Creekside

And for all you non-facebookies, : https://docs.google.com/document/d/1c9AR6iLPH_zqH8N81iBhaqpeZJ5fkNlH-GbWIqpXVF8/edit.
and : https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iFymcYgyrU14QjyhOyewwLq1X0C6gwmg0hs5FcSVHj0/edit

Hashtags : #SeeYouSaturday #NotSoTrueDeau
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Thursday, February 02, 2017

The Emperor has no shirt

Today, after sending out his new rookie Minister of Democratic Institutions to deliver the news his electoral reform promise was officially dead , Justin Trudeau stood in the HoC and said:

"As people in this House know, I have long preferred preferential ballot..."

Yes. Here he is in 2014 explaining that preference at length. Jump to the 24:09 mark.

Excerpted :

"First of all on first-past-the-post, you’re absolutely right that it doesn’t matter if someone gets 31 percent of the vote, and the other parties only get you know 26 and 20 percent, and it’s all divided up, then they get to represent one 100 percent of the community, and that’s why I entirely agree that it has to move beyond first past the post.

“But how we do that is very important. I personally and the Liberal Party has adopted a format of a preferential ballot, where the person who would be elected gets more than 50 percent of the vote in the community, so they represent the majority of the community.

I think that a ranked ballot, a preferential ballot, is a strong way of changing our electoral system that I’ve been pushing and I’ve committed to look at once we form government.”

The problem with preferential or ranked ballot, also known as Alternative Vote, is that it's the only electoral system worse for voters than what we have now. As the second party of choice for supporters of the Cons, NDP, and Greens, the Liberal Party would be the obvious benefactor of a ranked ballot in a single member riding and would likely form the government in perpetuity. This point was driven home by expert after expert to the ERRE committee, some 88% of them, despite hopeful entreaties by the Liberal MPs to the 4% of experts they could cobble together in support of it.

We had some earlier inkling the choice would be between preferential ballot or nothing.

On December 1 2016 after Monsef's math meltdown, the four Liberal MPs on the ERRE committee announced at their presser that they believed any change to our electoral system would be too "radical". Liberal Chair Francis Scarpaleggia explained :

"Perhaps if we chose preferential ranked ballot we could do that tomorrow.

Yes, the PM made that commitment but a lot of people thought he was talking about a ranked ballot. You could do a ranked ballot like that. [Snaps fingers] Nobody wants ranked ballot, so what does that leave us?"

Apparently nothing.

Two weeks later on December 13 2016, an ERRE motion was up for a vote in the House. Approved by Scarpaleggia, it proposed to add the committee's own previous electoral reform e-consultation, which included specific questions on voting systems preferences including proportional representation, on to the Liberals absurdly vague and misdirecting MyDemocracy VoxPops quiz :

That, in relation to the questions on democratic values that the Minister of Democratic Institution intends to make available for Canadians' response on the websitemydemocracy.ca, the Committee encourages the Minister to reproduce and include in its entirety the questions within this Committee's e-consultation survey, either as a replacement for the other planned questions, or in addition to any other questions that the Minister wishes to include;

Five minutes later, all 173 Liberal MPs in the House had unanimously voted it down, including the four Liberals on the ERRE committee - Ruby Sahota, John Aldag, Matt DeCourcey, and Sherry Romanado, plus the Liberal Chair Francis Scarpaleggia - while the Cons, NDP, Bloc, and Green all voted in favour.
Final vote : 173 No to 131 Yea. Justin Trudeau was not present.

Yet out on the hustings the past few weeks, he continued to reassure us that he had stated in 2015 that "our electoral system is broken", alongside a promise to make that election the last one under First Past the Post, and he was fully committed to keeping that promise.

So it looks like this was just a vote-grabbing campaign promise borrowed from the NDP and Green platforms to outflank them when the Libs were the third party in the House.
Vote strategically for us this one last time, they said, and we'll make sure you never have to vote strategically again. Desperate to ditch Harper and excited at the prospect of an end to cynical party politics, Canadians did.
When the Liberals got a majority in 2015, it looked like they could both keep that promise and control of parliament as long as electoral reform was restricted to their preferred preferential or ranked ballot option, but when that was no longer a credible choice, they scuttled the whole thing.

