So you’ve gone and reelected your UCP to a second term in power tonight.
I’m not from Alberta, never lived there, but I can’t help but feel some disappointment for large swaths of your province.
Your government, headed by a science/medical professional skeptic who has pledged to undermine public healthcare is bolstered with a fresh mandate to burn the thing down.
By tapping into an undercurrent of distrust of the feds, wilful ignorance of constitutional law means another predictable clash with Justin Trudeau. A clash the UCP will almost certainly lose…then blame on the corruption of the eastern elite.
Nothing really changes. But the people will suffer. The Alberta healthcare system is in crisis too. But their solution is to attack the front line workers trying to get the job done. There’s profound consequences to this policy direction.
When it comes to oil and gas, as an industry, I fear for Alberta. They should be adapting now, not fighting against the winds of change. Electric vehicle manufacturing is on the way up; and the requirement to do so is a federal mandate. Not that it matters, it’s a change made by a vehicle manufacturing industry which will have a devastating impact to the oil patch.. because their government lives in denial. So now Alberta will put even more eggs into this basket. Must be nice when the price of oil is so high. This trend doesn’t last forever, by the way.
But, who am I to tell the Alberta voter they’re wrong? I won’t. You’ll get to discover that. One painful step at a time.
It was announced the other day that from the ballooning ICBC surplus, that the crown owned insurance company would send to policy holders a rebate of $110 for regular policy holders and $165 for commercial policy holders in response to record high gasoline prices.
The attack from the BC Liberals and their affiliated partisans was that the sum wasn’t enough. Others took an opportunity to politically eviscerate ICBC and the NDP’s reforms therein.
The NDP couldn’t be happier with this clumsy self-own from their political adversaries; and in doing so, the opposition made themselves out to be the elitist, corporate owned entity that they are. So much so that I predict they will be nostalgic for Andrew Wilkinson soon.
But first, some background on ICBC.
The Insurance Corporation of BC was established in the 1970’s BC NDP government under Premier Dave Barrett. The idea was that vehicle insurance should be a publicly held and controlled entity and that it should be provided at or near cost to the public.
It’s roll out was clunky to be sure and it we met with immediate hostility to a patchwork of private insurers at the time. Despite the chaos it was born from, its largely met its purpose, despite every effort by opponents of the NDP (Social Credit, BC Liberal) to hobble and dismantle it.
That is until the latter half of the last BC Liberal regime.
In the past, if there was a surplus in the operations of ICBC, it was utilized mostly to keep insurance rates low – or cap any potential rate increases. ICBC, like BC Hydro (for much the same reason) were the crown jewels in the BC advantage for residents and drivers.
The BC Liberals saw an opening though. They would direct both crown corporations to divert billions of dollars of their budgets to the provincial government as a backdoor tax increase – to increase revenue as other (‘trickle down’) ideas failed us.
They did this despite hobbling the operations of both crowns. In the case of BC Hydro, they were compelled to borrow the money for which the province claimed as income – creating a better bottom line budget number than what would have been revealed. For ICBC, this ‘dividend’ was taken regardless of the the plight of the insurance carrier and drained its reserve funds.
In both circumstances, world events and market conditions demanded that both crown corporations see some internal reforms so that they would remain solvent and viable operations into the future. The BC Liberal government went as far as commissioning a report to examine the operations of ICBC and what reforms were needed.
They had the information, they knew what to do. They failed to act. Not only did they fail to act, they attempted to conceal the truth from the public.
The ICBC dumpster fire is a narrative well told in BC’s political world, it partially led to the landslide re-election of the NDP in 2020 after a fluky minority NDP government that only took office with one seat parliamentary majority with the assistance of the BC Green Party.
Why is this relative now?
As a result of the ICBC reforms instituted by the NDP after 2017, the crown corporation now operates largely on a no-fault system. This cuts out much of the litigation costs; and more importantly, cuts out billions paid to trial lawyers who you can imagine are not impressed in the slightest. I mean, I can understand this to a point; especially if you’ve set up your entire legal practice based on the former ICBC adversarial litigation model.
