Elizabeth May, MP

The other day MP Elizabeth May published an article in the Huffington Post Canada. Nothing particularly unusual there: she publishes there regularly.

How many other federal politicians report to Canadians in such a useful way? I regret to say I don't know of any others. So kudos to Elizabeth May.

This time her article was of particular interest to me, as it included her analysis of bills C-38 and C-57, both presently before Parliament, and both having serious potential consequences for those of us living on the BC coast.

She'd actually read them, in toto.

This reading revealed that the Conservative ministers sponsoring those bills have seriously misrepresented them, promising “safeguards” not actually present in writing:

    In March of last year, Budget 2012 promised more pipeline inspections and new tanker regulations. Then ministers claimed the new measures were in the budget omnibus bill C-38. Since C-38 was over 400 pages long, perhaps they did not expect anyone to read it. Maybe they never read it themselves, as Minister Oliver trumpeted then, “Mr. Speaker, the bill will do a great deal to protect the environment... As I mentioned in my remarks, tankers will have to be double-hulled, there will be mandatory pilotage, there will be enhanced navigation, there will be aerial surveillance and additional measures will be taken in particular cases when necessary.
    None of this was in C-38. It is, in fact, what he announced in Vancouver on March 18, 2013. I imagine he wondered why he had such a strong sense of déjà-vu.

So much for C-38. What about C-57?:

    Yesterday Harper’s ministers announced we would find these new measures in Bill C-57, the just tabled for First Reading Safeguarding Canada’s Seas and Skies Act. I have read C-57. This now takes top honours in the on-going competition for most over-hyped legislative title. I have read it and it is essentially a housekeeping act. It deals with the skies, through changes to inspections of aviation accidents and aeronautic indemnities. There is no environmental aspect to the “skies” component. Then there are the amendments related to “seas.” The Marine Act is amended to change the date for the approval of a new director of a port authority. The only oil-spill related components are in the Marine Liability Act. The act is brought into compliance with the 2010 International Convention on Liability and Compensation for Damage in connection with the Carriage and Noxious Substances by Sea. So, nothing about double-hulled tankers...

In other words, the Ministers' words are just smoke, widely covered in the media, but having no legal weight at all.

More kudos to Elizabeth May MP, for doing her job!

I thought the information was important and hadn't seen it reported anywhere else, so sent the URL along to a number of our friends and family, all of whom are, to the best of my knowledge, reliably NDP voters. Most of the time.

And got back several negative comments, in effect pointing out that that Elizabeth May is the leader of the Federal Green Party: the competition; the enemy; potentially the spoiler.

Which misses the point, as far as I'm concerned.

Understand, as a lifelong activist NDPer, I don't support the Green Party of Canada. Any party whose website claims they stand for the following...
   The Green Party respects the need for a balance between competition and co-operation in a healthy economy, and the gifts and flexibility that this dynamic tension offers to society. We believe in social justice while encouraging self-reliance and we respect the principle of reward for effort and risk. Green Party policies will make Parliament more democratic and diverse through democratic renewal. Government must be far more accountable and transparent. The Green Party knows that social justice at home and abroad is both an environmental and an ethical issue.
...is just spouting vacuous nonsense.

And we know now for a fact that, given any chance of electoral success, the Green Party's values and principles are fungible: how else to explain Green candidate Donald Galloway coming out against sewage treatment for Victoria in the recent federal bye-election there? How else to explain Elizabeth May's pandering, unscientific position on smart meters?

But just because Elizabeth May represents a party of -- in addition to a number of committed environmentalists -- a slew of new-agers, wingnuts, and flakes of the tinfoil-hat variety is no reason to disparage what she actually brings to the debate and to the House of Commons.

It's true that she is effectively her own party, and thus is pretty much free of the constraints placed on members of larger and more significant parties.  It's also true that she was named 2012 Parliamentarian of the Year for a reason, and that she does her constituency, province, and country proud most of the time.

Had I lived in Saanich-Gulf Islands during the last election, given the available options I would have voted for her. Having seen her in action, I'd probably do so again in the next.

Occasionally exceptional individuals are more important than party affiliation.

..........

Further link: for those of you still interested in the disconnect between the Conservative propaganda and the problems of shipping dilbit in BC waters, I strongly recommend an article by Dave Tyre printed in Laila Yuile's blog.

This...

