Rafe Mair says:

The plain truth is that the Campbell government has wallowed in deceit and sharp practice from the outset . . . [The] government and especially the premier, have told a number of untruths; they have persistently stated as facts that which they knew were not true.

• [John Les] clearly was an insider on land deals while mayor and had special favours given him. 
• When the Campbell government went to the people in May of 2009 based on a budget deficit of some $700 million it became known as out of town votes were still being counted that it was about four times as high.
• When Mr. Campbell assured the voters in 1996 and repeated in 2001 that he would not sell BC Rail – and did so because he would lose heavily in many areas if he did not take this stance – then couldn’t wait to do just that on becoming Premier, he committed a falsehood made worse by his trickery in pretending that a 990 year lease wasn’t a breach of his promise.
• He and his ministers have said over and over again that BC was a net importer of energy when the Federal Energy Board showed otherwise. 
• He and his ministers have consistently said that the companies to be involved would be small, mom and pop operations whereas the very opposite is the case and huge international corporations are the benefactors. 
• He and his ministers claimed that there would be no damage to the environment when even the smallest of projects have done enormous permanent damage to the rivers and the ecologies they support.
• . . . the government knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that fish farms posed a huge danger to wild salmon and possessed documentary evidence of that. 

The plain truth is that the Campbell government has wallowed in deceit and sharp practice from the outset.
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The above is a precis of a Rafe Mair Online article. Make his site one of your regular places to visit.

Ex-lawyer, ex-politician, ex-broadcaster, Mair is one of Canada’s leading environmentalists and remains our province’s finest political commentator. After years as a government insider, he spent the last few decades stepping on toes, making the comfortable uncomfortable and trying to save British Columbia’s outdoor heritage for future generations.

When famed Jack Webster retired from broadcasting, Mair was the only person who could begin to fill Webster’s shoes. Today, no one appears able to carry on that tradition. I read through an introduction given Jack Webster when UBC bestowed the degree Doctor of Laws, honoris causa. Part of it applies equally to Rafe Mair:

Hundreds of politicians and bureaucrats have had the misfortune to publicly cross swords with this eloquent defender of the common man. . . Committed to the concept that public awareness and involvement are the keys to a socially and politically active society, he has pursued the facts with dogged determination. His exposés in such areas as legal aid, the conditions and care of retarded children, rent gouging, and many others have forced governments to act, and in some cases affected the wording of legislation. He has taken to heart, as few others have, the journalist’s credo of comforting the afflicted, and afflicting the comfortable…

Thank you Rafe, on behalf of me and my family, especially my young grandchildren who are already learning to appreciate nature.