For the rest of us, we saw this as a cash cow for lawyers that inflated premiums as ICBC had to pay awards – to clients and law firms…on top of everything else going on that shouldn’t be.
The reforms instituted by the NDP to ICBC has freed up billions; much has been returned to policy holders already. At least $1.4 billion has been returned and pledged (as of this last weeks announcement) plus a rate reduction last year of 20%.
Shouldn’t rate reductions and insurance rebates be celebrated? Of course. That this has been at all possible is quite a miracle compared to the direction ICBC was headed in 2017. Five years later, a large surplus – with billions going back to drivers.
Politically speaking, if I was a BC Liberal, I would avoid talking about ICBC at all – as the public will have a good memory their intentional, malicious ineptitude while handling this file.
So this was the time their MLA’s go on the attack?
The NDP could not have asked for a better opportunity to remind how badly the BC Liberals failed BC on ICBC.
In trying to score a drive-by smear that the NDP hasn’t done enough to help drivers, the BC Liberals inadvertently revealed their incompetence and why they should not govern..at all.
The BC Liberal approach is typical – lower gas taxes. This is modelled after what Alberta is attempting by suspending their own gas tax (cutting 13 cents per litre) to “lower gas prices” and provide relief.
good idea, huh?
The thing about this move is that it opened the door immediately for big oil to step up with price increases of their own.
WHOOPSIES
If you’re keeping track of this; cutting the tax as such, was a lateral transfer of money from government to big oil – that consumers still pay for…and may more for. There was no benefit to drivers at all; but exposed the BC Liberals as lackies to both big oil and irrelevant.
Even the notion they have floated about cutting the carbon tax (which they created) would suspend a one penny per litre increase slated for April 1. Same math applies, cut the tax, industry picks up the slack.
Gas taxes in BC are expressed in terms of cents per litre, so the BC gov’t makes no extra money if the retail price goes up. Only the GST (which is charged as a percentage) would increase its cash intake with a retail price increase.
Cutting BC’s various gas taxes would merely cut into provincial revenue; potentially harming the funding for programs which depend on said funds. We’ve already shown how industry would scoop up what the taxes would drop, so no benefit goes to the driver. This flawed ideology exposes the BC Liberals and almost every conservative politician pushing this narrative; a narrative that is a warm breath away from the proven failure of ‘trickle down economic theory’.
But, as General Napoleon Bonaparte once remarked – ‘never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake’.
Oh, they’re loud, and they’ll muster a gathering of supporters at the nations’ capitol as promised, but not likely in the numbers they’ve been promoting. Numbers – like half a million people, 50,000 trucks from across the country. Now I could be wrong with the numbers too, but it doesn’t invalidate the next point I’m about to make.
They’re about to step into the stupid-trap…and we’ve been warning them all this time that its going to suck.
They’re protesting a federal Transport Canada vaccine mandate rule for truck drivers entering Canada from the USA that they must prove their vaccine status or face up to 14 days quarantine.
Read it again.
The federal mandate speaks to drivers entering Canada. It does not regulate the vaccine status of a truck driver heading to the United States. They have their own mandate.
If the Transport Canada (“Justin Trudeau”) mandate disappears tomorrow, unvaccinated truckers from Canada will still be denied entry to the USA because of their right to set border rules.
So every truck with banners saying all sorts of profanity towards the federal liberals and Trudeau are again missing the mark.
This hasn’t gone unnoticed by the political people in high places too. There is a reason why the federal liberals are slow walking any sort of pushback – the clowns who have organized and fundraised off this effort are making themselves look like total idiots at a scale unseen in Canada before.
It will be worse than antivaxxers spitting at nurses, throwing rocks at the Prime Minister. Imagine driving your rig 3000km to Ottawa to protest the actions of the wrong government.
Of course, this all links back to the garbage arguments made by a tiny handful of folks that the vaccine(s) aren’t safe, or that covid is fake. Well shut the fuck up about that. Unless you’re sporting the qualifications of a medical doctor or virologist, this ain’t your ballpark to render ‘professional’ opinions on the matter.
The fact that its brought out the kooks on the far right is political gravy for Justin. As a result of this convoy-of-stupid, Justin will score a majority government if we had an election any time soon.
