Puffed-Up ProPunditry Predictions...Batting .333

WinningByBeingWrongSevenTimes
OutOfTenVille


Last week, when Ms. Clark did her big climb down on union-busting for the cameras we made a few predictions about how the pro-punditry, local Lotusland division, would react.

Luckily, the Dean of the Legislative Press Gallery didn't let us down when he provided us with his insider-accessed baked cake takes of sober second helpings in the pixel pages of the videoized VSun:

...In briefing reporters Monday, Tom Sigurdson, executive director of the B.C. Building Trades, speculated that Hydro wants a free hand to bring in temporary foreign workers. He also expressed disappointment that there was no allowance for a quota of apprenticeships on the (Site C) project.

As Sigurdson told it, Hydro first briefed the building trades about its intended rules for Site C a year ago. The construction unions objected to what they regarded as a departure from a decades-old cooperative approach. Starting with Premier W.A.C. Bennett in the 1960s, hydroelectric projects were subject to single-site agreements to reduce workforce conflicts, coupled with no-strike guarantees to contain costs and maintain construction schedules.

But rather than going public with those concerns in the current political climate, the building trades instead tried to use their new-found political leverage with the Liberals...

{snippety doo dah}

...Making the most of the entree thus earned, the building trades met with cabinet ministers and the caucus of government MLAs in an effort to persuade the government to pressure Hydro to back off.

Sigurdson also described a face-to-face session with Dan Doyle, Chris Gardner and Neil Sweeney — respectively the premier’s chief of staff, principal secretary (meaning, chief political adviser) and deputy minister in charge of corporate policy...

{snippety doodle-dandy}

...Jobs Minister Shirley Bond said the building trades had been treated to a “very important listening session” by the caucus and cabinet. But confirming that it had not been a “heeding” session, she then defended Hydro on Site C: “They are looking at a model that offers more flexibility. ... we have to make sure that these projects move on time.”

Privately, the Liberals speculated that the building trades were nostalgic for the closed-shop days of the 1960s and 1970s, when the unions had a near-monopoly on all major construction work in B.C. Currently, only about 20 per cent of the workforce is still unionized...


As for Ron Obvious and Mikey Mike?

Well, they skipped the story entirely after they were temporarily blinded by the still blazing smile of the indomitable pitchman who, as near as we can figure it, hopes to sell us all a Honda Fit with our first 10 pack of Compass cards in the wake of a successful win by the wizards running the Yes side of the Translink Referendum Shufflebus.

Or some such thing.


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So...Here's a question I sure do wish the mighty triumvirate would ask the good Ms. Clark, or even her man Mr. Doyle....When, exactly, did the good folks from Premier's office meet with Mr. Sigurdson given Ms. Clark's last minute (alleged) climb down on all of this?
And how can you not weep at the feet of the weirdly wired wordsmithing of the unsinkable Shirley Bond?...After all, we really do have to keep those trains....errrrr...projects moving on time at all costs, right?



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