Gwen and I raised three adult children in North Vancouver. Each lives in this community, as do our seven grandchildren. Before retirement, I worked in accounting and small business management. Since 2009, I have published commentary about public issues at IN-SIGHTS.CA.
People who are not profiting – or expecting to profit – from corruption in British Columbia’s political arena, should understand. We all pay. We pay dearly and inescapably. Tens of billions of dollars the Clark gang is gifting to private power producers and billions more paid and payable to foreign owned gas producers might provide for an effective court system, better public education, healthcare, small business support and other citizen priorities.
First published in February 2011. I still agree with the thoughts expressed and continue to believe that corporate media serves us poorly in political reporting. The genesis of a preceding article, Drive-by […]
With only months until the 2017 BC election, Liberal deceivers are emerging from the lairs. Bob Mackin, the most feared journalist in BC, has a few of the details in his report […]
While boasting of wise management and “balanced” budgets, Liberals run up almost $200 billion in public debts and obligations, give away natural resources and help pay for the removals, subsidize corrupt foreign operators, sell public lands for a fraction of value, gift tens of billions to private power operators, enable more than $120 billion of pension funds to be invested without public oversight and spend tens of millions of tax dollars telling us that all is well. Just remember, for Liberals and their pals, all is indeed well.
Partly by necessity, partly by need to address other matters, my focus has not recently involved In-Sights or social media. However, I am again ready to write regularly on BC politics. You will see further examinations of the asset stripping work of Liberals as they seek another term to finish hollowing out British Columbia’s economy.
However, this is a province where government routinely spends billions annually to subsidize multinational resource and power companies and spent 14 years in the courts fighting delivery of educational services to children in need. This government, found by the land’s highest court to be contemptuous of constitutional rights, cannot be counted on to change its priorities.
A prominent BC Government supporter wrote last week that, by vote of 6-2, Canada’s high court effectively handed “the Liberals ass on a plate.” Indeed, Justice Beverley McLachlin and colleagues concluded a legal process that should trouble every citizen. Not just that, in setting public education policy, an elected provincial government government behaved like a tin pot dictatorship but that four British Columbia Appeal Court judges believed they could ignore clear precedents established by the nation’s Supreme Court.
On November 10, Canada’s highest court reinstated Madam Justice Griffin’s 2014 judgement that found BC had bargained with teachers in bad faith and breached the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. She awarded BCTF $2 million in damages. This high court action should conclude a dispute that has gone on since 2002 but, as long as British Columbia’s government follows the circular pattern described by this article’s title, it will not. Contempt for teachers is only one aspect of BC Liberal antipathy for public education.
In 2016, BC started paying gas producers to remove and sell BC gas. By ordinary accounting standards, natural gas cost the province more than $400 million in the fiscal year ended in 2016. With the Liberal plan to provide massive amounts of electricity to gas producers at a fraction of the price BC Hydro pays to acquire power, the gas industry is at the centre of a looming financial disaster like no other before it in BC history.
I’ve been quieter than usual here and on social media but I am working on new reports and inquiries. My capacity has been somewhat limited recently but I’m hoping that will soon […]
Follow this link and read my commentaries about BC Hydro. Listen to CKNW on Wednesday after the 9am news. I’ll be talking with Jon McComb. ipp-purchases-and-market-prices
At The Gazetteer, RossK and friends are commenting about reports that Petronas does or does not aim to bail from the land of Sparkle Ponies. In my opinion, discussion of what’s been said or not said […]
BC Hydro has experienced flat demand for more than a decade. Nevertheless, the value of its assets have grown 250% and purchases of private power grew 280% since 2005. Add to this, the fact it has committed to spend another $10 billion or so to build the Site C dam. It is inexplicable.
truthiness n. informal the quality of seeming or being felt to be true, even if not necessarily true.
Canadian governments spend more than $20 billion a year on criminal justice. Little of that money is aimed at white collar crime.
BC Hydro has three particularly important types of customers. These consumers, all inside British Columbia, are categorized as: Residential, Commercial and light industry, Heavy industry. There are others outside the province but BC […]
BC Liberal government insisted they not be allowed to entertain other more environmentally sound and less expensive systems. Seems Ms. Clark has a list of eligible corporate sponsors for contract dispersals…
At my Tyee article BC Hydro: From Public Interest to Private Profits, a couple of commenters associated with BC Hydro and the Liberal Party dispute statistics. However, the numbers I use are from BC […]
An almost quote from James Boren, “Every Liberal has a right to fuzzify, profundify and drivelate. It’s a part of our freedom of speech…If people can understand what is being said in Victoria, they might want to take over their own government again.”
And then there is the OIL & Gas!!!!!!!
Historians have not been kind to elites who opposed scientific innovation. For centuries Belief among guardians of executive authority rarely…
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The US influence extends it's foreign policy to unwitting allies with the UK and Canada being prime examples. With this…