Botched English Bay Oilspill Resonse v.37...In Which Mary Polak Is Given Her Marching Orders.

DoNotPayAttentionToThoseWizardsAndPAB-Bots
BehindTheCurtainVille


It would appear that the wizards of Clarklandia have taken the full measure of the extended newscycle's longish tail and have decided, tentatively, that the way to make hay might just be to pivot and start paying attention to the bleatings of the unestablished and not-so credible idiots (i.e. bloggers).

In other words, it would appear that they have decided, at least for the time being, to start ignoring very finest of the fine folks and opinion makers like the Keef and start blaming the Coast Guard.

To wit, this morning's story in the Globe from S. Dhillon and J. Hunter. Here is their lede:

British Columbia’s Environment Minister has accused the Canadian Coast Guard of a lack of leadership, saying it took the agency that was supposed to be in charge of an oil spill on Vancouver’s English Bay more than a day to assume control.

The spill, which occurred last Wednesday, has revealed potential gaps in the country’s marine-response system at a time when major pipeline projects that would dramatically increase tanker traffic along the West Coast are being hotly debated. It has also spurred a round of finger-pointing among three levels of government...


Which takes, us way back into the depths of time (i.e. yesterday) to see which way the wizards might go next if this ploy plays well with the plebes.

What the heckfire am I babbling on about this time?

Well, here is the key bit of foreshadowing from those misty mountainish and hoppy times, in the form of J. Hunter's piece from Sunday evening that hit the streets in dead tree version on Monday morning:

...Ms. (Christy) Clark has repeatedly warned that B.C. is not ready for additional oil tanker traffic, and had demanded that Ottawa reopen the Kitsilano Coast Guard base as a starting point...


Hmmmmm....

That's some emphatic statement there, the one about Ms. Clark's previous 'demand' that Ottawa re-open the Kitsilano CG base, don't you think?

Not sure I remember things going quite like that.

I mean, wasn't Ms. Clark essentially backed-into a corner by hordes of irate rubes before she finally said stuff like, say, the following:

...“When they get to the outcome (i.e. increased oil tanker traffic in and out of Burrard Inlet), it’s going to have to include making sure that Kits Coast Guard base is reopened, and the outcome is also going to have to include a beefed up Coast Guard response up and down the coast” ...


Now, Ms. Clark said that in the early spring of 2013.

So...

What has the good Premier actually done since that time to ensure that her so-called 'demands' have been met since then?

And, finally, while we're on the subject...

What's up with the land that that the base used to be on?

You know that 'asset' that is currently under the control of Clarklandians.

Gosh.

Certainly hope it doesn't get sold to some big BCLiberal party donor(s) for less than appraised value to help balance Cookie Dough Mike's books.

After all, it's not like anything like that has happened recently around here.

Right?


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And why are we considering this latest move by the WizzesO'CLandia to be 'tentative', at least for the moment?...Well, if they were really sure that this is the right play we're pretty sure they would have had the word saladeer herself up there babbling on about it like, say, yesterday...Or even last Friday when she was still downplaying the loss of the Kits base in the schmozzle...
And I suppose, to be fair, in addition to a bunch of idiot bloggers, the Wizzes might also be paying attention to the real investigative journalistic-type work of Shane Woodford of CKNW who has refused to buy into the FedCon's Pravda on The Rideau-type efforts to change the channel on this thing from the beginning.


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