As the party should. It is high time that this anemic weakness be abolished at both levels. Kevin Falcon is complaining today that the government of BC must pay the Feds an Industry Tax for importing a ferry. Why should the Libs be rewarded for ideologically attacking the BC shipbuilding industry. Yet we hear scant opposition because Ndp'ers are too timid to simply move forward on the crucial Ferries issue in BC. Can we imagine what the uproar would have been. I'm all for a civil legislature and a working caucus but lets extend the kid gloves with the right while sharpening our nails on the left.

There is plenty in the neo-conservative agenda that the NDP should be shouting long and loud about. How about the dismantling of public health care in this province. How about the expansion of small for profit post-secondary institutions in this province that continually lie to foreign students about their degree granting status and then take off with the money.

Yep, plenty for the Opposition to shout about. How about all those Orders-in-Council being rammed through these days?

No wonder there's no Fall Session, when it's so much easier to govern by Order-in-Council.

Can you say that a province governed without accountability is a D*i*c*t*a*t*o*r*s*h*i*p ??

Sure you can. And you should.

"As the party should. It is high time that this anemic weakness be abolished at both levels. Kevin Falcon is complaining today that the government of BC must pay the Feds an Industry Tax for importing a ferry. Why should the Libs be rewarded for ideologically attacking the BC shipbuilding industry."

You're fogetting things:

1. The need for a replacement ferry is immediate
and there's virtually no way a large ferry could
be completed in a year.

2.Granted the import tax should be waived since
the need for the ship brings a strong case for
some kind of exemption.

3. The NDP did not run BC Ferries as it should
have been, and threw alot of money - $520 million - into the beleagured Fastcat programme.
The NDP should have started building new larger
ferries in 1996 starting with the replacement to the Queen of Pricne Rupert and others built in
the mid 1960's.

4. The local shipbuilding industry is not capable of large vessel construction as it once was, given
supply of materials and labour. Heck even Washington Marine did not build its larger vessels at its own Vancouver Shipyards, but went offshore instead.

5. It's not the first time BC Ferries has bought
offshore. The Queen of Chilliwack is originally Norwegian, and the old Sunshine Coast Queen was from Michigan, and the Howe Sound Queen was from Quebec.