The Daily Twigg April 29, 2013
So much more could and should be done
to make B.C. the truly best place in the world

By John Twigg (Copyright)

It's a bit rich to suddenly see all the fooferaw around Premier Christy Clark's foolish red-light incident in which leading pundits, the mainstream media and even some of her own B.C. Liberal Party members are now questioning her character.
Yes she was stupid to stop and then go through a red light at a deserted intersection at 5 a.m. with her son on the way to his hockey practise and even moreso with a Vancouver Sun reporter in the back seat preparing a pre-election profile, and she was even more stupid when she mis-spoke about what she claimed she and her son to have said about it before and then gradually changed her story about her story...

Clark's character has long been questionable
We've heard Clark do that many times before about so many issues, from misrepresenting her dubious role as a leaky cabinet minister in the scandal-plagued sale of BCRail to her latest fabrications about the state of B.C.'s finances and economy and what the bond-rating agencies say about it, and what the New Democrats espouse and on and on.
Hey folks where have you been these last three years or so? The same folks now questioning Clark's character sat more or less mute while she pulled off numerous similar peccadilloes on her way to winning - some say stealing - the leadership of the B.C. Liberal Party about two years ago, including the notorious noxious use of bulk sales of new voting membership in the Indo-Canadian communities and then apparently the bulk voting by those memberships too, which numerous party insiders are aware of but so far only the notorious "political blogger" Alex G. Tsakumis has reported in any detail (especially the involvement of a convicted thug).
Whether or not Christy Clark's leadership win was marginally legal or not, it now appears that a cabal of powerful backroomers including lobbyist Patrick Kinsella and senior government lawyer Doug Eastwood among others inserted her into the Premier's Office so she could keep a lid on that and numerous other potential scandals in the wake of former premier Gordon Campbell's unexpected ouster in the wake of the Basi-Virk and Harmonized Sales Tax fiascos. Campbell is now in de facto witness protection serving as Canada's Agent General London while Kinsella reportedly is retiring and moving to a gated community in Palm Springs and Eastwood has been transferred to the B.C. Justice Institute training academy.

Dix shies away from personal attacks
The list of issues Clark has mishandled is too long for this column and sadly you won't find that list on the B.C. New Democratic Party's website either due to an anomaly in this campaign, namely that NDP leader Adrian Dix has decided to only offer positive alternatives, though the NDP did recently (Apr. 28) publish a cutely-worded list of why a dozen of the B.C. Liberal Party candidates could be called upon to step aside (which came soon after pundit Rafe Mair had criticized Dix for being too milquetoast [my word, his concept] against Clark).
NDP MLAs and officers have criticized numerous policy failings by Clark and the Liberals, especially re misrepresenting the size of the deficits and debt, but none have gone so far as to say she is personally flawed even though Christy has run up the debt even more than Campbell did, she has botched numerous projects such as the BC Place naming and the Prince George wooden office tower, and she has alienated many of her party's stalwarts, notably Kevin Falcon and George Abbott who lost the leadership and already have new jobs outside government.
Christy also has continued the chronic underfunding of numerous critical social services, she has allowed very few sittings of the legislature, she has churned through staff like a revolving door for a shoe sale, she has alienated other Premiers and scrambled to field a full slate of candidates, and abused the election process with massive spending on taxpayer-paid advertisements, and on and on like that.
But now the MSM pundits and a few diehard Liberals are now questioning her character because she drove through an empty intersection at 5 a.m.? and then misrepresented it?? It's ludicrous, but if that's what it takes then so be it. It's obviously time overdue for her and her colleagues to go for many many reasons, and perhaps this will be her last straw. We'll see how it plays or if it is even raised in the televised debate tonight at 6:30.

