seriously people go fucking vote

[sungoo]

I hope they say yes to STV's cause what we have now is a false sense of democracy.
and I hope if that the STV passes, that they either make a better form of the STV's or hammer out it's flaws cause we should never neglect our pursuit for democracy. It bothers me that when we vote, a lot of people don't even bother voting third parties or don't even bother voting because they feel they're throwing their vote away. I threw away my vote this year; It doesn't make sense to me how that is a form of democracy. Then again, if I had voted for one of the two main stream parties, I would be voting for who I believed had the best chance of winning, rather then voting for the party I belived that best represented my ideals. And that in itself would of been a failure of democracy.

Aghhhhhhhh
anyways, time for bed. Enough ranting for tonight.
p.s. I hate you politics.

[mapleleaf4ever]

Originally Posted by miss.myra

I voted with a check mark, I always seem to.


How about all of you?

I used the trusty and tried X. :)

[b0ld]

I put smiley's on mine :)

[mapleleaf4ever]

^ That would count as a spoiled vote would it not?

[Only_Glory]

Originally Posted by BongMan

Well looks like another run with the liberals personally Im glad and looks like there is a fair mount of NDP seats to help keep the liberals in check..

so true. this is all that matters really. as long as it's not the majority of liberals or majority of ndp, there is hope for a sense of balance in our government

[thebobman]

Originally Posted by Grapes

Right. That's the federal liberals. Gordo's the drunk driver who somehow stays in power, I remember now.

uh, there's a large difference between driving drunk on your vacation and skimming money for personal and political use from charity bingo, dude.

Originally Posted by Grapes

But voting for the Liberals because "They're not the NDP" is an excuse?

Bottom line.. the old cliche, absolute power corrupts absolutely. There's no telling what trouble the Liberals would've got themselves into over the next 4 years if they'd been given the kind of mandate they had last election. I'm glad they've been checked somewhat this time around.

who said vote for the liberals? don't vote for either! Did anybody even LOOK at the green party platform? It's not just tree hugging hippie crap anymore...

What I'm saying isn't pro-liberal propoganda. It's just strongly anti-NDP. It may seem that it's pro-liberal because you see the liberals as the only choice.

All I was saying is that voting for the NDP isn't a good thing. It's not. We're talking about a party that was riddled with scandal for the entire time it was in power. When something like that happens the people will react.

And they did. The last election was the largest majority government BC has EVER seen, and, I think, will ever see.

That kind of reaction should be a sign that it's time to disbandon the party or at worst heavily restructure it. That utterly didn't happen.

It's still staffed by most of the same people in the same ridings and it's on the SAME platform.

The Liberals are a lot of very, very bad things, but their job made them out as facists and dictators mostly because of the mess the NDP left.

People in this province have such a short political memory that it scares the hell out of me. I was a student at that "Tech BC" fiasco that was a brilliant idea the NDP set up. It was a fabulous school and I'm still terribly bitter about the Liberals axing the whole thing and passing it off to SFU who prompltly made it into a gong show. Having said that. The original deal that was set up by the NDP for Tech BC had the school paying $250 million to ICBC for rental of 1/3rd of the new building that ICBC was building there for a tenure of 25 years. Problem being that the entire building was going to cost ICBC $268 million. So ICBC gets a building after 25 years for $18 million dollars. ICBC was a crown corporation, created by the NDP in the 1970s. Seriously!

As soon as the NDP got back into power after the Van DerZalm fiasco what happened? The insurance rates went up! and then they went up again and again! What happened when they lost power? private insurance companies were suddenly allowed to come back in and the insurance rates dropped. This is just ONE example, there's plenty of others not to mention the enourmous scandal in Nanimo with bingogate, followed by the demise of Clark for his involvement in casino liscening. Even since then, the NDP has NOT made that many changes to either it's representatives or it's policies.

I think after two enormously public crimes like those the party should have to disolve. Period. End of story.

