Baldreydash: Global reporter insults NDP candidate on Twitter

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      The election may be over, but the outcome has only set off more debate between a former NDP candidate and Global's legislature bureau chief Keith Baldrey.

      The veteran reporter told a couple of his critics on Twitter that they should accept the result. 

      "If not, change the system or move elsewhere," Baldrey advised them.

      That prompted a response from Jessica Van der Veen, who ran for the NDP against the Greens' Andrew Weaver and the B.C. Liberals' Ida Chong in Oak Bay–Gordon Head.

      "Hitler was democratically elected," Van der Veen wrote. "Being elected is never a carte blanche to violating human Rts."

      Baldrey retorted that in light of the Hitler comparison, he knew why she was "considered a weak candidate by the party".

      Van der Veen, former cochair of a child-abuse prevention and counselling society, responded: "What an unkind and hurtful thing to say."

      She has been an actor and director, and is former director of part-time studies at the Gastown Actors' Studio.

      Van der Veen obtained a master's degree from UVic after writing a thesis about school-board disclosure practices. According to her biography on the NDP site, this led her to form a group that is opposed to the sale of school sites.

      "More than anything else, it was the sell-off and privatization of public assets, services and resources that motivated me to run for office,” she stated in her biography. “We can balance a healthy economy with stewardship of our resources and public goods like health care and education. Environmental, economic and social sustainability is the most important priority for British Columbia, for our children and for the planet."

      Below, you can see how the exchange began between Baldrey and his critics.

      Baldrey and Global have been criticized in the past for being overly supportive of the B.C. Liberal government.

      Sometimes, there have even been mutterings that Baldrey's wife, journalist and public-relations adviser Anne Mullens, generates income from the public sector, and somehow, this influences the coverage.

      Mullens has written a lengthy rebuttal on her blog to address the people she described as "trolls". Here's a portion of her post:

      I am coming back to freelance writing and I am in the process of starting my own health care communications company.  I will be looking for contract work in health care communications soon.

      Way, way back (1982 to 1992) I was the medical reporter for the Vancouver Sun. I left that job when our first child was born. Then for 17 years I freelanced. During that time I wrote so much — mostly in the hours when the kids were in school — that it all blurs now.

      But I do know that I wrote four of the special reports by the Provincial Health Officer. I wrote two of the BC Select Standing Committee (all party committee) Health Reports. I was a consultant for Hollander Analytical Services on a large Health Canada project on homecare. I wrote reports and materials for Health Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada, the Public Health Association of Canada and the Public Health Association of BC. (The power of public health to improve population health is a passion of mine, particularly in the area of the social determinants of health.)

      I assisted family doctors in BC, through the General Practice Services Committee, to get the word out about primary care reform to help support family doctors and their patients. (Good primary care is another passion of mine.)

      All these jobs were non-partisan.

      But I believe ONE job I did, more than a decade ago, would come up as being under the label of "Liberal Government." I helped prepare materials for a First Ministers conference, being held in BC, about the reorganization of BC's regional health authorities. As some might recall, BC around that time went from 54 regions, down to the current five health authorities. It was a massive restructuring. That contract was for $24,000 and it was extended for another $6,000. I don't believe I billed it all. I helped create all the information that explained the restructuring and why it was done to other provinces and their media.

      The complete post by Mullens is available here.

      I doubt that Baldrey is influenced in any way by his wife's work. He's just a guy with a high opinion of himself who has his favourites in the legislature.

      I also think that Mullens was an outstanding medical reporter when she was employed by the Vancouver Sun, and contributed enormously to the public's understanding about HIV/AIDS.

      However, I do feel that it's a bit rich for her to suggest that reports for the provincial health officer are nonpartisan when the occupant of that office, Dr. Perry Kendall, takes positions that could be characterized as political in nature. And he's there at the whim of the government.

      In addition, the restructuring of health authorities was a highly political act, sharply reducing public input into health care. It led directly to the privatization of food and cleaning services in B.C. hospitals, which necessitated the ripping up of contracts with health-care workers.

      This was later deemed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada.

      The B.C. Liberal government's decision to rip up contracts was what triggered the exchange on Twitter involving Baldrey and his critics.

      The civil servant who oversaw the restructuring of health authorities was Dr. Penny Ballem, now Vancouver's city manager.

