A new opinion poll of B.C. voting intentions reinforces a previous finding that the New Democratic Party has a solid lead while the B.C. Liberal Party support is being eroded by the upstart B.C. Conservatives, but my analysis of the numbers says the outcome of the next election still remains to be determined.

The telephone poll of about 1,000 people by Forum Research Inc. on Jan. 23 found NDP support at 39 %, up from 34 % in the previous month's poll and enough to deliver what Forum said would be a majority government of 57 seats to NDP leader Adrian Dix if that level of support held through to the May 2013 election; the New Democrats have and can win at that level when the opposition is divided but it's too far away to say the pattern will hold.

That uncertainty is reflected in findings for the B.C. Liberal Party and Premier Christy Clark that were somewhat improved from the previous poll, other findings for Dix were mixed and the findings for John Cummins and the B.C. Conservative Party were somewhat worse, so the poll does give "the Clark Liberals" a glimmer of hope for the May 14, 2013 voting day.

I witnessed conservative pundit Ezra Levant debut his "Ethical Oil" concept when he came to Vancouver to debate the Wilderness Committee's Ben West in late 2010. The premise Levant laid out at the Rio Theatre - essentially, that bitumen from Canada is the "fair trade coffee" of the world's oil supply because this country has a better human rights record than Saudi Arabia or Iran -  was being parroted soon thereafter by newly minted Environment Minister Peter Kent.

The synchronicity of talking points between Ethical Oil, Enbridge, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (the oil and gas industry's official lobby) and the Harper Government should be our first clue that these entities are working together on some level.

"Ethical Oil" didn't just spring from nowhere - it was carefully conceived in the manner of major advertising campaigns and the work of Republican strategist Frank Luntz (who coined "the death tax" in order to push lower estate taxes, and encouraged the Bush Administration to re-frame global warming as "climate change", for instance). In fact, what we are presently witnessing around the Enbridge debate is the full-force implementation of American-style political campaign tactics - where everything is built around a single, simple concept - like "socialist" Obama-care (right!), "tough on terror", or Orwellian distortions like the "Patriot "Act - which, no matter how illogical, gain traction through relentless, monosyllabic repetition, delivered via the triple threat of corporate media, government and corporate-backed lobbies, "think tanks" and pr firms.

Clark's staff shuffle reflects need to keep anti-NDP coalition intact

Tory import Boessenkool must overcome a growing series of Liberal policy blunders

By John Twigg

The metaphor about cabinet shuffles being like "shuffling the deck chairs on the Titanic" has been overused in politics and journalism but somehow it still seems to fit well on the tough situation facing the B.C. Liberal Party government now nominally headed by Premier Christy Clark.

Increasingly it is looking like Ms Clark and her many holdovers from the Campbell Liberals regime will be going down to an ignominious defeat in the next provincial election in May 2013, probably starting with dismal showings in two byelections expected to be called in coming weeks.

As we've pointed out here before, indeed in the first issue of my revived newsletters business, the problem is not merely the massive mound of garbage left behind by former premier Gordon Campbell but increasingly on top of that it is Clark and her cabinet and advisers who have been bungling issue after issue after issue, to the point that grumblings and biting critiques have moved from being only in a few top blogs like those of Alex Tsakumis, Bill Tieleman and others into the mainstream media columns of Mike Smyth, Vaughn Palmer and increasingly numerous others, with lots more echoes on open line shows.

The higher (and other) courts in B.C. are in the news again – this time because of the almost ridiculous state of financial deprivation the Gordon Campbell/Christy Clark government has put the court system into. Courts are starving.  Judges are in short supply.  Staff is minimal.  Legal Aid support is a disgrace.  Serious cases are being tossed as a result of unacceptable delay.  Justice is being denied ….
 
Major court commentator (Vancouver Sun) Ian Mulgrew trivializes the situation by using it to insult a lawyer trying to do something to ease the injustice.  Madness.  But madness is afoot in a British Columbia staggering from high-level corruption.  And the madness is incarnated in the Mainstream Press and Media, as Ian Mulgrew shows.
 
Begin by recognizing a fundamental point. Good, effective (especially) higher courts are a threat to corrupt governments and corporations.  There could be a direct connection between that fact and the starving of the courts in B.C.
 
The rule of law is under attack in Canada – led by the Stephen Harper government which eludes justice in cases against it and laughs in the face of law, contract, and decency.  Maybe I should say “led by the Stephen Harper government which is following the Gordon Campbell/Christy Clark government that violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in its first years by attempting to smash unions - breaking contract with the hospital employees union and denying teachers fundamental bargaining rights”. Both actions have been overturned by the courts. Christy Clark has yet to restore the rights of teachers, even after a Supreme Court of B.C. order more than a year ago.
 
How’s that for open contempt for the rule of law by the Christy Clark government? Open, public rejection of a Supreme Court order.

By John Twigg

In keeping with the focus on opinion polls in the previous issue, it's all the more interesting to closely examine a poll released Thursday (Dec. 5) which reportedly finds considerable support in B.C. for the proposed $5.5-billion Northern Gateway oil pipeline that would carry refined bitumen from the Alberta oil sands to an export terminal in Kitimat, B.C.

Public hearings by the National Energy Board and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency begin next week on the project, which is backed by Enbridge Inc., a major pipeline operator with its share of accidents in other parts of North America, but the project has already been contentious for years and even was a difference-maker in some local government elections last year.

Many local interests are rightly concerned about the threat of polluting spills and many provincial interests even more worried about the threat of oil tanker accidents in B.C.'s rough waters, while First Nations interests naturally point out that there is a blatant lack of treaties along most of the proposed pipeline route and so far there hasn't been much in it for them except added risks to their environments and communities.