This Weekend In Clarkland...The Distraction.

AccountabilityForEveryoneBut
UsVille


An official announcement from the Clarklandian Minister of Public Safety released last night, Friday November 18th at 7:03pm (i.e. less than one hour after a particular GlobalBC 'news' item):

The Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General Mike Morris has issued the following statement on the overdose crisis:

"I’d like to put a stop to the distraction from the deadly serious issue of our overdose crisis that has been taking place today, with regard to Premier Christy Clark's comments that we had a confirmed case of marijuana laced with fentanyl.

"As we’ve all heard from the Vancouver Police Department, this was reported in error, and we’ve also heard from the RCMP that the reports out of Masset earlier this week are also not confirmed.

"With that now clear, let’s move forward in our fight against this deadly drug. We continue to warn the public that any and all drugs can be tainted with fentanyl, including marijuana. We implore everyone to take this caution seriously as we are seeing an average of two people dying a day in this crisis in our province. Let’s turn our focus back to saving lives."

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'Reported in error'?

Gosh.

Was it not Mr. Morris' boss, Ms. Clark, that herself started the 'distraction' with her irresponsible fear mongering statement that was in direct contradiction of the actual indisputable facts from the VPD?

And was is not Mr. Morris' boss' office that, after Ms. Clark was called on it, doubled down on the irresponsible fear mongering by throwing out a so-called 'second set of facts' from the Masset RCMP that they themselves used in an attempt to convince British Columbians that the first set of indisputable facts from the VPD was incorrect?

Oh well, nothing whatsoever to see there, so let's just move on.

Right?



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Tip O' The Toque to NVG for the heads-up.
Again, I am not attempting to suggest that the fentanyl crisis is not real... I fully understand that it is life threatening for many of our most vulnerable citizens...My issue here is that our local proMedia continues to demonstrate that it is incapable of dealing with demonstrable falsehoods from our premier in a straightforward and consistent manner...And, to be absolutely clear, I find this inability to deal with such falsehoods, especially when they are clumsily camoflauged by the premier's own flack-hackery, to be particularly egregious when it helps provide cover for the fact that the premier is not dealing with the matters at hand in a substantive manner.  


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Was The Premier's False 'Laced Weed' Statement 'Disputed' By Vancouver Police?

IrresponsibilityIsJustThat
ProMediaVille


Just in case you missed it,  the following is precisely what premier Christy Clark 'claimed':

...“Vancouver police did a major seizure, they found cocaine with fentanyl, heroin with fentanyl, methamphetamine with fentanyl and marijuana with fentanyl,” she (Clark) said...


And the following is precisely what the Vancouver police department said in response to Ms. Clark's claim:

...In a statement to CKNW, Sgt. Brian Montague says the VPD has NOT seized any marijuana laced with fentanyl...


And, with those facts established, the following is what Global BC television anchor Sophie Lui said last night on the 6 O'Clock news about Ms. Clark's claim (see 7min 20sec mark, here):

"...The VPD disputes that claim..."

So....

According to the fine folks at Global BC there are no actual undisputed facts here because, clearly, they decided to tell their viewers that this whole thing is a flip-of-a-coinish "he said/she said" -type deal. And, most importantly, they did this without presenting any new evidence to suggest that Sgt. Montague's original statement was in any way incorrect.

All of which has me wondering why any thinking person would actually pay any attention whatsoever to this particular Lotuslandian proMedia outlet given that it has such a hard time dealing with demonstrable facts on the ground straight-up?

Seriously.

Why would they?


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Of course, Ms. Lui's he said/she said thingy was immediately followed by a 'the lacing is not beyond the realm of possibility'-type scare story from reporter Jill Bennett who herself stated that it was probably just old, inaccurate information that Ms. Clark was quoting from without providing any evidence that such old, inaccurate information actually exists.
And please, please, please do not misunderstand me...I am not attempting to suggest that the fentanyl crisis is not real and not really, really serious and often life threatening for many of our most vulnerable citizens...My issue here is that our local proMedia continues to demonstrate that it is incapable of dealing with demonstrable falsehoods from our premier in a straightforward and consistent manner...And, to be absolutely clear, I find this inability to deal with such falsehoods to be particularly egregious when it helps provide cover for the fact that our premier is not dealing with matters at hand in a substantive manner.
A Tip O' The Toque to reader ChuckS. for the heads-up about Global's (dis)treatment of this particular story.


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This Weekend In Clarkland...Why Do The Wizards Work So Hard On The Boozelblab?

