As reported by Jas Johal on Global BC’s evening NewsHour, an organized movement to oust Christy Clark as BC Liberal leader has already begun in the upper echelons of the provincial governing party.
Called the 801 Club — symbolizing 8:01 p.m., one minute after the election and the minute when the movement plans to begin the process of putting pressure on Clark to step aside, the club — made up of party members and business leaders — has already created 801 buttons, as can be seen in the video clip above, to signify the serious intent of the movement.
The 801 movement not only wants to rid the party of Christy Clark, but those that surround her, as well, including her brother, Bruce; ex-husband and BC Liberal organizer Mark Marissen; the 2013 Liberal party campaign chair Mike McDonald; and current Liberal party president, Sharon White.
Gordon Campbell’s former chief of staff, Martyn Brown, says the scandals that the Clark Liberals have endured are self-inflicted and speak to Clark’s rudderless and ethically-challenged leadership of the BC Liberal party.
“When you look at one thing after the next, it’s just a bad series of judgements that fall directly in her lap,” Brown told host Simi Sara, at 12:38pm, on her afternoon CKNW talk show.
“There is no escaping that, and this just brings it home in spades to people that it is the Premier’s judgement that is at issue here.”
Day after day, in the Georgia Straight and in The Province newspaper, Brown has challenged Clark’s questionable leadership of the BC Liberal party, and her time in government as the unelected Premier of the province.
Why would Brown consistently position himself on the attack against Clark in everything he writes and tells any broadcaster or journalist that will interview him unless he is, in fact, one of the charter members of the 801 Club, working in concert with business leaders to ensure that a person who better represents the interests of the business community will replace Christy Clark after a resounding defeat at the polls next Tuesday?
Piling on today on—the increasingly beleaguered—Christy Clark, high profile BC Liberal Daniel Veniez, who writes in his Georgia Straight commentary …
“I’m progressive, but not of the ideological left, and pragmatic, not of the doctrinaire right. I am a moderate and in the sensible centre … I have never voted NDP in my life … In British Columbia, voters have only two parties to choose from. On May 14, I am voting B.C. NDP. There are two reasons for that. The first is Christy Clark. The second is Adrian Dix.
Clark’s gaffe-prone, content-free, divisive, and ethically challenged tenure as unelected premier of B.C. has been well chronicled.
The core of her relentless electioneering is anchored on a fantastical notion that B.C. will be “debt free” in 15 years through liquefied natural gas. This is based entirely on the incredibly dubious premise that the stars of a volatile and highly cyclical commodity business will align exactly as she predicts. The reality is that none of us — including those within the industry who would make these multibillion investments — has the foggiest clue whether any of this is fact or fiction. But common sense should tell us this: Clark has made a career out of smoke and mirrors … the “debt free BC” slogan of her campaign is yet another whopper from Clark, whose entire government has been punctuated by advertising, gimmickry, and endless photo-ops, culminating in this election with a slogan that simply defies all credibility …”
Dix is a refreshing change.
He’s a humble and quiet man, not given to exaggeration nor to fits of narcissism. Not a “natural” politician, Dix is nevertheless obviously comfortable in his own skin. Well read and well briefed, Dix knows his files, understands the machinery of government, and has a great appreciation for what government can and can’t do. Dix has tried to do politics differently and has waged an honourable campaign.
As premier, Adrian Dix will restore honesty and substance in Victoria.
He’ll bring sober, deliberative, and collaborative leadership to the premier’s office. He’ll attract good people from across the ideological spectrum. He’ll govern the province as he has his own party: by appealing to all of us to come together to solve the problems of British Columbia. He’ll work hard to restore faith in our public institutions and trust in the competence and professionalism of government.
All of us want competent, honest, and accountable government that appeals to the best in all of us. Adrian Dix will do that. That’s why the NDP is getting my vote on May 14.
If the voters don’t do the job next week by ousting Christy Clark from her far from safe seat in the legislature representing the riding of Vancouver-Point Grey, while at the same rejecting her BC Liberal party at the polls, it is clear now that there are forces within the provincial, right-of-centre governing party that are well-prepared to do that job for us.
