This is where cold hard facts give way to the hottest of takes, mostly mine I suppose. I’m the editor, Marshall Jones.

Want to include yours? Listen, this isn’t the comment section, this isn’t social media. Discussion and debate requires context and a wee bit of bravery — we need your name and where you’re writing from. Include it in your account or email me anytime.

They’re dropping (out) like flies now!

As I write this, a fourth MLA has left the BC Conservative Party since Kerry-Lynne Findlay was elected leader.

If you’re keeping score at home, that’s 10 total since the last election, mostly due to infighting. The executives are all gone now too.

What a mess.

In a time where David Eby’s NDP appears to be out of ideas and momentum and voters clearly would prefer another choice, this is their option.

I can think of a few hundred things an Official Opposition should be focused on and criticizing. Instead the party MLAs are all standing around debating if their leader is too racist and too Trumpy to stick around.

I don’t really care who wins or loses (Ok, that’s not true, I think Findlay should be disqualified from office, but that’s just me), I am not tied to any party. I just want the system to work well and it works best with an effective opposition.

And now that party appears to be splitting, a time-honoured Canadian conservative tradition. The ‘free enterprise’ parties in BC have always avoided that problem.

Not anymore. The party that came within a whisker of an historic upstart upset may quickly find itself once again in third place. Or second, but certainly not first for a while.

Maybe. That’s all just my take and the only thing I know for certain is this show is better with popcorn. Tell me your side, email me at mjones@infonews.ca.

Marshall Jones

Managing Editor

Nobody asks for a bully, but while you’ve got one, I think this is indeed how they must be handled.

I think Prime Minister Mark Carney did the correct thing for Canada in the long term by refusing to sign a new trade agreement with the United States under terms we all knew would turn ridiculous in the final hours.

There’s still plenty of room to get even more ridiculous.

But in the short term, this is going to hurt.

How much and where will be uneven. Will you be impacted? How so? Are you satisfied with how Canada has acted? Email me at mjones@infonews.ca and let me know.

Marshall Jones

Managing Editor

iN RESPONSE

iN RESPONSE to Monday’s newsletter opinion-editorial on the Trump trade war

I think (Prime Minister Mark) Carney is doing good but not perfect but for that matter, no one is.
I hear some hate him and think he is doing a terrible job but the way he stands up against the Orange Cheesy waste of skin Bully is honourable — but not too happy with the cost of living and our medical services, the high rent cost for seniors.
They keep doing for the addicts and the free drugs and the catch and release needs to come to an end, they need recovery places that you don’t have to wait to get into and they need to keep the violent offenders off the streets once they are arrested. Enough is Enough.
I know when I was an addict if they gave me free drugs and let me use openly in public I would have never gotten clean. What were they thinking? It’s a crying shame.

— Denise Nicol, via email

Was walking away the right call for Canada? Nobody knows yet, that’s a prediction, not a fact.
It might strengthen Canada’s hand for years to come, or just lock in a costly trade war.
18 months of on-and-off trade talks with the US, and Carney and the Liberal Government have nothing to show for it.
Either way, it’s already cost jobs and hurt business in the short term, even as it rallies support at home.
I am going to rest my elbows now.

— Natalie LePage via email

I believe Canada acted appropriately when you’re dealing with an unhinged wing nut that’s all you can do but walk away! I very proud of Mr. Carney for walking away! We signed the best deal ever according to the moron when he did the CUSMA deal and now he’s walked away from it so any deal we signed with him would not stay a deal, he’d break it then somehow he’d figure out a way to impose more and more on us, the man is absolutely certifiable.
And the saddest part of all of this is the Republicans are letting him do this because none of them have the balls to stand up to him. They’re all too afraid!! When he arrives in hell (I may add not soon enough) the world wil be a better place!!!
What president ever has made the amount of money that this man has made since coming into office? What other president ever has allowed his family contracts, insider trading, taken bribes the list is endless and they do nothing about it! Had this been Obama or Biden they would have been burned on the cross literally!!
Sorry for the rant!!! But I just wish Iran would hurry the hell up!!!

