: One of the best connected union bosses in BC, Routley has been a major supporter of NDP MP Jean Crowder, MLA’s Leonard Krog, John Horgan and Doug Routley.

Family Secrets: For one, Bill Routley is not related to MLA Doug Routley, who is running for the NDP in Nanaimo-North Cowichan. On the NDP profile page, a full of seven of his ten accomplishments are union related. So much for the “new NDP.”

Jim Sinclair and his NDP family secrets

Current Position: President, BC Federation of Labour

Past Positions: President, BC Federation of Labour. Appointed to BC Hydro Board by NDP government in 1990s.

Family Connections: Sinclair has made the BC Federation of Labour a safe haven for ex-NDP staff members in search of work. He has hired former Glen Clark communications director Geoff Meggs and former Premier’s Office senior staff person Jessie Uppal.

Family Secrets: Controversial anti-Zionist NDP candidate Mable Elmore got her start as a Federation of Labour Regional Political Coordinator during Sinclair’s term as president.

Harry Bains and his NDP family secrets

Current Position: Running for re-election as NDP MLA Surrey-Newton

Past Positions: President, IWA Local 217.

Family Connections: Bains is a long-time labour leader who was a star recruit for Carole James in 2005. He was a huge supporter of Glen Clark's leadership in 1995. The Vancouver Sun's legislative columnist, Vaughn Palmer, described his nomination this way in 2005:

"The lone candidate for the NDP nomination is Harry Bains, a longtime trade union official and vice-president of one of the big locals of IWA Canada So there's one comment on the success of James effort to "modernize" the NDP relationship with organized labour."

Family Secrets: Bains landed former Premier's office senior official and BC Federation of Labour Communications Director Jessie Uppal as his campaign manager in 2005.

Maurine Karagianis and her NDP family secrets

Current Position: Running for re-election as NDP MLA for Esquimalt

Past Positions: President, Political Staff for NDP government’s in the 1990’s. Esquimalt City Councillor.

Family Connections: Karagianis is part of the Carole James inner circle and is close allies with John Horgan, Adrian Dix and the rest of the former Glen Clark Team.

Family Secrets: Karagianis was a senior aid to Moe Sihota and learned her “tax and spend” and “divide and conquer” politics from the master.

Carole James fails CBC reality check on carbon tax

CBC Radio is running an election feature called Reality Check, where they try to verify things politicians say on the campaign trail. Last Friday, they skewered Carole James’ claim that the carbon tax wasn’t doing anything to reduce carbon emissions.

In fact, James said that carbon emissions increased last year by four per cent. In a stinging rebuke, CBC proved her wrong, and gave her a very bad rating for her dishonesty.

They checked her sources, and found them to be measuring the wrong things. And they checked with Environment Canada, which measures the right things, but found that reports tracking Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Canada are always behind by about 18 months, so numbers are not yet available to show if emissions have gone down.

CBC’s conclusion?

“What did we find when we looked under the microscope? The NDP claim that emissions have gone up four percent since July 2008 is mostly false.”

Told you so. James is making it up as she goes along, desperately shilling for rural votes. And now she’s been outed, again, for her dishonesty.

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

What IS the NDP's candidate screening process?

With another NDP candidate being ridiculed by media this week, we were going to write a blog entry about the very poor choices the NDP is making in selecting candidates that it thinks should run our economy in troubled times. We were going to make pithy comments and ridicule them, but why should we, when the media and Carole James herself are already doing it for us?

James is quoted in a CBC story yesterday saying the controversy of disgraced candidate Ray Lam’s racy Facebook photos forcing his resignation as a candidate in Vancouver False Creek reflects “the reality of the new media.” She goes on to add:

“It will be interesting to watch politics over the next 10 to 15 years when you have an entire generation of young people who grew up with their lives public on Facebook.”

Boy, can’t wait to see what kinds of photos other NDP candidates will show us! Imagine, going into politics and having their whole lives made public. These are the kind of people who would have their hands on the levers of power in a $35 billion operation. Really confidence-inspiring, isn’t it?

Meanwhile, saving us from having to come up with commentary about this whole thing is The Province’s respected columnist, Michael Smyth. His story yesterday, headlined “Big holes in NDP's candidate-screening process; Latest in party's parade of wingnuts for elected office,” added up Lam’s Facebook faux pas with Mable Elmore’s anti-Zionist comments, and throws in some federal NDP candidates predicaments to conclude that the NDP don’t know how to screen candidates.

“The NDP promised to do better. Instead, it seems "why stop there" has become the theme song of the NDP's wingnuts-for-office parade…”A lack of judgment," NDP Leader Carole James explained yesterday, Gee, do ya think?”

But the best line Smyth’s newspaper article – and really, we couldn’t have made up this stuff better ourselves:

“But it's worse than that for the NDP: This kind of pattern can plant serious doubts in the minds of people wondering if the party and its candidates are fit to run the province.”

Do we even need to say it? Carole James and the NDP. Wrong party, wrong leader, wrong time.

Jeff Fox and his NDP Family Secrets

Current Position: President, BC NDP, Director of organizing and field services, BCGEU.