What I could have said – and was surely going to, were not helpful.
I am upset as the year rolls around to its end, that we’re still battling with covid19…but we’re also contending with a significant mindset who have rejected modern medicine and coherent medical advice in favour of misinformation and conspiracy theories.
Words have power. Words spoken by people of influence have power. The more outrageous things you say it seems, draw more and more people. It doesn’t have to be true (and clearly, in many cases it is not at all true). But spoken with passion and conviction, some will be convinced of the words and ideas over medical advice.
This is beyond frustrating…but predictable.
The rhetorical power of a demagogue was learned well in America in the lead up to 2016 and beyond, and we’re not immune here in Canada to the sway either.
The things I wanted to say to these folks who have seemingly drank this potion was equally as venomous as what their side spews outwards.
I have since decided that I am not spending any more energy on this. While I am still upset at antivaxxers (whom I consider a menace to society), its to those on the fence that I want to reach.
I see you and I hear you. Your apprehension and anxiety are real and shared by a lot of people…myself included.
The world’s best and brightest minds in science and virology have been working on covid19 since the start; the vaccines are safe – even if they’re not perfect. This is true of every single medicine created in science.
The best way out of this pandemic is widespread vaccine coverage to all corners of our globe so that covid19 has no where left to bloom; and its effects can be mitigated into oblivion.
To those seeking room to be critical of governments’ perceived shortcomings (in the eyes of the beholder, of course); save your energy too – encourage those reachable to obtain their vaccines and maintain social distancing/mask wearing where needed. If you’re going to take a swipe at policy makers for what you feel is inadequate regarding the govt responses so far, I sure hope you have the professional qualifications to back it up.
There will be plenty of time to consider shortcomings of the various governments and adjust policies so that we don’t have to re-invent the wheel again.
We’re on the right side of this. The science backs up vaccines without a doubt; the measures (masking, etc) have proven to lower risks of transmission; nearly every policy and/or mandate is legal and constitutional – and should not be controversial.
The last hurdle is hesitation. This is a personal choice I know, but its one with profound consequences.
Choosing to turn your back on science and medicine will prolong the pandemic (with newer, deadlier variants).
Choosing to join the overwhelming majority of us who play by the rules (which are temporary), obtaining vaccines when available are the steps needed to return to the normal life we all say we want.
An antivaxxer group known as “BrightEyesOnBrant” with a social media presence on FB, Instagram and Telegram is pushing a video that seemingly tells a story that CUPE local 2745 won a federal labour board decision halting CN rail’s vaccine mandate for its employees.
Except that none of this is true.
What is true is this:
CUPE won a labour tribunal decision against the New Brunswick for being an asshole.
A group of CN workers, independent of their union hired a legal team to fight the mandate and has filed its own ‘cease and desist’ order against their employer.
The federal labour board has not made any decision in this regard.
This is making some traction online in the antivax community as evidence that vaccine mandates ‘are illegal’, when no such ruling has taken place. While its true that *some* jurisdictions south of us in America have had state level courts block some mandates, far more are being validated as legal and justifiable. I have yet to find any such ruling in Canada.
This is such a misfire that even Rebel Media had to fact check itself as they initially attempted to run with this false narrative. Here, I include screenshots of the before/after.
See if you can spot the difference.
While I will be careful here not to throw my own opinions in as ‘legal advice’ which would cause problems for me, I will suggest that government has an obligation to protect society from unhealthy choices of some of its citizens. This is why smoking laws exist and you cannot bark out ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre; freedom itself isn’t unlimited, and some choices have consequences.
As for any legal adjudication of vaccine mandates, I’ll respect our judiciary’s jurisdiction to decide this.
From the outset of the 2021 election call, when the federal Liberals saw that their plan of an easy romp to a majority was clouded, they pulled the emergency trigger.
True to form, when the Liberals have their backs against the wall, they charge that a CPC government would repeal a woman access to her private health matters (read: outlaw abortion access). Never mind that this was a matter decided by the supreme court and has largely been untouched since the early 1980’s.