I wonder if they'll promise it all over again in 2019. This page below is still up on the Liberal Party website.

Excellent satire piece from Andrew Coyne: It’s not the Liberals’ fault for lying about electoral reform, it’s yours for believing them.

Liberal’s abandoned electoral reform

Fears Of Alt-Right, Divisive Referendum Behind Liberal Electoral Reform Reversal: Insiders

And congrats to Liberal ERRE committee obstructionists Matt DeCourcey and Sherry Romanado on your recent appointments as parliamentary secretaries at an additional $16,800 a year.

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Monday, January 30, 2017

Kellie Leitch and friends, unplugged, on the Quebec Mosque Shooting

Ms Leitch on Facebook, 10 hours ago :

"Last night people in Quebec City were murdered as they prayed. This outrageous act of violence is an attack not just on those gathered in a house of worship but on the very fabric of Canadian society, on the values of freedom and tolerance. There is no excuse and no justification for this terrorist attack. I condemn the act, the people who carried it out, and any who might try to justify, rationalize, or support it unreservedly and in the harshest possible terms."

And the responses to that post from her Friends :

Shane St-Croix Justin Trudeau is responsible for this attack as Canadians are starting to reap the fruit of his determination to turn Canada into an Islamic state. The chickens of 'un-vetted' Canadian diversity have come home to roost. There is blood on the hands of everyone that voted for Trudeau.

Dan Bjorklund It was those peaceful motherfuckers that turdeau and the rest of you idiots want to bring in..it wasnt some local white guys.

Trevor Sydorenko Considering they have 2 people in custody.. and they arent releasing names.. im going to go with "Coulters Law" on this one.

Kevin Hackett This was likely an 'inside job' to inflame the anti Muslim narrative being forced upon us by Trudeau & State media CBC. Sadly, we will likely never know the truth due to the hyper Political Correctness environment we're surrounded by ! Do not allow them to soften your Principled positions Kellie Leitch !

Lyn Wood Trudeau is relocating the Muslim wars here. Why do we need to be tolerant of that? Our politicians are making our Canada dangerous with their 'tolerance'. Close our borders. Bring in Christians. What is wrong with Christians from Iceland, Poland, Australia......? No common sense left anywhere.

Tim Johnson I wonder how trudeau is gonna spin this if these attackers were muslims themselves ?

Duane Mousseau Some are assuming that this was committed by Christians. Strange how when other acts of terror took place we had to wait and see and were very careful not to imply that it was done by Muslims. Even after the officials were tootsie footing around actually saying it was an act of terror. I believe there is some evidence here that the perpetrators were Muslims and they recently immigrated here from Morocco. Muslims kill Muslims and would love to leave evidence that a Christian did it of course.

Thomas Clayton Maybe they were Jews who converted to Islam and then back again & therefore they were all supposed to be killed as per the 84th Hadith - dealing with Apostates. Sure hope Justin Trudeau never converts back to Catholicism because his punishment would be death.

Cecil Crocker And it is going to get worst if Trudeau don't stop this bringing is Muslim ...he is doing this for to get more votes ..Trudeau don't care about Canadians ....We are not allow to say our Lord Paryer in school .PUT THE MUSLIM GOT THERE OWN ROOM FOR PRAYERS ...SO HOW COME WE CAN'T SAY OUR LORD PEYERS IN SCHOOL ....TRUDEAU HAVE TO GO ...CANADA IS GONE SO HE HAVE TO GO .

John Wood Muslims killing Muslims then others, we must elect Leitch for conservative party leader and prime minister to stop these horrendous Muslim nonsense actions.

Tyler Dockendorff Why don't you acknowledge that they were muslim? Suspicious.

Marty Smith Why aren't they releasing names. I will bet there not Tim Smith, Jacques lacriox.

Penny Labrecque One of the shooters is apparently named mahammed Khadir???

David Pacho Just send them all back where they came from, funny how all problems start when these animals are involved.