Past Positions: Fox is a long time union activists who was one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the Carole James leadership campaign. Fox helped James land the BCGEU endorsement.

Family Connections: Very close to former James Chief of Staff David Perry and well connected within the union movement.

Family Secrets: NDP Provincial Secretary Laura Nichols daughter, Erin Sikora,works for Fox at the BCGEU. He is also not shy about throwing his weight around with independent minded NDP grassroots activists.

Mary O'Donoghue and her NDP Family Secrets

Current Position: Appointed Executive Director of Caucus by Carole James.

Past Positions: Director of NDP Caucus Research, Executive Director of NDP Caucus.

Family Connections: There are few friends tighter than O’Donoghue, John Horgan and Ian Reid. These three were among the most influential staff members of the NDP governments in the 1990s. Following the NDP’s defeat in 2001, the three close friends took their severances and formed a company together. While the private sector seemed exciting when the NDP had only two seats, the prospect of returning to the NDP and gaining a regular, taxpayer-funded paycheque was just too hard to resist. John Horgan became the NDP MLA for Juan de Fuca, Ian Reid worked his way up to becoming Carole James’ Chief of Staff and O’Donoghue is running the caucus again.

Family Secrets: The secret we all want to know is this – by what criteria did three architects of the NDP decade of decline qualify to become trusted advisors to Carole James? Fool me once, shame on you…

Leonard Krog and his NDP Family Secrets

Current Position: Running for election as NDP MLA for Nanaimo

Past Positions: NDP MLA for Parksville-Qualicum. Provincial NDP leadership candidate in 2003 (lost to Carole James).

Family Connections: Krog is one of those old style NDP members who received the support of Adrian Dix, Moe Sihota and Dave Barrett when he ran for the leadership of the party. His campaign was a coming together of former Glen Clark supporters.

Family Secrets: Leonard has one heck of a temper and will not hesitate to use it on environmentalists and seniors.

Do the NDP agree with their apologist?

Bill Tieleman, a left-wing journalist and commentator in favour of all things NDP, was on CKNW on Easter Monday saying that if a business is only barely profitable, then it shouldn’t be in business at all.

A caller to the radio show made the point that raising the minimum wage would cost jobs for many small businesses and significantly hurt profitability in this unstable economic climate. Host Bill Good agreed with the caller. But Bill Tieleman spoke up and firmly stuck his foot in his mouth, saying:

“Why do we support businesses that are marginally, minimally profitable in the first place? If you are that marginal then maybe you shouldn’t be in business.”

After a commercial break Tieleman went on to dig his hole by saying:

“When you’re paying all minimum wage, odds are the state is subsidizing that business with medicare premiums, benefit relief. If you cannot survive without state intervention then maybe you shouldn’t be in business.”

Gee, so if you’re suffering during these tough economic times and not staying profitable, you should just go out of business. Wonder if the Canadian Auto Workers would agree with that, given that Tieleman’s logic would certainly shut down all the North American auto manufacturers.

Think Carole James would agree?

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

Why has NDP abandoned young and green voters?

This article was written by Philip Hochstein and was published on the Georgia Straight's website http://www.straight.com/article-214215/philip-hochstein-why-has-ndp-abandoned-young-and-green-voters

In the aftermath of the launch of the “new” NDP platform, it is hard not to feel a bit sorry for Carole James.

While progressive government leaders throughout the world, including Barack Obama in the United States and Gordon Campbell right here in British Columbia, have articulated exciting visions of how we can build our economies and societies on environmentally sustainable platforms that our children will be proud of, James was once again forced to dust off the decades-old big-labour playbook and try to sell it as something fresh.

For a brief time early in her leadership, James made some noises about trying to wrest control of the NDP from its big union bankers. But like others before her, she quickly learned that those who pay the piper call the tunes.

Raising taxes on small businesses. Raising the minimum wage. Giving public unions the power to shut down the province. If it weren’t really the 2009 NDP campaign platform, it would read like bad historical fiction.

Most young voters today are no more likely to identify with a shop steward than they are with Richard Nixon. In the private sector, where there is choice, union market share has dropped to around 18 percent as young workers opt for careers in industries that value innovation and environmental sustainability.

There can be no more damning evidence that the NDP has all but abandoned its green and youth voters in favour of the labour agenda than its opposition to green energy projects.

Heralded by President Obama, and embraced throughout Europe, the development of a renewable energy industry is clearly the social, economic, and environmental opportunity of our generation.

Yet, James and the NDP have come out staunchly in opposition to green energy projects. And why? Because the public unions don’t want any energy, green or otherwise, developed in B.C. unless it is under their control.

While there is no doubt that, on the green energy issue, big labour has shown Carole James and B.C. voters who is really in charge of the NDP, one wonders whether this will end up being a hollow and shortsighted victory.

The green and youth voters that the NDP once competed for are going to find it difficult to draw a connection between their values and an NDP that has chosen its big-labour past over their future.

Philip Hochstein is president of the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association, which represents family-owned construction businesses across British Columbia.