With only a handful of days left in Decision BC 2013, as most pundits had predicted, the campaign race has tightened some this week over last, with the BC Liberals gaining 3% in the polls, as the Green Party and Conservative vote begins to collapse. The NDP vote has remained steady at 44.2%, though, enough to catapult BC’s long out of government centre left political party to victory on May 14th, with a projected 56 seats in the British Columbia legislature, a gain of 21 seats, and 34 more seats than the floundering BC Liberals.
VanRamblings has told friends that we believe the NDP will garner 54 seats in the house come election night, May 14th, a perfect number for the BC NDP, and leader Adrian Dix — enough to appoint a cabinet of 24 – 26, with another 24 – 26 parliamentary secretary appointments, as well as an NDP house leader, party whip, Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the House, thereby keeping any idle NDP electeds from possible mischief that could hurt the party, and also affording increased salaries for each NDP member in the legislature, newly-elected and sustaining. We’ll see come May 14th.

To throw a monkey wrench into the whole election prediction game, according to Chad Skelton, at the Vancouver Sun, if one takes into account the most recent Angus Reid poll, an online seat prediction tool created by The Sun newspaper “predicts the NDP winning a whopping 70 seats and the Liberals just 12, with another two for independent candidates and one for the Greens.” Again, we’ll just wait to see what occurs on May 14th.

Given the figures expressed in the polls above, in his latest column for the Vancouver Sun, longtime legislative reporter Vaughn Palmer writes that the B.C. Liberals are simply trying to keep their chins up, and hang on.

Looking to the current campaign, NDP leader Adrian Dix is fighting to win everywhere, though his party denies (not all that persuasively, in my view) that he means to crush, crush, crush the Liberals the way Campbell did the New Democrats in 2001.

The Liberals, in fighting against the odds to turn things around, are also serving the dual purpose of trying to save as much as they can of their seat complement to establish a sizable opposition beachhead for the next four years. Plan B, one might call it. And unless the gap between the two main parties drops to the single digits very soon, I expect it will become the operative one for the Liberals as election day approaches.

Has Palmer had a look at the Vancouver Sun poll above? Must be, cuz he seems to be writing off the Liberal’s chances with 12 days still to go.
BC Election 2013: News from Here, There & Everywhere
As is the case with the mainstream media, VanRamblings has pretty much ignored the travails of the BC Conservative campaign, and whatever machinations it’s deer-in-the-headlights leader, John Cummins, performs each day on the campaign trail. In an April 30th story, the Vancouver Sun’s Mike Hager reported that the Conservative party had failed to file the proper paperwork by last Friday’s nomination deadline for four of its candidates — Vancouver-Quilchena’s Bill Clarke, a former Progressive Conservative MP; Burnaby-Lougheed’s Christine Clarke; Burnaby North’s Wayne Marklund; and Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows’ Manuel (Mike) Pratas. As a consequence, the candidates will run unaffiliated. Oh sure, the four ‘quasi-semi-sorta-but-really’ non-Conservative candidates — who won’t have their affiliation made official on the ballots — will still campaign as Conservatives, using party paraphernalia like lawn signs and logos, and the like, but they won’t be - like, y’know - official Conservatives. Poor John Cummins, he’s running a provincial campaign where the wheels keep coming off the bus.
And then there’s this story about the …

… triumvirate of candidates dropped by the B.C. Conservative party in the past week over their controversial online comments, who have pledged to continue running as independents. Ian Tootill announced he will be running in Vancouver-False Creek after party leader John Cummins took offence to several of his comments made on Twitter. Two other Tory candidates dumped by the party for their controversial comments, Vancouver-West End’s Ron Herbert and Boundary-Similkameen’s Mischa Popoff, will also run as independents.

The wheels on the Conservative campaign bus go click, click, clack …

We’re not sure why, but for some reason or other VanRamblings has quite consistently neglected to steer readers in the direction of The Tyee’s otherwise superior coverage of the 40th British Columbia provincial election, an oversight we’ll attempt to remedy, at least to some degree, now.

