Sunday, August 09, 2009
Basi Virk as seen from Halifax
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Quote from today's The Nova Scotian:
... The political temperature is also high. Gordon Campbell’s Liberal government has abruptly imposed a harmonized sales tax which, during the recent election, it promised not to do. Meanwhile, a long-running corruption trial relating to the sale of BC Rail is going badly for the government, which somehow — oops! — ordered the erasure of a crucial batch of ministerial emails. Just like the strange 18-minute gap in the Watergate tapes.
In short, Lotusland politics as usual. Since the 1940s, B.C. politics has been a see-saw battle between the CCF / NDP, and a right-wing aggregation using several brands — Liberal-Conservative Coalition, Social Credit, currently Liberal — whose fundamental purpose is to facilitate pillage and piracy by barring the damn socialists from office. Let the market rule, they cry. Every dollar spent by government is a dollar wasted!
The rest of the column by Silver Donald Cameron is mostly about the salaries BC is paying to its public servants. What do you think of his analysis of the BC Liberal party's fundamental purpose? - BC Mary.
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Quote from today's The Nova Scotian:
... The political temperature is also high. Gordon Campbell’s Liberal government has abruptly imposed a harmonized sales tax which, during the recent election, it promised not to do. Meanwhile, a long-running corruption trial relating to the sale of BC Rail is going badly for the government, which somehow — oops! — ordered the erasure of a crucial batch of ministerial emails. Just like the strange 18-minute gap in the Watergate tapes.
In short, Lotusland politics as usual. Since the 1940s, B.C. politics has been a see-saw battle between the CCF / NDP, and a right-wing aggregation using several brands — Liberal-Conservative Coalition, Social Credit, currently Liberal — whose fundamental purpose is to facilitate pillage and piracy by barring the damn socialists from office. Let the market rule, they cry. Every dollar spent by government is a dollar wasted!
The rest of the column by Silver Donald Cameron is mostly about the salaries BC is paying to its public servants. What do you think of his analysis of the BC Liberal party's fundamental purpose? - BC Mary.
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Comments:
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And where are the stores about these rip offs in the two rags that are published here?I bought one today again, had to get milk anyway,next time I'll just drop a toonie in the sewer!
# posted by 
: August 9, 2009 at 10:49 a.m.
: August 9, 2009 at 10:49 a.m.
which is why i dont subscibe to the times colonist anymore. all they do is print articles that support a fixed needle exchange, secondary sewer and anything they can which sets the Liberals in a positive light.
# posted by : August 9, 2009 at 2:52 p.m.
: August 9, 2009 at 2:52 p.m.
I cancelled my subscription a long time ago based on their biased views and one sided reporting. Will never have one in this home again.
# posted by : August 9, 2009 at 5:04 p.m.
: August 9, 2009 at 5:04 p.m.
The local media won't report on anything negative about the Campbell government because their access will be cut off if they do. Just like at the Victoria Police Department - there are a lot of major scandals brewing right now and the media are aware of them, but they refuse to print one word. One can only hope if you give these evil clowns enough rope, they will hang themselves.
# posted by : August 9, 2009 at 5:08 p.m.
: August 9, 2009 at 5:08 p.m.
There's no comments forum attached to Cameron's column, as there is with regular HCH articles/op-ed pieces. If there was, I'd take him to task for "artful dodging" - trying to downplay the true scope of Railgate et alia by pointing fingers at Wall Street, claiming the latter's misdeeds of so many kinds are of an order of magnitude greater.
You'll note in his mention of civil service salaries he makes no mention of the remaining salary-bloat at BC Rail, or of the bloating of political staff, or the double-barreled salary paid to the Premier's right-hand girl. And when you tot up not just the BC Rail giveaway (which is less of a giveaway than "here, we'll give you all this money to take this railway") but add in BC Hydro, various PPPs, the outourcing of civil servants into the PPP sector, and the various sweetheart deals for party donors we are becoming increasingly aware of, the losses to the public purse are (speculating here) well over $20 billion. The US - Canada population/fiscal ratio is usually considered 10:1, so that works out in rough terms to a 200 billion dollar fraud or racket or whatever you want to call the elaborate web of patronage and partisan/personal pork barreling, well in the same range as the nefarious behaviour of Big Money in the US....also unmentioned is Fortress' suspect blackmailing/debt rigging over the Olympic Village.....but of course this isn't a Canada/US ratio but rather a BC/US ratio, which is more like 70:1 in scale.....equivalent to a 1.4 trillion bilking if you consider the relative scale and importance to the province of what's been hucked off....
What's happening is not "BC politics as usual", it's much worse, and overtly criminal in nature. To me, it's a standard dodge of apologists and equivocators outside of BC, about BC - that we're just a twisted place on the other side of the mountains, where dirt and gold go hand in hand. True, but again there's an order of magnitude to the misdeeds and mismanagement that really is unprecedented, even in the context of BC's very long history of ongoing scandal. He nails it right on the head about pillage and piracy.....but even the Socreds and the Coalition weren't this bad. They were venal by comparison....and neither group was ready to literally give the store away to US "investors"......
