Vilsack says Democrats need better message for rural America
Vilsack says Democrats need better message for rural America
Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack sits at his desk in his office at the Department of Agriculture in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. As agriculture secretary during the entire Obama administration, the former Iowa governor has for years been telling anyone who will pay attention — farmers, members of Congress, even Hillary Clinton — that Democrats need a better message for rural America. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
WASHINGTON – No one listened to Tom Vilsack.
As agriculture secretary during the entire Obama administration, the former Iowa governor has for years been telling anyone who will pay attention — farmers, members of Congress, even Hillary Clinton — that Democrats need a better message for rural America. And he’s spent most of his tenure focusing on rural development, trying to revitalize areas that ultimately voted for Republican Donald Trump in this year’s presidential election.
“The Democratic Party, in my opinion, has not made as much of an effort as it ought to to speak to rural voters,” Vilsack said Tuesday in an interview with The Associated Press. “What’s frustrating to me is that we actually have something we can say to them, and we have chosen, for whatever reason, not to say it.”
Vilsack is a longtime friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton and was close to becoming Hillary Clinton’s vice-presidential running mate. She chose Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine instead. Clinton ultimately won Virginia but lost, deeply, in many rural areas of the country.
He says he understands why party leaders chose a different path to try for electoral victory, focusing on expanding populations like Hispanics and African-Americans who had come out in large numbers to vote for Barack Obama, the nation’s first black president, in 2008 and 2012.
The problem, he said, is those groups represent around the same percentage of the population as rural voters. And he says Democrats didn’t have enough of a counter argument to powerful Republican themes of less regulation and lower taxes.
“There wasn’t an overarching theme that a person in a small town could go, ‘Oh, they’re talking about me,'” Vilsack said.
According to exit polls conducted for AP and television networks by Edison Research, about 17 per cent of voters in this year’s election were from small cities or rural areas, and 62 per cent of them said they voted for Trump.
Since the election, Democrats in Congress have also been talking about how to turn around the rural vote. Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan is challenging California Rep. Nancy Pelosi for House Democratic leader, saying that the party’s message needs to be heard beyond the two coasts.
“We lost those voters,” Ryan said last week. “We’ve got to find a way to get back in, and that starts with a message that resonates in the flyover states.”
Vilsack says the party should have had a tougher countermessage to Trump’s positions on deporting immigrants who make up some of the farm workforce and opposing trade deals that are good for agriculture.
“If you have no market and no workforce, what good does it do,” Vilsack said. “My guess is, if you confronted the average farmer with that dilemma, they’d go, “Well, let me think about that.'”
He said Democrats didn’t do that “because we didn’t think we’d have to,” because Clinton appeared to be on track to win the election.
Vilsack is the only remaining member of Obama’s original cabinet. As secretary, he’s focused on rebuilding rural communities, increasing the diversity of types of agriculture, boosting innovation and research and making school meals healthier. He’s also worked to resolve civil rights claims against the department.
He said he thinks the Obama administration’s work on many of those issues will hold, particularly because of millennials’ deep interest in food issues and because the agriculture and food industries have already adapted to many regulations.
As for his successor, he says he hopes the person has some executive experience, like being a governor as he was. He says he hasn’t talked to Trump or the transition.
“Rural America is now getting some attention,” he says. “The question is whether that will translate into positive policy.”
Vilsack says Democrats need better message for rural America
Posted Nov 22, 2016 3:33 pm PST
Last Updated Nov 22, 2016 at 4:37 pm PST
Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack sits at his desk in his office at the Department of Agriculture in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. As agriculture secretary during the entire Obama administration, the former Iowa governor has for years been telling anyone who will pay attention — farmers, members of Congress, even Hillary Clinton — that Democrats need a better message for rural America. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
WASHINGTON – No one listened to Tom Vilsack.
As agriculture secretary during the entire Obama administration, the former Iowa governor has for years been telling anyone who will pay attention — farmers, members of Congress, even Hillary Clinton — that Democrats need a better message for rural America. And he’s spent most of his tenure focusing on rural development, trying to revitalize areas that ultimately voted for Republican Donald Trump in this year’s presidential election.
“The Democratic Party, in my opinion, has not made as much of an effort as it ought to to speak to rural voters,” Vilsack said Tuesday in an interview with The Associated Press. “What’s frustrating to me is that we actually have something we can say to them, and we have chosen, for whatever reason, not to say it.”
Vilsack is a longtime friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton and was close to becoming Hillary Clinton’s vice-presidential running mate. She chose Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine instead. Clinton ultimately won Virginia but lost, deeply, in many rural areas of the country.
He says he understands why party leaders chose a different path to try for electoral victory, focusing on expanding populations like Hispanics and African-Americans who had come out in large numbers to vote for Barack Obama, the nation’s first black president, in 2008 and 2012.
The problem, he said, is those groups represent around the same percentage of the population as rural voters. And he says Democrats didn’t have enough of a counter argument to powerful Republican themes of less regulation and lower taxes.
“There wasn’t an overarching theme that a person in a small town could go, ‘Oh, they’re talking about me,'” Vilsack said.
