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2024 BC Election

Colin Parkinson said:
Private companies only want the money generating opportunities, never the ones that do not generate money or have to operate at a loss to provide a service to the people.
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By definition, a private company can't operate indefinitely at a loss. When it can't meet its debts, it folds. That's why we don't see private companies operating at a loss to provide a service to the people. What they "want" has nothing to do with it.
 
Brad Sallows said:
By definition, a private company can't operate indefinitely at a loss. When it can't meet its debts, it folds. That's why we don't see private companies operating at a loss to provide a service to the people. What they "want" has nothing to do with it.
Click to expand...
I would have had more sympathy about "their efficiency" if they were not so selective in their targeting of government run operations. I had to chuckle when some marine companies went to the Class Societies arguing that they would be more economical and faster than the government inspectors. Turns out they were slower and more expensive.
Working closely with a lot of private industry has jaded me on their claims of efficiency. Many large companies survive as they have crushed any competition and use their influence to get the government to keep others away, so the customers have no choice as to whom to deal with.
 
Colin Parkinson said:
I would have had more sympathy about "their efficiency" if they were not so selective in their targeting of government run operations. I had to chuckle when some marine companies went to the Class Societies arguing that they would be more economical and faster than the government inspectors. Turns out they were slower and more expensive.
Working closely with a lot of private industry has jaded me on their claims of efficiency. Many large companies survive as they have crushed any competition and use their influence to get the government to keep others away, so the customers have no choice as to whom to deal with.
Click to expand...
I am unsurprised that there are some things government agencies can do more efficiently than wholly private enterprises. The main reason is that there are some things for which people are unwilling to pay a market price.

Use of influence is a flaw in government, not private companies. If lobbying didn't pay, there would be pretty much none of it. If there were no compliance cost advantages for larger companies over smaller ones, we might have more companies - that's another factor wholly in the hands of government.

Any situation in which goods/services are over-priced is an opportunity signal to entrepreneurs, provided the cost of entry is bearable. Monopolies and near-monopolies are not inherently bad.

Small communications companies lobby governments - successfully - to gain access to infrastructure they have no intention (and probably no capability) of building themselves, at favourable rates. These matters aren't unidirectional.
 
In terms of popular vote, it’s close. Projected seat count is looking less close.

338canada.com

338Canada British Columbia | Poll Analysis & Electoral Projections

338canada.com 338canada.com

338 is showing the NDP at 45% and BCCP at 44%, well within the margin of error. On the other hand, the projected seat count is at NDP 49 and BC Conservatives at 42. This is consistent with the NDP’s efficient vote distribution.

It’s seems to me that Rustad’s Conservatives is not the united free-enterprise coalition. If it was, they would be leading by 5 points or so. There are enough people from the previous coalition who are staying home because the BC Conservatives are viewed by them to be too kooky. Rustad’s shaky performance in the debate didn’t help either.

As well, I have heard that the BCCP has no ground game. Apparently their GOTV operation is non-existent. They’re running a mainstream campaign on a fringe party budget.

Many people are holding their noses and voting BC Conservative, but not enough. Question is, will BC United reassert their dominance after this election, or will the BCCP take the loss, professionalize the party and try to appeal to more mainstream free-enterprises? Or will the BCCP pull a rabbit out of their hat and pull an upset in a few days?
 
RangerRay said:
In terms of popular vote, it’s close. Projected seat count is looking less close.

338canada.com

338Canada British Columbia | Poll Analysis & Electoral Projections

338canada.com 338canada.com

338 is showing the NDP at 45% and BCCP at 44%, well within the margin of error. On the other hand, the projected seat count is at NDP 49 and BC Conservatives at 42. This is consistent with the NDP’s efficient vote distribution.

It’s seems to me that Rustad’s Conservatives is not the united free-enterprise coalition. If it was, they would be leading by 5 points or so. There are enough people from the previous coalition who are staying home because the BC Conservatives are viewed by them to be too kooky. Rustad’s shaky performance in the debate didn’t help either.

As well, I have heard that the BCCP has no ground game. Apparently their GOTV operation is non-existent. They’re running a mainstream campaign on a fringe party budget.

Many people are holding their noses and voting BC Conservative, but not enough. Question is, will BC United reassert their dominance after this election, or will the BCCP take the loss, professionalize the party and try to appeal to more mainstream free-enterprises? Or will the BCCP pull a rabbit out of their hat and pull an upset in a few days?
Click to expand...
NDP knew they were coming into this election as contenders and had to play it as such. BCCP were, I think, not expecting anything beyond their usual status as ‘also-rans’ with a token handful of seats. BCCP need to do a ton of housecleaning if they’re suddenly going to be at the grown-ups’ table going forward.
 

