Christy Clark scoring for the other side
Gunnair @ Thu Sep 22, 2011 7:58 pm
$1:
Brian Hutchinson:
VANCOUVER — Christy Clark must have felt she had to do something. The new B.C. Premier recently rubbished her pledge to seek a mandate from all British Columbian voters before a May 2013 fixed election date, leaving her 16 more months to define her leadership and reboot the Liberal government she inherited from Gordon Campbell. Sixteen more months to convince a skeptical public that she has the chops to effectively lead.
Too much time, perhaps. Premier Clark had been preparing to call a general election contest for the fall, but the harmonized sales tax debacle and its death-by-referendum scuppered that plan. She had some election-ready arrows in her quiver; rather than put them away for another day, closer to May 2013, she chose to deploy them now. Hence the launch of attack advertising aimed at a putative rival on her right — B.C. Conservative Party leader John Cummins — and a campaign-style round of announcements related to job creation that she made this week on whistle stops across the province.
The Premier was all over the B.C. map with her jobs plan, although she avoided Vancouver Island completely, which seems odd, given that some of communities there have the highest unemployment rates in Canada.
On Thursday, flanked by senior members of her Cabinet and caucus and speaking before the Vancouver Board of Trade, Premier Clark described in more detail what she calls “Canada Starts Here: The B.C. Jobs Plan.” It aims to expand markets for B.C. products, which include high school and post-secondary educations for foreign students, a profit centre that she wants to further exploit. Her plan also includes improvements to infrastructure and assistance to B.C. communities and the private sector.
“Sometimes government has to lead the way,” the Premier told her Board of Trade audience, “but sometimes government has to get out of the way.” Muddling the message, she suggested her government will do both, simultaneously.
Premier Clark announced the creation of a Major Investments Office to “work with investors proposing significant projects in B.C. to co-ordinate and accelerate government’s activities to support them.” She also promised to spend almost $24-million “to reduce the time it takes for businesses wanting to invest in natural resource development to get decisions on approvals and permits.”
She announced yet another branch of government, a new “B.C. Jobs and Investment Board,” to be up and running within 60 days. This will “be mandated to promote economic development by promoting investment opportunities and identifying any issues and processes that may be limiting that investment.”
The Premier introduced other spending initiatives, including an additional $50-million investment in a road, rail and port expansion for suburban Vancouver, and “over $5-million in improvements to ensure commercial carriers and travellers have information to make border-route planning decisions that will save them time and money.”
More government bureaucracies are required to create efficiencies? It could have been stolen from an old NDP playbook.
To be successful, Premier Clark has to demonstrate that the B.C. Liberals will under her leadership continue to represent a “coalition” of moderates, as it did rather successfully with Mr. Campbell in control. But she is a different type of leader, with a different outlook. She has long associated with federal Liberals; Mr. Campbell never did. His coalition satisfied conservatives in B.C.— represented by the once-powerful Social Credit party — and those in the middle. Premier Clark hews more to the left, and this carries tremendous risks. She may be confusing voters already lukewarm on her party and driving them inside other tents.
Others, such as John Cummins. Until Ms. Clark went offensive on him, he was largely unknown as leader of a peripheral political party. The B.C. Conservatives collected all of 34,451 votes in the last provincial election, little more than 2% of the total vote count. A former federal politician first elected as a Reform party candidate in 1993, Mr. Cummins was acclaimed as B.C. Conservative leader in May. He claims to have seen a number of recent polls that show his party with about 20% support; he attributes the bounce to Liberal party mistakes, its bungled HST introduction and sales job, and sustained “arrogance” and “hypocrisy.”
In fact, British Columbian voters have been crying for a realistic alternative to the Liberal and NDP parties, Mr. Cummins said Thursday from his home near Vancouver. Those Liberal-sponsored radio spots that debuted last week, attacking him, calling him “a joke” and an “unprincipled politician” who cannot keep promises? “They reflect more on [the Liberals] than they do on us,” he said. He would like to hear more. The ads work, he said, just not the way the Liberals had intended. “If no one knew about us before,” laughed Mr. Cummins, “they sure as hell do now.”
National Post
VANCOUVER — Christy Clark must have felt she had to do something. The new B.C. Premier recently rubbished her pledge to seek a mandate from all British Columbian voters before a May 2013 fixed election date, leaving her 16 more months to define her leadership and reboot the Liberal government she inherited from Gordon Campbell. Sixteen more months to convince a skeptical public that she has the chops to effectively lead.