...is how I get myself into trouble:
Bought my dad a router/wi-fi, his being second-hand, old, and broken. Plus I couldn't persuade Hubert's tablet to connect wirelessly to it.
So I ordered one on-line from Staples and next day, when it arrived and I had read the box, I started to have second thoughts: his computer is old, a discarded Macbook of Enid's which I've made useful again by replacing the MacOS with Ubuntu Linux; maybe it wouldn't connect?
No problem, however: I'd just put the new one on our system and give him our (not very) old one, which I know works.
So I plugged it in. All the computers promptly hooked up to it.
But there was no security.
So I changed the wi-fi settings to provide security: no computers would log on.
I messed about with this for a while, but nothing worked. I looked on line, but no "fixes" worked, which was not unreasonable as none were trying to fix problems and symptoms that were identical to mine. Some of the suggestions for what one should do to connect a router to our Telus modem were downright scary, so I knew they would inevitably result in long conversations with disapproving Telus techies.  I didn't go there.
I put the old one back on, which made all three Apples happy, but confused the hell out of the Dell. I thought maybe if I upgraded its Ubuntu 12.04 to 12.10 this problem would just go away.
No such luck; the upgrade just created other problems (why did Python need to reboot? why wouldn't it? why was there no /tmp file space?)
Anyway, that's when I packed it in.
This morning, after following the dog and thinking for an hour, I decided to go back to Plan A. So I replaced our old router with the new one, taking care to unplug both the modem and my computer before doing so. I entered new wi-fi security settings. When I had finished, the Apples were happy.
Then I did a clean install of 32-bit Ubuntu 12.04 on the Dell, and now, after some tweaking, it's happy as well.
So is the Ubuntu partition on my iMac.
But the iPod Touch, which we use as our radio most of the time, wouldn't connect, not even when I entered the new security code. As a consequence it now logs, all by itself, into the Telus modem, and works again.
Good thing I'm retired.

This is slight revision of a letter I sent to Bruce, one of the few people I know who actually understands  this sort of thing... and possibly the only other person I know who is interested.

Unexpected consequences

The story goes something like this:

In 1986, when they were in Mr Havelaar's English 11 class at Robron Secondary, Mike and Kevin persuaded him to let them do a Super-8 film about skiing on Mt Washington for their final project. It was a huge success, and next year, when they were in his English 12 class, they repeated with an equally well-received slide-show on the same subject.
According to them, they were rather indifferent students, so they, after graduation (at least Mike; I'm not sure about Kevin) rather than heading for university or college, instead went skiing.
Mike subsequently became Mike Douglas, founding member of the "New Canadian Air Force" and   "godfather of freeskiing" (according to the Wikipedia page) a professional skier presently a documentary filmmaker specializing in ski films.  Kevin Fogolin today is a professional forester and principal in Dynamic Avalanche Consulting. Both live in Whistler; both still live to ski; both have, in effect, turned skiing into careers.

There are corrections to this story, but they are minor:  there must have been two English 11 teachers involved, because according to my records only Kevin was in my English 11 class, while both were in my English 12 class. The film was indeed excellent (I saw it again when they were here recently) and they both graduated with a B in English 12. In other words, they both scored well above average.

I wouldn't have known any of this if I hadn't looked it up. If, in the 25 or so intervening years I ever heard mention of either of these men, I certainly didn't connect their names with those of former students.
Then Mike phoned. He had to jog my memory about the film before I had even a vague recollection.  He was doing a film involving Kevin and a helicopter accident in the Coast Range in winter a couple of years ago that he, the pilot, and one other walked away from. Both he and Kevin remembered the film they had made in English 11 fondly: could they come and interview me about it?

I honestly had little relevant to say. At the time a major project was a requirement of my senior English courses; usually these were research essays. And I cannot have been of much help: I didn't use a Super-8 camera myself, although I'd had a few students do film projects before. But I did remember there had been a film, and did I remember Kevin's name and that he had been a really pleasant kid. So I said "sure".

Whether anything comes of that somewhat awkward interview, it was more than interesting to meet these two after so many years, and it struck me that there has to be something of a reflection implicit in their stories.
No one, not even the boys they were at the time, could have projected their career trajectories when they were in high school. The jobs they do today hadn't even been invented yet when they graduated. And even if there had been such careers, there's nothing to suggest two friends from a town as small as Campbell River would have opted for them or could have made the grade. If there was any sign of the determination and work habits it took to get them to accomplish what they have to date, this wasn't evident in school, although they might perhaps have been extrapolated  from the the time they spent on the mountain.
Hindsight is always perfect, and any narrative only makes sense as edited by the teller in retrospect, so when Mike claims his Grade 11 film-making experience was influential, I believe him but don't take any of the credit. His present career is a logical extension of innumerable decisions, coupled with a considerable native talent.
But it is a good thing he and Kevin got the opportunity in Grade 11, and other worthy school objectives or bureaucratic hurdles didn't get in the way.
The considerable resources pushed at secondary career counselling have always struck me as something of an expensive and unrealistic pipe dream. Stories like those of Mike and Kevin don't do anything to change my opinion.