• In this Tyee story, one of the NDP’s most prominent candidates, labour opposition critic and caucus chair Shane Simpson, said he’s “not 100 percent sure” his party will achieve B.C.’s 2020 climate target if elected to lead the province.
• Tyee reporter Pieta Woolley wonders why it is that during the course of Monday’s debate, no party leader made a peep about fixing British Columbia’s clearly broken foster care and child protection system.
• Then there’s The Tyee’s “scroll in and find your riding, or information on any other riding in the province” BC Election 2013 Map and Guide.
• There’s a great deal more to learn about the issues of concern respecting Decision BC 2013 that may be found on The Tyee’s front page, as well, if you care to take a gander.

Well, that’s it for VanRamblings May 2nd coverage of the BC Election.
For the latest VanRamblings election coverage, click on Decision BC 2013.

Barring any last minute fumbles by Adrian Dix (as unlikely a prospect as one could possibly imagine), as we head towards E-Day on May 14th, the son of parents Ken and Hilda, immigrants from Ireland and Britain, respectively, fluent speaker of both of Canada’s official languages, graduate of UBC in History and Political Science, husband of Renée Saklikar, a poet and writer, longtime resident and two term MLA for Vancouver’s Collingwood district (the riding called Vancouver Kingsway), one morning very soon you will be waking to the news that Premier Adrian Dix will be sworn into office in the early part of June — along with a cabinet comprised of dedicated, hard-working New Democrat MLAs who Mr. Dix believes can help to right the course for British Columbia, create jobs and opportunity, manage our health care sector for the good of all, ensure that our children are provided with the resources necessary to learn in our public schools, and more, so much more — to become British Columbia’s 36th Premier.
As you can see from the graphic at the head of today’s blog post, Milton Chan, over at the Election Prediction Project, stipulates that the New Democratic Party of British Columbia is guaranteed to win a minimum of 45 seats in the house, two more than is necessary for a majority government, and currently 30 seats greater than the increasingly moribund BC Liberals, a rise of three seats for the NDP over last week’s prediction, and a loss of one for the Liberals. As we’ve written previously, too bad, so sad, ain’t sure it’s been all that great to know ya, don’t let the door whack you on the behind on your way out, better luck next time, we thank you for your efforts in governing British Columbia (however misguided were many of your policies), but the time has come when the citizens of our province are aching for change, and so you are gone, as the Adrian Dix era hath arrived, thoughtful, methodical, humane, policy-developed, slow, sustaining and incremental change for the better. The clocks will not be turned back.