On the ethically-challenged front, Christy Clark scored a one-two punch on Day 23 of the provincial election campaign.
Early on Wednesday, Christy Clark’s off-the-rails BC Liberal campaign released a pointed and misleading Adrian Dix attack ad, employing footage of the the televised debate. Only problem, though, is that the Clark campaign and the BC Liberal party signed a legal agreement with the broadcast consortium that organized the televised debate that her campaign, and the Liberal party, would not use footage from the debate in partisan political advertising.
The debate footage, it should be noted, is also the property of the broadcast consortium — CBC, CTV and Global — and, as such is copyrighted material. Les Staff, news director at CTV who was writing on behalf of the consortium, wrote a formal letter to the Liberal campaign …
“The program was aired with a copyright at the end of the broadcast. The political parties involved agreed that no use of the copyrighted broadcast would be allowed for any political purposes,” writes Staff.
“I have a good faith belief that the use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law,” he continued. “Please have this copyrighted material removed immediately.”
As of this writing, early on Thursday morning, Clark’s ethically-challenged Liberal campaign has refused to remove the offending YouTube video.
To make matters worse, for the dirty-tricks-driven Liberal campaign, word was leaked on Wednesday that former senior advisor to Premier Christy Clark, one Kim Haakstad — yes, that very same Kim Haakstad who was forced to resign her what was supposed to be, non-partisan, civil servant position in the Premier’s office, amidst allegations that she led a partisan BC Liberal initiative, paid for with taxpayer’s money, to identify votes for Christy Clark and the Liberal party, in what became know as the “ethnic vote scandal” — is now “volunteering” on Christy Clark’s campaign in Vancouver Point Grey. Martyn Brown almost had a coronary as he related his severe misgivings about how it came to be that Liberal party campaign chair Mike McDonald, and “her poor judgement knows no end” Christy Clark herself, had allowed the discredited and dismissed Ms. Haakstad to play a role in the re-election of the Premier, in her very own riding!
So, let’s see where we’re at here in the waning days of Decision BC 2013.
Let’s take a minute to review the election press coverage this week, and who it has favoured — in this, the final full week of the election campaign — and how that coverage is likely to affect the latest election poll results that’ll be released tomorrow, and more importantly, how coverage of Christy Clark will affect the outcome of next week’s crucial provincial election.
- Vancouver Sun columnist Vaughn Palmer reminds his 300,000+ plus readers of Christy Clark’s central role in promoting the hated HST
- The Vancouver Sun’s Peter O’Neil suggests that a Premier Adrian Dix would have more in common with Prime Minister Stephen Harper, that they’d get along better than is the case with Christy Clark, and that the relationship would be more productive for British Columbia. To top it off, the Vancouver Sun provides sympathetic coverage of Adrian Dix’s and the BC NDP’s policy on eradicating child poverty
- Former chief of staff to Gordon Campbell, and the fellow who ran the BC Liberal campaigns in 2001, 2005 and 2009—yes, Martyn Brown—hammers Christy Clark, column in and column out, in The Straight, The Province, and on any TV or radio station that will air his views on Christy Clark’s “ethically challenged” BC election campaign
- Prominent Liberal Daniel Veniez, in his commentary in The Straight, calls Christy Clark’s tenure in government, “gaffe-prone, content-free, divisive, and ethically challenged”
- With 5 days to go in the election campaign, Global TV runs a lead story telling it’s 680,000+ dinnertime newshour viewers that not only the NDP, but the BC Liberals themselves, want Christy Clark gone
The writing is on the wall for the soon-to-be-ex Premier, Christy Clark.
Even the most apolitical British Columbian — for whom politics is a mere afterthought, or an intrusion — must now realize that we are on the verge of witnessing the bloody end of the Christy Clark era in BC politics.
Interested in reading VanRamblings’ coverage of the British Columbia 2013 provincial election from Day 1 to the present just click on Decision BC 2013.
