Tag: economy

Elizabeth May’s SNC Lavalin idea is a clusterfuck

headupass

Where do we begin.

In a wide ranging interview, Elizabeth May ended up talking about SNC Lavalin and the appalling state of water quality in several First Nation’s communities.

She linked them.

The major issue for SNC Lavalin is the pending legal trouble and the various corporate crimes they have been accused of. They had been seeking a differed prosecution agreement – the very issue at the core of the #LavScam scandal.

Separately, the Federal Government who has constitutional jurisdiction on First Nation’s peoples is responsible to their many communities; communities whose access to clean drinking water in many areas is curtailed due to contamination. These are third world conditions. In Canada.

Elizabeth May chimed in with the notion that a corporation should be compelled into fixing these inadequate water systems as part of their sentencing as a means of “corporate restorative justice”; on their own coin to be sure.

So, we’re to tell an affected first nation community that the badly behaving company is going to build them a new water system and the company is going to pay for it.

Shades of “we’re going to build a wall along the Mexico border and Mexico will pay for it”.

Let me list off the issues that come up with this proposal.

Now is not the time to go soft on white collar criminals.

Anything that gives the slightest ‘out’ for badly behaving corporate bosses is a non-starter with me.

This isn’t the same as handing a juvenile convict a sentence of 100 hours of garbage pick up and graffiti removal for the crime of vandalism.

Corporate criminals get convicted because they conspired to defraud clients, the taxpayer, or both. They do not fit on the same table of ideas.

If more corporate criminals saw the inside of a jail cell and lost 90% of their illegal wealth, then perhaps we’d see less of it. Giving them an out is the last thing we need. Especially in times of the expanding gulf between rich/poor and the disconnect between powerful elite corporatists and average folks.

This is the slippery slope to corporate personhood

It was a famous quote by then Presidential candidate Mitt Romney who uttered the phrase that “corporations are people too..” that lit the left on fire. He was wrong then, and centrist neoliberals are wrong to embrace it now.

By assigning ‘community service’ as a means to make the Corporation feel guilt and remorse. The victims of corporate crime are often taxpayers, shareholders or innocent clients; the only thing that the victims want after the fact (if not their money back) is to see that the people responsible are sent to prison like any other common thief.

Corporations don’t feel. They’re a box or a machine. They don’t get that sort of protection, people do; and the people-victims of badly behaving corporate bosses need to see justice being served.

Collides hard with Reconciliation

This is one of the trickiest areas of law and First Nations relations to be in the public sphere in a long time. Its overdue. We’re a long way off, in my opinion, but need to find a path forward.

I’m not a First Nations member, as my family tree I recently discovered is almost 75% viking and the remainder is ‘other’ European. But as a Canadian, I agree that our performance and treatment of those here first, those who’s land was taken, who’s cultures, languages and belief systems were systematically razed by a government bent on a genocidal assimilation of otherwise peaceful people.

I believe this proposal by Elizabeth May runs afoul of any solid effort on reconciliation.

Her idea is to say that here’s a badly behaving corporation, fresh from a criminal conviction, and we’re requiring them to rebuild your water systems…not only the ones in disarray, but all of them: see below.

img_9p0xxl

No input. No consultations. No effort to reach out and see if there are other, just as capable engineering and construction firms able to the tasks.

SNC Lavalin stands accused of some shady things, but as far as I’m aware, none are related to the sad state of potable water in various first nation communities.

Politicians let off the hook

The sorry state of drinking water in several first nations communities didn’t happen overnight. This took several decades of neglect; by governments more eager to subsidize corporations or hand tax cuts out to the one-percent folks.

Elizabeth May is clever here even if she’s not aware of what she has done. She’s made funding and construction of water services available only if there’s a conviction. What if there isn’t?

It is the government’s duty here, and Elizabeth May is giving politicians an easy way out here. “we’ll let the bad guy pay for the thing we’ve neglected for 40 years”.

What fuckery is this anyways?

Judicial interference

The court has the right to impose an adequate sanction for a criminal conviction. But to hear it from Elizabeth May, “we’re not letting the judge decide” and that is a dangerous game to play.

