Thinking about the Canadian situation a bit more. One bad thing is the BC government has rather blotted its copybook with a lot of folk - the previous premier - Campbell - did two very silly things. He brought in a carbon tax (and, yes, it was him, he's a control freak) with the idea, I think, of placating the tree huggers, etc but it's been unpopular with every one else. The other was to harmonize the BC sales tax with the federal GST - not a bad idea in itself, but he sprung it on everyone just after an election campaign in which basically he promised no new taxes (sound familiar?). The damn fool; there was no urgency. The uproar was enormous and the party got rid of him and a good thing because he's got a tin ear. The party put the whole tax question out to a referendum in attempt to placate the masses. Meanwhile, the socialist opposition party has been tearing itself apart in a struggle between old line commies and ones who're trying to look "Swedish", so the non commie provincial Liberals (who are Conservative - unlike the federal ones), might yet win the next election.
What a mess. Totally unnecessary. And bothersome because in some ways BC with Alberta is an important part of Conservatism as seen by the rest of Canada.
So the picture I drew in my previous post might be too sanguine. To what degree a one term BC socialist government (and it would one term) might affect the rightward drift of Saskatchewan and Manitoba is unclear. Fortunately, the Ontario election will come before the BC one and unless the Conservatives shoot themselves in the foot, they should win there. |
