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Peter Menzies's avatar

The Left has long defaulted to authoritarianism to fight authoritarianism. It’s how it defines democracy

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sji's avatar

Look, Eby survived a near death experience with almost no mandate, then disappeared for nearly 4 months, after (still) turning in the worst budget in our Province' history.

What's terrifying is the most likely "why" he's doing it: David Eby, his true believers, and his party do not have the emotional intelligence, or maturity to work with people who think differently. So they've disappeared, denied, avoided grownup conversations for as long as possible. NOW this? For immature cowards?

Their apologists try to claim the CP of BC has more whack-jobs than the BC NDP (because they don't consider racist, terrorism supporters, or anti-democratic marxists whack-jobs like normal people do) as justification... a breath-taking spin, and so sad.

This is the opposite of leadership, a vacuum, which Eby fills with cynical spin, rather than being a grown up, caring about all of his people/ the province, and doing the hard work of reaching out. He's pathetic.

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Peter Menzies's avatar

And I say that with great affection for all my friends

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bmc9689's avatar

So let us recap Bill 7. Authoritarian rule for 96% of the citizens of BC. The 4% who are FN get a pass. Imbedded in the legislation is the need for all resource projects, pipelines, mines, cut blocks, etc to have FN involvement. Consultation. (Broadly described). They also have entered secret agreements to give land to FN and only disclosed this after the election. So we now have a government that can give away most of BC, without any approval from the legislature, to FN. No one voted for this. This was never discussed in the election. BC is in real trouble.

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S.McRobbie's avatar

Never let a crisis go to waste.

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Leslie MacMillan's avatar

The Left has gone bonkers.

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Leslie MacMillan's avatar

I realize I need to clarify: when the frog agrees to carry the scorpion on its back so both can cross the river, only to be fatally stung as it crawls out of the water, it is the *frog* that went bonkers in making its deal with the scorpion. The scorpion is just acting from its rational nature according to its own interests.

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John's avatar

The way I was told the story was that the scorpion stung the frog in the middle of the river. When the frog said they would both die, the scorpion replied “This is the Middle East”. Or as an Arab colleague once told me, “Conflict in the Middle East will end when the last Arab kills the last Jew and dies of happiness”. There are no winners.

I read a NYT(?) essay about the difference between Naziism and Communism. One wants to destroy other races and the other other socioeconomic classes. They start at different points and follow different roads but wind up at the same place - absolute totalitarianism. The NDP under Eby is one example of communism evolving to totalitarianism. Quebec is an example of Naziism with its anti English language and religious laws. Hopefully there will be no winners in these cases either.

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Ken Laloge's avatar

Instead of using terms from the last century, I suggest "supremacist" when describing Quebec ethno-supremacist or cultural-supremacist policies.

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John's avatar

True enough. I was born in the last century and we associate “supremacist” with “white” like the KKK. I remember the St. Jean Baptiste Society and the Chevaliers de Colomb being French Catholic supremacists. And the “Pure Laine” and “Vieille Souche” would be the equivalent of the Nazi Aryans. These latter day Quebec Aryans certainly seem to dominate Canada’s Government and Civil Service today. So I see racial supremacy as being a pathway to government/state totalitarianism.

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Gaz's avatar

Par for the course in the People's Republic of British Columbia. GDP per capita the same as Kentucky's and falling. Mr. Trump might want to rethink annexing them...

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Gavin's avatar

Your flippancy does you no social credit.

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Lou Fougere's avatar

He sounds more like Trump than Trump.

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Leslie MacMillan's avatar

Trump hasn't given to himself dictatorial executive power (even though he might wish to), because he can't. The Legislature and the Judiciary stand in his way. The Executive in Canada has unlimited power because, it being in theory responsible to the Legislature, there are no constitutional limits on what the Executive Cabinet can do. Within the framework of provincial or federal powers, it can do whatever the Legislature allows it to. For many years, the Cabinet has dictated to the Legislature. A Canadian Prime Minister or provincial premier with a majority is therefore pretty close to an elected, term-limited dictator as long as he can command support in the House from his own MPs and get them to pass a budget once a year. An American President can't do any of those things.

So yes, Premier Eby is more Trump than Trump. Call him Trump-Heavy.

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Penny Leifson's avatar

Exactly! There are far more checks and balances on a US President than on any PM or Premier in Canada, despite what uninformed Canadians think.