According to exit polls conducted for AP and television networks by Edison Research, about 17 per cent of voters in this year’s election were from small cities or rural areas, and 62 per cent of them said they voted for Trump.
Since the election, Democrats in Congress have also been talking about how to turn around the rural vote. Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan is challenging California Rep. Nancy Pelosi for House Democratic leader, saying that the party’s message needs to be heard beyond the two coasts.
“We lost those voters,” Ryan said last week. “We’ve got to find a way to get back in, and that starts with a message that resonates in the flyover states.”
Vilsack says the party should have had a tougher countermessage to Trump’s positions on deporting immigrants who make up some of the farm workforce and opposing trade deals that are good for agriculture.
“If you have no market and no workforce, what good does it do,” Vilsack said. “My guess is, if you confronted the average farmer with that dilemma, they’d go, “Well, let me think about that.'”
He said Democrats didn’t do that “because we didn’t think we’d have to,” because Clinton appeared to be on track to win the election.
Vilsack is the only remaining member of Obama’s original cabinet. As secretary, he’s focused on rebuilding rural communities, increasing the diversity of types of agriculture, boosting innovation and research and making school meals healthier. He’s also worked to resolve civil rights claims against the department.
He said he thinks the Obama administration’s work on many of those issues will hold, particularly because of millennials’ deep interest in food issues and because the agriculture and food industries have already adapted to many regulations.
As for his successor, he says he hopes the person has some executive experience, like being a governor as he was. He says he hasn’t talked to Trump or the transition.
“Rural America is now getting some attention,” he says. “The question is whether that will translate into positive policy.”
STORM CENTRE: What you need to know about this latest round of snow
Posted Dec 9, 2016 5:30 am PST
Last Updated Dec 9, 2016 at 7:50 pm PST
(Lasia Kretzel, NEWS 1130)
SUMMARY
Up to 20 centimetres expected in some areas of the Lower Mainland
Wind chill values could hit -20 degrees in the eastern Fraser Valley
You're being encouraged to stay at home and avoid driving on local roads
METRO VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – As we’ve been telling you, the Lower Mainland is experiencing a number of different weather patterns as the evening continues. In some areas, like Vancouver, it’s raining, but in other spots like Surrey, the snow is still falling.
Earlier today, things got a little messy.
Environment Canada says the arctic outflow conditions and combination of strong winds and low temperatures will cause wind chill values to drop to near -20 degrees throughout the Howe Sound, Whistler and eastern Fraser Valley.
NEWS 1130 Meteorologist Russ Lacate says we’ll be hovering around the freezing mark in the short-term forecast. Remember highways, roads, sidewalks and parking lots may become tough to navigate and you’re being encouraged to slow down.
There are no major problems being reported at this time on any of the major local routes, however, you have to have winter tires to take the out of town highways including the Sea to Sky and Coquihalla. Meantime, the province says crews worked around the clock to prepare the Alex Fraser Bridge and the Port Mann Bridge for the snow.
TRANSIT
Passengers are being warned to dress warmly and to expect widespread delays on bus routes as well as at SkyTrain stations across the grid
Passengers are being warned to dress warmly and to expect widespread delays on bus routes as well as at SkyTrain stations across the grid
SCHOOL CLOSURES
SFU – ALL 3 CAMPUSES
All three campuses will be closed following completion of the current exam period, which ends at 3 pm. Students writing exams that start at 3:30 p.m. or 7 p.m. today at Burnaby, Vancouver or Surrey campuses should not make their way to any SFU campus. Their exams will be rescheduled.
Capilano University
The North Vancouver campus will close at 4:30 p.m. today and will remain closed through Saturday, December 10. Examinations scheduled for Saturday have been rescheduled for Sunday, December 11.
Vancouver College school
St. Patrick Regional Secondary School in Vancouver
St. Patrick Regional Secondary School in Vancouver
St. Thomas More Collegiate in Burnaby
John Knox Christian School in Burnaby
John Knox Christian School in Burnaby
Children of Integrity Montessori Academy in Coquitlam
Our Lady of the Assumption in Port Coquitlam
Mediated Learning Academy in Coquitlam
Our Lady of the Assumption in Port Coquitlam
Mediated Learning Academy in Coquitlam
The King’s School in Langley
Cloverdale Christian Elementary School
Cloverdale Christian Elementary School
Regent Christian Academy in Surrey
Iqra (IKRA) Islamic School in Surrey
St. Matthew’s Elementary School in Surrey
Iqra (IKRA) Islamic School in Surrey
St. Matthew’s Elementary School in Surrey
Immaculate Conception School in Delta
Southpointe Academy in Tsawwassen
St. Patrick’s Elementary in Maple Ridge
Maple Ridge Christian School
Maple Ridge Christian School
St. James and St. Ann’s School in Abbotsford
Cornerstone Christian School in Abbotsford
St. John Brebeuf Secondary
Cornerstone Christian School in Abbotsford
St. John Brebeuf Secondary
Cornerstone Christian Academy in Richmond
All public schools in Abbotsford, Burnaby Coquitlam, Delta, New Westminster, North Vancouver, West Vancouver, Richmond, Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows, Langley, Surrey, and Vancouver are open today
We have a Weather Guarantee Contest winner!
