The chickens are coming home to roost for Premier Gordon (Pinocchio) Campbell. The question is how do we best handle the political consequences.

I spent a lot of time with Carole James during the election a year ago last May and came to like her and admire her in spite of the fact she, or rather the NDP, ran a terrible campaign. I told her partway through the campaign that it looked to me as if someone had a death wish for her.

The result wasn’t really her second loss, although it was that if one proceeds simply numerically. It’s not fair to pin the previous loss on Ms. James because she did bring the party back from the grave’s edge. The election in 2013 is hers to win or lose.

I’ve been hard on Ms. James for her present tactics of staying off the battlefield and mingling with the crowd. In fairness, that may have as much to do with my own combativeness as any other factor. I was weaned in the politics of hand-to-hand combat with lots of blood being spilt. Maybe we have to wait and see whether Ms. James and her advisers are right. In fact, she may be right - for a special reason I’ll talk about it a moment.

No one can be something they're not. When I went into radio in 1981, the great Jack Webster had two bits of advice: if you’re interviewing your mother, have a piece of paper with Mom written on, for you’ll be amazed at whose name you can forget under pressure; and be yourself, don’t try to ape any other broadcasters including me.

Ms. James simply would not be herself if she were to enter pitched battles and try to win by noise and figurative bloodshed what you should win by reason.

Here’s the special reason Ms. James may be on the right track. For the first time I can remember, the “environment” is a big issue – indeed it’s huge. And there isn’t a nook or a cranny where this government and especially this leader are not in high odour on this issue.

In the past, governments have always been able to play off one group against another but this isn’t going to be so easy in 2013. I’ll guarantee that there will be much more unity of action by environmentalists. It will scarcely be any kind of coalition because such are simply not possible. By their very nature, many groups are concentrated on one issue or one geographical area or both. There are conflicts for available money. All have different histories. This does not mean that they cannot get together for a political purpose.

What will become, to the surprise of many no doubt, a serious matter for Campbell is the coming together for the purposes of defeating him - groups that have been and perhaps still are on separate issues in separate areas. To save this province from the wanton destruction by this government is a common goal and will bring, I believe, a much closer-knit political response.

If I’m right about the high profile of the environment and if there can be a common cause of defeating Campbell, Carole James must convince British Columbians of two things: that she cares for the environment, and that as premier she will do something about it; and she must convince people that she won’t make a balls-up of the economy.

These two factors support the notion that the NDP leader should travel the province convincing people that she will reverse the environmental policies of the Campbell gang and that she will be a safe pair of hands to run the province.

My own philosophy in the 2009 election as repeated to audiences around the country was pragmatic - I simply said that while I didn’t believe they will, if the NDP screw up the economy a later government can fix it; what a later government cannot do is bring back the destroyed rivers, the ruined salmon runs, and BC Hydro. They can be no more restored into their old form than scrambled eggs can ever go back into their shells.

But Carole James cannot win on that sort of fatalism – she must convince the public that the NDP can be trusted to do a better job than the Liberals can which is a pretty low bar indeed as I’m sure you will agree. She must convince groups around the province that she is capable and those groups must include all sections of society.

To follow such a course will take guts especially if she will be up against Carole Taylor or Dianne Watts. Of course Ms. Taylor brings her own baggage: she didn’t resign in protest as she should have and is thus responsible for much of the destructive policy of this government, and so far as I know hasn’t issued forth a peep about the Energy Policy and Fish Farms policy of the government, and, frankly, I would be surprised if knows anything about these issues. Having heard nothing to the contrary I assume she supports this government’s insane and destructive Gateway project and Deltaport enhancement.

Diane Watts is a very popular mayor of Surrey but that’s a hell of a long way from the premier’s chair in Victoria. In fact I would be surprised if Ms. Watts changed her declared position that she’s not interested.

I remain principally concerned about the environment and especially rivers and fish. I haven’t cast a fly line since 2005 so it’s not my hobby I’m fighting for but the very soul of this province, our trademark: our rivers and our salmon.