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Tim's avatar

In a crisis, people are almost always persuaded through fear-mongering to trade some of their rights and freedoms for more security. This was clearly seen during the pandemic - wild stoking of fear over a flu that endangered primarily the elderly - and now again to counter a chaotic President drunk with his own illusions of power. This is how democracy dies. Eby is Trump in left-wing clothing. If several of his own MLA's can't find the courage to stand up to this affront to the values we should all hold dear, then we are in for a wild ride.

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Thorne Sutherland's avatar

But I’ve been told it is the Conservatives (and Republican) who rule by fear.

Of course it is bullshit because the leftists rule by instilling fear of the right’s ruling by fear. It is a strategy that seems to work in their favour.

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PJ Alexander's avatar

Eby's read of Trump and how to respond reads as off-the-rails. Also makes me nervous if the federal Liberals are looking over West and taking notes.

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Penny Leifson's avatar

And they definitely are. They saw how well it worked for weasel Trudeau and the gang during the pandemic. Eby saw how well it worked when Horgan handed the province over to Bonnie Henry (where he could escape blame, but retain veto power) during the pandemic. Eby has just eliminated the “middle man” and gone full on Dictator!

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PJ Alexander's avatar

Yes I too have been thinking about covid times in BC. I lived there for the first couple years of it and hightailed it back to Alberta where there was a bit less acceptance of the dictats.

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IceSkater40's avatar

I would hope that his fellow ndp politicians vote against him. This bill sounds entirely inappropriate.

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David Lindsay's avatar

Obviously, a non-starter. But our governments do have to start reacting at a much greater pace because that's what the threat is doing. And maybe, just maybe, put the partisan crap off to the side for now and focus on the country.

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Leslie MacMillan's avatar

Why “obviously”? The Government has a majority. Why is it obvious that it will not pass this legislation? Who will vote against it and be expelled from the NDP caucus? With the majority so thin, it could even bring down the Government.

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David Lindsay's avatar

I was expressing an opinion about the legislation. The government will do what it's going to do, and deal with whatever consequences follow.

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Leslie MacMillan's avatar

Oh, OK. I thought you were suggesting there were divisions within the NDP caucus or even in Cabinet that would prevent the Government from bringing it to a vote, which didn’t seem very likely to me.

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The Last Lion's avatar

If this nonsense is tried at the Federal level it would be difficult to recognize Canada anymore

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CF's avatar

Trudeau already did this with his expansion of federal powers during the onset of COVID.

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George Skinner's avatar

It's implausible that a premier with a majority government needs this special authority. The leader of a majority government *already* effectively has dictatorial power for the term of their mandate. It suggests either an impatience with the pace of a legislative process *he* controls, or a sign that he wants to push through policies that he's not confident will even pass the muster of his own caucus. Either way, he should be denied.

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terry cunningham's avatar

Why are all politicians giving the indigenous a veto on canada

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CF's avatar
Mar 19Edited

Because they are afraid of them and their cohorts that are not FN's...in other words the citizens that are not FN's which are the enables and low information people who have misplaced empathy and pity.

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Leslie MacMillan's avatar

Read Kipling's poem, "The Dane-geld".

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Bill Mackenzie's avatar

Eby is looking at Jagmeet Singh and saying to himself........"I wonder".

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Yvonne Macintosh's avatar

Premier Eby’s increasingly autocratic style of governance had become worse as time passed since Premier Horgan resigned when he became ill with cancer again.

I voted for Eby, with much reluctance, in our fall election. My reluctance was due to his increasing abuse of power and for his disgraceful treatment of Cabinet Minister Selina Robinson. He caved shamefully to a well organized mobbing of her, a Jew, by Samidoun and various mosques.

I should have abstained from voting but I could not stand the Conservative candidate, someone who had been on the school board and holds views I find intolerable. She won.

I have to say, though, that I am shocked that even he has gone to this extreme.

Even the Globe and Mail did an editorial yesterday, soundly criticizing him.

Can’t imagine the outcry if Danielle Smith tries this! It will be treated like the second coming of Stalin or Hitler by some.

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Kevan's avatar

I find it tragically ironic that the New "Democratic" Premier wants to cancel democracy. God forbid this passes as described.

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Leslie MacMillan's avatar

Democracy descends to mob rule in the end. Since mobs can't actually rule -- they are too busy looting and eating the wealthy --, a dictator who can command the use of superior violence against others emerges to rule them.

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