Posted Dec 9, 2016 5:12 pm PST
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Winner! Winner! Chicken dinner!
Louis Bouchard of Maple Ridge won $3,200 after Russ Lacate missed his weather guarantee yesterday.
He gives credit to his wife who was listening when his name was called, and he says “she went nuts!”
This little chunk of change came at the right time, not just because Christmas is coming, but Louis and his wife are happy knowing they won’t have to worry about money when they surprise their 16-year-old grand-daughter who is playing in a baseball tournament in Las Vegas coming up. He says they won’t tell her, they are just going to show up!
Getting in on the money is as easy as signing up for the NEWS 1130 Insider Club and hoping Russ is off his guaranteed high by more than three degrees.
If you’re not yet an Insider Club member, click here to find out how to join and enter the contest!
The escalating weather guarantee is now back to $1,000, and each day Russ meets his guaranteed high, we add $100 to the pot until he blows it!3
Vilsack says Democrats need better message for rural America
Posted Nov 22, 2016 3:33 pm PST
Last Updated Nov 22, 2016 at 4:37 pm PST
Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack sits at his desk in his office at the Department of Agriculture in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. As agriculture secretary during the entire Obama administration, the former Iowa governor has for years been telling anyone who will pay attention — farmers, members of Congress, even Hillary Clinton — that Democrats need a better message for rural America. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
WASHINGTON – No one listened to Tom Vilsack.
As agriculture secretary during the entire Obama administration, the former Iowa governor has for years been telling anyone who will pay attention — farmers, members of Congress, even Hillary Clinton — that Democrats need a better message for rural America. And he’s spent most of his tenure focusing on rural development, trying to revitalize areas that ultimately voted for Republican Donald Trump in this year’s presidential election.
“The Democratic Party, in my opinion, has not made as much of an effort as it ought to to speak to rural voters,” Vilsack said Tuesday in an interview with The Associated Press. “What’s frustrating to me is that we actually have something we can say to them, and we have chosen, for whatever reason, not to say it.”
Vilsack is a longtime friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton and was close to becoming Hillary Clinton’s vice-presidential running mate. She chose Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine instead. Clinton ultimately won Virginia but lost, deeply, in many rural areas of the country.
He says he understands why party leaders chose a different path to try for electoral victory, focusing on expanding populations like Hispanics and African-Americans who had come out in large numbers to vote for Barack Obama, the nation’s first black president, in 2008 and 2012.
The problem, he said, is those groups represent around the same percentage of the population as rural voters. And he says Democrats didn’t have enough of a counter argument to powerful Republican themes of less regulation and lower taxes.
“There wasn’t an overarching theme that a person in a small town could go, ‘Oh, they’re talking about me,'” Vilsack said.
According to exit polls conducted for AP and television networks by Edison Research, about 17 per cent of voters in this year’s election were from small cities or rural areas, and 62 per cent of them said they voted for Trump.
Since the election, Democrats in Congress have also been talking about how to turn around the rural vote. Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan is challenging California Rep. Nancy Pelosi for House Democratic leader, saying that the party’s message needs to be heard beyond the two coasts.
“We lost those voters,” Ryan said last week. “We’ve got to find a way to get back in, and that starts with a message that resonates in the flyover states.”
Vilsack says the party should have had a tougher countermessage to Trump’s positions on deporting immigrants who make up some of the farm workforce and opposing trade deals that are good for agriculture.
“If you have no market and no workforce, what good does it do,” Vilsack said. “My guess is, if you confronted the average farmer with that dilemma, they’d go, “Well, let me think about that.'”
He said Democrats didn’t do that “because we didn’t think we’d have to,” because Clinton appeared to be on track to win the election.
Vilsack is the only remaining member of Obama’s original cabinet. As secretary, he’s focused on rebuilding rural communities, increasing the diversity of types of agriculture, boosting innovation and research and making school meals healthier. He’s also worked to resolve civil rights claims against the department.
He said he thinks the Obama administration’s work on many of those issues will hold, particularly because of millennials’ deep interest in food issues and because the agriculture and food industries have already adapted to many regulations.
As for his successor, he says he hopes the person has some executive experience, like being a governor as he was. He says he hasn’t talked to Trump or the transition.
“Rural America is now getting some attention,” he says. “The question is whether that will translate into positive policy.”
STORM CENTRE: What you need to know about this latest round of snow
Posted Dec 9, 2016 5:30 am PST
Last Updated Dec 9, 2016 at 7:50 pm PST
(Lasia Kretzel, NEWS 1130)
SUMMARY
Up to 20 centimetres expected in some areas of the Lower Mainland
Wind chill values could hit -20 degrees in the eastern Fraser Valley
You're being encouraged to stay at home and avoid driving on local roads
METRO VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – As we’ve been telling you, the Lower Mainland is experiencing a number of different weather patterns as the evening continues. In some areas, like Vancouver, it’s raining, but in other spots like Surrey, the snow is still falling.
Earlier today, things got a little messy.
Environment Canada says the arctic outflow conditions and combination of strong winds and low temperatures will cause wind chill values to drop to near -20 degrees throughout the Howe Sound, Whistler and eastern Fraser Valley.
