@canadianglen @AlisonCreekside @zazzoo @chris #Cdnpoli trade rumours. One rusty former BC Liberal (now defunct BC United) leader in the BC league looking for a PTO (professional try out) with a new club, preferably in the federal league. Willing to wear Liberal or Reform/Con jersey but only one with “C.” Shoots right. Has bright smile.

#hockeymetaphors #canada #bcpoli #cdnpoli

@TheSaanichDaily Hatemongers. No room for them in my Canada. Thank you New Brunswick!

#nbpoli #Canada #myCanada

@chris @lacouvee Meanwhile, the ones who squeeze them (used to be repped by lobby org FIR, Forest Industry Council), are quietly mistrusted but publicly allowed to do their business as usual: turning forests into fibre farms, maximizing shareholder profits at truckloggers’, BC communities’, and BC taxpayers’ expense. TLA gets a bad rep, sometimes unearned. The villains are behind the curtain…

#bcpoli #forestry

@chris @lacouvee I used to write/photograph for the TLA
Even in my few years around that crew I saw what I thought were good changes. Some good people.
But they were (& imagine still are) squeezed by corporate profiteers. And rather bite the hand that feeds them, they will lobby against progressive policy.
They are a lobby organization with one goal: maximize the short-term business (financial) interests of their members. Much weaker than they once were.

@chris @PhoenixSerenity Long, deep breathing. Sitting in the forest —usually an old second growth stand of Douglas Firs and Broadleaf Maple. Listening to the ravens. That’s what I do.
We —I!— need a lot of calm going forward. (Fascists hate calm.)

ps. If you know any written material on the 1990s BC “war in the woods,” please send it my way. There is much to understand, much to learn that *may* bear fruit today.

#bcpoli #forestry #fascism #yoga

@lacouvee @chris
Forest industry or fibre industry?
Does that matter to a contract logger who’s trying to feed his monthly payments on equipment, before he even gets to feed his family? Hardly.
Does it matter to those of us who value qualities beyond fibre? Absolutely. I know many loggers who love the natural forests they once worked in or heard about working in. Some of them feel this tension. But feeling it, that doesn’t pay the bills.
#bcpoli #forestry

@lacouvee @chris I don’t know how volumes of fibre compare, but there are 100s more stems per acre in today’s industrial forest than there were in the natural forests of 50 or 100 years ago (or today, we’re still cutting old growth stands).
Industry loves standardization. Many small trees are easier & cheaper to process. It really is “fibre industry” today. Not a “forest industry.” BC, and especially VI, grows fibre - fast.
1/2

#bcpoli #forestry

@chris @PhoenixSerenity Thank you for that.
But I can tell you, as a logger from late 1970s, a treeplanter from 1990s, a researcher/writer/photographer of the forest industry in the 2000s, the BC Liberals didn’t undo all the good work you & your fellow travellers inspired. Much has changed for the better & coastal communities (& forests) are better for it.
As for Horgan, I’m no fan. Now we press Eby (w Green leverage) to make BC better.

#bcpoli #bcelxn2024

@chris @PhoenixSerenity Political will, yes. Political opportunity? Not so much. Recall the Harcourt NDP govt of the 90s, to my mind the most visionary &pragmatic of recent BC govts. Big steps forward in forestry policy/ practices. This may have precipitated the “war in the woods,” or maybe led the way to post-war pragmatism? Govt leadership: rarely appreciated except in crisis or hindsight. Timing is everything. In the meantime…
##bcpoli #bcelxn2024 #forestry

@PhoenixSerenity @chris And rural businesses & families are paying the (short term) cost. A real rural strategy will be a long-term thing. Who can afford that? Not small businesses. Not families. Not rural & small town local govts. Not provincial govts on a 3-5 year election cycle. And the sowers of discontent (fascists & fellow-travellers) reap the whirlwind (and esp their funders & cronies). 2/2

#bcpoli #bcelxn2024 #forestry #rural #smalltowns #community

@chris @PhoenixSerenity Thanks for your efforts. I really do think it has a lot to do with a rural get-away-from-complexity impulse. Many of us are here in small towns & rural areas b/c we want life simplified. And generally it is. The rethink required from “resource extraction” to “rural stewardship” is NOT about simplifying-at least in the short term. And it costs. 1/2

@chris This has long been a divide in BC. And esp as rural resource players (workers as well as business owners) saw largely urban environmentalist movement threatening “their” backyard & God-given (or Crown-given) rights to make a living. IWA had some social conscience & engaged w enviros to some ltd extent during/after the “war in the woods.” That war history needs to be written. It may help us get past the urban/rural divide (which Cons will exploit)
#bcpoli #bcelxn2024

@lacouvee @chris This rings truer for me as a reason for the blue/orange-green map. Oganized labour stopped being a force, & loggers morphed into contractors. And NDP hasn’t seemed to have understood how to make the connex. I worked w this “new” logger culture for a number of years. They were/are struggling. Very ltd scope for political action (or imagination) beyond survival (while the majors flourished, as per usual). #Bcpoli #bcelxn2024 #forestry

@chris What’s your source on this? How did Cullen, a popular pol in his part of the world (& beyond) from what I’ve heard, “run afoul?” And if that’s the case, how does electing a Con (part of a crazy crew, if not one themselves) make things better? Do we now that FN votes were the difference? Or are we just seeing what we’re seeing elsewhere: the rural/urban wedge intensified/amplified as another version of culture warfare? Or simply as an expression of two solitudes?

@chris Thanks Chris!

@chris If we can’t get proportional representation then a minority govt w Greens holding the balance is, imho, the best outcome for BC citizens.

#Bcpoli #bcelxn2024

“A coalition of organizations representing religious and racialized groups across Canada have issued a joint letter calling on John Rustad’s BC Conservatives to hold their party spokesperson accountable for a pattern of harmful behaviour.

According to the group’s letter, BC Conservative spokesperson Anthony Koch has repeatedly made “misogynistic, divisive, and inflammatory remarks, targeting Muslims, Sikhs and women of color.””

##bcpoli #bcelxn2024 #bccons #racism https://pressprogress.ca/bc-conservatives-under-fire-over-spokesperson-known-for-insults-slurs-and-online-abuse/