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The B.C. Liberals unveiled another promise Tuesday that was never included in their February budget or their election-campaign platform.

Environment Minister Jordan Sturdy announced that Thursdays throne speech will include a commitment to invest $50 million over five years in new charging stations for electric vehicles.

Its important that we expand on this strong infrastructure, because we really want to encourage electrification of our transportation fleet, he said.

A day earlier, the Liberals revealed that Premier Christy Clark will pledge in the speech to raise welfare rates, tie disability assistance to inflation and ban big money from B.C. politics positions she previously opposed.

Its unlikely, however, that Clark will get a chance to act on any of the promises. The NDP and B.C. Green Party have signed a pact to defeat her minority Liberal government in a confidence vote within days of the speech.

George Heyman, NDP MLA for Vancouver-Fairview, said the Liberals are using their final throne speech after 16 years in power to try to make up for all the failures of their government.

Its too little, too late, he said. And in this case, its not even included in their recent budget.

Sturdy said the $50-million investment in charging stations is a relatively modest expense when spread over five years.

Im quite confident the finance ministers confident that we are going to be able to incorporate this $50 million in our $49.5 billion budget, he said.

As to why the Liberals waited until after the campaign to announce the program, Sturdy said hes only been in cabinet for a week.

I only have so much time to be able to influence these outcomes, he said. Im pleased to be part of this change in direction, or this additional initiative, I suppose is a better way of saying it recognizing that this has always been part of the climate leadership plan. Were just advancing the objectives, advancing the targets a number of years.

Sturdy said the Liberal plan calls for 4,321 new charging stations across the province, including 110 stations offering 30-minute charges and 4,211 five-hour charging stations.

We have to have a more robust infrastructure in order to expect people to transition onto clean-energy vehicles, especially electric vehicles, he said.

But Heyman said the program should be part of a robust climate-action plan that the Liberals have failed to adopt.

What were seeing from the Liberals in the last few days are just distraction announcements and a failure to recognize that 57 per cent of British Columbians are ready for change, he said.

lkines@timescolonist.com

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BC Liberals add vehicle charging stations to their platform - Times Colonist

Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff lost the Georgia special election Tuesday despite the fact that his campaign received unprecedented funding from the deeply liberalstate of California.

The young Democrat received 8.9 times as many many donors from California than from any other state in the union, including all of the totals from Georgia itself.

The failed Democrat received 7,218private donations from California residents. He benefitted from only 808 donations from inside of Georgias sixth congressional district.

Hollywood insiders like Chelsea Handler and Georgia Takei donated to Ossoffs campaign, and other celebrities like Jane Fonda, Sam Waterston, and Kyra Sedgwick all donated their time towards the campaign.

The Georgia politician lost the election earlier than expected Tuesday evening. He earned 48 percent compared to former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handels 52 percent showing in the race.

Former Democratic Candidate Hillary Clinton had overwhelming support from liberals in California. She earned $132,137,278 during the election against Trump, a full 22.49 percent of her campaigns total fundraising haul. The presidential candidate ended up earning and spending nearly $1.2 billion in her fight against Trump.

Perhaps not surprisingly, $49,224,731 came from residents of the Los Angeles area.

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Wealthy California Liberals Fail To Buy An Election In Georgia - The Daily Caller

The Liberals will make their first down payment of up to $600 million on their marquee defence strategy this fall, a Commons committee was told Tuesday.

Deputy Defence Minister John Forester saidcash to put the wheels of the newly-released policy in motion will come through supplementary spending estimates that are always tabled in Parliament as part of routine fiscal business.

Forester, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and Gen. Jonathan Vance, the chief of the defence staff, faced a series of questions from both Conservative and NDP MPsabout when and how the ambitious program will be funded.

The Liberals have chafed under the fiscal skepticism which greeted the release of the plan on June 7 when critics pointed out that the spring federal budget contained little extra new cash for the military.

That irritation was on full display Tuesday.

Sajjan became his most animated when beating back opposition critiques and pointing to specific funding provisions in the policy, which promises a 70 per cent increase in the overall defence allocation during the next decade.

"The investment starts now," he said.

Under the Liberal plan, the federal government will be spending $32.7 billion on the military by 2026-27, but as NDP MP Randall Garrison pointed out, much of the planned increase in spending does not fully kick in for a couple of years.

"What we see, in the short-term,the money you're proposing will not keep pace with the rate of inflation," he said. "How do you expect the military to keep pace with operations when they have no new real dollars in their budget."

Forester told MPs the money will start flowing in the supplementary estimates.

Since the defence plan had not been announced at the time of the budget, officials were not prepared to put it on the books.

In addition, Forester saidthe department's capacity to be able to spend the cash,through program administration and hiring,has to be ramped up first.

"There is a planned schedule of implementation," said Forester. "It is $600 million in addition to what was already planned in the defence budget."

While the Conservatives were in power, National Defence was routinely unable to spend its budget allocation.

In 2015, defence analyst Dave Perry of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute estimated the department had lapsed as much as $9.7 billion between 2007 and 2014.

The new policy calls for an expansion of the military to 71,000 full-time members and 30,000 part-time,or reservists.