Takeaway from Victoria

Congratulations to the Victoria NDP campaign team, who got the vote out and their man elected.

But it was close: 37.2% NDP vs 34.3% for the Greens. Denise Savoie won Victoria handily for the NDP in the last three elections, with over 50% of the popular vote last time, so what can the results mean?

One cannot fault the candidate, distinguished lawyer Murray Rankin, whose record speaks for itself. Besides, he missed Denise Savoie's popular vote when she won the first time in 2006, by only 1.2%. His stand on the sewage plant may have cost him some votes, but his position was the only one that was principled. (And he was and is right: Victoria cannot continue to pump essentially untreated sewage into the Straits of Juan de Fuca; this issue should have been dealt with years ago, and the fact that it is more expensive now should be irrelevant. All the rest of us on Vancouver Island dealt with this issue years ago. I don't necessarily expect more from Liberals and Conservatives, but the Greens ought to be embarrassed by their pandering non-position.)

I think we should pay attention to the runner-up, Donald Galloway, another lawyer with impeccable law credentials. With him as the candidate the Greens in Victoria went from 11.6% (highest popular vote percentage to that point) in 2011 to 34.3%, a gain of 22.7%. Not too shabby.

Also, I suspect, entirely unrepeatable.

I have no particular knowledge here, but I think we've seen this picture before: in Saanich, during the last federal election, when Elizabeth May's team beat Conservative cabinet minister Gary Lunn by some 9%.

There is no doubt the "May Team" is a formidable political organization. There is also no doubt that it is financed by and made up of enthusiasts from all the Victoria-area constituencies. Thanks to their work Elizabeth May has become a political power on the south Island. (I would have voted for her myself had I been living in Saanich during the last election. Almost anything is preferable to Gary Lunn, and Elizabeth May is a huge improvement!)

There is also no doubt that Donald Galloway was able to call on the May Team and on Elizabeth May and that they delivered big-time. The reason they didn't win is that they were up against the lower-Island NDP: 7 provincial constituencies, only two of which are not currently represented by NDP MLAs, all of which have strong NDP organizations.

So why won't there be a repeat in the next federal election? That's because the team is Elizabeth's, and the Conservatives will continue to throw everything (including dirty tricks) they can at her to try to take the seat back. She'll need the bodies and the money in her fight; there won't be enough left for other candidates in the area. Prediction: next federal election watch the Green vote in Victoria go back to traditional numbers; if Justin Trudeau becomes Liberal leader, watch the Liberal vote increase dramatically.

On the other hand, I believe there is an immediate implication for next May's provincial election. As I've said before, I don't think Green Party provincial leader Jane Sterk has a chance in Victoria-Beacon Hill against Carole James. Undoubtedly some Greens will gravitate there, but I expect the bulk of May's troops will probably move to support professor Andrew Weaver in OakBay-Gordon Head. With (in my opinion) a relatively weak incumbent and a demonstrably weak NDP candidate, he actually has an excellent chance of being the first Green elected to the BC Legislature, provided he finds an organization to do the work on the ground.

And it wouldn't be a bad thing for an NDP goverment to have a Green in the Leg.

RCMP attitude: an opportunity missed

It's 9:30 AM on a grey Tuesday in November. A 68-year old man and his dog exit the car parked on the side of the Airport Road in Campbell River. The man has glasses, a goatee, and a backpack and is wearing a baseball cap and hiking boots. The dog, a black Standard Poodle inexplicably named "Pumpkin" is wearing a bright blue collar. They're setting out on their daily walk.

