This Day In Snookland...The Real Faces Of The Clawed Back.

OurFellowCitizensAreNot
FungibleVille


A really good follow-up piece, by Andrew McLeod in The Tyee, on the disabled Mom whose $187 per month in child support is being clawed back so that our Premier can save up to fund her next Bogus Bollywood Bonanza in the spring of 2017:

Jessica Sothcott could work and earn as much as $9,600 a year without it affecting the amount she receives in disability payments, but every dollar she receives in child support from her daughter's father is deducted in full from what the government will provide.

"I was shocked," said the mother of two who was at the British Columbia legislature with her 14-year-old daughter Rosalie on Wednesday to draw attention to the issue.

Sothcott said she raised the matter with the office that administers the province's Person With Disability benefits. "When I finally got on PWD, I went there and I said, 'Why are you taking my child support off my cheque still, because I'm allowed to earn $800 a month?' And they said, 'Oh, you don't earn that money.'

"I walked away," she said. "I didn't know what to say. I'm like, well, I'm pretty sure I do."...

And what does the Minister responsible, the man who loses his train of thought every time the wind blows, have to say about it all:

...B.C.'s Social Development Minister Don McRae told The Tyee that while he's sympathetic, the government can't afford the roughly $17 million it would cost to allow parents receiving government benefits to keep child support payments.

"You know what, I would like to continue to reform income assistance opportunities or programs in the province," he said. “One of the things I'd like to do is grow the economy so we can make these choices. There's lots of good ideas out there, by all means."

Asked why child support payments are clawed back while money from earned income is not, McRae said, "That was a policy decision based before my time."

He added, "Income assistance is income of last resort. The first responsibility is for the parents to pay for the children's needs. That's what we want to happen in British Columbia."...

Gosh Mr. McRae.

That was some dog whistle.

Why not just come right out and call these Moms, some of whom receive a mere $945 a month, 'Welfare Queens'?

Or will that be the 'Ol Turdstormer's job come Monday in the house?

Sheesh.


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What's it all about Alfie?.....This.

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This Night In Snookland...The Resurrection Of Steno Mike!

AllYourGov'tPressReleases'R
SmythVille

That is all.

Either for now, or six years, whichever comes first (or last, or second, or whatever).

Except that a journo who isn't even working anymore actually had something insightful to say about Mr. Fassbender's psychobabble on the Twittmachine.

Sheesh.

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This Day In Snookland...$187.

RealPeople
InThePeople'sHouseVille


Interesting exchange between the Premier and the leader of the Opposition yesterday...

But before we get to it, a little background, from Lindsay Kines, a month ago in the VTC, on Christy Clark's war on poor people:

...A single mother with one child receives $945 a month in income assistance or $1,242 in disability assistance. If she receives any child-support money from an ex-partner, the government reduces her assistance cheque by an equal amount.

Victoria single mothers Jennifer Brice and Michelle Tallio said the policy leaves them struggling to find enough money for food and other necessities for their children.

Premier Christy Clark defended the policy this week, arguing that taxpayers want to be sure that people on social assistance receive only the bare minimum....


Got that?

If you're a single mom with a kid on social assistance there is no reasonable ceiling at which the clawback begins.

Instead, you get nothing more than $945 per month, period.

To be honest I can't even imagine a single Mom (or Dad) with a young child being able to do that while living in Vancouver or Victoria or even Kelowna.

Heckfire.

Paying for the childcare alone so that you could go out and 'find a job!' would very likely cost you more than that if the kid was still a wee one.

So, essentially, to fulfill some kind of ideological clap-trap dream/nightmare of Rob Fordian-type future marketing campaign research-assisted proportions, Ms. Clark is actually saying that she must force kids to grow up in abject poverty so that she and hers can win next time 'round.

Think I'm being hyperbolic?

Well, go back and read that last sentence from the LKines VTC piece quoted above.

****

Now with that in mind.

It's off to the big show in the legislature yesterday...

J. Horgan: This past weekend single mothers and their children rallied across B.C. to draw attention to the child clawback that's been conducted by this government over the past ten years. Hon. Speaker, $17 million is taken out of the hands of children every year by this government — $17 million that could go to basic things like school supplies, nutritional food, clothes and other things.

