Western Standard - WS Reid Small on the BC NDP leadership race

00:00:00.000 some big changes we got an ndp leadership race going on out there in bc it doesn't seem to be

00:00:04.480 making a lot of news outside of bc but it's a big deal you guys are picking a new premier

00:00:10.240 uh yeah nearly three weeks ago uh our current premier uh john horgan announced that he'll be

00:00:15.120 stepping down uh from his role as the premier and so the question on uh british columbians minds

00:00:20.560 has been uh who the new premier is going to be uh and last night uh that uh the answer to that

00:00:25.440 question became a little bit more clear although uh we all expected it to be the case and that's

00:00:31.760 most likely going to be the attorney general david eby um all the other cabinet ministers that anyone

00:00:38.240 would have expected to have thrown their hat into the ring have confirmed over the last couple weeks

00:00:43.360 that they won't be running for leadership a bunch of them have thrown their support behind eb even

00:00:49.440 before he made the announcement last night uh but last night yeah to the surprise of nobody he he

00:00:54.400 said he will be uh running for bc ndp leadership um and uh as of now he's the only one to be doing so

00:01:02.720 the the timeline set forth uh is for uh december 3rd is when uh the leader will be announced uh but

00:01:10.160 of course if the deadline to enter the race is october uh october 4th uh so if no one else is joined by

00:01:16.640 october 4th then uh that december announcement may be irrelevant and uh david eby may be the premier of bc as

00:01:23.280 early as november you know if he's acclaimed i mean there's some of those differences i guess we see

00:01:28.480 with the ndp they tend to be centralized they tend to like doing things within you know with the

00:01:32.800 conservatives in alberta we've got i think 11 people with their names for we'll see how many

00:01:37.200 cross the bar but it would look very weak for mr eby if he if he just got acclaimed right i mean you

00:01:42.880 you know you want to see a race i mean you don't have a mandate if you've just been appointed so i

00:01:47.040 mean they could be interesting so entering some dangerous turf if they don't get some other candidates in

00:01:50.800 this right well i mean he claimed last night that uh 48 members uh of the party's uh 57

00:01:57.760 uh person caucus uh have uh thrown their support behind him so that's uh you know a remaining nine

00:02:04.080 members unless one of them uh you know decides to uh throw their hat into the ring uh he's gonna be

00:02:09.200 the premier um so some other candidates that were expected would have been a jobs minister uh ravi

00:02:15.040 calon or the minister of finance selena robinson uh calon was very quick after horgan's

00:02:20.560 retirement to announce that uh he wouldn't be running for leadership and that he was gonna

00:02:24.560 throw his support behind evie uh selena robinson uh a few days ago said she wasn't going to be 1.00

00:02:29.760 running for leadership she hasn't clarified where her support lies yet um but yeah it's it seems like

00:02:36.240 the writing's on the wall so they've put out some of the rules i don't know how deeply you've gotten

00:02:41.520 into them you see the cutoff for october the race is going to be held in december that's it's a long

00:02:45.760 period uh is there a a high bar do you know that's been set like in alberta that's been part of the

00:02:51.440 province 175 000 and a thousand signatures from members all over the province uh what does it take

00:02:57.440 to enter the ndp race uh the initial fee is uh 15 000 and that is for the uh october 4th deadline uh and

00:03:06.480 then uh basically up until uh november 13th uh there's going to be uh uh a series of other fees

00:03:14.480 and i i think that it totals forty thousand dollars if i'm not mistaken um so yeah that's

00:03:20.720 that's going to be the amount which is not cheap uh that's for sure no but the fifteen thousand dollars

00:03:26.480 has to be in by october 4th yeah and i mean that's a reasonable fee in my eyes you know make sure a

00:03:31.440 person's serious and and they aren't uh just dipping their toe in the water uh yet it kind of

00:03:36.720 speaks a lot you know that's why i want to examine this a little because we got these parallels going

00:03:39.840 on i mean alberta 175 000 fee and it still hasn't stopped 11 people from from throwing their hats in

00:03:45.760 yet in bc with what sounds to be a reasonable fee and it's running for premier i mean this is a sitting

00:03:50.880 party in power and so far only one person it's just quite striking yeah again and like i said uh you

00:03:58.080 know he claims 48 of uh the 57 person caucuses uh is supporting him um again it's like you said

00:04:06.800 it's all very internal um it seems like there was a lot of like backdoor stuff happening uh it's this

00:04:13.520 is the surprise uh to no one that he is uh the only person uh in the race right now and it didn't

00:04:19.200 take long for the bc liberal caucus to chime in with a scathing press release uh issued last night

