For Just A Moment There Last Night...

NotAllTheBedfellowsNeedBeStrangely

GreenVille

The map above is the current state of play as of Tuesday morning at 8:00 am Pacific.

But...

For a short time last night the Liberals were stuck on 164 and the Dippers had seven.

Which, given that 172 is a majority, meant that for a moment there Lizzie May actually held the balance of power.

Imagine that!



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And, coming back to reality...While all the punditry can talk about is the Dipper collapse, even if the guy I voted for, Don Davies, was to lose his 0.7% lead in Vancouver Kingsway, the individual NDP  survivors will very likely have more power now than they had in the last parliament given how the numbers are shaking out..

And, even more real,  in real politck terms at least,  is how much this Dipper 'collapse'  demonstrates that the progressive vote can make rational decisions when the whackaloons are at the threshold backed with a lunatic's tariff goonery.

And, of course, most real, at least in schadenfreude terms, is what happened in  'NoMoreConvoysInOurBackyardVille' (a.,k.a. Carelton).

Map at the top of the post is from the TorStar election tracking site...I found that one much more reliable and faster to update than either the one at Elections Canada or at  the CBC...



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My Morning Ride...Blossom Blizzard!

ThisAin'tNo
DQVille


Have fun seeing your neighbours while voting everyone.

And be nice to your poll worker.

The nice young woman at poll #66 in Vancouver Kingsway was fantastically efficient.

And I really dig the fact that the little piece of folded paper with the pencil 'X' goes into a cardboard box to be counted!




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Please Allow Us To (Not) Introduce Ourselves...

What'sPuzzlin'You
IsTheNatureOfTheirGameVille


Back in the dark arts electoral days of the Harper regime, the Conservative Reform Alliance Party (i.e. 'CRAP') was notorious for no-shows at all-candidate meetings.

And now, the Stealth-Cons are back!

In B.C. the most notorious avoider of public scrutiny appears to be one Mr Aaron Gunn, as chronicled by Andrea Bennett in the Tyee:

It’s a packed house at the federal all-candidates meeting in Powell River, with one very notable absence: Conservative candidate Aaron Gunn...

{snip}

After news reporting in early April resurfaced Gunn’s 2019 and 2021 social media posts denying that Canada participated in a genocide against Indigenous Peoples, he’s skipped all-candidates meetings and skirted more public appearances in favour of private and registration-only events...

Farther down island, Cindy Harnett of the Times-Colonist asked Stealth-Con Cathie Ounsted why she isn't showing up for all-candidate meetings in the riding of Saanich and the Islands:

...Ounsted said Tuesday the Conservative party would prefer that its candidates not participate in all-candidates forums, and while it’s not her preference, she needs to abide by the rules of the party, which means she will not attend an all-candidates meeting hosted by the North Saanich Residents Association at the Saanich Peninsula Presbyterian Church from 7 to 9 p.m. on Wednesday...

Gosh.

A Jenni Byrne-led campaign telling its candidates to avoid public scrutiny, en masse?

Whou'd-a-thunk it!


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LauraK of 'WMTC', who lives in the riding the good Mr. Gunn is running in, has more to say...Much more.




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Mr. Manning's Separatist Fearmongering Is Not New.

HeTalkedAboutUnbucklingThatOldBibleBelt
AndLightedOutForSomeDesertTownVille


By now you may have heard about, or perhaps even read, Preston Manning's screed that was published in the Globe (and no longer Empire) Mail earlier this month about how a vote for Mark Carney in the upcoming federal election will be a vote for separatism.

Here's just a wee bit:

...(L)arge numbers of Westerners simply will not stand for another four years of Liberal government, no matter who leads it. The support for Western secession is therefore growing, unabated and even fuelled by Liberal promises to reverse many of their previous positions. Such promises of expediency simply don’t ring true in the West. Who, except the most politically naive, would believe Mark Carney’s promises to reverse the Liberal positions on everything from east-west pipelines to identity politics and climate change, when standing behind him is a cabinet of 23 MPs who, just a month ago, were advocating for the very opposite and have done so for years?

