Liberal insider blogs about Carole James...

... then deletes the page when he's wrong.

Brian Keiran is a Liberal insider-type that many of you will know more about than I do. He has a blog, writing about BC politics and such.

The other day he posted a piece saying that Carole James was likely done by last Sunday, November 21st. Surprise, surprise, she survived a call for a leadership review, with 84% in support of her. That piece that Keiran wrote is now deleted from his site.

Here's the page: http://briankieran.blogspot.com/2010/11/ndp-ghosts-rally-to-james-but-polls.html

Here's the deleted text:

If James makes it to sundown Sunday I will be amazed

by Brian Kieran

NDP leader Carole James has just endured a public flogging by her ex-whip. And, the only person who does seem to get it is James. Her caucus is in full revolt many hours before this weekend’s Provincial Council blood bath is scheduled to begin.

Today caucus whip Katrine Conroy, flanked by three of her socialist sisters including Jenny Kwan, pulled the pin because of James’ bungling purge of dissident Cariboo MLA Bob Simpson.

Conroy (Kootenay West) announced her resignation saying she does not have the support of her leader. This is pretty damning stuff. Conroy’s job as whip for the past five years has been to ride herd on caucus solidarity.

More damning still ... neither Conroy nor her solidarity sisters would offer reporters even faint praise for the ongoing legitimacy of James’ leadership.

This development has all but overwhelmed the impact of James’ endorsement yesterday by a host of NDP ghosts who came out of retirement to support their beleaguered leader.

And, proving that no good deed goes unpunished, a Mustel Group poll released today is chock full of grim foreboding for James.

The poll taken after Premier Gordon Campbell announced his long goodbye has the Liberals at 37 per cent support (up four points since September) and the NDP ahead at 42 per cent, the same level of support they enjoyed in September and when they lost the 2009 election.

In short the NDP is flat lining and has been unable to capitalize on the very public, messy and embarrassing Liberal implosion. To make matters worse, James approval rating has plummeted from 42 to 33 per cent since September and her disapproval rating has jumped nine points to 45 per cent.

This latest poll confirms what other pollsters have been tracking as well. (In my Wednesday posting below I cited similar trending by Angus Reid.)

The list of 16 prominent retired NDP MLAs supporting James’ leadership includes former premier Mike Harcourt and many members of his 1990s cabinet and caucus who were party moderates.

Sadly, their eleventh hour support matters little in the face Conroy’s resignation and polling numbers that suggest James’ leadership credibility is eroding rapidly just when it should be shooting through the roof.

A moment of political inspiration - Norm MacDonald

The other day I watched the BC Legislature on the web (you can post your comments about my dorkiness below), and was entirely surprised and indeed delighted to watch Norm MacDonald, MLA for Columbia River - Revelstoke, rise and deliver an inspirational speech on public services and the political process.


I've never heard anything about Mr. MacDonald, but certainly will pay more attention from now on. Anyone who champions the value of the reasoned and productive debate is deserving of our respect. I really recommend watching the video of his speech. He was calm yet passionate, and his belief in the political process was evident.

The full transcript is available here; this post highlights Mr MacDonald's views on the democratic process.

It is over eight years that this government has been in place, and what you saw with the very short throne speech that we had is a government that really has run out of new ideas — ideas about how to deal with the very serious problems that British Columbians face.

We are uniquely fortunate in this province, and I think whenever we go forward, we have to keep the problems that we have here in context. The problems that we have are manageable. There are solutions, but nevertheless, there are real issues that need to be dealt with.

The philosophy that I have, and the philosophy that those that are in the NDP share with me, is the idea that the wisdom of this province sits within the communities and with people on the ground, and that our job is to take that wisdom and bring it into this House and generate policy that is going to reflect the wider wisdom of the people in British Columbia.

Yet what we see is a government that has centralized decision-making and does not share the information in the way that it needs to with the wider population. It does not allow them to participate in the way that they need to. There are real issues that need to be dealt with.