Kym Mychelle KellieLeitch this is a false flag and thank "GOD" we still have common sense to know what truth is

William Wolfgang-Steven Litz It was Muslim refugees that killed these people.
CBC is blaming trump and white racism...don't believe the fake news.

LaPresse : Published January 30, 2017 at 15:52 Auto-translate

Mohamed Belkhadir: "For them, someone who flees is a suspect"

Mohamed Belkhadir, the engineering student arrested by mistake in the wake of the terrorist attack at the mosque in Sainte-Foy, was helping the victims when he was wrongly mistaken for a suspect.

Freshly returned home, the young man of 29 years was interviewed in La Presse to indicate it does not want all the police of Quebec, who was "very nice" with him.

"I went in to try to give first aid to my friend on the ground, and I saw someone with a weapon. I did not know that he was a policeman, I thought he was coming back to shoot. So I fled outside, on the parking side, "he said.

"I understand, I respect that they caught me. They saw me flee, they thought I was suspicious, that's normal. For them, someone who flees is a suspect, "he insists.

The student of Moroccan origin had attended the prayer on Sunday evening, then went out to clear the stairs of the mosque.Soon after, he heard several shots, for 15 to 20 seconds, he said.

He entered, called 9-1-1, gave the address to the emergency services, and then used his coat to warm a wounded man on the ground. It was then that he panicked when a policeman came in

Friday, December 16, 2016

JT's "fun little questionnaire"

VoxPopLabs, the same folks who brought you Vote Compass, has taken something of a beating in public opinion for their electoral reform quiz mydemocracy.ca.

Originally introduced by Justin Trudeau as "a fun little questionnaire that gets into values rather than models", Andrew Coyne referred to it as "a dippy pop quiz or botched push-poll", soundly mocked for the obvious slant of the questions with "two thirds of the “values” questions and over half of those probing respondents’ “preferences” having nothing to do with electoral reform".

Or as I like to call it, a 'what kind of animal are you?' quiz.

Asked about this on CBC, Mark Holland was at pains to point out that the government didn't pick the questions.

No, but you did choose the parameter of the questions; VoxPops merely did the job you asked them to do.

From the government tender awarding the contract to VoxPopLabs in September :

"The key tasks include:

Provide a draft of questions for review by the Project Authority;"

The Project Authority here is presumably the Privy Council Office, described in the bid as the "End user entity".

"Conduct a robust scientific survey in advance of the launch of the interactive online application in order to identify key themes and develop classifications based on responses;

.... determine segments and develop narratives for each cluster based on the profiles that emerge from the survey;

VoxPopLabs says they developed a large survey, field-tested it, and then asked a panel of 3,000 Canadians "the remaining questions and used their responses to generate a cluster analysis".
This is where those five much-mocked archetype categories come from.

Develop a robust model ... to instantaneously classify participants to the interactive online digital consultation platform into segments uncovered in the survey

Ok, so your answers slot you into one of the five predetermined archetype categories.

My complaint with the above approach is that the archetypes were built on different questions asked than those asked in the final survey, and that of the five, there is no category for people who are both in favour of some version of proportional representation but against online voting. And did we really need five direct questions about online voting and mandatory voting but none on proportional representation?

So what will the Project Authority learn from all this?

Provide categories of customized user feedback and data visualization for review by the Project Authority;

This is, I grant you, more scientific than the five categories of Heathers and Zoes and Dougies and Steves and Eunices that conservative strategist Patrick Muttart categorized Canadians into for Stephen Harper back in 2005, but I don't see it getting us any closer to electoral reform.

Not completing the survey will result in a repeat of the ERRE Liberal MPs' contention that no one is interested. However if you do the survey, game the questions by figuring out which ones give a glimmer of support to the idea of proportional representation and mark them "strongly agree", you possibly run the risk of being disqualified because, as the ERRE Liberals also complained, everyone who showed up to townhalls or answered the much superior ERRE survey was self-selective and already had an opinion.

