It is not the first time a Postmedia newspaper has presented a misleading report on public affairs. This one doesn’t rise to the level of Brian Lilley’s ugly dog whistle implication that Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam is more loyal to China than Canada, and should be fired.
Rob Shaw authored the latest, after BC Liberals suggested the provincial agency tasked with assisting injured workers ought to be giving money to businesses.
WorkSafeBC has lost billions, can’t afford to help businesses buy PPE, Vancouver Sun, May 23, 2020:
The government agency in charge of setting and enforcing the rules for reopening businesses closed by the pandemic can’t afford to help businesses buy protective equipment because it has lost almost all its $3 billion surplus in the recent stock market collapse.
Labour Minister Harry Bains said WorkSafeBC cannot use a large surplus accumulated over many years to give partial refunds to employers on masks, gloves, Plexiglas shields and other safety gear, as suggested by the Opposition Liberal party.
Worksafe BC is not established to help enterprises purchase equipment needed to conduct business. As I read the Workers Compensation Act, the Board could do this but the agency’s prime functions are something else.
It might be appropriate to assist acquisition of protective equipment but that is more the job of the federal and provincial governments, not Worksafe BC. The BC NDP promised to end the practice of raiding surpluses from public institutions but it appears that BC Liberals are still in favour.
During Gordon Campbell’s leadership, BC Liberals slashed compensation benefits paid to injured workers. Rather than reverse the cuts, Andrew Wilkinson’s Liberals want to hand over hundreds of millions of dollars to employers.
Shaw’s statement that WorkSafeBC lost almost all of its surplus funds is absolutely incorrect.
The agency’s last published financial statements, for the year ended December 2018, show an excess of assets over liabilities of $6.425 billion.
Of that surplus, $2.765 billion is unappropriated. Even if WorkSafe lost that amount in its investments—which Shaw boldly asserts—$3.66 billion of appropriated reserves would remain.
Rob Shaw should have explained it is highly unlikely that WorkSafe suffered a financial hit nearing that amount. If it did, the large group of people collecting 7-figure salaries at BC Investment Management Corporation would be looking for new jobs.
BCI invests funds in a number of ways, including shares, bonds and real estate. In March, stock prices declined significantly but much of that lost ground has been recovered. This week, the Dow Jones average is 32% above its March low and above the level it was 18 months ago.
In these difficult times, the value of bond positions has increased and real state holdings are typically made as long term investments that can only be measured accurately over time.
WorkSafeBC is not in financial distress as Rob Shaw and the BC Liberals would have us believe.
Labour Minister Harry Bains played into the Liberal game. His quotes, if accurate, do not help people understand the state of affairs at Worksafe BC.
Categories: BC Liberals, Journalism, Labour
in-sights.ca 
This is why fewer people are buying the biased daily newspapers and are instead relying on the internet and folks like you to give us better information.
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Still allied? When was Postmedia not allied with the Liberals?
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How can Postmedia be aligned with the Liberals, when it’s owned and operated by Conservatives? It owns Sun Media, the mouthpiece of the Conservative party. It’s run by people who used to be Conservative politicians. It’s ludicrous to claim it’s aligned with Liberals of any stripe.
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BC Liberals are a coalition of Liberal, Conservative and People’s Party supporters, so it is quite easy for Postmedia to stay aligned with the BC Liberal Party. Were there a separate and viable provincial Conservative party in BC, Postmedia would be pumping their tires instead.
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Mr. Shaw was mentored by Vaughn Palmer and his editor is Harold Munro.
I rest my case.
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You rested you’re case very well Lew. A great post.
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The corrupt BC Liberal government destroyed a once good program of benefits coverage for injured workers, and the slimy BCNDP hasn’t reinstated that policy that was ruined by the scum Liberals. And the Green leaders just stay in their little bubble like all obeying NDP lapdogs. Their all from the same rotten stinking pile far as i’m concerned. Big loss of money still even if media meatheads didn’t get it right.
I would go into the backwash and sewer system where some of the corporate media personalities, pundits and press gallery pukes swim, but a lot has been said about them already. Nothing good for sure. They absolutely deserve the push back from the people though. I hope it continues for the sake of democracy.
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When the NDP has a success that is unavoidably obvious to all, like Dix’s handling of the Health portfolio, this provides a useful opportunity for loyal Liberal stenographers like Shaw, Palmer et al. to do an inoculatory puff-piece to pull out later: “See – I’m objective!”
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Rob Shaw just made an honest mistake, rather than evincing a pro-LIberal postmedia bias. (Although postmedia might have rushed to print it because of a bias). IN fact, didn’t Rob Shaw write a rather uxorious whitewash of Adrian DIx a while back? I thought that reeked of the opposite bias. It characterized DIx’s “pot calling the kettle-black” performance in Opposition as “knowing the ministries better than the ministers”, when in fact he was just recognizing the same evasions he practised while in Clark’s Premiers Office. ( by standing out in a caucus of political rookies, Dix was just filling the vacuum that he helped Glen Clark to create in the first place. The irony should not have been lost on anybody.)
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Rob Shaw has a record:
https://in-sights.ca/tag/shaw-rob/
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