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Posted on August 7, 2009 - by J Lane

What BC needs for leadership

Featured Posts Politics

There’s been some great discussion going on here and elsewhere about the HST.  I’ve seen some pretty good traffic on my posts about the HST, and getting involved to oppose the HST with excellent comments left by readers.  As many have pointed out, however, there is a greater issue at play here — trust and credibility.  Gordon Campbell and his party have lost it.

The BC Liberals, in no uncertain terms, stated during the election campaign that they would not be pursuing an HST.  Even their budget did not forecast any increase in taxes.  I understand that things can change in a year, or even six months later, but the HST was very clearly in the works during the election campaign.  I am not aware of some event that can account for the complete reversal of campaign promises in this case.

I have to admit that I didn’t vote for the Campbell government in the first place.  I am one of the 49% of eligible voters that did find their way to the polls on election day, and I cast my vote for the NDP.  It’s not that I actually support the NDP and what they stand for; in fact, during the campaign I was sick of their constant negativity and attack ads doing nothing but talking about how bad things are and everything that the Liberals were doing was leading to the destruction of British Columbia.  They didn’t appear to offer any new ideas, or solutions to many of the issues they were dragging into the spotlight.

It’s one thing to say (from the NDP web site):

“…since the election the premier has backed away from his commitments to protect vital public services like health care and education and is hiding the true state of B.C.’s finances.”

It’s another to offer a plan to actually protect or improve health care and/or education in the face of a recession.  Money is in short supply.  Revenues are down.  What can you do?  You can make cuts, but that could make the situation worse.  Ultimately, you look for the inefficiencies in the system, and fix them.  I realize that this is an extremely simplistic solution for the problem.  I’m not an economist, or an expert in this area.  There are a lot of people who are experts though, why not get them involved?

Others would argue that making cuts to eduction is the worst thing you can do.  Funding education is an investment in the future.  Funding health care is essential (read up on the current debate in the States if you doubt this statement).  What can we do to ensure the long-term viability of these (and other) essential services?

What is the answer?

Ideally, I think we need another alternative here.  I know that BC has more than just two political parties, but in reality, the only real players in the game are the Liberals and the NDP.  The green party is really just the NDP part 2 — great at splitting the vote on the left, but ultimately they’re not bringing much of anything new to the table.  There are a lot of single issue parties out there as well — they drive me nuts.  We the electorate are not going to put you in office so that you can legalize marijuana, or create a constitution for the province.  While the latter may be a long-term solution to some of our problems, we have a number of short term problems that need addressing.  Trying to cram everything into your narrow view of the world isn’t a viable option.

We’re having trouble with voter apathy because there is no party/candidate that captures the heart and the imagination of the voting public.  I almost didn’t vote because I didn’t want any of the alternatives (but that’s shortsighted).  We need somebody who is willing to stand up in this province and acknowledge that there are problems, but to offer actual solutions.  Driving the province deeply in debt to fund massive social programs isn’t the solution. Offloading costs to working people, isn’t a solution either.  It’s easy to show a profit if you’re offloading all of your operating expenses to your customers.  I’ve never understood the draw toward governments having surplus budgets — you’re not trying to make shareholders happy.

Ultimately, however, we need to stop being lied to.  If a political party promises that they are or aren’t going to do something, they need to actually do it (or not).  It’s a massive cop-out to get elected on a platform of lies.  Give us hope, but don’t give us false hope.

This entry was posted on Friday, August 7th, 2009 at 7:51 pm and is filed under Featured Posts, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  1. Visit My Website

    August 15, 2009

    Permalink

    Brad said:


    Yesterday I fired this off to several media outlets…seems like we’re both thinking much the same

    HST IS A SYMPTOM OF A BIGGER PROBLEM

    Do you remember Bingogate, under Mr. Harcourt’s NDP government? Mr. Harcourt was absolved of blame personally, but he did the right thing and stepped down. Sadly, I think, when he stepped down, our political system and politicians started going down, too. Where am I going with this and what does this have to do with HST? Bear with me, please….

    Recently, there were two polls that made headlines not just here, but were picked up as far away as the Maritimes. In one poll, we are told the government’s popularity has dropped 13%. We are also told that the opposition didn’t pick it up; the 13% was split between the other parties. The same poll tells us that nearly half the people in the province view both leaders with distaste and would like to see some major changes in the leadership and direction of the respective parties.

