G&M editors pull noses out of Harpers ass... and endorse a liar in BC

Toronto's "newspaper of record" the CTVglobmedia owned Globe and Mail has come out with a resounding endorsement of Gordon "I won't sell BC Rail" Campbell.

From W.A.C. Bennett and Dave Barrett to Bill Vander Zalm and Glen Clark, British Columbia was long known for its colourful and often dysfunctional politics. 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. That is reason enough for British Columbians to resist any impulse to change government, at a time when economic tumult calls for a steady hand.

Coming from a newspaper that endorses the Harper party federally, that's something. Dysfunctional indeed. Look around your own newsroom Mr. Greenspon.

But to suggest that Gordon Campbell has brought "calm and stability" to British Columbia?! That goes beyond the pale.

Recessions always pose a risk to incumbent governments. But 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.

Return?!!!
We have an erratic government in BC. From one minute to the next, one never knows what Campbell and his "Bought and paid for by big business" party are going to spring on unsuspecting British Columbians.

There's nothing calm or stable about it.

I personally dislike all other options available but that doesn't elevate Gordon Campbell to a position of favour. To suggest that Campbell is anything but a lying, arrogant elitist, out to give away everything he can to his big-business buddies, is a deviation from the truth.

For a list of Campbell's real accomplishments, go visit Creekside.

And for further adventures of how Campbell is in the pockets of big-media, follow the links at The Gazetteer.

In the meantime I have a suggestion for the G&M's Toronto-centric Greenspon and Geiger: Put your faces back where they're comfortable.

If it looks like CanWest bought their way in the door...

We have the right to believe they bought their way in the door until they prove they didn't.

And that is going to be pretty tough to do after CanWest Media Inc. pumped tens of thousands of dollars into the BC Liberal Party for the 2005 election, at the exclusion of all others.

Then we get the Vancouver Sun endorsing Campbell and his "Liberals". The problem is that the endorsement is accompanied by the worst kind of biased bullshit. And by bullshit I mean fabrications, misrepresentations, statistical manipulation and outright falsehoods.

When challenged by the Georgia Straight's Charlie Smith on CanWest Media's 2005 $50,000 donation to the BC Liberals, Campbell insults every thinking British Columbian by suggesting that it has no influence... at all. Then he really screws the pooch by making the suggestion that government advertising revenue is spread around... "... the fact of the matter is that we have two major daily newspapers."

Huh?!

Let's assume for a minute that he's talking about the Vancouver Sun and the Vancouver Province. Just for good measure, let's throw in the Victoria Times-Colonist. They are all owned by CanWest Media Inc.!!!

The Gazetteer has the video.

About that endorsement by the Vancouver Sun. My gawd, don't step in it! It'll stick to your shoe.

Now, go read Kootcoot, who tears the VSun's endorsement to shreds faster than a white-tip shark with mackerel in its gape.

BC Election 2009 : Money is thicker than water

This last week, documents from the much-beleaguered BC Ministry of the Environment revealed that run-of-river power projects breach environmental regulations : cutting down old-growth forest, construction during bird breeding season, that sort of thing.
Unfortunately the government officials involved "say they can't discuss what they found until after next week's provincial election."
.
Now today we get this : Environment ministry faces 'substantial pressure' from power producers, documents say

"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."

What?
You mean the same Liberal politicians who have received $800,000 in political donations from that IPP industry and its supporters over the past 8 years would be making the call on whether specific IPPs are exempt from environmental regulation?
Good lord.

BC's Watershed Election

Stonewall Wally Oppal starts his re-election campaign

CanWest today : RCMP officers may be charged in Dziekanski death

"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."

Really, CanWest? Are you quite sure that's what he said?

Because what I'm remembering is that all three levels of Executive Management in the Criminal Justice Branch watched exactly the same Paul Pritchard video footage the rest of us saw and after comparing it to Cpl. Benjamin (Monty) Robinson's statement in which he claimed 12 times that Dziekanski swung the stapler at them and had to be stunned twice before being wrestled to the ground, they announced that the video supported the officers' accounts. They then mustered the gall to issue this unanimous statement on December 12, 2008 :

"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."

And that available evidence hasn't changed, has it?
So what did Stonewall Wally Oppal actually say today?

CP (Italics mine) :

"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."

Care to revise your bullshit headline now, CanWest?
Everyone else ... as you were.

Electioneering for the May 12 BC Election apparently started in earnest today with Wally suddenly remembering his seat is up for grabs too.

Cross-posted at Creekside