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.

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

One of the most outrageous lies told by the anti-reform folks is that 'proportional representation' will trigger the arrival of extremist politicians. That is a lie. Voters choose the parties they wish, they get the government derived from the ballot box. Its fair to suggest that our current system has done more to hasten the arrival of more extreme politics than the option of changing the system. As evidence, it was under FPTP in Canada that thanks to the regional concentration of the right-wing separatist BQ in Quebec, a party with no more than 12% of the popular vote nationally became Her Majesty's Official Opposition in 1993' this is despite the former PC party winning a significantly larger share of the popular vote, but spread out across the nation so that they lost all but 2 seats. Equally, the regionally concentrated, ultra conservative Reform Party in that same election went from one seat to 3rd party with over 50 seats despite a lower proportion of the p...

This is going to be uncomfortable for some, but if you voted NDP to "stop fracking" or shut down the LNG trade, then that's an unrealistic expectation and incorrect interpretation of their platform and if you're that person, you have yourself to blame. The NDP, in fact, has supported LNG. When in power in the 90's, they oversaw a significant expansion of the natural gas industry in the north east. It paid off too; billions of dollars in provincial revenue in support of healthcare and education, roads and highways, etc. Good paying, family supporting careers. Where the NDP differed significantly from the BC Liberals is where the Campbell/Clark gov't put so many eggs in one basket. Their policy narrative was that LNG would be bigger to BC than oil would be to Alberta. This is the crux of their imaginary trillion dollar Prosperity Fund™ that never materialized. After destroying 30k private sector jobs in the forest sector because of ill thought out reforms, t...

Voters did not re-elect Christy Clark into another term of government. Voters did not elect the NDP into power. Voters did not vote for any 'coalition' arrangement. Voters elected a minority parliament, and by extension, told said MLA's to work together. NDP learned that lesson. Green Party learned that lesson. One (now former) BC Liberal MLA got that lesson. Christy Clark, Rich Coleman and the rest of the BC Liberal caucus did not learn. After the dust settled that produced the 43-41-3 legislature, two parties figured out that they were going to have to give a little on what they wanted in order to make government work. The BC Liberals had other plans. In one of the most cynical stunts ever, Christy Clark offered up a throne speech that mirrored much of what the NDP and Green Party had campaigned on. Oh, it wasn't because the BC Liberals had a change of heart, it was because they needed to pull at least one opposition vote away from the NDP/Green side to pas...

To be clear, I hadn't heard of the pending event until only last week. I consider myself at least an ally of women's rights and affiliated movements, so attending the march would have been an easy decision. Of course I would go. I could have though, relaxed at home, basking in the white male privilege that I enjoy by default. Its not that I haven't worked for the place and status I am at, its just that I am measured by a different yardstick than women and others. I am a single father who has care and control of his child well over half the time. I work full time, I'm a union activist and a partisan political activist as well. I manage, but its not easy to balance everything. I don't do it alone, I have friends and family that assist. Single parenthood is a struggle. Yet, because of my white-male-ness doing what millions of women do every day, I get accolades and 'atta-boy's' from folks who think the world of how I "get'er done". While t...

The BC Liberals have done something unique. They have managed to rake in an unprecedented sum of hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue from the overheated Vancouver Real Estate market while simultaneously crashing it with their new "Foreign Buyers Tax" (more after images) That escalated quickly. Toronto, your move. pic.twitter.com/SMX52TLUY8 — Donut Shorts (@DonutShorts) September 15, 2016 (cont'd) The BC Liberals are on their typical pre-election spending spree and promise making. Today it was their pledge to cancel the planned 4% hike to MSP premiums. This amounts to an extra $3 per month that won't be charged any more. Predictably, the governing party is making a lot of noise about this after having a rough go of it lately. They had been rightly skewered for increasing said premium by 100% since taking office in 2001. More recently, far more controversially, the government announced that while increasing the monthly allowance for disabled Britis...