That it appeared at all, though, is a sign that the word about BC's political morass is getting harder and harder to keep on the western side of the Rockies. That the HCH/Nova Scotian saw fit to publish a piece that essentially downplays what's going on in BC is a further demonstration of the regular Canadian media trying to keep a lid on BC, or at elast throw up a smokescreen....
Also unmentioned is the not-quite-behind-the-scenes role of Bill Gates, or Warren Buffet, of Accenture, or of the Washington Group, or CN, of Ledcor, or or or.....either Cameron is just not fully informed, or he's deliberately not mentioning that some of the players in the global economic crisis also have connections to the post-political quagmire that is the rogue state, or rather rogue province, of British Columbia.
Yes, the behaviour of the private sector is atrociouis; but it's not a reason to dismiss the misdeeds of the political sector. Just more euivocation, as in the old days when you'd hear (well, times may be bad here, just be thankful it's not Biafra/Bangladesh/Rwanda etc.....
"Don't worry about BC folks, they're all crazy out there, and it's no big deal if you look south of the border".....the old shell game, that's all it is....it wasn't an in-depth piece on BC, it was a way to divert what little the public here (I'm in NS) knows about BC and make it seem like.....well, like, "business as usual"......
I know, I know, I should write a piece for the HCH myself and maybe make a nickel at it....but would they buy it? I'm only, after all, a "citizen journalist"......and not part of the club, or the golf club either.....
You'll note in his mention of civil service salaries he makes no mention of the remaining salary-bloat at BC Rail, or of the bloating of political staff, or the double-barreled salary paid to the Premier's right-hand girl. And when you tot up not just the BC Rail giveaway (which is less of a giveaway than "here, we'll give you all this money to take this railway") but add in BC Hydro, various PPPs, the outourcing of civil servants into the PPP sector, and the various sweetheart deals for party donors we are becoming increasingly aware of, the losses to the public purse are (speculating here) well over $20 billion. The US - Canada population/fiscal ratio is usually considered 10:1, so that works out in rough terms to a 200 billion dollar fraud or racket or whatever you want to call the elaborate web of patronage and partisan/personal pork barreling, well in the same range as the nefarious behaviour of Big Money in the US....also unmentioned is Fortress' suspect blackmailing/debt rigging over the Olympic Village.....but of course this isn't a Canada/US ratio but rather a BC/US ratio, which is more like 70:1 in scale.....equivalent to a 1.4 trillion bilking if you consider the relative scale and importance to the province of what's been hucked off....
What's happening is not "BC politics as usual", it's much worse, and overtly criminal in nature. To me, it's a standard dodge of apologists and equivocators outside of BC, about BC - that we're just a twisted place on the other side of the mountains, where dirt and gold go hand in hand. True, but again there's an order of magnitude to the misdeeds and mismanagement that really is unprecedented, even in the context of BC's very long history of ongoing scandal. He nails it right on the head about pillage and piracy.....but even the Socreds and the Coalition weren't this bad. They were venal by comparison....and neither group was ready to literally give the store away to US "investors"......
That it appeared at all, though, is a sign that the word about BC's political morass is getting harder and harder to keep on the western side of the Rockies. That the HCH/Nova Scotian saw fit to publish a piece that essentially downplays what's going on in BC is a further demonstration of the regular Canadian media trying to keep a lid on BC, or at elast throw up a smokescreen....
Also unmentioned is the not-quite-behind-the-scenes role of Bill Gates, or Warren Buffet, of Accenture, or of the Washington Group, or CN, of Ledcor, or or or.....either Cameron is just not fully informed, or he's deliberately not mentioning that some of the players in the global economic crisis also have connections to the post-political quagmire that is the rogue state, or rather rogue province, of British Columbia.
Yes, the behaviour of the private sector is atrociouis; but it's not a reason to dismiss the misdeeds of the political sector. Just more euivocation, as in the old days when you'd hear (well, times may be bad here, just be thankful it's not Biafra/Bangladesh/Rwanda etc.....
"Don't worry about BC folks, they're all crazy out there, and it's no big deal if you look south of the border".....the old shell game, that's all it is....it wasn't an in-depth piece on BC, it was a way to divert what little the public here (I'm in NS) knows about BC and make it seem like.....well, like, "business as usual"......
I know, I know, I should write a piece for the HCH myself and maybe make a nickel at it....but would they buy it? I'm only, after all, a "citizen journalist"......and not part of the club, or the golf club either.....
Which makes you far more valuable than a paid journalist - you have what it takes to ask the right questions, and get the correct answers. Following that, you have the ability to write in such a way that it makes it readable and understandable for everyone...which is pretty rare really.
You're a premiere blogger, go with your strong suit Skookum. At least we'll know we're getting the truth when you write it.
You're a premiere blogger, go with your strong suit Skookum. At least we'll know we're getting the truth when you write it.
# posted by : August 10, 2009 at 9:09 a.m.
: August 10, 2009 at 9:09 a.m.
hey guy's you want to hear micheal smyth squirm go to the cknw audio vault and listen to spector,bring bc's media to task!Monday August 10 Monday morning quarter backs!!!
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# posted by : August 10, 2009 at 4:05 p.m.
: August 10, 2009 at 4:05 p.m. << Home