      In 2003, Baldrey wrote a fawning profile of Ballem in BCBusiness magazine. This is a portion of what Baldrey wrote about the restructuring of health care:

      Ballem played a pivotal role in reducing the number of those health authorities to six regional bodies, down from 52, which the process-loving NDP had instituted. Just how small the new number should be was a divisive debate even within Liberal government circles; Ballem insisted on the lowest number and won a power struggle with another deputy health minister, John Tegenfeldt. He wanted 12 or 14 regions and engaged in a knockdown fight with Ballem. But he was a political neophyte and didn’t understand how things really worked in an internal government culture. Soon, he was out—comforted by a $200,000-plus severance—and was left scratching his head, wondering what had happened. Meanwhile, Ballem, as hardnosed as ever, steamrolled along.

      A smaller number of health authorities lets a centralized authority—Ballem et al.—keep a tighter reign on operations and decision-making. And that sets the stage to allow Ballem to carry out what could very well be the most far-reaching budgetary decision of the B.C. Liberal government—a freeze on health care spending over three years. In previous years health authorities could expect the provincial government to bail them out at the end of the fiscal year and pick up the deficits, whether the shortfall was $10 million or $100 million or $200 million. But those days, according to the government, are now over. There will be no shortfalls and no bailouts, and Ballem says that message is the key to change.

      Nowhere in the article does Baldrey reveal that his wife was hired to assist the Ministry of Health in communications efforts in connection with restructuring health authorities.

      If Mullens is upset that trolls are complaining about her work, perhaps she should pin part of the blame on her husband for not providing full disclosure when he was writing the article about Ballem for BCBusiness.

      And if she obtained the contract after the article appeared, then Baldrey probably should have declined the assignment in the first place, knowing that his wife was interested in health-care communications.

      Comments

      12 Comments

      Shepsil

      May 28, 2013 at 11:19am

      Charlie, nice clarification. Although, my cynicism getting the better of me, I wouldn' t think it will make much difference in the outcome of the next election here.

      As hopelessly incompetent Christy Clark came across over the last two years, the BC Liberals still won the election. Mr. Baldreydash has always personified that <a href="http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/dbancrof/2013/05/on-limits-scandal-monge... and conservative mindset of values that helps create a negative bias</a> which works against the progressive movement and has been proven to lower the overall progressive vote.

      HQ

      May 28, 2013 at 1:19pm

      Actually, our man Baldrey's on contract to give the NDP rank and file a public lesson on how attack politics works. Never too soon to begin thickening the skin for 2017, you know.

      ursa minor

      May 28, 2013 at 4:02pm

      The progressive vote will continue to drop until someone tells bullies like Baldrey to STFU. When Barack Obama ran for President, he flipped Fox News the bird and never looked back. The next BCNDP leader should do the same with Baldrey, Vaughn Palmer, Michael Smyth et al..

      Ron

      May 28, 2013 at 4:35pm

      Jessica is correct. Democracy is majority rule but always with protection of minority rights.

      Jessica ran for a party that costed all its program promises while the winner in that riding ran for a party that refused to cost any of its programs - but was given a free pass by Baldrey and other corporate media pundits who refused to hold all parties to the same standard of accountability!

      Charlie Smith

      May 28, 2013 at 5:22pm

      Times-Colonist legislature reporter Rob Shaw tweeted the following comment about this article:

      "Quite a smear piece."

      I'm curious to know if anyone who has read this article to the end agrees with Rob's assessment.

      I'm not sure how he came to this conclusion. I felt if anything, I was a little soft on Baldrey.

      Charlie Smith

      Shepsil

      May 28, 2013 at 8:21pm

      Charlie, you're right, you were a little soft on Keith and "ursa minor" is right too. We all need to sharpen our literary knives or <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWpZrmPI9fM">Steven Harper will get more of those Hat Tricks</a> he's looking for.

      MarkFornataro

      May 28, 2013 at 9:18pm

      Looks like Rob Shaw thinks it's ok for his friend Keith to throw the first stone, but not ok for someone to then respond with some constructive criticism. Sounds like protecting a bully.

      Shepsil

      May 28, 2013 at 10:30pm

      Charlie, that might explain why Baldrey looked so nervous on election night,LOL.

      blah

      May 28, 2013 at 10:41pm

      Funny, the ndp still thinks that everyone who didn't vote would have voted for their man. Hogwash.