Pete's Viewpoint

Just when the MSM was about to get serious about some honest reporting, this egg was laid by senior political reporter playing the 'both sides' card. Almost on cue. No Keith. The NDP doesn't get the blame for travel expenses that Craig James and Gary Lenz traded signatures on. It was unknown enough that it took Speaker Daryl Plecas by surprise when he dug around for the information. This 'both sides' narrative is a BC Liberal talking point because they know how ethically exposed they are already; this makes matters worse merely a week ahead of the Nanaimo byelection they're poised to lose. Now with this stink out there, it feeds into the narrative that BC Liberals are the party of crony capitalism and insiderism; so lets throw some mud at the NDP and make them to blame too. Nothing in the #plecasreport implicates the NDP government or any of its MLA's or cabinet ministers. How embarrassing.

"Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake." Napoleon Bonaparte I am reminded by the BC Liberals behavior of the Republicans after the roll out of ObamaCare in the USA. They screamed socialism, big government, and a whole lot of other unsavory epithets towards President Obama and the Democrats just for the sin of trying to extend out the universality of healthcare coverage in America. The sin? The individual mandate; where every uninsured American was obligated to seek out insurance. To meet that legal requirement, several states and separately the Federal Government unveiled a subsidized exchange where individuals would be able to purchase a healthcare insurance plan - or subsidized one if they qualified. The Speculation Tax isn't healthcare, but its to address a problem that was left to fester while the last government was still in office. After the BC Liberals deregulated the real estate trade in 2005, handed the oversight to the industry i

Lets not understate the fact that BC's new speculation tax isn't without controversy. It is. There are some folks unhappy that they're now subject to a tax that didn't exist until now. But lets also discuss why we are here and the big mistake that BC Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson is making. We are here because of the 2005 legislation passed by the BC Liberals to de-regulate the real estate trade. It became a self regulated industry with significantly reduced government oversight. In fact, oversight passed to the industry itself. Land speculation has been a thing since land has been able to be purchased and sold. It can be a high risk venture, but most often pays off well. By deregulation, rules and oversight to said speculation slipped away and the practice of 'shadow-flipping ' took root in some of the province's hottest markets. In short, it allowed shady realtors to manipulate home sales in such a way to make hundreds of thousands extra in commis

BC Liberal candidate for the Nanaimo byelection opined about higher education recently. While the thought of a politician injecting himself into what ought to be taught is unsettling, I'll leave that alone for another day. So lets cut to the chase here. While Tony Harris give his thoughts on higher learning, what is the BC Liberal record on tuition fees for Malaspina/VIU? Well. Funny you should ask. In 2001 the cost of tuition for an Arts program was $1240...in 2017? Well that cost was $4346. That's a 251% increase. 176% of that was while Nanaimo had a BC Liberal MLA (2001-05). My 2 bits

Go ahead, read his article here . The background here is that BC Liberal candidate for Nanaimo, Tony Harris was caught editing out the word 'speculation' on his bio page just ahead of his announcing of his candidacy. For anyone born yesterday or unplugged from the affairs of BC for the last 10 years, real estate speculation has turned the industry into a giant slot machine for developers and realtors. Its become a tough slog for first time home buyers as the average starter home has consistently and dramatically become more out of reach for average folks. None of which is directly to blame on Tony himself. But being given a front page exposure for apparently trying to hide his affinity to the speculation part of real estate seemed that it needed an explanation. So that's where we begin and that's where it gets awkward for Tony. Thing 1. Young people aren't tuning out of politics; they're tuning out of the big parties. Yes, your Trump/MAGA hat stunt wa

It was a fascinating dynamic to watch hard core Bernie fans either refuse to vote, vote Green, or Vote Trump because their guy Bernie Sanders didn't win the Democratic Party nomination in 2016. Eventually, Hillary would win the popular vote by at least 3 million votes, but as it is with our own FPTP system, votes don't determine outcome. Electoral votes did. Strategically, either by fluke or by design, Donald Trump went on to win and become the 45th President of the US. He won smaller conservative states to be sure, but he also won enough larger states to tilt the balance - regardless of what New York or California did. Already, the Warren/Beto/Sanders camps are going to war against each other *inside* the Democratic Party, as the various groups of activists claim that their opponents are 'no different than Trump'. Hogwash. At this point, a moldy piece of bread is an improvement to Trump, but activists would convince you of otherwise. If this keeps up, Trump is on