The Feds need to freeze their implicit guarantee of Provincial debt and limit the BoC's ability to purchase Provincial debt. The guarantee should decline by say 2% per year, forcing all Provinces to gradually delever. The status quo creates moral hazard of Provinces running up their debts knowing that the Feds will bail them out.
Equally amazing would be the things Eby has done, of which we are not yet aware, in response to his own NDP created poverty. There is nothing trustworthy about him nor his government.
Eby clearly needed to be Premiere more than he had the talent for leading or managing. He will not succeed at goosing the economy to cover his debt, and his administration is ineffectual.
Unfortunately Rustad is terrible at strategy, as well as leading, as demonstrated by the negligible turnout for his leadership review (in some locations it was 0), and the chickenshit decision to kick Sturko out. (If he kicks out anyone who wants or could do his job, he'll certainly have control of a mediocre, at best, team.)
Rustad and the CP of BC may still win a majority by just not being as hopeless as everyone in BC's cabinet, every day in the news.
BC Conservatives need a new leader to be honest. I liked Rustad but its pretty clear keeping party cohesion is not his strength and I suspect more fractures and drama will be coming. If they are still a mess in a couple of years we can expect Eby and his 78 billion dollar deficit in an election year to win another one.. lol
> Unfortunately Rustad is terrible at strategy, as well as leading, as demonstrated by the negligible turnout for his leadership review
I heard the same thing on the Hub, but I simply don't get the argument...
A leadership review in the summer... of a leader of a party that came from nowhere to nearly win the election, but still lost because zero to government is hard... no election likely any time soon... and Mr. Trump dominating the headlines and Mark Carney the fresh new face of Canadian politics...
uh... who exactly was expecting strong interest in a leadership review of the BC Conservative Party regardless of who the leader is? Certainly not me... Certainly not anyone I know ...
Exactly why would anyone take even ten minutes away from their summer to do participate in that? It's not like it matters because again... no election on the horizon... party is new.... and more interesting and headline grabbing politicians are all over the place... (but entirely outside of BC.)
The dude got 70% with a low turnout... clearly no one has "RUSTAD MANIA!!!" and is tattooing his name on their back... but he's also clearly not hated because if he was he would not have got 70% approval.
900 (10%) people backed Rustad out of 9000 members. Only 1268 (14%) participated and, in some locations, it was 0. This is no endorsement. If I were Rustad I'd either be pleased because I need to be somebody, or horrified because I want a mandate.
On a personal note, I've met him. On the plus side, a good listener, but I don't think he has the strategic chops, the personal confidence, a strong positive image, much public speaking talent, or much charisma. Some of the above is image-surface but we can't pretend it's not important.
Surveys indicate he's not a positive for the party and he should have spoken up about the more cray-cray comments during the election.
Well that's my point. That's clearly not Trudeau-mania from 1968, but it also shows that no one is upset or frustrated enough to bother voting against him in a leadership review. Well.. technically not no one. (900/70 * 30 =385.714)
Okay, so out of 9,000 party members as you said a grand total of **385** are sufficiently unhappy with his leadership to vote against him.
That's an incredibly low level of disapproval.
Again... not Trudeau-mania. No one is tatooing "I ❤️ Rustad" on their body.
If a Pierre Poilievre who can excite the base comes along then John Rustad is in trouble. But right now? How is only 385 people being agitated enough to vote against him a sign that he's doomed as the Hub seemed to suggest? I just don't see that.
"upset or frustrated enough to vote against him..."
This is not a mandate. This is winning a contest he gamed to win, where 90% stayed home.
Rustad should have organized a review that had the biggest turnout possible. He doesn't know crap about his support, and I suspect (with some access) it's pretty poor. This means he has an unstable party, less alignment than he tells himself, and a crappy machine to work for the next election.
Gaming the review (summer being one choice) suggests he needs to be leader, just like Eby, more than he wants a strong party, aligned and effective for the benefit of BC.
Leaders stay on as leaders until they decide to quit or people decide to kick them to the curb. Mandates are pretty irrelevant because it's the "quit or kicked out" that decide things. He got a "mandate to lead", (for whatever that's worth), when he won the leadership, but... it's not what counts.
Only 385 people out of 9,000 are upset enough to take the "kick him to the curb" route so he's fine. He's the leader until he quits or that 385 gets a LOT bigger.
