Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Has The Leader Of The Vancouver Island Party Removed His SoCon Stripes?

SplittingTheVoteInADipperStronghold
WhoCouldPossiblyWantToDoThatVille


As Norm Farrell pointed out on the Twitmachine yesterday, the ostensible leader of the Vancouver Island Party, Mr. Robin Richardson, used to be a Fraser Institute guy.

So much so that the dear leader even wrote a book with the Big Muddy's main man Michael Walker.

Which is all fine, as far as it goes, given that the good Mr. Richardson describes his party as fiscally conservative.

But, according to CHEK News' Ben O'Hara, he also describes the party as something else as well:

...“We are fiscally conservative, socially progressive and environmentally green,” he (Richardson) writes...


Now.

Leaving aside the environmental thing for the moment, the bit above in bold is most interesting given that awhile back the Mr. Richardson tried to take the FedCon 'Alliance' party's nomination away from Keith Martin in Esquimalt because Dr. Martin was, at least in part, pro-choice.

The MoCo had the story back in the day:

...Alliance members in the riding of Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca will choose Saturday night between Martin and a more conservative challenger Robin Richardson, who opposes abortion.

"The opposite of 'pro life' is 'pro death'," Richardson says. "This 'pro choice' is just a weasely way out of it."

During public debates, he has argued that women who have abortions get diseases and die younger a claim that Martin has dismissed as "crap."...



So.

Do you smell what I smell?


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Please note the irony in Dr. Martin's description of Mr. Richardson's bogus claims about disease and death as a result of abortions given the short lived Canadian Reform Alliance Party monicker that was once associated with the pre-Steve party...
More later on the good Mr. Richardson's BCL-lovin' Stockboy connection...


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10 comments:

Anonymous said...

SH

Smell? No.

All I can hear is guttural moaning from the bcpoli bog, as the BC Beast births its next incarnation.

Anonymous said...

"Fiscally conservative" is codewords for "Neoliberal economics"

We'll have none of that anymore.

RossK said...

SH--

I'm of the opinion that this is a short-lived vote-hiving exercise that will disappear at 8:01pm next election day.

_____

Anon-Above--

Some of us will have none of it. And, while that group may be growing in size it is not universal.

It would appear that this group is trying very hard to be viewed as 'centrist' such that folks on the island that would never vote BCL but have just a wee bit of trepidation about the Dippers and/or Greens will think they have a new 'reasonable' home.

And, in places like, say, Saanich North and the Islands, even a thousand vote hiving could allow the Liberal to shinny up the middle.

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e.a.f. said...

how very interesting and thank you so very much for the information. And here I thought they might be wanting to split to get rid of Christy and the B.C. Lieberals. oh, well...........

Alison said...

Not corroborated yet but ...

http://www.pugetsoundradio.com/2016/06/21/ian-jessup-reported-c-fax-1070/

Talk Show Host Ian Jessop Out at C-FAX 1070
"A usually well-informed source passes along word that Ian Jessop has just been terminated at C-FAX Victoria.

The talk show host in the 1-3 pm slot M-F has in recent months had his show repeated daily from 6- 8 pm. So one would assume he had been held in somewhat high esteem."

Last broadcast from Ian was Norm Farrell talking BC Libs, LNG, BC Hydro, Site C, on June 20. Subsequent shows under heading "The Ian Jessop Show" have other hosts with no mention of them filling in or anything to explain Ian's absence. https://soundcloud.com/ian-jessop-cfax

Hope this is wrong.

Anonymous said...

SH @ Rossk:

I just hit myself upside the head.

Yup. So obvious. I've been Henny Pennying these last years, pointing fingers at the Trojan Horse that was Green (told ya so bcpoli leftists), that I didn't take in to account pretenders on the Mainstream Fright.

Scotty on Denman said...

The colonial flag of Vancouver Island was the ensign of the Hudson's Bay Company. Private interest has dominated the province ever since; the real culture of corruption germinated during confederation a few years after the the two Crown Colonies were joined.

Skulduggery: the Esquimalt-Nanaimo land grant---the east coast of Vancouver Island---was awarded CPR in return for building just 15 miles of track from Port Moody to the town of Granville (soon renamed Vancouver); that was some sweet deal for CPR even if it did have to build and maintain the E&N Railway in the bargain. The E&N Grant was one of the Terms of Confederation (another one of the terms, the Royal Proclamation of 1763 which guaranteed treaties to First Nations, was ignored until the mid 1990s).

The BC labour movement was inspired by immigrant miners from the UK. Labour strife culminated in the murder of union organizer Ginger Goodwin at Comox Lake. The movement continued to grow with the consolidation of diverse timber holdings and rise of large, integrated forest companies. Outside the capitol the Island was solidly socialist; when WAC Bennett railed against the "socialist hordes", he referred largely to Islanders. When Bennett's son Bill defeated the NDP's first governmen, public-sector unions had themselves ascended to prominence. During this entire time the Island consistently voted socialist.

