Canada could be in the same shows Finland was in in 1990

Before 1990 Finland had a large trading relationship with the Soviet Union. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, this trade relationship collapsed and caused a severe recession in Finland in the early 1990s.

Canada is highly dependent on the US as a market. If, as I believe is the case, the US is headed towards a long term economic 'wilderness', our economy in Canada is going to be suffering longer than most expect.

We should brace ourselves for the loss of a large portion of the auto industry as we know it. Ontario is realistically looking at a 10 to 15 years period as a have not province.

Our forest industry is also going to suffer because most of the product has been going into the states. Internationally we are going to hard pressed to compete with all the Siberian wood that will be flooding the Asian market for the next several decades. Siberia is huge, bigger than Canada and the US combined and more productive forest than all of North America.

All the Candidates are Registered

We 344 candidates in the election this time around, this is a lower number than we have seen in some time. We are averaging just over four caniddates per riding, the last time the number was lower than that was in 1986

• Election - total candidates - average per riding
• 2009 - 344 - 4.05
• 2005 - 418 - 5.29
• 2001 - 456 - 5.77
• 1996 - 513 - 6.84
• 1991 - 317 - 4.23
• 1986 - 237 - 3.43
• 1983 - 224 - 3.93

This is the fourth election we had had three parties running full slates. Though in 2001 the third party was Marijuana and in 1996 it was Reform.

I do not think the lower number of candidates is a reflection of needing more signatures, the total of 100 signatures is still laughably low and I think should be raised to at least 1000. What I see is a general disinterest in the election. There simply are a lot fewer fringe candidates interested in running in the election.

Leaders' Debate on CKNW this morning

I listened and I was not impressed, no one screwed up badly and no one did anything amazing.

Jane Sterk did the best, though she also had some rather unpolished sounding moments. She had the most substance in what she said. I would give her a B

Gordon Campbell was calm and non-reactive but also a bit boring and bland. I know this man has a passion for making BC better and it did not come out. On the other hand he has the lead and is best served by protecting it and not risking too much. C+ for him

Carole James sounded like herself, which is a problem because she is not a strong public speaker and easily sounds like she is trying too hard or sounds insincere. She also offered nothing of any substance. I give her a C.

The debate changes nothing in the election.

For the Record

During the NDP government of 1991 - 2001, the government issued 63 water licenses for private power production.

You can look up the data yourself here.

Sign Problems

I live on a moderately busy corner and this a very strong NDP neighbourhood. The upshot of this is that if I put up political signs, they often disappear rather quickly.

I put up a sign for Liberal candidate Jesse McClinton on Monday evening. This morning it was gone.

I am not sure what some NDP supporter thinks they are accomplishing with this sort of negativity? I am not about to vote NDP because of it. I am also in a riding where the NDP will win even if they did not campaign at all, taking down my sign is not going to change the outcome.

I will be getting another sign and putting it up.

Barry Penner takes on Carole James

I like Barry Penner, he is smart, he is honest, and he is straight forward. This is a video of him taking apart the stuff the NDP has been saying. He does it in a quiet and methodical manner and backed up with facts, something that the NDP has been missing in this debate.




The NDP allowed the same sort of private power development. BC had huge numbers of water licenses issued under the NDP for many different uses, in fact BC has a long history of water licenses being issued going back to 1858. This is nothing new and nothing different. We have had private power producers in BC since we started producing electrical power.

I suspect I will get some indignant comments about this post, such is life. I would like the NDP to move away from this badly scripted half truths about issues and come out with some concrete ideas of what the NDP would do as government. I have been meaning to blog about their platform, but does not really have much substance on the issues that I pay the most attention to.

A funny STV video

I thought people might enjoy this given that the election for government is so blandly boring this time around.

Campbell and James talk hockey?

The Vancouver Sun is running a blog for Gordon Campbell and Carole James to comment on the Vancouver Canucks playoff run.

It is bad enough to see a political ad during the games, but to have them commenting on the Canucks fills me with fear and dread.....