If you want to make a NEW party with the same members, go ahead. But you should look long and hard at the people that are in your party. Clearly something is NOT right.

[stephen_c]

i am happy w/ the election results.
liberal won.
legislature more balance w/ ndp seats.

[Cdn_Brdr]

Gotta love having a party around that gets no seats and splits the vote...just awesome! At least if the STV passes the Green Party vote would actually translate into some seats for them and help keep our Lib majority (if it happens again in 4 yrs, which is highly unlikely based on past statisitics) more accountable.

As a sidenote, did anyone else notice the correlation between high income areas and the Liberal vote? All of North and West Van, Point Grey, South Surrey..... it seems like the rich folk just love the Libs. I guess people get rich by walking all over other people and pinching their pennies.... just like a good portion of the Lib platform! Rich people are cheap.... that's how they got rich, so of course they don't want to have to fork out for education, healthcare, social housing. The more money they save the better, bring on the Libs and all of their glorious cuts!!!! Where I live, which is the Port Moody-Westwood riding it was a Lib runaway. I live in the most high income area of tri-cities... almost every area around me went NDP. Obviously once you get out into the valley and the interior it's a bit different I think, I'm just speaking of the Lower Mainland.

I'm not saying this is fact by any means but more so asking you a question.... is there a correlation between income and party lines here? Do the rich vote Lib and the regular poor folk Green or NDP? That and do you think people tend to vote more for their local representative or for the party leaders? A couple of independents actually had a very strong showing in their ridings... I'm just curious as to what others have to say about these things.

As for bobman doing the whole anti-NDP bit... I can understand people have a dislike for the party but for christ sake... update your reasoning! ICBC in the 70's is hardly a reason to flaunt now. We've moved well past the 70's and truth be told, no other gov't since has ever even brought up the idea of dissolving it!

and that folks, was my 2cents.... THE END

[thebobman]

Originally Posted by Cdn_Brdr

Gotta love having a party around that gets no seats and splits the vote...just awesome! At least if the STV passes the Green Party vote would actually translate into some seats for them and help keep our Lib majority (if it happens again in 4 yrs, which is highly unlikely based on past statisitics) more accountable.

As a sidenote, did anyone else notice the correlation between high income areas and the Liberal vote? All of North and West Van, Point Grey, South Surrey..... it seems like the rich folk just love the Libs. I guess people get rich by walking all over other people and pinching their pennies.... just like a good portion of the Lib platform! Rich people are cheap.... that's how they got rich, so of course they don't want to have to fork out for education, healthcare, social housing. The more money they save the better, bring on the Libs and all of their glorious cuts!!!! Where I live, which is the Port Moody-Westwood riding it was a Lib runaway. I live in the most high income area of tri-cities... almost every area around me went NDP. Obviously once you get out into the valley and the interior it's a bit different I think, I'm just speaking of the Lower Mainland.

I'm not saying this is fact by any means but more so asking you a question.... is there a correlation between income and party lines here? Do the rich vote Lib and the regular poor folk Green or NDP? That and do you think people tend to vote more for their local representative or for the party leaders? A couple of independents actually had a very strong showing in their ridings... I'm just curious as to what others have to say about these things.

As for bobman doing the whole anti-NDP bit... I can understand people have a dislike for the party but for christ sake... update your reasoning! ICBC in the 70's is hardly a reason to flaunt now. We've moved well past the 70's and truth be told, no other gov't since has ever even brought up the idea of dissolving it!

and that folks, was my 2cents.... THE END

dude... the ICBC example was showing a history of shaddyness going back to the 70s. I tied it in with the screwy deal which clearly benefitted a NDP created insurane monopoly. That happened in 2000.

Soo.... uh... yeah... Also: if you're any party that comes in to the mess the NDP had made of the budget like the liberals did after they one their election back in 2001. If you wanted to make a balanced budged you had to cut things, because the NDP ran a deficeit.