The bottom-up support for Western secession – another one of those populist movements that central Canada has never anticipated or understood – is currently centred on Alberta and Saskatchewan. But it has the potential to spread to most of B.C., Manitoba and the adjacent territories depending on how it is organized and led...

The thing is, this is not the first time that the West's original 'Grievance Angel'* has used this tactic.

Case in point, here are the sage words of the good Mr. Manning in the run-up to the 2019 federal election:

The founder of what was the Reform Party of Canada is concerned that a pervasive level of alienation could leave the country more divided after next month's federal election.

Preston Manning, who channelled western alienation into the creation of the Reform party in 1987, told the Canadian Club of Calgary that there is a lot of anger across the country.

"Western alienation, fuelled by the downturn in the energy sector and political resistance to the free movement of petroleum across provincial boundaries to tidewater and world markets, is reviving western separatism, particularly in Saskatchewan and Alberta," Manning, 77, said Wednesday (September 25th, 2019).

"Separatist sentiment is also reviving in Quebec. The Bloc Quebecois is doing better this election than last time. And if the federal courts declare Bill 21 to be unconstitutional, then they're going to have another uprising in Quebec on that basis."...

Surprised?


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* With apologies to Emmylou Harris and the late Gram Parsons...
Speaking of Harris and Parsons, the cosmic ear worm in the subheader and the word play used to generate the mockumentous moniker for  malevolent Mr. Manning is...This!
As for the image at the top of the post.. The billboard  popped up at the side of Alberta's busiest North/South highway back in February...Here's an explainer that also contains info about the very fine group of separatist proponents that paid for it .

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One More Reason?

DeRegulateAndSelfRegulate

TillTheCowsComeHomeVille


One more reason to stay north of the 49th parallel?

Leah Douglas of Reuters has the story:

The Food and Drug Administration is suspending a quality control program for testing of fluid milk and other dairy products due to reduced capacity in its food safety and nutrition division, according to an internal email seen by Reuters.

The suspension is another disruption to the nation's food safety programs after the termination and departure of 20,000 employees of the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the FDA, as part of President Donald Trump's effort to shrink the federal workforce...

{snip}

...Effective Monday, the agency suspended its proficiency testing program for Grade "A" raw milk and finished products, according to the email sent in the morning from the FDA's Division of Dairy Safety and addressed to "Network Laboratories."

Grade "A" milk, or fluid milk, meets the highest sanitary standards.

The testing program was suspended because FDA's Moffett Center Proficiency Testing Laboratory, part of its division overseeing food safety, "is no longer able to provide laboratory support for proficiency testing and data analysis," the email said...

As Erik Loomis over at LGM notes, there is a reason milk and dairy products are rigorously regulated and tested in the States given the history of bacterial blooms and the use of formaldehyde to contain them in the previous guilded times of the 19th century.

Sheesh.


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Truth be told, this latest development reminds me a little bit of the days when we, up here, had a government/regime that favoured self-regulation by the titans of the 'bacterial-blooms-in-the-meat-cutters' industry.


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Which Currency Is Winning?

SomeAssetsAreBetterOthers
VladVille


In fairness, the Trump-driven decline of the greenback is not the only key here.

Mr. Putin is also winning this battle based on sky-high internal interest rates.

Meanwhile, Mr. Trump is now making noises about firing his Fed chair because said chair has so far refused to cut rates as the inflationary train rushes into the station.



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Tower Of Song (L. Cohen Cover)

AcheInThePlacesThatAye

UsedToPlayVille

Why this tune at this time?

Because, to riff off that old Michael Timmins lyric...

These days, more often than not, we olds have to work around how we feel when we're aching in those places mentioned in the sub-header.

Or some such thing...

