Here we go with another look back at this week’s political news in BC.
You can read about BC Ferries …
BC Hydro … government belt-tightening … carbon taxes. There was the big news as well, about John Martin, who will be seeking the nomination to run for the BC Conservative
Party in the still-to-be-called by-election for Chilliwack Hope.
All that stuff is there; but for me, the most interesting
news came out this morning in two stories.
One is from the North Shore News … and it is about John Cummins, who the
writer has dubbed as Gentleman John … the other is from the Vancouver Sun … a
story of how George Abbott has been given the unenviable task of trying to find
ways to pull the BC Liberals out of the ditch.
Read on …
... Clark has now asked him to help extract the party from
the ditch of its own making and to develop those new linkages with the
electorate. Joining Abbott in this hopeful exercise is a backroom appointee,
acting as adviser to the platform committee. He's Ken Boessenkool, a
Calgary-based political consultant and some-time lobbyist ...
… making hospitals and schools transfer tight dollars to corporations
is no easy climate policy to sell … caused
plenty of criticism, especially from public sector bodies. School boards have
been angrily vocal about having to send tax dollars to a Crown corporation
called the Pacific Carbon Trust (PCT), which uses the money to pay profitable
corporations like Encana to cut their greenhouse gas emissions …
… British Columbians, if they're like his former federal constituents
in Delta-Richmond East, who sent him to Ottawa six times over 18 years, could
discover that a non-charismatic, indifferent-speaking, average looking
politician has a lot more to offer than the bangles in the standard
politician's bag of tricks … supporter says Cummins has a natural gift for
driving into the "remote" (from the paved-over corner of the
province) and meeting "ordinary" (another uncomfortable word) British
Columbians as one of them, not a politician carrying an invisible platform from
which he can talk down to the unwashed…
“It could be even more problematic if the party is brown paper bagging
it … if somehow funds generated out of the pockets of who knows who are being
used to pay the leader — it could be an opportunity for buying access, favours
or influence … by whatever route the funds are being generated this could run
strongly counter to the public interest.”
… top-ups, past and present, pop up in a number of places … BC Liberals
provide Premier Christy Clark an undisclosed “allowance” to cover expenses
related to party business, but no province east of Manitoba currently has such
a top-up …
… need to listen to the people more, as opposed to telling them what
their needs are. It is with this thought
in mind that I am seeking the BC Conservative nomination in the Chilliwack-Hope
by-election … I've always been somewhat cynical of politics and assumed I'd
forever be on the sidelines … I could never see myself jumping on board with a
political party and considering a run at public office … until now … I am
convinced that the BC Conservatives offer precisely what the province needs …
also convinced that the leader, John Cummins, exemplifies the integrity and
down to Earth honesty that is so lacking in the political realm…
… $65 in pure profit for every licence issued in BC … ICBC doesn't see
a cent of it … money goes directly to the government. It's a somewhat
underhanded revenue grab - nontransparent is the polite word for it … one of
thousands of fees that government collects routinely. Auditor general John
Doyle took a look at how fees are assessed in a report released Friday and
found a lack of transparency and consistency…
… was once planned to be a $925
million deficit this year has ballooned to $3.1 billion. Next year's expected
$440 million deficit could top $1 billion and the likelihood of returning B.C.
to surplus budgets in 2013-14 is now hanging by a very thin thread. Falcon is saying that he won't know until
January -- just weeks before the 2012-13 budget is due -- if he can balance the
books by 2013-14, as repeatedly promised over the past two years …
Suffice to say Martin, 25-year-college and university teaching veteran
whose specialties are listed as crime prevention, criminal justice and “liberal
bias in academe,” would appear to be well in tune with a community that has
been reliably right of centre in its voting pattern for decades. Not so with the would-be candidate for the
governing party who withdrew from the race at about the time Martin entered …
the effort is on to recruit a B.C. Liberal more suited to Chilliwack’s small
‘c’ conservative proclivities, a hunt that could turn desperate …
… government is reviewing its controversial carbon neutral government
strategy and Environment Minister Terry Lake says "everything is up for
discussion." … critics have
complained … uses tax dollars to pay profitable corporations to cut their
greenhouse gas emissions … BC Conservative Party Leader John Cummins has
promised to kill the province's "carbon bureaucracy," including the
carbon tax and the PCT.
.... she believes she uncovered in that first of many grants
targeting BC fish farms was a highly organized and well-funded American
campaign to discredit and eventually sink the B.C. fish farming industry for
the benefit of Alaskan wild salmon fishing. It worked, she claimed, by
funneling millions of US dollars into local environmental groups and funding
studies that found increased contaminants in farmed fish. That’s research
Krause has spent five years and “the better part of my life savings”
debunking....
… however improbably, the government could eliminate the federal
deficit, as Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has promised … it would still not
reduce the federal debt … Canada, federally and provincially, won’t contribute
much to the lowering of public debt in the Group of Seven … Canada is in a
better fiscal position than its G7 peers … at the same time, Canada is a small
part of the G7 – and its fortunes will be determined by the success or failure
of the G7’s more spendthrift partners, none of which has yet frozen spending
for a single year….
… association that represents hospices in BC is taking issue with a provincial
policy that bills patients a $30 / day fee for living longer than expected …
province has a long-standing policy in place to reassess palliative-care
patients when they improve … those
reassessed from palliative to an alternative level of care are charged … idea
of charging a fee to people who are designated as hospice/palliative care is
something I've really struggled with over the years … last thing these patients
and families need to be worried about is finances…
Canadians are going to be paying significantly more for health care
over the next two decades … unless things change we should expect that total
health spending will be almost a fifth of the country’s gross domestic product
by 2030, up from 11% today — and up from 7% in the 1960s. That looming problem demands major changes. “The
real disaster would be if governments stood up and said, ‘We have no money, so
we’re going to freeze wages in the sector and cut services.’ … five years down
the road you’re going to have all the same problems and the care being provided
will be that much worse.”
... the first eight months might be the best time she'll have in
office. Trying to find … optimism about the next year is one of the most
challenging assignments in the entire government ... Clark has to call the
first by-election by April and the second by June … BC Conservatives will fully
engaged in both … defined herself as a premier who is all about jobs. It's a
smart call during strange economic times … means her own job performance is
measured by economic statistics, and most are going in the wrong direction...
BC Ferries Chief Operating Officer Mike Corrigan has been appointed to
be President and CEO, succeeding David Hahn … Corrigan's overall compensation
is in line with the new lower limits imposed by legislation recently ... will
collect $562,000 annually (about 60% of Hahn's total package) …Corrigan has eliminated his previous job and the board is phasing out a
controversial long-term bonus program for a handful of senior executives …
expected to save $1.3 million a year.
… was deputy district attorney in Los Angeles before moving to Portland
to establish their independent police office, then moved to his current job as
independent monitor for the city and county of Denver. … asked if Denver police
were happy to see him go, Rosenthal replied that he introduced a rule there
that officers who lie to internal affairs investigators are fired. That was a
"change in culture," he said ...
I’m Alan Forseth in Kamloops, and that’s all for this week. Take care my friends ... have a safe and
enjoyable weekend … and I’ll be back again on Monday with more Conservative
Thoughts.
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