Liberal surprise package. But really?

A couple of things make this election unique.
One, is that we can never again trust any of the pollsters. Either they are totally ineffective, they have no idea how to poll in this society, or some of them were steering people in the direction the originator of the polls wanted by manipulating the result. It isn't at all hard to do.
You start by putting the party you want to lose, way ahead at first, then engineer the successive results to create a virtual image of a groundswell. What happens is the party with a huge lead has much of their vote staying home while the other party gets out to the polling stations. The actual turnout was very low. One girl working a polling station told me that she had 400 on her list of voters, and less than 100 showed up.

Another idea regarding the outcome, is that the percentage of non-born in BC residents is apparently about 26% now, (in the City of Vancouver, more like 49%) and one can't expect these newcomers to embrace the history of what once was here in our province. Whatever is here right now is what they'll care about in future elections.

The idea that attack ads don't work is now proven that they do. Week after week we saw irrelevant information about NDP events of over a decade ago hammered out in the media by the Liberals. With no appreciable fight back from the opposition. Negative messages are useful.

What are the rewards we are giving to the Liberal party for guiding the province in the last 12 years? I can only talk about things I care deeply about, which surprises me that others have so little interest in these same things.

We will continue to ship raw logs to Washington State mills in huge quantities while BC mills rust away. Look at the logs floating in the Fraser River and the endless booms off Point Grey and understand that they are going out of province to support families other than British Columbians.

Hollywood North will continue to be established in Toronto as our own once flourishing BC film industry subsides into occasional Canadian content. With the advantage of Ontario tax credits production will grow there while BC studios close down and we lose more productions and skilled film workers in a billion dollar industry that doesn't pollute or destroy the landscape while it works.

Norwegians will continue to have a free hand with sea-based fish farms growing even more Atlantic salmon, laden with hormones and coloring and diseases negatively affecting our once world's greatest wild pacific sockeye runs.

BC Hydro which has looked after the province's power needs responsibly in the past, will continue to be hand-cuffed by agreements to buy power from foreign owned run-of-the-river projects at high cost while selling at world market prices low.

One expects the Kinder-Morgan double pipeline to proceed, as will as the Enbridge pipeline to Kitimat over whatever objections are raised locally. But these decisions are federal and out of the hands of British Columbia now anyway, the provincial government has already agreed to it, so the environmental interest cannot continue without BC government support. Cross your fingers about oil spills.

We will continue to use overseas shipyards for building BC Ferries and Translink ferries while our own shipyards sit idle. Much easier to disperse and hide money internationally instead of within BC under the scrutiny of taxpayer's sharp eyes.

The suspicions about the sale of BC Rail will probably remain just that. Suspicions. Without a strong effort to reveal what went on during the negotiations, we'll have to accept the loss of a BC proudly owned and operated railroad and the fact that we paid 6 million in hush money so we couldn't be told what actually happened with our money. Sounds ridiculous? Of course it is.

The provincial debt continues to rise to unprecedented levels, yet no one asks about the so called  'contractual obligations' or proper accounting practices or the fact that a balanced budget might be achieved by selling off British Columbia's assets. What happens when the assets run out and the government still cannot control itself? Our government fired the one who was the thorn and will undoubtedly replace him with a less harsh critic. 

These are only a few policies that have been in place, that the current voters in BC seem to have no concern about.
So the new Liberals will settle in to governing our province, again, and some of us are wondering if they'll take their cue from previous MLAs on their way through, making sure they are personally okay with their deals for retirement. So the idea that we are like some African third world country available for exploitation remains. And to many, the future looks bleak for a healthy growth that would benefit all British Columbians instead of friends of Liberals. And for some new MLAs, the chance to sidle up to the feeding trough with hungry pockets looms ahead. Who knows what scraps will drop into them when you have power?

There aren't any surprises out there now, just what we expect. I have to face it, the days of WAC Bennett building a thriving province is past. And feeling part of something great is long gone. Governments will never be the same again. The universe is unfolding but this isn't how it should.

For me it is not about Liberals or NDP or Greens or Conservatives, it's about being proud of your part of the world and expecting everyone else to have the same direction; to make everything better for all of us, not just some. Of the people for the people.

That's my disappointment.

And there is that niggling feeling that they got away with it.