We have a province where more and more children are slipping into poverty. That's a fact that is year after year after year. That poverty ties directly to policy decisions that are made in this House.

It's very easy to stand up and brag about the fact that there are tax cuts. This is something that the wider public embraces, but there are consequences to that. The consequence for this year is that we have a deficit. That deficit is a deficit that you cannot disconnect from the fact that taxes have been lowered. You have taken away some of the tools that taxation allows you to redistribute wealth so that you don't have large parts of your population falling into poverty. That's sound public policy.

Now, it is something that Canada has in the past done quite well — making sure that you don't allow children to fall into poverty. But it's six years in a province with all the wealth, all the potential wealth that British Columbia has, where child poverty is highest in this province.

Now at the end of the speech, in a very strange choice for this government, there was a quotation from Nelson Mandela. Now Nelson Mandela is an incredible individual. I was in Lesotho in the 1980s, '85-86, and Lesotho was surrounded by South Africa at a time when a picture of Nelson Mandela was illegal to have in a South African newspaper. To write his name was illegal. What he has accomplished is pretty amazing.

To lift a quotation and to choose to paraphrase what he said and put it into the throne speech just seems particularly inappropriate. I mean, he has a pretty clear set of standards that I think wouldn't synchronize with the direction that this government goes.

One of the things he said that I think is a direct quotation, rather than to paraphrase it, is this: "There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way that it treats its children." Now that's a quotation that is exact from Nelson Mandela. When you look at government policy, what you see is — certainly, with the poverty piece — no effort, no sincere effort on behalf of this government to deal with a very real problem.

You have Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, who has called on the Premier — has called on the Leader of the Opposition as well — to meet with her to work together on a poverty plan, asked legislators here to work on dealing on that poverty issue. Yet the Premier will not participate in dealing with that.

We heard nothing in the throne speech that really talks about that issue at all, because it's not a priority for this government. Yet if you're going to quote Nelson Mandela, to be true to what he believes in…. He says very clearly that you have to deal with the issue of child poverty, but year after year I've come to this House and it is never dealt with in a meaningful way. That's fundamentally wrong.

Well done, Norm MacDonald. Take note, Gordon Campbell; that is the way to quote Nelson Mandela. And that is how you should approach public policy, as a tool for improving the lives of British Columbians.*


* Thanks again to Paul Willcocks over at Paying Attention for this simple idea.

Your new BC NDP provincial executive

In the interests of transparency (because it's doubtful that this group will ever see the light of day on the BC NDP website), here is the full list of the new provincial executive, with my limited impression of each:

President: Moe Sihota - ex-NDP cabinet minister, businessman, pundit; wants to focus on our relationship with labour, environmentalists and ethnic communities.

Treasurer: Bob Smits (acclaimed) - tons of experience at a large credit union.

Vice Presidents:

Marianne Alto - been on the exec for a while (urged the need for institutional memory); stickler for details; knows our constitution well.
Scott Lunny - United Steelworkers; keen, friendly.
Heather Harrison - Langara professor; affable; been on the exec for a while.
Spencer Herbert, MLA - all-around great guy; stands up for the homeless and artists; sharp dresser extraordinaire.
Lorraine Shore - not a clue.
David Zirnhelt - another ex-cabinet minister; small businessman (sustainable wood products); inspires trust (in me, anyway); great white beard.

Members at Large:

Jennifer Burgess - not a clue.
Debbie Lawrence - ex-candidate; HEU; wears sparkles; great smile.
Troy Sebastian - another ex-candidate; principled; wants to expand our relationship with First Nations (his campaign used material translated into the language of his nation, Ktunaxa).

Vice President, Labour (appointed by "labour"):
Lynn Bueckert - BC Fed; smart, funny, competent.

Member at Large, Labour (appointed by "labour"):
Summer McFadyen - BC Fed; a friend.

Stephen Elliot-Buckley, potential BC NDP VP, imagines change at the party

If you haven't seen it yet, you should check out Politics, Re-Spun. Author Stephen Elliot-Buckley is an activist, democrat, scholar, blogger and BC NDP member who wants to re-organize how the party functions as a part of civil society. Not content to just re-work it at the riding level, he has launched a bid to become the party Vice-President at the upcoming convention, Nov. 27-29th.

