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Punt the B.C. HarperCons (a.k.a. Liberals)

Christy Clark and her neo-con cabal have got to go. We can start by shining a spotlight on their chronic underfunding of education, the province's shameful child poverty levels, or B.C.
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file PHOTO COURTESY OF SITECPROJECT.COM

Christy Clark and her neo-con cabal have got to go.

We can start by shining a spotlight on their chronic underfunding of education, the province's shameful child poverty levels, or B.C.'s embarrassing "Wild West" of political financing that sees limitless pay-to-play donations from foreign and domestic corporate interests, notably Vancouver-based land developers. While Clark's recent non-binding gesture to examine campaign financing is less than meaningless, other parties are pushing the will of the people. "The BC NDP have said they would ban corporate and union donations with limits on individual donations... The BC Greens have said they will do the same. The BC Liberals have refused to make these changes..."

Dare I mention Clark's dramatic, made-for-TV masquerade over pipeline approvals? Those "tough" (haha) five conditions (still not met) that were so obviously mere public posturing? Let's face it, the environment has been a disaster under Clark, beginning with ongoing rabid clear-cutting of the vanishingly small percentage of remaining old growth in the province (more truthfully termed "wholesale ecosystem removal"). That segues to the continued inexplicable export of raw logs, allowing overseas interests to get wealthy on B.C.'s dwindling resources. On climate change, Clark has eschewed true leadership by childishly refusing to raise — as planned — the province's demonstrably effective carbon tax "until the rest of the country catches up." Then there's the Mt. Polley tailings pond disaster, in which Imperial Metals has eluded justice for clear regulatory violations, has not been fined, criminally charged, or billed for an additional $40 million clean-up, and was last week quietly granted permits to discharge treated effluent into Quesnel Lake, on which many depend for drinking water and food.

Then there's the awesome Clark-backed plan to locate an LNG tanker terminal directly on the rearing grounds of the province's second largest salmon watershed, Lelu Island in the Skeena River Estuary — true story! Speaking of estuaries, how about that debate over whether to upgrade the George Massey Tunnel or, as Clark advocates, remove and replace it with a bridge? The underlying reason for the latter appears to be so they can dredge the Fraser River to accommodate a new class of ocean supertanker as well as ship American thermal coal to Asia from the Fraser Surrey Docks. That's right — build a bridge to further mess up B.C.'s most important estuary ecosystem, with related impacts upstream and to the Salish Sea. It boggles the mind. The rot around this runs far deeper than politics.

And fish farms — ugh! And the grizzly hunt. Banning this odious practice in the Great Bear Rainforest is low-hanging fruit — have the balls to ban it province-wide. Oh, and by the way, B.C. continues to have no species at risk legislation. None. The chance of B.C.'s threatened caribou populations surviving another Clark government are low to non-existent.

Truthfinder segments by various media show the Libs to both obfuscate and outright lie with election pronouncements. Take Clark's recent claim of 220,000 jobs created over six years. As watchdogs have shown, those numbers mostly reflect part-time, unsecure, non-benefit jobs at or around minimum wage in the retail and service industries — in other words, low-quality ephemeral jobs in no way linked to government programs. Instead, B.C. job growth has resulted from a "lucky" confluence of the real estate market and fortuitously low Canadian dollar.

The numbers also include those labouring on the destructive Site C dam — a make-work project if there ever was one, whose claimed need is, once again, challenged by a recent report. Based on the criteria used to justify it, this dam is not economically viable, its power won't be needed when it opens in 2024, and cancelling it could save taxpayers up to $1.6 billion. Not to mention that B.C. taxpayers will be on the hook for this debacle — through soaring rates and public debt — until at least 2094!

Site C has zero to do with British Columbians' future electricity needs. Instead, as shown by academic analysis in the absence of a B.C. Utility Commission review, it is all about heavy industry — Clark's sad, carbon-heavy, price-poor, environmentally unsound, definitely-not-green LNG pipe dreams in particular.

Sea-to-Sky voters shouldn't sleepwalk to the polls this May — for the sake of the corridor, vote these CONservative clowns out.