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.
Adele – for those who don’t know already
From December 2011, when I first noticed the British star: I may be late but 2011 was the year I discovered brilliant young English singer-songwriter Adele Laurie Blue Adkins. Salon.com calls her […]
Rich lands, poor people
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 […]
Distortions and half-truths but mostly outright lies
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 […]
John’s still aghast
Almost one year ago, this piece was submitted as a comment to another article. It still makes as much sense as it did last December so I feature it at the top. […]
What gas industry?
What BC gets from natural gas industry in 2015 does not even pay half the cost of Gas Development Ministry. #bcpoli pic.twitter.com/1wDCkQsbC7 — Norm Farrell (@Norm_Farrell) December 11, 2015 //platform.twitter.com/widgets.jsNote: Numbers from […]
Marcellus was correct
The more time I spend reviewing BC Hydro, the more I am reminded of the famous line spoken by a minor character in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. BC Hydro released its Second Quarter report […]
No limit, no principle, no shame
Christy Clark accused of interfering in local band election to aid brother’s deal, Mark Hume, Globe and Mail, December 9, 2015 Premier Christy Clark has been accused of interfering in a local […]
Loyalty rewarded
UBC Board of Governors elects Stuart Belkin as new chair, UBC News, December 7, 2015: UBC’s Board of Governors has elected Stuart Belkin as the board’s incoming chair. Belkin is chair and […]
LNG: a decade of oversupply
Toil ahead for oil, but expect double trouble for LNG, Angela Macdonald-Smith, Energy Reporter, Sydney Morning Herald, December 7, 2014 The crude oil market is seen as being in dire straits, but […]
Our wealth commands us
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.
When industry buys a government…
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 […]
Corus – CKNW Orphans’ Fund revisited
The Voluntarism Fantasy, Mike Konczal, Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, 2014: Conservatives dream of returning to a world where private charity fulfilled all public needs. But that world never existed — and […]
Thinking of you Christy
Bloomberg Business says, “Spare a thought for anyone who bet on a recovery in liquefied natural gas prices after last year’s 45 percent plunge.” Bloomberg also says: LNG to northeast Asia, home […]
Recipe for the future
10 things business should do to save the planet, Cecilie Hultmann and Anne Louise Koefoed, Sustainability DNV-GL, December 1, 2015: …while governments are busy haggling over details, business should pick up the […]
Mr. Prime Minister, start pushing British Columbia
Trudeau says Indigenous people can teach the world how to care for the planet, APTN National News, November 30, 2015: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said during a speech in Paris that Indigenous […]
Alternative view of conflict in Syria
An SDS radical, Dr. Lawrence Davidson took voluntary exile in Canada during the early seventies. Returning home after six years, he became an educator and now writes commentary, often about American responses […]
Stenographic journalism
Writing in Salon, maverick journalist Glenn Greenwald criticized news reporting that follows the stenographic model. It involves repeating what people say without any effort to judge the truthfulness of statements or the […]
Ahem, indeed
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 […]
BC’s climate change hypocrisy
Today, Christy Clark’s government provided talking points to favoured media about the province’s financial report to September 30, the second fiscal quarter. According to Global’s Keith Baldrey, natural gas royalties are down […]
in-sights.ca 
If Mr Burns was born in America would he stay? US records new depopulation figures? https://www.wsj.com/us-news/americans-leaving-the-us-migration-a5795bfa In its 250th year,…