Click on video to watch full CKNW BC Election 2013 Leaders’ Debate, broadcast earlier today
As per the heading of today’s VanRamblings post, why was Thursday, April 25th, and why will today both prove to be slow days on the campaign trail?
Easy answer that.
This morning, veteran CKNW broadcaster Bill Good hosted an exclusive BC leadership debate on AM980 (see video above). The much-touted Leaders’ Debate included BC NDP leader Adrian Dix, Liberal leader Christy Clark, Green leader Jane Sterk and Conservative leader John Cummins.
Where were the leaders on Thursday, and where will the leaders be over the weekend? In preparation. Thursday was preparation day for the make-it-or-break-it election opportunity that a leaders’ debate provides to the four hopefuls running to become Premier of British Columbia. For any politico out there worth her or his salt, CKNW 980 was the place to be Friday morning. Full video of the CKNW Leaders’ Debate may be found above.
Monday’s April 29th leaders’ debate, to be broadcast both on the three big television networks (CBC, CTV and Global), as well as on radio across the province, is the real make-it-or-break-it pivot for Decision BC 2013. All one has to do is look back at the impact then Liberal leader Gordon Wilson had on the electorate in 1991, and where many decided to park their vote.
The 1991 leaders’ debate was supposed to be a clash between the NDP’s Mike Harcourt and Social Credit’s Rita Johnston. But Liberal leader Gordon Wilson surprised everyone by getting in the best shots, as he scolded the bickering Harcourt and Johnston. “This reminds me of the legislature and here’s a classic example of why nothing ever gets done in the province of British Columbia,” Wilson told the television home viewing audience.
Although the New Democratic Party went on to win an astounding 51 seats in the house, the Socreds were decimated, finished, done like dinner — winning only 7 seats — while the Liberals went from zero to 17 seats in the legislature. Not winning the debate was one of the few flaws in what was considered a great campaign for NDP leader and new premier Mike Harcourt.
Leadership debates can have a profound effect, as they did in 1991 in BC, or on the national stage, when in 1984 Progressive Conservative leader Brian Mulroney confronted a deer-in-headlights, newly-elected Liberal leader John Turner — Mulroney pouncing on Turner’s patronage appointments and thunderously rejecting Turner’s leadership in a heated exchange — devastating Turner in a one-on-one debate, in the process taking the Conservatives to an unprecedented 211 seat victory in Parliament.
Whether it’s this morning’s leaders’ debate on CKNW, or Monday evening’s televised leaders’ debate, how the four leaders perform could very well emerge as a determining factor in who wins government on May 14th.

Although the ad above is a bit dated (it came out in Nov. 2010, prior to newly-elected Liberal leader Christy Clark announcing a rise in the minimum wage, which now sits at $10.25 an hour), the ad nonetheless speaks to a core constituency of the NDP, in a resolutely non-cynical manner.
In a month of Sundays, the provincial Liberals could never hope to achieve a connection with the youth in our province because, let’s face it, the provincial Liberals — even with the bright, relatively young face of Christy Clark at the helm — are the party of the old fuddy duddies, the party of the corporate elite, a provincial political party that believes in stasis over change.
The New Democratic Party speaks to, and for, most youth who reside in British Columbia. Whereas to the provincial Liberal party youth are just kids, kids who don’t get out to vote, and thus whose interests are unworthy of concern or interest, to be roundly ignored while on the campaign trail and, more particularly, while holding the reins of government.
Take a moment to consider the unemployment rate among youth in British Columbia — an astounding and unforgivable 14.5%, the highest youth unemployment rate in Canada. And just what have the Liberals done to address the problem of unemployment among our province’s young people? The answer is a simple one: BC does not have Canada’s highest youth unemployment rate because the Liberals gave a damn about this British Columbia constituency (or their worried parents, for that matter).
If what VanRamblings has observed while volunteering in the offices of Vancouver Point Grey NDP candidate David Eby offers any indication on where the youth vote will go in Decision BC 2013, and how many of our youth will plug in to this year’s provincial election — as we’ve witnessed an unprecedentedly well-organized, daily outreach campaign to youth, and the many thousands of students at UBC — the BC NDP are set to gain an unprecedented portion of the youth vote come election day, May 14th.

C’mon back to VanRamblings over the weekend, when we’ll continue to provide dense coverage of Decision BC 2013, as we link to reports in the mainstream and alternative press, point you in the direction of interest group involvement in the election, and otherwise attempt to provide you with the information you may have missed while leading your very busy life.
(For the latest VanRamblings election coverage, click on Decision BC 2013)
(For those of you who arrived here looking for coverage of last week’s Kitsilano Community Centre AGM — as sorry an example of untoward democratic engagement as you’re ever likely to witness — VanRamblings’ coverage of the KitsCC AGM may be found here. The Vancouver Courier’s Sandra Thomas has written about the KitsCC AGM, as well, her coverage of the delirious, anti-community meeting to be found here.)

