Will even principled New Democrats and Greens start backing off support of the Horgan-Weaver coalition, the Horers?
Because these guys could have shown the writers of the Hitler-Stalin pact of August 1939 a few tricks in political cynicism.
I’m exaggerating? If only. Yes, the infamous Non-aggression pact between two tyrannies played on a global stage, allowing release of the dogs of war days later. But the cynicism is the same prescription. It’s just diluted to B.C.’s tiny part of the world today.
(Here I interrupt my tirade to urge any affronted readers to skip down to an indispensable cool analysis by Rob Shaw.)
The question is whether British Columbians will passively accept the Horers’ charade of democracy – and a charade it will be, a cynical, crafty manipulation of the fine print that trashes the spirit of democracy.
The Big Lie in Little Lie clothes has already crept into common speech, as I heard from common lips a few days ago – that John Horgan had “won the election.”
Not. John Horgan lost the election. He won the premiership. He won it only through a backroom deal with another election loser, Andrew “Three Seats” Weaver.
Until then, their loathing of one another wasn’t just the conventional stagey indignation of the campaign platform. It was bitingly personal, the real stuff, not the political theatre of the political classes.
But, wedded in unholy acrimony, the NDP’s 41 legislative seats, added to the weasely Weaver’s three, edged the Christy Clark Liberals’ 43 – a dead tie after subtraction of a Speaker drawn from the Horer coalition.
My naive self earnestly listed the clear impediments of this scheme. Waste of paper and ink. The Horers had hatched a plan.
Another interruption of my flowing prose: After the public had suffered seven post-election weeks of John Horgan’s ego, even bigger than his 1947 Buick chrome grille smile, and Andrew Weaver’s “frankly” (his copyright word) strutting, Mainstream Research’s poll for Postmedia News on June 26-27 revealed more than a tad of voter remorse.
Liberal support had risen to 45 per cent and NDP and Green support had fallen five points, respectively to 34 and 17 per cent. Emboldened, Christy Clark, whose deathbed theft of much of the Horers’ platform destroyed what was left of her political principles, pleaded unsuccessfully for another election.
Speaking of principles: The undersigned’s contempt for Weaver blossomed when his stated top priorities were a deal for official party status and changing the electoral system – a twice-failed cause – without a public mandate, approval contemptuously sought only after it was instituted. Nothing to do with the Green party’s noble goals for nature and the environment. Possibly he’d fight to save the weasels. I apologize if I’ve insulted the Society for the Protection of Weasels.
Back to how the hard-socialist Horers schemed to rule. A Vancouver Sun headline tersely summed up the scheme: NDP Can Bypass the Peril of the Legislature and Push Much of its Agenda Through Cabinet.
How so? Outstanding Sun legislative reporter Rob Shaw, in a detailed three-quarter-of-a-page story (July 6 edition) that should be read in full and clipped, wrote that an analysis “indicates that as much as three-quarters of the New Democrat agenda could be implemented through cabinet orders, cabinet-approved changes to regulations, ministerial orders and allocations in the annual budget, rather than a host of specific bills that would each require a vote in the house.”
An all-powerful cabinet. A dummy legislature. An electorate insulted. How closely does this resemble the party dictatorships of the expired Soviet Union, or of present Communist China and Communist North Vietnam?
Maybe Horgan’s new chief of staff, Geoff Meggs, a late quitter from the Communist party after years of membership, can explain the differences.
He’s back to the bigs from Triple-AAA, where he coached Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson on words longer than two syllables.
• • •
A couple of days after my item about the broken hand-drying gizmo at Horseshoe Bay Park, it had been fixed.
Since I’ve apparently assigned myself to the Urinal Beat, my next rap is on the washrooms at the District of North Vancouver’s Norgate Park, just east of Capilano Road. At high noon on a perfect July day, locked up. Afraid someone might use them?
• • •
What a travesty – $10.5-million compensation to Omar Khadr, abused former fighter for terrorism from an openly terrorist family. That Stephen Harper!
Joke! Harper’s long gone. Harper would have been dumped on from great heights. But charming Prime Minister Justin Trudeau automatically gets free passes from the big-city media. He’s so damned pretty. His justice minister, Jody Wilson-Raybould, sternly declared the settlement is none of the public’s business. Huh?
John Ivison, wittily in the National Post: “Stephen Harper would have litigated until Satan was skating to work.”
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