In saying that I respect and will always support other environmentalists who have their own important priorities. As John Donne said over 300 years ago and is as true today as then, “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main”. When you ponder the truth of that powerful message it becomes clear that we must all see the bigger picture. I know that pipelines destroy fish and rivers, as tanker accidents do. We know that this government’s insane highway development destroys valuable farmland and habitat and that Burns Bog is sacred as are the Pink salmon runs in the Broughton Archipelago. As we know that the blot of destruction spreads everywhere, all of us must fight that destruction where we’re best able to do so and help others wherever they may be.

And that’s the key to success – fight our damndest in areas where we have prioritized and help others do the same as we gather together in the political arena to support those who share our values, which are no more than to save and protect our province for the sake of those who come after us.

The hearings for the proposed Enbridge Pipeline from the Tar Sands to Kitimat have begun – the first of these having been held recently in Whitecourt Alberta, with more coming coming to Kitimat on August 31 and Prince George on September 8.  We’ll surely be hearing a lot from the company about the employment this project would provide. That is the ever-present argument in any debate where the environment is threatened.

As I said in the question period after a recent speech, if the temporary employment provided during construction trumps environmental concerns, we might as well all go home.

I have no doubt that employment will be a plus for this pipeline but we must remember that it is temporary – the damage will be permanent. And let’s be clear on this point: there will be leaks, and a long pipeline will be an open invitation to terrorism. Moreover, there is no guarantee that the employment will go to local British Columbians.

And it’s the value to this province I think we should dwell upon for a moment.

We would have a pipeline shipping Alberta crude to China, largely through very sensitive land in BC. Where’s the profit for us? We take the certainty of damage to our sensitive grazing land, added to which is the certainty of s spill on our sensitive coast - and for what? I’ve heard nothing about big bucks for the right-of-way. We’re not getting any part of the taxes which will be paid to Alberta and Ottawa. We are the conduit for oil sludge benefitting international oil companies, Edmonton, Calgary, Ottawa, and Beijing. Why the hell are we even considering this?

I talk about certainty rather than risk. That’s because a risk, without a limit on how long it will continue, is a certainty waiting to happen.

Last May I wrote an article for a Russian online paper, The Strategic Culture Foundation, which I think apropos – I hope you enjoy it.

Tuesday January 23, 2013

Today, with the weather cold and clear in Washington, D.C., Barack Obama was sworn in for his second term after a landslide victory where he carried all but two states. He had capitalized on his stern warnings that the United States had to get, in American football parlance, into a “hurry up offence” to wean itself off its reliance on oil as offshore supplies were looking less and less reliable.

That very afternoon, reminiscent of the day Jimmy Carter heard upon the inauguration of his hated rival Ronald Reagan that Iran had released its American hostages, the new fundamentalist Peoples Islamic Republic of Arabia (formerly Saudi Arabia) announced it was reducing its oil exports to the US by10% each month until the US withdrew all support - financial and military - of Israel. Mr. Obama pointed out that out of the 30 million barrels a day the US consumes (up since he first became president, in spite of efforts to reduce consumption) Saudi Arabia supplied only 1.5 million barrels - slightly more than Venezuela and about the same as Mexico. The president, in warning about the crisis, took solace in the fact that its largest supplier, at just under 3 million barrels, was their old and faithful friend, Canada.

That day oil traded just under $200 per barrel, but instantly went up to $225 on the news from Arabia.

Thursday, July 4, 2013

On the nation’s birthday - and as oil broke through the $300 mark - President Obama put the nation on a national emergency basis on the announcement by President Chavez of Venezuela that “in light of continuing Yankee interference with Latin American affairs, Venezuela will, in the absence of ‘improvement’ by the US, cut off all oil supplies.” This, along with continuing unrest in Mexico, was, in the president’s words, “very grave news indeed.”

The New York Times in its lead editorial asked, “What went wrong? What had happened to the will to reduce reliance on oil which had peaked back in 2009?”