The Minister of Social Development says that we can't afford, at this time, to give back mandated child support payments. The courts have said that these child support payments must go to children, and the government immediately claws it back.

It's not Liberal money. It's children's money. My question is to the Premier. She's had time to reflect on this. She's answered the question once before. Will she do the right thing today and end an egregious program that takes money out of children's pockets?


Hon. C. Clark: May I start just by saying that because of my travels, this is the first opportunity that I've had to face the new Leader of the Opposition, so I'd certainly like to welcome him to his new role in this Legislature.

In answer to the question, I'll say this: being a single parent is difficult. Any of us who experience that on a day-to-day basis know how hard it is, but for some parents it is a lot more difficult than it is for others. People who are struggling to find work that can support them to the extent that they need to be able to care for their children struggle more than most of us can ever imagine. We do need to support those parents, but what we need to do is also make sure that we are fair to all of the people in the province that are paying taxes and that are dependent on the system.

The reason that the government asked for that money back is because it's income. It's declared as income. Some people garner quite a bit of income in child support, while others don't garner quite so much. We want to make sure that we are fair across the system and recognize that income assistance is a service that's provided to try and help people get from social assistance back into the workforce. We intend to try and do that as broadly as we possibly can, making sure that parents have the opportunity to get to work, which is what we know all of them want to do...

Let's stop there for a moment...

Once again, just like she did when she told us she had to screw over our public educators to save 'our' children, Ms. Clark is playing her faux conflation game, hinting that as a single Mom herself she feels these poor women's (and their even poorer children's) pain.

But here's the thing.

She is not a single parent, she is a co-parent.

And she is not poor.

And none of those Mom's that she is screwing over so she can do the Fordian election thing down the road have been away 'on their travels'  because, even if they could afford a bus ticket to Chilliwack to look for work at the local Denny's they wouldn't have enough left over to pay for the sitter.

Hey!

Here's an idea....

Maybe all those real single Mom's who are out looking for work could drop off their kids down at Burrard Communications for the day instead?

But I digress.

Back to the show....

Madame Speaker: Recognizing the Leader of the Official Opposition on a supplemental.

J. Horgan: I appreciate the sentiment from the Premier that she wants to respect taxpayers. Well, I would argue that the $17 million that this government spent on partisan advertising last year would have been better spent for children living in poverty. So $342 million in cost overruns on the northwest transmission line; $341 million in cost overruns on the Vancouver Convention Centre; $464 million in cost overruns on the South Fraser Perimeter Road. That would pay for the clawback for 60 years. How is that respecting taxpayers? How is a billion dollars of cost overruns while people are going without in this province…? How is that respecting taxpayers?

Families-first doesn't mean families are the first to pick up after Liberals make mistakes. It should be putting people in need at the top of the line, not the bottom of the line.

Madame Premier, you could make a difference today in thousands and thousands of people's lives by ending the clawback, ending it right now.

Hon. C. Clark: Having answered the question a number of times already, I'd like to reflect on this, and that is the fact that we believe on this side of the House that the best and the only way to lift people out of poverty, to lift families out of poverty, is to grow our economy. It's to make sure there are opportunities for people to access meaningful and useful job training that will put them into the workforce. It's to support people moving from social assistance to work, and it's to make sure that there are jobs for them when they get there.

That's why we are embarked on a generational opportunity to transform our economy to ensure that we create more jobs in our province so that more people have an opportunity, a real opportunity, to participate in our workforce in a meaningful way and to bring home a family-supporting wage.

We believe in getting to yes on economic development. That's how you resolve poverty. One day I think the opposition will catch on...

With all due respect, perhaps the good Premier of British Columbia could explain how forcing Moms to become prisoners in their own apartments because they won't be able to afford childcare, or even busfare, on $945 per month is going to help them reach out to grasp their 'generational opportunity' to participate in our workforce?

And, by way of reinforcement, the following is the kicker from Mr. Horgan and a real single Mom....


Madame Speaker: Recognizing the Leader of the Official Opposition on a further supplemental.