    The second poll tells us that 8.5 out of 10 citizens oppose the HST, and 7 of 10 vehemently oppose it. The comments on this poll make an amazing comment. Opposition to this tax crosses all demographics —low income, medium income, high income, working class, and business. Clearly, the people are disgusted first with the tax, and from comments online at various pro and con sites, the biggest issue seems to be the insult to the intelligence of the voters and citizens, when we are asked to believe Government went from “it wasn’t on our radar”, and “I missed the Ont. Budget entirely” to researching it, opening dialogue with Ottawa, hammering out a Memorandum of Agreement, and all in less than 2 months. If only government was always that quick and efficient, eh? Now, we’re almost done, and back to Bingogate.

    Since Bingogate, we have had Glen Clark’s NDP government, and now three terms of Mr. Campbell’s Liberal Government. We have seen scandal after scandal, and seemingly each worse than the one before from Fast Ferries to Police raiding the Premier’s home to Fudged Budgets to our premier being arrested on foreign soil for drunk driving, to selling off crown corps, tearing up legal contracts, raids on the legislature, corruption trials of ministerial assistants involved in the dubious sale of BC Rail, drastic funding shortfalls in the Health Authorities, the HST, and in the last few days a flurry of quiet cut announcements — and I’m sure you could add many more things to this list.

    I was doing some self analysis the other night as I couldn’t figure out WHY I was so outraged….thinking of all the above, it dawned on me. The issue isn’t the HST, although I am still opposed to it. The issue is that for the last FOUR governments, the wishes of the citizens and voters have been ignored more and more. That, I feel, is why we forgave the Maui incident, aren’t as outraged as we should be over the raids, or the duplicity and lies that seem to become more and more common every election . “We won’t do this (well, not until after the election when you can’t do anything)” seems very common these days.

    Everyone has a cause that’s dear to them, and several others they support, and perhaps a few they give lip service to, but don’t actually support. When there are protests, the government of the day points and says “oh, it’s just {insert your special interest group/cause here}, who cares? everyone else loves us.”

    This MUST change. I’m not a card carrying member of any union, party, or special interest group. Unless, of course, you count outraged citizen and victim of the recession as special interest. I used to believe “if you don’t vote, you can’t bitch” , but I’m not so sure about that anymore. I believe Government (and I mean both sides of the house, here) has forgotten where their mandates come from over the last four terms and who put them in office, and most importantly, WHY we put them in office. I also believe that this is primarily responsible for the massive voter apathy in this province we all call home. If you are one of the 50% who believe the parties are needing change of leadership and values, or one of the 85% who believe the HST is wrong, I have a suggestion for you.

    I encourage people to go out and buy a t-shirt if you can afford it, with our current Premier’s photo and a caption capturing YOUR issue or cause with the government -arts, education, poverty, crime, health, or just that you want truth from your leaders. My level of disgust at this lack of integrity and leadership is very high, and therefore I’ve gone with something more extreme — Gordon’s Maui Mugshot with the caption: Rehab Criminals: elect them Premier. If you like the liberals, but are still feeling annoyed/betrayed, use his glam shot from his MLA page. Wear this shirt to the Legislature sitting on Aug 25th. Yes, there will be special interest groups there, but all of you in the shirts will be Citizens with a beef. Not big business, not Big Labour, not environmentalists, just p.o.’d voters, tired of not being heard. If you hear of a protest, put on your shirt and attend. There is strength in numbers, and by showing your support to other groups, you are also showing the government that they MUST listen to the public. However, if you are attending your ‘special interest’ rally for that specific purpose, wear your union/business/whatever gear, please. Only wear this shirt, when you are showing support as a voter. Send them the message that people in these shirts are citizens, and we are not happy at not being heard, considered, consulted, or considered intelligent enough to see a flagrant falsehood.

    I have heard the Legislature referred to on occasion as a giant daycare of dysfunctional children, fighting over our sandbox Province and all the toys in it. Taking this analogy further…..We, the Citizens of BC are the Parents. We need to exert our authority, send them all to a corner and make them think about what they’ve done, because if they don’t listen to us…..Man, are they going to get spanked…..and we may not let them play in the sandbox at all, anymore, if they can’t get along with each other and above all, listen to us.



  2. Visit My Website

    August 15, 2009

    Permalink

    J Lane said:


    @Brad

    An excellent comment! There’s no doubt that you feel a great deal of outrage toward those people “representing us”.

    Being a recent transplant from Alberta, I’m not up to date on the political history of BC. I’m not going to use that as an excuse anymore though — time to start reading.