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.

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.”

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.

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…

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.

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.

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.