I don't know which will come first or if either is going to come anytime soon... I also don't care because I’m a guy with opinions who chooses between the options, not a guy joining a party. It just seems odd to say "basically no one wants to get rid of him, which means he's in serious trouble".
Maybe there's something there, but I don't see it. Thanks for trying to explain it to me.
Eby and the NDP have been getting a pretty easy ride for the past several years, thanks to the dysfunction of the opposition parties. The BC Liberals and now the BC Conservatives barely seem to make a ripple in the legislature, let alone making an impression on the public. The desire for an alternative to the NDP is clearly there: the Conservatives nearly defeated the NDP in the last election, despite plenty of signs that their party and leader weren't quite ready for prime time. Unfortunately, that dysfunction has been continuing, with more press about problems within the Conservative caucus in the past couple of weeks. That's remarkable given the target-rich environment of discontent with NDP policy on anything from finances to policing to an expansive approach to UNDRIP that the Conservatives have largely left untouched.
There was a time a decade ago where the Canadian dollar was recognized as a petro dollar. The green agenda tried to minimize that but it is glaringly obvious to anyone looking at the books. Carney is still trying to deflect by ignoring oil opportunities but it is he obvious way out of a fading dollar and a deficit.
Fiscally, is there a province in Canada that hasn't screwed itself and its future? We've painted ourselves into a fiscal corner....and set the paint on fire.
I think today's G&M synopsis of the BC fiscal dumpster fire and Eby's pyromania explains. It's a breath-taking deterioration. Remember the massive pay increases on Day 1 for literally every MPP? He prefers power over literally anything else.
Yet, I can't point to a single improvement under his watch.
"the pollution caused by the immense energy (generated by burning natural gas) needed to create LNG"
My understanding is that even Phase 1 of LNG Canada uses mostly grid electricity for it's operations, and future projects/phases intend on further reducing the need to burn gas on site.
The hypocrisy and opportunism of today’s politicians is astounding.
The Feds need to freeze their implicit guarantee of Provincial debt and limit the BoC's ability to purchase Provincial debt. The guarantee should decline by say 2% per year, forcing all Provinces to gradually delever. The status quo creates moral hazard of Provinces running up their debts knowing that the Feds will bail them out.
Amazing how the threat of poverty can motivate.
Equally amazing would be the things Eby has done, of which we are not yet aware, in response to his own NDP created poverty. There is nothing trustworthy about him nor his government.
Eby clearly needed to be Premiere more than he had the talent for leading or managing. He will not succeed at goosing the economy to cover his debt, and his administration is ineffectual.
Unfortunately Rustad is terrible at strategy, as well as leading, as demonstrated by the negligible turnout for his leadership review (in some locations it was 0), and the chickenshit decision to kick Sturko out. (If he kicks out anyone who wants or could do his job, he'll certainly have control of a mediocre, at best, team.)
Rustad and the CP of BC may still win a majority by just not being as hopeless as everyone in BC's cabinet, every day in the news.
BC Conservatives need a new leader to be honest. I liked Rustad but its pretty clear keeping party cohesion is not his strength and I suspect more fractures and drama will be coming. If they are still a mess in a couple of years we can expect Eby and his 78 billion dollar deficit in an election year to win another one.. lol
> Unfortunately Rustad is terrible at strategy, as well as leading, as demonstrated by the negligible turnout for his leadership review
I heard the same thing on the Hub, but I simply don't get the argument...
A leadership review in the summer... of a leader of a party that came from nowhere to nearly win the election, but still lost because zero to government is hard... no election likely any time soon... and Mr. Trump dominating the headlines and Mark Carney the fresh new face of Canadian politics...
uh... who exactly was expecting strong interest in a leadership review of the BC Conservative Party regardless of who the leader is? Certainly not me... Certainly not anyone I know ...
Exactly why would anyone take even ten minutes away from their summer to do participate in that? It's not like it matters because again... no election on the horizon... party is new.... and more interesting and headline grabbing politicians are all over the place... (but entirely outside of BC.)
The dude got 70% with a low turnout... clearly no one has "RUSTAD MANIA!!!" and is tattooing his name on their back... but he's also clearly not hated because if he was he would not have got 70% approval.
Am I missing something?
900 (10%) people backed Rustad out of 9000 members. Only 1268 (14%) participated and, in some locations, it was 0. This is no endorsement. If I were Rustad I'd either be pleased because I need to be somebody, or horrified because I want a mandate.