Dix faces new questions after policy flip-flop
However Clark is sheltered somewhat by a strange irony that is curiously typical of B.C.'s often tumultuous topsy-turvy politics and that is that B.C. NDP leader Adrian Dix also is being subjected to renewed questions about his character (which probably is also partly why he eschewed negative campaigning).
Dix of course became notorious for back-dating a memo to file in order to try to protect his then boss Premier Glen Clark from a scandal (a constituent seeking a gaming licence), then Dix getting caught and being forced to resign. Dix managed to admit his mistake and go on to win the B.C. NDP leadership also about two years ago and also won narrowly after some questions arose about his supporters recruiting bulk votes from the Indo-Canadian community, but he seemed well on his way to recovery until he was found to be on SkyTrain without a ticket, which he also managed to live down.
Though Liberal campaign strategists and external supporters launched massive advertising campaigns focussed on Dix's peccadilloes, claiming he thus was unfit to be a Premier, the polls showed repeatedly that voters had forgiven him, with 45% supporting the NDP versus only about 31% for the Clark Liberals and the remainder going to B.C.'s Green and Conservative parties (and about 20% undecided). As well, Dix topped Clark in the "best Premier" question.
So almost everyone was saying and assuming that it was Dix's election to win or lose and all he had to do was avoid mistakes.
As noted by pundit Norman Spector, the B.C. NDP campaign managed by former federal leadership candidate Brian Topp was one of the most astute he had ever seen by the B.C. NDP, and I agree with that as do many others though I would have preferred a more balanced approach including the positives but also lots of negatives about Clark and the Liberals, lots of reasons why people should get out to vote against the incumbents too.
But as perhaps many readers already know by now Dix may have blown it by suddenly flip-flopping on an important policy question: whether Kinder Morgan should be allowed to double the capacity of the former Trans-Mountain Pipeline from Edmonton to Burnaby to enable new exports of bitumen through Vancouver's inner harbour.
Initially Dix was studiously keeping an open mind on that proposal, withholding comment until KM submitted its official proposal, but then suddenly on Earth Day when he released the party's official platform he came out against adding any new oil tanker shipments through Vancouver harbour.
That reversal sparked a storm of controversy that is still raging and probably will be a central issue in tonight's televised leaders debate and unfortunately for Dix it renewed questions about his character from pundits including Spector this morning on CKNW's Bill Good Show.
So why did Dix flip-flop? So far he hasn't given a solid explanation so we are left to speculate that Topp's in-house polling had discovered a tidal wave of support flowing to the Green Party and so to forestall it he persuaded Dix to try to out-green the Greens, which he did at the expense of Kinder Morgan, refinery workers and B.C. government revenues.
As a person who grew up in West Vancouver I well sympathize with people, especially First Nations with rights to forage for food, who see increased oil tanker traffic as a threat, and I share NDP energy critic John Horgan's view that the terminus of Kinder Morgan's second line could be moved to a place such as Sumas or even go directly to Anacortes in Washington State, but either way the pipeline proposal is not for me a make-or-break vote-determining issue because the environment has co-existed reasonably well with Chevron's refinery in Burnaby for many decades and could continue to do so even if it added one tanker ship per day as now proposed. But it would be good to have a genuine review of the options and their cost-benefits - as Dix originally was promising to do. But now? Who knows. It has become a political football.

Campaign lacks creative ideas to grow jobs
What we have not seen yet from any party is creative ideas on how to grow the economy and to create jobs (they're connected but not the same thing), especially to add lots of low-skilled entry-level jobs which can give marginalized people enough work experience to get and take training to qualify for better jobs and to provide the skilled labour that many major industries in B.C. are now clamoring for - in other words moving towards full employment!
In my opinion the Number One Issue in the present B.C. election is the economy in general (which is what the polls also say) and direct job creation in particular, which the polls do not say and which the pols (politicians) won't even mention maybe for fear of being accused of being profligate wastrels.
In Dix's case we see a leader letting himself be steered by the party factions that elected him leader and the party pros who want to make him Premier, so his 74-page platform is super-cautious, with virtually no new spending nor even any major new directions but lots of positive small steps such as linking B.C. food to B.C. hospitals, and providing good fodder for his one-a-day policy pronouncements.
A prime example is B.C. Ferries, which in Dix's platform will get $40 million and a two-year rate freeze while the new government studies its options, which could be worse but also better.
For example, I have been pushing a radical idea to add a third-crossing from the area near Vancouver International Airport and the Iona sewage outfall over to Gabriola Island and then a short new bridge to the big island. It would be a very short crossing that could easily cater to truck traffic and foot passengers, especially with a link to SkyTrain in Richmond, and here's the kicker: the new ferry could be fuelled by gases extracted from Metro Vancouver's sewage which is soon going to need new treatment plants costing billions of dollars anyway!
B.C. Conservative Party leader John Cummins meanwhile is proposing an innovative tax credit for ferry users which was well-received, and the B.C. Green Party probably has a ferries plank in its massive on-line policy manual but if so they are not yet campaigning on it. And the Clark Liberals? Who knows - don't ask don't tell?

