Damian Kettlewell says B.C. Greens battle "bias" and "deep pockets"

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      According to B.C. Green party deputy leader Damian Kettlewell, it is only a matter of time until Greens are elected to the B.C. legislature.

      In a telephone interview with the Straight, Kettlewell, the party’s candidate in Vancouver-False Creek, railed against what he argued is a “bias” held by “certain media journalists” against the Green party.

      “We’re being kept out of debates on Global TV right now, we’re being kept out of morning debates on Global News, and we’re not included on the Voice of B.C. tonight [April 23] with Vaughn Palmer,” Kettlewell said yesterday. “There is a bias by some folks, and we need to change that.”

      Representatives of Global News and Voice of B.C. did not return the Straight’s messages today (April 24).

      CBC's Wayne Williams, spokesperson for the upcoming leadership debate hosted by CBC, CTV, and Global, told the Straight that B.C. Green party leader Jane Sterk is scheduled to participate in the May 3 event. He said that the decision to include Sterk was based on the number of candidates the Greens are fielding and on the party's performance in the last provincial election.

      Kettlewell argued that the Green party’s role in provincial politics is often overlooked. He noted that it was the Green party which first proposed a tax on carbon in B.C., a policy that the Liberals introduced in February 2008. “Our policies continue to be borrowed by other parties and we encourage that,” he said.

      Kettlewell conceded that there are challenges facing the Green party. The first is running campaigns without the “deep pockets” of the Liberals and NDP. “The Liberals have big business, the NDP has big labour, and the Green party has small business,” Kettlewell said. “So we don’t have the well-oiled campaign machines.”

      But the Greens are working on it, Kettlewell continued. He described the party as a former “band of activists” which, over the last 26 years, has matured into a “promising political party”.

      On April 19, Ray Lam, the NDP candidate in Vancouver-False Creek, dropped out of the race after “inappropriate” photos posted on Facebook were made public. The NDP was forced to nominate Jordan Parente in a last-minute maneuver which left the party’s chance of a win in Vancouver-False Creek looking slimmer.

      Kettlewell said that with the NDP all but out of the picture, he is in a two-way race with Liberal candidate Mary McNeil, a contest he maintained he stands a good chance of winning.

      On April 23, Kettlewell noted, he was endorsed by Conservation Voters of B.C., a self-described nonpartisan organization which focuses on the environment. CVBC claims to have seen 29 of the last 36 candidates it has endorsed get elected in recent federal, provincial, and municipal contests.

      “We need to stay with it,” Kettlewell said. “I have no interest in ever getting involved in any other political party. Live and die Green.”


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      Comments

      10 Comments

      seth

      Apr 24, 2009 at 7:37pm

      On ChickenDub radio, this afternoon Greenie star candidate Jody Emery stated that the Liberal's have a better environmental platform than the NDP.

      christy clark: "Jody Emery, which of those two parties do you think has a better platform on the environment?"
      jodie emery: "While I would hate to say it but I think the liberals might. The NDP has abandoned their base .."

      Jodie also repeated the nonsensical Greenie mantra that they attract as many former liberal supporters as they do NDP. These figures are based on federal liberal stats not provincial Neocon ones. How many of Gordo's Neocon supporters can you imagine going for 150$ a ton carbon tax, no RCMP, legal drugs, and a $16.00 per hour liveable wage.

      Liberal environmental platform (approved by Greenies)
      1) Continue and accelerate massive oil, coal, and gas field development so billions of tons of BC's greenhouse gases can be exported to the US, China and Japan
      2) Build a great big bridge out in Surrey, tear up some peat bogs, and maybe put in more transit.
      3) tear up as many as 200 rivers, use lakes on the rivers in place of dams, and tear up the forest to built transmission corridors, so BCHydro can buy power from Gordo's buds to sell at a 40 billion dollar loss to California every summer for the next 40 years.
      4) Drill for oil in the Hecate Strait to export more greenhouse gas and pollute the pristine waters.
      5) Massively expand oil tanker traffic on the BC Coast to allow Alberta to export its greenhouse gases to the far east
      6) Eliminate park ranger support in provincial parks so tourism wastes can accumulate
      7) Allow the provinces agricultural lands to be sold off to developers for a massive profit to the developers
      8) Give the provinces tree farm licenses to forest companies to sell to developers for a massive profit to the developers and the big forest companies.
      9) Massively expand fish farms along the coast in an effort to eliminate all salmon runs
      10) Implement a 2.5 cents a liter carbon tax growing to 7.5 cents in three years with no plans to increase despite paid Liberal party hack Mark Jaccard's contention that 24 cents a liter would be required to make any difference. BC actually increased fuel usage by 4% in 2008 despite Neocon Gordo's Wall Street cronies own 50 cent a liter hedge fund oil speculation tax .
      11) Institute an undefined Cap and Trade system maybe sometime in the future if needs be
      12) Ask oil and gas producers to please stop flaring gas sometime maybe would ya.

      Stated NDP environmental policy is silent on item 1 is in agreement on item 2, but aims to cancel and if possible roll back items 3 to 10, actually do item 11, and tax number 12 at a rate of $500 million annually until flaring stops.