Filling in this survey is quite a bit like strategic voting, a reason many of us want rid of FPtP in the first place. FairVote has provided a guide to answering it.
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Fun fact : VoxPopLabs mydemocracy survey cost $326K.
The entire budget for the now disbanded ERRE committee, their five months of witness testimony, their travels across Canada, and their online survey on electoral reform systems, was $300K.
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Wednesday, December 14, 2016

BC gov letter on Site C

Back in August, BC Hydro applied for a "Licence of Occupation" to log crown land above the Site C dam - land that had been previously slated for provincial park status.

The only public notice I could find about it was in the Alaska Highway News - and in woodbusiness.ca, which noted that the government ad in the back of Alaska Highway News did not even mention Site C.

I ran into the deadline for public input quite by accident in September three days before it was closing. I contacted all the news media, environmental watchdogs, Site C opponents, and MPs I could think of - to no avail, despite considerable signal boost from facebookies and the twitterati.

The previous Tuesday, having recently issued permits via Transport Canada and Fisheries and Oceans to allow the Site C dam to proceed even as the West Moberly and Prophet River First Nation were challenging the previous government's approval of it in the courts, the Trudeau government told the House of Commons "it is now up to B.C. Hydro to conduct any further public consultations".

So I wrote to the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations, to whom BC Hydro had made the logging application, and asked how an ad in the back of Alaska Highway News that didn't even mention Site C qualified as public consultation.
Today, 80 days later, I received their reply.

Dear Alison Creekside

Thank you for your comments and concerns regarding the application for crown land use, file number 8015830 (BC Hydro). Your comments and concerns have been used in the decision making process for this application. In direct response to your specific correspondence regarding the above file, please be aware of the following information.

The decision made by government to move forward with the Site “C” Project was made December 16, 2014. Public and other stakeholder input was gathered for the period of the Environmental Assessment Process conducted by the Environmental Assessment Office beginning in January 2012. The applicant was granted an Environmental Assessment Certificate (EAC#14-02) on October 14, 2014. The Environmental Assessment was given consideration to the project level decision on December 16, 2014. The project level decision was based on many factors, including but not limited to, the public and stakeholder input, the Environmental Assessment process and all the associated studies and conditions recommended, current land status and future land status (i.e. Agriculture Land Reserve, potential parks areas and Old Growth Areas), project level management plans, environmental plans, other risk mitigation plans, geotechnical studies for slope stability and viability, and archaeological studies.

All applications for crown land use at the Licence/Permit level must be consistent with the construction schedule of the approved project level decision. All applications packages for specific area Licence/Permit for consideration by the decision maker, must contain area specific detailed management plans, area specific detailed risk avoidance and mitigation strategies for values at risk, and any other information the decision maker requests to aid in the decision making process.

At this time, the Ministry of Forests, Lands, and Natural Resource Operations is considering public and other stakeholder comments and concerns at the Licence/Permit specific area level. The processes used to make decisions at the Licence/Permit level are transparent and implemented using practices found in policy and law (for example, the minimum time an application must be advertised in the newspaper is legislated). In the case of this application, the advertisement period was for 14 days in the local newspaper the Alaska Highway News. Even though the time period for receiving public and stakeholder input had passed, comments and concerns continued to be received up to the date of decision for this application.

Appeals through the judicial system on the Project Decision do not interrupt the adjudication of applications for the area specific Licence/Permit. No injunctions to halt the project or the associated Licences/Permits due to recent appeals have been granted by the courts to date.

Sincerely

Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations
#100, 10003-110th Avenue
Fort St John, BC V1J 6M7

Today agrologist and journalist Wendy Holm reported the BC NDP sent out a pre-election survey to supporters and members of the public "to help guide the strategies of the NDP".
It did not mention Site C.

The BC NDP survey : 15 questions, one of them a multiple choice of 17 issues to prioritize.
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Thursday, December 01, 2016

To the BC KM17, Your Next Career

... from Kim , who used to blog at sistersagesmusings ....

BC 17, Your Next Career

Dear BC(LIB) MPs;

Your photogenic leader has just tanked your career as a politician in BC.  I hope you feel ashamed and embarrassed.  If that is the case, I would suggest that you strongly consider crossing the floor or resigning your post, because, clearly, you have no mandate in your constituencies.

