My Wet Coast Life

A couple days into 2011 and I am already not looking forward to British Columbia's upcoming political show and ongoing failure of our political system. 2010 was not too kind to our provincial politicians especially party leaders. We got to see a lot of things shake up Victoria's legislature. On November 4th, We got to see Premier Gordon Campbell resign over the wonderful HST. It is "loved" so much by some resident, actually a lot of residents, our ex-premier Bill Vander Zalm rallied the people to see if it can be removed. His diligence paid off and enough signatures were collected to put the HST recall on our next ballot. On Monday, September 13, 2010, Gordon Campbell announced it would be put to a vote on September 24, 2011. It's gonna cost $30 million for the referendum, sorry schools and education.

On top of the HST recall, the anti-HST organizers want remove the Liberal provincial politicians via recalls who supported the HST. After 2 attempts due to controversy, Elections BC approved the recall against Liberal MLA Ida Chong. The petition must be returned by Feburary 4, 2011, and then Elections BC has 6 weeks to verify the signatures. If they are successful with the recall petition, a by-election must be called within 90 days. Also, Ida Chong is the first of many targeted for recalls. More or less she is the test case so I can only assume a concerted effort on the anti-HST organizers part to keep the recall ball rolling. Definitely not a good year to be a provincial Liberal.

Now the opposition has not been left out of this year's circus of provincial politics. The NDP have had Carol James in charge of the party. We got to see Carol James kick out a party member, Bob Simpson, for not being a team player. On the welcometowilliamslake.ca site, Bob Simpson criticized her for not saying enough at a Union of British Columbia Municipality's meeting.

The Leader of the Opposition likewise had little concrete to offer the delegates other than a commitment to be more consultative than the current government and a promise to explore the possibility of revenue sharing with local governments. This is a timely concept which has the potential to address the resource needs of local governments, but the lack of specifics was a disappointment to delegates. - Source

Based on what he said, I personally do not see it as grounds for removing him from the party. And instead of confirming his statement and spinning it into a NDP PR event on the specifics and how the NDP are better, Carol James kicked him out. I do not see how a couple sentences can deem you as not being a team player. It is known as speaking up to the coach and saying we need more details on the next play. Sometimes it needs to be done publicly to get the point across. Welcome to politics and public opinion Carol James. Going by the "you're off the team" mantra for making a statement is not the sign of a true leader. It shows to me his statement must have been correct and with the choice of either play off the statement and make it better in your favor or kick out the member, well, we know what choice was made. *facepalm*

Leadership can be described in different ways:

"The process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task".

"Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen."

"Effective leadership is the ability to successfully integrate and maximize available resources within the internal and external environment for the attainment of organizational or societal goals." - Source

None of those definitions were displayed by James when she kicked out one of her members, a supporter, a teammate. So on December 6th, what goes around, comes around and Carol James announced her resignation after 13 of her 34 MLA caucus mutinied against her. A mutiny? Are we pirates? Y'arr, true it be.
They were referred to as the baker’s dozen of rebel NDP MLAs. They were too large a group for James to continue dismissing from caucus like Bob Simpson, without destroying the NDP’s chances in the next election. Carol James led and lost the last 2 but somehow remained as leader. Maybe 3rd time was the possible charm?

With Carol James stepping down, that makes 2 of our province's political parties currently LEADERLESS. No leader is not good. Not good at all when a leadership position is warranted.

Follow up:

So now both the Liberals and the NDP, the majority party and the official opposition, require a new leader. But who? Once the party elects a new leader and the next election comes around, will it mean the Liberals keep the majority, the NDP take over majority or minority government? Maybe everyone has had enough and a new party springs out of nowhere and rises above the rest? maybe?

Now to make a further difficulty in finding a new leader for the NDP at least, they have a gender equality rule in the party's constitution. It states that at least one male and one female must be represented as the party leader, president and treasurer. Currently, the president and treasurer are held by men, Moe Sihota and Bob Smits respectively. Based on this, the NDP leader will have to be a woman. Even the interim leader will have to abide by this rule. So what does this mean? Unless Moe Sihota or Bob Smits step down and are replaced by a female, the next leader of the NDP will be female but no females have yet stepped forward to run for the position. Hmmmm...I see a possible big problem brewing....

The Globe and Mail list of possible contenders includes MLAs Mike Farnworth, Bruce Ralston, John Horgan and Adrian Dix, and from outside the caucus, federal MP Peter Julian and Sierra Club BC executive director George Heyman. But the only one to officially announce is Dana Larson but he has some problems with that, mainly his previous marijuana and LSD activism. Tends not to mix well with politics. Mr. Larson's current problem is and scandal is his interesting drug past apparently got him blocked federally by the NDP so he doesn't have a membership in the federal NDP. The provincial NDP membership automatically gets you a federal membership so Moe Sihota is saying Dana Larson could still be ineligible. The issues that caused Dana Larsen to step down from his federal candidacy a couple years ago could be the showstopper to his provincial leadership bid. But at the same time, you also have Dana Larson's camp saying Moe Sihota had apologized for the ineligible candidacy statement thus assuming he was now eligible. Yeah for more politics. At this point, i do not care anymore about knowing about the NDP leadership. I will look into the potential NDP leaders once they have their name on the ballot, ready for the NDP members vote. Until then, I expect more bickering and back and forth statements and just not worth the time...

At least Dana Larson has stepped forward where no one else hasn't. Whether he is the right candidate or not, that will be up to the NDP membership to decide first and the rest to decide if he is selected. Until others step forward and the gender law issue is worked out, we'll just have to sit back, grab a beer and enjoy the show as right now, I don't see much happening but seeing it is the new year, maybe we will see some announcements now that everyone is back to work and the full rules for the NDP leadership candidacy are released.

But in the end, I see it as either Moe Sihota or Bob Smits step down to allow a male NDP party leader or we have another female NDP leader yet to step forward and be a leader, which is just as disconcerting. As for the Liberal leadership race, they at least have candidates and no apparent gender issues to affect the possible candidate selection. The current canidates are Moira Stilwell, Kevin Falcon, Mike de Jong, Christy Clark, and George Abbott. It appears most will comply with the voters opinion on whether to keep the HST and most also want to see the minimum wage raised. Other than Mike de Jong with no platform presented as of December 10th, not one candidate has education or schools at the forefront. I wonder why?

I say let the voters decide on the HST and focus on what matters, maybe, a child's future in education? You know, the future leaders of this province? How do I explain to my son that 2 leading provincial political parties have internal member issues, distrust, no leader and are superseding the needs of the people in this province by taking valuable tax dollars and time to sort out these issues or make up for the mistakes that have occurred recently. On top of that, the platforms they are presenting do not appear to have your future education factored in.

"Sorry son, you may be crowded in a school in the near future or have a far commute because money that could have gone towards your public education was used to implement and repeal a tax and pay for by-elections."

I know politics can be hard on anyone who has been elected. The politician's personal life is in the open, people dig up dirt on them to take them down and sometimes they make decisions that they later regret (sometimes). But that is why they went into politics, to make a change and make life better for everyone, not to just select classes and incomes. Maybe the province needs a reboot on politics and new parties to give a better consensus and choice and expanded views? Usually politics in the province comes down to 2 parties and it just depends who has the majority if you agree or disagree with what is being done.

Party or not, what we need is a political hero

I doubt you will find anyone who is 100% happy with ALL of what their party does. It is a matter of agreeing with the party that most aligns to your views, which has now become very hard for me. We have seen all parties rise and fall and I leave you with this question. Which party is going to rise above all of this and who will be leading the charge? I have yet to see an answer to this, what about you?