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The story of the taking of the photo of the 'Tower of Len' at the top of the post is...Here.

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Resurrection Pol.

TheKloutKlubRidesAgain

KindaSortaMaybeVille


After the big 'unveiling' on Thursday we still don't know whose bag of money is paying for the attempted resurrection of British Columbia's Soccer Party.

Which, at this point at least, isn't too surprising.

However, we do know at least one the pols behind the curtain.

From Katie DeRosa's CBC piece:

..."We're here today because Kevin Falcon still refuses to resign as leader," said Kareem Allam, a political strategist with Richardson Strategy Group.

Allam worked on Falcon's leadership campaign in 2022, but publicly backed the B.C. NDP during October's provincial election.

He said the anger many still feel for the way Falcon unilaterally threw in the towel could be channeled into "momentum and energy that can drive into the centrist party."...

So.

I guess Mr. Allam deserves a few points for doing the right thing after Mr. Falcon sold out to the Whackaloons and refused to let go of the desiccated reins of GordCo 4.0.

But don't go making like Robin Zander and start humming 'We're all alright! We're all alright!" just yet.

Because Mr. Allam also ran the horses for Ken Sim's big politically expedient ABC win last time out in the CoV and then became the Sim Admin's chief of staff during its first 100 days. 

And those of us living here know how that has turned out.


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Klout Klub?...Well, after all, we're talking about a potential GordCo 5.0 here...And then there is the fact that, when he went 'rogue' after Mr. Falcon's Whackaloonery, Mr. Allam invoked the names of ....wait for it...Mark Marissen and Diamond Isinger as being involved in the 'political realignment' when he spoke to Olamide Olaniyan of the Tyee last fall.

For more on the good Mr. Allam's M.O. as a pol, including his, and I'm quoting here, 'deliberately provocative' approach to demographics, check out Bob Mackin's excellent 2023 piece.


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Soccer Party Resurrected?

InTheMiddleOfTheRoad
YouSeeTheDarndestThings


Well, well, well, whadd'ya know...

In a year, Karin Kirkpatrick has gone from political retirement to registered leader of a brand-new provincial party.

This week, CentreBC was listed as a registered political party, with Kirkpatrick listed as its leader.

“My team and I are pleased to see Elections BC has officially listed CentreBC as a registered political party here in British Columbia,” said Kirkpatrick, former West Vancouver-Capilano MLA with BC United (formerly BC Liberals)...

Now, how about details?

Apparently there are none for the moment but there is going to be a big launch party later this week.

Allegedly.

Personally, I'd like to know who and/or what entity would front the money for such a thing.


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Earworm in the Subheader?....This!
Pull quote is the lede of a story by Nick Laba of Glacier News.



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Vancouver Civic Bye-Bye Round-Up.

FifteenPercentTurnoutIsHigh?
WhoKnewVille


There was a by-election in the City of Vancouver on Saturday for two vacated councillor seats.

The results were very clearly progressive as Sean Orr of COPE and Lucy Maloney of One City won going away, garnering twice as many votes as the next candidate on the ladder, Colleen Hardwick of TEAM.

Of course, this is being viewed as a repudiation of Mr. Sims and his ABC colleagues by the CorpMedia coverage, such as it is.

Doubly interestingly, it looks like it was actually tenants flexing their muscle as the rights of those folks were a big part of both Mr. Orr's and Ms. Maloney's campaign.

Interestingly, it does not appear to have been a vote against the Broadway plan because, if it had been, Ms. Hardwick and her running mate from Team, Mr. Abbott would have done much better.



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The turnout was higher than expected which resulted in long lines at polling stations across the city...In our family of four everyone, all of whom voted separately at different stations, had to wait more than an hour...The underestimation of  the number of polling stations and polling staff required led to a public apology from the city manager...Despite all that, I'm happy to report that the staff at the Kensington Community Ctr.  processed us very quickly,  efficiently and good-naturedly late in the afternoon on Saturday, nine hours into the process (which, given the volume meant they must have been absolutely exhausted when the polls finally closed at 8 pm).