NEWS 1130 Meteorologist Russ Lacate says we’ll be hovering around the freezing mark in the short-term forecast. Remember highways, roads, sidewalks and parking lots may become tough to navigate and you’re being encouraged to slow down.
DRIVE BC
There are no major problems being reported at this time on any of the major local routes, however, you have to have winter tires to take the out of town highways including the Sea to Sky and Coquihalla. Meantime, the province says crews worked around the clock to prepare the Alex Fraser Bridge and the Port Mann Bridge for the snow.
There are no major problems being reported at this time on any of the major local routes, however, you have to have winter tires to take the out of town highways including the Sea to Sky and Coquihalla. Meantime, the province says crews worked around the clock to prepare the Alex Fraser Bridge and the Port Mann Bridge for the snow.
TRANSIT
Passengers are being warned to dress warmly and to expect widespread delays on bus routes as well as at SkyTrain stations across the grid
Passengers are being warned to dress warmly and to expect widespread delays on bus routes as well as at SkyTrain stations across the grid
SCHOOL CLOSURES
SFU – ALL 3 CAMPUSES
All three campuses will be closed following completion of the current exam period, which ends at 3 pm. Students writing exams that start at 3:30 p.m. or 7 p.m. today at Burnaby, Vancouver or Surrey campuses should not make their way to any SFU campus. Their exams will be rescheduled.
Capilano University
The North Vancouver campus will close at 4:30 p.m. today and will remain closed through Saturday, December 10. Examinations scheduled for Saturday have been rescheduled for Sunday, December 11.
Vancouver College school
St. Patrick Regional Secondary School in Vancouver
St. Patrick Regional Secondary School in Vancouver
St. Thomas More Collegiate in Burnaby
John Knox Christian School in Burnaby
John Knox Christian School in Burnaby
Children of Integrity Montessori Academy in Coquitlam
Our Lady of the Assumption in Port Coquitlam
Mediated Learning Academy in Coquitlam
Our Lady of the Assumption in Port Coquitlam
Mediated Learning Academy in Coquitlam
The King’s School in Langley
Cloverdale Christian Elementary School
Cloverdale Christian Elementary School
Regent Christian Academy in Surrey
Iqra (IKRA) Islamic School in Surrey
St. Matthew’s Elementary School in Surrey
Iqra (IKRA) Islamic School in Surrey
St. Matthew’s Elementary School in Surrey
Immaculate Conception School in Delta
Southpointe Academy in Tsawwassen
St. Patrick’s Elementary in Maple Ridge
Maple Ridge Christian School
Maple Ridge Christian School
St. James and St. Ann’s School in Abbotsford
Cornerstone Christian School in Abbotsford
St. John Brebeuf Secondary
Cornerstone Christian School in Abbotsford
St. John Brebeuf Secondary
Cornerstone Christian Academy in Richmond
All public schools in Abbotsford, Burnaby Coquitlam, Delta, New Westminster, North Vancouver, West Vancouver, Richmond, Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows, Langley, Surrey, and Vancouver are open today
All BCIT campuses are OPEN today, Dec 9. For campus winter conditions updates, check bcit.ca/breakingnews throughout the day. #snow
VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT (YVR)
For cancellations, call the airport authority at 604.207.7077 with questions about your flight.
For cancellations, call the airport authority at 604.207.7077 with questions about your flight.
Check conditions at Abbotsford Airport.
Stay tuned to NEWS 1130 for Breaking News, and the very latest and most accurate Traffic and Weather information. You can also follow us on Twitter: @NEWS1130, @NEWS1130Traffic and @NEWS1130Weather.
We have a Weather Guarantee Contest winner!
Posted Dec 9, 2016 5:12 pm PST
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Winner! Winner! Chicken dinner!
Louis Bouchard of Maple Ridge won $3,200 after Russ Lacate missed his weather guarantee yesterday.
He gives credit to his wife who was listening when his name was called, and he says “she went nuts!”
This little chunk of change came at the right time, not just because Christmas is coming, but Louis and his wife are happy knowing they won’t have to worry about money when they surprise their 16-year-old grand-daughter who is playing in a baseball tournament in Las Vegas coming up. He says they won’t tell her, they are just going to show up!
Getting in on the money is as easy as signing up for the NEWS 1130 Insider Club and hoping Russ is off his guaranteed high by more than three degrees.
If you’re not yet an Insider Club member, click here to find out how to join and enter the contest!
The escalating weather guarantee is now back to $1,000, and each day Russ meets his guaranteed high, we add $100 to the pot until he blows it!
BC makes about-face, signs on to Liberal climate framework
OTTAWA (NEWS1130) – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is claiming victory in his campaign to craft a national “framework” agreement on climate change — even though Saskatchewan and Manitoba remains provincial holdouts.
Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall’s full-throated opposition to the plan, which includes imposing a price on carbon, was fully expected going into today’s day-long first ministers meeting.
But surprise resistance from British Columbia’s Christy Clark and Manitoba’s Brian Pallister threatened throughout the day to upset Trudeau’s hopes for a triumphant finale to a year of federal-provincial climate negotiations.
