AreNotEnoughVille
In week one of the election campaign the Dippers said the following about BC Ferries:
ESQUIMALT – A BC NDP government will freeze fares on BC Ferries while an audit is carried out to look for savings at the BC Ferries Corporation, Maurine Karagianis, the NDP candidate in Esquimalt-Royal Roads, announced today.
The freeze means that a planned 4-per-cent ferry fare increase on April 1, 2014, will not go ahead, and that current ferry fares will remain in place until March 31, 2015.
“Our audit will focus on preparing BC Ferries to offer more reliable and affordable services,” said Karagianis, who served as the NDP’s transport critic in the last legislature.
“We want to re-establish BC Ferries as an integral part of our transportation system, and consult with British Columbians to establish a long-term vision for BC Ferries,” she said...
Never one to cede reality to anyone, BC Liberal leader Christy Clark said the following to Dirk Meissner of the Canadian Press:
..."My plan is to pay down BC Ferries debt. That is the most urgent thing we need to do."...
But how will Ms. Clark do that?
Well...
You know...
Sparkle ponies!
...The Liberal party platform, released earlier in the week, includes a plan to pay off BC Ferries' $1 billion debt, but not urgently. The Liberals would use its so-called prosperity fund, which would be supported by expected liquefied natural gas revenues, but the fund isn't expected to be up and running until 2017...
And for the rest of the week that just lay there until, finally, Ms. Clark went jogging, or some such photo-op-assisted thing.
Of course, using the non-existent trillion dollar prosperity fund to justify everything under the sun is bad enough.
But why is no one asking Ms. Clark and her minions how, exactly, the BC Ferries/David Hahn-driven deficit got to be a billion dollars when, not long ago, she was telling anyone who would listen that the service was actually making money for the people of British Columbia.
****
So.
It is now week two of the election campaign and...
The BC Liberal Wizards, one of whom is, apparently, a former member of Rob Ford's finest, have unveiled their latest gimmick which is a very orange highway-side 'Spend-O-Meter!'
Hmmmm...
Given how much the Wizards and the now defunct CC4BC smear factory like to bring up 'history' perhaps the time has come to establish a BC Liberal Party Government 'Grift-O-Meter'.
And we could start with the original.
Original grift, I mean.
(stay tuned)
.
3 comments:
The BC Liberal plan has always been to pay down BC Ferries' debt...by selling it off. So they needed to create the debt in the first place so some nice friends of theirs could do us the favour of taking it off our hands. So's to make sure nobody suspected any shady dealings, they invented the "semi-privatized", "hybrid" frankenstein BC Ferry Services Inc to conceal their agenda to intentionally bankrupt the still 100% publicly owned facility.
David Hahn the Con fastidiously husbanded the notion that the smaller ferry runs, which he consistently prefixed with the phrase "money-losing", were a vestigial appendage BC Ferries could ill-afford to keep "subsidizing". One would have thought such frivolously maintained runs would suit the bankruptcy agenda to a tee--but the "necessity" to cut the [never-mind-the-man-behind-the-curtain's] losses, starting with the small runs, is really what the imperial wizards had planned for the entire fleet: privatization in reality.
Now it has occurred to BC the best way--no, the only way-- to pay down debt is to get rid of BC Liberal saboteurs.
Thank goodness the cable ferry they said they'd start inflicting on Denman Island last November has recently failed to pass engineering specs. Think they would have checked this out before hatching their inaugural privatization caper. They said it was to pay down the debt but we'll find a quicker way in a few weeks.
The Grift-o-meter is a great idea. Finding out what number to put up might be a bit difficult as there are so many hidden deals that aren't numbered. Royalty credits come immediately to mind as the amounts and who got them seem to be super secret. Almost like IPP deals. Hard to figure out when all of this is supposed to be good for taxpayers.
She also said to the Surrey Leader that "once we've paid off the debt on the Port Mann Bridge, those tolls can go down pretty substantially."
Pardon me? She does not know what she isw talking about. IF the debt is paid off, the tolls should be removed completely-not subtantially. On-going maintenance should then be funded out of general revenue-like every untolled bridge and highway in BC.
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