Hello dear subscribers,
We’ve been absent on the newsletter front, focussed on Northern Beat content and all that. But we heard you loud and clear and will now be reaching out more regularly.
Sometimes it may just be to loop you in on our latest stories and flag a few gems from across the province. Other times we’ll deliver a bit of current affairs banter and political analysis.
Today, we’re going with a light mix. So please grab a beverage of your choice and scroll on.
Everyone’s favourite tax
The carbon tax is getting a lot of air time in the legislative chamber lately as the BC United and BC Conservatives argue against it, the BC NDP remind the BCU they brought it in, as if no changes have been made since then, and the BC Greens roll their eyes at all three. The BC Cons adopted the federal Conservatives snappy ‘axe the tax, spike the hike’ slogan, which seems like a smart, if unoriginal, game plan given 73 per cent of British Columbians want Eby to join the seven other premiers and say no to the tax increase.
So far, the Eby government has resisted. But I for one am grateful for the debate. Not because either side of the argument is riveting or because I care overly about the tax (sorry, I don’t), but because it precipitated the ‘baloney battle’ verbal jousting match between Eby and Conservative Party of Canada Leader Pierre Poilievre, neither of whom are known for their back-slapping humour.
Which just goes to show how desperate we are for jokes and off-the-cuff repartee in the vacuum of dad-joke provocateur John Horgan’s departure from office. [Partial points here to the BC Cons for their two-chicken stunt.]
On a more serious note (because of course I really do care), Todd Corrigall shares a northerner’s view on the tax in his Northern Beat OpEd, Rural residents bear carbon tax brunt.
Spend spend spend
As the NDP government prepares for a fall election, spending is unsustainable, say economists, and it looks like it will continue to skyrocket. We’re all shocked!!
Land use changes cause acrimony
The BC government has yet again introduced changes to land management, this time attempting to give First Nations the legal right to acquire and hold land in the province. This follows a contentious dock management plan for the Sunshine Coast, that Global TV’s Paul Johnson reported on. And which came on the heels of another significant dust-up earlier this year after the province quietly released a public consultation on dramatic changes to land use in BC… without telling the public.
McMillan LLP Indigenous law experts wrote a bulletin, which the Vancouver Sun’s Vaughn Palmer learned about in the mysterious ways information gravitates to him, and he wrote a few columns. Here’s one to get you started. The BC government denied the changes were any big deal, but others disagreed, saying it could give First Nations land use decision-making power over non-Indigenous people and a veto in its joint decision making with government. Journalist Keith Norbury parsed through the contentious nuances of whether consent equals a ‘veto.”
Skeena MLA and former Haisla Nation chief councillor, Ellis Ross, who has spent decades studying and living Aboriginal rights and title, says none of land use changes are needed because previous court cases have already paved the way for reconciliation. He contends these changes are just sowing division and dangerous unrest “between natives and non-natives,” and between First Nations themselves. Read his OpEd: BC land management failures are a cautionary tale. The BC NDP ultimately yanked the first land use bill, but watch for it to come up again after the election.
Grave Error furor
The book, Grave Error: How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth about Residential Schools), by authors C.P. Champion and Tom Flanagan, is creating a furor in the northern interior, where, First Nations and some city councillors are demanding the mayor of Quesnel resign for mentioning it in a discussion about what titles to stock in the local library, according to a CBC report.
The topic is incredibly complicated and white hot emotionally. The scholars, legal minds and journalists who have contributed to the book are highly accomplished with nothing to gain and everything to lose by wading into these treacherous cultural waters.
All of which means, I must now read this book.
Gag me with a meth pipe
The ‘Nobody signed up to be exposed to fentanyl in the workplace’ column by Rob Shaw, offers an overview of the nearly unbelievable situation in BC’s hospitals where illicit drug use, weapons and drug dealing are apparently A-OK. This, according to a 2023 Northern Health directive leaked by the BC United last week.
Health Minister Adrian Dix and BC United health critic Shirley Bond square off about it here. In a curiously disconnected response, Dix insists illicit drug use is against health authority policy, even as Bond holds up the Northern Health directive stating otherwise. The situation is so bad in some hospitals, nurses have lodged complained with WorkSafe BC, as the effervescent Katie de Rosa from the Vancouver Sun reports.
All of which segways nicely into Destigmatizing Drug Use Has Been a Profound Mistake, the OpEd written by scientists Keith Humphreys and Jonathan Caulkins for The Atlantic, and reprinted in Northern Beat.
Crackpot arguments hold sway in court
Another hot potato for the BC NDP is the unresolved public drug use situation.