The government of former Prime Minister Stephen Harper was on the losing end of a Supreme Court decision when his government passed legislation adding layers of interpretation to sentencing criminals.

Granted, it was for different reasons, but the politicians threatened the independence of the judiciary. They lost.

Further observations

The Party of Elizabeth May wants to be King maker and power broker. This is a real possibility in the next parliament, so moments like this are critical for voters in judging who has the wisdom to lead.

It’s been noted that this issue, while not explicitly designed as such, has turned into a perfect “Liberal” trap that some NDP folks walked straight into.

False.

It’s a centrist neoliberal Band-Aid solution to an institutionally broken system. But doesn’t offer any real solutions.

Maybe it’s consistent with the stunning shift of the Green Party shifting to more Liberal/centrist philosophy in the hunt for votes; so let’s call it what it is.

Pathetic.

My2bits

Update:

This matter has been debated online by several folks and since the first outbreak of this scandalous idea, Elizabeth May has walked back a couple of items;

She’s recognized that the court (judge) has the jurisdiction to decide a sentence upon conviction.

She’s argued that her initial scheme wasn’t privatization, but in my opinion it looks more like punishment-by-P3.

What hasn’t changed is the tone deaf messaging and chaotic defense put up by Green party partisans.

Look, I’m not First Nations, but if I was, this clusterfuck would have been the moment I ruled her and her party out as an option.

Elizabeth May put reconciliation (consultation) and local water systems up as bargaining chips to be considered when figuring out punishment for white collar criminals.

WTF did first nations do to Elizabeth May to be degraded to the level of any other community service (restorative justice)?

It’s gross. And under further examination, it’s still pathetic.

Done.

Strike two, Ms May

Not everyone wants to vote Liberal or Conservative. This has been traditional fertile ground for the NDP for those left of centre folks or provides an opening for right wing competition to the conservatives.

And let’s be honest. 3rd and 4th parties want a minority parliament because that gives them the opportunity to leverage their legislative votes for concessions from the major parties. That’s how this thing works.

But. If your mapping out the campaign for one of these smaller parties, you must do so with a plan to win outright. “If [party] wins this election, we’re going to do these things that are on our agenda.”

It is unwise however to preemptively underline the handful if items you want if you’re a minority partner *prior* to the election. You could see those ideas gobbled up by a major party only to have your team made to look irrelevant, or you could trap yourself. By trap, I mean that in preemptively marking your legislative items, it might implicitly point to *one* party that you’re interested in working with, which may box your team in: you could be subject to the same opponent attacks, and you could subsequently limit how you criticize your potential partner.

Elizabeth May came out and said that if the Conservatives under Andrew Scheer were to embrace climate change and the carbon tax, she may support a Conservative minority government.

To the 65% of Canadians who would identify themselves as liberal-to-progressive and reside in the three major non-Conservative parties, you just ruled yourself off the ballot in their world.

This is a major mistake and a revealing window into the strategic chaos that Leader Elizabeth May is taking her party through.

That’s strike two.

Strike one was the hiring of political street thug Warren Kinsella as an advisor. By doing so, Elizabeth May and the Greens lost all right to claim that “we do politics differently”. No they don’t. Now they can’t.

Incidentally, as Greens are finding themselves on the defensive over this missive, they’ve gone and dug up a 10 year old story where the NDP voted to uphold a Harper budget in the fall of 2009. The narrative being, if the NDP can strategically support the conservatives, why can’t we?

The budget question at hand included improvements to EI at a time that the 08/09 meltdown had caused a major economic slowdown and job losses. The NDP used their legislative clout and votes to demand improvements for the unemployed. It delayed a premature election call; one that when it happened, reduced the Liberal Party to 20+ seats.

What the Greens have done here is different. They’ve set a price for their support *before* they have the bargaining chips in their hands. That’s a fatal mistake.

Campaign on your values, let the voters decide. When or how your party utilizes it’s influence and who they may or may not support in a minority parliament is a move left to play after voters have dealt you the cards.