Consitantly.

'92-93 - $2 billion
'93-'94 - $2 billion
'94-95 - $900 million
'95-'96 - $400 million
'96-'97 - $300 million
'97-98 - $400 million

Total: $6.9 Billion

BCs Total Debt at the end of '98 = $31 billion

granted they'd gotten it under control in '99-00 ($150 millino surplus) and were upt ot $1.56million in '01. but that's after 6 years of serious deficits, and during that time taxes were sky-rocketing.

The problem here isn't strickly limited to the NDP by any means tho, but they have created a province where we now EXPECT a budget deficit, we figure "what the hell, it's just a few billion bucks" because it doesn't appear to directly affect us. there in lies the rub.

[Cdn_Brdr]

^The Libs did bring the debt up to $37.5 billion themselves too..... that's another 6.5 billion. Hardly a good basis of argument. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to falsify your reasoning but you can't deny that the Libs have done some damage of their own. The extra debt they incurred over 4 yrs can't be attributed to thier 'inherited mess' completely can it?

As much as I hate the lesser of however many evils statement it really does seem like the way most people vote in this province. That's a horrible way to have to look at politics IMO.

[Senior]

The Bobman,

"Bingo Gate" was an isolated incident that involved a small group of people. Have you even bothered to look into what happened or are you just displaying a typical knee jerk reaction?

Glen Clark was later aquited of all charges related to his home renovations. For some reason no one bothered to mention that when he was aquited or ever for that matter.

The fast ferries was retareded in general, point conceded.

Other than that what are all the scandals you are talking about?

[Vitamin-X]

acquitted doesn't mean innocent.

The NDP have always been a party that, when caught in something bad
(oh lets see, maybe stealing from bingo)
promptly puts all of its daggers in its leaders back, and then says
"hey it was all him, but he's gone now, look at our new leader isn't he a great guy "

[miss.myra]

Originally Posted by Cdn_Brdr

As a sidenote, did anyone else notice the correlation between high income areas and the Liberal vote? All of North and West Van, Point Grey, South Surrey..... it seems like the rich folk just love the Libs. I guess people get rich by walking all over other people and pinching their pennies.... just like a good portion of the Lib platform! Rich people are cheap.... that's how they got rich, so of course they don't want to have to fork out for education, healthcare, social housing. The more money they save the better, bring on the Libs and all of their glorious cuts!!!! Where I live, which is the Port Moody-Westwood riding it was a Lib runaway. I live in the most high income area of tri-cities... almost every area around me went NDP. Obviously once you get out into the valley and the interior it's a bit different I think, I'm just speaking of the Lower Mainland.

I'm not saying this is fact by any means but more so asking you a question.... is there a correlation between income and party lines here? Do the rich vote Lib and the regular poor folk Green or NDP? That and do you think people tend to vote more for their local representative or for the party leaders? A couple of independents actually had a very strong showing in their ridings... I'm just curious as to what others have to say about these things.

As for bobman doing the whole anti-NDP bit... I can understand people have a dislike for the party but for christ sake... update your reasoning! ICBC in the 70's is hardly a reason to flaunt now. We've moved well past the 70's and truth be told, no other gov't since has ever even brought up the idea of dissolving it!

and that folks, was my 2cents.... THE END

Different people in different areas have different priorities, hands down. Pulling the income card won't necessarily work, imo because federally your theory is completely contradicted.

As for the NDP thing, do you think the liberals made the province in the mess it is when they came to office? No.


Yes, in principle things like more and more funding for social programs, univerisites, environment, etc. etc. is something every person could agree with, it's a no brainer. Where does the money come from?