Well that failed to move the needle, so then the federal Liberals launch a broadside on “CPC plans to privatize healthcare”. Well the sad reality check is that Canada’s healthcare system is heavily private and much of that happened under Liberal leadership. What’s more telling is that the Liberals aren’t pledging to reverse this trend, they’re scaring folks that the Conservatives might make it worse. If they were real progressives on this, they’d argue to increase the scope of healthcare to include mental health, dental care and more. But they haven’t and they wont.
The third pillar in Liberal scare tactics is to scare progressives that “THE NDP MIGHT WORK WITH CONSERVATIVES” (against the Liberals?). This historically has been a more effective attack – in terms of moving the needle, but it doesn’t hold much water. Historically, the Liberals and Conservatives share far more in common than either of them do with the NDP. In terms of parliamentary votes, if it has anything to do with economic justice for workers or the environment, the Liberals most reliable ally are the CPC.
Not that it matters. All Liberals have to do is say it; that there’s some nefarious plan of the CPC and NDP to throw the Liberals out. It almost never checks out as far as facts go, but never let a good spin get in the way of the truth.
Recently, an editorializing journalist suggested that since the NDP leader didn’t explicitly say that he wasn’t going to team up with the CPC, Liberals pounced immediately as finding the proof that it WAS going to happen.
Exhibit A: Liberals think they have a smoking gun.
Except that editorialists are opinion writers. As it turns out, the facts point elsewhere. The interview where Jagmeet Singh is asked point blank if he would work with Erin O’Toole if he scored a minority parliamentary win in the election, Jagmeet wasn’t non-committal, he forcefully said that the NDP and CPC on most matters were incompatible. But don’t take my word for it, watch the interview yourself.
Liberals are pretty desperate to glean their message from the interview above. But they have run up against a wall here. They don’t have any significant new ideas that could not have been accomplished in the functioning parliament that had two years left in its mandate, so they’re resorting to scare tactics and misinformation to whip up vote they feel entitled to.
Ultimately, the operation of the next parliament is up to voters, most of whom didn’t feel this early election was necessary. No matter, here we are, Canadian’s will vote regardless – and the party leaders will respect the verdict and work with the cards they’re dealt – not the ones they want.
There’s no use trying to re-litigate the election call itself – that ship has sailed. But if anything has been made clear by this stunt, its this: Justin Trudeau had a functioning government and a mostly cooperative parliament. He had a mandate and enough good will to continue at least for another year – hopefully to see the backside of this pandemic leave.
He chose politics over governing; there is not compelling issue that sparked this campaign – no decisive wedge that required attention – except to get us to the other side of the pandemic.
Maybe Justin has given us an issue to contemplate.
To be clear, that in the free nations of the world, no government can force you to take a medication against your will. But they can inversely make life hard if you ‘choose’ not to.
This might sound heavy handed or unfair, but a government – who derives its authority to govern by the people who elect it – are required to keep safe those under its care and protection to the best of its ability.
This means that although they cannot force a pill down your gullet or a needle in your arm, they can require that in order to travel or participate in certain optional, economic based activities – you need to choose to be vaccinated. This isn’t to punish those unvaccinated, its to protect those who are – and those who cannot be vaccinated by means of medical exemption.
I understand how we got here. Governments of the world have been playing the nice guy trying to encourage folks to get their vaccines when they’re available; and to a large extent they have been successful. But we’re not yet at a high enough vaccine coverage to see a large scale herd immunity as the hesitancy and rejection of modern science is enough to poke holes in this effort. Through these holes, this disease caused by Covid19 is allowed to thrive and mutate into more sinister versions of itself.
These are as a result of some selfish thinking and I am personally tired of playing nice about it.
I recognize that vaccines aren’t perfect, some in fact have suffered from ‘vaccine injuries’ from the available covid19 vaccines and regrettably some have died – whether the vaccines themselves are to blame is unproven as yet. But the numbers of people who have endured some adverse reactions to covid19 vaccines pale in comparison to those who suffer and die at the hands of covid19 who were never vaccinated.