Pallister, who has been pressing the federal government for concessions on health care funding, suggested he won’t agree to the framework until a health spending deal is in place.
“We want to move forward to build a partnership on health care,” Pallister said.
The sticking point for all three premiers was Trudeau’s plan to set a national price on carbon — starting at $10 a tonne in 2018 and rising to $50 a tonne by 2022 — and impose it on provinces that do not implement their own carbon pricing plan.
Wall is ideologically opposed to the idea of a carbon tax; B.C. already has a carbon tax but Clark wanted — and got — assurances that Ontario and Quebec’s cap-and-trade carbon market would impose an equivalent carbon price.
Even late in the day Friday, a deal appeared unlikely.
Clark emerged from the meeting to publicly kneecap the prime minister’s signature climate plan, but within minutes of those remarks, word began to emerge of a compromise.
Trudeau had unilaterally imposed an escalating floor price on carbon dioxide emissions, starting at $10 in 2018 and topping out at $50 in 2022, when the policy would be reassessed.
Under the compromise deal, the carbon price would pause at BC’s existing $30 level in 2020, when an independent expert panel will look at how the plan is evolving.
It was a sudden and surprising about-face from Clark, who less than an hour earlier had was telling reporters that the talks were grinding along slowly, that the matter was hard slogging and that an agreement appeared a long way off.
Indeed, before talks even began, it was Clark herself who shoved a hockey stick in the Liberal spokes, citing the unresolved matter of comparing Quebec and Ontario’s cap-and-trade carbon market to a national floor price proposed for other provinces.
“It’s got to be a fair deal. And you have to have one price for all Canadians if it’s going to be a national price,” Clark — who faces the BC electorate in a May election — said earlier in the day.
Wall had already flatly stated he won’t sign the proffered agreement and Clark was suggesting it might be prudent to “set aside clauses.”
Pressed on whether a deal would emerge, McKenna insisted one would — repeatedly calling it a “historic day.”
“This is a framework. ..,” the federal minister responded when asked what happens if some provinces won’t sign on.
“Then we need to implement. We need to take real action.”
Trudeau had already set the table when he opened the morning session with premiers, indigenous leaders and U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden by asserting, “We should not waver” in the fight against climate change.
Biden, just weeks away from the end of the Obama administration and the ascendency of Donald Trump’s Republicans, gave a rallying speech of sorts before departing the meeting.
“We’re always stronger when we’re working together,” said Biden.
But the promised show of pan-Canadian unity on climate policy was showing strains as the meeting began.
Wall said Ottawa has failed to provide an economic analysis of the biggest tax change in a generation, which he asserts will hammer Saskatchewan jobs and industry.
“We’re being asked to agree to a carbon tax that the federal government admits will cascade through the system for Canadians, and we’re being asked to do it without a full assessment,” he said.
“We’re not signing.”
Wall brandished a heavily redacted Finance Department memo — obtained by a media outlet through an access-to-information request — that says a carbon tax would “cascade throughout the economy and prices would increase most for goods that make intensive use of carbon-based energy.”
And he made common cause with Clark, saying the federal plan will result in a competitive “imbalance” given emitters in central Canada, where cap-and-trade will mitigate emissions, face a lower carbon price than in western Canada.
Quebec’s carbon market is currently trading permits for about $8 per tonne, with a forecast the price will rise to $16 per tonne once Ontario’s market is fully up and running with Quebec and California in the Western Climate Initiative.
Paul Boothe, an economics professor at the Ivey Business School and member of the non-partisan Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission, said there’s no reason provinces must have identical tax rates, pointing to differing provincial sales and income taxes across Canada.
“I think this fairness discussion is a bit of a red herring,” Boothe, a former deputy finance minister in Saskatchewan, said in a telephone interview.
“What we’re trying to do is meet our (emissions) target at the lowest possible cost, not the highest cost.”
Ideally, BC and Alberta companies should be free to buy carbon credits from other jurisdictions instead of paying the carbon tax, which would ensure emissions reductions are achieved at the lowest price available.
Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, asked about equivalency, noted other moves already made by her province that have driven down emissions and driven up electricity prices.
“This is about reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” Wynne said before entering the meeting, adding that price is simply a “mechanism.”
“British Columbians are not paying for reductions in Ontario.”
The premiers also want to extract greater health care funding from the Liberal government, but several said they wouldn’t be linking the two crucial issues of climate change and health spending during Friday’s talks.
The backdrop to the long-planned first ministers conference is the looming change of government in the United States.
Biden told the assembled premiers they should take a long view of climate policy, because short-term political changes will be overtaken by reality.
“Whatever uncertainty exists around the near-term policy choices of the next president, I am absolutely confident the United States will continue making progress in its path to a low-carbon future.”
Vilsack says Democrats need better message for rural America
Posted Nov 22, 2016 3:33 pm PST
Last Updated Nov 22, 2016 at 4:37 pm PST
Agriculture Secretary Thomas Vilsack sits at his desk in his office at the Department of Agriculture in Washington, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016. As agriculture secretary during the entire Obama administration, the former Iowa governor has for years been telling anyone who will pay attention — farmers, members of Congress, even Hillary Clinton — that Democrats need a better message for rural America. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
WASHINGTON – No one listened to Tom Vilsack.
