With only 256 days to go until the next provincial election on May 17th, 2005, VanRamblings continues in its efforts to bring you real information on the British Columbia economy, not the claptrap that you read in the CanWest Global newspapers.
Because this proved to be an unusually busy summer for the administrator of this site, we’ve not only failed to publish daily on occasion, but have been somewhat lax in keeping up with our regular perusal of favourite websites. As such, VanRamblings has missed a couple of important stories, one of which we’ll bring to your attention below.
The catchphrase currently in vogue with the right in British Columbia (it apparently tested well with the public in focus groups paid for by the provincial Liberal party and their supporters) is: “The B.C. economy is turning the corner.” Not has turned the corner, but “is turning the corner.”
Not so, according to the Columbia Journal’s Marco Procaccini, writing in The Tyee. According to a recent report issued by Statistics Canada, B.C.’s economy continues to fall behind the rest of the country.

The report says the unemployment rate in B.C. kept rising to 7.8 per cent in May, up from 7.7 per cent in April — an overall continued increase since 2002. In the spring, when summer hiring often causes a brief jump in new jobs, it says B.C. suffered a net loss of over 15,000 jobs.
Statscan also says while consumer spending, which dropped substantially in 2003, has improved slightly since the beginning of the year, the increase is minimal and the economy remains, overall, stagnant. It also reports that overall consumer savings in B.C. have now dropped to the lowest in the country.

In 2003, B.C.’s personal savings rate as a percentage of disposable income was the worst in the country at negative 8.2 percent.
Meanwhile, with nary a peep from the media, the Liberal government continues to increase B.C.’s long-term debt, soon to hit $40 billion.
Apart from the government’s declaration of a fatwa on the province’s economy, the Gordon Campbell Liberal administration has devastated the social infrastructure of our province, as they set about to pay off their rich friends. Seven Oaks magazine offers a partial list of legislation enacted by the government as part of their regressive class war agenda. Worth a read.

B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell and Bushie – one and the same

Ran across a raft of new British Columbia-oriented sites today, beginning with B.C. Lie-berals – Bad For B.C. Listed on the site are links to B.C. Citizens for Public Power, Vancouver Tourism.biz, B.C. Bush, an archive of one of the low moments of our Premier’s life, and oh so much more.

Celebrating 15 years of cultural resistance, Canada’s largest political arts festival, the Under The Volcano festival of Art & Social Change, will be held again this year at Whey-Ah-Wichen (Cates Park), in North Vancouver, on the traditional territory of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, Sunday, August 8th.
A child of Vancouver’s active indie music scene in the late 1980s, and largely youth-oriented in it’s early days, Under the Volcano has emerged as a successful and enduring cultural tool to educate and inspire alternatives to the overwhelmingly oppressive forces of patriarchy, racism, and capitalism.
For those living in, or near, Vancouver, see ya there next Sunday …

After years in the political wilderness, the left in British Columbia has begun to find its voice.
The debate on how to go about building a fairer world takes place on our own, expansive terms, and involves neoliberalism only insofar as it is necessary to grudgingly acknowledge the troglodyte politics of repression that is the purview of Harper, Campbell, Bush and their ilk.
The new, non-electoral-politics-oriented left in British Columbia (at least, at this point) recognizes history as a dynamic. We know in our hearts and minds that we will continue to move forward towards that day when all might participate as equals in a civil society defined by justice, caring and respect for the collective, and individual, needs of each and every one of us.
Left Turn online addresses the role of the leaderships of the NDP and BC Federation of Labour and “their fear of extra parliamentary struggle (that) is only surpassed by their contempt for workers’ democracy.” Left Turn rejects the ‘humane’ capitalism of the NDP and instead calls for a dialogue of change with activist groups in our communities who have been battling “in the trenches, whether involved in fighting welfare cuts, organizing for union democracy, struggling against the closure of women’s centres, combatting homophobia, or preserving the ecosphere.”

Seven Oaks online magazine has positioned itself as the reasoned, thoughtful and non-didactic “publication which stands outside the realm of false consensus.” The editors write in their manifesto …

Through our weekly provision of analytical features, progressive opinions, cultural commentary, and more, we hope to provide another space where ideas, questions, stories, information, problems, and possible solutions can be shared, sounded out, celebrated, and debated in an open forum free of cumbersome, dogmatic ‘Party lines’, but all the while in unambiguous pursuit of progressive social change. We hope to be a part of that chorus of voices in this country giving the lie to the quiet, conservative fantasy that all is well here, and always has been.

If Seven Oaks is British Columbia’s weekly magazine of the left, since last November The Tyee has emerged as the feisty new media online presence that, daily, addresses issues the reactionary forces of the CanWest conglomerate refuse to acknowledge even exist. More reportorial, and immediate, in its presentation and structure than Seven Oaks magazine, The Tyee is helmed by David Beers, once a senior editor at Mother Jones, and creator of the lamentably, now lost, cultural section of the Vancouver Sun, The Mix (simply the best weekly cultural magazine published inside any Canadian newspaper in the last 25 years). The Tyee remains a must read.

And, finally, there’s Public Eye, an online weblog, edited by Sean Holman. Although Public Eye bills itself as “independent and irreverent … neither Liberal nor New Democrat”, make no mistake, this peripatetic online journal in covering the backrooms of provincial and federal politics in B.C. offers a progressive and necessary voice for change.
Welcome to the new digital democracy. The revolution is underway …