Years ago, corporations decided they should pay less for BC’s natural resources. The companies funded pressure groups, slick online websites, and social media shills. All amplified public messaging in support of private resource extraction. Lobbyists wined and dined politicians and senior bureaucrats. Dollars moved into the bank accounts of political parties. The efforts were successful. For the expenditure of a few million, industrialists gained billions.
Extractivism – BC as third world economy
In British Columbia’s natural resource sector, public revenues decreased while quantities and values produced increased. Not long ago, BC thrived on resource based industries. Today, extractors do well but the public—putative owners of natural resources—gain little for the assets…
Rising production, declining gas revenue
Sale of crown petroleum and natural gas rights in the first nine month of 2019 totalled $12 million. The average for the first nine months of the preceding 20 years was $448 million. That is a reduction of more than 97%.
Omission of truth becomes a lie
In real terms, the BC government’s natural resource revenues in 2018 were 37% of the level in 2001, despite material increases in output.
Premier Horgan, where were you on Mount Polley?
Compare the passage of 4 years without a charge against Mount Polley operators to the quick response when a rude 19-year-old released an adult-sized blow-up doll over West Vancouver’s Ambleside beach. He was arrested within two weeks and faces a charge of mischief under Canada’s Criminal Code.
When regulators don’t believe in regulation
When a new government takes office, there is often a significant change at senior levels of the civil service and among OIC political appointments. One person still employed by the Horgan government may surprise more than a few people.
Socialized losses, privatized gains
Every megaproject conceived and executed by BC Liberals in recent years has ended with massive cost overruns, despite the predictable “on-time and on-budget” claims. Most involved contractors with foreign domiciles. Check out the Port Mann bridge project, South Fraser Perimeter Road, BC Place renovation, Vancouver Convention Centre, Sea to Sky Highway, Northwest Transmission Line, etc.
Huge cost, high risk, low government revenue, few permanent jobs, better choices
When thinking about the Petronas LNG project (PNW LNG), we should consider which supporting claims for it were believable. The value and benefits of the project have been routinely misrepresented.
Behind the ostensible government
Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to dissolve the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics, is the first task of the statesmanship of the day.
Connections
One of these things is not like the other thing… but they are connected…
Log exports updated
BC is exporting substantially more unprocessed raw lags by volume but recording – per exporters’ reports, at least – little more than half the unit value realized in the 1990s. The volume of exported raw logs during Christy Clark’s tenure is 567% of what was experienced in ten years of NDP administration. BC jobs in forestry and support activities have declined by nearly one-half.
Our ignorance serves a purpose
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 […]
Politics, journalism and easy virtue
G20 country governments are providing $444 billion a year in subsidies for the production of fossil fuels. In Canada, at the federal level, this amounts to a minimum of $1.6 billion, mainly through tax expenditures. At the provincial level, tax breaks amount to a minimum of $979 million annually. In fact, the numbers are even larger. Fossil fuel companies recognize values gained when sympathetic politicians are there to determine financial policies so oil and gas producers spend extravagantly to sustain a synergetic relationship. In recent years, they’ve courted journalists and media companies whose financial comforts have been in decline. Many of those have turned out to be of easy virtue.
Premier Clark’s costly friend
The BC Liberal government pushed hard for a controversial expansion of the power grid into the northern wilderness, at a cost of more than $800 million. The Northwest Transmission Line was built to enable resource developments but Imperial Metals’ Red Chris and an AltaGas hydro project are the only major players on the power line grid. Red Chris would not be feasible without the extension of the power line and the $886-million expenditure “appears increasingly as a public subsidy for a single mine.”
große Lüge (Big Lie)
Broad masses …more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie… they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. ….For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying.
Kootenay Bill’s Casablanca moment
Found in the casino where he regularly pockets winnings, Captain Renault says, “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” Kootenay Bill may not have been aware of more than a billion dollars of unfunded liabilities for mine clean-up but you can bet the BC Liberal bagmen were very much aware.
AG: “Business as usual cannot continue”
Regarding: Ministry of Environment (MoE), Mary Polak, Minister Ministry of Energy and Mines (MEM), Bill Bennett, Minister Excerpts from AN AUDIT OF COMPLIANCE AND ENFORCEMENT OF THE MINING SECTOR, May 2016, by […]
Gas sales in new fiscal year begin on a sour note
Premier Clark and friends are organizing demonstrations, trying to keep the LNG fantasy alive with voters, at least for another year. BC Liberals won’t admit economic reality but producers have already passed […]
What’s good for the BC Liberals may not be good for BC Hydro
Energy and Mines Minister Bill Bennett announced a five-year, $300 million hydro bill deferment plan for 13 mines owned by six companies.Never mind that B.C. Hydro is already grappling with its own deferral problems to the tune of $5 billion. Make no mistake, there’s a price to pay when B.C. Hydro becomes a political arm of government. The intertwining of self-interests gets complicated, while the interests of ratepayers can take a backseat to political interests. Three of the six companies in Bennett’s deal were highlighted in a December Financial Post article, “Debt risks mount as Canada’s base metal miners sink deep in the hole.”
BC Liberals’ special partners
“I think there is an atmosphere of total terror.”
It’s a story of intrigue, corruption and multiple murders, stretching from the streets of Malaysia’s capital Kuala Lumpur, to Switzerland, France and the US as well as Hong Kong and Singapore, all the way to Australia’s doorstep. “You know I can’t talk much, he said, because my phone might be bugged”.
The money involved is astonishing…
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