NDP's Carole James charts conservative course with shadow cabinet

Maurine Karagianis....capable???????

Is there another Maurine Karagianis that I'm not aware of????????

She did absolutely NOTHING to distingush herself as Transportation critic, quite the oppsite, she was abysmal.

James has to go.

She is millstone around the NDP's neck and the sooner then better. Uneducated, unimaginative, wooden, a terrible speaker, terrible debater, and has zero ideas on policy. She is an uneducated version of Stefan Dion. She generates a visceral almost pathological dislike in male working class voters.

She needs to wear the can for one of the worst election campaigns I can remember.
seth

Sorry Charlie, but once again I find you very contradictory and thensome. While I'm glad to see that you're praising Craig Keating for "brilliant observations" (all of which I agree with), I know for a fact he'd reject a lot of your dogmatic simplistic stances. Craig is firmly rooted in the pragmatic Gary Doer/Darrell Dexter wing of the party - same as Carole James. As for suggesting that some caucus members are more "progressive" than others - that's rather insulting. Defining what is and isn't progressive is quite subjective. (Sidenote: you consider Rob Fleming "articulate"? He's a nice guy, but he's painful to listen to: "uhhh" is a glaring part of every sentence he utters. He also has no grounding in anything other than being a career politician - we need less of those in public life, please!)

Rather than just carping from the sidelines, let's see YOU run for office, Charlie. Furthermore, let's see you try being a foster parent to kids and adults with mental/physical disabilities, Charlie. Carole James did that for two decades - I don't see anywhere near enough people who claim to be oh so "progressive" (i.e. holier than thou) doing that. My hat goes off to her and anyone else who is able and willing to be a foster parent. Takes a pretty special person to do that.

As for the commentator called "seth" who frequently posts ridiculous and downright misogynistic comments about Carole James on these and other forums (and often can't even spell her name correctly), I'd really like to know what planet he/she is from. Carole James is a pretty good public speaker (certainly compared to a lot of other politicians) and a very good debater (you must have been asleep when numerous commentators, including Charlie, hailed her as the winner of the 2009 debate - she also won the 2005 debate, too).

"Uneducated" - wow that's an elitist attitude. I'd be willing to bet she'd beat you in an IQ test. Going to university doesn't make someone smart (spend 5 minutes with the average university student these days and ask them to differentiate between simple things like "its" and "it's" and "your" and "you're", etc.) and I've actually met some pretty stupid people with PhDs. Try watching her on Voice of BC sometime - she regularly demonstrates a solid grasp of a broad range of public policy detail. I've met lots of male working class voters who like her and had no problems voting for her. As for wearing the can for the election campaign, I disagree: the NDP's narrow-minded communications staff and central campaign manager need to do that. James didn't pick them: they were all there long before she became leader (many have been there since Glen Clark was leader and are wedded to his outdated kind of politics) and can't exactly be easily removed since they're unionized.

Hey, that's a pretty good blast, Mr. or Ms. Get Real. I was merely pointing out that the NDP under James has become a more conservative party. I wasn't commenting on her ability as a foster parent, which I admire and which I've mentioned in our paper. I think Carole James is a very ethical person. It's the policies that concern me.

The NDP has demonstrated its conservative nature in four major policy areas: transportation, criminal justice, energy, and income assistance. I've seen no evidence that the NDP is aware of the potential consequences of peak oil--perhaps it doesn't believe that this is a concern. We don't know because James didn't make herself available to talk about this when reporter Matt Burrows asked for an interview.

On criminal justice, the critic is entitled to his views and perhaps deserves some credit for changing the party's course, if you support that change in direction. But I'm not sure that the public is quite as worked up about marijuana as he is. I wonder if it's time to reconsider the prohibitionist approach. Libby Davies is looking at addiction in a different way. The same is true of Dr. Gabor Mate. But Farnworth seems wedded to the past--and that approach hasn't yielded great results south of the border.

Now, about energy: I remember during the 1990s when the NDP government managed to piss off everyone--the environmentalists, BCPIAC (which represented consumers, particularly the poor and the elderly), the industrial users, and even its own appointed then-chair of the BCUC, Mark Jaccard. John Horgan plays a populist game with gas prices; I'm not sure he's willing to support the hard choices necessary to save the planet and prepare for peak oil. I'm not convinced he even believes that this is a problem.