The arrogance of them all!

On the same day that the Vancouver Sun sported a headline saying the BC Government deficit had increased to 1.47 BILLION dollars, Bill Good of CKNW radio, had a one hour commercial for the BC Liberals featuring one of their main spin cyclists, Philip Hochstein, President of the of the Independent Contractors of BC. Now this is an arrogant guy. He should give psychic readings, he keeps telling anyone who will listen what is in Adrian Dix's mind. And what every NDP MLA will do. Nice, he should forecast earth-quakes and tsunames too! That's not a pack of smokes in his pocket, it's a deck of tarot cards!

He went on and on while Bill Good sat and listened without interruption to his ridiculous spin that the NDP would be so bad for BC they'd put us into a deep hole. Ahem. 

That 1.47 billion was an increase of 50% in the last six MONTHS!  There it was in the newsaper, probably right there on the NW studio coffee table, available for any intelligent person to see and read. Of course that doesn't fit the agenda of these Liberal hacks. Even the BC Liberal controlled Vancouver Sun had to print it. No matter how much they wanted it buried amid their Want ads.

Hochstein didn't even bother to mention that deficit or why it was so out of whack, he just went after Adrian Dix like a grow-op pitbull. At least Good, Keith Baldrey and Vaughn Palmer usually accept a question about the BC Liberals and their idol, Christy Ckark, before carefully and stealthily guiding their answer to go after what the NDP did many years ago. 

Of course, Dix is frustrating the hell out of them, because he won't fall into their traps and give them real ammunition. He is playing the cool game right into Clark's goal, and it looks like he's going to score big time.  But Hochstein doesn't even bother to change the subject. He just ignores reality to rabidly chase the NDP.

If he really is interested in construction work in BC, perhaps he should go after all those employers importing cheap labour from Argentina, Guatemala  Mexico, the Philippines and yes, China! No wait, Christy Clark is selling her BC jobs plan. Is it interpreted to mean come to BC for a job? But don't apply if you're already here? 

One would think Hochstein doesn't get it at all. Maybe he doesn't understand that a deficit is NOT the debt. The deficit is the difference between the money Government takes in and what the Government spends each year. Receipts include the money the Government gets from income taxes as well as user fees and other income sources. Outlays include all provincial spending including health, social security etc. along with all other spending. 
When there is a deficit, the Provincial Government must borrow the money needed for the government to pay its bills.

The BC Provincial DEBT is about 45 BILLION. YOU are paying 2.5 Billion in interest payments alone! 

But in spite of not accounting for it's spending or telling us where it is trying to save, (all the while advertising everywhere about how great they are, using YOUR money) indoctrinated people like Hochstein blindly go after whomever they're directed to attack. The voters are beginning to ask if the NDP is going to be so bad, how can they be worse than this group of pretenders? Don't forget people, these are the so called 'businessmen' who keep telling us they know how to run things. Hmm, maybe it's time for the simplicity of amateurs who know you can't spend more than you get. People who never had a rich daddy to set them up in business and had to live on their own income. 

MLA Mike de Jong accounted the BC Liberals poor financial showing to not being able to sell a Little Mountain property for 232 million. Like that would have done it? What's next? Selling off Stanley Park? Isn't that the problem with the BC Liberal mentality? Just sell off what they don't own to cover their bills? Your BC Railroad is gone but what did that money do for you?

To see the BC Liberals floundering every day as they dig a deeper hole is not the thing, to see the corruptions emerge every week and the constant turmoil over their poor decisions is not it either, it is the arrogance that they show while being sucked under. 

People like Hochstein have no clue. He could be equated with Rush Limbaugh in the States; making spurious arguments to the detriment of the party he thinks he represents!
A growling dog with teeth but no brains. Perhaps not really important but he just can't shut up. The NDP is older and wiser these days. They've silenced the harangue of their unions. They are steering a careful course towards re-election as the BC Government. And when they get there we'll be bitching about them too. We desperately need a change in the British Columbia government, each week the suspicions of corruption get deeper than Christy Clark's cleavage.

But the BC Liberals can't get the Gordon Campbell heritage out of their heads. The Liberal attitude of get it all for us, regardless of what the public thinks ... a perfectly expressed attitude by the arrogant Philip Hochstein.