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 […]
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.”
“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…
Many people believe that BC Hydro’s current job #1 is enabling the delivery of water and cheap power to northeast gas fields and heavily subsidized energy to remote mine sites. If true, […]
After the Campbell Liberals were elected in 2001, influences of special business interests grew rapidly. Under Christina Clark’s leadership, non-renewable resource companies wield great political power and they use it to minimize […]
As consumers, we are told that Canadian retail prices must be set above American because the costs of operation are higher north of the 49th parallel. For that reason, cars manufactured in […]
I am reading budget documents and will soon be writing more about the provincial government’s financial smoke and mirrors but I have initial comments. Natural Gas BC Liberals, particularly Premier Clark, are […]
There is too little public discussion of huge costs and questionable benefits of an industry that employs a tiny fraction of BC’s workers (0.4% in 2014 according to BC Stats). With land […]
Premier Clark averred that meeting needs of children in government care is dependent on new funding from new industrial and commercial activities in British Columbia… That condition was not applied to construction of the Site C dam that will ultimately cost $10-$15 billion. Nor was it applied to about $10 billion of road and bridge construction in the lower mainland or $1 billion spent to deliver subsidized power to Murray Edwards’ Red Chris mine. Nor was it a condition precedent when Clark wanted to expand the size of her cabinet or hire yet more government spin doctors. A $200 million tax break for our richest citizens did not depend on new economic activity.
GDP measures income, but not equality, it measures growth, but not destruction, and it ignores values like social cohesion and the environment. – OECD If a province allows extraction of natural resources […]
February 13, 2013, three months before her first general election as Premier, Christy Clark announced: …the new British Columbia Prosperity Fund to ensure communities, First Nations and all British Columbians benefit from […]
As a student politician in her untenured days at SFU, Christy Clark operated with an imperfect moral compass. When final history is written, the hallmark of her premiership will be deceit and corruption. Her government regularly wages war against working people and helps contractors evade the few responsibilities owed employees. Income and disability assistance rates were last raised on June 1, 2007 but annual drilling subsidies to gas producers climbed 130% in the same time frame, from $370 million to $850 million. In addition, since 2007, natural gas royalties receipts declined from $1.2 billion to $185 million in the current fiscal year. Revenues from gas and petroleum rights sales fell from $2.4 billion in fiscal year 2009 to only $9.7 million in the first 11 months of 2015.
Who knew that Christy Clark would make Gordon Campbell look like an effective, if somewhat dishonest, Premier. #bcpoli — Norm Farrell (@Norm_Farrell) December 4, 2015 //platform.twitter.com/widgets.js Did gas industry get a good […]
A while back, I complained on Twitter that corporate media types were failing to report on the near complete disappearance of revenues from this year’s monthly sales of petroleum and natural gas […]
Postmedia is a company in trouble. It cannot sustain crippling debt to American debt holders with revenues from traditional advertising, circulation and digital paywalls. One of its responses is Postmedia Content Solutions, […]
Sources: BC Public Accounts, BC Stats, Bank of Canada Sources: BC Public Accounts, BC Stats, Bank of Canada A recent report from Statistics Canada, Exports and imports of natural gas to and […]
The price isn’t right, Corporate profit-shifting has become big business, The Economist: DURING THE TAX-EVASION trial of Leona Helmsley, a flamboyant hotelier, a former housekeeper testified that she heard her employer say: […]
These graphs are drawn from softwood lumber exports data published by BC Stats. My aim is to compare results in recent years to those from the desperate nineties when wild-eyed anti-business socialists governed […]
BC Liberal involvement with Big Pharma is at the root of high-level government decisions to kneecap research into the safety and efficacy of more than $25 billion worth of pharmaceuticals sold each year in Canada. Drug research conducted by the Health Ministry and agencies like Therapeutics Initiative threatened the financial interests of indulgent Christy Clark sponsors. Her government squeezed T.I. financially but solid public support for the independent effort kept Liberals from killing it. As a result, the politicians chose a different approach to discredit drug research.
The audio file below is a recording of my time with Ian Jessop June 17. We talk about LNG and resource taxation, inter-provincial cooperation on resource matters and oil spill response capability. […]
Hi Norm, You have that right. The angle we can use at the local level effectively has changed from directly…
[…] A friend of mine is deeply engaged with his local government. He is, by his own admission, a royal…
That alone should be investigated Why not one generator ata time and time it to rain season
Thanks for the summary Norm. This is the first year that Williston Reservoir has reached full pool for many years.…
in-sights.ca 
God luck in the election. Your platform resonates with me, and we are thinking of returning to PR for our…