kelownabomberfan

They didn't really "give up" salary increases, they were demanding salary increases that even the NDP couldn't stomach (which shows how over the top gross they were) and so the NDP, trying to please their union masters while also trying to spin it as a win to the general public, thought the public wouldn't understand just how crazy it was for an employer to give up control over hiring to a union, and gave in on that concession, rather than give the BCTF giant raises. The BCTF of course jumped on the offer, because they were essentially given a license to hire, with a bottomless pit as a budget. What union wouldn't take that deal? The BCTF is universally hated in BC by both the public and other unions as they always ask for/demand way more money in raises than everyone else. CUPE was mad at them last year because they had to close down when the BCTF went on strike, and it made them look bad too. Of all of the recent union negotiations, the BCTF was the only union that actually went on strike. Even the nurses just settled a few weeks ago.

I need to share this with my idealized nieces and nephews who are so brain-washed by their teachers right now they are only capable of voting either NDP or Green. Though I doubt that any of what you are saying would sink in, or it would be just ignored. I talk about the bloated wasteland that the NDP created here in BC in the 1990's but all I get are excuses. There is literally no excuse for this kind of hiring and management behaviour. It is clear is it purely done to placate the insatiable need of the unions to have as many dues-paying members as possible, at the cost of the taxpayers. It is corruption, through and through, though extremely hard to prove.

one of my favorite Dave Chappelle shows...

The Sharks and their fans seem really keyed up to beat the Kings this year. Guess they are tired of losing all of the time. They even have a slogan "Break the Line" and the fans were going nuts last night in SJ chanting "Beat the Kings". Or something like that.

yeah on the other hand though, I don't see why you need to claw back pensions on people who entered public service with the expectation at the end of the day they'd have a good pension. Being an MLA is a hard job, and I would like to see that pay and benefits are such that the job attracts good qualified people. I don't begrudge Steve Ashton his pension, he served for 35 years.

Didn't LA come back from a 3-0 deficit a few years ago? I only remember that because I took a whole bunch of Sharks and was rubbing it in to everyone else in my pool how dumb they were for picking Kings. I forgot the power of suck that is Joe Thornton in the playoffs.

I think this is just going after chump change. Time to go after the big dollar waste. And it must be big. The NDP was over spending by half a billion a year. How is that even possible?

I will agree with you if this were 1989. He's totally screwed himself over with his party lifestyle. I don't see his voice lasting much longer as it already sounds pretty shot. If you want to go long you have to take care of yourself, like Mick Jagger and Paul McCartney. And Bobby Curtola.

Denied! I really like that definition of political correctness, sums up the whole thing perfectly.

ok not a hoax. That's sad news. Died way too young. Why is it always the talented ones that go so young? Motley Crue and Axl Rose are probably going to live to 120.

I am thinking it's high time I did too. Twenty-five years of free agency after never being signed in the first place is enough, I have to start to accept reality.

I get that, but do they need tackling dummies too?

I am thinking this is a hoax.

A doctrine fostered by a delusional, illogical minority, and rabidly promoted by an unscrupulous mainstream media, which holds forth the proposition that it is entirely possible to pick up a turd by the clean end.

In cases like these, the only way to get the politicians off their butts is to go to the media. But it really sounds like the issue is not enough doctors. We are doing ok here because we've had a lot of South African doctors coming to live here, just because it's a nice place to live, and they are wanting to get out of South Africa. I doubt you'll get too many doctors moving from Capetown to Thompson though. Might make a good background story for a CBC sitcom.

From what I hear, this is what is going on in Alberta right now.

I can agree with this, though as I said she may want to distance herself from the NDP, which may help her. I do think though that if she governed more for the center and could show some real results she has a chance to look like a hero to the people of Alberta. Campaigning for more pipelines help. It's too bad she gave in on that carbon tax garbage, that will probably bite her.

Well said.

How did I know that this would be your response. Look, you can blame NDP losing on "ideological hatred" and put your head in the sand, if that makes you feel better, or you can go out in the world and find out why the NDP isn't very popular. Taxing and spending is not a popular method to stay elected. At some point you have to pay the piper. But the real scary part of the NDP isn't even the taxing or the spending, it's this new environmentalist faction that is just killing you guys.

I think if Notley is interested in political survival, she should drop the NDP moniker and do a center-left alliance with the Alberta Liberal Party of some kind. I realize that this is easier than it sounds, but I'm not the only one saying this. After watching Notley getting booed by members of her own party at the convention two weeks ago when she started talking about building more pipelines, I realized that the NDP is really struggling with its identity right now. The old guard of labour unions and trades is still there, but they are being under-mined by a young, more militant faction of environmentalists, who don't seem to care about jobs or the economy. Case in point - I tuned in on CPAC to the convention and watched Daniel Blaikie make an impassioned plea for union jobs in the Aerospace sector in Winnipeg. He came across as passionate and legitimately concerned about Winnipeg aerospace workers. He wanted the NDP to adopt a policy to protect workers from some unfair legislation. He seemed to be making great head-way, until another delegate from Quebec, some young woman, stood up and implored the party to vote down the resolution that Blaikie was asking for, because these workers worked on airplanes, and airplanes use "fossil fuel". So there you go, if you are in an industry that uses "fossil fuel", there are people in the NDP who honestly believe that you shouldn't be working in it. This faction, lead by Steve Lewis and his brain-damaged son Avi (along with Avi's wife Naomi Klein) are growing stronger every day, and continue to push the Leap Manifesto. That means that Notley is screwed. Her own party hates her province and wants all oil industry jobs killed, as well as all future pipeline projects. If she truly wants to stand up for Albertans, she has to walk away from her own schizophrenic party and fight the good fight via a different party that still believes in jobs and the economy, not insane fairy land concepts that the NDP Leapers want to see.

More on the ruling of the BC Court of Appeals:

Thanks for posting that link Jacquie. All I can say is that the author of that article is being horrible biased and not telling the entire story, not by a long shot. She also mentions the 2014 BC Supreme Court ruling of Justice Griffin. That ruling was over-turned in the BC Court of Appeal, and soundly over-turned. The BCTF and Justice Griffin looked rather foolish, in fact. http://globalnews.ca/news/1971504/b-c-court-of-appeal-rules-in-favour-of-government-over-bctf/

I think it actually would make a huge difference. Blaming NDP failures at the ballot box to just pure ideological hatred is not accepting the real problem, and that is that the NDP policies just don't resonate well with the voters. The BC NDP had the last election here in 2013 in the bag, until their leader Adrian Dix (who also was responsible for the 1998 deal with the BCTF that screwed over taxpayers) said that he would outright kill a $4 billion economic development project, the Kinder Morgan pipeline. He dropped about 20% in the polls the next day. How is that "ideological hatred"? It's just plain stupid is what it is. And the NDP just doesn't get it. You are right about one thing, adhering to a failed ideology no matter what and expecting a different result every election does seem to indicate blindness. Or insanity.

I'm not going to go around the merry-go-round again with Enstrom. Let's just say if he's traded, I'm not going to cry.

what I think people should do is look at the big picture when voting, rather than just one or two issues, or how the government policy affects only their own lives. I had a neighbor once who told me that they voted NDP, purely because they felt that the NDP would give them more welfare than the Liberals. I just hate that mentality, just as I hate the unions always putting millions of dollars and forcing members to work for the NDP, purely for selfish interests which include sweet-heart labour deals, that screw the taxpayers. If its truly about everyone winning, then this myopic approach just doesn't work in the long term. You can't just keep upping labour costs and expect there not to be consequences.