Photo: Bill Vander Zalm at today's rally (Sorry, date stamp is incorrect.)
Despite having been head of the right of center Social Credit government, Vander Zalm did not temper his criticism of the ruling right of center Liberal party. ”The HST is a cruel tax. . . . It takes from those that are packing lunch buckets…and it’s giving to big corporations.” The government is “picking your pockets”, Vander Zalm said, emphasizing repeatedly that the money is “all going to the big corporations.” He was starting to sound like a left winger, and there were many of those at the rally too. In fact, Vander Zalm introduced Carole James, leader of the left of center New Democratic Party [”NDP”] , saying she was “doing a great job.”
James was on the same page as Vander Zalm today in criticizing the Liberals for thinking they could impose a harmonized sales tax. ”I think they really thought that they could sneak it in in the summer.” James asked people to contact Liberal Members of the Legislative Assembly and press them to oppose the HST.
Sylvia MacLeay, President of the Council of Senior Citizens Organizations, described seniors as being worried about the planned HST. ”Seniors are really upset.” They are upset about the “process”, MacLeay said, that the Liberal goverment has used in “sneaking in a new tax.” They are upset that the HST will result in “an instant rate of 12%” tax on heating fuel, hydro, some grocery items, and items that have not previously been taxed. MacLeay echoed Vander Zalm’s comments, saying the HST would result in “significant gains to big business”, but for seniors and others, “It’s all bad, there’s no up side, we’re just going to pay more money.”
It was around this point that Vander Zalm asked for money from anyone who "could spare some change or better still a bill.” The organizing effort has overhead, he explained, “signs, a sound system”, so people were being sent through the crowd carrying buckets to collect donations. ”We’re not finished today," he reminded the crowd, "We’re only just starting.”
A central strategy in fighting the HST is a "Citizen's Initiative petition". If a Citizen's Initiative collects signatures of 10% of registered voters in each riding in B.C., a referendum on the GST could be forced.
Bill Tielman, a left wing political commentator on CKNW radio, spoke directly to Premier Campbell from the stage at the rally. “I know you’ll be watching this on television tonight. I know you can’t resist. I have a message for Gordon Campbell. This is what democracy looks like in British Columbia.”
3 comments:
The man with the shaved head and dark shades behind Vander Zalm in the photo looks to me like he could be RCMP security, and possibly one of the women wearing shades too.
I guess you can be out of office for 20 years and still get a security detail.
Is your blog going to help me with my problems with me being a director who wants to do the right thing but can't because there is no way to force a non-profit to do anything if they don't want to.
http://voiceofgoneballistic.blogspot.com
It seems as though you're doing what needs to be done at your own blog.
We have exposed some of what is going on within the poverty establishment and nothing has changed. Ethel Whitty continues to pocket a huge salary while human rights abuses remain rampant at Carnegie....
Maybe Bill Simpson is right. He says the problem is that people continue to go to these places and this allows the povertarians to continue to line their pockets.
Some Downtown Eastsiders were just talking yesterday about how the most abusive povertarians continue to be rewarded. Here's the latest: Stephen Toope, UBC President who claims to be a human rights proponent, has provided former Carnegie Director Michael Clague with an office at the UBC Learning Exchange on the DTES, with no questions asked about Clague's record of human rights abuses. Clague's record of abuses is extensive, and includes banning poor people from City services without due process, and banning a woman from Carnegie services after she complained of such practices as being told to change her appearance to be more sexually attractive to men when she came to the Centre to use computers.
In my opinion, Clague never saw a poor person whom he wouldn't strip of basic rights if he found it politically convenient.
Here's some gossip: When Michael Clague was about to pick up an SFU award for 'helping' the poor, a woman from Carnegie phoned him at his home phone number and asked him not to take it considering that complaints against him of humnan rights abuses and sexism had yet to be resolved. Clague showed the kind of man he was at that moment; he pretended he wasn't home and... GET READY FOR THIS...he got his wife with terminal cancer to take the flak for him on the phone. Is that a real man or what?
His wife was screeching a lot but she was honest; she told the woman that her experience with Clague didn't matter (even though he was picking up an award for his 'service' to these people.)
Clague eventually came on the phone and when the woman asked him why he had told his wife to say he wasn't home, he pretended he still wasn't home and claimed he was somebody else, a son-in-law if I remember correctly. I heard the tape once, along with others at Carnegie; we all recognized Michael Clague's voice.
I hope to get a copy of that tape and post it on the internet. It shows the type of person Stephen Toope is covering for under the guise of helping the poor (i.e. helping himself to funding for the poor) at the UBC Learning Exchange. And it shows what type of male Governor General Michaele Jean is holding up as deserving of the Order of Canada.
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