BC Election issues

[Urbane]

Getting back to actual issues . . .

BC has the strongest economy in the country when it comes to job creation (the best), unemployment (the lowest), and GDP (the highest). Is the economy perfect? No, but it's better than anywhere else in the country.

Our health outcomes are some of the best in the country and in an effort to make our system even better the government plans to expand the UBC medical school.

Our education outcomes are some of the best in the world. Our grade 10 students are sixth in math, second in science, and first in reading. That's impressive.

The Site C Clean Energy Project, with the blessing of the federal government and after extensive scrutiny (https://www.ceaa-acee.gc.ca/050/documen ... ummary.pdf), is going ahead. It will provide clean, affordable energy for a century or more.

The Kinder Morgan expansion, again with the blessing of the federal government, will go ahead. Polls show that most people are in favour of the project as they understand that moving oil by pipeline beats the alternatives.

The minimum wage is being raised in a methodical and careful way so as to avoid unintended consequences such as job losses.

So the above are a few of the issues that should prompt people to consider voting Liberal. Some of us have been asking for months now to see a similar list of why people should vote NDP. With only a few days left until the election will someone take up the challenge?

[maryjane48]

according to angus reid 66 percent of bcers think the ndp would do better by running a deficit and funding social programs and raising taxes on the top percent . the will is there

[George+]

Glad to. NDP will support..

$10 phased in Daycare.
Frozen utility costs
MSP removal
No bridge tolls.
Serious review of Site C.
Support expanding Deas Island tunnel.
Improved public transit.
Environmental protection by encouraging alternative energy sources.
No Kinder Morgan expansion...leave as is.
End Grizzly hunt.
Proportional Representation.
Solid pragmatic leader in John Horgan.

[Mr_Mrs_Wolf]

http://bc.ctvnews.ca/millions-in-donati ... sc=iznJSNT


When Christy is working hard for her financial donors she cannot be working for you.

[Mr_Mrs_Wolf]

Because to many don't want to believe

http://commonsensecanadian.ca/bc-libera ... -ndps-90s/

[rustled]

Glad to. NDP will support..

$10 phased in Daycare.
Frozen utility costs
MSP removal
No bridge tolls.
Serious review of Site C.
Support expanding Deas Island tunnel.
Improved public transit.
Environmental protection by encouraging alternative energy sources.
No Kinder Morgan expansion...leave as is.
End Grizzly hunt.
Proportional Representation.
Solid pragmatic leader in John Horgan.

Lots of extra expenses for the taxpayer in this list, but how expensive? (Who knows? Not Horgan. Or does he know, and that's why he refuses to say?) Who pays? (Well, we do of course. Lucky us.) How? (Depends, but you can bet we'll still be paying for MSP and increased utilities costs and tolls somehow, along with $10/day daycare and alternative energy sources and all the other shiny sparkly things that are unlikely to prove helpful to any of us in the long run.) Promises of electoral reform? Promises, promises.

[Urban Cowboy]

Glad to. NDP will support..

$10 phased in Daycare.
Frozen utility costs
MSP removal
No bridge tolls.
Serious review of Site C.
Support expanding Deas Island tunnel.
Improved public transit.
Environmental protection by encouraging alternative energy sources.
No Kinder Morgan expansion...leave as is.
End Grizzly hunt.
Proportional Representation.
Solid pragmatic leader in John Horgan.

Lots of extra expenses for the taxpayer in this list, but how expensive? (Who knows? Not Horgan. Or does he know, and that's why he refuses to say?) Who pays? (Well, we do of course. Lucky us.) How? (Depends, but you can bet we'll still be paying for MSP and increased utilities costs and tolls somehow, along with $10/day daycare and alternative energy sources and all the other shiny sparkly things that are unlikely to prove helpful to any of us in the long run.) Promises of electoral reform? Promises, promises.

My money is on the part I put in bold. He knows if he puts a number to it he's toast. He's banking on enough gullible ones buying into the "we'll figure it out once we're elected" nonsense, to win him the election.

I'm banking on voters being smarter than that.

LOL at the "solid pragmatic leader" point. More like unstable with a short fuse leader.

