Elections, Polls and Lying

     The Feds have started their election campaign. May second. The three amigos, Harper, Ignatief and Layton are all about to pretend to suck up to us. Each to blatantly lie about what their government will do for us. Prosperity and success are just around the corner, they'll say with a straight face, get those other people out and our people in! The people I know are worried about what the government will do TO them.
The polls will be polling right left and center. With all the politicians grouping themselves into that center. Man on the street polls. Web polls, shopping mall polls, telephone polls, newspaper polls, tabloid polls. Exit polls, entrance polls. Bar polls. Man on the toilet polls. All purporting to ask questions about your political intentions and print results honestly about who YOU want to govern you and your family. Be aware that veracity is not on the federal political comprehension list.

There'll be Ipsos polls, Compas, Gallup, Nanos, Polara polls etc etc ad nauseum. And by the time anyone in the West turns on the TV election night, without counting a single vote, you'll hear someone like Bill Good in his stentorian voice simply TELL you who your government is. Isn't that speshul?

It's the polls that irritate me. They ask you all these questions and we are supposed to answer candidly to some stranger with a clip board. I would sooner answer to a guy with a bicycle clip on his pantleg and an arrow through his head.
So I have promised myself I will lie to each and every one of them. Of course I will watch poll results previous to my being asked. If the Liberals are leading in my area, then I will be voting for NDP or Conservatives. No question asked of me will receive an honest answer. If it looks like a landslide for the Conservatives I will leap on that bandwagon and lie like hell about voting for them.

You see, if we ALL lie to these pollsters, the effects of polling become irrelevant. No one will believe the results because they might have forecast a landslide win by the Reform party and the Marijuana party snuck in somehow! A gleeful result, get some potting soil!
So the guy approaches you on the street and asks if you will be voting in this election? You say Yes, I will. And who for? You say, (randomly) the NDP. Conservatives, Liberals, the Bloc even! (That ultimate lie is to make Quebeckers think someone outside of the 'nation' of Quebec likes them) Saying you will vote for the obscure parties will be fun for you too. Here you have lots of choices among the oddballs and their silly promises: You could validate them by lying about your vote and INvalidate other polling results. What fun ...

The Abolitionist Party - Whatever they are abolitioning.
Animal Alliance Party - Become a dog and vote for more soft watery food.
The Atlantica Party - They just might find Atlantis with taxpayer money!
Bloc Quebecois - Bloc this, bloc that, bloc anything that doesn't give money to Quebec.
Christian Heritage Party - A vote for them might bring protest from Shinto Priests.
Communist Party - Well isn't China doing ok? They OWN the US now, you know.
Freedom Party - Is there something paradoxical in that name?
Libertarian Party - I read de Sades book, Justine was a Libertine.
NeoRhino Party - It's time we changed from those old leather rhinos anyway.
Parti Populaire des Putes - Yes, I know what it says in French.
Work Less Party - Take the whole election day off.

These are only a few choices of where to actually place your vote in the silence and secrecy of the polling booth. And actually voting for any one of these will probably result in the same outcome of who will be governing you in the next few years anyway.
You see? Your vote will probably have little effect on the way your life will progress after May second, 
Lie to them all, they're going to lie to us.

If it is a sunny day I might just head for the beach instead.

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addenda: Mar 30 -  You saw it here yesterday and now a late news item today, already all around the blogisphere, a developing scandal  - 'CBC caught promoting a rigged Compas poll!  CBC has no explanation for why no matter which button the user always clicked, the "answer" always came out as "Liberal"!

Something is amiss with the CBC and the 'Compass' and that it is not to be trusted.' 

Isn't that what I said?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadavotes2011/votecompass/
http://www.bloggingtories.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?p=94888 

Our new Premier

     Christy Clark has been sworn in to be the new Liberal leader and Premier of British Columbia. She named her new cabinet and continued with her specious comments on listening to the people. Hmm. However listening seems to have certain exceptions; like any talk about BC Rail and the six million dollar hush money.

No need to list her cabinet choices right now, they are the same old cadre of conniving characters that you know from the last movie. Still wearing the black hats too.

So it seems to me, that Christy is embarking on a new path under a cloud of suspicion. You know how these things go, when there are so many questions without answers, the people begin to speculate and make up their own. But this has been going on for years. Seven years. The conclusions, however ridiculous, have been made, rehashed, revisited and readorned into the general belief that Christy Clark, once Deputy Premier, had inside knowledge of what was going on with the corrupted sale of BC Rail. The people surrounding her then, and even now during her campaign run for this esteemed office, were under that grey cloud of suspicion then and still are. The only difference to many is that the cloud has become black.  