Elizabeth May seems to have counted her chickens before they hatched.

My2bits

Update

Further observations: now that Elizabeth May has set the price for her support (solely environmental matters), Andrew Scheer could meet that price in theory, and also pledge to do a whole raft of socially conservative things that satisfy his base. But, technically that’d be ok since Elizabeth May already placed her chips. For her to withdraw the offer, this leaves her open to charges by Scheer that she can’t be trusted to ‘deal’, and he’d be right.

This is a disaster for the Greens.

The Greens are trying their hand at populism and its just as disingenuous as anything on the far right

unpopular opinion

I get the antipathy towards fracking; its a drilling technique fraught with risks to carbon pollution; potential groundwater contamination and seismic activity.

Its also the exclusive technique used to extract natural gas and shale oil. Now for the sake of this article, I’m not considering the environmental aspect of the Green’s argument – because at this point, it doesn’t have legal or constitutional standing.

92a

This however is the snippet of the Constitution Act (1982) that the Green Party hasn’t considered.

If the Green Party was to win an election outright and invoke this part of their platform, they would immediately be met with a challenge from energy producing provinces. As they should: infringing upon a clear right of a provincial government will trigger a very serious national unity crisis.

Worse, imagine the Greens playing a role in a minority government where this pillar is key to their cooperation.

While this awkward promise sits out there unchallenged by anyone in the media, Elizabeth May went on the offensive against the announced bus expansion of the Victoria regional transit service. Accusing Justin Trudeau of playing ‘lip service’ to climate change, she rips the agreement. See here.

For reference.

space-required-to-transport-60-people-car-bus-bicycle

Granted, some of these new buses would be powered by natural gas, the larger objective is to get more people out of their cars and into transit. The advantage is two fold: folks save fuel and pollution by taking a bus instead, and it clears up some congestion from roads and highways.

Seriously, Liz. WTF.

Look, fracking is controversial. But its also a changing science; and fracking looks different today than what it did 40 years ago when it was pumping up natural gas in BC. There’s no reason why it cannot continue to evolve.

Whether or not the Greens sentiment is right or wrong is up to you. But for them to advocate something they cannot constitutionally do will have unintended consequences.

Upon losing a Supreme Court case against the provinces who move quickly to uphold their rights under 92(a), the Greens would further strengthen the hand of pro-fossil fuel parties and may serve to elect even more conservative regimes across the country.

How does that look? See Alberta where they elected the UCP government out of a frustration to get their tar sands oil industry back on track, but are getting a hard right socially conservative administration that’s rolling back rights of LGBTQ folks ‘while they’re at it’.

There are seriously dangerous consequences to opting for a rhetorically populist party.

Update: September 15
some of the more rabid Greens cite Section 91 of the Constitution Act as license to override the provinces in their plan ban fracking.

Here’s the problem. Section 91 holds that the Federal government has the right to pass laws or regulations in areas of jurisdiction not explicitly laid out in Section 92. Well, natural resources are explicitly defined as provincial jurisdiction. We can thank in part Federal/Provincial scrap that Pierre Trudeau’s National Energy Program of the 1980’s where Alberta won in the Supreme Court on a related matter.

Feel free to read up on Section 91 if you wish.

So, in my opinion, the Greens are promising something they cannot deliver for the sole purpose of gaining votes.

I must add that in watching supporters of the Federal Greens demonizing the Federal NDP over the the BC NDP govt policies on natural gas. Fine I suppose if we’re going by “all is fair in love and war”, but it opens up another problem where the Greens risk another national unity collision with the provinces.

That’s very unwise.

My2bits

Update: new Green MP joins the attack on new buses for Victoria.

License requirements matter

When it comes to the license requirements for ride hailing drivers when the new regulations kick in, these new drivers will be required to have a class 4 license.

That’s it.

The angry BC Liberal side is saying this is an unfair and onerous weight to carry, I say otherwise.

The stats suggest that on average, there’s a .6pt safer advantage of a class 4 over the basic class 5.

In terms of averages, thats not a big deal. But when played out into the raw numbers of how many accidents in total vs what this .6 means, we get 2100 fewer accidents as a result of class 4 licenses.

