Voters poised to send a message

After months of waiting, residents of the two vacated ridings of Chilliwack-Hope and Port Moody-Coquitlam will head to the polls Thursday in a historic double byelection that could dramatically shift the tide for the B.C. Liberals.

Under normal circumstances, the biggest obstacle facing Premier Christy Clark's party in these historically Liberal strongholds would be the losing record B.C. governments have in byelection races.

But a resurgent B.C. Conservative outfit, led by John Cummins, has added extra spice to the mix.

Polls have shown the threat of a centre-right vote split is real, a point underscored by the recent defection of long-serving Liberal MLA John van Dongen to the Conservatives.

But will all of this translate into real votes on election night?

The NDP also has a good shot in both ridings. Star candidate Joe Trasolini is the favourite in Port Moody-Coquitlam. And the centre-right split could see Chilliwack-Hope go NDP.

Despite breaking a 30-year government curse with her own byelection win last year, Clark is not holding her breath for a Liberal three-peat. A double loss would put considerable pressure on her already fragile leadership and could see more MLAs decide to cross the floor.

Is it the beginning of the end for the Liberals? Will the Conservatives gain steam? Will the NDP come out the big winners?

Heading into election night, only one thing is for certain: B.C.'s political landscape will be a lot different on April 20.

Original Article
Source: the province
Author: Cassidy Olivier

Active federal participation in health care remains essential

I don’t know about you, but in my house we don’t each buy our own toothpaste. It’s not a good use of money to have multiple small tubes scattered around the sink — not to mention the wasted time if each family member makes a separate trip to the drugstore. We agree on a brand, buy one big tube, and save our money and time. Ditto with planning meals: one person buys the groceries. We may each be responsible for feeding ourselves, but we all have access to whatever is in the fridge.

I share this just in case the prime minister and premiers do things differently at their houses and might find the approach instructive. Because it’s clear that when it comes to health-care policy, they’re wasting the family budget buying multiples of everything, and everyone is cooking a different dinner. To make matters worse, the person who’s supposed to be the head of the family has left an allowance on the table and gone on vacation. Indefinitely.

Whose job is it to co-ordinate health-care reform in Canada? Canadians expect our federal government to play that role. We want to know that wherever we live, we will have access to an equivalent basket of services. We want to know that our governments are buying in bulk whenever possible, maximizing savings. And we want assurances that some basic standards are being met from coast to coast to coast. Health care may be a provincial responsibility, but we know there’s a need for a family to co-ordinate its efforts.

At 30, the Charter of Rights has reshaped our society, for the better

Think of it as a shield against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, adopted 30 years ago this week, protects us all. Time and again, Canadians have invoked it to challenge overbearing government power, to expand freedoms including that of free speech and of the press, to right wrongs and to remedy inequality. It is one of our great treasures.

Indeed Canadians put it on a par with such icons as Confederation itself, and universal health care. And for good reason. We look to the Charter for guidance on the political, legal, social and ethical issues that define our lives.

It’s a shame, then, that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservatives have no great regard for the Charter, seeing it as a Liberal political legacy that “limits democracy” by empowering unelected judges to review the decisions of Parliament, legislatures and bureaucrats. There will be no official celebratory bash in Ottawa on Tuesday, despite the Tories’ attention to other, less relevant aspects of our history.

The Charter was adopted on former prime minister Pierre Trudeau’s watch when the Constitution was repatriated from the United Kingdom on April 17, 1982. Queen Elizabeth II attended a ceremony on Parliament Hill to sign the documents that transformed us from being a parliamentary democracy to a constitutional one.

F-35 will quickly be outdated

There’s something I’m not buying about the F-35 “stealth” joint-strike fighter. Besides the government’s dishonest bloviating and the opposition’s peacenik whimpering, I mean. I just can’t understand a plane meant to dominate aerial combat for five decades in a world of blinding technological change.

I do understand the need for air power. And for “interoperability” with our American ally, the free world’s only remaining military hope even under Barack Obama. But I don’t believe the F-35, after inevitable teething problems and cost increases, will dominate the skies for two generations. The world just isn’t like that, and neither is this plane.

OK, we’re currently flying CF-18s we bought in 1980 over destroyers we bought in 1972. And today’s CF-18 is not the plane that began entering service in 1982; rather, the same reliable airframe has seen constant “avionics” and weapons upgrades. But the F-35 won’t work that way for two main reasons.

First, the big boast of the F-35 is its “stealth” invisibility to radar. And if all your eggs are in that basket and they knock a hole in it you have no eggs.

Smith defends conduct policy

Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith defended on Saturday the policy requiring a $1,000 "good conduct" bond from every person who has attempted to run as a candidate for her party.

Winners of the party nomination races, now running as Wildrose candidates, have had the $1,000 bond returned. However, those who tried but lost in the party's nomination contests won't get their deposit back until after election day on April 23.

The party still keeps the $1,000 bond from the failed office-seekers "so they that they don't go and sabotage the person who was the successful candidate," Smith said in Calgary.

"So the allegations being made that our successful candidates are somehow muzzled is silly. But yes, we're not going to return those good conduct bonds to the failed nominees until after the election."

She added: "I mean, you can continue, I suppose, hoping that one of them is going to have a bozo eruption, and I suppose maybe that's what you're upset about."

