Appointing Van Dongen to John Les's job only tells us just how little the Campbell government really cares about what the electorate actually thinks.
Far too many skeletons in Van Dongens closet to ever be seen as an honest politician,particularly in the top cop's job!
But,Campbell is arrogant,and thinks he is bulletproof, and while that MAY be grudgingly true to a certian extent on the lower mainland,it will be the north that hands the Liberals their tune-up.
The Liberal's biggest liability is actually Gordon Campbell,and I have a feeling that they may be about to find that out in the next provincial election.
I would like to think that they can only dump on those who elected them for so long, before they push back.

And our alternatives are? Do you want the NDP back in power? The Greens? At least with the Liberals we are governed by the devil we know. The alternative parties would just have us in turmoil for years to come. Best stick with the Libs, as distasteful as they are becoming.
metalman.

Probably true metalman.
The alternatives are NOT good, but I don't think that will actually stop people from handing the Liberals a hit in the number of seats they take to let them know how they feel.
Nor should it.

The only way we seem to vote is by protest. We dumped the Zalm by protest, we dumped the NDP by protest and now will we dump Gordo by protest. And who will replace Gordo?

I guess its like sex you dont know if its good until you have tried it.

Cheers

Seems to me we got a bigger fuddle-duddling when the NDP ruled!

Bigger is not always better.

We didn't get a bigger fuddle-duddling when the NDP ruled. There problems were blown out of proportion by the media who knew what Campbell would deliver to them. They didn't like the NDP because the NDP worked for the people of the province, not big business. Look at the give aways to the power companies, private health businesses, BC Ferries, BC Gas and ICBC and its sky-rocketing fees. These scandals don't even make the front page of the Van. Sun. The NDP tried against all odds to make this province better. They had no help from the federal gov't who cut out transfer payments, the gov't of Alberta who gave their welfare recipients one-way tickets to BC and the Asian meltdown. We are doing much better now, thanks to exports to other Asian countries and transfer payments from Ottawa. Remember more than half of BC's surplus comes in transfer payments. Also remember the NDP left office with more than $1 billion dollars in surplus and the 1st budgets by the BC Liberals set records.

I should add that the 1st budgets by the BC Liberals set deficit records.

"Also remember the NDP left office with more than $1 billion dollars in surplus..."

More commonly known as the *Fudge-it Budgets* they weren't real actual surpluses as two different sets of books were kept and used to make them look to the unsuspecting public as if they were the real thing.

Many 100s of millions counted as surplus were in fact never collected - it's called *creative accounting.*

We're not really governed by "the devil we know", Metalman. No matter which Party we put in, Liberal or NDP, or any of the current other alternatives. We're governed by a devil we DON'T know. And that's really our problem.

For that 'devil' dictates what "our" government can do. By a form of black magic that has all the power and presence of a Haitian voodoo curse over the superstitious, backwards believers in the veracity of such nonsense. That 'black magic', in our case, and our government's, is FINANCE.

It's wrapped up in the notion that bad things are bound to occur if a government's budget isn't balanced. And some do occur. We have to pay more taxes for interest on the amount by which it's unbalanced. And we quite naturally focus all our attention on the necessity, if at all possible, of avoiding having to do that.

Which is exactly what FINANCE wants us to do. Instead of directing our attention to the deceptive accounting which attends the whole matter of government finance. A far more important issue.

How often do we hear politicians, when talking about a 'balanced budget, comparing the finances of "government" to the finances of you and I as individuals? Or to the finances of a private business? As if they were all the same. Well, they're NOT. And neither is the accounting.

For what individual, or business firm, operates solely off a "budget"? They may well have a "budget", which is a very useful accounting control device in estimating revenues and expenditures.

But neither, and especially the 'Firms' who have to 'balance their books', (because they HAVE books to balance, i.e. a Balance Sheet, which records changes in the 'net worth' of that firm, and whether its owners are gaining or losing from their equity in it as its operations are carried on), views it's "budget" quite the way the government views its "Budget".

We do NOT have the equivalent of a properly constituted national, or provincial, 'balance sheet'. One which records the Assets, Liabilities, and "Owners" (Citizens, all of us) Equity in the going concern that might be called "British Columbia, Ltd."

If we did, we'd very quickly see that the 'assets' of BC, Ltd., vastly exceed the 'liabilities' (Provincial debt)held as 'monetary claims' against them (primarily by Banks, and other financial institutions).

And that the "Owner's Equity", what each of us 'owns' of the total wealth and productive capacity of British Columbia is far, far, in excess of the financial 'liabilities' that represent unbalanced budgets of years past, and other un-repaid borrowings.

We would also find, if such a Balance Sheet actually existed, that our actual 'wealth' is increasing year by year as a whole, faster than the increase in the Provincial debt, year by year, also as a whole. But without such an accounting device, we're led to believe just the opposite often attends.

While we fret and worry, or our present political Parties do, about matching things that need to be done, and physically often COULD be done, with a completely phoney necessity of maintaining a 'balanced budget', we, and they, overlook the FACT that this existing CAPACITY TO PRODUCE merely needs to be 'monetized' to allow what is physically possible to be completely financially achievable.

And the ONLY reason it is NOT now fully 'monetized' is because of the 'devil(s)' that currently have a monopoly of control over its 'monetization'. And thereby 'govern' us.

The NDP worked for the people all right.
THEY STOLE CHARITY BINGO DOLLARS???

Like it or not 'big business' employs a pile of people in this province. If 'big business' isn't healthy, the people aren't going to do so well.

Don't believe me? Ask the folks over at Canfor how they are doing.

realitysetsin said, "The NDP worked for the people all right. THEY STOLE CHARITY BINGO DOLLARS???"
They did not steal the bingo dollars. One individual took the money. THis is akin to saying the Catholic church got money from extortion because Al Capone got money from extortion and he was Catholic.