— Tracy Higgins via email

It was the right thing to walk away from the trade talks.

— Ken Chantler via email

A good negotiator takes their time to review details on an agreement. Carney and his team were presented last minute alterations that no professional would have enough time to review.
Thats what the timeframe is for, to avoid last minute high pressure sales that blinds people to the details that cause regret.
It’s a trade talk, not a used car.
I don’t know the exact changes, but I don’t need to; Trump is known to do this as an emotional attempt to influence any deal to his favour. Calling him on his door-to-door high-pressure sales tactics and the deal is over.
And let’s face it: never trust a salesperson selling Bibles.

— Bill Jackson via email

I suppose one can always point to the old adages, ‘turn the other cheek’ or ‘live to fight again’, but I’m guessing the calculation has been made that we can last until if and when changes happen in the mid-terms. It’s a big if, the least of bad options I imagine. Hopefully not just a political decision. Too bad JT wasted all that money.

— Warren Caruk, Lake Country, via email

iN NUMBERS: Nearly 80% of British Columbians support Carney in Trump trade war

Readers should be aware the poll was done directly after the cancellation of the trade talks.
People at that moment had a knee jerk or mob reaction to the horror of the cancellation. People polled had little time for thought.
No thought was given to the overall consequences and loss of jobs, livelihoods as a result.
The small amount of government funding will be gobbled up by large corporations and with known government red tape the small home grown businesses will not get timely funding to keep operating.
In my opinion.

— John Chenoweth via email

iN RESPONSE to a response from Helen Price in regards to wildfire compensation for businesses

Climate chaos, inflicted on communities in BC, Canada, and the planet at the hands of the Fossil Fuel Industry, which knew in the 1970’s that they were causing high CO2 levels resulting in global warming, is increasing costs to insurance companies forced to pay out so many policies due to increased and repeated floods, fires, and hail storms. The insurance industry is raising the alarm.
Tourism and resulting economies rely on good weather and clean air.

If you don’t want rates to rise or companies to simply refuse insurance, mobilize to stop any new fossil fuel infrastructure to halt the heating of the planet’s atmosphere. No new pipelines for an affordable, safe future.

— Lori Goldman via email

iN NUMBERS: Surprising number of people in B.C. in favour of private healthcare

Privatized health care will mean that disadvantaged people will NOT be able to access care. Results: spread of diseases, increased hospital costs, longer wait times in emergency and for surgery, medical debt, higher death rates.

In the 1984 Canada Health Act, all “insured persons” are entitled to receive “insured services” without copayment. “Until 1977, federal contributions to acute hospital care and doctors’ services matched provincial spending (approximately) dollar for dollar…hospital costs were rising at a rate far exceeding general inflation, leaving the provinces with a heavier share of the health-cost burden. Matters worsened when, beginning in 1982, the federal government further restricted transfer payments.”

Since then, the federal government has reduced support for health to provinces, leaving them without adequate funding for health care to train and hire doctors, nurses, and other workers.

With private insurance, huge numbers of children and seniors and disadvantaged people will be shut out of services, resulting in suffering, trauma, and death.

Health care should not be treated as a market, where investors profit from illness.

— Lori Goldman via email

32% of Canadians want private health care? Are they crazy? Or just wannabe’s of the 1%
Filthy rich selfish people?
Always amazes me as we have such a better system than most countries in the world.
Of course it needs some care and attention, but it’s better than what we’ll have if this 32% get their way!!
Just look at what the US system does for their people!! The majority suffer, go into debt, and now with Trump, gutting the little they had, they face a grim reality,
Private care, the richer you are you get priority health care! Nice!!!! NOT!!!

— Diane Courneyeur via email

Wildfire forces Okanagan fruit pickers back to Mexico

Absolutely pathetic! We need these workers and under the circumstances and knowing that this is bound to happen again, the government needs to address taking care of these important workers for our economy for the future.

— Bonnie Derry via iNFOnews.ca

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