Announcements, firings, former Chief of Staff to Gordon Campbell calling it for the NDP, sale of BC Place and maybe the Convention Centre pending a new administration in power post May 14th, Vancouver Point Grey on the verge of sending Premier Christy Clark on a permanent vacation — who says that British Columbia politics is dull?
If you take a look at the UBC Sauder Business School Market prediction to the right, you’ll see that the Liberals are in worse shape than they were last week: the NDP up from 54 to 58 seats, the Liberals down to 19 from 22. Too bad, so sad, the Liberals are going on a long, long vacation, as Vancouver Sun columnist writes that “Adrian Dix’s election strategy is to crush opponents and avoid the one-term blues.”
In other words, “Hello the Right Honourable Adrian Dix, forever more Premier of the lush, thriving Province of British Columbia.”

BC Election 2013: Media Coverage from here, there and everywhere
We are trying for pithy in today’s edition of our always informative Decision BC 2013 coverage, so let’s get right down to it, shall we?

• Vancouver Sun. British Columbia’s daily paper of record has ramped up it’s coverage of the election big time this week. Wednesday kicked off with this story from two of The Sun’s campaign trail reporters, Jonathan Fowlie and Tracy Campbell.
  

  An NDP government would attempt to sell the newly renovated BC Place Stadium, and possibly the Vancouver Convention Centre, to help cover the significant losses at both publicly owned facilities, Adrian Dix announced Wednesday.

  “When the operation of a facility draws tens of millions of dollars in public subsidy every year, and has left taxpayers with a mountain of debt, I believe we have to take a close look at whether that’s a business we should be in,” the NDP leader said while standing in front of BC Place.

  “If the private sector can do a better job running BC Place, freeing taxpayers of millions of dollars in losses and reducing public debt, we’ve got a win-win, and we’ll pursue that.”

  Dix said any sale would have to protect the future of both the B.C. Lions and the Vancouver Whitecaps, who use the stadium as their base of operations.

  Elsewhere in Vancouver Sun coverage of Decision BC 2013, their April 24th editorial strongly urges British Columbians to get out to vote — ”It’s your own future you will be helping to decide. Not voting will only ensure somebody else decides it for you.” Well worth reading the entire, well-crafted editorial.

  The Vancouver Sun’s Gordon Hoekstra, in a Prince George riding profile, writes that Liberal Attorney-General Shirley Bond, and neophyte Liberal candidate Mike Morris, a former RCMP north district commander, are in for the fight of their lives in this bellwether riding.

  Lori Culbert, Chad Skelton and Gordon Hoekstra report that “the NDP raised just under $1 million from corporations in 2012, four times what they collected from the corporate sector in 2011.” Fortis B.C., a natural gas supplier, gave 30 times more money to the Liberals than the NDP from 2005 to 2011, but in 2012 made heftier donations to the NDP ($24,500) than to the Liberals ($18,000). Ah, ain’t that sweet.

  And finally from the Vancouver Sun, the BC Conservative Party dumped their oleaginous Vancouver False Creek candidate, Ian Toothill, with Liberal candidate in the riding, former Mayor Sam Sullivan (an equally oleaginous fellow), and neophyte NDP candidate Matt Toner dancing a metaphorical jig. Vancouver False Creek will be one of the ridings to watch election night. With his name recognition, and a plethora of conservative voters in the riding’s Yaletown precinct, Sullivan could eke out a victory. Toner’s chances are probably somewhat diminished with Toothill out of the race. Still. Guess, we’ll just have to wait and see how much of a nail biter this one’ll be.

• Georgia Straight. Charlie Smith is really feeling his oats these days, and that’s a good thing. In this editorial, the estimable editor of The Straight writes that “the B.C. Liberals will be punished for the disgusting attack ads on Adrian Dix,” arising from soon-to-be Premier Dix’s heroic efforts on the campaign trail despite suffering the rigours of Type 1 diabetes. A very good piece, and well worth reading.

  Talking about estimable people, former Chief of Staff to Gordon Campbell, Martyn Brown, continues to drive nails into Christy Clark’s candidacy for Premier, and the Liberal’s chances for anything akin to a phoenix-like victory come May 14th.

  And finally from The Straight, a commentary from Vancouver Point Grey candidate, David Eby, who writes about “investing in our youth, and improving access to higher education.” Yep, that’s the same Dave Eby who’s running again Christy Clark, our soon-to-be ex-Premier. Yeah, that one. Full disclosure. I’m volunteering on David’s NDP campaign, so maybe I’m just a tad more enthusiastic about David’s candidacy than some, but you would be, too, if you knew him.

Following a rather sleepy weekend, Decision BC 2013 heads into the final three weeks of British Columbia’s 40th provincial election.
Thus far, nothing has taken the NDP off message, and no issues of burning concern have arisen that have caught the public’s attention. As Globe and Mail BC columnist Gary Mason writes in today’s newspaper …

Liberal Leader Christy Clark and her party did not have the opening week for which they were hoping. It wasn’t that it was particularly bad; they just didn’t get the kind of clear win they needed to start gnawing away at the NDP’s lead in the polls. Now Ms. Clark and her team have one less week in which to start making those critical inroads.