THREE PROVINCES CAN CAST A BALLOT FOR COMMON SENSE THIS MONTH.​

  • National Post
  • 12 Oct 2024
Over the next two weeks, voters in three provinces will have a chance to disavow progressive nonsense and cast a ballot for common sense. For the sake of Canada, let’s hope they do.
If they don’t, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and New Brunswick can each count on a future of wasteful wokeness: crime tolerance, free drugs, performative paper straws, homeless camps in public parks and elaborate protections for government employees who put children on the path to receiving cosmetic mastectomies and genital surgery.
Nowhere is this more critical than in B.C., which is headed to the polls Oct. 18, after seven years of governance guided by the oppressor-oppressed thinking of the NDP. To Premier David Eby, oppressors are property owners on Haida Gwaii, who have been left in a legal grey zone after the NDP announced sweeping new land title changes on the island to advance reconciliation with Indigenous communities.
Oppressors are pregnant nurses, who, because of Ndp-style harm-reduction policies, have to inhale toxic meth smoke on the job to accommodate addicts seeking care. Oppressors are children, whose playgrounds were ceded to homeless folk during the NDP’S radical decriminalization experiment — which was finally halted this year because it was such a disaster. Oppressors are female athletes, who have the privilege of competing in female sports — a benefit that must also be extended to transwomen as a matter of inclusion.
And most importantly, oppressors are high-income earners, who have seen their top tax rate rise to 20.5 per cent and are now paying one of the biggest tax shares in the country, to cover the cost of the NDP’S big government policies.
The federal government’s wage-suppressing, housing-cost-inflating immigration policy certainly adds to the mess, as does its climate policy. But for many years, the B.C. government has stood idly by as local development charges suffocate new development. Eby’s big plan to turn the ship around is to subsidize demand further by handing out housing loans.
And on climate, B.C.’S NDP has led the crusade with a plan that’s projected to shrink the province’s prosperity to 2013 levels by 2030. Another Eby government will stay the climate penance course, keeping young people away from home-ownership to keep activists feeling warm and fuzzy about saving the planet. Meanwhile, regular people have paid the price dearly: food costs are up 29 per cent since the NDP took power in 2017, no doubt a factor of the price of gasoline, natural gas and fuel oil, which have risen by 45, 49 and 62 per cent, respectively, over the same period.
It’s hard to find a province where regular, rule-following, no-nonsense people have been treated by their provincial government like servants who needs to be put down and kept there. Like any cycle of abuse, it’s not going to get better — no many how many times Eby offers flimsy promises of, “This time, I’ll be better.” He won’t do better. He’s proven he can’t.
The only way to break the cycle is by electing John Rustad — a man who believes in restoring public order by providing drug treatment for addicts, ending the government’s free drug scheme and bringing in court reforms to ensure timely justice.
The province needs a premier who believes in treating every person like a human being — an option only offered by the Conservatives. The NDP has spent its time integrating LGBTQ+ activism into schools under the guise of anti-bullying and gaslighting students into believing they’re colonizers — teachings that reject classic Canadian notions of equality and individualism.
The government has also made radical legal changes that give rights to Indigenous populations that are not enjoyed by other British Columbians. Rustad, at least, would roll back ethnic favouritism in favour of an economics-focused approach, and for the kids, he’d go back to having schools focus on plain old bullying prevention — something that protects both queer students and straight, without getting into divisive transgender politics.
New Brunswick and Saskatchewan, at least, are already on the path of respecting human dignity. They just need to stay the course.
Premier Blaine Higgs, who’s up for re-election on Oct. 21, has proven himself a trailblazer. He made the difficult but correct choice to publicly stand against radical gender policies in schools last summer by enacting Policy 713, which restricted the ability of schools to transition minors behind the backs of parents, and eliminated the province’s previous guarantee allowing students to participate in cross-sex sports. It was a good compromise for vulnerable minors, who face all sorts of risks in the course of gender transition, and the safest for girls, who are vulnerable in change rooms and who don’t have the same athletic advantages as biological males in sport.
It set off a cascade: Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, who’s up for re-election on Oct. 28, quickly followed suit, and Alberta later tagged along as well. To their credit, Higgs and Moe have stood their ground in the face of mobs of loud, federally funded activists in court, doubters in caucus and schools attempting to disobey provincial orders.
Like Rustad, they don’t flinch in the face of the nonsense left. They stare it down. And when they decide what the alternative looks like, they don’t take “no” for an answer.
It’s common sense, and Canada needs a lot more of it.
REGULAR PEOPLE HAVE PAID THE PRICE DEARLY.
 