The four leaders are back on the campaign trail, hard at it, Adrian Dix working to increase an NDP majority in the legislature, Christy Clark doing her best to avoid an unrecoverable drubbing at the polls for her BC Liberal party, John Cummins doing his level best to elect a handful of Conservatives in the Interior, and Jane Sterk striving hard to not only get the BC Green Party message out to voters, but ensure that at least a couple of her candidates are elected on May 14th (Oak Bay – Gordon Head and Saanich North and the Islands are identified as the best bets) to represent their constituents in the British Columbia legislature.
Where will the four leaders of British Columbia’s political parties spend their time in the remaining days of Decision BC 2013?
BC NDP leader Adrian Dix spent most of Tuesday in Prince George, where he pledged to the B.C. Mayors’ Council that an NDP government would create a stand-alone ministry for local government and hold annual roundtables with mayors from across the province. Wednesday morning, Adrian Dix had breakfast in Quesnel, where he also attended a campaign event with NDP Cariboo-North candidate Duncan Barnett, who also traveled with the BC NDP leader to a 2:05pm campaign stop in Barkerville.
BC Liberal leader Christy Clark launched a three-day, 10-city campaign tour on Tuesday, hoping to capitalize on the exposure from Monday night’s comme ci, comme ça leaders’ debate. This morning, Ms. Clark had breakfast with supporters in Penticton, after which her campaign bus headed down the road to the offices of Boundary-Similkameen BC Liberal candidate, Linda Larson, a riding the Election Prediction Project’s Milton Chan is now calling for NDP candidate Lakhvinder Jhaj, a pick up for the NDP over the Liberals from 2009. At 3:30pm, the soon-to-be-ex Premier made a stop at the Sanderson Fruit Stand in Keremeos, before she headed down the road to Princeton, for a tour of the Copper Mountain Mine.
BC Green Party leader Jane Sterk spent Tuesday visiting the editorial offices of Vancouver’s two major dailies before traveling home to Victoria. Bright and early this morning, Ms. Sterk had breakfast with party supporters before heading over to Victoria’s CFAX radio station for a one-on-one with morning host, Al Ferraby. At 10:30am, Ms. Sterk was off to participate in an all-candidates forum at the James Bay New Horizons Centre, in support of her candidacy in Victoria-Beacon Hill, where she hopes to defeat former NDP leader, Carole James (an unlikely prospect). At 12:30pm, Ms. Sterk was interviewed by CBC Almanac host, Mark Forsythe. Tonight, at 6:30pm, it was another all-candidates forum at the New Horizons Centre. Tomorrow, Ms. Sterk is scheduled to set out across across Vancouver Island in support of candidates running under the BC Green Party banner.
Yesterday, Conservative leader John Cummins began what he’s calling his pick-up truck tour, where he made stops at the many Interior communities that dot Highway One — Hope, Boston Bar, Lytton, Spences Bridge, Merritt and Ashcroft, among other small towns and villages — before finally arriving at his Kamloops destination, where he spent most of Wednesday plumping for local BC Conservative candidates, Ed Klop and Peter Sharp.
VanRamblings will leave you with the following Christy Clark message …

For the latest VanRamblings election coverage, click on Decision BC 2013.

With last night’s Leaders’ Debate complete, Decision BC 2013 heads in to the homestretch, with less than two weeks til election day, on May 14th.
With no so-called ‘knockout blows’ landed by any of the party leaders, as can be seen in the Ipsos-Reid post Leaders’ Debate poll conducted for Global BC, last evening’s debate emerged as pretty much a draw, with BC’s NDP leader finding somewhat more favour among British Columbians than did his BC Liberal party counterpart, the beleaguered Christy Clark, who drew much of the fire during the course of Monday evening’s debate.
Vancouver Sun legislative columnist Vaughn Palmer weighed in on last night’s debate in today’s edition of B.C.’s newspaper of record …

(John Cummins) had the most telling comment of the night, however, with his devastating observation off the top that “nobody” expects Christy Clark and the Liberals to win the election and folks probably tuned in “to see what Adrian Dix would look like as a premier.”

If so, then what they saw was a leader who remains a bit awkward and evasive here and there, but who is a master of his chosen material, with growing confidence overall.

If any of the other leaders laid a glove on him in Monday night’s debate, it didn’t show up in my notes.

The Globe and Mail’s Justine Hunter and Ian Bailey write that the party leaders traded punches during the course of the election’s only televised debate, while columnist Gary Mason felt that “Dix won on points, as he delivered the most important performance of his political career.” Meanwhile, Georgia Straight editor Charlie Smith opined that, “It’s hard not to feel that all four provincial leaders are insulting voters’ intelligence.”
And, of course, Charlie is right. Last night’s Leaders’ Debate was, for the most part, an ‘issue free’ zone, with virtually no discussion by the party leaders of the major policy issues of concern to British Columbians: transportation, education, and housing, among others. Yes, it may be that Christy Clark’s gaffe in barreling through a red light at 5:15 a.m. offers a metaphor for her approach to governance, but to be the first question that was posed to her by debate moderator Jennifer Burke? C’mon now. And so the night went, parry and thrust, personal attack followed by more political invective, and nary a mention of some of the critical issues that a new government in Victoria will have to face in developing policy that best meets the needs of British Columbians across the vast expanse of our province.

