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The BC Liberal Party has released its post-mortem report on why it lost the provincial election so badly last fall and while it draws some obvious conclusions, it misses the bigger picture when it comes to the serious challenges the party faces as it

The BC Liberal Party has released its post-mortem report on why it lost the provincial election so badly last fall and while it draws some obvious conclusions, it misses the bigger picture when it comes to the serious challenges the party faces as it tries to rebuild.

The report written by three Toronto-based consultants concludes the party never really stood much of a chance of winning the election. It fails to examine why the party was in so much trouble before the election.

Former party leader Andrew Wilkinson comes in for heavy criticism and is portrayed as someone who comes across as stilted, combative and uncomfortable. When asked to rate his performance on a scale of one to 10 (10 being perfect), Wilkinson was awarded an abysmal average of four by those surveyed.

Wilkinson, however, was not deemed the only big problem. The partys platform was tone deaf and failed to connect with voters and even party members, its communications efforts were clumsy and ineffective, and what little campaigning actually did occur was amateurish and almost pointless.

Of course, the media comes in for some blame. The legislative press gallery was said to have been too cozy with the government of Premier John Horgan. In addition, gallery reporters spent most of their time covering the COVID-19 pandemic and the regular briefings and updates by Dr. Bonnie Henry (indeed, I spent much of my time during the campaign covering those briefings).

The central campaign team gets a clean bill of health, which is odd given the enormity of the loss and the fact so many missteps were made.

The reports authors based their findings on surveys sent to 3,000 party members and interviews with candidates, strategists, senior officials and campaign staff.

The approach of talking to only party insiders and members may have masked the true rot that has slowly eaten its way through the party during the past decade or so. The party did not just lose the last election it was absolutely hammered and the depth of its defeat can be seen in lopsided NDP wins in traditionally strong BC Liberal ridings in places like Vernon, Chilliwack, Abbotsford, Mission, North Vancouver and Langley.

This momentous loss had been building for years but the BC Liberals, smug in their feelings of invincibility because they unexpectedly won the 2013 election, simply failed to spot the warning signs until it was too late.

The report is sprinkled with quotes from those who were surveyed or interviewed. Near the end of the report this one jumped out at me: Seriously take on rebuilding! Dont be afraid to take on the tough questions and challenges. Hold our MLAs accountable for their past and present discretions. Clean house, change the mediocre mentality of the old guard.

Harsh criticism but indicative the massive rebuilding job the party faces.

The report ends with some recommendations about the usual things: attracting younger members, improving the partys nomination process, finding more volunteers and getting started on the next campaign as soon as possible.

Its the last paragraph which reads as if it was tacked on as an afterthought that nails the partys deeper problems. It says the party must be more diverse when it comes to recruiting and elevating people from every gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation and economic background.

The province has changed, and so should the BC Liberals, reads the reports last line. It is also the most accurate one in it.

Keith Baldrey is chief political reporter for Global BC.

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Opinion: Report a damning look at how BC Liberals got 'hammered' in the election - North Shore News

Canadian gas company TC Energy announced Wednesday that it had terminated its Keystone XL pipeline project after President Biden revoked a key permit on his first day in office because of concerns over the pipelines impact on climate change.

This decision by TC Energy concludes a 13-year battle surrounding the building of the pipeline and represents a victory for environmental groups that have been calling attention to the harmful effects of processing oil-sands crude oil since the Keystone project was first proposed in 2008.

In its press release Wednesday, TC Energy said it will continue to coordinate with regulators, stakeholders and Indigenous groups to meet its environmental and regulatory commitments, ensure a safe termination and exit from the Project.

The proposed 1,179-mile pipeline would have eventually carried 830,000 barrels (35 million gallons) of tar sands oil from Hardisty, Alberta, to Steele City, Neb. Its construction was stalled in 2015 by then-President Barack Obama but resuscitated in 2019 by then-President Donald Trump, who signed a presidential permit that allowed TC Energy to effectively construct, connect, operate and maintain pipeline facilities ... for the import of oil from Canada to the United States. Since construction began last year, only about 300 miles of pipeline has been built.

