Friday, June 17, 2016

This Day In Clarkland...Expediency Incorporated.

ThreeHundredAndFiftyMillionPerYear
NotPublicNotUniversalVille


I honestly wonder if there is absolutely anything the Clark government does that is isn't driven either by the greedeology of the cronies or political expediency*.

Case in point, this sudden dumping of cash on a handful of rural school districts as noted by Tracy Sherlock and Rob Shaw in today's VSun.

Here is their lede:

Frustrated school trustees say a last-minute dump of cash by the premier might save nine rural schools from closure but it also comes infuriatingly late in the year, undermines months of work by trustees explaining to outraged parents why closures were necessary and leaves districts scrambling to change budgets within a two-week deadline.

Premier Christy Clark announced Wednesday a $2.7-million fund that can be used by six school districts to save nine rural and remote schools earmarked for closure due to budget cuts or declining enrolment...



Gosh.

Does this mean that the 'independents'  weren't willing to swoop in and do something for the greater good?


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*Of course the really Big!!! Win!!! for the Clarklandians and their Wizard Army comes when they can meld the greedeology and the expediency into one giant ball of codswallop that they are then able to convince the rubes to swallow whole....Examples abound.


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9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I work for one of the district that will allegedly have a school saved by this dump of cash. And quite frankly the school, and it is on the press release, doesn't qualified based on the criteria set out by the government. And the question by even some the parents that fought so hard to try and save the school is, why bother keeping it open for one more year so it can just be closed next year?

So my question is how many other schools on this list don't actually qualify.

Anonymous said...

bc libs should catch the 404

e.a.f. said...

the schools which don't qualify will be schools in NDP HELD riding. the schools which qualify are most likely those in Lieberal ridings and the B.C. lieberal mla had a chance of loosing the next election. This "infusion" of cash is just to get Christy quota op queen through the next election. after that except more funding to be extracted from the system and put into private schools.

closing a high school in Os. was just crazy. trucking kids to Pentiction would have been a long dangerous job in the winter, but then I'm sure Christy and her b.c. lieberals don't really care about these children anyhow. just need to get re elected, so no one figures out how bad this province is.

sd said...

The recent transit announcement pales in comparison to the $1.432 BILLION given to private for profit and proselytising schools over the next four years (maybe more if the crooks win the election). I don't want one dime of my tax money going to these "schools" but politically we may have to find a compromise. Cut the funding back to 2001 levels or split the $358 million a year.A $179 mill a year would help.

RossK said...

Anon-At-The-Top--

That is a very important question you ask about the 'non-qualifiers'.


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Grant G said...

Expect many more slap in the face money/funding announcements...Because..

Because LNG died...Now even Petronas is pulling the plug..

http://www.pipelinenewsnorth.ca/news/industry-news/expect-delay-on-pacific-northwest-lng-as-energy-demand-slumps-iea-1.2281391

Funny eh...eventually the IAE..big energy companies, and some media catch up to us internet scribes..

No $Trillion dollar bounty, no $Zero dollar LNG bounty..

Expect endless dribbles of cash in ridings the BC Liberals deem important to holding power..

Coralee Oakes...She is on the ropes..Thus the little bribe money.

No sparkle ponies for you



Cheers

Scotty on Denman said...

I put it another way---means the same thing: BC Liberals don't do anything on the square. Never have, at least ever since Gordo, during that election-night epiphany when he seethed his concession-speech through a lemon-twisted smile and swore to take his sympathizers' advice to "just be yourself"---which meant that never again would he level with voters like he did in that 1996 election when he promised to privatize BC Rail if elected.

Vowing to be himself on that night was likely the last time he or his BC Liberals actually made good a promise. The next election he promised NOT to sell BC Rail, won a near-total majority and eliminated Official Opposition (NDP with two seats didn't even get recognized as an official party, hence there was virtually no Opposition), which, as we're now all aware, inaugurated a covert agenda to destroy public enterprise and public-sector labour unions. And BC Rail WAS privatized as a matter of course. The mendacitype has inhered faithfully ever since.

The big difference is Christy's style, the smirking fibbery, the blatant perversity that thumbs its nose churlishly at the discomfiture of public school children who've been fired like ammo in a ideological pinball game permanently tilted to favour the crony-cradles of BC Liberal insiders. It's been too reckless to retain the possibility of reconciliation---and increasingly of concealment.

I think much of the difference is explained by leadership: where Gordo's was near-total, Christy's is more an uneasy partnership between her cheerleadership and the phantom leadership of a few powerful ministers. It gives the now-frequent impression of one hand not knowing what the other is doing, yielding such memorable fiascoes as then-forest minister Coleman's fiat that allowed Western Forest Products to remove its private forest lands near Jordan River from its land-tax shelter, beggaring the local regional district government which only learned about the fiat when WFP made a massive subdivision application for which there were no public improvement preparations ( no budget, no tax assessments, engineering, costing for roads, sewers, watershed protection, schools, fire departments---or anything else); how about the Denman Island cable-ferry which was supposed to save money but which was so poorly engineered the self-powered Quinitsa has just been docked in its old slip, engines running and ready to call out extra crew because a series of minor parts-failures have so consistently warned that the heavy summer season traffic cannot depend on the brand spanking new fiasco---some savings, eh? And, of course, the "let's-make-nice-payents, or in reality partial repayments of previously pilfered education money has been returned at a most useless and un-endearing time. Come in like a wreckin' ball.

One thing stays the same, though: the BC Liberals laugh like Gekko because they think the havoc they wreak will make voters hate government more and more, like killing two birds with the same stone as they assiduously bankrupt public enterprises and smash public sector unions at the same time. They must really believe citizens will vote to end responsible government and endorse gifting all the stuff they've paid for to friends of the BC Liberals who are nice enough to take the intentionally sabotaged Crown Corps off their hands and who will happily gouge the piss out of us at the first opportunity thereafter. That's what the neo-rightists call "free-enterprise".

I'd ask rhetorically "what the hell's going on?!" but Trump's already tainted it.

Anonymous said...

SD64 Okanagan Skaha has 2 schools slated for closure.

Trout Creek elementary is in BC Liberal MLA Dan Ashton's home village of Summerland and services a very high income neighbourhood - it qualified for the bonus bucks and will stay open (at least through the election).

West Bench elementary is in an area just outside the Penticton city boundary (Summerland resident Ashton was a Penticton councillor for 9 years, then, mayor for 5 years: he knows the area very well). Despite chronic complaints of wild horses roaming in the area it doesn't qualify as rural... no money (yet) for a stay of execution even though SD64 dumped a ton of cash recently upgrading the school. I hope Ashton is not holding a grudge from when the good people of West Bench decided not join in with Penticton.

@ anon 10:31 - Which school are you saying doesn't qualify?

@ Scotty - Some say the BC Liberals not recognizing the 2001 NDP as Her Majesty's Loyal Official Opposition was contrary to precedent, against the specific language of the BC Constitution, mean spirited against the fundamental foundations of a parliamentary democracy, and just plain illegal.

DavemJ said...

Geesus Murphy,they are so corrupt! They and there backers are sure of themselves think the French Revolution ,the Bolshevik ,s Campbell ! Harper, these greedy self serving ,and there backers never get it till it's over.They have destroyed this Province I feel the tide turning the eyes are opening .These criminals are going to get hit right between the eyes .I fore tell.