As they approach the gate on the Erickson Main, the logging road behind the airport that leads to the Duncan Bay Main, the man notices a black truck with a black canopy backed right up to the "NO PARKING" sign. 
Although he knows most of the vehicles of the regular dog-walkers, he doesn't recognize this one, and wonders if maybe they'll meet a new dog. And it reminds him of an incident he witnessed last summer, when he encountered a furious person with a gate key who wanted to exit and couldn't because of another truck.
The man lets the dog off the leash as soon as they're on the logging road. The dog, nose down, heads up the road and the man follows.
When the dog turns the first corner, the man suddenly hears barking. Then, rounding the corner, he sees a furious Shepherd cross straining at the end of a short leash. This dog is accompanied by two bullet-shaped men, one of whom is holding the leash and saying something. Both men have yellow stripes down their pant legs.
The man says, "Here, Pumpkin". But Pumpkin is in dog-meeting mode, so that's the only thing in his small mind.
The policeman holding the Shepherd says, "Don't come here" and something that is drowned out by the Shepherd's fury.
So the man yells, "Pumpkin, Come!" Then starts to explain, "Sorry, he's not my dog, and sometimes he just doesn't..." But Pumpkin, now less than 50 feet from the Shepherd, has already figured out that this is not a dog he wants to meet, so he just stands. The man grabs Pumpkin's collar and puts him back on his leash.
The Shephered is still going nuts at the end of his leash as the man and his Poodle pass by on the other side of the road.
The Constable holding the dog exclaims, "You should be more careful when you see a police vehicle."
To which the man replies, "I didn't see a police vehicle."
"We're parked right in front of the gate!"
"And where does it say 'police' on that vehicle?"
As the constables and their dog round the corner, the man hears, "I suppose you wouldn't recognize a school bus either!"

Good one, Constable. And great job on the PR.

Some notes on an election to come

Today Colin Hansen announced he won't seek re-election in Vancouver-Quilchina. This probably means Chrisie Clark won't be running in Vancouver-Point Grey, a seat she holds presently and would almost certainly lose.
That is, if she runs at all: I'm still waiting for the "bombshell" announcement that she has some personal exigency that necessitates resignation...
I wonder what Mr "HST" Hansen has waiting for him in the wings?

I cannot believe the rumour that Stockwell Day is lining up to take Christie's place: he has experience losing, and doesn't appear to enjoy it. Is it even possible he has a big enough ego to be persuaded he could right the BCLiberal ship by May? (Not to mention the impossibility of seeing Stockwell Day as ANY kind of Liberal!)

A few days ago Dr. Andrew Weaver, Nobel laureate, announced he is going to run for the Greens in Oak Bay-Gordon Head against the less-than-formidable Ida Chong.
He should, just by reputation, be a shoo-in; if I lived in that constituency, I'd have to find reasons not to vote for him before choosing someone else.
Of course, it's possible there may be reasons I don't know about: apparently he ran for a school board position in Victoria in 2002 and came in 15th out of 19. But that was before he became famous.
I don't suppose there's any way the NDP will decline to run a candidate, especially as the constituency association has already selected Jessica van der Veen, who lost to Ida by over 500 votes last time.
And of course Ida has, thanks largely to a failed recall campaign, actually formed an organization in the interim. So I'm guessing Ida squeaks in again.
Unless, of course, Weaver can convince enough Liberal and NDP voters to vote for him.
Like Elizabeth May federally.
And Oak Bay has a long history of supporting disparate candidates: think Scott Wallace, Brian Smith, Elizabeth Cull, and latterly Ida Chong.
If he can get any kind of organization whatever behind him, I wouldn't put up any bets against Weaver.

Jane Sterk, the Green leader, is running in the next-door constituency, Victoria-Beacon Hill, against NDPer Carole James, the incumbent, who won with over 55% of the vote in 2009. That's going to be a model campaign, managed by our own Paul Barnett, and Carole has done nothing but improve her electability, so it's not hard to predict the winner.

letter to Terry Lake, BC Minister of Environment

The Galloping Beaver (Tuesday, May 12, 2012) finally prompted me to add my voice:

Dear Dr. Lake,
I was astonished to recently discover that your government has apparently given up the right of BC to review and decide on the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline project.
As BC would accept almost all the risk and receive almost none of the benefits, it seems to me the very least we should have is a final decision on the project; I find it hard to believe that any BC government would have willingly given up the right to decide on an issue of this magnitude and importance.
Consequently, please inform the Federal Government that the government of BC now wishes to reclaim the right to both review this project and decide on whether it will proceed.
Yours very sincerely,

Express Written Authority

A few weeks ago, when GrandDog Eli was visiting Campbell River from his current home in Victoria we decided to do one of our regular walks, along the Piggott Main to the Lost Lake Main and up the hill that overlooks the entire area.  About 10km out and back.
We pulled off the highway at Cranberry. As we came to where the Oyster River Main leaves the Duncan Bay Main, I noticed a prominent red-and-white sign, declaring the road and lands to be private property, not to be trespassed. However, we've been walking here for years so I ignored it and carried on over the Oyster River to the Piggott Main, where I parked the car.
Another sign; same message.