Too much time, perhaps. Premier Clark had been preparing to call a general election contest for the fall, but the harmonized sales tax debacle and its death-by-referendum scuppered that plan. She had some election-ready arrows in her quiver; rather than put them away for another day, closer to May 2013, she chose to deploy them now. Hence the launch of attack advertising aimed at a putative rival on her right — B.C. Conservative Party leader John Cummins — and a campaign-style round of announcements related to job creation that she made this week on whistle stops across the province.
The Premier was all over the B.C. map with her jobs plan, although she avoided Vancouver Island completely, which seems odd, given that some of communities there have the highest unemployment rates in Canada.
On Thursday, flanked by senior members of her Cabinet and caucus and speaking before the Vancouver Board of Trade, Premier Clark described in more detail what she calls “Canada Starts Here: The B.C. Jobs Plan.” It aims to expand markets for B.C. products, which include high school and post-secondary educations for foreign students, a profit centre that she wants to further exploit. Her plan also includes improvements to infrastructure and assistance to B.C. communities and the private sector.
“Sometimes government has to lead the way,” the Premier told her Board of Trade audience, “but sometimes government has to get out of the way.” Muddling the message, she suggested her government will do both, simultaneously.
Premier Clark announced the creation of a Major Investments Office to “work with investors proposing significant projects in B.C. to co-ordinate and accelerate government’s activities to support them.” She also promised to spend almost $24-million “to reduce the time it takes for businesses wanting to invest in natural resource development to get decisions on approvals and permits.”
She announced yet another branch of government, a new “B.C. Jobs and Investment Board,” to be up and running within 60 days. This will “be mandated to promote economic development by promoting investment opportunities and identifying any issues and processes that may be limiting that investment.”
The Premier introduced other spending initiatives, including an additional $50-million investment in a road, rail and port expansion for suburban Vancouver, and “over $5-million in improvements to ensure commercial carriers and travellers have information to make border-route planning decisions that will save them time and money.”
More government bureaucracies are required to create efficiencies? It could have been stolen from an old NDP playbook.
To be successful, Premier Clark has to demonstrate that the B.C. Liberals will under her leadership continue to represent a “coalition” of moderates, as it did rather successfully with Mr. Campbell in control. But she is a different type of leader, with a different outlook. She has long associated with federal Liberals; Mr. Campbell never did. His coalition satisfied conservatives in B.C.— represented by the once-powerful Social Credit party — and those in the middle. Premier Clark hews more to the left, and this carries tremendous risks. She may be confusing voters already lukewarm on her party and driving them inside other tents.
Others, such as John Cummins. Until Ms. Clark went offensive on him, he was largely unknown as leader of a peripheral political party. The B.C. Conservatives collected all of 34,451 votes in the last provincial election, little more than 2% of the total vote count. A former federal politician first elected as a Reform party candidate in 1993, Mr. Cummins was acclaimed as B.C. Conservative leader in May. He claims to have seen a number of recent polls that show his party with about 20% support; he attributes the bounce to Liberal party mistakes, its bungled HST introduction and sales job, and sustained “arrogance” and “hypocrisy.”
In fact, British Columbian voters have been crying for a realistic alternative to the Liberal and NDP parties, Mr. Cummins said Thursday from his home near Vancouver. Those Liberal-sponsored radio spots that debuted last week, attacking him, calling him “a joke” and an “unprincipled politician” who cannot keep promises? “They reflect more on [the Liberals] than they do on us,” he said. He would like to hear more. The ads work, he said, just not the way the Liberals had intended. “If no one knew about us before,” laughed Mr. Cummins, “they sure as hell do now.”
National Post
Freakinoldguy @ Thu Sep 22, 2011 8:14 pm
With respect to Leonard Wibberley, BC has it's own version of the "Mouse that Roared", but in this case it's the "Mouth that Roared".
Although in all honesty I'm actually enjoying the fact that everytime Christie opens her mouth her parties fortunes plummet farther in the polls.
Gunnair @ Thu Sep 22, 2011 8:15 pm
Freakinoldguy Freakinoldguy:
With respect to Leonard Wibberley, BC has it's own version of the "Mouse that Roared", but in this case it's the "Mouth that Roared".
Although in all honesty I'm actually enjoying the fact that everytime Christie opens her mouth her parties fortunes plummet farther in the polls.
Although in all honesty I'm actually enjoying the fact that everytime Christie opens her mouth her parties fortunes plummet farther in the polls.
Agreed. There must be a lot of behind closed doors cringing.