[lasnomadas]

Most of us are not so selfish and stingy that we would sing the praises of a government that has a reverse Robin Hood attitude........steal from the poor and give to the rich. That's exactly what the BC Liberals have been doing for 16 years, and this theft of BC taxpayers' dollars has been accelerating rapidly since Christy took over from Martini Gord.

Contrary to Christy cheerleaders belief, B.C.'s economy is a house of cards just waiting to collapse along with the B.C. housing market that has been the only thing that's been sustaining it for the past several years. Job creeation under Christy's reign is practically non-existent except for minimum wage service jobs. The 13,000 jobs that were supposed to be created by AdvantageBC didn't materialize. Only 300 of those jobs were created. The Site C dam, which is Christy's 'ace in the hole' will only go ahead if she's reelected, and even if that remote possibility occurs, the whole north slope will likely slide into the river and the BC taxpayers will wind up footing the bill for the clean-up as well as the cost of the whole failed project to date.

If our health care is better than everywhere else in Canada, I'd hate to think how long people in the other provinces have to wait for lab tests and surgery. And 'the government' doesn't plan to expand the UBC medical school. That was just one of Christy's campaign promises, and we all know how much faith to put in those, don't we?

If our education outcomes are good, it's in spite of the government, not because of it. Who can forget the 15 years Christy fought our teachers in court, spending all our money that could have gone towards school programs instead of lawyers pockets, and in the end she lost in the Supreme Court of Canada. The judge took only 20 minutes to decide in favour of the teachers. Christy tried to spin it in her favour, but that went over like a lead balloon.

The Kinder Morgan expansion will not go ahead. Anyone with a brain (of course that excludes Clark and Trudeau) knows that we'll never meet our GHG emissions targets if the tar sands are allowed to increase production, and the people who live on the coast will not take the risks involved in increased bitumen tanker traffic. Besides the price of oil is dropping again and the multinational oil corporations in Alberta aren't about to keep mining bitumen when there's no profit in it.

That old fearmongering tactic about how raising the minimum wage results in job losses has been debunked many times over.
Why should British Columbians vote for the NDP or Greens? Because they're the only political parties that care about ordinary people and the environment, and they're the only ones who will spend our tax dollars wisely. Both parties have a few policies that don't resonate with everyone, but both are 100% better than the BC Liberals.

Oh, and Urb, O.T., G.B. et al? 'Rah, rah, rah, siss, boom, bah!......and goodnight.

[hobbyguy]

You are sort of correct. The BC Libs are a touch too far to the right for me.

Where you get it wrong is including the NDP in the thought process. They haven't had a good idea since Dave Barrett.

If you want better educational policy, look at the Green party.

Not the BCTF ideologue pandering NDP. All the NDP so called policy does is reward the lunatics that run the BCTF (I separate teachers from the BCTF).

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/numbers-tell-different-stories-for-bc-teachers-government/article18942110/

"Indeed, between 2000-01 and 2012-13, the percentage of students graduating high school within six years of starting Grade 8 has increased to 83.1 per cent from 75.1 per cent. And B.C. students have consistently shown some of the highest Canadian results in PISA scores."

Now if the NDP policies were so dang fine, how is it that the "draconian" Liberal policies were able to improve graduation rates??? Because the Liberals did everything they could to wrest control back from the lunatics at the BCTF.

So the BC Liberals have done a credible job. But it could be improved, and when you consider the Green party platform is to expand and improve early childhood education - which helps the daycare problem (and quickly, not over some pie in the sky 10 years), the NDP are not even in the race, they tripped over the starting line.

[fluffy]

Most of us are not so selfish and stingy that we would sing the praises of a government that has a reverse Robin Hood attitude........steal from the poor and give to the rich. That's exactly what the BC Liberals have been doing for 16 years, and this theft of BC taxpayers' dollars has been accelerating rapidly since Christy took over from Martini Gord.

That's a typically left wing perspective. "The rich" as you put it, I'm assuming you refer to private sector corporate interests, are the movers and shakers of the economy. Without a thriving private sector there is no economy. The NDP's incessant portrayal of anything done by the government to encourage private investment as "thievery" is purely political in my view, and blind to the realities of the business world. If the NDP think they can run an effective government without the support of private sector interests then they're living in a dream world.

[fluffy]

When Christy is working hard for her financial donors she cannot be working for you.