Today, then, it’s back onto the hustings for the four leaders, with Premier Christy Clark spending the day in the Kootenays mainstreeting, before travelling to Cranbook for a 5pm Liberal party rally.
Following an early morning, so-called Breakfast of Champions campaign event with Vancouver-False Creek NPD candidate Matt Toner, BC NDP leader Adrian Dix will hop on a plane heading for Prince George, where he’ll issue a policy announcement at the College of New Caledonia at 3pm, after which he’ll attend a Rally for Change with candidates Bobby Deepak and Sherry Ogasawara, at the Prince George Civic Centre.
BC Conservative Party leader John Cummins — who didn’t fare all that well in last night’s debate, with his deer-in-the-headlights performance — will spend the first part of the day in Vancouver before traveling to Kamloops for a BC Conservative fundraiser. Meanwhile, BC Green Party leader Jane Sterk — who wasn’t as strong in last night’s debate as she was on Friday — will spend her day doing media (e.g. interviews with the editorial Boards of the Vancouver Sun and The Province), before heading out to Surrey this evening for an all-candidates debate at South Park family school.

As can be seen from the latest ThreeHundredEight.com statistical compilation poll above, heading into the final 12 days of Decision BC 2013, as most pundits predicted the race has tightened up some, the Liberals are up 2.8 points, the NDP down a couple — all of which means not a whit to the election outcome May 14th, other than the prospect that the election result will not prove a complete wipeout for the BC Liberals.
VanRamblings will return tomorrow with more, probable, election outcome predictions, a review of Decision BC 2013 mainstream media coverage and, perhaps, a bit of insight into BC’s 40th provincial election. For the latest VanRamblings election coverage, click on Decision BC 2013.

Well, this is it folks — the big day, the make it or break day for Decision BC 2013. Tonight at 6:30pm, broadcast on the three major television networks across British Columbia, as well as radio stations throughout the province, the four leaders of the main political parties in our province come together for the televised Leaders’ Debate, the only opportunity British Columbians will have to assess the cut and jib of the provincial party leaders who are vying to become the Premier of our province for the next four years.
Ostensibly, the purpose of tonight’s leaders’ debate is to provide British Columbians with a keen insight into the policies and political belief structure of our provincial leaders. Premier Christy Clark has the most to gain or lose, as she is the one leader who will face an audience that is primed to give her a thumbs-down review on both delivery and substance.
Adrian Dix steps in front of the cameras tonight the perceived front-runner in the May 14 election. All Dix has to do is keep his powder dry, appear reasonable, engaging and perhaps even avuncular while presenting his, and the NDP’s, plans for British Columbia through 2017, and the next provincial election. BC Green Party leader Jane Sterk acquitted herself well on CKNW’s Leaders’ Debate on Friday — will she perform as well again tonight, as she attempts to paint herself as a reasonable alternative for voters?
And, finally, Conservative leader John Cummins, who thus far in BC’s election campaign hasn’t gained much traction, even given his ridiculing of the balanced budget legislation that forms a central raison d’être plank of the Liberal platform. By Wednesday, when the major pollsters release the results on their post-election sampling of the public’s reception of the four leaders, we’ll know who the leader will be that will enter the final 11 days of the campaign with the most forward momentum headed toward May 14.

One of the “issues” that will almost certainly come up during the course of tonight’s Leaders’ Debate will revolve around the poor judgement Premier Clark displayed in blowing through a red light at 5:15 a.m. one morning this past week, her son Hamish and Vancouver Sun reporter Jonathan Fowlie in tow. As former Chief of Staff to Gordon Campbell writes in The Straight …

“Even if Clark was banking on the incident not being reported or captured by a red light camera, it is illegal. ‘Fun’ or not. No matter how empty the intersection was or how early in the morning it was, it displayed a wanton disregard for the law and common sense. It sends a horrible message that, metaphorically, too closely approximates her approach to governing.

In Clark’s world, rules are meant to be broken. It is a message that is endemic to her Office and that has been reflected by her example and by her most senior political staff. Whatever you can get away with when you think that nobody’s watching is A-OK … This Premier stops for no one. She’s cool with “pushing the envelope” with actions that she assumes will never be held to account.