Pipes for the Keystone XL in a yard in Alberta, Canada. (Jason Franson/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Bidens decision in January to cancel the cross-border permit for the project was the final blow. The Keystone XL pipeline disserves the U.S. national interest. ... Leaving the Keystone XL pipeline permit in place would not be consistent with my Administrations economic and climate imperatives, Biden announced in an executive order signed on his first day in office.

In addition to the pipelines generation of excessive carbon dioxide emissions, Keystone XL would have cut through the Ogallala Aquifer, a source of water for those living in the High Plains, which includes many Native American communities.

Opponents of the pipeline, including environmental activists and tribal leaders, celebrated TC Energys decision.

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Larry Wright Jr., chairman of the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska, said in a Thursday statement: On behalf of our Ponca Nation, we welcome this long overdue news and thank all who worked so tirelessly to educate and fight to prevent this from coming to fruition. Its a great day for Mother Earth.

In another statement, Fort Belknap Indian Community president Andy Werk said, We were not willing to sacrifice our water or safety for the financial benefit of a trans-national corporation. We are thrilled that the project has been canceled.

A pipeline-resistance training camp in the San Juan Islands, off Washington state. (Tim Exton/AFP via Getty Images)

Former Vice President Al Gore joined the chorus of those applauding the pipelines demise, tweeting, Congratulations to the Indigenous communities & activists who for a decade have said #NoKXL. We must continue to put the planet and its people ahead of polluters by saying no to #ByhaliaPipeline, #DAPL, #MVP, #Line3 & other reckless fossil fuel pipelines.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., also celebrated on Wednesday. The Keystone XL pipeline was a giveaway to foreign oil lobbyists that put our communities, environment, and tribal lands at risk, she tweeted. Im glad its dead, and Im grateful to everyone who fought to make this day happen.

For many Republicans, however, the pipeline was seen as a way to create much-needed energy sector jobs.

President Biden killed the #KeystoneXL Pipeline & with it, thousands of good-paying American jobs, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., tweeted. On Inauguration Day @POTUS signed an executive order that ended pipeline construction & handed 1000 workers pink slips. Now 10x that number of jobs will never be created.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has repeatedly criticized Biden over his decision to revoke the permit for the pipeline.

Keystone XL is a project that right now, today, has 1,200 good-paying union jobs. And in 2021, the Keystone pipeline was scheduled to have more than 11,000 jobs, including 8,000 union jobs, for contracts worth $1.6 billion, Cruz said during a Senate hearing in January.

A 2014 State Department report dissected those numbers, revealing that out of the 11,000 jobs Cruz cited, only 35 to 50 would have been permanent; the remainder would have been temporary construction jobs as the pipeline was being built.

In March, a coalition of attorneys general from 21 states sued the Biden administration for rescinding the pipelines permit. In their complaint they said: The pipeline would have a negligible impact on the climate but significant impact on the economy and American energy independence.

A depot used to store pipes for the planned Keystone XL oil pipeline in Gascoyne, N.D., in 2017. (Terray Sylvester/Reuters)

As the 2022 midterm elections approach, Republican lawmakers have made clear that the demise of Keystone XL will resurface as an issue on which they will attempt, despite a robust economy, to pummel Democrats as job killers.

Many Republicans are also attempting to portray Biden as a hypocrite over his decision to ease sanctions on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, operated by a German citizen with close ties to Vladimir Putin.

After facing insurmountable opposition, the company behind the Keystone Pipeline abandoned the project today, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy tweeted Wednesday. Thousands of jobs destroyed and our energy independence jeopardized. Meanwhile, President Biden is meeting with Putin next week to tell him he can keep his pipeline.