I take it you work for the government? I say that because anyone employed in the private sector should realize who butters their bread.

[mr.bandaid]

That's a typically left wing perspective. "The rich" as you put it, I'm assuming you refer to private sector corporate interests, are the movers and shakers of the economy. Without a thriving private sector there is no economy. The NDP's incessant portrayal of anything done by the government to encourage private investment as "thievery" is purely political in my view, and blind to the realities of the business world. If the NDP think they can run an effective government without the support of private sector interests then they're living in a dream world.

And to carry that through, if the Government thinks that they can run an effective government without the public sector then they believe in unicorns and fairy dust.
Listen, the only example I can relate is with the Ambulance service. The way it is run now is through tax payer support. If you privatize than any company with an ounce of brains would only take it on if there is enough profit in it to make it a good investment. Go south of the border and use emergency services there is a good chance you could lose much of what you worked your whole live to attain.
In order to make it profitable the service would 1) be very expensive for the user or 2) Be heavily subsidized by government, not unlike road maintenance.
This is where the whole pay to play debacle muddies the water. Do you get the best bang for your buck or do the parties get the best contributor to provide services and at what cost to us, the tax payers?
Where does privatization begin and end. Would you be able to afford private education? private healthcare? If that is all that is available either it is heavily subsidized or out of reach to most of the 99% of those who are living from paycheck to paycheck.
BC is ding well, right now, bolstered on by real estate. They are projecting a 2% raise in the interest rates by 2019. That thought along with the government handing out $37,500.00 interest free for the first 5 years to first time home owners, after that time with a rising interest rates and mortgage rewrites, you have a perfect storm of potential for thousands of repossessions.
Any of us who lived in the early eighties can appreciate what I am talking about.
The way it is at this period in history in BC we truly are sitting on a house of cards.

[hobbyguy]

The point is that there is a balance. IF (dream on) I could take half of the Green party platform and merge it with half of the BC Liberal platform - I would be a happy camper.

The NDP platform is an anti-Christy diatribe. Every single page of 118 pages begins with an attack (often shallow and petty) on Christy and the BC Liberals. It is like a two year old having a tantrum. In the end, it presents a mish-mash of poorly thought out and uncosted rubbish that can not produce either the "balanced budget" promised nor the results promised. An incohesive and illogical "plan" that will produce predictable results - a mess. Not a single platform plank passes the smell test.

The Green party on the other hand offer a platform that is very cohesive, well thought out, and properly costed. They lose me a bit on energy policy and the approach to resource industries, but the rest is PDG.

The BC Liberal platform is more "steady as she goes" (which ain't perfect but PDG), costed properly, and cohesive.

That's why we see the NDP being uber attack dog silly. They have nothing, zero, nada, to offer anyone who actually looks at their platform with an eye toward what will it accomplish. In fact the NDP platform offers less than zero because it makes no sense whatsoever when examined. It is purely an attack document without proper solutions to the grievances raised.

Thus we see the BC NDP going all attack dog on issues that are either beyond the control of the provincial government or completely manufactured, or based on pure hypocrisy. I have no use for that crud. That means I have no use for the NDP.

The real choices, the ones that will work toward a better future and have something to offer are presented by the Green party and the BC Liberals. The NDP are just gumming up the works.

[fluffy]

The whole intent of the NDP campaign is to keep people angry, because they know that emotion overrides reason and objectivity, and that their platform does not stand up to close scrutiny. This is not a new strategy, but it is becoming all too recognizable for those that take the time to think things through. It is in effect, cheap manipulation bent on getting people into the polling booth angry rather than thoughtful.

[jamapple]

That's why we see the NDP being uber attack dog silly. They have nothing, zero, nada, to offer anyone who actually looks at their platform with an eye toward what will it accomplish. In fact the NDP platform offers less than zero because it makes no sense whatsoever when examined. It is purely an attack document without proper solutions to the grievances raised.

Actually they do. They will fight tooth and nail to get back in bed with the dreaded BCTF. They love their platform! I know of a teacher who is just hell bent on the NDP, yet, it's role in their union is the ONLY thing this person ever talks about. But then, of course, through posts on social media, this person also posts all the "evil Christy Clarke blame for everything" posts. It's classic, really.