But that’s another issue. If we’re to say that ride hailing should only use class 5, then we’re basically saying that the extra accident rate is worth the $100 that ride hailing drivers don’t have to pay in getting the superior license.

I think that’s a morally reprehensible position to take.

And if you’re one of those taking the position that the class 4 license is onerous with its medical exam, criminal background check, proof of safe driving, and working knowledge of your vehicle are too much, kindly go fuck yourself.

What if your son or daughter was killed off as part of that 2100 extra accidents that don’t matter.

Any layer of safety is worth it.

Anything to not let this happen here.

https://www.citynews1130.com/2019/06/22/uber-lyft-licensing-bc-ontario/

My2bits

Green party sneaks a change into their climate change agenda while nobody* noticed.

* Almost.

The hint is #13 of their “Mission Possible” document.

Before. After.

The point is that in #13, the Green Party, as a government would compel changes that would both end subsidies to fossil fuels while simultaneously investing (taxpayer money) in new and expanded fossil fuel infrastructure in Canada.

I may not be an energy expert or the wisest political observer, but investing taxpayer dollars in an industry that is already highly profitable is still a subsidy; regardless of the edit.

There are many other concerns I have with this document, but this one jumped out at me. Makes me wonder what other sneaky changes the Greens may drop in there while nobody is looking.

screenshot_20190713-103810_docs

My2bits

BC Liberals are hypocrites on ride hailing

If you’re just tuning in, you might be forgiven for thinking that the BC Liberals have been the champion of ride hailing services the whole time.

You’d be wrong. Very wrong.

As recently as 2014, a year after the ’13 election, the BC Liberal transportation minister was openly threatening fines and/or jail time for such drivers.

But now they’re the champion?

Not likely.

But don’t let the cynical political games of the BC Liberals get in the way of a good lie.

My2bits

Class warfare politics again

If you’re just tuning in now, you may have been tempted to think the rising star of the conservatives will run to the rescue of beleaguered modest and middle income earners and save Canada from the elitist egg heads of the Liberal Party.

There’s a problem with that.

Both Liberal and Conservative politicians serve the same super-establishment and 1% to the cost of everyone else.

Both defend a neoliberal economic model. In fact, they all champion an economic model that since the 1980’s has wrecked the middle class and driven the wedge between rich and poor to its worst extreme in recent history.

Through no fault of their own, the rising generation of millenials may need to save for 29 years in order to afford a home in Canada’s cities.

Now, I’m a ½ generation ahead of a millenial; the so-called “GenX” now at age 45. Getting into the home ownership game wasn’t that severe for us. And we were the first unfortunate beneficiary of this neoliberal economic model. Now it’s worse.

The current duopoly of red/blue governments do nothing to change this. Their promises are mere window dressing next to the mess it’s made.

Tiny tax cuts here, boutique tax credits there hide the ugly truth behind the big lie. Both Liberals and Conservatives offer no change. More of the same.

So who does?

This guy.

For the business rags to condemn the NDPs tax agenda (which even I think is relatively timid) means that the NDP is headed in the correct direction.

Finally.

And let’s undo a narrative right now. The conservatives seem ready to cast the Liberals as a bunch of Eastern, out of touch, university egg heads completely detached from the reality on Main Street.

While there may be an element of truth to that, there is nothing wrong with being educated. In fact, that’s what we parents look forward to in our kids. Finish school, get some education/vocation and make something of yourself. Those who would demonize the educated are attacking our own youth. Stop it.

And what’s worse is that the conservatives have their own brand of super elite “egg heads” that are just as out of touch with every day folks. But they come in the flavour of energy lobbyists, social conservatives, xenophobic policy writers and advocates of the super rich.

So we’re back into a class warfare politics again. But don’t think for a moment that team blue is any better than team red. They’re both terrible.

My2bits

Ride hailing is coming quickly to BC and the NDP can take credit for it

There are those to be sure who don’t like the idea of the ride hailing service, but it’s here and unavoidable now.