Green Party leader Sterk raising profile
So what we see so far is Clark and the Liberals promising pie in the sky to eliminate debt in decades hence when or really if the liquefied natural gas concept comes to fruition while Cummins and the Conservatives pander to small-c curmudgeons and the Greens offer such a plethora of ideas that so far no one thing stands out.
B.C. Green Party leader Jane Sterk won the radio debate on Friday (according to me and Vaughn Palmer and others) because she raised her profile and credibility, especially when she quickly connected with a caller complaining about the pittance disabled people must live on, but it remains to be seen if the Greens can win more than a few seats.
One problem the Greens have is that too many of their activists are well-meaning zealots who lack common sense about economics, business and government finances, and who accept on blind faith the scare tactics and twisted statistics from groups such as the International Panel on Climate Change who have vested policy interests as conflicted as any business or industry (viz Al Gore).
Thus when they see the level of carbon in the atmosphere approaching 400 parts per million they willingly claim it is some kind of tipping point towards disaster when really it's only one more artificial dot on a long continuum of what is really a relatively tiny component - in other words a bit of nonsense akin to the Y2K panic.
Yes the Green zealots are well-meaning, and yes rising sea level is a problem that some people will need to address (such as by Richmond adding berms akin to Holland), but the causes of the warming (which many claim has already ended) are mainly natural (changes in solar phases) and meanwhile there are many many other issues that are far more urgent and far more important, such as job creation, health funding and skills training, to name three.

Many moves available to improve B.C.
What we are not seeing in this campaign are major new reforms to the structures of our province in ways that will benefit the people living here now and furthermore become a model that other nation-states would do well to emulate.
In particular, B.C. should move quickly to revive the Bank of B.C. and enable it to issue a made-in-B.C. currency which would be instrumental in preserving the province's stability and the people's security if or when the U.S. Federal Reserve and/or other central banks fail or collapse under their mountains of debt. No doubt some readers will immediately become naysayers believing it couldn't possibly work, that it would cause inflation or some other such flaw, but really it's simple: in order for B.C. to survive the tribulations ahead it would help a lot to have recourse to its own money supply operating in parallel with other currencies as now with the U.S. and Canadian dollars. And to keep the B.C. dollar viable the Province would declare it acceptable for the payment of taxes.
The Province also could mandate or legislate or directly create a wide variety of new industries, especially by legalizing marijuana but also encouraging industrial hemp, which is a sort of miracle plant providing food, fibres, energy, oils and medicines all from one renewable and easy-to-grow plant.
It also could enable bulk exports of surplus water, which the province has in abundance and could do through a single-window export agency like Saskatchewan does with potash fertilizer or an auction approach to get around NAFTA, or in other ways even including the NAWAPA proposal which would see the high-altitude Site C dam collecting rain and snow melt and delivering it through canals and lift stations all the way to Arizona. Though many well-meaning people have painted water exports as a devilish trap, in fact it would be a renewable bonanza for B.C. and a boon to people and farmers in many locations including California farms that now send very large volumes of water-laden vegetables into Canada.
Similarly the Province could do better jobs exporting energy, forest and mineral products, it could move towards self-sufficiency in food and other essential products including micro-hydro and other forms of renewable energy, and it could improve its delivery of home care, reform courts and jails, add coastal ferries - it could electrify railways, repurpose ICBC, save the Agricultural Land Reserve and do almost everything in the platforms of all four major parties.
It also could build more rental housing, encourage energy retrofits (good sources of new jobs too), enable more woodlots and tree farms and catch up on reforestation.
It could expand preventive health care to reduce hospital and drug costs, it could invest in social programs and service-providers to reduce crime and limit court and police costs.
There also could be lots of financial reforms, such as finding a better funding formula for municipalities and reopening negotiations with Ottawa to this next time do a better job of designing, selling and then implementing a better harmonized sales tax system (the previous HST had an illegitimate process and too many design flaws). We might also bring back the B.C. Savings Bonds that were killed by Gordon Campbell.
And finally (at least for this list) it could engage in some systemic political, electoral and legislative reforms including more electronic direct democracy (assuming it survives a proper public process beforehand) and removing the system of partisan bullying exposed by journalist Sean Holman in his new film documentary called Whipped.
Indeed all that is still only a short survey of the many good things that could and should be done to make British Columbia into truly the best place in the world and a beacon of light to other nation-states.
We can begin by watching tonight's leaders' debate and then voting accordingly on May 14 (or sooner by advance ballot).  

