Mediaboss Marketing

The BC Liberals have stopped disclosing political donations in real time, saying they are instead focusing staff time on preparing for potential new fundraising rules under an NDP government.

The move caught the BC NDP off guard, but a spokesman for the the party, which is preparing to work with the BC Green Party to oust the Liberals in a confidence vote, said New Democrats will stick with ongoing efforts to raise corporate, union and individual donations under the current system before they can get into power and ban union and corporate donations.

BC Liberal Premier Christy Clark had once touted the partys voluntary posting of weekly donation updates on its website as an admirable effort at clarity in light of criticism about the lack of fundraising limits that led to some of Canadas highest political donations being made in B.C.

But in an e-mail, party spokesman Emile Scheffel said the system is taking too much effort.

Real-time reporting requires significant staff time, and we are now focused on evaluating how we will raise funds in accordance with likely new rules, he wrote, explaining the shift.

The party is turning away from providing ongoing information on donors to preparing for the introduction of a ban on corporate and union donations expected by an NDP government.

The media and public had the opportunity to see who contributed to our party, and how much, during the pre-writ period and the election campaign. Unfortunately, they wont know who funded the BC NDP or Green Party campaigns until election financial reports are made public by Elections BC in August, Mr. Scheffel wrote.

Late Sunday, Stephen Smart, a spokesperson for Premier Christy Clark, said the government's throne speech will include a commitment to ban corporate and union donations. However, Ms. Clark has acknowledged her government appears certain to fail a confidence vote in the coming weeks.

NDP Leader John Horgan and his party have said there is little point in weakening their ability to engage in political combat with the Liberals so they have forged ahead raising money following the election. The NDP and Greens were searingly critical during the election campaign of the Liberals refusal to bring in donation limits and ban union and corporate donations.

Last year, the Liberals raised $12-million while the NDP raised $6.2-million in donations. The Green Party has already banned corporate and union donations to their party.

Indeed, the NDP are planning a fundraising event in Vancouver on June 23 featuring Mr. Horgan and other NDP MLAs that Glen Sanford, the partys deputy director, said is sold out. Regular tickets are $350, with group rates for a ticket buyer and three friends going for $1,000.

While the party continues to accept union and corporate donations, it is not making a specific outreach effort for those donations, Mr. Sanford said in an interview.

Weve said all along that we will play by the rules that are in place. As soon as were government, were going to change those rules. Theres way too much at stake to give an advantage to Christy Clark and the Liberals, he said. Anybody who donates to us knows we will change the rules. We have been very clear about that.

A governance agreement between the NDP and the BC Green Party commits to the corporate and union donation ban, as well as a ban on contributions from non-residents of B.C. There will also be limits placed on individual contributions. Other measures include a review of campaign finance and the B.C. Election Act.

Mr. Sanford said the Liberal real-time policy was a bid to change the subject on the need to ban corporate and union donations, and suggested the Liberal reversal appears an effort to conceal a drive to aggressively raise money ahead of changes to campaign-finance laws.

Mr. Sanford said his party has generally received most of its money from individual donations, and is making more appeals for small donations such as last weeks written outreach for $5 or more to help the party prepare for a possible snap election. The appeal was included in a letter to prospective donors signed by Mr. Sanford himself.

We are developing and improving our techniques for reaching out to individuals and asking for donations, and that means we try to adjust the request amounts to what individuals can contribute, he said. Our focus is on turning our attention to the new reality where political parties will only be funded by individuals.

Follow Ian Bailey on Twitter: @ianabailey

Here is the original post:
BC Liberals stop real-time disclosure of political donations - The Globe and Mail

Liberal groups like the Sierra Club have led the charge in filing environmental lawsuits against the Trump administration in its first five months.

Buttheres one environmental lawsuit against the Trump administration that liberals seem to have avoided almost entirely: the Immigration Reform Law Institutes lawsuit againstthe Department of Homeland Security, filed on behalf of several environmentalist groups, for ignoring the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).

IRLI lawyers told The Daily Caller in a recent interviewthat DHS has never analyzed or publicized the environmental effects of the agencys immigration actions, as they are legally required to do under NEPA.

NEPA says every time an agency takes a discretionary action, it has to think about the environmental impact of it and they didnt do that, said IRLI lawyer Julie Axelrod. There are many immigration actions and cumulatively they have an extremely large environmental impact, they change the quality of life for the American people, which is ultimately what NEPA was about.

The heart of their mistake is that when they passed regulations under (NEPA), which all agencies do, they never took into account that one of their main missions, which is the implementation of immigration law, is something that can be environmentally meaningful, she added.

Liberal groups like the Sierra Club have been of no help, IRLI said.

Immigration concerns were common in the environmental movement really up until the turn of the century, that was a keystone of people who were active in the environmental movement including David Brower who used to be the head of the Sierra Club, talking about population andimmigrationtogether were not controversial, saidEric Ruarkof Numbers USA,an advocacy group that supports reduced immigration.Sierra Club has entered into coalitions where environmental concerns have taken a backseat to other political priorities.

Most of our population growth is because of immigration and when the population grows it affects the environment in a host of ways thats the source of urban sprawl it affects resource use such as water, food, you havetraffic, you have pollution.According to the global warming theory, carbon emissions actually go up with immigration because people who immigrate typically use more carbon when they move to a new country, IRLI lawyer Julie Axelrod explained.

