There's a big difference between legal and ethical

The current case of the investigation of former Solicitor General John Les by his own police forces and government will end with Les being exonerated.Like the police themselves,investigations of politicians by their colleagues rarely results in anything sticking in a legal sense.This case is brand new and there's a whole lot more to be learned before the thing is put to rest.From the information released one thing is clear.Les used knowledge gained while he was Mayor of Chilliwack to later make land deals that made him very wealthy.Did he break any laws?Probably not,Mr.Les is too savvy a politician to make any slips that could get him busted.Did he use insider knowledge to enrich himself and get around some rules he had intimate knowledge of?Beyond question.Les will be exonerated of any crime because he had all the rules and boundary exemptions at his fingertips.He refused permits or oversaw their refusal and waited for the right time to do the machinations that he,as former Mayor knew all about.He profited from his knowledge and position but probably did it in such a way that he is immune from prosecution.I sincerely hope that he won't be allowed to escape the obvious conflicts of interest that he used to enrich himself where the ordinary citizen was unable,even after two attempts,to do the same.This government has never had any concept of the meaning of conflict of interest.Even Ken Dobell is still lobbying for the company supplying the turnstiles for the skytrain terminals.They feel self enrichment of self and friends is a perk of the job.I thought the idea of the huge pay hike they just gave themselves was supposed to eliminate the impulse to cheat as they are well paid.Not well enough for any of the Campbell insiders as they are continually getting caught with their hands in the cookie jar.

Party of the poor wants penny banished

I recently received an e-mail from Jack Layton telling me how the NDP was the only party providing an opposition(true,unfortunately)and extolling all the good things the NDP had done.I answered back that I had been a voter for the NDP all my life and was now leaving for the Green party as I felt they better represented my personal view of my country.I feel the NDP has abandoned it's roots and forgotten where it came from.Now i read this article in the paper about an NDP MP that wants to banish the penny to history.Pat Martin wants prices rounded off to the nearest five cent mark.I guess he finds it annoying having to mess with pennies when things could be rounded off.I happen to come from an upper middle class family.I have ,however been down on my luck a few times and was counting my pennies,literally.Mr Martin doesn't care any more about people that have to count pennies than he does for the penny.He would like the penny and all those that count them to be put somewhere and forgotten.The one thing that makes the penny so important,coincidentally,is that it is so unimportant to people like Mr.Martin and probably mr.Layton as well and therefore they're willing to part with them for charities and panhandlers and anyone else that's down on their luck.Like the old fellow that was just recently on the news because he was collecting pennies for charity.I see this as the same kind of mentality that you hear whenever the minimum wage is brought up.There are those that care about making life better for everyone and there are those that only care about themselves.You hear them complain that if the minimum wage is raised then they'll lose spending power on their money.So what if people are working and can't afford to eat.I'll have to pay more for my beer.The penny is always a way of anyone being able to put a few bucks aside for a rainy day and easier than collecting your empties for a few months.It's sad that the party of Tommy Douglas that gave us our health care system has forgotten where it comes from.Like the health care system that is being starved out of existence by politicians in collusion with the CMA in a selfish and greedy push for a two tiered medical system the NDP is now more about the money than it is about making life a little more even for everyone in this country.When I saw the country sign on for the necessity to possess picture ID in order to vote.I knew there was no-one in Ottawa that was working for the poor and lower income working stiff.If picture ID is to be a requirment,it must be provided free to every voter.Otherwise it's a means of disenfranchising a large segment of society that isn't capable of holding on to or keeping up to date,photo ID.

Just who's being conned with con-air?

When I first read about this program,I thought:"what's the harm?"So far the people sent back seem to be violent felons and I have no idea why they weren't on Canada wide warrants to begin with.Then I hear they want to ship out every-one with any kind of warrant at all.This begins to sound a lot like another of Sam's Civil City projects.These projects,no matter how pretty you dress them up,are cynical attempts to remove as many of the poor and homeless as possible before the Olympics.By shipping them now,it will do just the opposite.The last guy I saw being loaded on a plane(and what's with the media showing up at a convict extradition?)was very vocal about coming back and wreaking havoc.Can't the warrants be waved so these people can do their time here?This has vigilante written all over it.Now we have vigilante redcoats and vigilante guardian angels and now vigilante air lines.Yes,it's the Olympics at it's plutocratic best.All the security money can buy.Remember those cops Sam said we just couldn't afford.Amazing what you can find when there may be a vote or two in it.Let's get on with the mayoral election and find a Mayor with a sense of vision and one that won't sanction any vigilante group with an axe to grind.

pinecone-burke saved with upper Pitt river

At 12:00PM today,wed.Mar.26,2008.Environment minister Barry Penner announced the run of the river power project scheduled for the upper Pitt river is dead.I would like to thank every-one that responded to all the pleas for rejection of this project.I'm sure there are places where this is a workable kind of project but the upper Pitt is a special place and Pinecone Burke is a class A park.Again,thanks to everyone for opposing what would have been a disaster.

