A BC election during the pandemic? Sure why not – they keep building a dam with no foundation too.

If there is one thing we can all probably agree on, its that 2020 is pretty much a gongshow of things we never thought we would see, hear and in some cases, do.

After a fairly slow start to summer, daily reported  cases in BC have steadily crept up, doubling in around every two weeks at some points during the last two months. Recently we surpassed the 100 cases a day mark, and the lagging indicator of hospitalizations and those in ICU, is finally creeping up as well. As a result, Dr. Bonnie Henry has once again seriously urged everyone in BC, to return to small bubbles, to limit social interactions and activies to keep those who are vulnerable and elderly, safe.

That, all while sending thousands of kids back to school across BC, with little to no physical distancing in classes and hallways, and no masks required except in those high traffic areas or face to face learning, like an Educational Assistant and student interaction.

While partisan boosters have been outright stating the NDP will not be having an election this year,  in truth, both Elections BC and all parties are preparing for one. And when faced with direct questions, Premier Horgan has been jerking reporters around for weeks on this when asked, but today he did make a point of saying Elections BC can do it safely. And when questioned, Elections BC confirmed they are preparing for the possibility of an early, snap election.

Bob has more on this, here: https://thebreaker.news/news/fall-election-pondered/

So let me get this right…..

• We are potentially facing a “surge” or second wave, with cases rising daily, hospitalizations increasing, ICU rising
• We have just seen thousands of small businesses closed as a result of the first restrictions, which people are now increasingly starting to question why that had to happen when nearly everything is open now….with far more cases than we ever had this spring. Keep in mind, many small businesses and restaurants are mom and pop, or family owned and run. ( quite a few have closed in the valley here alone. )
• We have thousands of people still out of work, companies laying off and restructuring to close outlets, parents are keeping kids home from school to protect family members who are vulnerable, or alternately, being forced to say tearful goodbyes to in person visits for who knows how long?  All while still being told to keep bubbles small which is impossible once school returns.
• We have seniors and others still in long term care who were cruelly kept from seeing their loved ones while staff continue to bring in the virus, had a period of brief visitation ( not all families got this in time) and some are now being told they may not be able to visit again with rising cases.
• We have a government that said it wasn’t safe to have all mla’s in the legislature, and have continued to refuse to allow reporters at press conferences this entire time, even distanced and masked, but continues to assert this is acceptable for students of all ages and teachers.

Could this government be so clueless as to call or instigate an election during the thick of this?

How does one reconcile this under these conditions we all must live by?

If  government expects teachers and students to make it work with no distancing , perhaps this government should get back to work, and make it work, and stick to the regular election schedule next year.

It’s my strong belief, that voters would be brutal to any party triggering a snap election.

No one I have spoken to agrees with it. In fact the suggestion it may happen elicits anger because of the obvious.

It smacks of being power hungry which is exactly why Clark got rightfully booted, and let’s not forget how narrow the last election result was. Everyone said I was crazy for suggesting a minority was the likely outcome and I was right.

The BC NDP have a demonstrated history of misreading both polls and the publics overall mood. We have seen this time and time again in every prior election I’ve followed since 2009ish, when even with ample and copious  ammunition against the BC Liberals, they couldn’t pull in the vote. And now, we have a perfect storm of evictions beginning because renters cant afford to pay their current rent and back pay on CERB.. or their regular pay.

We have rampant homelessness in every community, getting markedly worse in metro Van as people have fled west to escape winter on the streets elsewhere.

Opiod crisis is getting worse, not better.. the list goes on and on to the points above.

I get why Horgan would want an election now… he knows site C and the coming bills for this pandemic will be a perfect storm of discontent, particularly if this winter cold/ flu/covid season proves to be as bad as some think it will be. But if he wanted to show leadership, trying to hold a snap election in a pandemic while telling people to keep their bubble home and limit interactions is just wrong and selfish. It shows a complete lack of understanding how bad things are for a lot of people. And I think they will try to push the Greens to pull the plug on the CASA, which would be the stupidest thing they could do and political suicide as well.

