Martyn Brown
Novelist?

Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Candidate?   During the dog days of summer when most of the politicians are in hiding and even the extremely secretive Slimeman Harper works mostly behind the curtain even more than usual, Martyn Brown's new book Towards a New Government in British Columbia has garnered a lot of attention from even the lamestream media types that usually manage to ignore anything critical of the BC Fiberals under either Gordo "Gangsta" Campbell or Christy "Pretender" Clark. Mr. Brown, who some refer to as the Karl Rove of BC Politics, who served as Chief of Staff to Gordo, (while Lara served as Assistant Chieftess to the Gord's more meaty Staff?) has, so far at least, spared trees by publishing his "novel" as an E-Book, available at Amazon.com.

Although I'm certain that if this apparent whitewash of everything Campbell, excepting the HST debacle, would be listed under non-fiction, were it successful enough to get on the best seller list, I fail to comprehend how it could be anything other than fiction. Bear in mind that this is the same dude who when under oath in the abortion known as the BC Rail trial could barely remember anything beyond his name and how to get home from court. So how he could since then, and since leaving government, remember enough to actually critique the last decade plus under the mis-management of the BC LIEberals would seem to require a leap of faith.

"Well maybe he was able to refer to notes and daytimers to write the book" you say! Unfortunately according to Ian Reid at the Real Story, Mr. Brown didn't believe in leaving any evidence of anything where anyone might actually, you know, find it.

 ‘I don’t know.  I can’t remember.  Who are you again?’

After Martyn Brown stepped off the stand at the Basi Virk trial last July I was thinking, someone should get this guy some help.  Is there a dementia expert nearby

Because Brown didn’t remember a thing he did or said over the last ten years.  Not credible.

I’ve done the Chief of Staff gig for a bit.  The written job description isn’t too specific and one of the things it doesn’t mention is the whole memory issue.  But you’re supposed to remember things.  And if you don’t, you use the odd aide memoire.

Martyn Brown doesn’t have any aide memoires.  A while ago I posted a page from his calendar, obtained through FOI.  Empty.  No appointments.  Nada.  Zip.  We know that’s BS.  The guy had meetings up the ying-yang – do people still say ying-yang?  The Premier even said so yesterday.

Brown must delete his calendar entries just like he deletes his e-mail.  I bet his paper files are just as empty.  He probably has an industrial strength shredder installed in this office.  He scrubs it all clean, every day, it seems.

How do I know?  Because a version of scrubbing by the Premier’s office is described in Rosemarie Hayes’ affidavit filed in court July 13, 2009.

According to Hayes’ affidavit all computers in the premier’s office have a special setting – a ‘no retention’ setting, meaning those computers are not backed up in the way government computers regularly are.  And that means no back-up records exist.

So the way I see it either Mr. Brown should be charged with perjury, or admit that his new book is fiction. Cuz, either he was lying on the stand when he was trying to set a record for how many times in one day someone could say "I don't recall" and "I don't remember," or he is making it all up.

Of course like another prominent blogger or historical revisionist, who claims to be King of the Bloggosphere,  this book was all about trashing Christy Clark (not hard to do) and pretending that all that is wrong with the LIEberal's rule over BeeCee is attributable to her, after all that wonderful stuff her predecessor did for the one percent oops, I mean the people of British Columbia. 

 Thanks for the Paywalls PostMedia!

Last week something else happened - PostMedia (I translate that to mean after the death of media, how accurate in the case of the former Canned Waste empire) implemented their new paywall to content online. Personally, I think that is wonderful, less people will be subjected to their sorry excuse for journalism. I wouldn't be surprised if the government moves to make them remove the paywall, after all, people certainly aren't gonna be motivated to pay money to read propaganda from the Fraser Institute and whatever new name the Public Affairs Bureau operates under now.

Anyone who just can't do without the drivel they pretend is news and honest opinion can easily go find the same stuff at the websites of the Fraser Institute, the Canadian Taxpayer's Federation and the BC liaRs! Besides, in spite of the sorry excuse for journalism that the Mop and Pail has become, it still generally covers BC politics better than our local birdcage liners - the Vancouver Stun and the Province of Imaginary News! Indeed Gary Mason, instead of covering what Dave Basi and his wife say to each other in bed, has covered the Brown novel here, here and here.

If one insists he or she can actually go to either the Sun or the Province to see what Jordan Bateman thinks about Martyn's new tome - a sample (I won't provide links, in case you are short of funds).

They say dead men tell no lies. That may never be truer than in the cutthroat blood-sport of B.C. politics.

Consider Martyn Brown, the former chief of staff for Gordon Campbell and chief architect of the B.C. Liberals' decade in power. He's no longer in politics and suddenly feels very free to tell the truth about the B.C. government.

In his ebook, Towards a New Government in British Columbia, Brown confirms what many taxpayers have been saying for a long time: Government is taking more money out of our pockets than ever before. That, despite the fact the B.C. Liberals like to tout that British Columbians pay the lowest income taxes in Canada.

"Every government is using every means at its disposal to avoid visible tax hikes and to hide the ones they are imposing as far as possible. That does not mean that governments are not raising taxes," wrote Brown. "Governments everywhere are raising fees, licenses, premiums, penalties, levies, utility rates, tolls and other hid-den forms of taxes. They are charging new fees for services, they are extracting new and higher hidden taxes from Crown corporations. And they are deferring tax burdens to future generations through debt, deferral accounts and public-private partnerships."

I would imagine that Mr. Bateman's drivel would be available on the website of the Canadian Taxpayer's Federation, but anyone too dumb to use Google or B(l)ing (does Alta Vista still exist? I'm too lazy to look) to find it, is too dumb and impressionable to be exposed to the retarded thinking of this organization, Canada's own version of Grover Norquist and his stupid ideas about taxes.