Hypocracy and the newspaper

It isn't bad enough that we have only one major media company in Vancouver.The papers don't actually even try to pretend that they speak with any semblance of independence.When Sam Sullivan first ran for mayor,the media loved the guy.Now he can't get decent press even if he does something right.Not that that happens very often anyway.Now the Media is in love with Dianne Watts.To read the papers she's just an election away from a coronation.Ms.Watts is a very clever politician that is very adept at courting the press.If there's anything happening,Dianne is there for any quotes and all available praise,whether or not it's deserved.I've seen different incarnations of Ms. Watts in my 59 years of watching the local political scene and she's one of the most ambitious and unethical I've seen since Bill Vander Zalm.He was also a mayor of Surrey with political ambitions.Not since Bill have I seen anyone so eager to walk to greater things over the backs of the regions poor and homeless.Now Bill didn't have a homeless problem to deal with but he never hesitated to lash out at the lowest end of the societal spectrum.It was Bills government that tried to have addiction declared a crime and to put addicts in jail forever.The thing is,there's always a mob out there that'll support this kind of poor bashing and it was only by attending meetings and exposing people to the truth that the infamous bill was allowed to slip into history without being put before the house.Ms.Watts is another hard line prohibitionist and is the first to the camera whenever there's a chance to take a pot shot at drug legislation.She took an all expenses trip to Europe to study the drug situation there but like all hardliners before her she saw only that which supported her twisted view of the situation and came back with drug courts and forced treatment.Both of these things have been tried and have failed but then that's the history of the drug war.Try it,shelve it wait a generation and then dredge it up and try it again.As long as we are stuck with these politicians that put their personal views over scientific evidence and studies of the problem,of which there are many,that expose the racist and hysteria based reasons for drug prohibition in the first place.We will continue to have social unrest and wanton killing in the streets.These people look to the south for their ideas and their inspiration.If you think the violence and bloodshed that goes on as a daily occurrence in America is a plan we should be looking at,Ms.Watts is for you.If you want the same old answers that have brought us to where we are today,She's your girl.She takes credit for everything that's going well.She must take credit for the whole picture.If you like what's going on in the lower mainland and don't mind dodging bullets,she's good for it.If you think people with addictions and mental problems are criminals and felons,so does she.The lower levels of society have always been an easy target for ambitious politicians with a sociopath's personality.These are unfortunately the people that last in politics as they have no empathy and no conscience.Such is Dianne Watts.If you would like to discover what Dianne has no time to look into there are many sites on the web that will tell you the true history of drug prohibition:drugsense.org,LEAP,stopthedrugwar.org.Any one of these sites contains links to the others and many more. Canada's Green Party wants to end the drug war.

Meet the Press leaves me Depressed

I hope most Americans were watching this Sunday's Meet the Press with Tim Russert.It was very clear from what the Clinton camp's mouthpiece was saying that the Clinton campaign knows they've lost the race for delegates and plan to try to either use delegates from Michigan & Florida which both camps had agreed were disqualified,or use the so called super delegates,Washington insiders the Clinton's feel they can dominate.Both schemes would require backroom dealings and under handed rule bending to succeed. This is classic Clinton politics and if it should come down to this kind of tactic at the Denver convention.It will be the one way that the democrats could conceivably lose the election in November.The people who support Hilary Clinton will support the Obama run for the presidency.The Obama people are so loyal to him and so opposed to everything the Clinton's stand for,they would probably not vote at all.Obama has drawn people who have never or have not recently felt any reason to participate in politics.They would probably rather stay home than to have any part in another four years of a Clinton in the White House.

Don't Let Them Get Away With It

The courts in Alberta have ruled that a company can fire an employee for giving(under threat of losing job)a dirty urine test.The court ruled that such a person would,like a cab or truck driver,be a danger on the jobsite.This precedent setting case,if allowed to stand.Would mean that any employer could demand a drug test as a condition of employment.It would also mean that,even in the absence of any test that can show any but up to 45 day exposure.Even though there's no way to show casual or active exposure.That any one in Canada could be fired for exposure to marijuana smoke,no matter how casual or accidental that may be.Let the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission know that you want this case appealed. Contact:humanrights@gov.ab.ca This is IMPORTANT!