This Day In Clarkbekistan...There Is Nothing Laughable About Systemic Pay-To-Playish-Type Behaviour.

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HectoitresAtATimeVille


Clarkbekistan's Minister Of Everything, Mr. Rich Coleman, speaking on CKNW, has declared Dan Levin's piece on the BC Liberal government's big donor/big payback problem in the New York Times 'laugable'.

Seriously:

Deputy Premier Rich Coleman is calling an article from The New York Times “laughable.”

The Times published an article on Jan. 13 about the B.C. Liberals “pay for play” fundraisers...

{snip}

“The one thing I thought that was weak, but I also find it quite laughable, after watching people spend a billion dollars to run for the presidency of the United States and the money they raised down there… You know it’s quite funny to me that The New York Times would focus out on British Columbia,” Coleman says...

Quite the bit of deft misdirection there, eh?

But here's (just one of many) things that Mr. Coleman failed to mention regarding the actual meat of the NYTimes article, which was pay-to-play,  as published by Justine Hunter and Ron Obvious in the Globe and Mail back in 2012:

A B.C. brewery owned by a staunch Liberal Party supporter who recently made an in-kind donation of nearly $27,000 to a fundraiser for cabinet minister Rich Coleman stands to benefit to the tune of millions of dollars from taxation changes recently announced by the Liquor Distribution Branch...


But, wait!

There's more:

...Pacific Western (Brewing) hired Liberal insider Patrick Kinsella and his partner, Mark Jiles, to lobby for precisely the change the L(iquor)D(istribution)B(ranch) announced. Making appearances worse, the policy move was announced a week after (Pacific Western's owner) Ms. Komatsu made an in-kind gift donation valued at nearly $27,000 for use as an auction item at a fundraiser Mr. Coleman held in his riding...


And, just in case you've forgotten, there's even more:

...The change comes after Pacific Western Brewing of Prince George said it might lay off staff or even close rather than pay the increased taxes that would result from higher production levels.

Under the old policy, a higher tax rate kicked in when a brewery produced 160,000 hectolitres of beer – each hectolitre being 100 litres of beer.

Deputy Premier Rich Coleman says under the new policy, breweries can produce up to 300,000 hectolitres of beer and still qualify for a favourable tax rate, which rises on a sliding scale depending on the amount of beer produced...

****

So.

Given the interest that the New York Times piece has generated, has the local proMedia been digging up specific examples of previous pay-to-playish-type behaviour by BC Liberals  and telling British Columbians about it, with specifics, in detail?

Of course not.

Instead, they're falling all over themselves telling British Columbians how 'embarrassing' the NYTimes piece is for the fine folks running Clarkbekistan.

As I've noted previously the folks who should be really be embarrassed here are those finest-of-the-fine folks in the Lotuslandian proMedia who are ignoring what is really going on here and are instead feeding the people pablum that will soon be grist for the 24hr newscycle mill.

OK?


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