Let's look at one example here. During the NDP's reign, they spent way too much money having way too many unionized (read: expensive) employees maintaining the provinces medical services plan. They NEVER produced any kind of initative to try to collect outstanding amounts that people owed as far as their premiums were concerned. Infact, nothing was put forward to actually do things to collect this money until the liberals took office. The liberals also went ahead and increased subsidies for BC'ers of 'low income' to pay less or nothing for their MSP (they are even FURTHER increasing the thresholds for it this august). They also privatized the claims/forms processing, customer service, etc. for MSP so that they could get things done in LESS time (because really, why should someone wait 90 days to get a form processed when it means getting a care card?) costing the province LESS money. Those are smart, innovative solutions. I don't think the libs are fully numbheaded to what BC wants, but they have their head in the right place with actually thinking the whole thing through. Really, do any of us think the NDP was doing the same things when they froze tuition fees? Absolutely not.


of course, a lot of people may disagree with me, but that's just my opinion. :P

[lithe]

the NDP fucked up their term royally, i don't think anyone's going to argue with that. i do think they've recognized their mistakes, and have changed their policies/platforms. i like carole james, and i really like some of the new candidates. i'm happy with the way the election turned out, i wanted the liberals to win both because i've always sided with the liberals more so than any other party ideologically, and because it will be interesting to see what changes can be enacted through consecutive terms. BC's been flip-flopping for too long. however, i'm also happy that there's a strong NDP opposition in order to keep the liberals in check, and happy that my candidate (Gregor Robertson) won.

this is as much as we could have realistically hoped for this term... hopefully the STV will pass and the next elections will see more representative and diverse candidates.

[Senior]

Originally Posted by Vitamin-X

acquitted doesn't mean innocent.

The NDP have always been a party that, when caught in something bad
(oh lets see, maybe stealing from bingo)
promptly puts all of its daggers in its leaders back, and then says
"hey it was all him, but he's gone now, look at our new leader isn't he a great guy "

Well actually it does mean that you are innocent, to be acquitted of all charges they would say is to be found innocent. Beyond that bingo gate was not connected to the leadership of the party in any way. It involved local members on Vancouver Island. Beyond that Mike Harcourt resigned out of principal because that's what a good leader does.

[thebobman]

People have already forgotten the NDP was in the process of cutting the hell out of their over-funded programs towards the end of their last run. They were already closing hospitals and axing tourism programs.


As for examples of NDP scandal well, here's two, just for Clark, from the beginning of his term:

From the CBC

"His (Glen Clark's) government, however, was almost immediately caught up in two scandals: budget deficits and “Hydrogate.” The day Clark was sworn into office, the NDP was under fire over a thermal power plant in Pakistan built with backing from B.C. Hydro. It was alleged that insiders were given the first chance at investing in the project. Clark fired B.C. Hydro’s top two executives after it was revealed that their family members and other insiders invested in the privatized company, which was projected to return a 24 per cent profit. Glen Clark had been the minister responsible for B.C. Hydro under the Harcourt government but claimed to be unaware of any details about the deal or who the shareholders were."

"Almost simultaneously, in September 1996, Gordon Campbell accused the NDP of “relentless lying” about budget surpluses during the spring election. The province’s budget was actually in a deficit, a fact that bureaucrats in the finance ministry must have known at the time. The allegations were that since British Columbia had a $400-million deficit, the government “cooked the books” in order to get re-elected in 1996. The surplus became a deficit immediately after the election, and was blamed on the legacy of Social Credit mismanagement and federal government offloading. On September 9, 1999, Glen Clark was subpoenaed to appear in court to answer questions about his involvement in the budget process."

Bingo was a smaller group of people, but it was mostly glossed over by the ruling NDP until '95 when the case was reopened (it had been going on since 1970). Harcourt resigned and that in conjunction with the above mentioned misrepresentation of the budget was all that got Clark his win over the Liberals. To call my accusation of Bingo-gate being a scandal as being a "knee-jerk reaction" is to ignore the fact that not only were the people involved prominent members of the NDP but that the NDP itself resisted any investigation for nearly 30 bloody years!