00:04:25.520 um they're you know criticizing him for all sorts of things uh the uh bc liberal mla from uh representing

00:04:33.360 white rock uh surrey trevor halford uh is saying that as soon as uh eb is is premier and he's not

00:04:39.680 living in uh horgan's shadow that he's going to revert to uh his uh radical activist ways uh quoting

00:04:47.440 trevor halford there um and yeah he he does come from uh you know he he used to be an activist he

00:04:54.720 published a legal manual in 2007 all about uh how to sue the police uh effectively um and so he's uh

00:05:03.200 you know got two young kids he's 44 years old he'll be uh you know he's really appealing to that

00:05:08.720 sort of younger radical uh portion of uh british colombians and that's exactly what uh the bc liberals

00:05:16.560 are really going after him for for being uh you know quote too radical okay so uh yeah i just see a

00:05:23.520 commenter gail i'll just answer she's asking uh who sets the amount to run for premier and that

00:05:28.720 that's a party thing that's party by party in this case it will be premier because it's the party in

00:05:33.360 power but it's all internal whether it's in alberta or in bc so i mean they could set it at five dollars

00:05:39.120 or at five million it's up to them as a party and their committee and whatever their internal structures

00:05:44.160 are um so with the voting system i mean let's say another candidate comes in against the eb there uh is it

00:05:51.120 a one member one vote for the ndp or is it something of a delegate system uh it's a one member one vote

00:05:59.040 and uh the deadline to vote uh to join as an eligible voting member is september 4th and voting will begin

00:06:05.920 on november 13th okay yeah we were talking about that i mean i know you're a little younger but

00:06:11.040 delegate systems used to be so much more popular you know and i think they were terribly undemocratic

00:06:15.680 but boy they led to great political intrigue we used to watch those conventions and you'd see all

00:06:19.600 these different teams and they'd be wearing the same t-shirts on the floor and literally after

00:06:23.600 one vote passed you'd see the negotiations being made and a cluster would move across and support

00:06:28.960 another one of the candidates and i i think it's a better evolution for everybody even ndp to go one

00:06:34.160 member one vote but boy we lose out on a lot of great political intrigue yeah okay well let's move

00:06:41.120 on to then uh to a little more bc stories while i got to um one you just put up recently about the

00:06:46.560 supporters of tamara leash being uh pretty outraged as we got violent uh offenders walking free among

00:06:52.000 us right yeah there's uh they've been highlighting uh on social media a number of different cases uh

00:06:58.640 and again violent offenders um going through what you might call the revolving door system is uh is

00:07:05.040 nothing new uh especially in bc but across canada um one of the uh the cases i highlighted was was

00:07:12.000 dealing with uh an adult man who he had thousands and thousands of photos recovered from his computer

00:07:19.280 uh of uh what was described as the most disturbing uh child pornography uh described by uh by police

00:07:27.600 uh and uh you know he's currently a free man and people are looking at that and they're going this

00:07:32.240 is crazy why is why is someone like that uh you know walking free right now uh with a conditional

00:07:39.040 sentence uh when tamara leach is uh currently in custody and of course people will say well she uh

00:07:46.080 you know she she was free before but she you know failed to meet the requirements uh for her her 1.00

00:07:54.160 her bail and so they'll say that and but again her her supporters are are not happy um they're they're

00:08:01.040 really making a lot of noise and highlighting a lot of interesting cases yeah well whether people support

00:08:06.800 her or not you know i just wish people would apply a little more common sense to these things i mean

00:08:10.800 even if they think you know what she took part in something that's wrong and i want to see her

00:08:15.120 fined or convicted when she gets to court you got to apply a little common sense thing is she 0.99

00:08:19.440 presenting such a threat to society though that she has to stay in jail until trial when when again

00:08:24.720 as you point out and compare we've got child sex offending perverts who are walking the streets

00:08:29.840 most definitely providing a heck of a lot more risk to people than than she ever would you know just

00:08:36.160 you don't have to support her to support reasonable application of justice right right and then

00:08:41.920 there's there's the uh the same day she was denied bail on july 8th there was that uh 29 year old uh 0.52

00:08:48.640 professional swimmer uh he was uh sentenced to four and a half years uh for sexual assaults that took

00:08:55.120 place uh i believe it was in his apartment in calgary uh and uh he's appealing that and uh a judge of

00:09:04.080 the alberta court of appeal has uh granted him bail uh right now and again his his guilt for the crime

00:09:11.680 that he was uh that he's appealing right now that he was initially charged with is is yet to be

00:09:15.760 unequivocally determined uh but a lot of people are saying like look this is this is crazy that uh you