MPs asked how meeting the plan outlined in the newly announced defence policy would be possible without an increase in the federal budget.

But Vance answered that he has,at the moment,the cash to sustain 68,000 members of the regular force and expects the rest will be coming quickly.

"We have sufficient resources to meet the plans and when the [supplementary funding] comes in the fall we will be increasing recruiting," Vance said. "I am actually far more concerned and consumed right now about being able to spend the [current] supply [of money]."

Shortly after the defence policy was released, finance officials told CBC News the plan would nothave a significant impact on future projected deficits.

A senior finance official, speaking on background, said the new spending will lead to some changes to the fiscal outlook, but insisted those changes will be minor.

How it might affect this year's projected deficit remainsunclear.

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Liberals planning $600M down payment on defence strategy - CBC.ca

June 19, 2017, 9:34 a.m.

Olympic legend and longtime Republican Caitlyn Jennerraised eyebrows over the weekend with a joke at the College Republican National Committee convention on Friday.

Though the event was closed to the press, video was posted to Facebook Live by the College Republican Federation of Virginia, whichhassince removed the post.

"Nobody deserves what happened out there," Jenner said of Wednesday's shooting, in whichfour were injured by a gunman said to be targeting GOP lawmakers.

But rather than stop while she was ahead, Jennercontinued commenting on the violence.

"As for the people that were injured, it's an absolute shame," Jenner remarked. "You just want them to recover. Fortunately the guy was a really bad shot ... liberals can't even shoot straight."

The joke got a hearty laugh from the assembled group of college Republicans.

Jenner's humor was less well-received online, where people found the joke to be distasteful and inappropriate.

Representatives for Jenner did not immediately respond to The Times' request for comment Monday morning.

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Caitlyn Jenner on GOP baseball shooting: 'Liberals can't even shoot straight' - Los Angeles Times

Their candidate, Jon Ossoff, has a real chance to win partly because he isnt suffering from the gap in voter passion and commitment that usually bedevils Democrats, especially in off-year races. It would be a big deal if Democrats could more often close their passion-and-commitment gap. Even modestly higher turnout could help them at every level of politics and hasten the policy changes that liberals dream about.

Demographic groups that lean Republican generally have higher voter turnout than Democratic-leaning groups.

After all, polls show that a majority of Americans support progressive positions on most big issues. Yet Republicans dominate state and federal government.

Turnout is a big reason. Last year, Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 voted for Clinton over Trump in a landslide. Only 43 percent of citizens in that age group voted, however. By contrast, Americans over age 65 supported Trump and 71 percent of them voted. Similarly, Americans in their 30s were more likely to support Clinton, and less likely to vote, than those in their 50s.

The pattern also exists across ethnic groups. Asian and Hispanic voters went for Clinton in a bigger landslide than millennials, but most Asian and Hispanic citizens didnt vote.

And the gaps grow even larger in midterm elections. A mere 17 percent 17 percent! of Americans between 18 and 24 voted in 2014, compared with 59 percent of seniors.

If youre liberal and frustrated by these statistics, you should be. But you shouldnt be defeatist.

What can be done? First, dont make the mistake of blaming everything on nefarious Republicans. Yes, Republicans have gerrymandered districts and shamefully suppressed votes (and Democrats should keep pushing for laws that make voting easier). But the turnout gap is bigger than any Republican scheme.

Second, keep in mind that turnout is a human-behavior problem. It involves persuading people to change long-established habits. And there is a powerful force uprooting all kinds of habits today: digital technology.

More specifically, smartphones are changing how people interact with information. Id encourage progressives in Silicon Valley to think of voting as a giant realm ripe for disruption. Academic research by Alan Gerber, Donald Green and others has shown that peer pressure can lift turnout. Smartphones are the most efficient peer-pressure device ever invented, but no one has figured out how social media or texting can get a lot more people to the polls yet.

Finally, remember that the political left has had some recent successes in raising turnout, and they involved old-fashioned political excitement. Obama won partly through higher turnout among younger and nonwhite voters. Black turnout even exceeded white turnout in 2012, before slipping last year.

This months British election is also intriguing. The Labour Party did better than expected, helped by a surge of younger voters angry about Brexit. But Britain also offers a caution to anyone who thinks higher turnout depends on far-left candidates, like Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader. Corbyn didnt win, and he didnt come very close.

My instinct is that the answer for Democrats involves a passionate message of fairness of providing jobs, lifting wages, protecting rights and fighting Trumps plutocracy. It can be bolder than Democrats have been in decades. But it should not resemble a complete progressive wish list, which could turn off swing voters without even raising turnout.

People who dont vote regularly arent progressive activists in disguise. They tend not to follow politics closely. Although most lean left, they are not doctrinaire, and theyre not looking for white papers. They are looking to be inspired.

Obviously, these are tough times for Democrats. They havent had much electoral cheer since 2012 and its unclear whether Ossoff will win. But Democrats should remember that they still have one enormous advantage.

The countrys real silent majority prefers Democrats, if only that majority could be stirred to vote.

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If Liberals Voted ... - The New York Times - New York Times