Tuesday, April 05, 2016

Super-Secret Big $$ BC Liberal Hook-Ups (ctd)...The Shiny Bauble.

There'sNoSpinLike
DeflectorSpikeSpinVille

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Lunchtime Tuesday: Please see the mama mea culpaish update at the bottom of the post
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While (an intensely media scrutinized) Kathleen Wynne was promising to actually do something about her own Super-Secret Big Dollar Hook-Ups, I watched British Columbia's BC Liberal government throw-out its first shiny bauble designed to distract the Lotuslandian media yesterday morning.

It looked like this:



And, voila, by 8:00pm last night they had their first fish on the line.

It looked like this:



And it read like this:

In a decision that the B.C. New Democratic Party shared only with federal regulators and its environmental supporters, the opposition has officially rejected the proposed Pacific NorthWest LNG plant near Prince Rupert, saying plans for an $11.4-billion terminal on Lelu Island would generate significant greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and threaten the important Skeena River salmon runs.

The decision creates a clear political wedge now as the B.C. Liberal government has championed Pacific NorthWest LNG. The project, led by Malaysia’s state-owned Petronas, is awaiting a decision from the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency (CEAA). In a letter to CEAA dated March 10, B.C. NDP Leader John Horgan and his environment critic George Heyman said the project is deficient because it threatens juvenile salmon habitat and would increase the province’s GHG output by 8.5 per cent...



With only the briefest of mentions, of course, of whence the shiny bauble arose:

...Tom Sigurdson, executive director of the BC Building Trades Council, was in Prince Rupert to talk with First Nations leaders about LNG job opportunities on Monday when he learned of the NDP’s position only after B.C. Liberal caucus staff circulated Mr. Horgan’s CEAA letter...


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Meanwhile, this morning, as the fundraising numbers have come out showing the BCL banging the BCNDP like a gong on the backs of big money donors, Cookie Dough Mike says there will be no ban on big corp/union donations as Vicky Huntington and Dippers are calling for because the Dean-approved real-time reporting (that does absolutely nothing) will do just fine thank-you....It's like the entire province is a company town and Ms. Clark is their agent...Gosh...Wonder when she will raise the price of a can of corn in the company store into the stratosphere along with MSP, ICBC, Hydro and every single user fee you can possibly think of? 
Please note: In the original version of this post I had said that there was no mention in Ms. Hunter's piece about the source of the shiny bauble. I was wrong. Although, in my defense the mention was so brief (and, of course, it did not raise the matter of its timing) that I can only hope not everyone will decide to place this blogger all the way over to the right side of the idiot spectrum (or should that be left?...Sheesh)...


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12 comments:

Anonymous said...

what no beer/liquor announcement?
trip to Panama perhaps/

Anonymous said...

If Horgan and the NDP are smart, they should be banging the electorate over the head with simple ads starting NOW showing the BC Liberals and Christy as "bought and paid for" by corporate interests.

Take that "Chrispy Crunch" cereal ad and multiply it by a hundred -YouTube a-go-go.

This issue dovetails nicely with the BC Liberal lack of integrity issues (email deletion to avoid FOI, etc.)

Examples abound: Imperial Metals/Mt Polley spill, Bourke Mtn land sale to developer BC Liberal friend,IPP sweetheart contracts to connected BC Liberals who have now flipped the ownership on for big profits, etc.

Horgan also has to have the balls to stop any similar fundraising by the NDP a la Bernie Sanders or this strategy won't have a leg to stand on.

Warren White
Gordon Head, Victoria

Anonymous said...

Excellent comment above. Horgan, has to strike now, while the iron is hot. Of course the Libs will use any issue to deflect the malfeasance issues, emails, FOI issues etc.
Get rid of the neo-con corruption clowns asap. We need real, equitable, managed and non corrupt governance in B.C., not the corrupt kleptocracy currently in power.

Anonymous said...

John Horgan stated on Voice of BC in December that (paraphrased) "Lelu Island was about the worst place to put an LNG plant" based on Lax Kwalaams opposition, salmon fishery issues at the Skeena mouth, and so on. The letter to the CEAA followed in March. Everything is timing with this bauble. Justine Hunter is usually more diligent with respect to context.

BCLibs have a right to say Horgan's NDP is against the PNW project, but not to say this is news. - Merv

RossK said...

Merv--

The BCL can say whatever it wants and release any press release it wants.

It is the local press' job to understand what is really going on when they see the shiny baubles.

Heckfire.

I don't even care if they reach out for said baubles, but they should at least turn them over, read the fine print about where and why there made and then tell us about that too.



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Lew said...

As Merv says, this isn’t news. As Les Leyne reported in the Times Colonist two months ago, “The declaration is also a bit of a departure for the NDP, since it amounts to a definitive no on at least one LNG project.”

Ms. Hunter and the BC Liberals now belatedly take a definitive no for an answer because as they both say in (separate?) articles, it’s “official.” Fancy that. What a surprising and timely bauble of babble.

The reference to Tom Sigurdson unsuspectedly talking with First Nations leaders in Prince Rupert about LNG job opportunities is interesting. What opportunities are those, pray tell? The article reads as if the First Nations and the BC Building Trades Council were all set to put people to work on a passel of LNG jobs until the dastardly NDP put them all out of work. Which was the intended distraction of course, but the least Ms. Hunter could do is tell us specifically what jobs were being discussed, and whether they or the tradespeople contemplated have yet been born.

RossK said...

Lew--

'Bauble Of Babble'.

You know I'm going to swipe that one, right?

All snark aside, excellent point about the specificity of the 'jobs' being discussed, which is something that always seems to get lost in the shuffle of this never ending game of three-card Monte


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occasionaljustus said...

I always enjoy it when commenters say the NDP should start right now taking on the BCLibs in ads. As if this is a new idea, and hasn't been thought of by NDP strategists.
Because the NDP must have lots of money, right? That's why my inbox is full of pleading emails from them asking for more money?
Let's assume those offering this gratuitous advice also offer to pay for the ads!
(As a former official agent for an NDP constituency campaign, I can assure readers they would probably be astonished by how few people actually finance our party.)

RossK said...

JH--

Point well taken.

After all, the BCL banged the BCNDP like a gong, 3:1 in $ in 2015, mostly on the backs of big money donors.


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ron wilton said...

I think one possible reason 'so few people support the NDP' is because when I thought I donated to Horgan I was quite surprised that my donations actually went to the federal NDP and I have been inundated by federal requests ever since.

I want my money to go 100% to unseating Clark and the faux Liberals and I do not wish to support a federal party that is right of the present governing federal party.

I will gladly support Horgan but only if it is 100% to Horgan.

Justus Havelaar said...

Ron Wilson: Here's how it actually works:
The federal NDP and provincial NDP have no financial ties. Money given to your provincial constituency (MLA) is split with the provincial NDP. Money given to the provincial NDP is split with your provincial constituency.
Money given to the federal NDP goes to the federal NDP. Money given to your federal NDP constituency (MP) stays in your federal NDP constituency.

RossK said...

Thanks for the clarification Justus--

I would agree with Ron that the fedDippers are way too aggressive with their badgering once they get a whiff of a possibility that you might contribute.

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