But a related argument against seat belts can be made here. A seat belt, worn correctly, may cause its own injury in a car accident – even contribute to a fatality. Though the scientific research and engineering that went into seat belts proved that their usage safe infinitely more lives than without. And, as you could have guessed, there was an equivalent blowback in the early 1980’s when seat belt laws made them mandatory – by the same sorts who would now argue that government shouldn’t require vaccines for the same reason.
There are those who hide behind a flawed interpretation of laws and constitutional rights to assert that government is over-reaching badly here. If government is doing anything poorly here, its communicating their intent.
Government has every right to ban smoking in public buildings for example. Smoking rights’ advocates will argue that this infringes on a persons medical condition – addiction. No. One can ingest nicotine without lighting up a smoke – and besides, its the right of the non-smoker who is subject to second hand smoke against their choice (workplace, public area, etc) that government is responding to.
So it must be with vaccines and vaccine mandates. They’re not to punish those who willingly choose to flout globally accepted science – its to protect those who are doing their part to keep safe. Its not about you, its about all of us – and we constitute a majority.
I take particular offense at those who invoke ‘faith’ as a reason to reject medical advice and science. Do you realize how hypocritical this is? If you accept in your faith that humanity was created in the image of our creator, then all knowledge and science has flowed from this creation was made possible by His hands.
God (or whatever your faith deems The Creator to be) gave us the tools and ability to look beyond primal needs. This is how humanity got itself to the moon, built high tech phones, high speed rails, ships, cars, planes, etc. All of it was enabled by that spark of life ‘in the beginning’.
But, you do you. Hide behind your selective interpretation of your faith. So be consistent about it at least. Go home and empty out your medicine cabinet – including your shelves of vitamins and supplements. No pain medications for you; no heart medicine, no insulin or whatever. If you believe that we’re protected by the Blood of our Savior and the natural immunity we’re born with, then throw everything else away.
While you’re at it, no cell phones, no TV, no technology beyond the tools and tech you can personally build with your hands – since all of it came from the various scientific discoveries that you have rejected.
For those arguing that the potential for vaccine mandates is equivalent to the onset of fascism and Nazi-style gas chambers (etc), that is the most absurd spin I have ever seen. Worse, it trivializes into a stupid talking point the real suffering by ethnic and religious groups who have been targeted in the past for state sponsored harassment and murder.
Look, I know there many who are apprehensive and downright scared about covid19 – and the vaccines designed to provide protection against it. You are not alone – and your fears are well heard.
All I can say to you is that the fastest way back to a normal life is to adhere to social distancing and masking rules as they’re needed and to obtain your vaccine when its available to you.
Hesitancy and rejection of vaccines will keep a large pool of unprotected people out there which serve as a fertile ground for covid19 to remain among us – and mutate into more sinister versions of itself…not to mention that we’ll continue to remain in a disruptive cycle of lock-downs and restrictions the longer this drawn out.
The sooner you join us and get your vaccine, the sooner you can help protect yourself, your family and your community – and the sooner you give covid19 no room left to grow.
President Joe Biden just signed a bill that allows foreign flagged cruise ships to bypass a foreign port on their way to another US port. In english, this means that a cruise ship is no longer going to stop in Vancouver or Victoria on their way from Seattle to Alaska.
This is meant as a temporary measure thanks to the Canadian federal cruise ship ban at our ports here in response to the pandemic.
This is truly a setback. Our Premier didn’t think it would come to this and had misjudged the resolve of Alaska based legislators who really wanted their cruise ship industry back.
So be it. Temporary, we’re told.
On cue it seems, the provincial opposition party launches a salvo at the NDP effectively blaming the provincial government here for losing 20k jobs.
What.
I get the partisan sniping, etc. But what the BC Liberals have done is a willful misread on what happened to fire a grossly partisan political cheap shot. They were cheering on this bad news as a win. Who does this?
They do.
I mean, what’s the position here for the BC Liberals? That the NDP should have pressured Ottawa into a premature port re-opening for cruise ship despite them being known incubators when an outbreak happens; now with covid19? In a rush to score a political cheap shot, they’ve revealed themselves to be horrible people.
