Pete's Viewpoint

To listen to the BC Liberals this morning about the good old days of the last 16 years is a step outside reality. They're accusing the NDP of taking BC backwards with the new budget. Nothing could be further from the truth. Its because the BC Liberals's mishandling of the real estate market that life became so unaffordable for so many. The NDP are out of touch with families & everyone trying to make a living in BC. With fewer homes being built, govt spending growing faster than the economy & punishing new taxes, BC is falling behind. We need a govt that believes in opportunity for all of BC. #bcbudget #bcpoli pic.twitter.com/BqG1Tvpiye — BC Liberals | Opportunity for all of BC (@bcliberals) February 19, 2019 What's worse, is that the government spending now underway is specifically to repair things neglected by the BC Liberals for their terms in office. From schools, teachers, healthcare, poverty and homelessness; everything was let to slide while they s

True to form, opponents of the new Employer Health Tax are leaping all over a report where the Victoria police chief states that his departments budget increase isn't large enough so he'll have to cut staff. Let's look at this. The city comes up with an additional $1.8 million and the EHT cuts into that by about $700k. So his effective increase is $1.1 million. Amiright? So, explain why this amounts to a budget cut of $1.1m? "Manak said council’s position would mean about a $1.1-million cut to the department’s core budget, including the loss of two officers working on integrated teams to help people with mental health and addictions issues" I get that politics are at play here, but if you're not going to deal in facts, then y'all need to sit down. My2bits.

Let me make something clear right away. I'm no Maduro supporter and I think his regime is no different than any other totalitarian regime elsewhere, except that they've mastered the art of pretending they're a functioning democracy where they are clearly not. It was a bold position to take when then Prime Minister Jean Chretien announced that our nation would not participate in the second Iraq with war along side George W. Bush. He was immediately demonized by Harper and the Conservative party, but the principal was right. Regime change is the domain of the oppressed to topple said regime. Once an external power intervenes (as America and UK did) they became the enemy. One can plausibly argue that this intervention is the spark that eventually created ISIS. But that is a debate for another day. So here we are with current US President Donald Trump arbitrarily appointing the opposition leader as "President" in Venezuela, and the nation's that opposed r