October 20, 2024

In a classic example of the woke culture that is destroying British Columbia after 7 years of NDP rule, an Indigenous man who stabbed a senior to death in Vancouver’s Biltmore Hotel building in 2020 will not go to jail for the crime in a mind-boggling decision released online by a judge last Friday just ahead of the Thanksgiving long weekend (someone was hoping this wouldn’t get noticed). Yes, in a province where the NDP government enthusiastically became a drug dealer and further endangered public safety by allowing repeat offenders to get back on the streets, a person – especially if they’re Indigenous – can literally commit murder and essentially get away with it (read the shocking details here).

Judge Reginald Harris determined in the case of 31 year-old Anthony Warren Woods, “I find as a fact that his level of culpability was substantially reduced. My conclusion is based on the following collective factors: Mr. Woods’s direct and indirect experiences as an Indigenous person; his significant cognitive deficits; his ADHD; and to a lesser extent his state of intoxication. Mr. Woods’s impairments must not be considered in isolation from his experiences as an Indigenous person, that is they must be viewed collectively and in doing so it is inescapable that his impairments directly contributed to his offence.”

Woods pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the stabbing death of 72-year-old Alex Gortmaker who died of a single knife wound to the chest on the floor of the former hotel on December 15, 2020. Judge Harris gave Woods a 2-year conditional sentence. He must stay in his residence at a recovery home in the B.C. Interior for 24 hours a day for the 1st year, followed by a year of overnight curfew before he is released on probation. He must not possess any weapons or use drugs or alcohol, and he must keep the peace and be on good behaviour.

The above story is just the tip of the iceberg, yet another example of how British Columbia under the woke and socialist NDP is rapidly turning into a cesspool like many parts of California which are now suffering immensely from disastrous far left “progressive” policies and insane judicial decisions.

On Saturday, October 19, British Columbia voters will have a clear choice – remain on the current path and watch their province blow up, creating a mass exodus of human and financial capital to other more favorable jurisdictions like Alberta and Saskatchewan, or choose common sense change to get back on track and reclaim B.C.’s competitive advantage.

Saturday’s decision in B.C. – a new direction with a Conservative government or 4 more years of NDP – will reverberate across Canada and impact investors from coast to coast.

Approximately 1,000 publicly listed mining and mineral exploration and development companies are headquartered in B.C., so resource and economic policies in this province are critical to the health of the broader Canadian mining/resource sector.

Some other facts to consider:

The NDP’s focus is on bigger government and redistribution of wealth, not creation of wealth, meaning the province is not realizing its full economic potential. B.C.’s private sector should be firing on all cylinders but it’s not due to excessive regulation and over-taxation of individuals and businesses;

B.C. now has the 4th-highest top combined (federal/provincial) personal income tax rate in all of North America at 53.5%, according to the Fraser Institute;

The B.C. NDP has raised one tax after another to feed its spending addiction including a hike in the general corporate income tax from 11% to 12% in 2018, deterring badly needed investment in the province;

B.C.’s economic growth per person is expected to be lower this year than in 2018 (the 1st full year of the NDP);

Average GDP growth in the pre-NDP era (Campbell, Christy Clark) was double the rate achieved under NDP Premiers Horgan and Eby;

The NDP has spent like drunken sailors the last 7 years, with total debt projected at a staggering $165 billion by 2027 (currently increasing by $53 million a week), but the outcomes in health care, public safety and education just keep getting worse;

B.C.’s credit rating has been cut 3 times in recent years, falling from triple-A to double-A negative. This makes lenders less willing to lend and leads them to impose a higher interest rate. The B.C. government is now spending $4 billion a year just to pay the interest on its debt. And that will undoubtedly rise because the government intends to borrow much more as annual spending rises further;

B.C.’s health care system is in crisis (bureaucratic costs have zoomed, 40% of nurses now work in administration), the streets are less safe, and we’ve become the most unaffordable province in the country in part because of wacky “climate change” policies and a failed housing strategy;

The NDP government are horrendous economic managers who tolerate massive cost overruns in their capital projects – the Richmond Hospital redevelopment has more than doubled in cost, while the Pattullo Bridge replacement is a year behind schedule, which the province euphemistically admits will lead to “budget pressures”;

The NDP funds free public transit for children under 12, free menstrual products in schools, free naloxone kits, and subsidizes purchases of electric vehicles and heat pumps in the name of “saving the planet” as it also attempts to pick winners and losers in the economy;

Vancouver drivers by far pay the highest fuel taxes in the country at a whopping 60 cents per litre, according to data from the B.C. Utilities Commission;

The NDP’s CleanBC Roadmap to “expand and accelerate climate action” will only make matters worse and further negatively impact the province’s resource sector (B.C. has 17 operating mines and 2 smelters, and enormous untapped potential on the energy side including nuclear energy which Conservative leader John Rustad wants to explore as a potential new option);

Political (left-wing) indoctrination has become ingrained in the B.C. education system – schools are being used by DEI progressives to churn out as many “social justice” and “climate change” warriors as possible, and SOGI 123 (“helps educators make schools safer and more inclusive for students of all sexual orientations and gender identities”) is an abomination with a much bigger agenda at play;

British Columbia is a province run by woke progressives and “climate change” nutbars who believe forcing everyone to drink from paper straws (as opposed to plastic) will somehow help “save the planet”;

David Eby, Justin Trudeau, Jagmeet Singh, Comrade Harris – they’re all cut from the same cloth. They are wealth destroyers, not wealth creators, who instinctively and wrongly believe that bigger and more intrusive government is better government.

The chart below says everything – real incomes in B.C. have stalled under the horrendous policies of the NDP.

Venture Update

The way the broader markets have been behaving, it seems investors are betting that Trump will knock off Harris, Rustad will knock off Eby, Moe will knock off Beck (SK election Oct. 28), and Poilievre will ultimately destroy Trudeau.

At no point since 2020 has the TSX Venture looked so bullish from a technical perspective – the potential for explosive gains over the next 3 months is very real.

On Friday the Index closed above 600 for the 1st time since early June. The final big hurdle is the 640 area which has served as stiff resistance for the past couple of years and is also defined by the 1,000-day EMA.

With technical momentum returning to this market, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Venture challenge the 800 level by year-end. In that kind of environment, there will be many multi-baggers.

We’ll review a couple of longer-term charts tomorrow to better explain what’s unfolding, with suggestions on some situations that could really sparkle and deliver massive returns for investors.