J. Horgan: I thought it was impossible, but somehow the Premier just said that liquefied natural gas is going to help people on disability income assistance feed their children today. I don't know how that's going to happen, but in the world the Premier lives in, apparently that's the case.

Jessica Sothcot is here today with her 14-year-old daughter (whom Mr. Horgan introduced to the House at the beginning of the session). Jessica was injured at work. She's on a disability assistance pension right now. She receives minimal amounts of money from the province to pay for her basic needs.

The court has mandated that Rosie's father pay $187 a month for basic necessities, school clothing, so she can participate in active, ordinary things that kids like to do — $187, and this government is clawing that back every single month. Jessica can't go find work. She's on disability pension. She's unable to work today. So what's the Premier's solution in her one-size-fits-all, LNG-will-save-the-day world for Rosie and Jessica? What is she going to do today for families like that?

Hon. C. Clark: Today all across our government we are working to make sure that people who are living with disabilities have more opportunities to work. That means across ministries finding ways to change the way we deliver services, to change the way we deliver training, so that we can help lift people up who are living with a disability, most of whom would love to be able to fully participate in the workforce, but there are many government barriers in the way of that happening....

Say what?

With all due respect, once again, Madame Premier...

You do know about the bamboozlepalooza that is the $182 million that you and yours have wasted on the 'Integrated Case Management' system that is making it even harder for frontline caseworkers to work with folks like Ms. Sothcot and her daughter, right?

****

Look.

The Snooklandians could step back from this thing right here and right now.

Specifically, they could set a reasonable level of income assistance + child support (say, for example $2000) above which the income assistance portion will then be clawed back.

And in doing so that extra court mandated child support money, which is NOT coming from taxpayers, would help raise a whole bunch of kids out of abject poverty and it would help a whole bunch of single Mom's get out to participate in Ms. Clark's so-called 'generational opportunity'.

Of course if Ms. Clark did make such a change, right here and right now, she would probably only 'save' something like, maybe $7 million per year instead of $17 million. 

On the bright side, the cumulative savings could subsequently be blown on a spring 2017 pre-election, next-generational, vote-buying bogus Bollywood-type thingy that is of no lasting use to anyone.

Or some such thing.

OK? 

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Springtime Jukebox...Tune #1: Return Of The Grievous Angel.

AllTheirSongsAre
UsVille


Back somewhere in the middle of the late winter jukebox I took a run at the Cosmic Cowboy's biggest hit.

And when I told somebody about that they suggested the time had come for me to go to heart of all that would later become alt.country.

Which led me to Gram Parsons, the partnership with Emmylou Harris division.

And a road tune written with poet Thomas Brown that contains everything that Jack Kerouac, and Ted Williams too, could have possibly imagined, and more:

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Interestingly, when the album came out after Parsons premature death in early 1974 his wifemade sure that Harris was just about nowhere to be found...I really dig their live take of the song...And, apparently, so do those two kids from Sweden who blew right on past the heart of it all recently and made the thing their own...More on that later.
So...I've been doing a bit of counting....Last year's Sunday Setlists ~250,000 listens....December's Advent Jukebox ~220,000 listens....The just completed Late Winter Setlist ~230,000 listens (download 'em now, downt hread if you want 'em because I'm going to let them slide off the page soon)....That total...Just unbelievable/unfathomable to me...Thanks, again, everyone!


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This Day In Snookland...Let Them Eat Software, v2.0.

FollowTheMoney
ContractapaloozaVille


First, the problem at hand, as reported by Tiffany Crawford and Rob Shaw in the VSun last week:

...“This is an immediate safety risk, it’s completely unacceptable,” said Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, the province’s independent Representative for Children and Youth. “Frontline staff is calling me in flat-out panic. It affects child safety, and worker safety.”

Turpel-Lafond cited several consequences of the computer failure, such as a father of three young children unable to get an income assistance cheque from government to feed his family, and police officers responding to a domestic violence call but unable to tell if any children at the address had been abused in the past or if there were firearms in the residence.

The paper backup system doesn’t allow provincial staff in one part of the province to properly share information, such as with hospitals. And it has left the system with by a mountain of paperwork to enter into the computer, she said.

