Sunday, May 08, 2016

This Weekend In Clarkland...Damning With Faint Obviousness.

Turnin'BackToTheHerd
ConventionalWisdomVille


I have to give Mr. Mason of the The Globe and (nolongerEmpire) Mail some credit.

Because he has, in my opinion at least, been the most active member of the local proMedia in telling British Columbians that there really is a big pile of super-secret money being funneled into the BC Liberal's Party gullet, some of which makes its way to the palm of our fine premier after it has been pooped out the other end.

And heckfire.

In yesterday's column Mr. Mason kinda/sorta almost tiptoed over the 'pay-to-play' line when he started talking about hunting guides, their five figure donations and grizzly bear trophies and such.

Which is all fine and good.

But I also found it interesting, given the events of the last week, that Mason did not mention the millions from mining co's and execs that are extremely well-correlated with the complete lack of oversight of said mining co's and execs that is now entrenched in British Columbia thanks to BC Liberal government policy and legislation.

Or all that money from bridge builders.

Or tunnel borers.

Or train makers.

Or, dare I say it, lawyers? (more on that to come because I'm still really angry about something)

Anyway, after his wee bit of tip-toeing was all done, a little further down the column Mr. Mason signaled that the time has come to really start pulling the punches because, well, the trains are running on time or some such conventionally whimsical wisdomish-type thing:

"...The NDP is likely to make the notion of fixing a corrupt electoral system a pillar of its election campaign. The Liberals are certain to make the next election exclusively about jobs, the economy and fiscal management – and their record on this front is unquestionably impressive..."


Hmmmmm....

Jobs, the economy and fiscal management and 'unquestionably impressive'?

Really Mr. Mason?

Let's see....

Is there somewhere we can go for an unbiased, in-depth look at such things that do not rely on deceptive accounting and/or the spinning of very short-term trend numbers that are often bucked-up by deep dives that occurred during the previous term and/or terms?

I know!

How about we turn to the 'Progress Board', that flaming pinko outfit that was put together by Gordon Campbell that did the in-depth/un-biased analysis to show that the 1990's were actually a little better than the 2000's by most measures.

I mean, maybe that outfit can tell us how 'Pay-To-Play-In-Extremis' has helped float all boats (or not) over the last five years?

Oh, wait...

Nevermind.


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Why does the turning back to the herd matter so much?....Because it keeps the public from understanding what is really happening to their province...Which, of course, is ironic given Mr. Mason's recent lament about how said public just doesn't get it...Oh, and just for the record...It was also Mr. Mason who said that the still-birthing of the LNG Sparkle Ponies doesn't really matter much because everything economic is just so unbelievably rosy 'round here...


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8 comments:

Anonymous said...

How does BC keep its 'AAA' credit rating when BC Hydro is such a financial mess?

Oh wait, these are the same crooked credit agencies that facilitated the 2008 credit crisis we are still digging out from.

RossK said...

Anon-Above--

Yup.

It's like our entire province is becoming one big credit default swap wherein those that put in the seed money....errrrr... make the biggest political donations...walk off with all the treasure while the rest of us are left to pay the piper.

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Anonymous said...

When I saw the G&M story.... for a moment I thought it can't be true...and when I got to the part where Mason counters his criticism with more BS.... I knew it wasn't true. Mason & the rest will never supply a negative story without some puff points... it keeps the door open. Just like his counterpart from the Sun. One day Palmer writes what everyone is talking about like the AG story and then he digs deep into the who gives a shit department and does a piece on the long haired Ujjal and his who cares feelings on the NDP.
Ah yes.. the Progress Board report....gone from the world wide web...courtesy of the Liberal hackers. I'm surprised they haven't tried to do the same with the SFU report.

Guy in Victoria

Anonymous said...

BCLibs have gone from 32 billion to 65 billion dollars in 14 years plus contractual obligations.33 billion pays for a lot of window dressing

bc gov lawyers alledgedly lean on BC judges and NDP say nothing whats their problem?

RossK said...

Guy--

By SFU report...Do you mean the one about foreign investment and RE prices?

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Anon-Above--

Re: All those billions...See we who must pay for crony-donor bonanza, above.

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Anonymous said...

Hey Ross .... a study on the performance between Libs & NDP... NDP looks better in some areas..

http://news.ubc.ca/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/NDP-vs-Liberal-Performance.pdf

Guy in Victoria

Astrom said...

We are on the road to economic suicide but once the NDP gets in, it will turn around, just as it did in the 90's. In the 90's, BC had problems because of economic the meltdown in Japan, our major Asian trading partner. Luckily we had astute leaders who started increasing the trade with China. By the time the NDP lost the election to the lying Campbell and the BC Liberals, BC had a billion dollar surplus. We have seen none since.

Scotty on Denman said...

Gosh, I really hope the BC NDP keeps away from electoral reform---it's a turkey, we've been there, we don't need to do it again---especially we got so much else to do that's more important. Way more important. (I'm also disappointed with the federal NDP's adoption of pro-rep---but we can forget about them for a while---for sure the next year.)

Besides, the electoral system's not "corrupt" ---as Mason tries to make the NDP say---it's the BC Liberal government that's corrupt.