Outgoing Riding VP Fires Broadside at BC Liberal Party
Sunday, March 3, 2013 @ 8:26 AM
Prince George, B.C. – The fallout continues in the wake of last week’s revelation in the legislature that the government of Premier Christy Clark planned to use government resources to woo the votes of ethnic communities in the upcoming provincial election.
While in Prince George for a Liberal fundraiser Friday night, Clark issued a terse statement saying she had accepted the resignation of longtime friend, supporter and deputy chief of staff Kim Haakstad over the growing scandal. Haakstad was identified as the person responsible for distributing details of the ethnic outreach strategy using her personal email account, thereby circumventing Freedom of Information access to emails detailing government, and therefore public, business.
Meantime, the presidents of three Liberal riding associations, Surrey-Whalley, Surrey-Fleetwood and Surrey-Green Timbers, have resigned their positions, as has the Vice-president of the Surrey Tynehead riding association, James Plett.
Plett has publicly released his resignation letter, in which he says “The most recent scandal – “ethnicgate” – is one of the most appalling things I have read about this party doing. Government staffers, who are required to be non-partisan, put together a document explaining how the BC Liberal government could take advantage of horribly racist crimes in order to get a jump in the ethnic vote.” Plett goes on to say “What makes it so repugnant is that the government misused taxpayer dollars to put together a document explaining how the government could misuse taxpayer dollars further and to offer apologies for absolutely horrible things all for a bump in the polls.”
He calls the affair “the latest string in a series of scandals that have plagued the BC Liberal Party. I checked out months ago, but I am horribly embarrassed that my name was still associated with that party for all this time. Whether we’re talking about the Jon van Dongen tossup or the incident with (Auditor General) John Doyle, it is pretty clear that this party is being run by crooks.”
Plett is also critical of the Liberal Party practice of parachuting in acclaimed candidates, people the party wants to run but who are not selected by the members of individual riding associations. Plett says it doesn’t matter what a candidate or riding association wants. “What matters is that some obscure shadow council likes you. It’s an affront to democracy.”
Meanwhile, Liberal MLA Kash Heed won’t say whether he believes Premier Christy Clark should step down. Heed says he would like to see an accountable leader in place. An emergency meeting of the provincial cabinet will be held at 4pm today in Vancouver, at which Premier Clark’s handling of the ethnic vote scandal, and her leadership, will be discussed.
Comments
What an absolute gong show!!!!
I’m happy that these people have had the courage to speak out about it.
UNBC’s Wood Innovation and Design Center in Prince George, Pat Bell, Shirley Bond are also at the center of a growing scandal.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/documents-contradict-bc-ministers-claims-about-prince-george-contract-bid/article9197240/
Apparently, you need to be a businessman to be able to meet Bond and Bell and for them to pick up the phone and email.
What a corrupt system we have in BC.
How To Get More People To Vote … not exactly a partisan issue, is it??????
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500156_162-2159340.html
Ethnic vote
Seniors vote
Youth vote
Female vote
Poor people’s vote
It is a problem we have and governments need to do something about it.
Iniv …. we have a company which has done quite well building and maintaining sawmills and other industrial plants.
At the moment, there is a significant reduction in the number of plants and the number of plant retoolings, I would think. So, they are looking to broaden their market to stay in business at similar levels from previous years.
It is a completely different procurement process for government projects than for private projects. Looks to me that they do not understand that simple fact and have been unable to adjust from one to the other.
Show me a letter of understanding, or a conditional offer to purchase, and they would have a case. Without that, they are whistling Dixie.
That should read “stupid people” ….. not all people
Alex G. Tsakumis is a Federal Conservative and a past aide and political advisor to Bill VanderZalm. In the BCLiberal Party spectrum he is on the far right of the spectrum. THAT is why he is against Christy Clark. Had she lost the leadership this fellow would not be saying the things he is saying about the BCLiberals. There are still a lot of hard feeling because some of the egos were not stroked.
So this fellow does as much damage as he thinks he can do. It is pretty simple, really. The gsame of politics and you are falling for it, herbster, since his kind of rhetoric is there for the simple minded tons to pick up.
No one ever claimed that the average electorate is smarter than an eighth grader. ;-)
Univ, I do not think you read the globe and mail article. If you did, you sure do not understand it. In fact, you really have no understanding of how land is assembled, whether by the feds, the province, the city or private enterprise.
Please remind yourself that Commonwealth was into assembling several blocks of land downtown, and they actually do own some land in the George Street area.
The whole assembly was done on speculation. They should be so lucky to get someone to sign on the dotted line saying that they would buy the land. That would be an offer to purchase. They have no such offer since they are not producing one. They have not MOU because they are not producing one.
They managed to play the property flipping game with the PG Hotel property with the involvement of the City and the Ramada Hotel making a cool half million or so on the deal. Most people on this site did not like the taxpayersâ being fleeced for that much money.
Now all of the sudden these people are the poor suckers being taken by the government. Not so. This was pure speculation. They won one, they lost another. That is what happens to speculators. Even Trump knows that feeling.
So I am doing a bit of “research” on the net.