But are all her cabinet people sworn to secrecy? Have they promised to keep these Liberal secrets? Do they all have skeletons in their closets too, precariously piled in there, hoping no one opens the door. Is there integrity somewhere or is it trumped by power?  Seems to me the latter.
Christy said she wants to move on, but do the people of BC want to just go ahead and forget? Justice not only needs to be done, but has to be seen to be done. Would this rationale be good enough for the RCMP? Murderers go free because it would cost too much to nail them after seven years? How strong is the public's cry for satisfaction? Are the tools of Bill Good, Vaughn Palmer and Keith Baldrey enough to defray the public concern? They are already hard at work on the Liberal message convincing us that the Federal HST is good for us.

Does our new premier think we will simply accept her refusal to take responsibility for her government's actions on BC Rail and the ensuing lengthy trial? Does she believe she can simply carry on with Gordon Campbell's destruction of the province? There are already rumors that she intends to try to sell off our BC Ferries, AND the jewel of BC Utilities; BC Hydro.
Who knows what the deal was with BC Rail, OUR utility? Does she believe she can simply continue the rape of this province?

Of course she has no mandate yet from the people of BC, but how hard can it be? We are the dupes, Gordon got elected three times by fooling us. Or lying to us. And eventually cheating us out of our heritage. Christy could intend to continue Gordon Campbell's plan of bankrupting BC Hydro, for the good of Run of the River Private Power operators and then allowing nuclear power to move into this province. Many believe that is what Campbell was planning. Perhaps the fix is already in? Perhaps a payoff was already made? A 'TIP' in BC Rail trial jargon. Ask Christy, she probably knows. And she might know a lot more about 'tips' too. We the public are wondering who does know what deals have been made?

Well I am only questioning if the people of BC can still believe ANY Liberal in this province. This is no change, and we desperately need one, no matter who takes over the reigns of control, it could not be worse than what we have now, and what Christy Clark and her band of scoundrels are planning.

The whole trouble is, these people are simply untrustworthy, we cannot believe what they say. A cleansing readjustment is crucial in British Columbia.

Putting on a new white hat just won't do it. It's covering the same old black hat.

I am old.

     And I guess I don't like changes.

I was hoping Fleers Double-Bubble Gum would always have a Pud cartoon in it. When I was little we picketed the grocery store against 6 cent chocolate bars. You rode swaying street cars then. My first car was a '46 Ford.

I never even cared about politics until I was involved in researching and writing a film called Twenty Great Years for the then Social Credit government. That was when I began to realize what a great province we were building.

So now as my life deteriorates into the grey morass of remembering what was, I need to express some things about today's reality.

When WAC Bennett expropriated the BC Electric Company it was stunning news. It became BC Hydro. And built itself through British Columbian management, into the jewel of an asset for the province. We could trust BC Hydro to be acting in our interests. The dams and power projects were all built for you and me.

Then we took over the Blackball Ferry line. To become BC Ferries. And boasted often that we had more ships under a BC banner than the whole Canadian Navy!  in those days, if they couldn't get your car on the last ferry, they would come back for you! We proudly constructed BC Ferries' new ships,  most of which are still working here, in BC shipyards.

The Pacific Great Eastern Railway was next. The provincial trust believed we needed our very own railroad, to open up our vast interior and service the small towns and help them build into vibrant communities. It became BC Rail and worked for all of us.

When I had my first house, and if my gas furnace broke down, BC Gas guys would come out and fix it, giving you the part free if they had it with them!

Our wild salmon fishery was so huge it could have fed the world with fresh fish. Forestry was growing and our mills were busy with lumber production. Mining was thriving with exploration and ore shipping. We built hospitals, highways, towns and bridges. How many can recall old WAC cutting the ribbon on the Lion's Gate Bridge and saying, "No more tolls for British Columbians." And smiling that toothy smile like a friendly Grampa.

British Columbia was being built and managed by proud teams of competent British Columbians.

But I'm not living in that past, only remembering it.

When did the balloon deflate? When did we lose control of our own future? Do we blame someone specific? What about those NDP governments? Social Credit had started the build. Did new governments of a political opposite carry it on? Did they respect the heritage of BC? I believe they did.