What’s interesting now is the desperate flailing of certain BC Liberal partisans trying to gain a wedge issue in the thing they had 8 years to deliver but only made a deathbed conversion when looking at Parliamentary defeat.

Tough shit.

What I have been vocal on is that ride hailing drivers fall under the same rules as taxi drivers. Same license requirements, etc.

And I wasn’t alone either. The government passed its ride hailing legislation that requires a class 4 license (as Alberta does) plus a handful of other transition measures to establish the new business.

But not to the partisans. They’re out to convince you that the NDP are laggards on ride hailing, bowing to the powerful taxi lobby. If so, they failed at that.

Ride hailing has existed since 2009 with the founding of Uber. At no time until the last gasp of the 2017 provincial campaign did the BC Liberals find this as a priority. Indeed, they were in power all the previous time and didn’t seem at all motivated to bring in ride hailing at all. I wonder who’s lobby had their ears.

It wasn’t until the NDP/Green agreement did a formal plan take shape to bring in Ride hailing. So it was bundled into legislation and passed.

September is when it opens for business.

That took two years.

As for the onerous regime the NDP is putting ride hailers through, spare me your verbal diarrhea.

Other than time, ride hailing corporations have had a fairly smooth sailing to being legitimate here in BC. Just look at what they’ve experienced elsewhere.

Ride hailing isn’t going to solve any climate issue. It won’t take many cars off the road. It’s a convenience based business model. That’s all it is.

Oh and get used to a new term: “surge pricing”.

My2bits

Update: here’s a link to a sad story coming from Toronto where a grieving family had to bury a son lost to an inexperienced ride hailing driver. Punchline? That the mom hopes BC holds the line in requiring the higher license requirement and that other jurisdictions follow suit.

Everyone calm the fuck down

The NDP is not going through some existential crisis, the political ground that’s moving is on the right and far right; and this is not a playground the NDP should dabble in. Ever.

Its worth reminding folks that Saint Jack Layton was a relative centrist in his overall philosophy; this is why he appealed to so many independents and made it possible to draft folks like Thomas Mulcair. It was Jack Layton who made a pitch to the “progressives” of the (then) freshly disemboweled PC party to come aboard. If you’re keeping up, that means appealing to folks like Brian Mulroney and Kim Campbell, or “red tories”.

The left of the NDP didn’t protest much as they saw the electoral success of opening that tent further and it shocked the federal Liberals to see Jack Layton eat their lunch.

So when I hear folks complain that the NDP isn’t left enough, remember that this is how we ended up with our little putsch that dumped Mulcair after his inaugural election that saw the NDP with its second best showing ever. We weren’t left enough. So we picked Jagmeet Singh.

There is some racism that’s alive and well in Canada who won’t vote for the brown man, but then those folks aren’t the type I want my party appealing to anyway. Go vote PPC since that’s more appropriate to your hateful thinking.

But in changing from the relative centrist Mulcair in favour of Jagmeet Singh, we got a left wing party whose platform is the most progressive I’ve seen in a generation. It has a green new deal and a tax on the 1%.

Oh yes, some will say it’s not enough, and some will say it goes to far. Thing is, it’s the Greens that are saying the NDP plan doesn’t go far enough and the Liberals saying it goes to far.

Wonderful! If radical Greens say your plan isn’t radical enough and do-nothing Liberals say it goes too far, then we’re probably exactly where we need to be.

As long as the NDP doesn’t fumble around in the bigoted anti immigrant tropes that the PPC/CPC are mired into, there’s plenty of room to expand the reach of the NDP.

Liberals have revealed themselves again as the party that will say anything to get elected, while doing as few possible progressive things except as necessary to stay in office.

We’re done with this.

The neoliberal economic philosophy is how we got here. The major gaps in rich and poor, the crushing of unions, the disregard towards the environment and climate change; it’s all related. None of the other party’s are prepared to tackle the system. The NDP will.

So stop your navel gazing. Let the reactionary radicals in the Greens and PPC light their hair on fire, let the Liberals and Conservatives engage in platitudes and dithering, the NDP just needs to plow forward. We’re on the right path.

My2bits