B.C.'s election campaign
returns to some normalcy
By John Twigg
April 19
British Columbia's oftentimes turbulent election campaigns were seen again on Day One of this year's opus but since then things seemed to have settled down.
The B.C. Liberals scored a surprising win on Day One when they revealed that a nominated candidate had made some ill-worded remarks in an online chat forum a few years ago which forced NDP leader Adrian Dix to immediately remove her and he looked nervous for the rest of the day.
But Wednesday and yesterday Dix seemed to be back in a groove, visiting possible swing ridings held by cabinet ministers and announcing policy planks in their policy areas (finance and education) and holding well-attended rallies and generally coming off well in media coverage.
Indeed it is telling that some of the media have been carping at Dix's cautious and measured stances, which reflects that Dix and his advisers know they still have a large lead and so now the trick is simply to not blow it.
A telling example was Dix's promise to freeze ferry fares for two years while an audit is done and presumably debates happen about how the ferry system could or should be reformed (more on that another day), which Liberal finance minister Mike de Jong and others exclaimed would be a horrendous hit to the treasury, much like Dix's promise yesterday in Comox (home of education minister Don McRae) that he would spend $100 million a year more on classrooms.
That's cautious because Dix also could have promised to roll back ferry fares and spend even more on education but in any case the voters voted through opinion polls by Global TV through Ipsos Reid which found that the B.C. public is strongly supportive of Dix's ideas on those questions.
Meanwhile what the Liberals failed to do was find something new to attack the New Democrats with, which left Premier Christy Clark using the same old rhetoric in a tour through key swing ridings in Chilliwack, Merritt, Kamloops and on to Peace River, then today to Terrace and Prince Rupert (while Dix works the Lower Mainland).
One expects that the B.C. Liberals do have more "dirt" waiting to be thrown at New Democrats that perhaps won't be used until nominations close and more towards the end when momentum will be most needed, however right now it seems time is running out on the Campbell Liberal regime now led by Christy Clark.
The B.C. Liberals of course will still fight hard and they start with a core of about 35% of voters who will vote for any party even regardless of scandals that has the best chance of defeating the NDP, and the Green and Conservative parties and the Independents have been campaigning quite well too, but if an election was held today the NDP would win at least 50 of the 85 seats. 

Rough ride for NDP's Dix on Day One
suggests election result still uncertain

By John Twigg

The first official day of campaigning for B.C.'s election on May 14 proved that the outcome is not a foregone conclusion even though the New Democratic Party has a large lead.

