Before retirement, I worked in accounting and small business management. I have published commentary about public issues at IN-SIGHTS.CA since 2009.
Before BC’s last provincial election, the governing party was trailing in the polls, still suffering from the HST fiasco, their failed effort to shift sales tax burdens from businesses to individuals. Premier Clark’s handlers decided to weave her a new set of clothes. When first shown to the public, oblivious cheerleaders in the corporate media rose in unison to applaud. Like the child in Hans Christian Andersen’s story, alternative media revealed the truth.
David Eby’s video:
“Too many people are struggling. Together we can take action to end BC’s housing crisis. “
One of these things is not like the other thing… but they are connected…
There are charities for many purposes with widely different levels of quality in the work they do. Each of us decides the sectors we’ll support for reasons that are very personal. For […]
Many readers enjoyed the Christy Clark video in Hypocrite! and found it revealing, particularly as Clark’s Government was spending millions of tax dollars to flood social, print and broadcast media with campaign promises and Liberal promotions. Here is another taste of Ms. Clark.
I have tracked electricity sales for decades and written much about the subject at In-Sights. My charts report BC Hydro’s sales to these customers: Residential Light industrial and commercial Large industrial. Those represent […]
Feeling heat from the Opposition and worried about angry voters, BC Liberals dissolved the Legislature two weeks earlier than planned. They didn’t even pass the budget, so the MSP cut is only a campaign promise.
Watch this memorable video of Opposition MLA Christy Clark standing in the Legislature, spewing a disrespectful rant about government spending 6 or 7 hundred thousand dollars on post-budget advertising. Today, her own Government is pouring more than 20x that amount of taxpayers’ dollars into partisan advertising to promote their reelection prospects.
By slanting news or withholding information, media affect what a large segment of the public knows or does not know about public affairs. If groups profit improperly through actions of government, rewards can be immense but, if the looters control media, they can act in the shadows. The checks and balances within a democracy are distorted if media becomes a subsidiary of vested interests. Accurate public discourse is discouraged or impossible.
Former broadcaster George Orr created TALK!, an excellent documentary that will appeal to every person who valued radio for being unique in each community it served. TALK! explores broadcasting and how the functions of commercial operations are driven by self-interest, not by communities needs. While fishing for the story of radio, George lands by-catch. It’s a politician we all know.
A listing of BC’s 2013 election results. PDF and MS Excel formats.
Despite the flat demand for power, BC Hydro is not only buying more private power, its capital spending program is out of control. As a result, despite a reduction in sales to BC customers since 2005, the utility’s assets in 2016 are 256% of the total eleven years ago. With Site C and other major capital projects, we can expect assets to grow by another 15-20 billion dollars in the near future. BC Hydro’s politicized management, under directions from Victoria, are hiding bad news with accounting trickery and, while they’ve increased the average price to residential and business consumers by 74% since 2005, the rates must rise significantly or the province must reverse the flow of cash from the public treasury to the accounts of BC Hydro.
With various accusations of BC Liberal corruption being discussed in 2017, it is worth repeating how the first major scandal came to a highly unsatisfactory conclusion for taxpayers and anyone interested in honest administration of justice. This item about BC Rail was first published in 2014.
Annual reports of the parties filed with Elections BC reveal that BC Liberals have consistently taken in substantially more political contributions than BC NDP. This is a seven year summary to 2015 (2016 reports are not yet posted).
Campaign survival tool: a PVR so you can skip the endless Liberal commercials we taxpayers are paying to air. Or, one of these magic instruments:
More power supply and less demand should drive down costs. Instead, California’s electricity rates have surged 12% since 2008. BC Hydro average sale price rose 63% in the same period.
Liberals have been rotating a sharp-pointed metal pin with a raised helical thread within BC Hydro and ICBC but they began with BC Rail and BC Ferries. Lately, I’ve written mostly about BC Hydro but […]
In 2014, BC’s government claimed public sector organizations would operate under principles that strengthen accountability, promote cost control, and ensure the corporations operate in the best interest of taxpayers. If you’ve read my work on BC Hydro, examined Bob Mackin’s frustrations with FOI or generally followed provincial politics, you would have known the claims were hollow from the start.
Now, three years later, the Auditor General confirms that assertion
In a May 2009 article, The Economist describes Vancouver as a distribution hub in a global drugs trade. It says gangs ship out cannabis, amphetamines and ecstasy made in BC, importing cocaine, heroin and guns, fighting over a business worth an estimated C$7 billion a year. “That they do so in broad daylight demonstrates the feckless response of the provincial government and police, despite reports dating back more than 30 years giving warning of the growth in organized crime. According to SFU criminologist Rob Gordon, the current effort at collaboration, led by the Mounties, is “riven with conflict.”
We’ve seen that organizations make political contributions directly and through lobbyists. We know they use subsidiaries, affiliates and nominees but EBC makes little effort to report connections. In a report by Corporate Mapping Project, Teck Resources seems to have contributed $1.5 million to BC Liberals. However, a more complete listing provides a much larger number: $2.8 million. Even that is incomplete. It is important to know the benefits flowing from Teck to the Liberal Party but we must keep in mind the benefits flowing to Teck. That company was reportedly responsible for $743 million of a $1.2 billion unfunded liability for mine cleanups.
Foot dragging? Know of anywhere with a huge coastline, lakes and rivers, lots of tourists wanting to sightsee, lots of…
Yes, I fully agree with this summary. I am also reminded of, what seemed to be, the suspect (and possibly…
Thanks, good summary of the fiasco. Mr Eby will likely resign his seat when the new leader is in place,…
Yes, a predictable loss... though it was interesting to see the Conservatives also attracting fewer votes than last time. I…
I hope Canada hurries up no tolerance based rules. I also hope this country has at least a clue of…