The extreme left-wing in British Columbia, the Marxist New Democratic Party or “NDP”, put BC’s economy in the toilet when they were in power during what the rest of the world called “the roaring 90’s”—the rest of the world’s economies were booming like never before in history as BC became a poor have-not province beset by problems of every description. However all public-sector labor union members became rich and were in Hawaii most of that time, so this column is a newsbreak for them.
Socialists are about as adept at running one of their much beloved governments as they are at running, say, a “traditional families values and pro-life” conference, or a “for-profit business”, or a “national defence program”.
When they were defeated in 2001, they were massively defeated and were left with only two lonely seats in BC’s Legislature. Those two seats were filled with shrill socialist women who know more about feminism and labor unions and David Suzuki’s rear nether region than anyone on the face of the earth.
Speaking of rear nether regions, the leader of the NDP in BC is a woman named Carole James who clearly has no cajones, doesn’t even have a seat in the Legislature because she’s been too afraid to put her nether region on the line and run in a by-election. She gives new meaning to Arnold’s piquant descriptor “girlie-man” because like any member of the NDP, one never really knows for sure just what sex they are.
James was elected leader of the BC NDP by the labor unions of BC, which own the NDP and are guaranteed a 25 percent vote at party conventions (in addition to the votes of individual union members), and James is therefore snuggled in bed with the labor unions. The NDP in turn supports them in every which way when in power, to the detriment of the entire province. By the way the NDP also supports, in every way possible, the city of Vancouver’s neo-communist “COPE” party currently in power there. The COPE mayor, the arrogant and bombastic Larry Campbell, called conservatives “barbarians” during the last federal election. That’s me and my wife—“barbarians”. This is the quality of person that Carole James and her NDP support.
James will do or say whatever is necessary to get the big union cash, and if her and her party are elected in May 2005, she will do whatever is necessary to turn BC into a labor union-driven socialist haven for n’er-do-wells and homosexuals and the pot-smoking pierced-nipple freak set. That’s their political philosophy. That’s their promise. And all of the extreme-left in BC will vote for her in droves with the help and financial assistance of the uber-Marxist BC public school teachers’ union and health care workers’ unions, and with the more general help of the militant Marxists at the BC Federation of Labour. Together they could win the May 2005 election because conservative BC’ers are currently in a tax-induced coma while the left-wing electorate is perky—it’s as if pierced-nipples could themselves vote, and when you figure each human has two nipples, well you do the math.
The party in power now is the B.C. Liberals (not affiliated with the infamous, near-Marxist, scandal-ridden and exceedingly arrogant Liberal Party of Canada, but many amongst them support that party). The leader and BC’s Premier, Gordon Campbell, is a fiscal conservative but seemingly a liberal-lefty in every other which way. For example all abortions including late-term abortions, for any reason at all whatsoever, are fully-funded by all the taxpayers of the province; and yet no doctors in BC will even perform late-term abortions for ethical reasons, so the taxpayers of the province are forced to pay for girls to get them done in private clinics in Washington State. The BC Liberals, given a mandate to do otherwise, chose to keep the state-run liquor stores and state-run car insurance program (with optional towing package!), among other sacred socialist gems revered only by Cubans and North Koreans and Stalinist immigrants from the old Soviet Union who see Canada as their last hope.
Premier Campbell’s brother Michael is a well-known, brilliant, and really pretty conservative columnist for the Vancouver Sun. I highly recommend reading his column if you can— I am constantly clipping them out and leaving them on the counter for my wife. I highly recommend he start a BC Conservative Party and that he give me a jingle if he does.
Gordon Campbell and the cabinet he has obviously led with aplomb is a mixture of liberals and conservatives. They have completely turned BC’s economy around to the point where it is looking exceedingly good moving forward. Much credit goes to Finance Minister Gary Collins but all of them did their part in doing the pretty miraculous job of turning BC back into the potential powerhouse that it used to be before the NDP threw the province into the toilet then summarily flushed it. Note that BC has never broken through that “potential” barrier—merely nodded at the notion and the possibilities. BC’s official motto is: “Where there’s a will, there’s a won’t”, in case you didn’t know.
Standard and Poor’s, the huge credit rating agency, just yesterday upgraded the province of BC’s credit rating to “AA”, from “AA-”, which is huge. It means that worldwide banks and credit facilitators will issue loans to the government (and the government can sell bonds) for less interest cost than before, saving BC countless millions. And BC relies on loans, well, the way the liberal-left relies on having a copious supply of “victims” in society.
“After nearly a decade of NDP financial mismanagement, Standard and Poor’s downgraded B.C.‘s credit rating twice, once in 1997 and again in 1999,” Gary Collins reminded us in a news release even though I’m the only one on the planet who read it. The BC government expects to finish this fiscal year with a budget surplus of about $1 billion, and the lower interest costs on debt will help that be even more achievable. Nearly one in three dollars BC’ers pay in taxes goes toward interest payments on combined federal/provincial government debt. Just the interest. The debt and interest payments will be able to start coming down a little now, at least as long as the NDP don’t come back into power and poop in the toilet again.
Since the reasonable choices politically in BC are the extreme left-wing Marxists of the wacked-out extremist labor-union-owned NDP; or the common sense moderate and fiscally conservative liberals of the BC Liberals, I obviously fully endorse and support the BC Liberals, even if I stutter when I say the word “Liberal”.
For more reading on BC politics, read my novel-sized four-part series called BC Politics, and why the BC Conservative Party is no Party.
By Joel Johannesen
This editorial is posted at ProudToBeCanadian.ca. Here is the exact link to the editorial:
http://www.proudtobecanadian.ca/threads/showflat.php?Number=2397
PTBC was founded by Mr. Johannesen in 2000.
Contact Mr. Johannesen about this article using this form. Please refer to article's title.
FOLLOW @JoelJohannesen ON X!
- Say something. - Friday October 25, 2024 at 6:03 pm
- Keep going, or veer right - Monday August 26, 2024 at 4:30 pm
- Hey Joel, what is “progressive?” - Friday August 2, 2024 at 11:32 am
