Robin Mathews Uncut
The B.C. Election, May 14, 2013. A National Tragedy.
Robin Mathews, Vancouver BC Begin at the beginning. The power figures at the centre of the B.C. New Democratic Party and the major, experienced MLAs in the legislature sold out the people of British Columbia, and Canada. That is the beginning and the end of the election story. Other commentary may provide interesting footnotes. For instance: that the polls did it. The Green Party did it. The outside strategists did it. The propaganda, financing and organization of the neo-liberal campaign did it. Dix’s pipeline flip-flop in mid campaign did it. The big corporations did it. Christy Clark’s avid campaigning did it. Her endless willingness to lie did it. The Mainstream Press and Media’s flatout campaigning for the Liberals did it. The morally obese voters who wouldn’t go out and vote did it. No. The New Democratic Party leadership and powerful backroom dealers sold out the people of British Columbia and Canada, betraying (1) the principles of declared NDP political philosophy (2) the fundamentals of political opposition (3) and simple human decency. They turned their backs on British Columbians in order to collaborate with neo-liberalism, even criminal neo-liberalism. Two distinguished women I am acquainted with, involved in public matters, were, earlier, approached to be NDP candidates. Both said they would have had to agree to have no independent ideas and to express no matter publicly that was not approved by the backroom dealers. As one put it not until she had undergone a complete prefrontal lobotomy would she be considered an acceptable NDP candidate. The two women graciously declined to be stuffed replicas of Moe Sihota, of Carol James, of Jim Sinclair – president of the B.C. Federation of Labour. That policy of ‘cookie-cutter candidates’ says much about the almost total failure of the NDP to grapple with the most important issues in British Columbia in the last 12 years. Almost all the top and most important actors in the B.C. NDP have been (literally or figuratively) collaborating with the Campbellclark Liberals - even before the NDP lost power. Ujjal Dosangh was rumoured to be negotiating to enter the Liberal Party even as he was the leader of the B.C. NDP. A perfect symbol …. After the vicious, manufactured attacks on the Glen Clark NDP conducted by the RCMP, the Courts, the Media, and the Campbellclark forces, Joy MacPhail and Jenny Kwan did heroic and outstanding work as a matchless team in Opposition.
But the NDP intelligentsia and its core powerful didn’t launch a major, organized, sustained attack to expose the dirty, lawless actions of the RCMP, the Courts, the Media, and the Campbellclark Right against the Glen Clark NDP – and to assure that fraudulent behavior became history. The NDP core powerful and intelligentsia – and many British Columbians - accepted the Reactionary smear as history. As if it is something to have to apologize for. Seven years passed in which B.C. was looted and shred-
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ded and divided up by means that were often (I insist) criminal. The NDP spoke principally of wanting orderly and polite behavior in the Victoria parliament, refusing to go after the criminal Campbellclark behaviour. But the NDP did much, much worse things ... even after they changed leaders. They collaborated. We are asked these days to think that maybe the wrong leader was chosen after Carol James, that maybe John Horgan – critic on Energy, Mines, and Petroleum Resources - should have been made leader. A nice guy, a straight shooter, an answerer of the public’s questions … we are told. Think Water Energy. Think BC Hydro. Think a BC people’s gigantic enterprise guaranteeing reasonably priced power to the population and industry for the foreseeable future … absolutely guaranteed. Think a profit-maker anchoring other development in the province and contributing funds annually to general revenues for health, education, etcetera. Think of it wrecked by design, its potential handed to cronies, its profitability destroyed, its structure chopped into shreds, its operation secretly divided - its debt disguised, faked, dissimulated, manufactured by the Campbellclark forces. Think that in the May Election John Horgan said almost nothing about those facts – nor did anyone else in the NDP. “Oh,” you say. “But who knew of those things? ”Everyone paying attention. Besides, the Auditor General of B.C. knew of those things, reported them formally, and went so far as to say the Auditor General’s Office has not been able to approve the insane accounting done in BC Hydro FOR TEN YEARS! The B.C. election could have been won by a determined exposure of the destruction of B.C. Hydro, its looting by the Campbellclark forces, its re-creation as a crippled, monstrous, debt-ridden political instrument in the hands of Campbell and Clark. In the election campaign the NDP almost completely avoided the subject, and so did John Horgan. If that isn’t collaboration with the Campbellclark forces, tell me what is. The other enterprise owned by the people of British Columbia, a profit-maker for general revenues, a golden infrastructure asset for provincial development, and a facilitator of reasonable transportation for the people was BC Rail. In brief – I insist BC Rail was purposefully crippled, fraudulently prevented from making profit – and destroyed in an organized way as a top level Campbellclark policy. I believe a huge, concerted, criminal action was undertaken to rob BC Rail from the people of B.C. and to transfer it to the CNR . The statement by the RCMP at the close of the famous search warrant “raids” on legislative offices in December 28 of 2003 that no elected person was under investigation was – to me – a statement of RCMP collusion in the corrupt transfer of BC Rail to CNR. How could the RCMP, without full investigation, declare and hold to the claim that no elected official was involved in what was, visibly, a major, top-level, highly organized fraud, destruction and preparation for transfer of the railway? They couldn’t. www.dialogue.ca