A new poll from Ipsos Reid showed the NDP at 48 per cent of decided voters, with the governing B.C. Liberals trailing at 29 per cent, the B.C. Conservatives at 11 per cent and the Green Party at 9 per cent, which pattern was very close to recent findings by Angus Reid and EKOS polls (though Conservative and Green support probably is a bit higher than that).

With such a lead one would assume that all NDP leader Adrian Dix has to do is avoid making blunders, be cautious and let Liberal Premier Christy Clark continue to self-destruct, but the news events of Tuesday showed that is not true because the Liberals found a way to quickly put pressure on Dix.

Dix forced to fire a candidate
The Liberals dug up and revealed some embarrassing comments made several years ago in an online chat site by the NDP candidate in Kelowna-Mission, Dayleen Van Ryswyk, regarding aboriginals and francophones which forced Dix to remove Van Ryswyk as a candidate but he looked and sounded nervous and uncomfortable when he told reporters he had done so.

Dix has been saying for months that he expects a tough campaign and for the gaps to narrow by voting day and that is to be expected if only because the Liberals surely will launch a barrage of vicious attack ads against him and his party's checkered records in power, but now we see there could be more.

One wonders if the Liberals will have a one-a-day agenda of items like the Van Ryswyk quotes and if they do - especially if they attack Dix personally with new embarrassments - then the momentum could change radically.

Interest up in BCCP, Greens
Meanwhile the three opinion polls and other factors such as news coverage suggest that voter interest in the Conservative and Green parties is increasing, which suggests that the hordes of voters leaving the Liberals because of their tawdry record in power will not be going en masse to the NDP.

The key may be whether Clark and the Liberals can succeed in persuading enough people that a vote for the NDP would jeopardize the province's economy, which of course has become Clark's mantra in campaign speeches and media interviews. Their website is securetomorrow.ca, for example.

That's probably also behind Clark's frequent speech references to values, subtly reminding voters that she is (or tries to appear to be) a church-going Christian with conservative moralities while Dix and the New Democrats tend to be more non-Christian with alternative orientations and small-l liberal morals.

"B.C. is at a crossroads with two very different choices," Clark told reporters after visiting the Lieutenant-Governor Tuesday morning to officially trigger the election writ and that of course was yet another of Clark's many notorious deceits because there are four major parties and even more choices (notably numerous strong Independent candidates this time) but that IS what Clark needs to convey to stop the NDP from waltzing to an easy win.

Dix meanwhile began with a native-themed event at University of B.C.'s Museum of Anthropology in Clark's home riding and he announced that the NDP's full campaign platform will be revealed over the next eight days, with emphasis on the economy, skills training, environment, health and First Nations, but notably missing was a promise and coherent plan to grow the B.C. economy.

Instead Dix is focussing on reducing expectations and costing his meagre promises so as to not expand the province's troubling deficits and debt, which some could see as smart and prudent and others (like me) could see as overly cautious and lacking creativity (there are many things that could be done to grow the economy but Dix so far is not going near any of them, such as investing in direct job creation, enabling bulk water exports, starting a new made-in-B.C. currency, etc.).

Earlier today Clark lashed back at Dix's promise to freeze fares on B.C. Ferries while an audit is done, which I believe is a good idea because rising fares tend to limit commerce in general and an audit probably would pay dividends as well as hopefully open a door to new ideas such as special new crossing between (near to not at) Vancouver's Iona sewage outfall and Gabriola Island (with a small new bridge to the big island), and the passenger and truck-oriented ferries using sewage gases for fuel). Nonetheless Clark linked the fares freeze to her claims that an NDP government would drive up deficits and debt.

Will that kind of ammunition be enough for the Liberals to pull the NDP down far enough to enable say a minority Liberal win? They may, depending on whether they have more and better substance than that, and they may have it because a new scandal is building around NDP campaign manager Brian Topp, the former candidate for the leadership of the federal NDP who has since become a lobbyist based in Vancouver and now there are questions about his role in Dix's recent policy pronouncement of new tax measures to assist the B.C. film industry, apparently one of Topp's new clients. (Topp says he recused himself from party discussions on that issue but one suspects more media coverage will ensue nonetheless.)