Along with 10 other Senate Republicans, Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, introduced the Defending Keystone Jobs Act, which would require the Biden administration to submit a report to Congress detailing the number of jobs lost as a result of the canceled pipeline.

An Enbridge Energy pipeline drilling pad near the Minnesota-Wisconsin border. (Jim Mone/AP)

Despite this backlash from Republicans, the termination of the pipeline is a notable victory for those trying to hasten the U.S. transition away from fossil fuels and a model for the battle that lies ahead. Earlier this week, hundreds of activists from environmental and tribal groups blocked access to the site where the Enbridge Line 3 pipeline is being built in northern Minnesota. TC Energys withdrawal from Keystone XL has given hope to opponents.

The termination of this zombie pipeline sets precedent for President Biden and polluters to stop Line 3, Dakota Access, and all fossil fuel projects, Kendall Mackey, campaign manager of 350.orgs Keep It in the Ground campaign, said in a statement.

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Liberals celebrate the demise of the Keystone XL pipeline, but conservatives promise to keep the issue alive - Yahoo News

House Leader PabloRodriguezsaid today the Liberal government isdeterminedto pass four key pieces of legislation before summer and it's willing to use all necessaryparliamentary manoeuvresto get it over the finish line.

With just 10 days left before the House of Commons rises for a months-long break, there is little time remaining to get those four bills the budget legislation, C-6 (the conversion therapy ban), C-10 (reforms to the Broadcasting Act) and C-12 (the net-zero emissions bill) through both chambers of Parliament.

And with a possible fall federal election on the horizon, the government is eager to rack up legislative victories to pad its record before asking voters for another term.

Rodriguez could invoke time allocation to get bills through a tool used to curtail how long memberscan study, debate or propose amendments togovernment legislation. The Liberals alsohave pitcheda motion to keep the Commons in business late into the evening for the remainder of the sitting.

Last week, the Liberals' election campaignco-chairsdeclared a "state of electoral urgency" and suspended the normal rules to allow the party to nominate candidates quickly a sign that party operatives are preparing for an election that could come at any time in this minority Parliament.

MPsalso haveunanimously agreed to hold a "take-note debate" in the Commons on June 15 to allow members who aren't running again to "make their farewell speech."

But Rodriguez denied today that the government's legislative demands are motivatedby the prospect of animminent election call.

"We don't want an election. We want bills. No election bills. Bills to help children from the LGBT community, bills to help our artists, our cultural sector, bills to protect the environment,"he said.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has saidrepeatedly that"nobody wants an election before the end of this pandemic."

WATCH:'We don't want an election,' says Liberal governmentHouse leader

Asked why some of these bills couldn't be held back for Parliament's scheduled return in the fall,Rodriguez said the Liberals were elected in 2019 with a mandate to pass progressive legislation and accused the opposition Conservatives ofworkingto block bills that have some support from the other parties.

"I cannot overstate the urgency of this," he said, adding that further delays threaten gay and lesbian kids who may be subjected to "conversion therapy," a practice many experts agree is harmful.

He said punting action on climate change by delaying C-12 which would force current and future federal governments to set binding climate targets to get Canada to net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 would be irresponsible.

"Is there a more urgent topic than the environment?" he said.

Rodriguez said the Tories are deliberatelyrunning out the clock on the net-zero bill. Conservative environment criticDan Albas, meanwhile,has said he's simply asking legitimate questions at committee meetings.

The Conservativesalso say they haveissues with the individualsthe governmenthasappointed to a net-zero advisory panel, saying the oil and gas industry was left out while "climate activists" were leftin charge.

The Tories also arefiercely opposed toBill C-10, legislation the government says ismeant to make digital streaming services pay for the creation, production and promotion of Canadian content.

If passed, Bill C-10 would make online streaming platforms that operate in Canada like Netflix, Spotify, Crave and Amazon Prime subject to the Broadcasting Act, allowing the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to impose regulations on them.

