View on Politics: Conservative Problems & the NDP Future

Typically at this time, we'd be checking in with Vaughn Palmer from the Vancouver Sun.

Vaughn is off for the rest of the week.

So joining us now is CKNW afternoon host, Jazz Joe Hall.

Good morning, Jazz. How are you?

I'm doing very well. Good morning to you, Scott.

Thanks for getting up early to do this with us.

The drama continues around the BC conservative party.

So we know that seven MLAs have left so far.

And now we understand that one of these people is speaking with the RCMP

about an offer that was made. What can you tell us about that?

Well, I got a call yesterday, early afternoon of potentially

members of law enforcement having spoken to MLAs or in the process of speaking MLAs.

And the Canadian press later in the day reported that Delta Cell have been

actually eaten Peyton is scheduled to meet with RCMP this morning at his officers

with potentially two officers attending.

There were potentially three MLAs when I had reported yesterday that the police will be

speaking to Mr. Peyton confirm this already with the press.

I continue there's two other MLAs.

Now there's been conversations that one of them is of course, Prince George Vailmont

MLA, Rosalind Birchie.

Of course, it hasn't confirmed whether she was interviewed, but her name has been out

there.

I'm told another another lower mainland MLA has also been already talked to police.

So Mr. Peyton will be the third one that they are speaking to.

Will there be others?

I don't know.

But of course the allegations are that they were offered a paid job in exchange for

resigning their seats.

Now is that specifically illegal that will be of course depending on where this all

goes that will all have to be fought out in court.

But you know, this is the last thing for your family needs right now is law enforcement

is doing former conservative MLAs to talk to them about inducement.

And of course, on top of all of that, I was just joking with somebody yesterday.

You didn't actually have any MLAs leave the conservative party yesterday.

You could have been acquired there with them but somehow they still managed to make

the use with this.

And even though that still hangs over them.

So at its core for our listeners, you know, the criminal code here in Canada bars offering

a reward or a profit in exchange for resignation from elected positions.

So that is what will have to be get debated and discussed.

This does end up in court and the special prosecutor is appointed.

But those are early days.

These are early conversations going on right now in regards to all of this.

The last thing this party needs is three MLAs speaking to law enforcement with this

annual level.

Yeah, it just feels indicative of all of the problems that the BC conservatives are

having.

I like you yesterday was sort of jokingly like waiting for another MLA to tender their

resignation to your point that didn't come.

But what would this mean for Carolyn Finley or what could it mean that the RCMP are

speaking could she find herself facing charges potentially?

Will this affect her leadership even more?

Where could this go?

Well, you know, the conversation in this case is not whether Miss Finley had this conversation.

It was her chief of staff, Chris Delaney.

And I do want to reiterate once again, this is early stages here.

This is sort of fact finding for the police and they'll decide if there's enough evidence

by a special prosecutor will probably be appointed to year.

They'll decide whether or not there's an opportunity for conviction moving forward.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves here where this is early stages, of course.

But it does speak to the bigger challenge that this party is having the opportunity or

certainly where the party is decided if they're taking this movement and this ultimately

comes down to leadership.

They've decided to go hard right.

That itself has nearly needed many people in their caucus with seven of them leaving.

It's just adds to that and I've already been told that look, there's at least one other

MLA who's letter resignation letter is written.

They are still contemplating whether they're going to go, but that letter is written and

that could occur even as early as today or later this week.

It just depends on how the situation continues.

And on top of that number, you know, you've got this hanging over.

You've got police speaking to former conservative MLA's in this case, Ian Payton.

We've got potentially other MLA's that may be leaving the party.

And on top of that, Miss Simley still has to fight this biorelection in Abbott's Fird

Mission.

So, you know, nothing has worked for this party for the past three months.

And can she win in that writing?

Potentially.

It's always got the demographics to support the BC Conservatives.

But I'm just right now incredibly skeptical in regards to whether she'll be able to do that

with this hovering over the party.

So in addition to the final week of summer for most people, they're busy with family,

doing vacation, they're going to come back post-labor day, really sort of absorbing the news

that felt there.

And all of this is going to get very re-opposed labor day when it comes to politics.

And on top of that, let's not forget Peter Miller, and Ian Payton, of course, left

the caucus, but they've already said they're going to start a new party.

And I spoke to Mr. Miller, just the other day, and they're in the process of moving forward

with that.

And I have another party in the legislature when the fall session begins in October.

So all of that is playing out at the same time.

There's a lot going on.

Continuing our conversation with CKNW Afternoon host, jazz Joe Hall, he's filling in for

Vaughn Palmer this morning on the view from Victoria.

And I want to talk jazz about the BC NDP, because we were talking about the BC Conservatives

previously, and the BC NDP are not in great shape either.

But before we do that, I just want to put a bow on the conservative stuff, because you

did a great segment yesterday about whether the leadership of the federal conservatives

is playing a role in what we're seeing right now with conservatism and the strength behind

the liberals.

We're going to talk about that later on in the show as well, but I just wanted to get

your take on that.

Yeah, I mean, look, you have to decide what kind of conservative party you want to be,

number one is broadly as a party.

And we're the public's at right now.

Mark Parnie is doing very well in the polls because he is meeting the moment, whether you

like the liberal government, whether you like Justin Trudeau-Hortner, what do you think

you get to this country?

The reality is Mr. Parnie is in charge, and he is sort of a feeling of going to central

caste, he wanted to leader.

You got one right now that has the financial background, even in his tone and temperament

is the leader.

That's what people want to see, and that's what they're getting.

What they don't want is someone like Mr. Pauli-Gev right now who seems like the same old

peer Pauli-Gev, and maybe he was the guy they wanted, and would just be Joe as a power,

but not in his economic war.