Sometimes nomination races get quite heated, Smith said, and the party wanted to make sure former contenders had an incentive to stand behind the winners.

Earlier this week, Smith said the party wanted to avoid failed candidates criticizing the winning candidate in the press, or trying to run for the nomination for another party. A party guidebook details 14 categories for why someone might forfeit their good conduct bond.

Oilsands, green issues missing in action in campaign

Alberta's oilsands and their environmental legacy - perhaps the single issue that most defines the province's economy and relationship with the world - has been largely absent from political debate since the provincial election was called, observers say.

Over the last three weeks, the race for control of the legislature, seen by many as a battle between Alison Redford's Progressive Conservatives and Danielle Smith's Wildrose, has been occupied by public-versus-private health care questions, talk of how to balance budgets and spend surplus energy revenues, and discussion of "conscience rights" and MLA accountability.

That mash-up of debates has pushed the cleanup of oilsands tailings ponds or greenhouse gas emissions off the agenda, apart from campaign promises made by NDP Leader Brian Mason and Liberal Leader Raj Sherman, both of whom are polling low among decided voters.

Chris Severson-Baker, managing director of the Albertabased environmental thinktank Pembina Institute, notes the future of the province depends not just on the oilsands themselves, but the world's perception of the oilsands.

Food safety agency cuts risky: union

Canadian food safety may be compromised as the federal government plans to "download" inspection oversight to at least three provinces, says the head of the public service's agriculture union.

Dozens of federal meat inspectors received "surplus notices" this week, meaning they would be moving to other positions, said Bob Kingston, president of the agriculture union within the Public Service Alliance of Canada, on CBC's The House radio program.

"We're talking about 40 meat inspectors whose positions do delivery of some provincial meat delivery programs in B.C., Saskatchewan and Manitoba and the idea is to let the provinces resume or assume the responsibility of inspecting provincially registered plants," he said Saturday.

"From what we've seen, the provinces have no intention of delivering the service at the same level the Canadian Food Inspection Agency did and that's been our concern from the get-go," Kingston said.

The agriculture union is estimating a "quadrupling" of provinces' food-inspection budgets "just to be able to deliver that program," he added. "Without oversight, you're going to have many problems."

Another major concern, Kingston said, is that with less money and fewer inspectors, food-processing plants and slaughterhouses may be left to monitor themselves.

He said British Columbia has published a report referring to a "no inspection option," which may mean a plant would get an annual visit from the province's health ministry by "somebody who's not used to looking at these facilities."

Peter MacKay could have role in Hollywood

FROM: Accounting, Paramount Pictures

TO: Canadian Department of National Defence

Greetings from Hollywood, where - to quote Janeane Garofalo - people dress like hippies and act like the mafia.

I read with interest about your recent issues regarding the purchase of very expensive F-35 fighter jets.

It seems the cost has risen, from $9 billion to $16, to $25 billion, before a single plane has been built! And without opening the procurement process to competitors, or actually including the taxpayers who are footing the bill.

Well, played DND. If you're waiting for us to say something caustic about your financial oversight, well - keep waiting!

We're Hollywood. No one knows better than us that the last thing you want to be is transparent about big ticket buys.

Canada’s cherished Charter could not have happened without “kitchen accord”

Canadians revel in the right and the luxury of constantly complaining about politics and politicians. Yet we also know how fortunate we are to live in a land where all citizens are equal — far more so than almost any other people on earth.

We owe this, in large measure, to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the 30th anniversary of which falls on Tuesday. It was on April 17, 1982, that the Queen signed a new Constitution, of which the Charter is an integral part.

Its chief architect was Pierre Elliott Trudeau, the steely Liberal prime minister who willed it on the nation, especially reluctant premiers, at a memorable First Ministers’ conference in Ottawa in the fall of 1981.

The outcome hung in the balance until the end. Trudeau wanted the Charter. The premiers worried over loss of provincial power. The logjam was broken in a dramatic few hours by four people — Jean Chrétien, federal minister of justice; Bill Davis, Conservative premier of Ontario; Roy McMurtry, Ontario attorney general; and Roy Romanow, the NDP attorney general of Saskatchewan.

I spoke to them about their recollection of those four memorable days that changed Canada forever.

Taliban launch co-ordinated attacks across Afghan capital, three other eastern cities

KABUL—The Taliban launched a series of co-ordinated attacks across the Afghan capital and at least three eastern provinces on Sunday, targeting NATO bases, parliament and foreign embassies in a complex assault that shows the insurgents can still penetrate Afghan security and hit Western and government targets in the heart of Kabul.

Suicide bombers and insurgents wielding heavy weapons and rocket-propelled grenades executed the near-simultaneous attacks in what the Taliban called an opening salvo ahead of the spring fighting season, when warmer weather typically brings increased attacks.

The attacks, the most widespread in the Afghan capital since September, came as the U.S.-led international force is speeding up the transfer of security responsibility to the Afghans in preparation for an end to NATO's combat mission in 2014. The scale and scope of the violence underscored the challenge that Afghan security forces have in protecting even the country's centres of power.

The Taliban claimed that Afghan and foreign troops suffered heavy casualties, but reports from Afghan authorities showed the assaults were noisy, but not deadly.