So Day One is done and what we see is that the leading New Democrats are already on the defensive. What will Day Two bring? Stay tuned.

New role for new media
In fact the role of the media is a special factor in this campaign, especially with the recent addition of Global TV's BC-1 all-news channel and with the somewhat pro-Liberal stances of a few show hosts on audience-leading CKNW.

As Liberal cabinet minister Bill Bennett noted on Twitter, Dix looked like a deer in the headlights when grilled by CTV's Rob Brown on the Van Ryswyk matter, and when CKNW's Bill Good hosted an excellent panel of top candidates from all four parties he let the Liberal, Peter Fassbender, dominate and even bully the proceedings.

Though many criticisms can be fairly made against the Clark Liberals' record, notably their run-up of deficits and debt for dubious business schemes, Dix so far isn't making them, apparently because he's hoping his avoidance of going negative against them will prevent the Liberals from succeeding with attacks against his own record.

If we see 27 more days like that we could be in for some surprise results on May 14.

Meanwhile it will be interesting to watch not only the new TV news coverage but also how social media plays into it, and which party will have the best facebook and YouTube content, the most user-friendly website and especially the best word warriors on Twitter.

As they say in horse-racing, "They're off!"

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The Daily Twigg April 15

Justin Trudeau blitzes Ottawa, Dix plays it safe,
Christy bores B.C. - is Brad Bennett ready to take over?

By John Twigg

It's been an unusually busy time in B.C. and Canadian politics with lots of smoke and mirrors but not many truly earthshaking events.

Probably the biggest story was the massive 80% mandate given by the Liberal Party of Canada to new leader Justin Trudeau and then even moreso the brilliant speech he gave in accepting the job of trying to lift the former "Natural Governing Party" from third place and back into contention.

Actually the party is only in third place by seats in Parliament but in the latest opinion polls the 41-year-old Trudeau is slightly ahead of Conservative Party Prime Minister Stephen Harper (about 32% to 31%) and that explains why the Harper hatcheteers waited only minutes after the results Sunday to begin hitting him with missives.

Young Justin has good looks, charisma, a beautiful family and a real talent for speechifying plus he now obviously can organize a network of strong volunteers and fund it too but the Tories claim he lacks judgement, he's in over his head and he has no substantive policies - which is all hogwash.

Trudeau of course now has about two years to develop such things but he already wins big on one top priority: the growing need to get rid of a Harper Tory regime that with its long-sought majority has quickly become arrogant, insensitive, dictatorial and increasingly out of touch with public opinion such as regarding the environment, marijuana decriminalization, foreign workers and other major voting triggers (religion, gender etc.).

Trudeau also scored big in and with the media, with front page photos in most major daily papers, and he may even have received an endorsement from God because on the day he took over the Liberal caucus there was a small earthquake near the Ontario-Quebec border - so it WAS an earthshaking event in Canadian politics!

The federal New Democrats under new leader Thomas Mulcair also met for a major policy convention in Montreal on the weekend and though the party took some steps to popularize its positioning (switching from "socialism" to "social democrats") it still is dominated by minority single-issue activists (eg MP Libby Davies pushing through a new policy to liberalize the treatment of sex-trade workers).

While Mulcair himself is smart, debonair and charming - as I posted on Twitter - the federal New Democrats really need to expand their populist bases if they hope to do well in the next election, let alone maybe win it, and while several NDP MPs insisted on Twitter that they ARE succeeding in popularizing the party the proof remains to be seen on the TV screens and in the streets.

Perhaps it will come down to policy and for me the big big question is job creation, namely what will governments of all levels and orientations do to greatly and radically grow the economy for the benefit of not only deep-pocket interests but also under-employed low-skilled and middle-class Canadians.

