British Columbia's unelected, unelectable and outgoing premier, Christy Clark, apparently doesn't like her job any more. She's beginning to sound like a mid-term Sarah Palin.
...Clark says she tries to avoid working at the legislature because there's "no real people in Victoria" and the "sick culture" is unhealthy.
Clark, whose government cancelled the regularly scheduled fall session of the legislature, blasted working conditions in the provincial capital during an interview with a Vancouver-based columnist for the National Post.
"I try never to go over there. Because it's sick. It's a sick culture. All they can think about is government and there are no real people in Victoria, and you get captured by this inside-the-beltway debate, and it's really unhealthy."
Clark's apparent disdain for the legislature contrasts with comments she made while running for the B.C. Liberal party leadership in 2011.
Then, she told reporters she loved the daily cut-and-thrust of question period. After she won the party leadership, she expressed a desire to run in a byelection as quickly as possible to get her seat in the house. "As you know, I love question period and I hate to miss it," she told reporters.
When Clark was resigning as an MLA in 2005, during her first stint in office, she also professed love for the job in her last speech in the chamber.
"I have a deep, deep love of politics. I love question period. I love debate. I love the people I've met. I even love the protesters. I love politics."
I guess she thinks none of the other ridings in Victoria are worth fighting for? Probably a lost cause anyways.
ReplyDeleteExcept for Minister of Community and Sport Ida Chong, the MLA for Oak Bay-Gordon Head. It may come as something to a surprise to a Clark government Cabinet minister that she is now officially a non-person.
ReplyDeleteIt's almost as if Clark is laying the groundwork for her defeat. I wonder if her CV is making the rounds?
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering whether Christy hasn't come unhinged? Those are bizarre statements to come from a premier ostensibly focusing on leading her party into an election. She can't stand being in the capital? It's sick, there are no real people there? That sounds so juvenile. I'm pretty sure CC is indeed shopping her CV around. Maybe she thinks SHarper will pull another plum out of his ass as he did for Campbell.
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ReplyDeleteShe has accepted Richard Branson’s invitation to go water-skiing. She is too busy and is not interested in politics anymore.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1202092--richard-branson-invites-b-c-premier-christy-clark-kitesurfing-naked
When you're the premier, what else is there to think about when you're at work other than governing?
ReplyDeleteTroy, how do you define "governing"?
ReplyDeleteLD, thank Manitou that we were spared the sight of CC taking Branson up on his dare.
What the hell does she get paid for?
ReplyDeleteAnother thought -- if she really does intend not to visit Victoria ever at all this fall, does that me we're paying civil servants to trundle back and forth between Vancouver and Victoria to brief the premier?
ReplyDeleteI wonder if they fly or take the ferry.
Hey, MoS. Been thinking about your question the night through. Christy Clark hates being in Victoria cause all they think about is government, hence all they think about is governing. She hates that.
ReplyDeleteWhat is governing, though? For the premier of a province of over 4.5 million people, wouldn't that be being in Victoria to face both questions and criticisms? To put forth your party's policies, and convince the citizens of their necessity through debate, whether heated or not?
She's at the end of a very long row of signatures, too. Bureaucrats will look to her policies for instruction on contentious, and even trivial, dilemmas in sorting out citizenry requests of the government for aid, or in taxation issues. What are Clark's policies, anyhow? At least we knew where we stood with Campbell, even if we didn't like our position. We knew what to expect when applying for a government service like Social Assistance. Her capricious nature probably has any number of government agencies waiting for stability in order to get back to their own work, cause they can't know whether they'll be around, themselves, to see projects completed (I was recently employed by a non-profit group dependent on provincial funding, but the money dried up. I'm thinking the government agency sponsoring our project clenched its ass, shutting off much of its funding cause there's no guarantee there will be money there, later on in the year, or even next year, for that matter).
I'm thinking you nailed it, Troy. Clark came into power counting on being widely acceptable on the sheer strength that she wasn't Gordo Campbell. She was planning on being all things to all voters or at least enough of them to pull the BCLP out of the death spiral Campbell had bequeathed it. Yet she quickly came to be seen as a huge phoney and the unwashed turned on her.
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