“This is a disaster,” said Turpel-Lafond. “ There needs to be a proper independent review of this.”

At issue is the government’s custom-built $182-million integrated case management computer system, which went into operation in April 2012 and was intended to allow sharing of information between ministries about social assistance, disabilities, domestic violence, and child welfare....

Second, the response of one of the Snooklandian ministers allegedly 'in charge':

...“It’s a new computer system, and to say there won’t ever be hiccups is something we can’t do,” (Social Development Minister Don McRae) said. “Look at Windows 8, it didn’t go very well.”...


But here's the thing...

It is not a new system and this most definitely is not the first time that problems have arisen.

Case in point, the following is taken from a consultant's report, released in early 2013, on what had to be done to even start making the 'product', purchased from Siebel/Oracle (thanks NVG!), even remotely servicable:

The following next steps need to be completed prior to this review being able to conclude on the question of whether the Siebel product can meet the needs of child protection. In particular, we recommend that steps, 9, 10, and 12 be completed prior to finalization of this review and provision of the final report.

9. With the re-commitment to a shared vision for ICM, work should proceed on redeveloping system requirements and should include the following major steps:

-Review best practices from other jurisdictions;

-Work with a core group of subject matter experts to identify and drive a full set of requirements from the restated child protection practice model. This work should be aimed at enabling actual user workflows, which should form the basis of requirements;

-Confirm and consolidate requirements with stakeholder groups, both to ensure that stakeholders see that that have been “heard”, and that requirements are accurate and will meaningfully improve users’ work processes.

10.Complete a gap fit assessment of requirements to the current solution. This process should include the development of prioritized needs, business cases and options for proceeding to address revised requirements.

12. Complete detailed budget, timelines and contractual impact analyses to ensure that the appropriate resources are in place and that revised timelines are feasible and will not result in unacceptable contractual obligations or ramifications.

Sound like a little hiccup with Windows 8 to you?

****

Look.

I've read the entire report cited above.

And I realize that this effort was originally mounted in good faith with a goal to actually try and make good on the Hughes report.

But the long running ineptitude of the powers-that-be behind this thing really does make one wonder if this is just another more crony-run effort gone bad (remember Maximus?).

Regardless, when I think of the time, effort and huge resources wasted to make the incredibly hard job of front-line workers, workers who actually deal with our fellow citizens and children most in need, even harder?

Well...

It's impossible for me to keep my outrage meter out of the red when I recall how hard the same powers-that-be worked to 'demonstrate' that they hadn't changed a 'policy' (rather than a long standing 'practice') to allow those same front-line workers to buy kids stuck in the system without a family an extra present at Christmas time.

OK?


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And just so you know...I really have been working hard to keep that outrage meter safely down in the green for a while now...Honest I have.
On that Maximus thing...At last count we were into it for at least a half a billion...And it is neither fast nor a ferry (or even, it would appear, scrap metal)...


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Goodbye To My Friend Ian.

IWishYouCouldSwim
LikeTheDolphinsVille


I have a select number of very old friends who I know so well that, when we get together after long partings, we can get into very intense things, immediately, without preamble, almost as if 20 years ago was yesterday.

I did not know Ian Reid for nearly that long.

And I did not really know him all that well.

But, because of the connection we made, I felt like I did.

Because whenever we met, or talked on the phone, or E-mailed, we almost always got down to brass tacks pretty much immediately.

And we almost always talked about politics.

Or, at the very least, political goings on.

Anyway...

The last time Ian and I talked in person it was together with our mutual friend Norm Farrell.

And the politics talk was intense.

And then, somehow, near the end of our conversation the issue of what we'd all do if we had the time came up.

Now....

In my own head I've often thought that if I was retired I would have the time to do the real research so that I could try to write with the insight of Norm and the passion of Ian.

But I didn't say that.

Because before I could, Ian fixed me with that gaze of his and said.

'I'm pretty sure that when that happens Cal will be making music full-time'.

Which flummoxed me.

Not because Ian was wrong.

But rather because he was probably right.