Incredibly, in late 2023, the BC Supreme Court agreed with the Harm Reduction Nurses Association that people will be irreparably harmed if they can’t use illicit drugs wherever they want in public. Last December, the Court granted an injunction against the province’s Restricting Public Consumption of Illegal Substances Act, which basically banned public drug use near business entrances, bus stops, skate parks and playgrounds.
It’s a mystery how the Court drew this conclusion. Was no one arguing back?Every jurisdiction in the world besides B.C. restricts hard drug use in public. Even in Portugal, where illicit drug possession is also decriminalized, public drug use is illegal – as in NOT allowed. Anywhere.
The burning question is how the Eby government, with a lawyer for a premier, and a literal ministry of lawyers at its command, let this happen. How did the BC government lose control of the process to implement a new law with wide public support to what is basically a fringe drug user advocacy group, represented by a government-funded, rabid anti-authority, legal activist group?
Who was defending the public good in December and how hard did they try? And how did they manage to fumble an appeal of the injunction last month? Instead of getting the injunction struck down, the court rejected BC’s arguments and extended the injunction against the law until the end of June. At which point, hopefully the government will have gotten its act together to defend the law against a constitutional challenge put forward by the same group. As it stands, there are tighter restrictions on tobacco and alcohol consumption in public than illicit drug use.
Fortunately, the Union of BC Municipalities has stepped up and will once again battle on behalf of the province’s beleaguered communities. This time, UBCM will apply for intervenor status in the constitutional challenge. The organization previously showed its calm, cool muscle under gets-stuff-done president Trish Mandewo, when it went a few rounds in the ring against the BC government to knock back implementation of the encampment legislation last fall. So we have high hopes the organization can bring similar common sense to an uncommonly dysfunctional situation.
Exciting new ‘safe supply’ brand hits illicit markets
On other drug fronts (they just keep coming in BC), several BC police detachments report thousands of safe/safer supply pills in their drug seizures, indicating that government-funded hydromorphone, oxycodone, stimulants and benzodiazepines are part of a great new “safe” product line for organized crime.
Basically… BC safe supply drugs are helping the illicit market get in front of the ‘toxic drugs’ branding problem that has plagued it for the past years. As an additional bonus, the profit margins on safe supply pills paid for by our governments are out of this world. A senior investigator from PG RCMP explains more in our story AB minister challenges BC government on diversion. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and federal Conservative Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre weren’t impressed, but Premier Eby and various ministers rejected any changes to the program and instead spent a few days denying, deflecting and downplaying issues of diversion.
Meanwhile, BC’s Provincial Health Officer admitted in February diversion commonplace and that very little is known about where the drugs are going, but nonetheless recommended expanding safe supply program to include more drugs, at higher potencies in more varied formulations. No doubt BC’s illicit drug market stands ready to distribute this windfall.
Polls and wildcards
The latest Leger polling shows the BC NDP holding 43 per cent support despite voter discontent with the government. The wildcards in the NDP’s seemingly inevitable march to an October victory are of course the BC Conservatives and the BC United. Leger shows the Cons increasing support in metro Vancouver, but Angus Reid had the two parties neck-and-neck. It’s up-in-the-air whether the BC United can translate their recent uptick in fundraising to votes on the ground. As it stands, the two parties look poised to knock each other out and hand the BC NDP an even bigger majority.
That said, the government is on loose footing on more than a few fronts these days, and a lot can happen in six months.
Speaking of loose footing: Clean BC did a face-plant
Clean BC, the core plank in the BC NDP’s environment platform, was in the news again and not in a good way. You may recall this sizzling critique of the program’s effect on BC’s economy from last November. But the latest might be much worse. A whistleblowing nightmare of as yet unknown proportions, you really just need to watch this TikTok video that has gone viral and been reposted all over social media.
In it, Chase Barber, co-founder of Edison Motors shares his company’s experience trying to apply for Clean BC grant funding – from a shake down by a 3rd party running the program, to a BC government and minister who do not seem to care. If you find someone who looks and sounds more believable than Barber as an unwilling but compelled whistleblower, let us know.
Rob Shaw also wrote a column about Edison, the alleged kick-back scheme at Clean BC and the move – blocked by government – by all three opposition parties to have the auditor general investigate.
‘People should not have to put up with that’
On a lighter note (possibly), for a snapshot of the retinue of responses we in the press gallery regularly hear from BC government members when they’re in scramble mode, buzz through this beauty of a column by the reigning champ of BC political commentary and analysis.
That’s all we’ve got for today. Thanks for hanging in until the end!
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Cheers to spring,
Fran
Questions, comments, ideas, feedback, contact me at Fran@northernbeat.ca
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