      It takes a Greenie endorsement for us to see what Suzuki and Berman are telling us. The ineffective gas tax in item 10) outweighs all other environment issues. Sure makes me want to vote Green (or Liberal same thing ) and send money to Berman and Suzuki!!!!

      When one of the BC's few peer reviewed published active working environmentalists Alexandre Morton states:

      "I personally don't think the salmon are going to survive another Liberal term" Alexandra Morton 21 April 2009

      The Greenies give her the one fingered salute.

      Five years from now we will be bulldozing over the remains of our environment after Greenies give Gordon Campbell more time to have at her. Just like Ralph Nader who's 5% vote split gave us a million dead Iraq's, 8 years of environmental destruction, and the 21st century great depression, these Greenie fools will have no apologies for their irresponsible candidacies.
      seth

      Neal Whiteside

      Apr 24, 2009 at 9:23pm

      Really Seth. Everyone who goes into a voting booth has the opportunity to vote for the NDP if they choose. If they don't click your box don't blame us.

      astro

      Apr 24, 2009 at 10:34pm

      Was she stoned?

      RodSmelser

      Apr 24, 2009 at 11:40pm

      Let me see.

      Will Horter's Conservation Voters wanted Penn to win in Saanich-Gulf Islands, so he took action. A year before the 2008 federal election Horter ordered the S-GI Greens not to nominate a candidate, but that failed, the Greens thumbed their nose at Horter. After the election was called, and the weekend before nominations closed, a very carefully lawyered press release mysteriously surfaced, forcing New Democrat Julian West to end any active campaign. In the end, Penn lost anyway, but it very nearly worked.

      Now we have another race where Will Horter's Conservation Voters have backed a candidate whose arithmetic chances are massively improved when an NDP candidate is forced to withdraw because of some Facebook pictures, which weren't actually in the public part of the Facebook profile. Hmmm.

      Is there any law in B.C. against thinking out loud???

      Rod Smelser

      Colleenc

      Apr 25, 2009 at 12:06am

      Seth "I don't think to much of what is scared to BC can survive along with her children which are also precious despite the obvious disconcert for their well being as children left in peril." Much like our environment which the Liberals say they care about as they boost of their big accomplishments of holding an environmental disaster the Olympics along with Gateway, a commitment to deregulation as TILMA gives industry the go ahead to pollute away and finally the Carbon Tax. And the work it took the Liberals to put it in was carbon fuming no doubt as hundred of millions of advertising pollute the media circuit plugged with Liberals messages of saving the environment by getting poor citizens to pay. And since the sandwich is in the mail for starving kids while BC little one's are hardest hit 6th year and going down for the count as more cuts go deep. And getting to the heart of the situation you will find it cold, uncaring and calculated and looking for another victim to do in....As after all this talk about the importance of the environment from all those who put BC's children's poor treatment and crisis situation as of little importance.? Why do you care about the environment??? If it isn't for future generation in the first place and if its something more profound like you have the fountain to youth please share...

      James Rider

      Apr 25, 2009 at 8:14am

      Anyone who advocates a position dedicated to the ideas of the radical centre has historically at least, been a pariah in British Columbia's traditionally very silly & divisive political culture. Many of Jane Starks comments on the other hand seem like a breath of fresh air. Someone who is actually abandoning the divisive politically play book and starting to sound and act more like a grown up? That this could happen here in British Columbia with its long traditions of parochialism, narrow mindedness and insularity? What will happen next, perhaps Carole James will wake up one morning and realize that her parities ideology died its political death well over a generation ago.

      Matthew Burrows

      Apr 25, 2009 at 10:55am

      "Was she stoned?"

      Astro:

      Are you referring to Christy Clark, Jodie Emery, Jane Sterk or Mary McNeil? All are mentioned above...

      ClaerAir

      Apr 25, 2009 at 1:01pm

      Al Gore's Speech On Renewable Energy
      "Of course, we could and should speed up this transition by insisting that the price of carbon-based energy include the costs of the environmental damage it causes. I have long supported a sharp reduction in payroll taxes with the difference made up in CO2 taxes. We should tax what we burn, not what we earn. This is the single most important policy change we can make."

      thecossack

      Apr 26, 2009 at 12:34pm

      Still a Director and Steward of local 301 Rod?

      sleepswithangels

      Apr 27, 2009 at 3:14pm

      In a distant century in the future scientists will discover a mutant gene that seems to blind the possessor of this rare genetic disorder to the destructive nature of their prediliction for supporting the ironically named Green Party. Flights of fancy and delusions of grandeur were symptoms of this previously unknown malady. The mutant strain of this genetic abnormality was limited to sufferers in the late 20th century and early 21st century and was obliterated with the last remnants of nature as it used to be before the Green Party Mutants, as we now call them, allowed nature raping greed and warmongers to retain power long enough to destroy all of the earth's ecosystems. Kudos to the lone figure of sanity from this era whose foresight and planning led to the saving of the human race and the largest underground cache of porn and weed strains which now represents the archival memory of the "time before the Greens allowed just about everything to be destroyed".
      Thank you Pauly Shore.
      SMBs