You all know how we feel about our coast.  You all know how important this ocean is to our economy.  You all swept into office on promises of a new Nation to Nation relationship, how you basked in the glow of "Governments give approval, but only communities give permission".  How you embraced UNDRIP and the Paris Accord.  Unless you part ways with your Party leadership on this, you are liars and cheats and not fit for representing your constituents in Ottawa.

You all know that there is no world class oil spill response, ask the Heiltsuk Nation in Bella Bella.  How the Oil cleanup company is owned by the Oil Titans.  How the coast guard comms system has failed many times since Harper closed the network.

I would suggest that you people start reflecting deeply on these issues, and the fact that you have just allowed massive protests to endanger our people.

I just sent this to the 17 Liberal MPs in BC.

Jody.Wilson-Raybould@parl.gc.ca; 604-717-1144,   613-992-1416 

Harjit.Sajjan@parl.gc.ca; 604-775-5323,  613-995-7052 

John.Aldag@parl.gc.ca;   604-575-6595 ,  613-992-0884 

Terry.Beech@parl.gc.ca;  604-718-8870,  613-992-0802  

Sukh.Dhaliwal@parl.gc.ca;  604-598-2200,  613-992-0666 

hedy.fry@parl.gc.ca;   604-666-0135,  613-992-3213

Stephen.Fuhr@parl.gc.ca;   250-470-5075,   613-992-7006 

Pam.Goldsmith-Jones@parl.gc.ca;  604-913-2660,  613-947-4617  

Ken.Hardie@parl.gc.ca;  604-501-5900,  613-996-2205  

Ron.McKinnon@parl.gc.ca;  604-927-1080,  613-992-9650 

joyce.murray@parl.gc.ca;  604-664-9220,  613-992-2430  

Joe.Peschisolido@parl.gc.ca;   604-257-2900, 613-992-1385  

Carla.Qualtrough@parl.gc.ca;  778-593-4007,  613-992-2957  

Dan.Ruimy@parl.gc.ca;  604-466-2761,  613-947-4613  

Randeep.Sarai@parl.gc.ca;  604-589-2441,  613-992-2922 

Jati.Sidhu@parl.gc.ca;  604-814-5710,  613-992-1248  

Jonathan.Wilkinson@parl.gc.ca;   604-775-6333,  613-995-1225  

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Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Kinder Morgan pipeline spill in Burnaby 2007

A 10-meter geyser of crude oil spewed from a broken Kinder Morgan pipeline in a Burnaby neighbourhood in July 2007. Eight homes were flooded and 92 were put on evacuation notice.

Part of the TransMountain Pipeline system, the broken pipeline was carrying crude oil from a pipeline terminal at the foot of Burnaby Mountain to a tanker-loading facility on Burrard Inlet. After four years in court, Kinder Morgan pled guilty.

Justin Trudeau's new Kinder Morgan pipeline will ship 900,000 barrels of dilbit a day from Alberta through the same neighbourhood to the supertankers waiting in Burrard Inlet.

We are currently waiting to see what piece of First Nations apparel Christy Clark will wear to her presser...
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Thursday update : So what is that stuff spewing into the air? Not crude oil after all.

This industry report : A STUDY OF FATE AND BEHAVIOR OF DILUTED BITUMEN OILS ON MARINE WATERS identifies it as Albion Heavy dilsynbit containing toluene, pentane, butane, benzene, hydrogen sulfide ....

Con Senators hoisted by their own petards

... in which Conservative Senators harangue Elections Canada CEO Marc Mayrand for answers that he is no longer able to deliver because the Con's Fair Elections Act removed Elections Canada's Commissioner from Elections Canada and placed him under the aegis of the Public Prosecutors Office where Mayrand is not privy to its investigations.

Elections Canada CEO Mayrand had barely begun giving the Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs his report on the last federal election when the Chair interrupts and asks him to wrap it up because they have many questions - questions propelled, it is explained, by the particular interest of Senator Linda Frum. Oh goodie.

Con Senator Daniel Lang: "Registered third parties. Can you confirm that registered political parties are not allowed to accept money from foreign donors over the course of an election?"

Mayrand : You have to be a Canadian citizen.