For Mr. Dix, the challenge will be to avoid taking the kind of hit that gives the electorate second thoughts. For Ms. Clark, the task is more complicated. If she enters the debates sensing she needs a big, gravity-defying moment, she might overreach and end up portraying herself in a way that is not at all beneficial.

As the latest ThreeHundredEight.com polling indicates, the NDP maintain a solid lead heading in to Week 2 of Decision BC 2013.

In important news, culturally sensitive news, news that you’re not likely to see reported elsewhere, unless you make a habit of visiting the darkest regions of the provincial NDP website, in an announcement made last week, the BC NDP committed a new NDP provincial government to support for the preservation of Aboriginal languages in British Columbia.

“B.C. is home to 60% of the First Nations languages spoken in Canada, but many of them are in danger of disappearing,” Scott Fraser, the NDP candidate in Alberni-Pacific Rim, and New Democrat aboriginal affairs critic during the last legislative session told the media on April 18th. “As a matter of respect for First Nations peoples, we need to work together to prevent that from happening.”

“Language is a critical part of First Nations history, culture and identity. If a language is lost, traditional oral histories in their original form are also lost. We will work with First Nations to help save at-risk languages.”

Scott announced that an NDP adminstration would provide The First People’s Cultural Council, a crown corporation run by First Nations, with an additional $1 million in funding, dedicated to support the preservation and revitalization of First Nations languages, arts and culture in British Columbia. Fraser said the loss of language is largely attributable to federal residential school policies which took children away from their families, and punished them if they spoke their own language.

“Most fluent speakers of aboriginal languages are over 65 years old,” said Fraser. “Only 1.5 percent of fluent speakers are under the age of 25. Clearly, now is the time for action to begin to bring change for the better to First Nations communities.”

A responsible government responds not only to the big ticket items like health care and education, but dedicates itself to meeting the needs of the broadest cross-section of the British Columbia electorate, in every region of the province. And, in the case of the announcement directly above, most particularly, the often neglected priorities of language and culture.
BC Election 2013: A Round-Up of News from Elsewhere
Truth to tell, we’re hard-pressed to come up with a lot of reporting by the mainstream press, but here goes …

• Vancouver Sun. How much does the Vancouver Sun not like federal NDP leader, and how in the tank are they for any party but the NDP? All you have to do is take a look at the photo of Tom Mulcair at the top of this story. Editorialize in your photo choice much, Vancouver Sun editors? Anyway, back to matters at hand: federal New Democrat leader Tom Mulcair joined the BC election campaign this past Friday (while we were still recovering from the shenanigans at the Kits Community Centre AGM), telling a cheering crowd of 350 people gathered at the Vaisakhi event in Surrey that a provincial NDP victory on May 14th will serve as a warm up for a federal NDP win in 2015.”

  Next. We would take a moment to editorialize on the Vancouver Sun’s shakedown story but, really, why bother? And, oh yeah, don’t forge to read - or not - Vaughn Palmer’s barely even-handed wrap-up of Week One of the provincial election campaign.

• Alex Tsakumis. BC’s resident political shit disturber publishes his usual, but interesting and readable, online report taking the apparatchiks in the Christy Clark administration to task. The allegation this time? According to Tsakumis, the BC Liberals are waging an all out war on Global TV legislative reporter Keith Baldrey, and his beleaguered wife Anne Mullens, for failing to be in the tank enough for the BC Liberals. And here, all along, VanRamblings thought that Baldrey was all but bought and paid for by the BC Liberals. Apparently not, if the snide rumour the BC Liberals are spreading around — that Baldrey will be leaving the employ of Global TV to take a job as Communications Director for NDP leader Adrian Dix, post election night victory, May 14th — is true, which is doubtful at best. Those Liberals.
• The Straight. The folks at The Straight have created their very own BC Election page, replete with news respecting NDP campaign announcements on lower fees for infant and toddler care and reducing child poverty (which First Call, the BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coaltion, called pathetic), as well as a commentary by Vancouver Langara NDP candidate (and good guy, as it happens), George Chow.

Well, that’s it for today, folks.
By the way, you’re probably looking at a sparse Decision BC 2013 posting Tuesday, as VanRamblings will attend (and speak at, it would seem) tonight’s regularly scheduled and always contentious Park Board meeting.
For the latest VanRamblings election coverage, click on Decision BC 2013)
(For those of you who arrived here looking for coverage of last week’s Kitsilano Community Centre AGM — as sorry an example of untoward democratic engagement as you’re ever likely to witness — VanRamblings’ coverage of the KitsCC AGM may be found here. The Vancouver Courier’s Sandra Thomas has written about the KitsCC AGM, as well, her coverage of the delirious, anti-community meeting to be found here.)