Anyone surprised by "characters" in BC politics has never studied BC politics. When an early premier renamed himself Amor de Cosmos (from the more pedestrian William Alexander Smith), and another premier was William Andrew Cecil Bennett, the current crop seem almost tame.
 
dapaterson said:
Anyone surprised by "characters" in BC politics has never studied BC politics. When an early premier renamed himself Amor de Cosmos (from the more pedestrian William Alexander Smith), and another premier was William Andrew Cecil Bennett, the current crop seem almost tame.
Click to expand...

And then there was the (more recent) premier who proved why there needs to be an adult, like the Lieutenant Governor, overwatching the profoundly partisan and selfish ambitions of the politicians in a Westminster Parliamentary democracy...


The dimmed political legacy of Christy Clark​

The seventh longest-serving premier in B.C. history leaves politics—and, after some electoral drama, a divided province—behind

Soon after the throne speech, Clark lost a vote of non-confidence in the legislature. Her government defeated, Clark did what was only natural and necessary: she suggested that she’d advise B.C.’s lieutenant governor, Judith Guichon, that she’d lost the confidence of the legislature. Clark also said she wouldn’t ask for an election, because it wasn’t her job to advise the LG on what to do, even though it was precisely her job to do so. She then met the LG and asked for an election after Guichon reportedly told her that “give no advice” was not an option. What a time to be alive, we all thought.

Clark’s request was appropriately refused, and her resignation as premier was accepted; that evening, the NDP’s John Horgan was asked to become premier. And on Jul. 28, Clark’s career in provincial politics ended with a whimper. Clark is the seventh longest-serving premier in B.C.’s tumultuous history, steering the ship of state adequately at times, and using her political acumen to beat the odds more than once. But she leaves a divided province facing multiple crises and a B.C. Liberal Party whose identity and principles are now difficult to discern after the last election and the fiasco that followed it.



www.timescolonist.com

Les Leyne: Christy Clark missed mark on losing gracefully

Premier Christy Clark had a demanding role to play over the last several weeks. She had to portray a scrappy, determined leader fighting a losing battle, then pivot to losing gracefully with honour.
www.timescolonist.com www.timescolonist.com
 
daftandbarmy said:
And then there was the (more recent) premier who proved why there needs to be an adult, like the Lieutenant Governor, overwatching the profoundly partisan and selfish ambitions of the politicians in a Westminster Parliamentary democracy...


The dimmed political legacy of Christy Clark​

The seventh longest-serving premier in B.C. history leaves politics—and, after some electoral drama, a divided province—behind

Soon after the throne speech, Clark lost a vote of non-confidence in the legislature. Her government defeated, Clark did what was only natural and necessary: she suggested that she’d advise B.C.’s lieutenant governor, Judith Guichon, that she’d lost the confidence of the legislature. Clark also said she wouldn’t ask for an election, because it wasn’t her job to advise the LG on what to do, even though it was precisely her job to do so. She then met the LG and asked for an election after Guichon reportedly told her that “give no advice” was not an option. What a time to be alive, we all thought.

Clark’s request was appropriately refused, and her resignation as premier was accepted; that evening, the NDP’s John Horgan was asked to become premier. And on Jul. 28, Clark’s career in provincial politics ended with a whimper. Clark is the seventh longest-serving premier in B.C.’s tumultuous history, steering the ship of state adequately at times, and using her political acumen to beat the odds more than once. But she leaves a divided province facing multiple crises and a B.C. Liberal Party whose identity and principles are now difficult to discern after the last election and the fiasco that followed it.



www.timescolonist.com

Les Leyne: Christy Clark missed mark on losing gracefully

Premier Christy Clark had a demanding role to play over the last several weeks. She had to portray a scrappy, determined leader fighting a losing battle, then pivot to losing gracefully with honour.
www.timescolonist.com www.timescolonist.com
Click to expand...
And according to two longtime Ledge reporters, Mike Smyth and Keith Baldrey, is looking at a run for the LPC leadership when Trudeau steps down. shudder
 
RangerRay said:
There are enough people from the previous coalition who are staying home because the BC Conservatives are viewed by them to be too kooky.
Click to expand...
I've encountered people sitting on that edge.