I'd always associated the Island "separatist movement" with the dubious distinction of left-voting Islanders being consistently passed over by right-wing governments. The Island is neatly separate geographically and is culturally distinct from the Mainland, including, as it does, numerous "old hippie" enclaves and the entire homeland of the Nu Cha Nulth First Nation. Separation would then appear to make at least some sense aside from the fact that the Island was recognized as its own polity once upon a time.

But although the NDP still tops the polls on most of the Island, it's lost significant forest-worker support following the "War in the Woods", not to mention the industry slow-down as it transitions to lower-volume second-growth timber, and reallocates Crown timber to First Nations' treaty settlements and environmental protection. The NDP, being the author of these progressive policies, also reaped the reward of the thankless task: environmental puritans, never having had to find political compromise, condemned the NDP's policies as half measures and created their own party to advocate for their uncompromising position, the resulting Green Party garnering fringe-like electoral support---but just enough to split votes in favour of the BC Liberals in ridings that have morphed in recent years from supplying unionized workers to a vibrant forest products industry to supplying non-union service sector workers to new retirement communities, the inhabitants of which do not necessarily vote socialist.

The Island's culturally distinct from the Mainland but, taking the diminishment of left-leaning sentiment into account, it isn't nearly as distinct as it once was.

The NDP never supported the long-gun registry but was tarred for this by the same Reformers who still characterize First Nations in racist terms. Loggers who perceived First Nations' treaty claims as stealing their jobs, and who enjoyed hunting and therefore hated the long-gun registry, switched from NDP to Reform and BC Liberal.

If this VI Party calls itself socially progressive while harbouring antiabortion sentiments, what kind of claims, then, will it make about its professed environmentalism? What kind of voters would likely be siphoned off of the other parties?

Really, it just seems to get crazier all the time here. I mean, there used to be---still is in some people's minds---a Denman Island separatist movement. Maybe if it'd got off the ground we'd have gotten no ferry instead of a stupid cable-ferry. Wouldn't matter---we'd be a "separate" Utokia.

e.a.f. said...

thought of a new province comprised of Vancouver island was lovely. Bitterly disappointed it was suggested by a bunch of compulsory pregnancy people. Oh, well dreams come and go.

Too bad, it would have been nice to have a rail road running up and down the island. Hey Switzerland just opened a new 17 mile railway through the Alps at the cost of $16 billion. Makes trade easier. Goods and people move faster. Oh well, Scotty perhaps you can get that Denman Island separatist movement going and take Horby with you. Then start negotiations with Powell River and then invade Vancouver Island.

of course if the photo op queen is not re-elected we could find some measure of happiness. How about the Province of the Gulf Islands. We base the economy on growing weed, with weed wineries, sailing tours, and tolls for ships travelling past the islands to get to the Mainland.

Scotty on Denman said...

e.a.f.: Hornby has to come with us: we're joined at the slip.

Province of Gulf Islands? It's no joke: Islands Trust literature or media submissions would lead any casual reader to believe the "federation of local governments" is already possessed of some kind of sovereignty when, in fact, the Trust isn't even a charter government, let alone a sovereign one---it's a ministry department with an attendant bureaucracy that does its very, very best to look like a responsible government---"responsible" in the poli-sci sense. For example, many longtime residents harbour the illusion because, they argue, we vote for our two Trustees so the Trust must be a government, a view that often leads to misunderstanding and conflict ; however, the critical difference is that in responsible government the elected represent the people to the government whereas in the Trust case, the elected represent the Trust to the people. Put another way, responsible governments get their mandates from the people whereas, in contrast, the Trust gets its mandate from a piece of legislation. No Trustee is obliged to respect the views or wishes of this special kind of constituency---not even if those views or wishes were unanimous and stridently pressed.

At the risk of scorching this desert of dry poli-sci further, I should mention that the Commonwealth's first responsible government was inaugurated in the Crown Colony of Nova Scotia in 1858, some 170 years after its conception in the English Bill of Rights which defines it roughly thus: before the Sovereign can tax, fine and spend money, it must first get the approval of the subject from whom the money is extracted as represented in a popularly-elected assembly. Therefore the Trust may not tax and, as we local rebels successfully asserted a few years ago, it also may not levy fines---the threat of challenging a proposed "municipal-style ticketing bylaw" in court being sufficient in quashing the proposal. Constant vigilance must attend every form of governance---even wannabe-sovereign ones like the Islands Trust. (The "rebels" also successfully reminded the Local Trust Committee that their population-cap policy outlined in our Draft Official Community Plan offended the Charter Right of Mobility---again by threat of court action.)

e.a.f. said...

oh, god I'm sorry I led the conversation to the Island Trust. Had forgotten about it. Mother's been dead for so long.........Do recall her sometimes spitting those words out, Island Trust......
thank you for the trip down memory lane from some lane long ago on South Pender Island.