Even though the Social Credit, NDP governments had their share of scandals, they both had a constant direction: to improve BC for British Columbians. The things both these governments did wrong, were wrong, but not about selling out the people, their directions were still about what was good for us.

Had WAC Bennett lasted one more round we would have a Bank of BC now. And our share of the profits of the other banks which can amount to one BILLION dollars per quarter! That money would go into BC coffers.

But somehow a different mindset began to evolve. One that concentrated on how bad others were and not how good one could be. Every decision became political. A mindset grew that looked at profit first and not later. Patience was no longer a virtue. Protection of self interests was more important than public interests. Outsiders were suddenly deemed to be better than our local people. The Liberal government had no confidence in British Columbians to continue leading our people into the 21st century. They became polarized so badly that they were unable to look upon BC people and BC companies to do the job.

Today we consider only the so called global economy. What someone from somewhere else dictates as how we need to operate, what we need to produce, what we export. How we need to run our provincial business, and who we hire to do our jobs. International shareholders have taken precedence over resident workers and taxpayers. We need to reverse that direction.

British Columbia is huge, bigger than Washington, Oregon and California combined. (California has the eighth largest economy in the world.) We could go it alone. We wouldn't be swallowed up. Small countries like Sweden, Belgium, Uraguay, Jordan etc. do just fine with good management. And we have everything the world needs today, but we need to nurture our economy from a personal angle: what is the best for British Columbians.

The people of BC are vibrant, smart, tough when need be, inventive, adventurous,  and competent to do any job put to them. They are ready willing and able to continue building this great province into the pride of Canada and the world. We need only to place them first, and let them lead us further into this century.

Be proud of British Columbia accomplishments.  But don't try to keep it the way it was .... make it what it is.

I am old and I like where we came from, and want desperately to like where we're going, but we need to bring a little of that past with us.

Liberals revelling in the glory of choosing a Premier.

    They are happily glowing with the prospect of being the sole party to choose the leader of British Columbia. They are using their own weighted system this time, (you can vote for your first, second, third choices, etc)  and at the end of Saturday, the province will have a Liberal Premier. But how legitimate is this choice?

The open line talk shows have been busy all week with speculations, comments and explanations about the process. The party had to disallow 6000 applications to the party lists. They didn't say what was wrong with them. This follows on the Junior Hockey team sign up and Olivia the cat member. The candidates seem confused. The American company hired to execute the program admits they don't know what is wrong.
And during the week, when the PIN numbers were being mailed to party members, (one PIN one vote) there were many inconsistancies.
One lady called because she didn't get her number, then got two the following day. One guy called both telephone numbers and got a PIN in response to each call. Two PINs. Simi Sara's father got a PIN. He is not a member of the Liberal party. Another woman phoned in saying she got two and her husband one, so she could have three votes. Her husband is also not a member of the Liberal party.
It seems that the process is even a mystery to the organizers.

Regardless how much glee the Liberal party shines on their choice, or how much the media pimps the Party, the spotlight is not bright enough to light the way for the voting public. Whomever is accepting the bows at the end of the day, will remain in a cloud of doubt and not be the elected representative by the people of BC and as a premier, should have no right to make decisions that affect us all.
I'm swaying to Olivia, she purrs and doesn't bad mouth anyone else. How much worse could she be than the Gordon Campbell clones?

Elections BC = BC Liberals?

     Correct me if I am wrong, but this whole idea could be just a little bit important .....
When there was the recent recall effort of an MLA about to begin, Elections BC curtailed the start of the signing period. At that time it seemed to be an attempt to influence the potential signings of the recall petition within that riding.  And you might remember Elections BC’s concerns about 2,200 duplicate signatures out of a total of 710,000 signatures on the Citizen’s Initiative Petition against the HST. 
This was so serious to Elections BC that .... "they ordered an RCMP investigation to look into the problem at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars. They did all that three months after the petition was validated, for what amounted to less than .03% of invalid signatures on a non binding petition."   according to Chris Delaney of the BC First Party.

So now we come to the election by only the BC Liberal party members of who will become the next Premier of British Columbia.  With no approval of this person from the taxpaying voters of the province.
Consider this;  It has been revealed that there were 6,000 BC Liberal Party members who cannot be accounted for. These are among Olivia the cat and a BC Junior Hockey League team! None of which signed up to be Liberals. 