Note that when Clark ran that red light, it was no accident. She didn’t run a yellow light that turned red before she could stop at the intersection. She deliberately chose to go through the light because it was red. Because she could. … It speaks volumes about her troubled leadership and government.”

And thus the metaphorical issue that best describes Christy Clark’s reckless and wanton approach to government rears its head in the final weeks of the British Columbia election campaign, in this ‘do or die, on the line‘ election for Clark’s governing BC Liberal party. Premier Clark’s decision to run a red light, when she knew full well a reporter was sitting right next to her in her car - as research for a profile piece he was writing on her - was a blunder.
A blunder on top of one blunder after another — from the so-called ethnic vote scandal that served to alienate British Columbians across the province, to the failure of her government to respond to the heartbreaking protests of parents over the Liberal party’s unconscionable cuts to services for their developmentally disabled children (all the while, promoting her disingenuous “families first” agenda - parents with disabled children apparently seeming not to fit into Premier Clark’s ruddy definition of family), from the utter lack of ethics displayed by senior government officials in her office who engaged in partisan activity to identify the vote for her Liberal government, to the iconic wooden office building scandal respecting the partisan efforts of Ministers in her government respecting the bid process — has defined her time as Premier of the province of British Columbia. Just as is the case with a marriage, it is rarely ‘one big thing’ that destroys a marriage, but rather it is the litany of ‘little things’ that when added together prove to be the most consequential in the final, heartbreaking decision to end a relationship.
And so, the 12-year reign of a BC Liberal government that lost the favour of the voting public with the implementation of the much-despised HST, through Christy Clark’s reign of error since winning the leadership of the Liberal Party on February 26, 2011, must come to an end. As the defining line of the BC NDP campaign says, “Change. One practical step at a time”.
Update: For VanRamblings’ coverage of Monday’s BC Leaders’ Debate click on BC Election 2013: The Campaigns Move in to the Homestretch.

BC Election 2013: A Wrap-Up of News from the Mainstream Media
We’ll wrap today’s post with a review of print and online press coverage.

• Georgia Straight. As we’ve reported previously, editor Charlie Smith is on a roll. In his latest commentary, Smith tackles the BC Liberals for neglecting to pay attention to the tenor of politics in the western world, their failure to recognize that “the winds are changing”, and for their decision to campaign to the right rather than as a moderately progressive party. Smith also writes that the NDP are poised to add many new seats if the polls hold, suggesting he believes they will. Also in The Straight, Vancouver-False Creek Liberal candidate Sam Sullivan writes that marijuana prohibition is a failed policy. You’ll find more Georgia Straight coverage of the provincial election here.

• Globe and Mail. Andrea Woo writes a profile on ‘underdog’ Vancouver Fairview candidate, Geoge Heyman. Mark Hume travelled north to write a riding profile of Peace River North, one of the ridings to watch on election night, with Independent Arthur Hadland on track to defeat Liberal incumbent Pat Pimm. Guess we’ll see in 15 days.

C’mon back tomorrow for VanRamblings’ take on tonight’s Leaders’ Debate, and other election-related news of the day.
(Find the latest VanRamblings election coverage at Decision BC 2013)
(As the ‘story of the the April 18th Kitsilano Community Centre AGM continues to generate interest, readers will find VanRamblings’ coverage of the KitsCC AGM here. The Vancouver Courier’s Sandra Thomas wrote about the KitsCC AGM, her article to be found here, along with a Letter to the Editor in response to Thomas’ article. In related news, The Courier’s Bob Mackin writes that Kate Perkins, Trout Lake Community Centre President, and Chair of of the community center Associations Presidents Group — currently involved in a sensitive re-negotiation of the operating agreement that defines the relationship between community centres and Vancouver’s Park Board and City Council — is, in fact, as she describes herself, a “mole” for the office of the City Manager, and Dr. Penny Ballem — at best, questionable conduct as well as a conflict of interest for Ms. Perkins, and unethical behaviour on the part of Vancouver’s City Manager, if in fact Dr. Ballem made promises of employment or favour to Ms. Perkins in exchange for her duties as a “mole”)