#BCED....Apparent 'Statement' Of 'BC Parents Federation'.

InfluencersNeedNotBe
DigitalVille

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Double-Secret Probation Update: 7:45pm Sunday Sept 14/14...The group's website has been disappeared.

Updated 4:50pm Sunday Sept 14/14...What purports to be the 'BC Parents' Federation website now has a slide show (apparently of the "BC Parents' Alliance", note different name, apparently at a different rally on Sept 07/14)...They also say that they have '30' members...Link is....Here.

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The 'BC Parents Federation' was, according to CBC News, the counter demonstration group at today's public education rally in downtown Vancouver. 

The following is an apparent 'statement' from the group, posted on Lahoo.ca, that links to the same empty website that we noted in our earlier post on this matter:


BC Parents’ Federation
Sept. 14 2014
Statement of BC Parents' Federation


Under the BC School Act, students' entitlement to education is a right. Today, this right has been blatantly violated. Because of the teachers’ strike, more than 500,000 students have been locked out of school causing great disruption to public schools. Not only has the strike impacted students and parents in BC significantly, it has also incurred great financial loss to over 13, 000 international students.


We, parents of British Columbia, urge BC Teachers' Federation to put students first and end the strike immediately. We request that BCTF allow students and teachers return to school while engaging in negotiation or mediation with the government. Don’t let the teachers who want to teach have no one to teach! Don’t let the students who are eager to learn have no school to go to!


We respect the teachers’ reasonable requests to the government. However, we ask that BCTF stop using students as pawns or its bargaining chips. We believe that any negotiated contract with the government should be settled without preventing the students from receiving education NOW or in the future.


Web Site: http://www.accessrichmond.ca/bcpf/member.asp
Email: bcpf.ca@gmail.com

Question now is....If you mow this grass is there any aroma to be found?


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Update Postcript...YouTube link to the 'slide show' of the differently named 'BC Parents' Alliance', which currently has zero subscribers is....Here.

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#BCED....No Sign (Yet) That Counter Demonstrators At Rally Have Turf Stains On Their Shoes.

DiversionarySpikeSpin-O-Rama
ShinyBaubleVille

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Double-Secret Probation Update: 7:45pm Sunday Sept 14/14...The group's website has been disappeared.

Updated 4:50pm Sunday Sept 14/14...What purports to be the 'BC Parents' Federation website now has a slide show (apparently of the "BC Parents' Alliance", note different name, apparently at a different rally on Sept 07/14)...They also say that they have '30' members...Link is....Here.

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There was a little bit of a disturbance at the public education rally earlier today in downtown Lotusland.

Here's the MoCo's lede:

A brief melee broke out at a parent, teacher and student pro-union rally at the Vancouver Art Gallery Sunday when it was crashed by a group of parents from Richmond wielding anti-union signs.

The rally, one of three planned today, was organized on Facebook and described as a grassroots, parent-driven rally although it easily attracted as many teachers and labour leaders as it did parents.

Part way through it, a group of parents from Richmond calling themselves the BC Parents Federation crashed the party to deliver an opposing point of view...


So.

Who and/or what, exactly is this 'BC Parents Federation' (get it?).

Well, all we know so far is, this:

...BC Parents Federation spokesman Tom Tang said his group has just registered as a "legal organization."


Just registered?

Hmmmm....

Interestingly,  a website with the groups monicker is essentially empty.

As for their Twittachine embed on the site...It appears to go nowhere too.

Same for the Book of Faces.

Gosh.

Seems like maybe, just maybe this thing was done pretty quickly.

Maybe with an eye towards winning the game of short attention span theatre that the proMedia loves so much?

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Update Postcript...YouTube link to the 'slide show' of the differently named 'BC Parents' Alliance', which currently has zero subscribers is....Here.

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Where Did Vision Vancouver Get All It's New Twittmachine Followers?....(UPDATED).