The Canadian ambassador, in an op-ed article, pointed out that this was similar to the collapse of the cod fishery on the east coast of Canada in 2002 when fishermen demonstrated unto near riot in protest against the government closing the fishery, demanding the right to fish even though there were none left. “Human nature,” observed the ambassador, “has no end to its ability to go into denial.”

December 24, 2013

President Obama announced that earlier that day the 7^th US airborne had landed in Northern Alberta, Canada, near the “Tar Sands” and had sent small contingents of troops into Edmonton and Victoria, the capitals of the Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia, respectively. Mr. Obama, in a terse note to the Canadian ambassador said “no great nation, least of all the United States of America, can tolerate any country cutting off its oil supply. Once our imports from Canada are increased we will withdraw our forces, leaving only a ‘token’ presence.”

(This was not, incidentally, the first time the US had invaded Canada – it did so in 1775, and again in 1812 in the war known by that date. Each time they were sent packing but in those days Canada was a British colony and Britannia still ruled the waves.) 

How could this have happened?

In Northern Alberta there is a huge mud pie - except the mud is caused by oil not water.  As early as 1956 when this author briefly worked for Imperial Oil, the huge deposits of this goop were spoken about. (I left Edmonton upon learning that, unlike Vancouver, my native city, Alberta has real winters). 

The tar sands are prohibitively expensive to “mine” and, besides, easy access to oil in Alberta would never end. All this changed when oil went over $100 and, almost overnight, the Tar Sands became the new “find.” Even though the oil was hugely difficult to extract and refine - and the largest contributor to greenhouse gases in the world - it was huckedly buck and away we go! 

How did this lead to the US Canada border - called the longest undefended border in the world - being violated? 

You must go back to the spring of 2010 and an item in the business news that China had invested $2 billion in these Tar Sands. A pipeline to the Pacific Coast was needed and this from the builder: ”Enbridge envisages two parallel 1,170-kilometre pipelines between northern Alberta and Kitimat, B.C. One would carry 525,000 barrels a day of oil westward, largely from the oilsands. The eastward line would transport 193,000 barrels a day of imported condensate, used to thin heavy petroleum products moving by pipeline.” 

There was hell to pay with aboriginal and environmental groups that protested, sometimes physically, not only because the pipeline encroached on wildlife grazing grounds but over the dangerously loaded tankers moving south along the treacherous British Columbia coast. It was only in August 2012 that the Supreme Court of Canada, in a rare move which caught everyone by surprise, turned aside aboriginal complaints. This was immediately followed by the federal government ordering construction to begin. 

Up until this time no one really foresaw that this would mean trouble. After all, all oil from the tar sands went south of the border; what could go wrong?! 

China was the problem. Most of the oil through the pipeline was destined for China. The US government needed this oil and meant to get it. For two years Obama threatened dreadful things including high tariffs against Canadian goods, notwithstanding NAFTA. Nothing worked. 

As the short but devastating debate moved on, Canada asked China to intervene, thinking that the huge US debt to that country would help. China reminded Canada of two things: 1. It’s a hell of a long way from China to the Tar Sands; 2. While China was the US banker, it had to be remembered that a bank’s largest asset is what is owed to it - that if China were to reduce the value of the US dollar it would be, so to speak, pooping in its own nest. 

Thus it came to pass that for third time the US invaded Canada, and this time there was no one there to help.

Article by Rafe Mair in The Tyee. "The picture (Erik Andersen) paints is of a once rock solid Crown corporation placed on the road to fiscal ruin by the Campbell government." Read article

Common Sense Canadian co-founder Damien Gillis and I have been raising concerns about the future of BC Hydro for over two years; and now a new economic analysis by contributor Erik Andersen, drawing on available hard data, proves beyond a doubt what we have been saying all along: Gordon Campbell's private power program is unnecessary and costly to the point of threatening the very solvency of our most important crown corporation, BC Hydro - not to mention hitting the pocketbooks of every British Columbian and company doing business in our province that once relied on a steady supply of affordable public electricity.