Lang : We have now seen that third parties can do much more than political parties, such as raising money from foreign interests in the U.S. and elsewhere to influence public policy and elections in Canada. This past election, registered third parties like Dogwood Initiative and LeadNow have publicly admitted that they receive foreign moneys, run campaigns, even published pushpolls under your interpretation of the act as I understand it. All they can't do is advertise over a set amount during the writ. Can you tell me was it the intention of the Act as interpreted by the Supreme Court to allow third parties to actively campaign prior to and during elections?

Mayrand : Within certain limits and spending caps, third parties, provided they register if they spend more than $500, are allowed to do advertising during the campaign. That is specifically provided for in the legislation.

Lang : So a registered third party during a political campaign, except for a restricted area, can accept foreign money to help run and be involved in a campaign?

Mayrand : They can.

Lang : It has come to my attention that there are a number of these third party registered organizations, who it would appear have been willfully circumventing the Elections Act or acting as a party to circumvent the Act. Can you tell us up to now how many complaints you have received from Canadians, or have you received complaints from Canadians or from political parties related to third party groups and third party advertising, and if so, how many are you actually investigating?

Mayrand : Complaints would have been directed to the Commissioner of Canada's Elections who is tasked with assuring compliance with those provisions, so I would not be aware of the type of complaints the Commissioner has received.

Lang : So this wouldn't be discussed with you? Because it seems rather strange it wouldn't be.

Mayrand : With the separation of the offices, we can no longer have those type of discussions so I am not aware of what type of feedback, comments, or complaints that the Commissioner would have received in this matter.

Lang : What I don't understand is why you wouldn't be aware this type of thing was occurring. In your report you talk about investigations, you talk about contraventions of the Elections Act ...

Mayrand : These are files that were referred during the election by my office, matters brought to my attention mostly by Canadians during the election - allegations that could potentially be an offence - and in that case I can refer the matter to the Commissioner. But I have no sense what the Commissioner or how he will handle those files. He will handle them according to his own protocols, and I am not aware of complaints that are directly addressed to the Commissioner.

Lang : So when are you made aware?

Mayrand : Only if Canadians bring something to my attention, and if it actually raises a matter of potential offence to the Act, then I will refer it to the Commissioner. It's not a two-way communication process.

Lang : So for the record you have no knowledge of what I just asked.

Mayrand : Not with respect to what is the Commissioner's.

I imagine that Senator Lang had forgotten all about how their party's 2006 Accountability Act removed Elections Canada's power to compel testimony and documents from witnesses, legislation which I'm guessing would be useful if, say, EC wanted to investigate the alleged registered third party election violations that have Senators Lang and Frum so up in arms.

The senators also seem to have forgotten that, under the pretence of combatting non-existent voter fraud by electors, the Con's Fair Elections Act moved Elections top cop the Commissioner out of Elections Canada and into the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, so Mayrand isn't privy to its investigations and consequently can't answer or act on the Senators' questions.

Well played, guys.

And so it went for an hour and forty minutes with the Conservative Senators led by Linda Frum and Daniel Lang badgering Mayrand for answers and opinions about LeadNow and Dogwood Institute expenses, as well as their funding received outside the writ period and therefore outside his jurisdiction.

Senator Frum was particularly exercised about "an organization in the US that is against pipelines" providing funding to third parties in Canada to hold rallies and music concerts and tell people not to vote for Harper.

She then brought up Harper v. Canada, the 2004 Supreme Court challenge launched by Stephen Harper as head of the National Citizens Coalition. He sought to strike down Canada Elections Act's legal spending limits on third party advertising during elections. Harper lost that case and Canada was spared much of what became Citizens United five years later in the US.

I'm not sure in Senator Frum's party shoes that I would have brought that one up.

This week the Liberals repealed much of the Fair Elections Act but media reports that it is dead are somewhat exaggerated. The Liberals have yet to return to Elections Canada either their former independence or their investigative powers taken away under Harper.

And finally, several Conservative senators pressed Mayrand to agree that given the 2015 Federal Election had the highest voter turnout in years, that it must mean the Fair Elections Act had done its job.

Words fail me ...
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