Baldrey's unusual defense of bad behavior

To follow political pundit, Keith Baldrey rant about the recent decision by Speaker Plecas to cool down the insults and name calling in the BC Legislature, you'd think that a revolution was underway.



Sorry Keith. You're on the wrong side of history here. If the 2017 election proved anything, it's that BC voters were done with the same old politics.

Voters chose a minority parliament which obligates politicians to work together. This isn't a bad thing at all.

Yes it's true that MLA's often behaved badly in the past. But, since when is bad behaviour of the past an excuse to continue bad behaviour in the future?

Regardless of opinion, the Speaker gets to enforce the rules of the house. Every parliamentarian knows this, and so does a seasoned pundit like Keith Baldrey.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Getting past the bullshit on #siteC

Image
Again, since I can't stress it enough, SiteC is wrong and should be cancelled. Its financial impact in cancellation is less of a burden than to carry out its construction. Worse, but most compelling for me, is the impact on reconciliation efforts with First Nations and the stated objective of the NDP government to get to a place of compliance with UNDRIP. There is time to reverse this decision, but the government must move quickly to do so. I certainly get the level of frustration going on with the SiteC decision, what I didn't expect is the level of online harassment, name calling, and outright bullying that's happened as a result. It is over the edge. BC is better than this, and internally, so is the NDP. The government has decided to move forward with SiteC, and therefore will have to own all fallout that comes from complications in construction cost overruns (almost a guarantee). They will first have to mitigate the justified uproar of the good folks the Treaty 8 in...
Read more

How dare BC ask its people their opinion on certain pressing environmental issues. The nerve. Who do they think they are? The government?

Image
I remember watching the KXL debate unfold in the USA. It was a similar battle in that Big Oil wanted an expanded crude oil pipeline from Alberta's tar-sands to the gulf coast. The idea was sold as a means to wean America of foreign oil and create thousands of jobs. Those were lies. The oil wasn't for domestic consumption, it was for foreign sales. Nothing in the KXL proposal was to expand domestic oil/gas supply. And the jobs? Its true at first that jobs would be created in the short term; for the supplies and the construction of the pipeline. But how many would exist afterwards? 50. Fifty jobs. The midwest was asked to support a pipeline that put at risk countless streams, rivers, farms, small towns, first nations, and other sensitive habitat. Other than the 50 remaining jobs, the benefit it seems for KXL was for big oil. So we have a parallel situation in Kinder Morgan. To be clear, there already is a pipeline that sends tarsands crude all the way to Vancouver harbour. T...
Read more

Dr. Weaver is off base on tolls as well

Image
With respect to Dr Weaver and the NDP/Green accord that ousted the BC Liberals from office, I believe that Green Party Leader Andrew Weaver is off base with his criticism on the NDP's toll elimination policy. Dr Weaver makes two points that need to be addressed. First, he says that eliminating tolls would add billions dollars to taxpayer supported debt. He is wrong. As early as 2009, the Auditor General raised a red flag on that very notion. Until tolls were supporting the actual debt of the bridge projects, classifying as the BC Liberals did was at best shady. But clearly wrong. Second, he mentions that tolls are a way to manage transport demand. Well that argument falls apart when you see what happened to traffic flows on Port Mann and Golden Ears bridge. Traffic ended up being diverted by those unwilling to pay stiff fares to other free options. This meant, paradoxically, that drivers ended up driving further, driving longer, and ended up in high polluting traffic jams...
Read more