And it's core, you know, the party has to decide, the conservatives have to decide how important

are these culture wars that they seem to be fighting, playing footies with these organizations

in groups, or are you going to be a party that's going to focus specifically on economic

issues, affordability issues, and economic populism.

Which I think is where the bulk of the voters are.

They're not interested in all these other culture wars.

I'm not saying you can't have discussions on issues of culture and immigration, of

course, you should.

But the core issue where the votes are today are peoples and securities and frustrations

about affordability, whether or not they think they can get ahead, AI, it's an impact on

their children, and those kind of bread and butter issues, that's the kind of conservative

party that I think will do very well.

But this foreign, you know, sort of American style, maple, maple, maga, politics, I don't

think it plays well federally or provincially.

It's not where we are as comedians.

I mean, you don't have these frustrations.

Doesn't mean some of that, the politics of America, keep into Canada, of course they

do.

But I think what the votes are is where you need to be, and what the votes are right now,

are economic issues and affordability issues.

And I think that's the same issue whether or not this thinly stays or not a leader, that's

what the votes are.

In fact, the NDP right now is leading in the polls in British Columbia with all these

massive deficits.

Should all tell all of them that, look, British Columbia is not interested in all that

ostriches and all these other silly things that they start talking about, think family

freedom.

The votes are in the political center, center right, and economic poppers.

And that's what I think has been missed and that they get it right.

I think they've got a very good chance of forming government, NBC, and even federally,

but right now they're not, it's not where they're at.

Yeah, and I like that you also mentioned the real need for strong opposition government.

I think government in waiting was the words that you used.

I appreciated that because like if we talk about shifting back to provincially, the NDP

is not doing great.

There's this $1.5 billion hole in the budget.

And then, you know, BC Ferries is still a mess, more mess from the BC Ferries yesterday.

You reached out to Transportation Minister Mark Farmer, Mike Farmer's, no response there.

What do you make of that situation?

Well, it's an issue that, you know, there's issues that are of the day in government, as

former Malayak can tell you, and then there are issues that people can remember at the

voting booth.

This is one of those things that isn't going to make a break of government, but it's

the one, the kind of issue that people don't forget.

And it is absurd that we are building these theories in China.

Now, we'll say in BC Ferries defense, they said, look, we've got no timeline for domestic

builders.

And China has done, and made a conscious effort as a society and as a culture, said, we

are going to be the world's biggest and best shipbuilders.

And they had over 100 shipbuilding companies at one time.

They riddled that down to about 20, 20 who are competed with each other, 20 that have grown

stronger and bigger and global.

And they are not down dominating shipbuilding.

We, on the other hand, as a provincial government, and I would say as a national government, have

never made sort of shipbuilding part of our industrial policy.

We have to decide whether we are going to be a nation of shipbuilders.

And we should be spending BC tax dollars to build BC ships in British Columbia.

But we've gotten away from that from so much of our outsourcing in this society, now

comes to other places, particularly in China.

So until our BC government and our national governments say shipbuilding is going to be part

of BC and Canada's future, it's going to be very hard for us to compete.

And yes, we have domestic yards.

They weren't pre-qualified.

And they're going to have to be pre-qualified in the future to say, OK, as BC fairies,

we're going to build ships between 20, 32 and 20, 36.

We need you to build capacity here in BC to be ready for us when that order comes.

And we aren't able to do that for the first four, which are going to be built in the

first one of the current.

Do in 20, 29 and rest come roughly every six months after that.

We're going to be building a lot moving forward.

So you've got to start planning in advance.

So you've been an example in Finland.

That's a small nation.

But they decided we do icebreakers really well.

80% of icebreakers in the world are designed by Finnish firms.

60% of all icebreakers themselves are built in Finland.

But they as a nation have decided, this is what we do.

This is our niche.

But we're going to do this really well.

And they've done that very well.

Maybe as Canadians have never said, we're going to really focus on shipbuilding and make

it part of our industrial policy.

And we're going to find our focus whether it's going to be fairies, whether it's going

to be something else.

And we've never done that.

And all of that is now coming home and are loosed in Canada, but many other western nations.

And China is just eating or lunch as they say.

And so I hope this is a broader conversation.

And it leads us to having a bigger conversation about, we're going to build ships in this

province?

Yes.

All right.

What kind of vessels are we going to build?

What are we going to be good at?

And I think that's the broader conversation.

I hope this is what eventually this all leads to because we've done a poor government,

a West has done a poor job in protecting our jobs in this station, many other countries.

And Jazz, can you comment briefly on this natural gas budgeting error?

1.5 billion dollar error projected from a natural gas royalties not missing from the BC

NDP's budget.

How do you make sense of this?

And where do we get that back?

I think there's a lot more sort of people that we can figure that out in government right

now.

To my understanding, when I haven't seen gone to the technical briefing yet, I don't

want to call this an accounting issue.

It's much bigger than that.

But it's one they're going to have to get on top of.

And I'm not having worked with an natural gas sector.

Sometimes predicting things in the future in regards to revenue can be a challenge.

But it's never gotten to the point where we're seeing a problem this big that is made news,

which I think is quite concerning for the government.

I don't have a lot on that to be very blunt with you, but the problems that have occurred

for the government right here right now in this issue is not going away.

Number one, and government is going to have to wrap their head around this.

But I don't think it's at the point where this massive hole is going to be blown to

the provincial budget as of yet.

And I think there's ways to get around that.

And I think they fight to first some of this.

But it's going to be an issue that is front and center.

Certainly when the fall session begins here in BC in October.

Jazz Johal is the afternoon host here on CKNW filling in for us this morning in Vaughn

Palmer's place.

Great to have you, Jazz.

Thanks so much for doing this for us and have a great rest of your day.

Thank you.