00:09:21.520 know whether he's innocent or guilty uh the crime that he is you know being charged with that he's

00:09:26.960 attempting to appeal uh is much more heinous than uh than tamara what tamara leach is uh guilty of 1.00

00:09:34.800 if anything yeah well again this is in their eyes yeah yeah uh looking at you know something you've

00:09:40.880 been you're always writing a lot of stories and stuff i think we you know i'm just picking up some

00:09:44.560 stuff from bc that we can relate to everywhere uh we'll kind of pivot a bit uh there's a vancouver

00:09:49.520 park board you know the bike lane battles those happen in every city these municipal cyclists

00:09:54.960 just have their their thing but it sounds like they're meeting as soon as they had a couple

00:09:59.120 people oppose them they just shut down the meeting and walked out on a proposed bike lane was it

00:10:03.520 yeah yeah the uh the the board's chair uh said that uh the he took a recess um when things started

00:10:11.680 getting a little bit heated uh regarding the conversation of bike lanes and he said he didn't

00:10:15.360 want to focus on bike lanes at that time but the conversation kept uh being brought back to it by the

00:10:20.880 third speaker who's a local vancouver lawyer so he took a break uh came back the back and forth uh

00:10:28.640 continued decided to take another break and then upon returning from that break he said uh that he had

00:10:34.160 spoken to uh other commissioners uh and staff and that the energy quote the energy in the room was uh making

00:10:41.360 them feel unsafe uh and so that for that reason he was going to adjourn the meeting uh and when the third

00:10:47.600 speaker the uh the local lawyer uh tried to vocalize his concern with that uh the chair responded by

00:10:53.120 saying yeah this is uh exactly the type of interruption uh that is uh perpetuating these feelings uh

00:10:59.840 among uh the commissioners and staff uh and then he uh asked the meeting snowflakes and they're managing

00:11:07.280 the meetings i mean come on was it you know i mean i could see it if there was a big screaming protest

00:11:12.320 and people were rushing this chair or something like that but uh it sounds to me like just it was just

00:11:17.200 some upset people speaking up because they should be allowed to right and this lawyer he the concern

00:11:23.440 he was raising was uh specifically the uh the bike lane in stanley park uh which has taken over uh a

00:11:29.840 lane of traffic uh since the early days of uh covet 19 uh and uh that has been creating a massive long

00:11:39.680 traffic jams and he's saying that people who are disabled or have mobility issues uh who have no other

00:11:46.080 means of getting to the park are suffering as a result of this and that's the uh the angle that

00:11:50.960 he's taking yeah well we'll see how that goes these battles happen like i said in every city uh they're

00:11:57.840 starting to upset some people though we're losing a lot of road space for uh uh limited use for for

00:12:02.880 cyclists so watch us see how that uh committee learns how to deal with uh unsafe environments those

00:12:08.400 poor souls uh so i mean i guess i'll finish up with this one's kind of interesting uh bc nurse was 1.00

00:12:14.240 suspended it sounds like she was creating fake vaccine cards uh yeah this was uh happening in

00:12:20.240 2021 um they didn't specify exactly the dates but because they were calling them uh vaccine cards i

00:12:26.960 would imagine it was uh when you were able to use uh like a little cardboard slip um which eventually

00:12:33.760 would have been transferred and registered into the uh the card verifier as you see there uh but yeah she 1.00

00:12:40.000 she uh helped four people obtain uh fraudulent uh coven 19 vaccine credentials um and she faced a uh

00:12:48.960 six-month suspension for that and that that was ruled uh last week uh but the incident like i said

00:12:55.440 was uh when the vaccine card was uh actually in place in bc and some people are getting pretty upset

00:13:01.280 now you know just to clarify because i saw a couple emails in that one too just the excerpt you know all of

00:13:05.680 our stories get an excerpt and there was a quote and it's in quotation mark guys because somebody said

00:13:09.440 is this the stand to the western standard yes i saw that yeah it was an excerpt where it says she

00:13:14.480 should be fired losing or losing the nursing license criminally charged with fraud and fade away into 0.87

00:13:18.640 oblivion or jail that was a quote from somebody within the story not the stand to the standard look

00:13:23.440 for those quotation marks on the outside and it really changes the context by myself just kind of

00:13:27.680 remind folks yeah yeah and it's almost like anyone that doesn't recognize the uh the quotation marks

00:13:34.240 might not even be worth uh responding to or acknowledging yeah i know but well sometimes

00:13:39.040 there's confusion or people read in a hurry so it'll be a little all right fair enough i get it

Western Standard - July 20, 2022

WS Reid Small on the BC NDP leadership race

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