Much better to throw things over to the other team so they can execute their plans than to settle for being the junior partner in your own coalition and maybe execute a few of your own.
 
In their defence, they were a fringe party at this time last year. No one expected Falcon to fold up the United tent and cede the field.

The BCCP also didn’t benefit from the per-vote subsidy that the NDP enjoy, so they’re running an official opposition campaign on a fringe party budget.

I’ll be surprised if they get more seats than the NDP. If they can professionalize their operations and mainstream the party, they’ll defeat the NDP next time.
 
We have seen the enemy and they are us....

B.C. Election: Relentless problems with candidates hurting John Rustad's credibility and campaign​

Vaughn Palmer: The B.C. Conservative leader is having trouble getting out his own message as questions about some candidates continue

VICTORIA — Nearing the end of the third week of the election campaign, B.C. Conservative leader John Rustad scheduled an announcement about the future of B.C. Ferries, part of the slow rollout of a party platform that has yet to be released in full.

Rustad promised an overhaul for the troubled service, a house cleaning at fleet headquarters, and a monthly pass for frequent travellers.

He’d also give B.C.-based shipyards a better shot at building new vessels, a commitment delivered at the Seaspan yard in North Vancouver. Rustad didn’t explain how he would cover the extra cost of building ships here in B.C. instead of overseas. It could cost twice as much, according to some estimates.

But when he took questions from reporters Thursday, no one asked about his plan for the ferry system.

Instead most of the questions were about messes of the Conservatives own making.

What was Rustad’s response to the just-come-to-light comments about Muslims and Palestinians from Brent Chapman, the Conservative candidate in South Surrey?

“Brent has made an apology. We have two Muslim candidates who are running for us. They both have accepted his apology. I have also accepted Brent’s apology.”

Many were saying the apology was not enough, given the deeply racist comments. Rustad himself said he had “no interest in candidates who are spreading hate and racism.”

Why not ask Chapman to quit?

“It was a statement that was made 10 years ago,” replied Rustad. “I found it offensive, and I know many other people do. People sometimes make mistakes. Brent has already reached out to the people on our team and apologized. They have accepted that apology as I have accepted that apology.”

vancouversun.com

B.C. Election: Relentless problems with candidates hurting John Rustad's credibility and campaign

Vaughn Palmer: The B.C. Conservative leader is having trouble getting out his own message as questions about some candidates continue
vancouversun.com vancouversun.com
 
dapaterson said:
Anyone surprised by "characters" in BC politics has never studied BC politics. When an early premier renamed himself Amor de Cosmos (from the more pedestrian William Alexander Smith), and another premier was William Andrew Cecil Bennett, the current crop seem almost tame.
Click to expand...
Keep in mind WAC Bennett is the reason why BC had abundant Hydro power and was able to build up substantial revenues selling it. Not to forget railways and highways that also got built under his watch. I remember meeting him as a kid. My Dad was opposing him, but he was a real gentleman and would have tea with my grandparents at the legislator cafeteria.

He was a complex man who would not fit into our current political setup (From Wiki) ;

Financial policy
A fiscal conservative, Bennett served also as the Minister of Finance, keeping tight control over government spending. He led his province into an era of modernization and prosperity. His practice of "pay as you go" carefully tracked spending, and transferred debts to other government agencies. In 1959 Bennett announced that the province was debt free.[12]

Government expansion
Bennett's governments nationalized certain industries, creating provincial Crown corporations, including BC Ferries (1960) and BC Hydro (1961). BC Rail, formerly the Pacific Great Eastern Railway and owned by the province since 1918, had a series of major expansions to stimulate development.[13] He also ensured investment in other infrastructure. Minister of Highways, Phil Gaglardi, oversaw major highway expansions and improvements. Major hydro-electric dam-building projects were undertaken on the Columbia and Peace Rivers. Bennett was instrumental in establishing the Bank of British Columbia, in which the government took a 25% ownership.[12]

In 1955 Bennett advocated for a universal medical, dental, hospital, and pharmaceutical insurance coverage.[14] The federal government introduced universal, publicly funded medical and hospital insurance as part of what became known as Medicare. The provincial government introduced a retail sales tax to fund the program.
 
RangerRay said:
In their defence, they were a fringe party at this time last year. No one expected Falcon to fold up the United tent and cede the field.
Click to expand...

Yup, I touched on that a couple days ago. They’ll mature and clean up if they become the only major opposition.
 
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