It was noted that interestingly both the Liberals and the NDP are now openly appealing to the middle class and to the Idle-no-more First Nations movement and those are good thing but IMO what's really needed is a focus even lower on society's totem pole, to marginalized people needing jobs they are not trained for or able to do.  So we need a major massive job-creation and make-work initiative and there ARE ways to do that without exploding inflation and debt (eg by B.C. issuing a new currency through a revived Bank of B.C.) but do you hear anyone advocating such things? No.

The B.C. New Democrats under new leader Adrian Dix have begun dishing out new policies on a so-far one-a-day basis but so far there is no sign of anything truly major, truly creative. It seems he and his large and well-financed team of organizers are deliberately being cautious, more concerned to avoid making mistakes than making waves.

Though we may have hopes for better things that probably is a smart strategy given the pictures in recent opinion polls, such as the new Ekos poll via Tyee in which the key numbers "among likely voters" are #BCNDP 45% #LPBC 28 #GPBC 11 #BCCP 13 - which sound about right to me though others may focus on other slices of stats.



Premier Christy Clark meanwhile used a provincewide television address (B.C. Liberal Party purchased 7 - 7:30 pm on Global) to attack Dix and try to portray herself as tough as nails and eager to fight to protect jobs and cut debt - all of which served mainly to remind people why they now revile her and her party: vacuous hypocrisy wasting tax dollars.

Few people bothered to watch her show and those who did found it either slick (her supporters) or boring, desperate, misleading, hypocritical and cynically trying to turn the May 14 election into not merely a two-party contest but a two-person fight for a presidency, which to me is appalling and disgusting when there are four parties with near-to-full slates, at least a handful of electable Independents and numerous small-party candidates in an election for a British-style Parliament.

Brad Bennett on hand to help Christy campaign

One point of noteworthy interest from her TV show was the prominent presence of Brad Bennett, a Kelowna-based businessman who is the son of former premier Bill Bennett and the grandson of former premier W.A.C. Bennett, two of the longest-serving Premiers in B.C. history.

On Twitter someone wondered why Brad isn't the leader instead of Christy but I noted it sounds like Brad Bennett is positioning himself to pick up the Liberal Party's pieces after a likely debacle loss much like his father did in 1973 for the Social Credit Party! So you can remember you read that here first!



Election Alert Email Service only $20

If you would like to receive my new Election Alert email service, please send an email to me at john@johntwigg.com and follow it with a cheque for $20 (no taxes) to John Twigg, P.O. Box 101 Postal Stn A, Campbell River B.C. V9W 4Z9

Twigg revives blog, adds email alert service
as campaign begins for B.C. election May 14

Voters in British Columbia will go to the polls on May 14 and are likely to make significant changes in the governance of the province, though exactly what changes of course remain to be seen.

It is almost a foregone conclusion that the B.C. New Democrats now led by Adrian Dix will win a majority of seats - unless he or a colleague makes a horrendous blunder or some other unforeseen fluke happens - but there are still major uncertainties about the size and shape of seats to be won or lost by the three main opposition parties (as the governing B.C. Liberals soon should be) and numerous credible independent candidates.

I have lots of thoughts to contribute about those and many other relevant questions and policy issues and since they don't fit easily into Twitter posts - where I have been very active of late - I have now taken the step of reviving my Daily Twigg blog - and its comments section!

I won't promise that I'll have something new to post every day but I will have lots to say - especially as voting day nears - and I will use Twitter to alert people when new comments are posted.

Also, I have decided to launch an emailed B.C. Election Alerts News Service which will broadcast reports on any major events as soon as they happen.

For example, how will Premier Christy Clark's performance be in tonight's televised launch? Will she be surprisingly strong? Or will she be same-old-same-old, or even blunder? If something game-changing does arise you'll be among the first to hear about it.

If you would like to receive my B.C. Election Alerts News Service please let me know by email to john@johntwigg.com and follow it with a cheque or cash for only $20 (no tax) to:

John Twigg
P.O. Box 101 Postal Stn. A
Campbell River B.C.
V9W 4Z9

Your feedback is welcome as always.