Green voters sealed deal for NDP in Nanaimo byelection
There is one basic reason why the NDP won in Nanaimo’s byelection: Almost twothirds of the 2017 Green voters voted NDP this time in order to keep the Greens in power.
For the first time in Canadian history, voters preferring one party, the Greens, voted for a different party, the NDP, to keep itself in office as part of the government.
Pundits and commentators analyze the strengths and weakness of each candidate and of each party’s campaign. In this unusual byelection, those factors played a minimal role.
The Liberal percentage went up, and had the Greens not shifted en masse, the Liberals would have won.
Now, in Nanaimo, as in the B.C. Legislature, a small number of Greens played a determining role.
John Redekop, Abbotsford, professor emeritus in political science, Wilfrid Laurier University
Inaction haunts Wilkinson
B.C. Liberal leader Andrew Wilkinson said his job was to hold Premier John Horgan and the NDP’s feet to the fire.
Now it looks as if he’s the one with hot feet after the public has learned, after 16 years of Liberal rule, the kinds of over-the-top entitlement that was occurring in Victoria.
Wilkinson showed no interest in “coming together” with the NDP to solve the spending problem previous to the damning report by Speaker Darryl Plecas being made public. That brings me to another point: the laundering of money through casinos that the Liberals also did nothing about.
Kate McMaster, White Rock
SIN number request wrong
B.C.’s NDP government expects us to provide our social insurance numbers electronically when we apply to be exempt from their negative-billing speculation tax. With the government’s history of failing to guarantee privacy and security of personal information, might we not just as well post our SIN on social media to allow hackers the opportunity for fraud and identity theft?
Isn’t it odd that no B.C. lawyer has challenged this demand for personal information as an invasion of privacy?
Gerald Baskett, Coquitlam
Money made off ‘fake fear’
Where is this rising tide of climate costs due to fossil-fuel use that West Coast Environmental Law lawyer Andrew Gage speaks about in his recent op-ed?
Gage says oil companies stand to make a lot of money by delaying climate action. Let’s not forget the amount of money lawyers like Gage will make by creating fake fear about fossil-fuel use.
Thomas Black, Burnaby
Mounties broke public trust
The discovery of major wrongdoing by several Mounties involved in the Surrey Six murders makes me sick and angry — especially the antics of Derek Brassington, who is now tearfully pleading guilty after being caught having an affair with a witness in the case. Disgraceful!
Having broken the trust that the RCMP should have with the public, he is only sentenced to house arrest.
What was once a well-respected police force is now a bad joke.
George Pearson, Adams Lake
Judge sends bad message
The search of the suspected drug dealer’s vehicle was too invasive, says the judge? Really? What message does acquitting someone caught with 27,500 fentanyl pills send to police, who often have to rely on instinct and training to keep these parasites in check? Don’t bother, and turn a blind eye?
I am not a fan of the RCMP, but this was a slap in the face to justice itself, and us all.
Alan Steele, Vancouver