"That didn't get much of an applause," Polak prompted when her announcement met with silence. The audience obliged her

Yesterday I became aware of a BC Liberal campaign which stated, "We Want to Hear from You – GetInvolved Today".

 

This in case you were not aware, is with regards to the much talked about, and  s - l - o - w - l - y being built, four lanes of highway from Kamloops through to Alberta.

They are inviting us to; "Help shape the government’s $650 million investment over the next 10 years to improve the safety, reliability and movement of people and goods along the Trans-Canada Highway."

Would I be wrong in saying, "Enough already -- we know it needs to be built -- so do you -- GET GOING and finish the job"

Call me a skeptic, but as far as I am concerned, this is just phony show of money wasting talk-talk-talk consultation.

Today, in my email I received the following comments from a friend in the Shuswap, they said:

On  Tuesday Mary Polak (Minister of Transportation), along with BC Liberals candidate Greg Kyllo, were at a luncheon meeting here in Enderby -- only 34 people showed up.  Mary promised they would put $5.2 million into the road out of Enderby going north to Mable Lake. 

This morning Christie Clark promised to upgrade the Highway #1 to 4 lanes from Kamloops to the Alberta border.  This runs right through Salmon Arm and is mostly in our Shuswap riding.

On Thursday Health Minister Margaret MacDiarmid was in Vernon to announce the opening of more floors in the Vernon Hospital.

The BC Liberals are getting really desperate and know they can promise anything, because there is very little chance they will have to follow through on their promises. 

Now today in the Kamloops Daily news is a story, "Minister vows four lanes to Chase -- Public consultation on 10-year four-laning project to begin on Tuesday"

Here is just a bit of the content from that story:

Sweeping skepticism aside, Transportation Minister Mary Polak promised Thursday that widening of the Trans-Canada Highway west of Chase will start this year.

Polak and MLA Terry Lake reiterated a commitment made last fall by Premier Christy Clark as they announced, to a room filled with local politicians, the start of a month of public consultations along the corridor.

Health Care???

First let me say that I DO NOT fault Emergency Room staff for waits that to each of us seem to be exceedingly long … doctors and nurses for long waits to have surgery … custodial staff for facilities that are not as clean as they once were … and workers that serve unappetizing meals shipped in from elsewhere and simply re-heated.  We seem to be able to pump an awful lot of money into the health care system but to the general public, it does not seem like we get the value we once did.  Why is that?

I am not one of those people that say the private sector should be doing more and more in the way of delivering public sector services, but with that happening, why does it appear we are we getting less instead of more?  Why does it appear our health care system is failing us? 

Last October the Canadian Institute for Health Research released some interesting figures that bear looking into.  It showed that in 2001 our public sector spending on health care was in the top third of Canada’s provinces – by last year we had slipped to ninth place ahead of only Quebec.  Ten years ago we spent ahead of the average – now we spend substantially lower than the average.

The investment in health care spending however is increasing, so are we getting more bang for our dollar; I believe most if not all of us would say “NO”.