Harper and Prentice Refugees Find Jobs in Clark Government

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Harper and Prentice Refugees Find Jobs in Clark Government

[ http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2016/03/22/Ha ... ign=220316 ]

BC Liberals running 'witness protection program' for ousted political staff.

By Bill Tieleman, TheTyee.ca March 22, 2016

"Conservative: A statesman enamoured of existing evils, as opposed to a Liberal, who wants to replace them with others." -- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary, 1911

Dozens of frightened refugees have been given political asylum by B.C. Premier Christy Clark, after losing all they held dear in their homelands.

But these aren't Syrians or citizens fleeing other beleaguered nations -- they are Conservative staffers from defeated right-wing governments in Ottawa and Alberta who have found a welcoming home with the BC Liberals.

Clark is providing the political equivalent of a witness protection program for political staff who lost their jobs after the Conservative governments of Stephen Harper and former Alberta premier Jim Prentice were rejected by voters.

Clark is relocating the operatives and offering them the chance to shift their ideological identities from Conservative to BC Liberal.

In the process, she risks upsetting the balance her party has achieved by uniting federal Conservatives and centre-right federal Liberals.

And Clark risks alienating new Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as he sees the Harper hatchet men and women who trashed him now working on her team.

How smart is it to risk offending Trudeau's team, the people deciding how much federal infrastructure money will come B.C.'s way? Clark may find out in today's federal budget. But in any case, her Harperization of the BC Liberals is already well underway.

Pacific Political Report, [ http://www.pacificpoliticalreport.ca/ ] a subscription-only magazine published by conservative political observers Will McMartin and Kristy Fredericks, broke the story in December when it reported on the first of a long list of Conservative staffers from Ottawa and Alberta named to key positions in Clark's government.

Among them: . . . . .

MORE:

[ http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2016/03/22/Ha ... ign=220316 ]

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