As agriculture secretary during the entire Obama administration, the former Iowa governor has for years been telling anyone who will pay attention — farmers, members of Congress, even Hillary Clinton — that Democrats need a better message for rural America. And he’s spent most of his tenure focusing on rural development, trying to revitalize areas that ultimately voted for Republican Donald Trump in this year’s presidential election.
“The Democratic Party, in my opinion, has not made as much of an effort as it ought to to speak to rural voters,” Vilsack said Tuesday in an interview with The Associated Press. “What’s frustrating to me is that we actually have something we can say to them, and we have chosen, for whatever reason, not to say it.”
Vilsack is a longtime friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton and was close to becoming Hillary Clinton’s vice-presidential running mate. She chose Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine instead. Clinton ultimately won Virginia but lost, deeply, in many rural areas of the country.
He says he understands why party leaders chose a different path to try for electoral victory, focusing on expanding populations like Hispanics and African-Americans who had come out in large numbers to vote for Barack Obama, the nation’s first black president, in 2008 and 2012.
The problem, he said, is those groups represent around the same percentage of the population as rural voters. And he says Democrats didn’t have enough of a counter argument to powerful Republican themes of less regulation and lower taxes.
“There wasn’t an overarching theme that a person in a small town could go, ‘Oh, they’re talking about me,'” Vilsack said.
According to exit polls conducted for AP and television networks by Edison Research, about 17 per cent of voters in this year’s election were from small cities or rural areas, and 62 per cent of them said they voted for Trump.
Since the election, Democrats in Congress have also been talking about how to turn around the rural vote. Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan is challenging California Rep. Nancy Pelosi for House Democratic leader, saying that the party’s message needs to be heard beyond the two coasts.
“We lost those voters,” Ryan said last week. “We’ve got to find a way to get back in, and that starts with a message that resonates in the flyover states.”
Vilsack says the party should have had a tougher countermessage to Trump’s positions on deporting immigrants who make up some of the farm workforce and opposing trade deals that are good for agriculture.
“If you have no market and no workforce, what good does it do,” Vilsack said. “My guess is, if you confronted the average farmer with that dilemma, they’d go, “Well, let me think about that.'”
He said Democrats didn’t do that “because we didn’t think we’d have to,” because Clinton appeared to be on track to win the election.
Vilsack is the only remaining member of Obama’s original cabinet. As secretary, he’s focused on rebuilding rural communities, increasing the diversity of types of agriculture, boosting innovation and research and making school meals healthier. He’s also worked to resolve civil rights claims against the department.
He said he thinks the Obama administration’s work on many of those issues will hold, particularly because of millennials’ deep interest in food issues and because the agriculture and food industries have already adapted to many regulations.
As for his successor, he says he hopes the person has some executive experience, like being a governor as he was. He says he hasn’t talked to Trump or the transition.
“Rural America is now getting some attention,” he says. “The question is whether that will translate into positive policy.”
STORM CENTRE: What you need to know about this latest round of snow
Posted Dec 9, 2016 5:30 am PST
Last Updated Dec 9, 2016 at 7:50 pm PST
(Lasia Kretzel, NEWS 1130)
SUMMARY
Up to 20 centimetres expected in some areas of the Lower Mainland
Wind chill values could hit -20 degrees in the eastern Fraser Valley
You're being encouraged to stay at home and avoid driving on local roads
METRO VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – As we’ve been telling you, the Lower Mainland is experiencing a number of different weather patterns as the evening continues. In some areas, like Vancouver, it’s raining, but in other spots like Surrey, the snow is still falling.
Earlier today, things got a little messy.
Environment Canada says the arctic outflow conditions and combination of strong winds and low temperatures will cause wind chill values to drop to near -20 degrees throughout the Howe Sound, Whistler and eastern Fraser Valley.
NEWS 1130 Meteorologist Russ Lacate says we’ll be hovering around the freezing mark in the short-term forecast. Remember highways, roads, sidewalks and parking lots may become tough to navigate and you’re being encouraged to slow down.
DRIVE BC
There are no major problems being reported at this time on any of the major local routes, however, you have to have winter tires to take the out of town highways including the Sea to Sky and Coquihalla. Meantime, the province says crews worked around the clock to prepare the Alex Fraser Bridge and the Port Mann Bridge for the snow.
There are no major problems being reported at this time on any of the major local routes, however, you have to have winter tires to take the out of town highways including the Sea to Sky and Coquihalla. Meantime, the province says crews worked around the clock to prepare the Alex Fraser Bridge and the Port Mann Bridge for the snow.
TRANSIT
Passengers are being warned to dress warmly and to expect widespread delays on bus routes as well as at SkyTrain stations across the grid
Passengers are being warned to dress warmly and to expect widespread delays on bus routes as well as at SkyTrain stations across the grid
SCHOOL CLOSURES
SFU – ALL 3 CAMPUSES
All three campuses will be closed following completion of the current exam period, which ends at 3 pm. Students writing exams that start at 3:30 p.m. or 7 p.m. today at Burnaby, Vancouver or Surrey campuses should not make their way to any SFU campus. Their exams will be rescheduled.
