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BC for Sale from Twyla Roscovich on Vimeo.
Gordon Campbell's accomplishments in office to date :
Vote today to get rid of this sorry bunch of rebranded Reform carpetbaggers and corporate frontmen.
Then Vote Yes for STV so you can vote for whoever you want to next time.
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"B.C. Green party leader Jane Sterk, who voted for the Reform party in the 1993 federal election, said Wednesday that it's wrong to view her party's members as "just some group of cranky NDPers" who left the centre-left party.
Sterk said she has voted for Reform, the Conservatives and the Liberals, but never for the New Democrats."
"James and her shadow cabinet have failed to demonstrate that they have either a credible platform or the leadership capacity to persuade us that British Columbians will be better off over the next four years with a change in government."Globe and Mail, May 8, 2009 :
"The greatest achievement of Gordon Campbell, who will seek his third term as premier on Tuesday, is to have brought a measure of calm and stability to his province.The G&M and Canwest papers have always issued formal endorsements of Gordo and Harper in elections but this time there is an additional raft of paid consultants to the Libs gracing their pages on a daily basis. Here is what they are lending their name to in endorsing Gordo :
British Columbians could make matters considerably worse by forgoing Mr. Campbell's calm leadership in favour of a party that is mostly telling them what it thinks they want to hear. Now is not the time to risk a return to erratic governance."
"Ministry of Environment officials sometimes face "substantial pressure" from IPP [Independent Power Project] proponents to exempt them from wildlife and habitat protection regulations that apply to the forestry sector -- and ministry staff are recommending that requests for exemptions be passed along to politicians rather than dealt with by civil servants"MINISTRY OF ENVIRONMENT DECISION NOTE
"Recommended Option : If a Regional Manager does not wish to issue the exemption, it would elevate to the Minister."
"Inspection reports and emails obtained by CBC News show B.C. government officials have raised concerns about environmental infractions during the construction of the rapidly growing number of run-of-river private power projects in the province.
Last fall, inspectors from the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Forests and Range — who dubbed themselves "strike teams" — dropped in on the construction sites of several private run-of-river hydro projects."
No one was charged or fined for the violations.
"Other email obtained by CBC News shows that at the time of the inspections, the company behind the projects complained in several emails that the scrutiny was redundant and interfered with construction.
When interviewed by CBC News, Jackie Hamilton, a vice-president with Cloudworks Energy, stood by her complaint.
"You're going to find the odd thing. I don't think they found serious issues, and of course any issues they found were immediately fixed," said Hamilton."
Yo, Jackie! As a former employee of the BC Government environmental assessment, perhaps you can enlighten us on exactly how you "immediately fixed" the "overcutting of old-growth forest" ?
But here's the kicker :
"Government officials involved in the strike teams say they can't discuss what they found until after next week's provincial election."
BC for Sale from Twyla Roscovich on Vimeo.
G&M : B.C. scientists urge strategic voting to protect watersheds.
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"The B.C. government ... pursues all manner of fossil fuel development, from offshore oil and gas to coalbed methane. The province is also supporting the construction of the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline that would carry some of the world's dirtiest oil from Alberta's tarsands to the B.C. coast for export to hydrocarbon-hungry markets abroad.
Within this context, the government is attempting to convince the public that the province is doing something substantive to address climate change by opening up our coast to widespread IPP development.
Five species of Pacific salmon, as well as winter and summer-run steelhead, spawn and rear in reaches or tributaries of the 17 rivers proposed for water extraction and diversion.
Plutonic is proposing to divert between 77% and 95% of the mean annual flow from the 17 rivers and tributaries, potentially influencing the temperature range and flow of water, two criteria that strongly influence the survival of eggs and fry."
"Environmental blah blah" is how retiring NDP MLA Corky Evans describes the privatization of BC's waterways under the guise of addressing climate change. So-called "green" run of river hydro projects, also known as independent power projects or IPPs, divert water into a pipe several kilometres long and then into a turbine before returning it to the same watercourse downstream.
Among the over 500 streams and rivers staked by private companies so far, the Plutonic Power and General Electric Bute Inlet Project plans to divert and dam 17 streams and rivers, while constructing 445 kilometres of transmission lines, 314 kilometres of roads, and 104 bridges. Across the inlet from me, the Sea-to-Sky corridor has stakes for 110 streams and rivers.
How did this happen? The 2002 B.C. Energy Plan forbade our formerly very profitable Crown corporation B.C. Hydro from producing new sources of hydroelectricity. Further, BC Hydro will now be forced to buy energy from the new private producers at $120 megawatts per hour for which they will receive $60 in the market. Well, you know Gordo and privatization : BC Rail, BC Ferries, healthcare,
What about local opposition? Silenced in June 2006 when Campbell passed Bill 30 to retroactively abolish local zoning authority over them.
Who supports the run of river projects? You mean apart from speculators and Liberal-led astroturf orgs like BC Citizens For Green Energy? Well, there's David Suzuki, economist Mark Jaccard, and environmental activist Tzeporah Berman who started the foundation PowerUp Canada just to promote them.
And why are we doing this again? To sell our "green" energy to the US. says Berman, through what Gordo referred to at the last PNWER summit as "electric transmission corridors".
Coincidentally, Suzuki, Jaccard, and Berman all made media headlines in the last few days criticizing the NDP for not supporting Gordo's "gas tax". Not that they support Gordo, they say, just "his environmental leadership". That would be the Gordo who gutted the BC Environment ministry and supports fish farms, the Gordo of Gateway Pacific and twin Enbridge pipelines from the Alberta tar sands to Kitimat, the Gordo of expanding the oil and gas indutry in the north and building more roads and bridges instead of light rail and public transit, the Gordo of offshore drilling and renewed tanker routes ... that Gordo.
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"Much time was spent attempting to highlight the fact that there were some discrepancies and suggesting that there was some nefarious explanation," Jan Brongers told the inquiry.Unfortunately Mr. Brongers did not elaborate on just what that "perfectly innocent explanation" might be.
"My point is that other witnesses, too, have had discrepancies between what they told police, and that there is a perfectly innocent explanation."
"The four RCMP officers who Tasered a Polish immigrant at the Vancouver International Airport may face charges in his death, B.C.’s Attorney General said Monday.
"Nothing is final . . . particularly where we’re getting more and more evidence elicited on a daily basis," Oppal told the CBC, referring to the inquiry evidence. “So it may well be, at the end of the day, the people in the criminal justice branch could re-examine this."
"There is a substantial body of independent evidence which supports that the Officers in question were lawfully engaged in their duties when they encountered Mr. Dziekanski, and the force they used to subdue and restrain him was reasonable and necessary in all the circumstances.
In light of this independent evidence, there is not a substantial likelihood of conviction in this case for any of the offences considered, in fact, the available evidence falls markedly short of this standard."
"RCMP officers who testified at the inquiry into the death of Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver's airport could still face charges after the inquiry but so far there is nothing to suggest that might happen, B.C. Attorney General Wally Oppal said Monday.
"It's always the case in any determination where we decide that no charges were warranted that if there was new evidence and that new evidence was appreciably different then in those circumstances charges could be laid," Oppal told The Canadian Press. "But we're talking theory here.""(The criminal justice branch) said at that time there would be no charges and all I said is that if new evidence emerges there's always a possibility to lay charges, but I didn't specifically say in this case it would happen," said Oppal.
Oppal said he's "not prepared to buy in" that there was a significant change in evidence and there were false statements made."