It’s important to note why WAC Bennett bought the BC Electric in 1961 and made it into BC Hydro and Power Authority (BCH). The late premier - because our province is so large geographically and so sparsely settled - saw the need for ferries, rail, and power to be tools of public policy. He saw ferries as extensions of highways and knew that Black Ball Ferries, a private corporation, would only service areas that made money. He saw, similarly, that a private rail company would not service developing areas, so he created BC Rail. He also knew that for BC to compete on national and international markets we must have cheap, reliable power so created BCH and developed the “Two Rivers Policy”, bulking dams on the Peace and Columbia Rivers so that BC would always have clean, constant, and sufficient power. He was not opposed to selling power elsewhere but only so long as sufficient power was always available to British Columbia’s industries and people.

BC Hydro has been a huge success and is the envy of the world.

For reasons that can only be ideologically driven, the Campbell government has set out on a process that will bankrupt BCH (meanwhile Campbell has been in California this past week, shilling for this power which even Californians recognize is a bad deal for the environment, thus refusing to buy it - see Campbell urges California to review imports by Scott Simpson in the Vancouver Sun. Despite what he and his ministers have stated, BC is not a net importer of power and never needs to be. With conservation, new generators on flood control dams and new generators and upgrades on power dams, and taking back the power to which we’re entitled under the Columbia River Treaty, we have power for as far as we wish to look.

Premier Campbell now has in place Independent Power Producers (IPPs), which he portrays as small private companies, doing no environmental damage, which will dam (IPPs prefer to say "weir") up to 700 rivers in BC - saying that the energy produced will make us “energy sufficient by 2016”. Unfortunately Mr. Campbell is being very economical with the truth.

This power can only be produced during high run-off periods when BC Hydro doesn’t need their power - which they must buy anyway under contract - and since it can’t use it, it must then export it at less than half what they paid for it.

One doesn’t have to get much further than Kindergarten arithmetic to know that a company can’t do that very long before it goes broke!

It should also be noted that because BCH is forced into this “buy high/sell low” policy it will no longer be able to pay the government the very substantial annual dividends which went for our schools, hospitals and social programs.

What will now happen is a little three card monte game where BC Hydro will hike its rates to citizens and industry to make some extra money to give back to us as that missing dividend! One must also remember that there won’t be any BC Utilities Commission to stop this nonsense (Campbell took care of that just as soon as our public watchdog blew the whistle on the foolish scheme last year).

As Damien and I traveled the province speaking and showing DVDs, telling people what I’ve just revealed, there was no answer from either the "mom and pop" companies (such as General Electric, Ledcor etc.) nor from the government. During the 2009 election I spoke and challenged the Liberal government to meet with me in debate and there were no takers!

Now we know why – Damien and I have been right all along.

I believe that’s because Premier Campbell is a Fraser Institute acolyte who simply detests publicly owned companies. There is no other explanation for this mad energy policy whereby British Columbia sees its rivers and the ecology they sustain destroyed, its first class power company hurtling into bankruptcy, its profits going out of province all because of a hatred of public power by a far right-wing premier.

I said that Damien and I have been right all along as to what’s happening and this is where engineer and economist Erik Andersen comes in.

Click here to see his astonishing report making it clear what is happening. BC Hydro is going broke, it’s that simple.

Quite properly, Mr. Andersen doesn’t deal with government policies but just the facts.

Please read this and forward to your friends. The first step toward dealing with this catastrophe in the making is bringing an end to the fantasy Campbell has conjured for the past decade that this private power policy is an economic and environmental benefit for the people of BC.

The Enbridge proposed pipeline from the Tar Sands to Kitimat has been much in focus since the terrible spill by Enbridge into the Kalamazoo River recently. This is the same company - which has a pathetic safety record, incidentally - that proposes a "1,170-kilometre pipeline moving petroleum from Edmonton to the deep-sea port of Kitimat on the central B.C. coast, and a smaller companion pipeline moving condensate along the same route". (See Fallout from Enbridge's Michigan oil spill spreads to B.C., by Carrie Tait and Julie Fortier in the Financial Post.)