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Vancouver Civic By-Election Today...

OurMillionDollarBaby
1936Ville

There's a by-election for two city councillor seats in Vancouver today 8:00 am to 8:00 pm.

The candidates are listed here.

Dan Fumano's VSun profile of the party-aligned candidates is here.

You can vote at any community centre in the city - the map is here.

If you voted in the last election, you are automatically registered or you can register on the spot.

It's easiest if you bring two pieces of ID, one with a picture on it.



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Subheader explained?....This.

Image at the top of the post by Leonard Frank from the City of Vancouver Archives.



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HST Fridays....If I Had Any Money I'd Invest It In The Stock Market.

TheStockMarketDerbyIs

DecadentAndDepravedVille

...Money is a good thing to have in these twisted times. Even Richard Nixon is hungry for it. Only a few days before the (Kentucky) Derby he said, "If I had any money I'd invest it in the stock market." And the market, meanwhile, continued its grim slide...

Hunter Thompson, Scanlan's Monthly, June 1970.

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...Trump is crashing the stock market...This month...But he’s doing it on purpose...

Falsehood-riddled video promoted by DJ Trump, April, 2025.

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Image at the top of the post by the incomparable artistic sidekick and witness to the origins of Gonzo journalism, Ralph Steadman.

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Headline Of The Week...

HowThePressCanEffectivelyDealWith

LiarsVille


The following is from an opinion piece by Matthew Harper in STAT News:

...“There are adverse events from the (measles) vaccine,” (Robert F.) Kennedy (Jr.) said in a March 11 interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity. “It does cause deaths every year. It causes — it causes all the illnesses that measles itself causes, encephalitis and blindness, et cetera. And so people ought to be able to make that choice for themselves.”

The Infectious Disease Society of America says there have been “no deaths related to the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine in healthy individuals.” (Since the 1970s, the measles vaccine has been given in a combination shot with mumps and rubella to minimize the number of injections kids get.)...

And the headline above the piece?

This:

RFK Jr. says measles vaccine routinely causes deaths. That’s not true.

A good one, no?




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Nevermind The US'ian Hopium...The Numbers That Matter Have Not Budged.

It's(NotJust)The

EconomyStupidVille

If you stop by a place like this with any regularity whatsoever, I would hope that you are the type of person who likes to pay attention factually verifiable news.

And if that's the case, it is very likely that you understand that, based on numerous criteria, things have not gone well for the Trump administration since the presidential inauguration.

And, given all that, if you are also of a progressive bent you may susceptible to the punditry of a certain class of opinion maker (and/or James Carville) that says US'ian public opinion is finally starting to turn away from Mr. Trump, for real.

And while I agree with reader Grant G. that you can find numbers in certain polling subcategories, especially the economic ones, that might give you some hope that such a turn is actually happening, it remains the fact that the numbers that really count have not moved one iota since last November.

To wit:

Now.

If you have bothered to read this far you may be screaming at the screen that we should ignore the numbers above because they were generated a couple of weeks ago in the burned out, fact-challenged bloviating backwater that is Mr. Murdoch's TeeVee neighbourhood.

Except.

This:

Personally, I find this to be very scary because it suggests that things will have to get so bad that the overwhelming majority of US'ian's feel real pain before a meaningful turn finally comes.

And, regardless how high we Canuckistanians put our elbows in the air, if that happens, we too will be reaching for the extra strength painkillers.



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And don't start yelling in the comments about the big swing that happened in those congressional special elections in Florida because, given the turnout and the fact that only people like us (i.e. people who are actually paying attention) vote in those things, they mean nothing...As for the Wisconsin Supreme Court election result? well, that might be Musk rather than Trump specific...
On second thought, feel free to yell in the comments...I don't mind.



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