KEEPING IT REAL: Campbell AND the Liberals are going, going...
If anyone had any doubt it is game over for Premier Gordon Campbell, the latest Angus Reid poll spells it out in black and white. But what’s worse are the figures that also show that, even with a new leader, the Liberals are heading for an election disaster.That will be Campbell’s political legacy, barring a miraculous...
KEEPING IT REAL: Inquiry into missing women wastes millions
Vancouver Police got it wrong in the beginning-- and they’re getting it wrong again at the end. The department has jumped on the politically correct bandwagon and supported calls for a public inquiry into what went wrong in the case of the 26 missing women, who are believed to have died at the hands of Robert Pickton, already...
BC Green Party says cancel consideration of the Northern Gateway Enbridge pipelines
"BC Greens oppose the Enbridge pipelines between the Alberta Tar Sands and Kitimat. The Michigan spill proves that Enbridge has misled the public on the general safety of pipelines and on its own record of spills," said Green Party of BC Leader Jane Sterk."It seems that it is only after a disaster happens that the...
CTV Back at CRTC: Is it Begging or Blackmail?
Any cop, lawyer, judge or prosecutor knows that when you give in to blackmail, it’s not the end of the shakedown. Not by any means! Too bad the Canadian Radio Television and Telecommunications Commission never learned that lesson.It’s only a few months ago that the CRTC caved in to the demands of Canada’s private television...
DOBBIN: Another political season is over
As you may have noticed I haven’t been blogging much over the last couple of weeks. (Largely this is because I have been immersed in fighting the privatization of the local sewage treatment system). But in part it is the result of having some doubts about what the point is. I often say to people that the left – whatever that...
Time for Media to Stop Defending/Promoting HST
The hurt has begun: BC consumers are now being hit with a higher sales tax (HST) almost every where they turn. And as a result some of those who can hardly afford it, like food servers, are already taking the hit.A friend of mine told me the following story: each morning he has coffee and toast at a neighbourhood restaurant;...
DOBBIN: A response to the banker's association
When is a bank bail-out not a bailout? When the Canadian bankers’ Association President, Nancy Hughes Anthony says so. In her letter to the Vancouver Sun (which published my blog on the issue) Hughes Anthony points out that not a single bank went bankrupt and therefore did not require a bail out.But call it what you will ...
Elections task force reports to the province
Co-chairs Community and Rural Development Minister Bill Bennett, and Union of B.C. Municipalities (UBCM) president Harry Nyce announced that the final report from the Local Government Elections Task Force has been delivered. The task force, started by Premier Gordon Campbell at the 2009 UBCM meeting, has been hearing input ...
BC Civil Liberties Association condemns compassion club raids
Quebec police shut down three medical cannabis dispensaries, also known as “compassion clubs” today, arresting all staff on site for trafficking. The Quebec closures follow a raid on a compassion club in Nunavut in February, in Toronto at the end of March, and in Guelph in May.“These national raids have now sent thousands of...
DOBBIN: The Canadian ‘good banks’ myth
The sorry spectacle of Conservative cabinet ministers flying around the world defending banks from a tax to cover their next, inevitable, meltdown is bad enough. What is perhaps worse is that it is being largely justified by the perpetuation of the myth that Canada did not have to bail out its banks.Wrong.We are, according ...