On a personal note, I've met him. On the plus side, a good listener, but I don't think he has the strategic chops, the personal confidence, a strong positive image, much public speaking talent, or much charisma. Some of the above is image-surface but we can't pretend it's not important.
Surveys indicate he's not a positive for the party and he should have spoken up about the more cray-cray comments during the election.
Well that's my point. That's clearly not Trudeau-mania from 1968, but it also shows that no one is upset or frustrated enough to bother voting against him in a leadership review. Well.. technically not no one. (900/70 * 30 =385.714)
Okay, so out of 9,000 party members as you said a grand total of **385** are sufficiently unhappy with his leadership to vote against him.
That's an incredibly low level of disapproval.
Again... not Trudeau-mania. No one is tatooing "I ❤️ Rustad" on their body.
If a Pierre Poilievre who can excite the base comes along then John Rustad is in trouble. But right now? How is only 385 people being agitated enough to vote against him a sign that he's doomed as the Hub seemed to suggest? I just don't see that.
"upset or frustrated enough to vote against him..."
This is not a mandate. This is winning a contest he gamed to win, where 90% stayed home.
Rustad should have organized a review that had the biggest turnout possible. He doesn't know crap about his support, and I suspect (with some access) it's pretty poor. This means he has an unstable party, less alignment than he tells himself, and a crappy machine to work for the next election.
Gaming the review (summer being one choice) suggests he needs to be leader, just like Eby, more than he wants a strong party, aligned and effective for the benefit of BC.
I guess I just don't see what you're seeing.
Leaders stay on as leaders until they decide to quit or people decide to kick them to the curb. Mandates are pretty irrelevant because it's the "quit or kicked out" that decide things. He got a "mandate to lead", (for whatever that's worth), when he won the leadership, but... it's not what counts.
Only 385 people out of 9,000 are upset enough to take the "kick him to the curb" route so he's fine. He's the leader until he quits or that 385 gets a LOT bigger.
I don't know which will come first or if either is going to come anytime soon... I also don't care because I’m a guy with opinions who chooses between the options, not a guy joining a party. It just seems odd to say "basically no one wants to get rid of him, which means he's in serious trouble".
Maybe there's something there, but I don't see it. Thanks for trying to explain it to me.
Eby and the NDP have been getting a pretty easy ride for the past several years, thanks to the dysfunction of the opposition parties. The BC Liberals and now the BC Conservatives barely seem to make a ripple in the legislature, let alone making an impression on the public. The desire for an alternative to the NDP is clearly there: the Conservatives nearly defeated the NDP in the last election, despite plenty of signs that their party and leader weren't quite ready for prime time. Unfortunately, that dysfunction has been continuing, with more press about problems within the Conservative caucus in the past couple of weeks. That's remarkable given the target-rich environment of discontent with NDP policy on anything from finances to policing to an expansive approach to UNDRIP that the Conservatives have largely left untouched.
There was a time a decade ago where the Canadian dollar was recognized as a petro dollar. The green agenda tried to minimize that but it is glaringly obvious to anyone looking at the books. Carney is still trying to deflect by ignoring oil opportunities but it is he obvious way out of a fading dollar and a deficit.
Fiscally, is there a province in Canada that hasn't screwed itself and its future? We've painted ourselves into a fiscal corner....and set the paint on fire.
I think today's G&M synopsis of the BC fiscal dumpster fire and Eby's pyromania explains. It's a breath-taking deterioration. Remember the massive pay increases on Day 1 for literally every MPP? He prefers power over literally anything else.
Yet, I can't point to a single improvement under his watch.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-the-return-of-that-bc-ndp-90s-show/
It's amazing how the threat of insolvency can focus minds.
It's pretty easy to be ideologically "pure" when there's lots of money and someone else is paying the costs and dealing with the impacts.
This is the myopia that makes the federal NDP the darling of academia and the hard left.
Eby belatedly has opened his eyes, as Horgan did, to realize that pixie dust and good intentions, scientifically based or not, don't pay the bills.
It will be interesting if he can find/maintain the balance between ideals and reality?
Well put. My money says he's too deaf, too beholden and far, far too late.
"the pollution caused by the immense energy (generated by burning natural gas) needed to create LNG"
My understanding is that even Phase 1 of LNG Canada uses mostly grid electricity for it's operations, and future projects/phases intend on further reducing the need to burn gas on site.
Perhaps and hopefully, the New Democrats are returning to their social democratic roots.
If even, there's so much stain and stink (and massive debt) they would need a new leader and an extra bucket to flush out the rot.