WhatUs
GovernVille


This is why...

Link

In point of fact, I'm almost certain said wizards don't even care what is actually in the story as long as they get the deflector spin headline that kills all newscycles of substance over the weekend.

As for actual governance and policy?

Well...


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In actual hard (not cider) blogging news....Merv Adey and Norm Farrell both have excellent criticisms of the local puffed-up punditry up at the moment....Now, if you'll excuse me I'm off to watch my kid make music...Details, with sounds, to follow...


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This Friday Afternoon In Clarkland...The Double Down.

Hey!Where'dThatBCED
SupremeCourtRulingGo?Ville


With deflector spin phasers set to eleven, the PAB-Botian flack-hackery has doubled down on the "fentanyl-found-in-weed" claim from premier Christy Clark that was de-bunked by Lotuslandian police officials earlier today.

And to do so they went all the way back to that place they had their boss dump $150K off the back of a podium for no good reason at all...


That's right, Massett on Haida Gwaii, where the Horsemen are plugged right into all that is going on in the Downtown Eastside, apparently.

Mike Laanela of the MoCo has the follow-up story:

...The premier's office pointed to an RCMP warning last week that marijuana laced with fentanyl may be circulating in the Haida Gwaii community of Masset.

"Masset RCMP has reason to believe that there is marijuana available for sale in Masset that is laced with fentanyl," said the statement.

But Cpl. Madonna Saunderson told the CBC the warning was based solely on concerns raised by community members and there "was never any marijuana seized or handed to police" to back up the claims...


So.

Even when she makes stuff up out of whole cloth that very fine PAB-Botian army (that we pay for) will still attempt to cover for our good premier.

Gosh.

I wonder which way Mikey-Mike will go come Sunday?

(Update: Sunday Nov 20/16...Mr. Smyth of the Province did the right thing)

****

And as for the minister actually responsible for this type of stuff?

Well, he says that facts don't matter as long as you scare the crap out of people.

Or some such shadowy shadow of a possibility-type thing:

...​B.C. Public Safety Minister Mike Morris said on Friday that he hadn't spoken to the premier about where she got her information, but he said, even if there was no hard evidence, her message was worthwhile.

"I'm looking at it from a public safety perspective here, and if there's a shadow of a possibility that fentanyl can be laced into marijuana or any other substance that we have out there, we need to be as vocal and vigilant as we can to make sure people are aware of that, so that's where I'm coming from," he said...

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This Day In Clarkland...Word Salad Scare Tactics.

WhatMe
GovernVille


We've been watching this one build over the last few days, because we could see what was coming.

And now it has come to it's logical, at least from a Clarklandian perspective, conclusion.

Emily Lazatin of CKNW has the story:

Could pot now be laced with fentanyl?

That’s the claim Premier Christy Clark is making, as she takes her pitch for more help in the opioid crisis to Ottawa.

Speaking to reporters today, Clark said the toxic narcotic had turned up in pot seized by Vancouver cops.

“Vancouver police did a major seizure, they found cocaine with fentanyl, heroin with fentanyl, methamphetamine with fentanyl and marijuana with fentanyl,” she said.

It’s a worrying claim, but it’s also one that’s news to Vancouver Coastal Health’s Chief Medical Health Officer Patricia Daly.

“I can only speak for what we know in the Vancouver Coastal Region, and we haven’t had any reports of fentanyl contamination of marijuana here at this point,” she said...

{snip}

...In a statement to CKNW, Sgt. Brian Montague says the VPD has NOT seized any marijuana laced with fentanyl...

A real bonafide health crisis wherein concrete things could be done to start dealing with it right here and right now and the premier, instead of doing those things here and now, is just making stuff up to scare people?

Good grief.



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Of course, this crap could (and likely will) turn up anywhere in the future....But the point is that Ms. Clark just made up the stuff about the Vancouver police, specifically, finding it in weed out of nowhere, for the cameras...So, if the proMedia lets her off the hook on this point down the line we will remember and scream at them (again).

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This Day In Clarkland...Photo-Op Uber-Alles!

PolicyFreeGovernment
IsThemVille


Yesterday we noted how the BC Liberal government of Ms. Christy Clark has refused to take concrete steps to deal with the fentanyl crisis.

And look what our fine premier is up to today....

Imagine that!


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This Era In Clarkland: Why Government Inaction On Things That Matter...Matters.