The legal group filed the lawsuit at the end ofthe Obama administration and it has continued into the Trumpyears.The Department of Justice lawyers handling the lawsuit have continued stalling under the Trump administration, much like they did under when Obama was president, the IRLI lawyers said.The DOJ did not return a request for comment by press time. (RELATED:Environmentalists File Lawsuit Against DHS For Ignoring Impact Of Mass Migration)

Theyve had seven months to respond to this lawsuit. Under the federal rules they have 60 days to begin with. They asked for two more 60 days and then right before their response was due we were trying to get a meeting and see if maybe their views on this had changed and they said oh yeah give us another 30 days and we can set up a settlement discussion but basically they got there and it was just a ruse and it was in bad faith, said IRLI attorney Dale Wilcox.The head DOJ attorney basically said to Julie (Axelrod),Your guy (Trump) won what more do you want?'

In addition to environmentalist groups, other plaintiffs in the suit include residents on the southwest border who have seen their land damaged by illegal aliens crossing the border.

One such plaintiff is Caren Cowan, executive director of the New Mexico Cattle Growers Association, who said she no longer feels safe out on the cattle range due to aliens crossing the border and damaging her property. The lawsuit stated: Her grandmothers homestead was ransacked and despoiled by illegal aliens on multiple occasions.

See the article here:
The One Environmental Lawsuit Against The Trump Admin That Liberals Want To Ignore - The Daily Caller

There was a time when the controversial police and spy powers in Stephen Harpers anti-terror law, Bill C-51, were a pretty sharp thorn in Justin Trudeaus side. But in government his Liberals have deftly defused the politics.

On Tuesday, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale is expected to table his own comprehensive national-security bill, one that is supposed to finally fulfill their promise to undo some of the measures that had (mostly) left-leaning protesters across the country campaigning against C-51.

The Liberal bill is not likely to undo half the things those protesters complained about. But it turns out ragging the puck can be effective in politics.

After 18 months of delay and consultations, C-51 is not a hot-button issue any more. And thats valuable because this bill cant please everyone. The Liberals have been signalling that theyll take a different approach to passing this bill: Where Mr. Harper was accused of delivering a take-it-or-leave-it bill, the Liberals will signal they are open to talking about amendments.

Its hard to imagine that Mr. Goodale really wants MPs to tinker with spy powers, but the Liberals hope the Were listening approach will soften critics.

At one time, as the Liberals took power, it seemed they would be under pressure to move quickly to undo some of the controversial measures of Bill C-51.

In opposition, the Liberals were being squeezed by this bill. C-51 was the Conservatives attempt to assert they were taking muscular measures against terror. It came after two attacks in 2014, in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and on Parliament Hill, and not long before the 2015 election. The bill was initially very popular.

But gradually, a campaign developed against a bill that civil-liberties advocates labelled an overreach. The NDP said theyd repeal it. But the Liberals, worried about looking either soft on terror or too much like the Tories, said theyd vote for it, and repeal the problematic elements later. A dodge.

So when the Liberals took power, it appeared to be one of those things theyd have to address quickly. A significant chunk of the left-leaning voters that elected the Liberals saw it as one of those Harper-legacy items that had to be undone. But from day one, they delayed.

That turned out to be shrewd. Time cooled the angry politics around it. The protest organizers who had argued that Bill C-51 gave authorities powers to violate rights, interpret protests as security threats, and collect and share too much information on Canadians activities directed their energy to influencing the consultations.

While this consultation was taking place, thats certainly, for example, where my organization was investing its energies, said David Christopher, spokesman for OpenMedia, an organization that played a sizable role in drumming up the protests.

Now, Mr. Goodale can go forward in calmer waters. Some of the controversial elements of C-51 didnt really become the focus of criticism during the consultations. C-51 gave CSIS ill-defined powers to disrupt threats, rather than just gather intelligence; in the consultations, people expressed concern about that, but it wasnt clear what they wanted in its place.

However, the consultation did find people arent sanguine about the accumulation of electronic-surveillance powers by government: warrantless interception of metadata, sharing of information between government agencies. Canadians want those things controlled. But some of those Canadian intelligence agencies will be arguing they need latitude.

Dont expect the Liberal bill to include wholesale repeals of all the controversial elements of Bill C-51. If the Liberals were going to do that, theyd have done it a lot sooner.

It is likely they will rely on reassuring by proposing stronger oversight. They are already adding a new committee of parliamentarians to review security agencies, and are said to be proposing a new oversight body for the Canada Border Services Agency and more power for existing review boards. When Canadians disagree over whether their spies need more or less powers, most agree more oversight makes things better.

But now, after all this time, Mr. Goodale no longer faces the same political pressure to undo all of the bill that protesters found too hard-edged, and the Liberals plan to slide their update through with a softer touch.

Follow Campbell Clark on Twitter: @camrclark

Read more:
Trudeau Liberals' softer security tact still won't please all - The Globe and Mail

News & Observer

Liberals are fundamentalists on abortion | News & Observer News & Observer Democrats are often unwilling to engage in reasoned, nuanced discussion about abortion. and more »

Visit link:
Liberals are fundamentalists on abortion | News & Observer - News & Observer

New York Times

Liberals in Strange Places New York Times Montana has made the most Google searches with the words impeach and Trump. These searches include how to impeach Trump and impeach Trump petition. Alaska and Idaho are also in the top 10. How can Montana, Alaska and Idaho be among the ...

More here:
Liberals in Strange Places - New York Times