“We don’t know which campaigns those memberships were from. We don’t know who signed them. We don’t know who solicited them. We don’t even know if there are thousands more. If this is what the BC Liberals are actually willing to admit to, imagine how much worse the problem could potentially be?” - again from Delaney.
Of course this is a huge problem, yet Elections BC seems to be taking no notice whatsoever of a 10% discrepancy when they sprang upon a .03% difference previously. And the local media will not see the elephant. They simply wait for the inauguration.  
It might be just a little bit important if we have a non elected Premier of our province carrying on the cover-up of the BC Rail scandal, allowing the fish farms to continue the destruction of our wild salmon industry, and encouraging more Run-of-River Private Power Projects to produce electricity for California air conditioners, or selling off other assets belonging to British Columbians.
Shouldn't these 60,000 Liberal members who are about to aggrandize one person to the throne of BC Power have to be validated by an outside agency?  Could anyone have run for this Liberal leadership, submitted thousands of unconfirmed names and become the High Boss of BC?
'But they are confirmed,' you say.
'Who confirms them?'
'The Liberal party.'
'Oh.'
Does Elections BC have some explaining to do to avoid being considered a protective arm of the BC Liberals? 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this could be just a little bit important.

Banks deserve a break?

     This is what Liberals do ...

On February 19, 2008, then BC Liberal finance minister Carole Taylor tabled the province's 2008/09 budget - her last before quitting politics - she wiped out B.C.'s corporation capital tax on banks. Carol, all toothy smiles and new shoes, seemed to think banks needed a break.

Want some info?

Here are some bank profits for only the FIRST QUARTER of 2010 . . .

• Bank of Nova Scotia                           988 MILLION dollars
• CIBC                                                   652 million
• Bank of Montreal                                657 million
• National Bank                                     215 million
• Royal Bank                                         1.2 BILLION
• TD Bank                                             1.5 billion  

These figures are for a THREE MONTH period! The banks are getting virtually ALL their profits from YOUR bank account. They manufacture nothing. They don't wholesale anything to stores. They have no research and development of a product. Just a new fee here and a higher interest percentage there.

Yet Carole Taylor, in her wisdom and authority, thought that banks needed a break.

Eighteen months later, Taylor joined the TD bank as a director which could pay her up to $350 THOUSAND dollars a year!

If that isn't sleaze I don't know what is.

But this is just what Liberals do.

Steerage.

     Steerage used to be a term about the poorest ship passengers. They had so little money that they could only afford to travel in the bowels of a ship to get to the 'New World.' In steerage. They weren't even allowed out on the decks for fear of contaminating the real class passengers and their tea and crumpets.

Steerage today means an entirely different thing. And it is political. Almost everything you read in the newspapers has a political point of view. The writers and pundits seem to have given up truthful reporting. Instead, they choose their words to seem like they are being objective, yet they want you to think a certain way. They are trying to steer you into a direction of their choice. It used to be called yellow journalism, or slanted writing; interpreting or presenting in line with a special interest.

TV and radio do the same thing. Commentary always has a direction. And often the specific questions put to these pundits by the program hosts are asked in order to set a purposeful, specific direction in the minds of the listeners. And a preconceived answer. How often have you seen an interview where an answer begs a followup question, yet the host ignores the obvious pursuit.

If you watch a sharp lawyer during cross examination, he leaps upon a wayward answer from the witness and suddenly opens up a revelation that may turn the verdict. Not so in  today's media.

Now we have polls. These are the darlings of  'steerage'. Polls can be easily manipulated by the pollsters. Steered. Political polls are particularly suspect. You need to know first of all who paid for them. Which immediately skews results. If the results are against what the sponsor likes, you will likely never even hear of that poll. Many polls show one party so far ahead just before an election that you wonder if it is worth voting at all if you don't like that party. That is exactly how the poll sponsor may want you to react. Polling companies are in business for profit. They give their customers what they want just like your corner grocer. The old saying, 'Figures don't lie but liars can certainly figure.' applies.

As a political event moves closer, especially an election, the polling information develops into a maelstrom of figures and conclusions. All telling YOU what someone wants you to believe. This party is now ahead of that party. This leader is deemed best by the voting public. etc etc ad nauseum.

When they say 9 out of 10 people surveyed agree on something, it only means that the 10 people included in the survey indicated those results. If they eliminated 90 other people from the survey, then what does it actually mean?

This steerage only works if you allow it. Your own independent thoughts and actions can defeat insidious steerage. Go ahead up to the deck and mix with the tea and crumpets set. Sway them. Contaminate them with reality.

Just don't trust polls to be honest.