Then another, at the Black Creek Main. And another, at the Lost Lake Main.
Clearly, TimberWest was trying to send a message, and, also clearly, it wasn't very friendly.
But there were others using the road, and no visible signs of enforcement, so we carried on with the walk.
However, by the time I got home I'd decided to play their game and get the "Express Written Authority" they had apparently decided to require.
So I went to the web site.
Guess what?  That "authority" is unavailable:

Which leaves responsible, law-abiding people like me in an interesting position: TimberWest owns much of the east coast of Vancouver Island. It's roads provide access to many significant public areas, including much of Strathcona Park. Do I follow this edict?  Or do I continue to use their roads as I've been doing for most of my life?
It doesn't help TimberWest's case that the website's cited reasons for the ban (vandalism and  fire suppression costs) aren't solved by that ban: people like me, who might pay attention to it, aren't part of the problem; people who are won't be deterred by a few signs.
Over the years Eli and I have encountered many people on our walks along TimberWest roads. Besides the loggers, road builders, tree-planters, herbicide-sprayers, and truckers one might logically expect to meet on logging roads and their surrounding lands, we have encountered literally hundreds of salal-pickers, fishermen, hunters, gold-panners, quad, dirtbike, and snowmobile drivers, horse-riders, cyclists, target and skeet shooters, tourists, campers, mushroom-pickers, wood-cutters, and, of course, dogs and hikers like ourselves. According to the posted signs, all these "trespassers" are no longer welcome on TimberWest's "private lands & roads".
It seems, somehow,  not very Canadian.
And is certainly, given the vast areas we're talking about, unenforceable.
We've walked TimberWest roads several times since I first noticed those signs.  I'm happy to report that the fishermen, gold-panners, quad drivers, and dog-walkers appear to be undeterred, and are still using the roads and lands and streams and lakes. Like me, the vast majority obviously haven't acquired permission to do so.
Like me, they obviously plan to continue.

Make us all believers, Tom!

About a month ago I fielded a call from an energetic, assured, young-sounding operative of the Thomas Mulcair campaign. By this time we'd already sent in our contribution and he was checking up to see how we thought they were doing.
And they could still count on our votes, right?
Recognizing a pitch for further funds, I had to stifle an impulse to put him off before engaging. I explained that yes, he could count on my vote. Mulcair, for me, was the most likely to give voice to my visceral dislike of  Harperites and all they stand for, and that was,  and remains, my over-riding priority.
(Hell, this 40-year-card-carrying activist NDPer has proven before that I have no trouble voting Liberal if I think it will keep Conservatives at bay!)
However, not on the first ballot. There I was planning to vote Nathan Cullen (who had by far the most original proposal, involving electoral cooperation with the Liberals) with Mulcair (whose plan instead was to move the party more towards where it could be a logical choice for Harper-hating Liberals) my second choice. I explained that although I had doubts that Cullen's French skills were up to the task, he'd certainly fall off before the last ballot, so that my most important vote would go to Mulcair.
The young man tried his best: Had I considered that my vote might pull Cullen into second place, and that he might consequently either be removing Mulcair from the race or end up facing him in the final? After all, Cullen was from BC, and BC had the largest block of votes.
Not going to happen, I said, noting he clearly wasn't from BC if he talked “block” of votes! I also pointed out that, although my contacts are reasonably good, at the time I didn't know anyone else who planned to vote Cullen #1.
In fact, I rather thought the final would see Mulcair facing Peggy Nash, in a sort of “centrist interloper vs staunch unionist” scenario. In my defense, the venerated Ed Broadbent had yet to turn the Topp tide, which I believe sank her chances. (Not Ed's finest hour, I thought, although a godsend for the press, which finally scented some blood.)
Anyway, I'm delighted to have been proved mostly correct, and that Thomas Mulcair, a man whom I first appreciated when he was the Minister of the Environment in Jean Charest's Liberal Quebec government, is our new leader.
Make us all believers, Tom!

Big wind

We live in a windy part of the world, so seeing the rain flowing uphill on Marina Boulevard just outside the front door is not a new phenomenon for us. However, since we built here it has lessened as the lots in our part of Rockland have filled up and the trees have grown.
So last Monday's wind storm, from which significant areas of Campbell River have not yet recovered, was an interesting experience: the most violent since we've lived here.
Happily, the house, while it groaned a lot, survived without damage, and we were without power only 12 hours. In fact, we had a fine time reading, feeding the fire, commenting on the weather, and making coffee on the camp stove.
It wasn't till the wind died and the sun came out that we noticed the remains of the green house (in this blog: "Paean to polyurethane" from November 7, 2010) and the fact that a major pine tree in the park across the way was down.

At least it didn't launch.