AnalogSpadeWorkInThe
DigitalRealmVille

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Update: Sunday Afternoon Sept 14/14....Vision is claiming all the phony followers came their way due to a Spam Attack...

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Working journalist and amateur blogger (you can be both without being labelled an idiot?) Justin McElroy has done the long and laborious digging on a Sasamat Saturday night.

And what he found is not pretty for the vainglorious folks doing the wizard work over at VV:

....4194 ('new') followers in....Yep. Permanently at (the same) 36 (common followers for most accounts). What’s perplexing is how blatant the fakeness of these followers is. There are so many duplicate pictures that some have been used 10 or 15 times by this point. And there is not a real person to be found. If you’re going to add 13,000 fake followers (not that I’m suggesting such a thing), you think you would do so in intervals, so there would be some variation between real people and fakes...


Can't imagine that, say, Andrea Reimer approves.


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It's actually quite fascinating how Mr. McIlroy did the spadework...And it's a good read, with all kinds of digressions, snark, and deep background too boot...The kid's good...Too bad he's jumped from linear type to the TeeVee in real life.


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Battling The Egregiousity Of 'Pay-To-Pay' Billing...And Winning.

HeadsTheyWin
TailsWe(RefuseTo)LoseVille


Negative billing by the greedheads is one thing.

But 'Pay-To-Pay' billing wherein the same fine folks force their customers to pay extra for receiving a bill to pay their bills is, in the view of many, in the words of everybody's worst of all worst villians...

Inconceivable.

Especially because the vile act most often hits seniors, who often wait for their bills by mail, the hardest.

And yet, until one politician and his group of young charges decided to use the same strategy that make Indie-Rock work, the powers that be didn't care a wit.

That politician, Davenport Ontario Dipper MP Andrew Cash, explained how he and his cadre of kids changed all that recently in the TStar:

...(Y)ou may be surprised to hear that there are similarities between politics and rock and roll. For both, when you mount a project, the first thing you need is a good name. We asked one of our volunteers, Wyatt Shorter, who at the time was a high school student, if he had any ideas that would best describe this ripoff. “How about pay to pay,” he suggested, “because you have to pay a fee to pay your bill.” That was it!

With the help of another remarkable young Portuguese-speaking volunteer, Sara Marques, we met with immigrant seniors' groups in the area who wanted action. Aided by years of solid reporting on the issue, primarily by the Star, consumer and seniors advocates gave their support, and within days of its posting thousands had signed our petition online.

Still the government sat on its hands, claiming that a volunteer code of conduct was enough to protect Canadians from unfair billing practices. But as the pressure mounted, with the petition soon surpassing 10,000 signatures from people across the country, a shift began to take hold. The CRTC, Canada’s telecom and broadcast regulator, was initially dismissive but later sent a letter asking Bell to stop charging the fee to seniors. Other companies began considering exemptions.

However these were ineffectual measures and the government signalled in its Speech from the Throne last October that a ban was on the way. I laughed out loud in the lobby of the House of Commons when I heard the Governor General say the words “pay to pay,” doubtless the Queen's representative in Canada had no idea he was using a phrase coined by a high school student in Davenport...


Beauty way to go, eh?


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Tip O' The Toque to Accidental Deliberations' always excellent links round-up for pointing us towards Mr. Cash's piece.


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Nevermind The Bollocks, Here Come The Data!

AndTwoPlusTwoEquals
FiveBillionVille


Don't look now, but the Fraser Institute, at least according one of its big bosses, no longer has any ideological bias which, we can only assume, explains why it may (or may not) have been targeted in the latest round of punitive CRA audits.

Or some such thing

Tonda MacCharles had the story last week in the TStar:

...Niels Veldhuis, president of the Fraser Institute, told the Star its policy is not to comment on any dealings it has with CRA, although he said in its 40-year history it has previously been audited three times by the CRA and the U.S. government’s IRS. He said any charity should expect such audits periodically.

