This Day In Snookland...Let The Shinying Begin.

Heeeeerrrres...
Gregor!Ville


First out of the gate with the 'news' of a new shiny object for the Lotuslandian proMedia to focus on, post-Horgan walk-away was, it would appear, Sunny Dhillon of The Globe:

...(Vancouver mayor Gregor) Robertson was in New York last week for a mayoral summit and will next month lead a delegation of business leaders to China. After the speech he told reporters he’ll look for opportunities to partner with Chinese companies and attract investment into Vancouver.

He also, after again being asked, insisted he’s not interested in the B.C. NDP leadership...

****

Meanwhile, the Dean actually spoke to Mr. Horgan, kinda/sorta. And in the bet-hedging that ensued Mr. Palmer floated an idea that reader scotty-on-denman had already suggested in the comments to a previous post:

...(I)f the party executive opted to hold off the (leadership) vote until 2015, Dix might continue with his intention to step down next year. In that event, John Horgan could be on the short list for interim leader.


Imagine that!


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For the record, the denizens of the PacificGazette's subterranean homesick bluesroom  (i.e. the Whackadoodle and me) actually like the interim leader idea...
And, in news that actually matters (that I missed because I've been climbing in and out bloody cigar tubes), the Snooklandians are STILL NOT funding the Therapeutics Initiative.
Interestingly, last night the cigar almost had to land in Seattle because of the dreaded, get this....Fog!....Apparently, those old Mulroney/Schreiber buses just aren't equipped for flying through pea soup.



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Did Mr. Horgan Just Clear The Tracks For...

...Eby?

I dunno for sure.

And, regardless, I'm pretty sure the punditry will focus their attention on a shiny thing called Gregor for a news cycle or three.

****

But this I do know...

Horgan would have been a heckuva premier.

And I think he would have been a fine, not to mention feisty, campaigner.

But there is all that 'old guard' baggage to consider.

Which just might be telling us something about the extent of the coming changing of that old guard.

Which could, I think, really and truly be a good thing electorally.



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And don't forget - I'm no party insider....So those of you who are may want to have a go of it in the comments...

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This Month In Snookland....Bring On The Bush Ranger Action Heroes!

There'sNoTullInThis
JethroVille


Yesterday, we noted that our fine Premier is getting together with Alberta's finest to talk pipelines 'n stuff after a November 5th Vancouver Board of Trade Mtg.

And, guess what...

An even finer fellow named Ian Anderson from Kinder Morgan's northern branch plant is going to be there too.

Along with, at least according to the Board of Trade's website, a couple of other shadowy men (and/or women) from a shadowy planet:

Imagine that!



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What's with the Bush Ranger action-hero stuff in the header you may be asking?.....Well...You know....Golden Era history...Who needs it!


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This Day In Snookland: We All Say Things To...

...Get Elected.

First there was this...

"We all say things when we are trying to get elected." 

Christy Clark Excusing Her By-Election Candidate's Outrageous Statements

Sept 21, 2012

****

Then there was this...

Alberta Premier Alison Redford met with B.C. Premier Christy Clark on Monday over the Northern Gateway oil pipeline project, and both women agreed the meeting was unproductive and “frosty.”

“Well, I'm an Albertan and when you talk about sharing Alberta's royalties with other jurisdictions, things tend to get a little bit frosty,” said Redford...

{snippety doodle-dandy}

...“We’re about the environment and there is no price that can be put on protecting our environment in British Columbia — there is none,” said (BC's [not] Premier Christy) Clark on Monday...

Ms. Clark Goes To Calgary

Oct 1st, 2012

****

And now, finally (and inevitably?), there is this...

B.C. Premier Christy Clark and Alberta Premier Alison Redford today released the terms of reference guiding their joint working group to open new energy export markets.

The two Premiers also announced they would next meet in Vancouver on November 5, following Premier Redford’s address to the Vancouver Board of Trade...

Province of Alberta Press Release

Oct 15, 2013

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All The Leaves Are (Not Quite Yet) Brown...

...But This Is The Last Sunflower.

Meanwhile, while she wasn't here for Thanksgiving, Bigger E. had a big dinner of her own with Turkey and, apparently, three, count 'em Three!, homemade pies.

Oh, ya....

And she also had time to put together this version of Wagon Wheel with her friend Y, down in the St. Laurent Metro Station:

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Actually, truth be told (assuming it was not a rigged scene), we actually saw photographic evidence of the remainders of the pies on the Skypemobile the morning after...
And, just so you know, the leaves on Karen's tree never listen to The Mamas and the Papas...



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Are Canadian Workers Once Again Training Temporary Foreign Workers...

...To Take Their Jobs?

Alison thinks so.

And she makes a pretty good case that it's happening in Tar Sands country:

Fort McMurray Today reports that 270 unionized welders and pipefitters contracted to the Husky Sunrise tarsands project were laid off and replaced by cheaper temporary foreign workers from Mexico, Ireland, Portugal and Italy.

