One excellent BC journalist regularly presents political and economic analysis in The Tyee. Will McMartin Shoots Down Squawking Gaggle of Campbell Praisers is one more example. He bases analyses on fact, not friendship or philosophical bent. In this column, McMartin begins by demonstrating the pathetic arrogance of media pros who aspire to be opinion leaders in our community:
. . . while only nine per cent of British Columbians currently hold a positive view of Gordon Campbell, close to 100 per cent of the mainstream media remain deeply infatuated with our soon-to-be ex-premier?
McMartin echoes criticism written at In-Sights, particularly of newspaper editorials that are agenda driven and just plain silly. The Vancouver Sun opinion pages and Bill Good of CKNW are probably the worst practitioners of paeanism in this market, the former through ideology, the latter by loyalty to a pal.
Bush #43 left this particular pearl of wisdom, among many:
See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.
Of course, the thing repeated over and over and over again by government supporters in British Columbia is the assertion that Gordon Campbell “transformed the province’s finances.” What is unsaid though is that the transformation rewarded the wealthiest citizens and penalized the poorest. McMartin provides two examples of significant changes:
But the biggest revenue gains which offset the losses from Campbell’s tax cuts were in two areas well-known to low and middle-income British Columbians — Medical Services Plan premiums and post-secondary tuition.
In 2000/01, MSP premiums generated $894 million for the provincial treasury, but in the current year the comparable figure is expected to hit an eye-popping $1.741 billion.
And over the same period, tuition fees recovered from post-secondary students will have nearly tripled, from $440 million to $1.135 billion.
Categories: Campbell.Gordon, Journalism, Taxation
IN-SIGHTS 
In BC, Campbell has turned reduced taxes for the rich to massively higher user-fees for the poor. Unless one is destitute, BC sucks your hard earned money into tax benefits for the rich.
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OT What is your take on the action taken by Elections BC & the RCMP over some error in the anti-HST petition?
From the campaign website: “Elections BC has completely overreacted to the 1/3 of 1% of the 705,643 voter signatures obtained in the historic Fight HST citizens Initiative campaign that were somehow duplicates,” said Fight HST lead organizer Chris Delaney. “
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I found the timing of the announcement by James to be a tad self-serving of the liberal government…it's really quite pathetic the depths they'll sink to, to have their way.
I also find Campbell's whining about the “personalization of political attacks” to be amusing. He seemed to have NO problem at all personalizing issues when he was slobbering over the notion of taking the party from Gordon Wilson…and he used anything and everything at hand to do it.
Now he has a problem with it? Hey Gordo, what goes around…comes around. It's your turn, so 'fess up.
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Let us not forget that Campbell did a coup d'etat on the Gordon Wilson liberals, by taking on Wilson's personal life and making it public.
Gee whiz Gordo, what about Lara and her government job?
It seems Campbell can sling mud, but can't take it!
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Who says, Campbell is leaving? He's still here using, his usual dirty tactics. Campbell, is far too full of spite, hate and malice to just quit. Why are people still taking his word? He is taking his usual spite, out on the restaurants, for not supporting the asinine HST, that is killing their business. Sears, is under threat, for having HST sale days. The RCMP are to investigate, duplicate signatures that were probably, Liberal voters. Campbell, should put the RCMP, to further investigate, his corrupt sale of the BCR. Now, that would be worth while and meaningful. All this stupid investigation threat has done, is piss the BC citizens off even more.
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