On income assistance, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has done some stunning work. I've seen little evidence that the NDP is that interested in making income assistance a major issue. Single mothers are discriminated against -- it's actually referred to as adverse-effects discrimination -- by the sum total of B.C. government policies. James, who has been a single mom, won't make this a priority. I don't understand why.

That said, I think you wrote a provocative comment, and I hope you keep firing away in this forum. I learn from these posts. If I'm dishing it out, I should take my lumps from authentic commentators like yourself (as opposed to p.r. flacks for corporate interests who jump in every once in a while to advance their companies' interest by trashing the messenger).

Unreal Get Real.

Finally one has come out of the woodwork, one of those whose thinking or lack of is responsible for the last four and most certainly the next four years of Gordon Campbell. Perhaps unreal here could help us all out and join the Green party.

Being a foster parent to kids and adults with mental/physical disabilities for two decades and being a pretty special person to do that, has nothing whatsoever to do with her being electable. People do not give a rats ass if the party leader is a great person, never have, never will. An articulate scoundrel is much more electable, than a doting Mom.

Lets have at'er. You give me my the ridiculous and downright misogynistic statements along with your little commentary and I'll shred em for ya. Unreal here is a representative of those societies that have destroyed themselves by enabling fascists over and over again till their ship sank.

Sure Carol James is pretty good public speaker for Lady's Garden Shows and a reasonable formal debater. I agree she won both the 2009 and 2005 NOT debates. But have you heard pompous old Bill Good beating her up? She's practically defenseless and in tears when he's done with her. Did you listen to the CKNW debate that she lost hands down. She goes on the defensive and stays there. If she can't handle Bill Good or Christie Clark, what will she do negotiating with a con like Harper? She sounds wooden, dogmatic and shrill and I don't care what planet you are from but those charactistics in a woman make her utterly unelectable. Jim Sinclair, Adrian Dix, and Ken Georgetti routinely kick Good's butt to the point that he acts like a whipped dog when he's around them. On the planet I'm from 50% of voters all of whom are getting the shaft from old Gordo don't stay home when they like the alternative projected on their TeeVee's. Obviously your circle of acquaintances doesn't include any of them. You don't like it, I don't like it but that is the way it is. If you ignore that you will keep reelecting fascists.

Rafe Mair used to lecture the NDP about this stupid being nice in the Leg idea that she tried to carry through in the campaign. It made her look like a coward. She didn't stand a single time to show us what she had.!!! One good tongue lashing taking down a reporter in the style Carole Taylor was so good at would have shown she had at least some jamb.

When Gordo pointed out her lack of business experience she could have pointed out that the last business experience he had was 30 years ago as the political bagman for a developer. Asked him why if business experience was what it took why was Harvard Business School professor and former CEO of RBC Dominion Ralph Sultan still sitting on the backbench. She seldom if ever responded to his outright lies on NDP past performance statistics and his own absymal performance. Made it seem his lies were true.

I can come up with lots of 5 years old that have a higher IQ than any of us, but they sure as hell couldn't run a campaign or win a debate. Education simply formalizes a learning process which can help organize talking points, people, and political campaigns. Some people are naturals she is not.

That you don't have a scintilla of understanding of political parties, is abundantly demonstrated with your defense of Jame's foolish and ill thought out campaign. As Harry Truman said "The buck stops here". A decent leader would have cleared out the NDP's narrow-minded communications staff and central campaign manager or she could have simply bypassed them. Nobody showing the leadership worthy of the Premier of British Columbia would have put her name on such a singularly awful campaign.

The 50% who didn't show up or voted Green, were wondering if she would run the province just as badly.

Your incompetence failed the voters of this province and I am afraid the suffering you have let us in for will be remembered into the next century. Shame on Carole James, shame on you!!!
seth

I've watched Mike Farnworth do an excellent job as critic for public safety and the issues he has been fighting for include: more rights and compensation for victims of crime and tougher sentencing for REPEAT, VIOLENT offenders. I have never ONCE heard Farnworth call for marijuana smokers to be prosecuted and based on my conversation with him, it's clear he has very progressive views on marijuana. Why Charlie do you insist on misrepresenting what Fanworth does on repeat, violent offenders (where 90% of the public is with) and try to tie it to marijuana?