British Columbians should be asking a lot of questions, which they no doubt will, which will be answered by the first class PR division of Enbridge. One of their favourite answers - and I'm not sure the example is right but it's only by way of illustration - is that there are only 300 barrels of oil spilled for every 1,000,000 shipped. As I say, the numbers could be different but they ignore, conveniently, that the oil/sludge isn't spilled 100 barrels at a time.

Let's look at what's in it for BC.

In a word, virtually nothing.

This isn't a BC company employing the people of BC. There are no taxes from Enbridge. At best perhaps some "peppercorn" rent for the right-of-way.

And what do we get?

A disaster waiting to happen!

A gloomy prediction?

Of course it is but it's a fact. It's simple mathematics and logic.

If you took a revolver with one hundred chambers and just one bullet and started pulling the trigger with the barrel at your temple, and you decided to do it 10 times, you run a risk and you can calculate it.

If you decided to do it steadily for one hour, you run a risk and can calculate it.

If, on the other hand, you pull that trigger with no limit as to numbers or no time limit, it ceases to be a risk but is a certainty waiting to happen.

Thus it is with a pipeline. And thus it is with the Trans-Alaska pipeline which spilled 5,000 barrels last May, which is only one of many. The citizens of Alaska wish to God they'd never approved it in the first place.

Now we're not only dealing with a certain rupture of the pipeline, we're dealing with the uncertainty as to where the breach will come, how much will be spilled, and what damage will be done. The pipeline traverses some of the most important grazing regions of caribou, not to mention our great wilderness which, according the Campbell government, is the "best place on earth".

Enbridge presents this undertaking as great news for Northern BC and Alberta. No doubt it helps Alberta to move its product - oil sludge - to its market (China) but what does it do for Northern BC?

We hear of employment but never are told that most of that employment will come from outside the province - nor that it will come mainly as short term construction jobs. In this regard it's reminiscent of the so-called "run-of-river" projects where the projects typically hire only a third local, and they are the lowest paying jobs.

Who's going to patrol this pipeline and make sure that safety measures are observed?

Presumably the same people who police the fish farms and the private power people in whose interest it is to exceed their flow regimes.

It's interesting to note that the oil/sludge, when it reaches Kitimat, is no longer Enbridge's responsibility but that of the tanker outfit which probably flies a flag of convenience and is effectively not only ill equipped to handle a spill but has no assets to speak of as well.

Do you think for a moment that Gordon (Pinocchio) Campbell will insist upon a very large bond to be posted by Enridge or the tanker companies?

Right! And pigs can fly.

This project, then, does nothing for BC and presents the certainty of oil spills both on land and, once it gets to the tanker to China, on our coast.

This is, plainly, a great deal for Enbridge and oil/sludge producers but a lousy one for BC and ought not to be even countenanced.

When I've finished you will see why I call the Gordon (Pinocchio) Campbell government gigantic fibbers - to avoid the more appropriate "L" word.

Let's go back to what Finance Minister Colin Hansen had to say about private energy projects and if you "Google" "Colin Hansen power" you will see and hear for yourself. It is a tissue of fibs.

1. He says BC is a net importer of power. That's a falsehood. BC Hydro is a net importer some years but BC as a province is a net exporter, That can be proved by looking at the figures from the National Energy Board which monitors exports. Moreover, when BC Hydro imports from Alberta it does so at "off peak" hours thus very cheaply and because Hydro can "store" energy as water in their reservoirs, it exports that power below the line during "peak" periods making a very tidy profit. To think that our Finance Minister doesn't know that, explains a lot about financial affairs he and the premier have grossly mismanaged and told fibs about. Hanson says that independent power producers are small outfits and that the rivers continue at "their normal stream". This, again, is an outrageous falsehood! Look at our website at www.thecanadian.org or www.saveourrivers.ca and see the visual evidence for yourself through Damien Gillis's videos.