****

I got an Email from another old friend late last night who I haven't really known since we were both kids, back before either of us knew Ian.

He wanted to pass along a message from Ian's daughter.

I'm sure she wouldn't mind if I excerpted just a few lines from it:

My father, Ian, died peacefully this afternoon in Vancouver, after a long illness... 

 ...It's impossible to talk about his death and his life without talking about politics. (Don't let me get started on talking about music.)...


Talking about music, indeed.

I recorded this for Ian late last fall:

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A while back Ian and I got to kibbitzing back and forth (usually on comment threads) about who our real musical heroes were...In the end we settled on two war horses from our youth (who were, of course, also young colts themselves as well back then)...His was Bowie... Mine was Springsteen...Which, of course, led to....This.

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How Much Are We Paying To Be A Mouthpiece For Big Oil?

There'sNoProsperityLikeBoughtAndPaidFor
ProsperityVille


Well.

According to the Globe's Eric Reguly the going rate is about $207,000...

A page:

...What is clever about the ad (boosting the Keystone XL pipeline) is not the photo; it is the headline and the succinct lines of copy beneath it. They are slick pieces of propaganda – misleading without being outright lies. Of course, advertising is all about propaganda. But this ad is unconscionable because you, the Canadian taxpayer, paid for it. The rate for a full-page ad in that location, according to Condé Nast, publisher of The New Yorker, is $207,000 (U.S.).

The ad appeared in the April 14 issue and was sponsored by GoWithCanada.ca, the federal government site that is trying to convince the skeptical that the Alberta oil sands – known as the tar sands to non-Canadians – and the export pipelines that would allow the megaproject to thrive for decades are a “secure, responsible source of energy for the global market” (“Keystone” does not appear in the ad)...



Gosh.

Does this mean we are all our own big brothers now?


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This Weekend In Snookland...Where Are All The Sparkle Ponies?

MoveAlongThere'sNoStory
HereVille


There right here, right now, right under our noses.

But we get nothing.

Norm Farrell explains, with charts and everything.

Here.


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Meanwhile, Lotusdandian proMedia types with thousands of fake Twittmachine followers just keep on keepin' on doing the important stuff like, you know.... Trashing teachers.




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This Day In Snookland...In Which All Connections With SNC-Lavalin Disappear.

TheirOwnReality
FriendsWithInfluenceVille

From the hardest working man in the Lotuslandian proMedia, Bob Mackin, this time in The Tyee:

The B.C. government's Industry Training Authority has a new board of directors, and the May 5 news release heralds the appointment of Gwyn Morgan as the Crown corporation's $1-a-year chair.

While it emphasizes how Morgan was the founding CEO of oil and natural gas producer EnCana Corp., it doesn't mention his tenure as chair of SNC-Lavalin, the troubled Montreal engineering giant...


Surprised?


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The Vaccination War....When Fanatical Superstionists Collide.

OutbreaksAreThem
TheEndOfEvidenceVille


Not long ago we learned that fanatical superstionists in our midst helped trigger a measles outbreak that started to spread.

Of course, some folks, especially those sympathetic to the superstionists and their fanaticism, responded by saying it was 'only' measles and therefore worth taking a stand against, especially given that sometimes vaccines are generated in human cell lines derived from fetal tissue.

Or some such incredibly nonsensical thing.

****

Ya.

Well.

How does polio sound then?

The World Health Organization has declared polio a “public health emergency of international concern,” marking only the second time the UN agency has given such a designation after the H1N1 flu pandemic in 2009.


On Monday, the WHO imposed travel restrictions for people living in Syria, Cameroon and Pakistan after an emergency committee unanimously agreed that the spread of polio constituted an “extraordinary event” in need of a co-ordinated international response....


So.

What do the fanatical superstitionists have to do with this one?

Well.

In Pakistan at least, there is this, as reported by Foreign Policy:

...Although the polio vaccine is safe, vaccination remains a sensitive topic in the region and aid workers face a mounting wave of cultural challenges. Some militants believe the common misconception that vaccinations are against Islamic law or are administered as part of a broader American plot to sterilize children or infect them with HIV. Taliban in Pakistan have been attacking polio workers and their security teams since it was revealed in 2011 the CIA used a fake Hepatitis B vaccine campaign in Abbottabad as part of an attempt to obtain blood samples from Osama bin Laden's children in order to confirm the al Qaeda chief's location.