Husky says their work was over but a commenter under another article who was a worker on the site disputes this :

"The work contracted to Black and McDonald was no where near complete. We had to conduct a handover to Saipem (a mostly Italian workforce), detailing to them where we had stopped work so that they may continue. In the final week, Saipem foreign workers were actually in the facility working side by side with us; a very uncomfortable situation for those of us about to be laid off."

****

Meanwhile, Alison also notes that Blair Leckstrom is doing his very best to become a vision of derision straight outta something from our Neil:

Got a man of the people, says keep hope alive... Got fuel to burn, got roads to drive...


Why?

Well, it turns out that the former member of Gord's Golden Minstrel Ministry has gone to work for HD Mines.

Yes.

That's right.

That HD Mines:

Months after controversy gripped a Chinese-backed company's efforts to bring in temporary foreign workers to mine coal in British Columbia rather than hire Canadians, newly surfaced documents show the federal government granted a key dispensation to a different, similarly Chinese backed B.C. project to hire nearly a hundred workers on the basis that they spoke Mandarin.

The project that drew criticism and court challenges in the fall was HD Mining's attempt to hire 201 foreign workers for its Murray River coal project near Tumbler Ridge, B.C. Newly revealed Services Canada files show that a partner company in HD Mining was itself given permission to bring in almost 100 foreign workers after listing Mandarin as the sole language requirement...


All of which is just another way of letting you know that, if you are not visiting Alison's 'Creekside' regularly, you are missing a lot.


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Passage about HD Mines 'criteria' for workers to work in British Columbia mines is the lede of a solid, well-researched story by Jeremy Nuttall last spring in The Tyee.


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Hey, Ari...Mullah Boehner Just Called...

....And He's Got A Deal For You And Yours.

From just one of a billion 'both sides do it' HR Puff-'N-Stuff fluff pieces that are (really, really) hurting America:

...President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, spoke on the phone Friday afternoon after the latest Republican offer, a modified deal for a short-term debt limit hike that sets up a framework for negotiations on a bigger budget deal...



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Who's Ari?....Well, in case you've forgotten he used to shill and fling the swill for these two finest  of the fine, fine fellows...And we all know how that turned out, right?


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This Week In Snookland: Nevermind The People's Business*...

...'Cause I'm Shillin' For Shell!




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*aka....The British Columbia Legislature


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There Was No 'Gimme, Gimme' For Young Gump Worsley.

AllTheWorld'sAPoint
SearsCatalogueVille


Former New York Rangers, Montreal Canadiens and Minnesota North Stars goalie Lorne 'Gump' Worsley entered the Hockey Hall of Fame a long, long time ago, in 1980.

But it was only this past weekend that Mr. Worsley was finally inducted into his hometown 'Point-St-Charles Hall of Recognition.'

His daughter Lianne told the Montreal Gazette's Stu Cowan that he would have been ecstatic about the latest honour:

“He would have loved this … he would have been really, really happy about it,” Lianne said about her father. “It’s too bad they didn’t do it when he was still alive, because he would have been there with bells on. He loved the Point.”

But here's the thing...

After the Gumper had finally given in to his fear of flying that was made, way, way worse by expansion and ended his playing days in the early '70's he still returned, with his growing brood, to the Pointe from time-time:

...“When we used to get too cocky at home, if it was: ‘I want, gimme this,’ he would say: ‘Get in the damn car.’” Lianne recalled. “So he’d pile the kids in the car and he’d drive us to the Point and then he would tell us how when he played hockey as a kid outside that they had to use road apples and that they had to use Sears catalogues as pads, ‘So don’t you start with the gimme, gimme, or I’m just going to give you a Sears catalogue.’...

All of which got me to thinking about one of my favourite John K. Samson song-poems of all time...

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And in case you were wondering....Stu Cowan also had a companion piece last week explaining how Gump got his nickname.

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This Day In Snookland...The 'L' Word.

YouKeepOnUsingThat
(Clean)WordVille


Based on the pre-game, leak-assisted wurlitzering that was Mike Smyth's column yesterday, it would appear that the Fazil-assisted Snooklandians are gearing up to play the 'Let's All Pitch-In And Fix Our Oil Spill Problem' card in the upcoming newscycle or four.

But anyone who has been paying even the slightest attention knows that our woeful spill response capability is very, very old news indeed.

Instead, the newer (non-Malaysian) 'energy' news is about the cleanliness (or lack thereof) of Christy Clark's herd of LNG  sparkle-ponies  that was broken by Justine Hunter of The Globe last week.

First, there was Ms. Clark's reiteration of the very carefully parsed 'clean' pitch of uber-fauxiosity:

...“My commitment is to have the cleanest LNG facilities in the world,” Ms. Clark told an editorial board meeting of The Globe and Mail on Tuesday.

The Premier has made that promise to British Columbia repeatedly, a commitment that could have repercussions for natural gas producers if it applied to extraction of the raw resource.

“We have set a goal to have the cleanest LNG in the world,” the Premier told the World Economic Forum in Tianjin, China, last year...


Then came an attempt to obfuscate obtusely when it came to the reality of the thing, also straight from the mouth of the  'Say Anything' Premier herself:

...(Ms. Clark) clarified on Tuesday that she never intended for that commitment to capture the emissions produced upstream.