The Mike Farnworth comment was based on this NDP news release:
http://www.bcndp.ca/newsroom/marijuana-grow-op-ruling-must-be-appealed-s...

I did not say that Farnworth called for marijuana smokers to be prosecuted. Here's the paragraph in the news release that might interest people, which reflects what I wrote above:

PORT COQUITLAM - NDP public safety critic Mike Farnworth is calling for an appeal of a B.C. Supreme Court ruling which puts a marijuana trafficker's rights ahead of the community's well-being.
"Marijuana grow-ops are an epidemic and pose a serious threat to public safety, our communities and our youth. This B.C. Supreme Court ruling appears to favour the rights of a person running a major grow-op at the expense of all other crucial considerations," said Farnworth, the MLA for Port Coquitlam - Burke Mountain.

Why can't you accept what I'm saying is true--that the NDP is more conservative today than it was in the past? It's true in regard to the NDP's energy, income-assistance, transportation and, yes, criminal justice policies. The NDP can be as conservative as it likes. The MLAs are free to do what they want. But they shouldn't get up on their hind legs and complain if someone points out the obvious.

More evidence of the NDP's essentially conservative nature:
http://www.straight.com/article-92056/ndp-house-leader-mike-farnworth-ec...

In this story, Farnworth echoes then-solicitor general John Les's defence of charging provincial inmates 90 cents to make phone calls. According to Betty Krawczyk, inmates make less than $4 a day. Those serving provincial time are often addicted people. Many provincial inmates are aboriginal. The truly violent criminals usually do federal time. Charging 90 cents per phone call to provincial inmates just reduces their contact with their families and probably undermines their rehabilitation. I can't imagine Dave Barrett or Norm Levi or Alex MacDonald ever supporting something like this.

Hi Charlie,
I appreciate your comments (as opposed to the irrational largely-incoherent reactions of "seth"). I would have replied sooner but unfortunately my time is limited and I'm not one of those people who spends copious amounts of it lurking in comments pages cutting and pasting my comments from one forum to another.

I didn't say you were commenting on Carole James's ability as a foster parent. I raised that as part of my observation that many people who stand on the sidelines and criticize often don't get their hands dirty themselves - well, being a foster parent is most certainly progressive politics in action and I'd like to see a lot more progressives do that.

I'd also like to see a lot more progressive writers spend a lot more time articulating and exploring practical policy ideas that will make the world a better place. I often say to friends and colleagues that they're not allowed to just criticize things about politicians, the world, etc., in my presence unless they have solid ideas/proposals as to how they'd do things differently and make things better. I have long had a loathing for Naomi Klein types who talk endlessly about 'the problems' but never spend any time (let alone more of it) talking about solutions. That's also a reason one of the few progressive books I have enjoyed in recent times is "The Geography of Hope: A Tour of the World We Need" by Chris Turner - a book that explores what people are doing around the world to create solutions.

As for Carole James and the NDP, you may consider some of the approach 'conservative' but, as I previously said, what's conservative as opposed to progressive is subjective and often means different things to different people. For example, I certainly don't think it's 'conservative' to be responsive to public concern over violent crime.

Now as for other issues you raise like peak oil, income assistance, etc., I fully agree with you as to their importance. Write some letters/policy papers to the appropriate Critics and see what response you get and continue raising the issues here in your columns (along with your ideas on what to do as opposed to just what the problems are). I do believe we're going to see a lot of positive changes in the NDP's approach to Opposition in the coming sessions. But rather than people just carping from the sidelines and saying "the NDP isn't doing this and the NDP isn't doing that" we all need to be thinking about and articulating practical ideas and alternative strategies as opposed to just whiney criticism.

Thank you.

Charlie, I realize peak oil is very important to our future! Although I read some of Jeff Rubin's book and also some of the transcripts of the many interviews he is doing to flog his new book.

Rubin is the former CIBC economist who predicted a $200 barrel of oil.

But this is what he is quoted as saying,

"As for peak oil, it's not that the world is running out of oil in an absolute geological sense, but it is running out of the type of oil you and I can afford to fill our tank with."

Otherwise cheap oil and easily accessible oil is a thing of the past.

Rubin believes that we will head into another recession very soon after we leave this one as the impacts from $150 barrel of oil was overshadowed by the sub-prime mortgage. We will have to wait and see. But if he is right, that will truly be the end of capitalism as we know it and for sure the end of corporate globalization.