Capilano University
The North Vancouver campus will close at 4:30 p.m. today and will remain closed through Saturday, December 10. Examinations scheduled for Saturday have been rescheduled for Sunday, December 11.
Vancouver College school
St. Patrick Regional Secondary School in Vancouver
St. Patrick Regional Secondary School in Vancouver
St. Thomas More Collegiate in Burnaby
John Knox Christian School in Burnaby
John Knox Christian School in Burnaby
Children of Integrity Montessori Academy in Coquitlam
Our Lady of the Assumption in Port Coquitlam
Mediated Learning Academy in Coquitlam
Our Lady of the Assumption in Port Coquitlam
Mediated Learning Academy in Coquitlam
The King’s School in Langley
Cloverdale Christian Elementary School
Cloverdale Christian Elementary School
Regent Christian Academy in Surrey
Iqra (IKRA) Islamic School in Surrey
St. Matthew’s Elementary School in Surrey
Iqra (IKRA) Islamic School in Surrey
St. Matthew’s Elementary School in Surrey
Immaculate Conception School in Delta
Southpointe Academy in Tsawwassen
St. Patrick’s Elementary in Maple Ridge
Maple Ridge Christian School
Maple Ridge Christian School
St. James and St. Ann’s School in Abbotsford
Cornerstone Christian School in Abbotsford
St. John Brebeuf Secondary
Cornerstone Christian School in Abbotsford
St. John Brebeuf Secondary
Cornerstone Christian Academy in Richmond
All public schools in Abbotsford, Burnaby Coquitlam, Delta, New Westminster, North Vancouver, West Vancouver, Richmond, Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows, Langley, Surrey, and Vancouver are open today
All BCIT campuses are OPEN today, Dec 9. For campus winter conditions updates, check bcit.ca/breakingnews throughout the day. #snow
VANCOUVER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT (YVR)
For cancellations, call the airport authority at 604.207.7077 with questions about your flight.
For cancellations, call the airport authority at 604.207.7077 with questions about your flight.
Check conditions at Abbotsford Airport.
Stay tuned to NEWS 1130 for Breaking News, and the very latest and most accurate Traffic and Weather information. You can also follow us on Twitter: @NEWS1130, @NEWS1130Traffic and @NEWS1130Weather.
We have a Weather Guarantee Contest winner!
Posted Dec 9, 2016 5:12 pm PST
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Winner! Winner! Chicken dinner!
Louis Bouchard of Maple Ridge won $3,200 after Russ Lacate missed his weather guarantee yesterday.
He gives credit to his wife who was listening when his name was called, and he says “she went nuts!”
This little chunk of change came at the right time, not just because Christmas is coming, but Louis and his wife are happy knowing they won’t have to worry about money when they surprise their 16-year-old grand-daughter who is playing in a baseball tournament in Las Vegas coming up. He says they won’t tell her, they are just going to show up!
Getting in on the money is as easy as signing up for the NEWS 1130 Insider Club and hoping Russ is off his guaranteed high by more than three degrees.
If you’re not yet an Insider Club member, click here to find out how to join and enter the contest!
The escalating weather guarantee is now back to $1,000, and each day Russ meets his guaranteed high, we add $100 to the pot until he blows it!
BC makes about-face, signs on to Liberal climate framework
Posted Dec 9, 2016 3:56 pm PST
Last Updated Dec 9, 2016 at 5:39 pm PST
(iStock)
OTTAWA (NEWS1130) – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is claiming victory in his campaign to craft a national “framework” agreement on climate change — even though Saskatchewan and Manitoba remains provincial holdouts.
Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall’s full-throated opposition to the plan, which includes imposing a price on carbon, was fully expected going into today’s day-long first ministers meeting.
But surprise resistance from British Columbia’s Christy Clark and Manitoba’s Brian Pallister threatened throughout the day to upset Trudeau’s hopes for a triumphant finale to a year of federal-provincial climate negotiations.
Pallister, who has been pressing the federal government for concessions on health care funding, suggested he won’t agree to the framework until a health spending deal is in place.
“We want to move forward to build a partnership on health care,” Pallister said.
The sticking point for all three premiers was Trudeau’s plan to set a national price on carbon — starting at $10 a tonne in 2018 and rising to $50 a tonne by 2022 — and impose it on provinces that do not implement their own carbon pricing plan.
Wall is ideologically opposed to the idea of a carbon tax; B.C. already has a carbon tax but Clark wanted — and got — assurances that Ontario and Quebec’s cap-and-trade carbon market would impose an equivalent carbon price.
Even late in the day Friday, a deal appeared unlikely.
Clark emerged from the meeting to publicly kneecap the prime minister’s signature climate plan, but within minutes of those remarks, word began to emerge of a compromise.
Trudeau had unilaterally imposed an escalating floor price on carbon dioxide emissions, starting at $10 in 2018 and topping out at $50 in 2022, when the policy would be reassessed.
Under the compromise deal, the carbon price would pause at BC’s existing $30 level in 2020, when an independent expert panel will look at how the plan is evolving.