2. Hansen says that only .03% of rivers will be used. The actual figure is double that but the important fact for British Columbians is that at least 600 rivers are targeted all of which have substantial fish values and the power plants will kill the ecology these rivers sustain. He neglects to mention the very substantial clear cutting required for roads and transmission lines.

3. Hansen says these projects are widely supported by many environmentalists. I can think of three - Tzeporah Berman who is seen by most environmentalists as a turncoat for her own profit, Dr. Marc Jaccard who is in the pay of the BC government and Dr. David Suzuki who only supported it if rivers were safe and, as I understand it - David can speak for himself, of course - he has serious reservations about the Energy Policy as being implemented.

4. Hansen says that these projects are "clean and green". It is safe to say that when you see the words "clean and green" the very opposite is true and that very much applies to the bunch who call themselves "Citizens for Green Power", an organization which shills for the private power producers.

See the video yourself - the only true statement is the minister's name.

Also remember that Pinocchio himself and the three who have been Energy Minister over the past several years have maintained that this private power is to give BC energy sufficiency by 2016.

Let me now tell you the real story.

I have spoken around the province, written in articles and stated on radio and TV the following:

1. BC is not in need of energy and won't be for a very long time to come if we practice conservation, (a word foreign to us, sadly), upgrade present facilities, put generators on flood control dams and take back the power we're entitled to under the Columbia River treatment.

2. BC Hydro is forced by the government to enter contracts with private producers to buy power, on a take or pay basis, at double or more what they can sell it for on the export market.

3. I have said that this private power must be sold by BC Hydro because it can only be produced during the annual run-off thus is not available to BC Hydro in the colder months when Hydro can use it. Don McInnes, Head of Plutonic Energy, partnered with General Electric, stated that you would "have to have been on Mars not to know that this energy was for export".

4. I've stated that because BC Hydro must lose huge sums a year financing private energy producers (the contracts total about $40 BILLION at this point), it will no longer be able to pay its handsome annual dividend to the BC Government but that they will still pay the dividend by increasing rates to us the BC public!

What we have not heard from Pinocchio and his ministers is an admission that this power is not for BC use as claimed, has nothing to do with making BC self sufficient and moreover is being subsidized by the public of BC through its crown corporation, BC Hydro.

Now, however, the truth is out, though you had to read it in the Globe and Mail, not Canwest which is the laundry for the BC government's dirty linen.

On Page S3 of the Globe and Mail for July 30 there is an interview under the headline POWER POLITICS, Will the Clean Energy Act clear the way for British Columbia to become a significant exporter of renewable energy?

Bill Bennett, the Energy Minister, the cabinet blab, states "we are actively working toward developing export opportunities to markets such as California. Many states and provinces want to reduce their emissions by replacing energy generated from carbon intensive fuels and we are in a unique position to offer these jurisdictions clean and reliable power generated at competitive prices. (I'll say!! RM) We will need to work with independent power producers as we seek and advance these opportunities."

"BC Hydro, as required under this act (the so-called Clean Energy Act - RM) will present to government an integrated resource plan on export opportunities. In the meantime, the government is committed to working collaboratively with the independent power industry."

To digress for a moment, you are probably asking yourself, as I have asked, if this is such a terrific idea, why isn't it being done by BC Hydro, our own company, so that all the profits would flow to the BC Treasury?

For the purposes of this article I simply underscore the obvious - what I've been saying and writing has been absolutely true - this private power is not for BC consumption and that all the profits of this swindle go to private companies, not to the public of British Columbia where they belong.

We also must conclude, on the evidence of the minister responsible, that the sobriquet "Pinocchio" is indeed fitting for Gordon Campbell, the premier of this province who is justifiably shown by our cartoonist Gerry Hummel with his pants on fire.