But the Conservatives maintain the legislation is too heavy-handed and threatens "Canadians' fundamental rights and freedoms" because it would give the CRTC the power to regulate posts that millions of Canadians upload every day to social media platforms.

Rodriguez said the Conservatives have been spreading "lies" about C-10.

"It forces the web giants to pay their fair share. Who can be against that? The Conservatives. The Conservatives have been spreading lies about the bill. This must end. The bill must move ahead," he said.

Conservative House leader Gerard Deltell said it's hypocritical of the Liberals to accuse the Tories of stalling anything when it was Liberal MPs who filibustered committees probing various government scandals, including the WE Charity affair and the government's handling of sexual misconduct in the armed forces.

"Without a shadow of a doubt, the Liberals are the real kings of the filibuster," Deltell said, adding Liberal MPs have filibustered for 167 hours at five different committees since Parliament's return last fall.

Deltell said it's ultimately the government's responsibility to get its legislation through Parliament, and it's the job of the opposition parties to oppose. "They call the shots," he said.

The government's decision to prorogue Parliament at the height of the WE Charity affair last summer was what led to the most significant legislative delays, Deltell said.

"When you make the reset, you're burning a lot of time in the House of Commons," he said.

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As election talk ramps up, Liberal government draws a line in the sand on legislation - CBC.ca

"Watters' World" host Jesse Watters slammed the liberal media and Dr. Anthony Fauci on Saturday for pushing various "lies" throughout 2020.

JESSE WATTERS: Did you ever date somebody for a while, and after you break up, you realize the whole relationship was fake? Everything she told you was bull? All your big moments were meaningless? That's 2020. We got catfished last year. All the lies were designed to install Biden. The media actually broke itself dragging Joe across the finish line. The press died from all the lies. That's one of the side-effects of Trump derangement syndrome. Now that Biden's been installed, the truth is finally coming out. It has a way of doing that. And it's stunning.

The doctor now under fire for lying about funding the Wuhan lab. Fauci rallied scientists to dismiss the lab leak theory while he was scrambling behind the scenes to wipe his fingerprints from it. But dont you dare criticize Fauciwho was wrong on masks, gain of function, lockdowns, and Hydroxychloroquine. He doesnt take criticism well.

This is what liberals do when they face fair criticism. They assume a grand identity that cant be attacked. This is an attack on women, this is an attack on Blacks, this is an attack on the media, an attack on science. No, no-no. Its not an attackits a criticism of just you. Deal with it like a man

The astonishing thing about all of this is that the media will confess their sins. Deep down theyre ashamed of their dishonestyonly a sociopath wouldnt be.

WATCH JESSE WATTERS' FULL MONOLOGUE HERE:

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Jesse Watters blasts liberal media for pushing lies in 2020 to help Biden win the election - Fox News

In 1997, Garry Kasparov became the first world chess champion to lose a match to a computer, I.B.M.s Deep Blue. Other than Mr. Kasparov and Joseph Hoane, the engineer running the computer, the only other person in the room, at the Equitable Center in Midtown Manhattan, was a woman named Carol Jarecki.

She was in the room two years earlier, too, when Mr. Kasparov defended his world championship by beating Viswanathan Anand of India in a match on the 107th floor of the World Trade Center.

Ms. Jarecki wasnt there as a rich patron of the game; she was there as the match arbiter, or referee. In a game that is dominated by men, Ms. Jarecki was one of the worlds most respected arbiters because of her practical, no-nonsense approach.

Organizing a successful chess tournament was easy, Nigel Freeman, who for years organized the Bermuda Open, wrote on Facebook after Ms. Jareckis death on Sunday at 86. One selected the right players, looked after them properly, invited Carol Jarecki to be the arbiter and did whatever she told you to do!

Her death was announced by the World Chess Federation on its website. The announcement did not say where Ms. Jarecki died. She revealed on Facebook in December that she had pancreatic cancer.