“We don’t produce LNG in the northeast, we produce natural gas. We will produce liquefied natural gas in the northwest, so that’s what we have been talking about,” she said. “There is no ‘L’ in LNG until it gets to Kitimat or Prince Rupert.”...

Jeebuz!

Does Ms. Clark really think the world will swallow her codswallop that 'upstream' frack-gas from the North-East will suddenly become 'clean' just because it has been shipped to, and then liquified in, the North-West?


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What Real Editorial Pages Editors Should Do Every Single Day...

PostMediaDemonstratesItReallyCanDo
BetterVille


...Is write stuff like this:

...(T)hrough it all, the response of the Conservative party has been either spin (in the case of in and out), stubborn support (Del Mastro, Penashue), silence combined with juvenile deflection (robocalls) and even, a judge found, outright “trench warfare” to prevent the courts from looking into allegations of electoral fraud.

In short, every election since Stephen Harper became prime minister has been associated with some Conservative battle with Elections Canada, some scandal over broken rules.

It is hard not to wonder whether Harper’s Conservative government has a problem with Elections Canada...

Now.

The above passage was written by Kate Heartfield, the current editorial pages editor of the Ottawa Citizen.

And it came just below her lede, which consisted of a concise short re-cap of the various and assorted sundry 'difficulties' that Mr. Harper and colleagues have had with Elections Canada over the years (although Ms. Heartfield did miss this one).

More importantly, Ms. Heartfield then provides a detailed, data-backed analysis of the 'difficulties' (and more) before she finishes with the following bit of 'anti-false equivalency' conclusion making:

...Stephen Harper is not a corrupt politician in the old sense, and he does not run a corrupt government. Compared to his predecessors, there is little of the cronyism, featherbedding, influence peddling and so on that has been the hallmark of traditional political corruption in Canada. This helps explain Harper’s substantial appeal to the middle class.

Yet Harper’s Conservatives have shown themselves willing to twist the rules into whatever shape is necessary to win. To spin. To control information. To push all possible boundaries, from prorogation to questions of privilege to manipulation of electoral law.

Combine that with enormous stubbornness and unwillingness to retreat, and you have what is starting to look like an unsettling disdain not just for the “jackasses” in the electoral bureaucracy, but for the democratic process itself...


This really is editorial page writing of the finest kind.

And it deserves to be lauded as such because it both informs the public and puts public officials on notice that they will be held accountable for any and all fast ones they try to pull based on the actual evidence at hand.

And that's we need a whole lot more of around here.

OK?

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This Day In Snookland...Ms. Clark Goes To Washington.

Nice shot of the Capitol Dome in the background....

Gosh.

Can't help but wonder how long will it be before 'attended' Congress starts showing up in the good Premier's bio.

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US Government Shutdown: Speaking Truth To The Crazy...

...By The Craziest Of Them All

Catherine Thompson of Talking Points Memo has the story. Here's her lede:

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) on Wednesday said she wasn't worried about Republicans caving to pressure to end the government shutdown because "this is about the happiest" she's seen her conservative colleagues in a long time...

{snippety doodle-dandy}

..."This is about the happiest I've seen members in a long time, because we see we are starting to win this dialogue on a national level," she said.

As the House debated a short-term government funding bill over the weekend, Bachmann told the Washington Examiner that she and other conservatives didn't fear a government shutdown because they viewed it as a chance to block Obamacare...

****

Meanwhile,  Jay Rosen (whose 'Press Think' is now on the Blogcrawl) gets to the heart of the matter about the real reason this special brand of 'Ted Cruz Crazy' just keeps on keepin' on (gettin' worse).


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This Day In Snookland: SNC Lavelin Comes To....

...Qualicum?

That's right sportsfans.

And it looks like consultants are wild.

As for zero-based budgeting?

Not so much.

The Oceanside Star has the story. Here's their lede:

Qualicum Beach council Monday awarded a contract for $99,993 to SNC Lavalin to do engineering and science work for the town's Waterfront Master Plan.

The town has a $150,000 Gas Tax Innovations Fund grant to develop the plan. Planning director Luke Sales explained that they set aside $100,000 for Phase One of the plan and $50,000 for Phase Two, which will involve more public consultation.

Coun. Bill Luchtmeijer noted that the four bids received on Phase One were all just under $100,000 and wondered if they would have been lower if staff hadn't revealed how much they had to spend.

However Sales and engineering director Bob Weir said their approach was to say, "What can you give us for $100,000," and they feel the resulting bids represented good value for the town.

Their report to council said that even though SNC Lavalin's bid was highest (the four bids were separated by about $3,700), "SNC Lavalin set itself apart through an excellent work plan, a clear understanding of local coastal conditions, and a deeper portfolio of previously related work in the region."...

Hmmmm....

SNC-Lavelin setting itself 'apart' from the rest.

Rumour has it those fine folks are very, very good at that.

In certain jurisdictions at least.


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Why Does The Tea Party Hate Biomedical Research So Much?

ShutDownEverything
TeddyGoneWildVille



The above image showed up on the homepages of the lab web browsers this morning.

PubMed and the other NCBI databases really are teh Google (and more) of biomedical research.


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