Turns out this e-mail was produced in January of 2012. Seems that most sources ignore that little fact and and, as a result, leave a false impression that this was recent and had to do with “BCLiberals” strategies for the benefit of the party rather than Province of BC strategies for the benefit of the province and interest in voting.
What they coukd be accused of is the lack of ethnic sensitivities.
Which then prompts me to ask.
1. should the government, no matter who is in poweer, not concern itself with stats which show low voter turnouts, especially when matching demographics of voters to the demographics of the population?
2. Specific to the Chinese community, who from the Chinese community was involved with this effort? Were Chinese MLAs, for instance, involved?
3. The Chinese community has come out against this e-mail or these emails in part because of the levels of apologies they are seeking for past wrongs to Chinese in Canada. Spokespeople are joining First Nations on similar issues and they are saying as much.
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/chinese-community-outraged-liberal-ethnic-vote-plan-002041551.html
Let’s start talking the real issues here and what the solutuins are instead of bashing the party that happens to be in power right now.
The NDP would do what? Right now obviously nothing other than leaking documents and letting the sharks attack.
The sharks are getting fat!
There was an excellent article by Vaughn Palmer in the Vancouver sun this weekend in regards to this subject. I would recommend reading it in regards how the premiers office is avoiding public scrutiny and freedom of information access.
gus, you are the last man standing defending the corruption by Liberals in PG and BC. The NDP, conservatives, even the BC Liberals themselves are calling “crook … crook”.
The “why Pat Bell is in considerable hot water …” article by Alex g Tsakumis broke the news on the scandal in the UNBC’s wood innovation center in Prince George. Hopefully, there will be an investigation on this and those in PG and UNBC signing the documents will answer the tough questions.
UNBC president will now kick himself in the $$$ for aCCepting the position in PG in 2009.
Just having your name associated with any scandal, in the old days, was not good. But then again, some people treasure their name more than others do theirs. “He who steals my purse steals trash. He who steals my name steals gold”. Or so someone said eons ago. Times have changed, folks. In these same “old days” a man was as good as his word. These days it better be in writing. Alas!
Careful Univ, apparently youre not allowed to say “crook” here even when quoting the original article!
gus: “How To Get More People To Vote … not exactly a partisan issue, is it??????
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-500156_162-2159340.html
Ethnic vote
Seniors vote
Youth vote
Female vote
Poor people’s vote
It is a problem we have and governments need to do something about it.”
Agreed. Much ado about nothing. But the media couldn’t pass this ‘story’ up.
This story is great!! It clearly demonstrates the mindset of the BC Liberal Party. The biggest surprise is that more of them haven’t resigned already, but I suppose the first order of business will be to ensure they cull Christy Clarke from the leadership job, as I suspect it was one of her inside political opponents that leaked ‘the plan’ in the first place.
Christy Clark is toast.
Who to replace her with?
Rich Coleman=Yikes.
George Abbott= The sad clown.
Kevin Falcon= A miny Gordo.
http://powellriverpersuader.blogspot.ca/2013/03/why-christy-clark-cant-survive.html
Christy Clark was polling in the dumpers before this leak(?) happened.
Perhaps she can spring back to 20 points behind?
And don’t forget Criminalthoughts, Kevin Falcons’ BFF is Dan McLaren, which gives him a wee bit of a tainted smell due to recent allegations of insider deals gone bad.
old memo released at an opportune time, NDP are fighting a negative campaign as well, just stealthier. I thought last nite about whether my business I’ve built up in the last 12 years is gonna survive the next 4, guess we’ll see … but boy are were gonna show em …….
Thanks for reminding me about the association of Falcon and McLaren.
Falcon – right wing of Party …. the olde Howe street crowd that stole the Liberals from Gordon Wilson when the Socreds disappeared off the face of the provincial scene.
Clark is a moderate, centrist, to the left of the party. There has been infighting all the way along when she took the urban vote opf the party because they knew they had to get away from Campbell and the whole HST fiasco.
Those who are leaving and left are mainly the right wingers.
When McLaren says they were promised things, he talks about meeting with government officials. He does not name who those were. It could very well have been Falcon.
ah, theres’ johnny99 again.
Well, the NDP replaced Harcourt, Clark and Carole James to improve its fortunes, so perhaps the BCLiberals can swallow their embarrassment and replace Christy Clark.
She is (like most of us humans) not irreplacable, after all! It worked for the other party so why not give it a whirl? Doesn’t seem to be a big deal anymore – more like a standard procedure when things get too smelly.
But: “ah, theres’ johnny99 again.”
What’s the matter, But? You can’t understand that people might have different views than your own? Or is it just general sour grapes? Enquiring minds want to know!
I’m agreed that the Liberals should have replaced Clark a long time ago.
NDP still have Mo Siota don’t they? God help us all!
Moe is hiding in the bushes right now. Wait til June. Mega ink about the guy then.
Kash Heed? Who cares what he thinks? Sort of the pot calling the kettle black isn’t it?
Sure hope Christy does not resign. Christy and her list of loonie tune characters are the best thing the NDP have going for them.
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