Despite the Pakistani government's efforts to provide police protection, at least 31 poliovaccination workers have been killed in Pakistansince July 2012. (Police and security personnel working with them have also been shot at, wounded, and killed.) These attacks, unfortunately, have had their desired effect. Along with systemic problems in supply chains and personnel management, the intimidation and violence have increasingly led mothers to opt out of all kinds of vaccines, and have stymied health efforts; outbreaks of vaccine-preventable diseases, such as measles, have increased. And as a result, polio remains unchecked in several provinces, particularly in the tribal regions bordering Afghanistan...


Gosh.

Sounds like someone could uses some fanatical superstionistic lawyers to help get them out of this one.

If you get my 'coming together of the fanatical poles' kind of drift.

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As for that 'plot' thingy....Well, just go ask the superist of super FanSups down south...After all, anything goes in Bush doctrine world, right?

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Northern Gateway Going Down...In Which Ron Gets Even More Obvious.

AtLeastThisTimeHe'sNotStealing
OurStuffVille


Here's the kicker from Gary Mason's latest, in the Globe:

...If Northern Gateway doesn’t get built, I suspect it won’t be because the federal government stood in its way...

Really?

Gosh.

The next thing you know Mr. Mason will be telling us that the Ethical Oilers and those British Columbians For Prosperity folks actually do have a wee bit of  common cause with the Brothers K.

****

Anyway, Mr. Mason did have something interesting from a super-secret, evils-of-access-type anon. source who is apparently a 'senior member' of the Harper government, whatever that means:

...Still, there is a raw political calculus that needs to be taken into account. Polls measuring support for the project in B.C. vary, but generally have shown that anywhere from 55 to 60 per cent of the province opposes Gateway and 40 to 45 per cent support it. Isn’t that enough to scare off a government that needs critical votes in B.C. to win another majority?

“Let’s say 60 per cent are against it,” he (the senior member) said. “And that vote splits between the Liberals and the NDP come the next election. Who are the 40 per cent going to vote for?”...


Why interesting?

Well, because, essentially, the super-secret, super-obvious, chichester cathedral-eating senior member told Mr. Mason that Mr. Harper and company actually do cater to the minority, not just during election season, but also while they are actually, you know...

Governing.


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What's this 'Ron Obvious' stuff all about?...'Tis explained here, kinda/sorta.


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The Swan Of All Songs Remained The Same...Ted Williams' Last At Bat.

There'sNoBallgameLike
TeddyVille


Oriole's pitcher Jack Fisher remembers, courtesy Elon Green and the New Yorker:

...I think the first pitch was a ball. The next pitch—he swung and missed—was another fastball. The next pitch I just went to another fastball and he hit it out. Made the score four to three.

I mean, all I was trying to do was win the ballgame. The fact that he hit the home run wasn’t that big to me because I’d actually had pretty good success against him.

After he hit the home run, he went in [the dugout] and of course, as you know, he kind of ignored the fans and everything. And they were all standing and waiting and wanting him to come out of the dugout and wave to him or something like that. And finally, he’s sitting on the bench and he waved to me and said, “Go ahead and pitch. I’m not gettin’ up.” I actually stood behind the mound and waited for him to come out, but he didn’t...


Weirdly, I remember Jim Brown being the same when I was a kid.

Every touchdown.

Same thing - no fanfare.

Why?

Well.

I reckon he'd been there before.


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This Day In Snookland...Who's Killing All Our Sparkle Ponies?

MaybeTheyShouldStartPushingMoreUnicorns
InsteadVille


Well...

It would appear it might be common sense that's doing the mercy offing.

From the top and bottom of Don Cayo's CCPA-assisted latest:

A new study on what B.C.‘s LNG revenues could add up to reinforces what many thinking citizens have already surmised — that the provincial government’s optimistic projections are far from a sure thing, and maybe just pie in the sky.

