JuiceVille
Jeebuz!
It's like a billion groundhog days are playing on an endless loop inside British Columbia's beaten, bloodied, battered and bowed body politic.....
Sunny Dhillon and Justine Hunter have the story in The Globe.
And all you need is the lede to raise your blood pressure through the roof:
He served as a strategist during Christy Clark’s campaign for the BC Liberal Party leadership. Patrick Kinsella – the quintessential insider in B.C. politics – also lobbied the province to adopt a new liquor distribution system, which Ms. Clark’s government this week vowed to do.
In unveiling its budget Tuesday, the province announced it would sell off non-strategic assets in hopes of raising more than $700-million over the next three years. Two liquor branch warehouses – one in Vancouver, one in Kamloops, employing about 400 people combined – and liquor distribution services were among those assets. The province said it would request proposals to transfer the government-owned warehouses and services to the private sector by 2015....
I mean, seriously....
Do these people want absolutely everything?
Heckfire.
Is the selling of Haida Gwaii to the jet-set and the professional hockey players who profess their love of fishing, killing stuff, and private gambling dens next?
And, while they're at it....
Maybe they can get us to throw in the Kootenays and all children under the age of 11 as well.
Ah geez....
That's enough with the snark.
Because, as hard as you all might find it to believe, I'm actually speechless on this one.
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Meanwhile.
Ian Reid has the story of another Not-Lobbyist/Campbell-Clark Government Insider trying keep his tracks covered...here.
And Dave looks hard at the numbers and decides, perhaps quite rightly, that the Birdman's budget is actually a...punishment.
12 comments:
Most sensible analysis I've seen suggests that the selloff is a cynical move by a government that doesn't expect to be around and isn't worried that it will have to eat the enormous loss of revenue that this sale will create... but can use the money in the meantime. And will pay off whatever political favours this move allows.
Chris--
Exactly.
Which is my point....
Front end, back end and everything in between, they just keep selling and selling and selling for the easily justifiable (to themselves at least) quick buck and for the most deserving enrichment of the very, very, very, very finest of the fine upstanding and most deserving...
Deservers.
Or some such thing.
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To CTV's credit (Who woulda thunk it?!?), they did a story on tonight's 5:00 news about pk's involvement.
If viewers were paying attention, they got an ear/eye-full of how the LINOs operate.
It ain't pretty, ya'll . . . .
Bob--
Almost makes one wonder if maybe CTVBellGlobe/EverythingElse (that's not Global/Post) Media made a decision or something...
Of course, if the pullback comes, well....
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You'd think the BC Liberals, and the Public, would realize that if Budget 2012 had been billed to cover ten years, five years instead of three years they could have balance their books. As it is, in reality, the BC Liberals only have this one Fiscal year to balance the books, then another party, parties, will take over and try to make things right.
Oh but don't you see WAC Bennett coming to town? Vaughn Palmer in his column today is forecasting that tolls will be applied to every bridge leading in, and out, of Vancouver.
Tolls are coming everywhere, including North Shore's two existing bridges, the Sea to Sky highway too with its MULTIPLE crashes in a month which were promised to be accident free by El Gordo and Le Falcon, for a price!
Had enough yet folks? Ready to fire up the recall campaign again before we have absolutely nothing left? It's the only way they can be stopped short of an election in 14 months. That's plenty of time to get rid of everything to their friends.
I don't know about you, but I lost confidence a long time ago.
I would like to point out to every open minded Liberal in this province, I know you are very few and far between. I ask you this question, your party has donated SFA to this province the whole time you have been in power so what gives your ministers the right to sell off every thing the province owns. The provice prospered under ever other party that was ever elected, but the LIberals. The only way these incompitent people could make it look like the budget was balanced was to sell off something some other goverment had bought. The people are the losers under your reign, your friends have prospered. There is one thing that will stop there yard sale, that is that we will run out of things to sell or the next election will be called. The only good thing that will come out of this whole thing is that the Liberals will never again darken the steps of the Legislature ever again. Also with the age of computers we can follow every lobbist to see which party they join and expose there asses to the public.
Ya- they're comin' NVG...Just don't know if they will be as 'equitable' as all that
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I dunno Gary--
In theory yes....but would it take away from efforts to actually retake the province in the next general?
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Roy...
Thanks for the comment.
And for all that you've said, which I agree with there is also the fact that all the land, treasure and infrastructure jacking did absolutely nothing to change the core economic situation in the province. And the latest report from the Progress Board, which will also very likely be its last, said so.
Not the NDP.
Or fever-swamped bloggers.
Or even rank-and-file citizens like yourself that are living it.
The freaking Progress Board.
Set up by, who, exactly?????
And why was the most recent report likely its last?
Because Ms. Clark has signaled that truth telling like that, especially when it comes from her 'side', must be killed.
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Good point Ross K. But I can't see any other way to stop these thieves. The shortest route would be to stop them in the next three months. Not 14. Three months (or less) for me would suffice.
Having said that I would sure like to know if any other party has plans to repeal most of the draconian legislation the Lib/Cons have introduced. Cancel all the bloody stupid welfare payments to the IPP's, bring back Hydro and the ferries into the fold. And for christ sakes do all we can to cancel the BC Rail giveaway and stop Enbridge.
This province has gone to hell in a handbasket and the destruction needs to stop NOW.
I'm thinking my union's pension fund should buy the damn thing. It's a gold mine.
On the recall thing--I don't know how feasible it is. But if it were, no, I don't think it would take away from efforts to win the general election. I think this is a misconception, somewhat like "political capital" as something you spend and then have less of.
In politics, if you have power and (successfully) exercise power you are seen to have power and that gives you more power, not less. "Political capital" creates more of itself.
Similarly, the way to beat someone politically is to put them on the defensive all the time. If they constantly look bad, constantly are in a reactive role, constantly suffering defeats, then the public will see them as useless losers and, come the general election, they will fall. So a recall campaign that had some success would help in the general election.
The problem isn't that, it's that recall campaigns are very very difficult; quite likely instead it would be attempted and end largely in failure, in which case it's the NDP that would look like losers.
Point taken PLG--
Thanks.
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