Article by Rafe Mair in The Tyee. Read article

We humans, especially in the western world, have a commitment to growth which, if sustained, will have disastrous results.

In fact growth is a self fulfilling prophecy. For as fast as we expand to the outer limit, that outer limit is handled by developers demanding and getting more land to handle the growth, establishing yet another outer limit. That can't go on!

We seem to believe the old saw that if you don't continue growing you will go backwards into the maw of mediocrity. This mantra of "grow or perish" spurs municipal politicians - where the real action is - to attract more and more industry thus requiring more land for residences. Even when land is kept away from developers, existing apartment space will be forced to go higher.

Senior governments pitch in by building more highways and bridges which, when built, will attract more and more vehicles.

We promise that we'll stop using petroleum for fuel at the same time as we develop more and more dirty oil and build new pipelines to transport it.

More and more people, like me, write editorials and make speeches about all this "progress", more and more people agree and less and less is done about it.

The new economic powerhouses in the world, India and China, (the latter of which virtually owns the United States) will, as North America increasingly depends upon them for goods, demand and get the US and Canada to relax immigration laws - which we'll have no choice but to accept - and we'll build more residences and highways to accommodate them. Areas like the Downtown East Side in Vancouver will become more and more crowded creating an ever increasing demand for more social housing.

We're on a runaway train and don't know how to get off.

The trouble with BC and indeed the country as a whole is that, by international standards, we have plenty of space for more people to occupy even considering the weather factor as you get into northern regions.

How do we deal with this?

There us no magic bullet and people must start thinking - we all must realize that development has become a Ponzi scheme where we need new development to bring in new batches of capital with each new arrival resulting in another new batch able to come in, and on it goes.

It all starts at the municipal level and that's where we must make our concerns felt.

Perhaps I'm a bit optimistic but I see the Canwest writers coming out, just a teeny bit.

If you had just arrived from Mars and looked at old issues of the Vancouver Province and the Vancouver Sun going back a decade you would never, for a moment, know that there have been any environmental issues in BC let alone the disastrous Rivers and Fish Farms catastrophe. In fact you would assume that Premier Gordon (Pinocchio) Campbell is a very popular politician. No doubt you would shake your head when you read the results of published polls and see the depths to which Mr. Campbell's popularity has fallen.

You would see the odd article in the Sun by Scott Simpson on these two issues but they're like letters servicemen send from war zones - enough to show concern but nothing specific about what's really going on.

Mike Smyth in the July 25th edition of The Province goes much further in criticism of the Campbell government than at any time over the past decade. He talks of the cover-up of the BC Lotteries scandal, the screw-up of the HST, the muzzling of the Child Advocate, the privacy scandal, the Freedom of Information mess and the MLA expenses debacle.

Nothing about the government cover-up of sea lice stats, which should, but won't, bring down the government!

Here we have an ongoing plan to desecrate our rivers so that BC Hydro can pay double what it's worth to give BC Energy that it can't use. From Palmer and Smyth, nothing. Zilch.

Here is an issue that presently has run to $40 BILLION! BC Hydro must pay for energy it doesn't need, something that dwarfs the Glen Clark fast ferries fiasco without a comment from the intrepid Canwest political writers.

Here we have the fish farm issue, international in scope, with Alexandra Morton probably BC's most tenacious fighter, on an issue she has taken up with the likes of the King of Norway, and it's as if she weren't there!

I sense this may have something to do with the fact that I've been on these issues - Smyth is mad at me big time. He has reason to be but that doesn't excuse him avoiding issues because I'm on them.

Mike might answer that that's not the reason, which puts me in mind of the lawyer in a southern courtroom (where things are a bit laid back) who, to the obvious displeasure of the judge, smoked a big cigar throughout the trial.

After the case was lost, the lawyer said to the judge "I think it's terrible that you should decide against my client just because I smoked a cigar during the hearing".

"That wasn't the reason I found against you", replied the judge.

"Well", said the lawyer, "it's a better reason than any you gave in your judgment".

C'mon Mike, grow up!