I don't want to speak for Stephen, except to say that he sees the BC NDP moving forward as the electoral wing of a progressive social movement. What this means in practice is uncertain, especially given the cat-herding nature of organizing disparate groups, but I eagerly look forward to the discussion. It is clear that the party desperately needs some new blood, some new ideas, and some new approaches to organizing.

A proposed conversation about centralized campaigning (fascinating stuff, I know)

Last night I attended the COPE pub night, a lovely get-together at Original Joe's (I know, where?). A few beer, some nachos, a brief discussion of the soon-to-be demise of David Cadman (according to Jim Green, anyway), and everything was ticketyboo. Then, we started talking about the BC NDP campaign from the spring. At this point, alarm bells should have gone off, as it is a highly contentious issue on the left in BC, particularly among urbanites. An hour or so later, and they had to pull us away from each other to get us to pay our bill.

I would like to continue the discussion in a less chaotic forum, so have invited the participants to join me in a discussion that I will post on this blog as it unfolds. I'm not exactly sure of the format yet.

UPDATE:

I have two enterprising individuals who will be taking part in the discussion that I hope to foster over the next short while. It really is a fascinating topic to us campaigners.

And a link to Jim Green's claims added above.

UNFINISHED DRAFT: More cuts to legal aid

The Liberal government, in all its mean-spirited wisdom, has cut more funding to legal aid in BC. The Legal Services Society is going to have to shut down all but one of its regional offices and lay off more than 50 staff. This is in addition to a similar round of cuts in the spring. If you're going to hit the poor while they're down, why not spit in their faces too?

Today Mike de Jong, Attorney General, said that they had actually increased the budget of the LSS this year. I'm not sure what numbers he's looking at, but I'm guessing not the same ones that I am. And he has the gall to claim that a shortfall in other funding sources is to blame. Mike, let me walk you through the LSS funding gallery, just so we can be clear:

In 1993, the BC NDP decided to tax legal services in BC in order to make them pay for themselves, a move still opposed by the legal profession in BC.* In 1996, after several years of tax collection, Liberal MLA Jeremy Dalton asked the Clark government, "Can the Attorney General tell us what the annual revenue produced by the legal services tax is? Is that money going to deal with the legal aid issue, or is it just falling into the great black hole of general revenue, and there's no accountability for it?" What a great question, Mr. Dalton (more on this below).

Attorney General Ujjal Dosanjh answered that $73m was collected, but that even more was given out to LSS. In 2001, before the Liberals formed government, the LSS received about $88m from the province, probably about what they received in taxation revenue from legal services. The Liberals slashed the budget by about 35% when they came to power. Slight increases over the past 8 years have brought the government disbursement to $69m, a figure that was meant to remain this year despite huge increases in demand for their services (example?). This led to service and staffing cuts, but the head of the LSS was confident that the budgeted amount would stand. A few months later, they're cutting even more.

When the Liberals slashed the LSS budget, what do you think they did with those taxes they were collecting on legal services? Yep, right into general revenue. The numbers aren't entirely clear (hopefully more on this soon), but it's clear that by cutting the LSS budget but maintaining the taxation level, the Liberals were benefiting by about $30m per year over the past 8 years, maybe more. When it was introduced by the BC NDP, the tax was meant to fund legal aid in BC. Instead, it goes straight into general revenue, unattached to the legal services it was meant to fund. Mike de Jong was a member of the Liberal caucus in 1996 (double-check) when Jeremy Dalton asked that question above, and it looks like he needs to answer it himself, 13 years later.

Mr. de Jong, as Attorney General, can you tell us what the annual revenue produced by the legal services tax is? Is that money going to deal with the legal aid issue, or is it just falling into the great black hole of general revenue?


* As recently as February of this year the head of the Canadian Bar Association BC Branch, in a submission to the Finance Committee, argued that the tax should be abolished.