It was a sudden and surprising about-face from Clark, who less than an hour earlier had was telling reporters that the talks were grinding along slowly, that the matter was hard slogging and that an agreement appeared a long way off.
Indeed, before talks even began, it was Clark herself who shoved a hockey stick in the Liberal spokes, citing the unresolved matter of comparing Quebec and Ontario’s cap-and-trade carbon market to a national floor price proposed for other provinces.
“It’s got to be a fair deal. And you have to have one price for all Canadians if it’s going to be a national price,” Clark — who faces the BC electorate in a May election — said earlier in the day.
Wall had already flatly stated he won’t sign the proffered agreement and Clark was suggesting it might be prudent to “set aside clauses.”
Pressed on whether a deal would emerge, McKenna insisted one would — repeatedly calling it a “historic day.”
“This is a framework. ..,” the federal minister responded when asked what happens if some provinces won’t sign on.
“Then we need to implement. We need to take real action.”
Trudeau had already set the table when he opened the morning session with premiers, indigenous leaders and U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden by asserting, “We should not waver” in the fight against climate change.
Biden, just weeks away from the end of the Obama administration and the ascendency of Donald Trump’s Republicans, gave a rallying speech of sorts before departing the meeting.
“We’re always stronger when we’re working together,” said Biden.
But the promised show of pan-Canadian unity on climate policy was showing strains as the meeting began.
Wall said Ottawa has failed to provide an economic analysis of the biggest tax change in a generation, which he asserts will hammer Saskatchewan jobs and industry.
“We’re being asked to agree to a carbon tax that the federal government admits will cascade through the system for Canadians, and we’re being asked to do it without a full assessment,” he said.
“We’re not signing.”
Wall brandished a heavily redacted Finance Department memo — obtained by a media outlet through an access-to-information request — that says a carbon tax would “cascade throughout the economy and prices would increase most for goods that make intensive use of carbon-based energy.”
And he made common cause with Clark, saying the federal plan will result in a competitive “imbalance” given emitters in central Canada, where cap-and-trade will mitigate emissions, face a lower carbon price than in western Canada.
Quebec’s carbon market is currently trading permits for about $8 per tonne, with a forecast the price will rise to $16 per tonne once Ontario’s market is fully up and running with Quebec and California in the Western Climate Initiative.
Paul Boothe, an economics professor at the Ivey Business School and member of the non-partisan Canada’s Ecofiscal Commission, said there’s no reason provinces must have identical tax rates, pointing to differing provincial sales and income taxes across Canada.
“I think this fairness discussion is a bit of a red herring,” Boothe, a former deputy finance minister in Saskatchewan, said in a telephone interview.
“What we’re trying to do is meet our (emissions) target at the lowest possible cost, not the highest cost.”
Ideally, BC and Alberta companies should be free to buy carbon credits from other jurisdictions instead of paying the carbon tax, which would ensure emissions reductions are achieved at the lowest price available.
Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne, asked about equivalency, noted other moves already made by her province that have driven down emissions and driven up electricity prices.
“This is about reducing greenhouse gas emissions,” Wynne said before entering the meeting, adding that price is simply a “mechanism.”
“British Columbians are not paying for reductions in Ontario.”
The premiers also want to extract greater health care funding from the Liberal government, but several said they wouldn’t be linking the two crucial issues of climate change and health spending during Friday’s talks.
The backdrop to the long-planned first ministers conference is the looming change of government in the United States.
Biden told the assembled premiers they should take a long view of climate policy, because short-term political changes will be overtaken by reality.
“Whatever uncertainty exists around the near-term policy choices of the next president, I am absolutely confident the United States will continue making progress in its path to a low-carbon future.”
Organizations fighting to save old school in Mount Pleasant
The former Simon Fraser elementary annex (Courtesy City of Vancouver)
SUMMARY
Former school in Mount Pleasant may be demolished in rezoning plan.
Church groups say they won't be able to provide services if the former Simon Fraser elementary annex is bulldozed.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The fate of an old school in Mount Pleasant will soon be decided by Vancouver city council.
Organizations that use the former Simon Fraser elementary annex on East 6th Avenue, just off of Quebec, are fighting for its future.
City planners are looking at increasing the density between Main Street and Quebec, between East 2nd and East 8th Avenues. That would require rezoning and considering options for the heritage building
One option is to demolish the two-story facility, which was built in 1929.
Council could also decide to retain it, but have it moved to a corner of the block it sits on.
“We are currently using the space with over 700 members. If the rezoning goes ahead, we don’t have an alternate location. It would stop us from providing our current services,” says Tuhien Trieu, an outreach coordinator at Love your Neighbour Club, one of three groups that provide services in the old school.
The club’s Hong Yan is not happy with the level of consultation so far.
“Since we learned of the city’s plans in October, we’ve been trying to reach out to them to have conversations with them. We haven’t been involved in the process at all.”
The Love your Neighbour Club, along with Light and Love Home and the Church of God in Vancouver, lease the building from the city, which bought the old school back in 1998. The groups have two more years left on the lease, but that lease can be broken with one year’s notice.
They’ve launched a petition to have the city allow them to stay in the current location.
An evaluation report will be presented to council this coming week. It is recommending the building be retained.
