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Should you click on the graphic above, you’ll be taken to The Tyee’s B.C. election map, which provides a breakdown of B.C.’s 85 electoral ridings, who the candidates are in each riding, riding related news and other bumpf.
The early days of Decision BC 2013 are, necessarily (as the headline above suggests): dull. The media is barely engaged, the election is hardly on the electorate’s radar as the more prosaic matters of daily life take precedence, and with polls suggesting a smashing victory for the BC New Democrats, a goodly portion of those who are even remotely engaged all but tune out, expecting that sweeping NDP victory May 14th. Liberals in power for 12 years, the thinking goes, it’s time for a new government. Barring any major missteps, or a terrible performance by Adrian Dix in the leaders debate on April 29th (which NDP campaign manager Brian Topp will never let happen), the election will bring what the gods have writ: a near smashing victory for the all-but-inevitable and soon-to-be BC New Democratic government.
Post the leaders debate on April 29th, interest will ramp up; that’s when the real campaign will start. You just have to look at the last federal election. Going into the leaders debate, with just two weeks to go in the campaign, then federal NDP leader Jack Layton was mired at 13% in the polls. The word was he was sickly, and on his way out of politics. Following the leaders debate, though, in which Layton’s ‘performance’ was deemed to be engaging by a public hankering for a touch of humanity in its politicians, the NDP catapulted to 31% in the polls, and opposition in the Canadian Parliament. Following the BC leaders debate, there’ll be two weeks left in the BC election campaign — it’ll be anybody’s game from that point on.
VanRamblings spent the day getting smucked at the Kitsilano Community Centre, where we had our tookus handed to us on a platter at the AGM. Migawd, we couldn’t even manage to secure a position as a member-at-large. Maybe next time we’ll have to leave our devil horns at home.
Sad to say, dear and constant reader, that you’re going to have to put up with VanRamblings in something of a foul mood (youse just can’t cover up these kind of things, y’know?). Hell, maybe the writing’s even better.
Or, maybe not (that’s a bitter tear trickling down my cheek, by the way).
So, what went on in the big bad world of BC politics on Thursday?
- Early in the day, over in Courtenay, in the First Student Bus workyard, of all places (I mean, really, a virulently anti-Union company staging ground?), BC NDP leader Adrian Dix committed an NDP government to spending $372 million over three years to improve public education in B.C. (a good thing, a needed thing), and another $100 million over three years to lower costs and increase child care spaces for infant and toddler care (the proverbial drop in the bucket, and hardly the $10/day Child Care Plan advocates have been demanding for months).
In this Vancouver Sun story, you’ll find a particularly nasty exchange between CTV’s Rob Brown and Adrian Dix, where Adrian acquits himself well. Let’s hope he brings the same cojones to the leaders debate.
Otherwise, that’s about it, folks. Not much coverage of the election in the Mop and Pail. There’s always this, though: The Province giving the beleaguered John Cummins, leader of the BC Conservatives, a bit of coverage, even if it’s only a 166-word CP wire story. Ah well.
Not to be mean (because we don’t believe in the politics of personal destruction), but we simply can’t help ourselves. Hey, the Raeside editorial cartoon is not ours, but y’know what, I bet there are a few people out there (including BC Liberals) who agree with the sentiment.
That’s all she wrote, folks. Til tomorrow.
(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.)