WordSaladSpinnersandPhotoOpsDoNotFix
RealThingsVille


Please bear with me while I do something rarely seen around here (i.e. use political party material, straight-up), but I think there is an important point to be made based on the oft-repeated behaviour of our current provincial government. And, of course, this something you won't see discussed in any serious manner in the local proMedia once the horse race begins in earnest.

****

 
First,  there was this:

Link

And now there is this:

Link

Don't know about you all, but I for one do not want to see a fentanyl overdose graph that looks like the housing price graph at the top of the post come this time next year before something significant is finally done.

OK?

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And now for more up-close-and-personal news of the non-political kind.


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This Week In Clarkland...Is Something Happening In Quilchena?

SafetyDanceOr
HubrisVille


Monday evening I was waiting at the light at 16th and Macdonald and, like Bob Mackin before me, I was surprised in the extreme when I looked to my right and found the visage of the Clarklandian Advanced Education minister staring right back at me.

Hmmmm...

Starting a campaign in Quilchena, where Mr. Wilkinson by more than 40 points last time out, six months before the election?

Gosh.

Is there something in the tea leaves that we don't know about?

Or...

As Uncle Bob mused on the Twittmachine, is it just that the BC Liberals have so much crony money to spend that they can't help themselves?

Or...

Is it both?


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Update: There is a third possibility (which came our way from a reader offline who was only half-joking I think)...What if some wizardarian member of Marky Mark's Klout Klub has been leaning on the riding association to open things up for Madame Premier?...If so, how better to mark the territory for Mr. W?


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Everytime A Real Media Follow-Up Question Rings A Sparkle Pony Loses Its Wings.

HowToLoseYourClub
MembershipVille


Finally.

A real, out loud, follow-up on the immaculate conception of the flock of LNG Sparkle Ponies:

Gosh.

That's the kind of thing that could get the good Mr. Quinn and his MoCo colleagues removed from the 'friendlies' list.

Whatever would the Cluffmaster Flash do if that were to occur?


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This Day In Clarkland...The Media Party.

ThereIsA
ClubVille


Well, well, well...

The B.C. Liberals have announced Steve Darling, former morning anchor for Global television, as the party's new candidate for Burnaby-Lougheed...


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Subheader?....This.


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An Important Question The ProMedia Has Not Asked Ms. Clark About BCED.

FourteenYearsIsALongtimeForKids
InSchoolVille


In the face of our fine premier's propaganda blitz post-Supreme Court decision, Dipper MLA Claire Trevena asks an important question on the Twittmachine*:

****

My question in response to Ms. Trevena's excellent question is the following....

Why didn't Rob Shaw ask this very question of Ms. Clark during the Vancouver Sun's 'interview' with her on Friday?

And/or...

Why didn't Simon Little of CKNW also ask this question?

And/or...

Why didn't Jennifer Zielinski of Castanet.net also ask this question?


Seriously.

Why didn't any of them ask this logical follow-up question?


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*Presumably, Ms. Trevena used the Twittmachine to ask her question because she will not be able to do so in the actual...You know....Legislature.



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Guess Who Got The USian Election Exactly Right...In July.

PetsMeatOr
TrumpVille


Back in July Michael Moore wrote a post on his website in which he managed to see something clearly that all the pundits and all the pols could not.

He called the coming federal election exactly right:

...I believe Trump is going to focus much of his attention on the four blue states in the rustbelt of the upper Great Lakes – Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Four traditionally Democratic states – but each of them have elected a Republican governor since 2010 (only Pennsylvania has now finally elected a Democrat). In the Michigan primary in March, more Michiganders came out to vote for the Republicans (1.32 million) that the Democrats (1.19 million)...

{snip}

...From Green Bay to Pittsburgh, this, my friends, is the middle of England – broken, depressed, struggling, the smokestacks strewn across the countryside with the carcass of what we use to call the Middle Class. Angry, embittered working (and nonworking) people who were lied to by the trickle-down of Reagan and abandoned by Democrats who still try to talk a good line but are really just looking forward to rub one out with a lobbyist from Goldman Sachs who’ll write them nice big check before leaving the room. What happened in the UK with Brexit is going to happen here. Elmer Gantry shows up looking like Boris Johnson and just says whatever shit he can make up to convince the masses that this is their chance! To stick to ALL of them, all who wrecked their American Dream! And now The Outsider, Donald Trump, has arrived to clean house! You don’t have to agree with him! You don’t even have to like him! He is your personal Molotov cocktail to throw right into the center of the bastards who did this to you! SEND A MESSAGE! TRUMP IS YOUR MESSENGER!

