I understand people who believe that Israel should defend its lands against armed attacks and fervently assert the country has a right to a peaceful existence. But I sympathize with innocent Palestinians whom Israel has displaced, starved, and massacred. I reject the notion that Israel can be excused when the country destroys hospitals, schools, mosques, food and water supplies, and kills or injures more than 100,000 people not responsible for attacks on Israel…
The people of British Columbia will soon pay $3 billion a year in carbon tax. Yet actions of governments, fossil fuel producers, financiers, and people holding extreme wealth ensure that climate change is dealt with more by words and empty promises than by meaningful actions.
I looked at the writings of Vaughn Palmer, a person considered by many to be the Dean of the BC Press Gallery. The province’s production of fossil fuels is accelerating, and wildfires — with months to go in fire season — have consumed 450 percent of the average of the preceding 15 years, but Palmer is writing about any issue other than climate change. Not one of Palmer’s last 30 columns touches on the existential emergency.
BC Hydro sought environmental approval for construction of Site C in 2011. In that year, global wind power capacity was 238 gigawatts. While construction of BC’s controversial hydropower project dragged on, worldwide capacity for wind power reached 837 GW in 2021. If Site C suffers no further delays in its scheduled 2025 startup, global wind capacity according to GWEC will then exceed 1.3 terawatts, more than five times the level in 2011…
Today, a poll from Mario Canseco’s Research Co. reported, “The governing New Democratic Party (NDP) is the top choice in British Columbia’s current political landscape…” This might explain why some scribblers in the Press Gallery are focused on rebuilding the BC Liberal brand.
Despite indulgent remuneration provided the BC Legislature’s senior executives — including sums paid secretly — financial problems at the institution have continued for more than a decade.
In real terms, the BC government’s natural resource revenues in 2018 were 37% of the level in 2001, despite material increases in output.
Because many traditional news sources have been sidetracked by political, commercial and personal interests, acquiring accurate information is now more time-consuming. People with other priorities are vulnerable to lies of commission and lies of omission. Postmedia’s obfuscating political reporters are experienced practitioners of new style journalism.
I made reference to BC Legislative Press Gallery members producing commissioned articles. These are public relations pieces intended to serve particular needs of government or entities doing business with government. It is the kind of output that will ultimately be replaced by automated journalism. Mike Smyth’s recent Province column provides an example… Were Smyth not shilling for private producers, he could be a champion of reducing power consumption through increased energy efficiency. However, there are no industry or environmental groups in BC with sufficient funds to push conservation as a serious alternative to generating more power, whether by hydro, wind, solar, tidal, geothermal or any other technology.
When you’re an activist for vested interests, complete and accurate reports are never offered. These might educate low-information voters that have supported BC Liberals for many years.
I originally published A false notion in June 2010 and repeated it two years later. It came to mind after Postmedia’s senior west coast pundit wrote B.C. Hydro’s Site C promises ring hollow. […]
Despite deep cynicism about journalists backing BC Liberals, I had long held respect for the writing of Vaughn Palmer. My reservoir of appreciation has now run dry. He has been bright, skilled and articulate, usually worth reading throughout 35+ years with the Vancouver Sun. Now, I don’t know. Is he distracted, overburdened, grown careless or captured by his subjects?
Hunter S. Thompson: “As far as I’m concerned, it’s a damned shame that a field as potentially dynamic and vital as journalism should be overrun with dullards, bums, and hacks, hag-ridden with myopia, apathy, and complacence, and generally stuck in a bog of stagnant mediocrity.”
The 2009 BC Liberal platform makes broad promises and one of them provides the title for this piece. Their platform offers this additional reassurance:
“. . . expenditures, backed up by a detailed business plan for every ministry. But our record shows that we have the competent team and credible plan to get it right.” Does that give you confidence tax dollars will be managed prudently? Perhaps we should examine BC Liberal announcements for one ongoing mega-project, BC Place Stadium.
One of the brighter contributors on my Twitter feed is Reema Faris. She is a PHD candidate at SFU, a former West Vancouver school trustee and member of a family that has long given extraordinary support to the arts in Canada. Reema’s social media contributions are invariably astute, logical and worthy of attention. With permission, here are threads she published in response to insubstantial punditry found in Postmedia’s Vancouver pages.
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.
My children’s grandmother spent final years in our home. She lived for the children and was an oxygen-tank-dragging regular in front row seats at hockey rinks, ball fields, rec centres and concert […]
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 […]
Palmer: “You managed to find $80 million for the ferries this week. Did Kevin Falcon turn over the couch cushions or something, and find some money? Where did this money come from?”
Truth?
There was no extra money.
…easily-influenced voters in BC opted for Christy’s Clark more economically pleasing vision of the future. But it was phoney baloney, conjured up in a three-week period in a “rush assignment” given to Assistant Deputy Minister of Finance Doug Foster by Clark’s newly-hired communications director Ben Chin, formerly a CBC TV news anchor in Ontario and after running for the provincial Liberals there—and losing—he became VP of Communications with the Ontario Power Authority. In that job he infamously advised an OPA official—who was troubled by critical media reports—to “throw him some work” to get a particular journalist onside. “It would be a good score,” Chin said.
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in-sights.ca 
Blair Fix at _Economics from the Top Down_ also wrote two very good papers on the converion of housing into…