ART (Aesthetically Rejected Thing): The Honourable Joyce Murray

Browsing the competition's stacks this evening was rudely interrupted by the gruesome Ms. Murray, the former Provincial Minister for Water, Land and Air Protection, widely regarded as the most hapless and ineffective member of the Campbell government.

Honourable Joyce was busy mainstreeting, dispensing little pearls: "a brand-new day in British Columbia," "fiscal house in order," "our opponents the unions," yadda yadda yadda. She also managed to describe herself, in a breathtaking display of doublespeak, as "a fiscal conservative...and an environmentalist."

Not quite. Just your typical garden-variety B.C. politician, talking out of both sides of her mouth simultaneously. As Minister of Water, Land and Air Protection, Joyce presided over the politically motivated removal of Fraser Valley water quality protection staff from the ministry. Groundwater contamination by dairy farmers is now virtually assured, as this well-researched article by Georgia Staight investigative reporter Ben Parfitt makes clear.

The Hon. Joyce's response to the charges levelled by Parfitt, politically impartial research scientists, and former Ministry staff?

"No comment."

Hopefully New Westminster voters will have the good sense to throw useless Joyce out of office sooner rather than later.

(Disclaimer: I am a small business owner, not a tool of the BCGEU, as Hon. Joyce charged in a short and fairly acrimonious exchange. I vote center-left on most issues, and would consequently never dream of voting for the Campbell "liberals", whose dangerous and short-sighted neoconservative policies have done more damage to me, my family, friends and customers than any other provincial political group, ever).

- posted by cjb @ 9:16 PM