And this is where the math comes in. In 2012, Mitt Romney lost by 64 electoral votes. Add up the electoral votes cast by Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. It’s 64. All Trump needs to do to win is to carry, as he’s expected to do, the swath of traditional red states from Idaho to Georgia (states that’ll never vote for Hillary Clinton), and then he just needs these four rust belt states. He doesn’t need Florida. He doesn’t need Colorado or Virginia. Just Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And that will put him over the top. This is how it will happen in November...


After reading the entire piece I could see that Moore was really saying that Trump would win by bamboozling desperate folks with hope.

And that hope thing is important to remember, I think.

Because, despite the ugly things that have happened over the last 72 hours, Mr. Trump did not win because he had the support of the racists. After all, he always had them, just like every Republican nominee has had all the way back to Nixon's southern strategy.

Instead, Trump won because he offered a relatively small group of desperate people in rural and exurban areas of rust belt states a little hope mixed with the rage.

At worst false, and at best misguided hope, sure.

But that 'hope' thing is a very different message than the one that is pouring out of TeeVee screens and hate radio at the moment.

OK?


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SubHeader?.....This.

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This Friday Night In Clarkland...The Cravening.

Fourteen
YearsVille


Earlier today we surmised that our fine Premier was going on the offensive in response to her much, much, much more offensive and concerted attempts to dismantle public education in this province over the last fourteen years.

And this evening came the coup de grace of all the craven spinification possible in a piece by Rob Shaw in the remnants of the local Postmedia print organs:

Premier Christy Clark says extra funding could be coming for the public education system following her government’s loss in a key court case at the Supreme Court of Canada.

Clark said the financial implications of the court ruling remain unclear, but the government anticipated the ruling and is ready to sit down with the B.C. Teachers’ Federation to negotiate.

“We’ve already put $100 million aside into this learning improvement fund which is in response to the expectation this is where we’d end up,” she said in an interview Friday.

“If it costs more money, that’s a good thing in lots of ways because it’s a good investment to put money into classrooms and our kids. The discussion then is going to be how do we go about allocating that.”

The premier said she remains optimistic about negotiations with the BCTF because “we all want to get to the same place, which is let us have class sizes that work and more special assistants.”...


No sign, at least in the piece of itself, of any follow-up from Mr. Shaw asking why Ms. Clark did not do this in 2002 when the stripping occurred at her hand, in 2004 before she ran away from GordCo, Inc, in 2011 when she became Premier/when the first BC Supreme court decision came down, before the 2013 election, after the 2015 Appeals court decision.

Sheesh.


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This Holiday Weekend In Clarkland...The Whiplash Pivot.

Fourteen
YearsVille


From Simon Little of CKNW:

Premier Christy Clark says she’s ready to sit down and negotiate with teachers over class size and composition.

It’s the premier’s first comments on the issue, since the Supreme Court of Canada issued a landmark ruling yesterday in favour of teachers in their 14 year battle with the province.

Clark says the province was prepared for the possibility of a loss.

“We all want to put more special needs teachers in classrooms, we all want to make sure that classes are the right size for kids, so I’m excited about that possibility we’ve got ahead of us,” she said...


Gosh.

I, for one, sure don't remember our fine Premier talking about finding the money for anything like that in 2002.

Or 2012.

Or before the 2013 election.

Or after that election and before her Fassbender-driven 'appeal'.

Or after the 2015 Court of Appeals decision.

Or, for that matter, even last week.

But as for private schools?

Including one specific private school that Ms. Clark is clearly connected to...

Well?


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And, just so you know, this bit of craven word salad spinning was NOT a one-off with CKNW...Instead, it looks like it is a concerted propaganda blitz in which the 'special needs teacher' is being used as a trope....The shamelessness of it is truly breathtaking.


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Teachers' v. CClark (And Friends)...The Day Ron Got A Wee Bit Too Obvious.

HindsightIsNot
ChichesterCathedralVille


"It’s difficult to overstate what a shattering blow the B.C. Court of Appeal’s ruling Thursday on classroom working conditions is to the B.C. Teachers’ Federation. The union didn’t just lose. It got thumped in unequivocal fashion...

{snip}

...The union will not win at the country’s highest court. It would be better off negotiating terms of a peace accord with the government."

Gary Mason
The Globe and (NoLongerEmpire Mail), April 30, 2015

****

That is all.

(for now)


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