The right thing to do right now is be honest about the game he is playing with the press and the public. Elections BC will not randomly spend money, book venues and look for staff in ridings unless someone gave them an indication it was a very real possibility.  And every poli-geek and reporter knows this.

Thats why the only option Horgan has now is to confirm he has no intention of breaking the CASA signed with the Greens. That would put all the jerking around he’s started to rest so he doesn’t blow his lead.

I’m glad the NDP have been in power for this clusterfuck called Covid.  But I’m terribly disillusioned with all politicians and politics in general. We used to have the NDP’s help to file FOI’s to get info on government, especially if they were really expensive. Now, we can’t even get info out of government, because they have been breaking their own laws to keep people .. and the opposition… from getting FOI’s in a timely manner. https://www.burnabynow.com/b-c-government-breaking-law-in-extending-information-request-times-privacy-commissioner-1.24196499

You can read the full report here. Its not good. Adrian Dixs office and John Horgans are the worst offenders ( No surprise there with Meggs presence) https://www.oipc.bc.ca/special-reports/3459

This may not matter to most people, but this is something they promised to change, that they campaigned on . The BC Liberals were the most secretive government.. we thought. In that aspect, nothing has changed. And that’s tremendously disappointing.

And the latest on Site C, from Vaughn Palmers opinion piece, once again has Ralston pointing to the BC Liberals, as if they have forgotten that they made a choice to continue the dam, while pretending to supporters they were going to cancel it. https://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/vaughn-palmer-site-c-instability-issues-making-ndp-nervous-about-escalating-costs

“B.C. Hydro is going ahead with diverting the Peace River past Site C, despite not having decided how to fix a geological instability under the foundation for the giant earthfill dam itself.

Some work on the diversion is already underway, including dredging the approaches to the twin diversion tunnels, wet-testing of the tunnels themselves and construction of a large rock berm across the Peace..”

~snip~

” He ( Ralston) traced the problem back to the Liberals, who went ahead with construction after forestalling an independent review of Site C by the utilities commission.

“They signed off on a design that included geological risks,” Ralston told the house. “We are now facing geological risks in the design that the old government approved.”

Yeah  Bruce, we know Christy Clark approved a bad idea with no business case, in a geologically unstable portion of the valley. Many of us talked to you and your fellow MLA’s about this. You all agreed. It was brought up in the approvals, in expert presentations, and you all used that info against the Liberals time and time again.

But then your government went ahead, signing impact and benefits agreements, contracting agreements and a Tripartite land agreement to which the govt was a party to, in March, even before sending it to the BCUC for an expedited review. We knew then you werent going to approve it. There was never any intention of stopping it. There was only a show to appease the crowd.

And thats how we go to where we are today. There is no more pointing fingers when you had a chance to stop it, and chose not to. In hindsight now the public debt that would have come from stopping the dam, is a drop in the bucket of the forecast deficit for next years public accounts. Horgan has continued down the path of Dwight Ball since late 2017.  He is on his second minister on this file, who is also treading water. Everything I wrote in the last blog post before they approved Site C to continue, is coming back to haunt them. https://lailayuile.com/2017/11/13/the-billion-dollar-question-with-only-one-right-answer/

I still don’t think Horgan has the courage to do the right thing and stop the dam. Even with an untested and never used before design, even with no stable foundation to the dam itself and even with lives downstream.

But I would love to have them prove me wrong. https://lailayuile.com/the-case-to-stop-site-c-construction-links-news/

Just for once, I’d like to see a leader do the right thing, especially when he knows in his heart, he made the wrong decision…It’s the kind of leadership we really aren’t seeing anywhere right now.

** update for your daily dose of confusion.

This is from today’s press conference. There’s been increased transmissions at workplaces between coworkers…so of course now it makes sense to tell people it’s ok to be one metre instead of two….🤨