Ms. Jarecki first became interested in tournaments in the 1970s when her son, John, started playing chess and quickly became a noted prodigy. She earned her certification as a tournament director, or arbiter, from the United States Chess Federation, the games governing body, and was certified as an international arbiter by the World Chess Federation in 1984.

Her job as an international chess arbiter was just one of several lives she lived.

Carol Fuhse was born in Neptune, N.J., on Feb. 13, 1935. Her parents had a chicken farm in Freehold, N.J. She was their third child. Her brother died in childhood, and her sister died in a car crash in the 1990s.

When she was 8, she contracted polio. At the time, there were no treatments for the disease, and she had to stay in bed for several months, but she recovered. I guess I was just born tough, she said last year in an interview for this obituary.

Ms. Jarecki went to Asbury Park High School, studied anesthesia at the Graduate Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and began working as a nurse in New Jersey. It was there that she met Richard Jarecki, a doctor who had also grown up in Asbury Park and who was doing his residency. They married in 1964.

Three years later, the couple moved to Heidelberg, Germany, where Dr. Jarecki had received his medical degree, so that he could continue his studies in electrophoresis, a procedure that uses electricity to separate DNA, RNA and other protein molecules.

While in Germany, the Jareckis embarked on a rather unusual career: frequenting casinos and discreetly keeping track of the spins of the roulette wheels. Sometimes they recorded more than 10,000 spins for a particular wheel. They found that the wheels tended to land on some numbers more than others, because of minute manufacturing defects or normal wear and tear. They then used this information to bet against the house.

They were wildly successful, winning more than $1.2 million (more than $8 million in todays dollars) in casinos throughout Europe in the late 1960s and early 70s. A casino in San Remo, on the Italian Riviera, caught on to the Jareckis scheme and managed to have them barred from the country for a while, though they successfully appealed the decision to the government.

Dr. Jarecki died in 2018. Ms. Jarecki is survived by her son; two daughters, Divonne Holmes Court and Lianna Jarecki; and six grandchildren. She had homes in Las Vegas and Boulder, Colo.

With the Jareckis new wealth, Ms. Jarecki fulfilled a childhood dream: She learned to fly and obtained her pilots license. Ms. Jarecki, who bought a 1979 Cessna Turbo 210 in 1986 that she owned for the rest of her life, estimated at one point that she had flown more than 4,200 hours, including 41 round trips across the United States, 13 round trips between the United States and the British Virgin Islands, and a round trip from Nevada to Alaska.

Many of those trips were solo, accompanied only by Cricket, her Jack Russell terrier. He hated flying because of the noise, she said last year, but he hated more to be left behind.

In 1974 the Jareckis moved back to the United States, where John started playing chess. In 1981, at age 12, he became the youngest master in United States history, a record that has since been broken many times. Ms. Jarecki took to shepherding John around to his tournaments, sometimes flying him there.

Though John quit competitive chess in his teens, Ms. Jarecki stuck with her new profession, rising up the ranks and sometimes flying herself to work. In 1989, she became the first woman to officiate a match in the cycle for the world championship when she was the arbiter for the quarterfinal contest between Anatoly Karpov of Russia and Johann Hjartarson of Iceland.

Over the next few decades, she would direct or be the deputy director of more than 100 prestigious national and international tournaments, including the womens division of the 40th Chess Olympiad in Istanbul in 2012; the Womens World Chess Championship in 2013; the United States Chess Championship in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2016 and 2017; and the top sections of the Millionaire Open in Las Vegas in 2014 and 2015, the only tournaments to ever offer a prize totaling $1 million.

She was also among the directors of the annual Amateur Team Championship in New Jersey, the largest team championship in the world, every year for decades.

Over the years, Ms. Jareckis daughters urged her to write her autobiography, but she never found the time. She did come up with a working title, however: The Happy Wanderer.

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Carol Jarecki, Respected Chess Referee, Dies at 86 - The New York Times