The predicted royalties and LNG tax revenues — enough over 30 years to wipe out the province’s debt and fund a $100-billion prosperity fund — aren’t impossible, says Marc Lee, a senior economist with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ B.C. office. But they will materialize only under optimum conditions, and such a cheery scenario isn’t at all likely...

{snippety doo-dah}

...Companies — including Shell Canada and its Asian partners who announced on Tuesday another cautious step toward their goal of developing LNG export facilities in Kitimat — are still “looking long and hard at whether their investments will deliver appropriate returns,” Lee wrote. “The B.C. government needs to do the same.”

In other words, stop counting 100 billion chickens before they hatch.

****

Only a hundred billion?

In chicken feathers?

Gosh.

I seem to remember that, back when they were first conjured up by the then publicly-funded directer of over....errrrr...outreach, the magic of the sparkle ponies was going to be worth at least a trillion.

Yes.

That's right.

A trillion.

And did anybody in the pre-election Lotuslandian proMedia call out the Snooklandians on their codswallop?

Of course not.


_______
Of course, the real kick in the head here is the fact that there are real sparkle ponies available, right here and right now, that could be used to pay for crazy stuff like, say, youth centers that help keep wayward kids from becoming hardened criminals...The only problem is that the Snooklandians are giving all that real magical revenue away for free....And what do you hear from the local proMedia on that one?....


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This Afternoon In Snookland...Looks Who's Speaking For Big Oil.

WhereThere'sAPushThere'sA
PollVille


On the matter of what that very fine Astroturf group that calls itself 'British Columbians for (nolongerinternational) Prosperity' has been up to with their recent robocall-driven 'polling' blitz, Mychaylo Prystupa has a good piece up at the VObserver site. Here's a most interesting tidbit:

...(BC4Prosperity's) executive director – retired oil executive Bruce Lounds – vehemently denied the voter polling when asked about it early Tuesday morning.

“That’s absolutely not true. I can tell you that flat out,” saidLounds. “We’re polling about Northern Gateway and general resource development. It’s for our own internal use, to develop campaigns, or to provide information to people.”

But by Tuesday afternoon, when asked to explain the difference in stories, the group’s communications representative – Alise Mills – sent an e-mail stating:

“We also asked about people’s voting intention – if an election were held today which party they would vote for.”

“We think there is a myth that development is a left-wing versus right-wing issue – and we wanted to dig into this,” wrote Mills.

“Canadians and British Columbians like natural resource development. They just are not 100 per cent [supportive] on Northern Gateway."...


Gosh.

I'm sure these efforts by the good Ms. Mills will be mentioned next time she shows up on either CBC television or radio to tell us about the body politic and in British Columbia.

And while we're on the subject, sort of, maybe someone could dig into who is fronting BC4Prosperity the cash to pay for its robodialers, spokespeiople, spoon-benders and all that...

Because a great and prosperous man himself once said...

Well.

You know.


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This Day In Snookland...The Conflict Commissioner's Latest Problem With Dates.

AConflictActDesignedToMakeSureThereAreNo
Conflicts?Ville


Bob Mackin has a post up at The Tyee that notes, as we did yesterday, that, based on the actual wording of the Conflict of Interest Act, the Conflict Commissioner, Mr. Paul Fraser, appears to have erred when he noted that he could not investigate Ms. Christy Clark's potential conflict of interest regarding her apparently being part of an RCI subsidiary, at the very least on paper, when she was sworn in as Premier in March of 2011.

And Mr. Mackin also noted something else interesting about Mr. Fraser's letter to Ms. Clark's chief-of-staff Dan Doyle on this matter, which is its date:

...The Fraser letter to Doyle was dated April 14, two days after Fraser's office told The Tyee in an email "if or when this issue is formally referred to this office, it will be dealt with. In the meantime, the Commissioner will have no further comment."...


Gosh.

Why the apparent obfuscation from Mr. Fraser to The Tyee?

And was it deliberate?

And why is Mr. Mackin still the only proMedia member in Lotusland covering this story without stenographer's pen in hand?



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Subheader?....Shamelessly swiped from Integrity B.C.'s Dermod Travis.


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