In the last term of office, the minority government of the NDP/Green CASA deal, the BC Liberals behaved themselves relatively well once the pandemic set in. They knew how dangerous and politically stupid it would be to try and politicize pandemic related events. Free from the constraints of a minority parliament, idiotology pours on in from the BC Liberal caucus.
The Federal government put in place a cruise ship ban in 2020 as the pandemic set it. It was renewed in February of 2021 to last another year.
We’re not out of this pandemic and neither are the west coastal US States (including Alaska). By pushing for this legislation, they’re taking their own risks; cruising was halted for a reason. But I don’t answer for them nor will I defend them.
But the BC Liberals have to answer here. They tried to push a regional reopening last year just as the initial wave subsided; a proposal that if accepted would have seen astronomical infection rates as we weren’t ready for that. No vaccine, and the full strength of the virus was just beginning to build.
Imagine if we had taken that bad advice then? Or been pressured into pressuring Ottawa into a premature re-opening of our ports now? West coast ports aren’t the only ones suffering; this is a huge blow to the east coast tourist trade too. Halifax gains billions of dollars in tourist spending cash that sustain the city’s businesses and jobs. They’re hurting too.
The BC Liberals would blame John Horgan for that.
I want this pandemic gone like anyone else, but I still take it seriously. Its not as if by reopening every business and restoring concerts and every venue that covid19 goes away – it does not. If we’re not better prepared, such a premature re-opening would turn to a catastrophic shut down; and unnecessary loss of life.
Todd Stone and his BC Liberal opposition front bench are as useless in offering constructive criticism of government policy as they were when he was in government.
Taking some ghoulish victory lap as they seem to be doing on this cruise ship bypass law from America because it politically hurts the NDP is about as bad as it gets. Todd Stone needs to resign from politics and never return.
What a shameful, juvenile display he and his party have put on. May they never govern this province again.
We have gone from zero to deploying millions of vaccines in a global pandemic in less than two years. Nobody assumed that everything would perfectly go to plan, nor that the plans were perfect.
This has been quite a difficult journey and a lot of good people lost their lives as a result.
But if you had told me a few years ago that we would go from discovery to mass vaccination campaigns in less than two years, I wouldn’t have believed you.
So here we are. Thanks to the sacrifice of thousands of front line trades, essential service workers and first responders. We’re climbing out of a global pandemic in relatively quick order.
But we’re not there yet. Every countermeasure enacted upon by emergency order through the authorities counts on us doing what is required of us – regardless of it’s inconvenience.
Nobody is enjoying themselves here and we all want to live normally again. But these measures, however imperfect as they may be, are essential to getting to the other side of this.
So every time someone decides on their own that they’re done with covid19 and fling reason and common sense aside for self interest is another crack in our defences.
Sometimes we can be our own worst enemy, and nobody likes to shame or ridicule another for their beliefs. But for this to work and cross that line at the end, we must continue this marathon slog to get there.
I’m tired of covid19 too. But covid19 doesn’t care what I think. If I am careless and selfish with my actions, I risk the lives of my crewmates at work, strangers around town, or the lives of those at home, and that is a price I am not willing to take.
Its a mask. I’ll wear it. Its a vaccine, I’ll take whatever is offered to me. I’ll do what it takes to go that last mile; to establish that herd immunity so that covid19 has no place left to go.
There will be plenty of time to digest how this all played out. Things that worked well, things that didn’t. Now is not the time to pander, play politics, or undermine the hard work and sacrifice of those who have given so much.
We’re almost through this. Don’t drop the ball now folks.
My name is Peter Kelly (he/him) and I have been a resident of Nanaimo since 1997. I’m a past president of the Nanaimo area ferry workers union, a single parent, concerned citizen and I offer my full support and endorsement of Lisa Marie Barron for the Federal NDP nomination for the seat of Nanaimo-Ladysmith.
I have known Lisa for over 10 years and was an enthusiastic supporter in her campaign for school district trustee in the previous local elections and I feel that Lisa is the right kind of leadership we need today.
Lisa’s generosity, compassion, empathy and honest talk is lacking in Ottawa and absent here today. Lisa is the right choice and I encourage all NDP members to follow me and support Lisa in her bid to become the next Member of Parliament from our region.
The view from Pete 