However, Veldhuis adamantly disagreed with ( CCPA executive director Bruce) Campbell’s suggestion that think-tanks all come from a perspective or core set of values, or even that the Fraser Institute should be described as a conservative organization. He said the institute’s work is “not value-based, it’s driven by data.”

“The role of a think-tank is to ask a question, examine the data and let the data tell you the answer. That’s what the role of a research organization is. That’s what we do. That’s not one-sided. I’ve no concerns about us being one-sided because that’s not research.”...


As you might have expected, the fine folks at the Broadbent Institute do the demolition work.


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And, as for this little F-List Troop blog?....Why, it seems like just yesterday that we were noticing how those most excellent data analysts over at the Big Muddy building on Burrard Street were putting together Dora The Explorer maps to make the point that right-to-work states down south are are actually little libertarian  islands of valhalla for all their workers who are working more and more and more for less and less and less because, well....Freedom!


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#BCED.....Sandy Garossino Goes Where The ProMedia Fears To Tread.

BothSides
Don'tVille


Yes.

That's right.

Ms. Garossino has actually summarized the evidence used by Justice Griffin when she ruled AGAINST the BC Liberal government the second time, with a front-to-back timeline and everything.

Her most excellent storification of the deal is....Here.

In my opinion, there are many damning aspects, against the government, in the timeline.

One of the most egregious, again in my opinion, is this one:

****

Meanwhile, Vince Ready had the two parties nose-to-nose until after midnight last night and, apparently, they are getting ready to get back together as I type this.


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Seventeen Minutes Of Rhythm Section Bliss.

ThereIsNoRockLike
RhythmRockVille


And it was all done in one take.

Seriously.

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Hey....Look Who Is Not A Member Of 'The Club'.

GrouchoAndAll
ThatVille


The Lotuslandian proMedia Club, I mean...What with all its established credibility and all that.

Why it's former paid-up-in-full member Harvey Oberfeld.

Mr. O. thinks he has been kicked out of the club for two reasons.

Number one is entirely expected given our corporate times:

"...I supported the unionization of BCTV’s newsroom after their “new” management laid off/fired more than 40 workers; I also became union vice-president; and, was union spokesman during CEP’s 33-day strike..."


But, as for reason number two?

Well that's the real kicker:

"...(I)n retirement, on this blog, I have also DARED to criticize the media; the decline in quality; the sagging ratings; and the do-more-with-less results of decisions/actions by the corporate bean counters now running the business..."


Ha!


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What is this 'Club' you may be asking yourself?...Well, our dear, departed friend Ian Reid explained it all not long ago...


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This Day In Snookland...They're On To Us!

DigitallyInfluencing
EverythingVille


Charlie Smith has written a very important column in the GStraight in which he explains how the BC Liberals operate to obfuscate everything digitally by flinging the propaganda fast and furious.

This is then backed by spokesmodels like, say, Mr. Fassbender, who are instructed to say anything to the proMedia they have instant access to because the wizards that run the war rooms know that the codswallop will gum up the works and the spokesmodels will never be called on it because the proMedia will always play nice, for all kinds of reasons ,including the fact that they don't want to be shut out of future spokesmodel appearances and interviews.

Now.

Of course, anybody who stops by a place like this already knows that this is the way things really work 'round here.

So, given that, why is what Mr. Smith wrote important?

Well...

Because it shows the proMedia how it could actually make the obfuscation and codswallop worthless if they would just call the perpetrators on it.

Every.

Single.

Time.


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There is one small thing I don't agree with in Mr. Smith's column...Specifically, he suggests that the teachers would do better if they took up similar spin strategies...I disagree entirely...While the teachers efforts may lack polish and media savvy and all that crap (which, of course, can raise the ire of the usual suspects) it, in large part, truly reflects what teachers really think and believe...And even if it is sometimes slightly misguided and messy, I'll take that over deliberate propaganda and obfuscatory bullshit every time...OK?
And, just for the record, I think the kinds of rapid response efforts that Mr. Smith talks about happening to GStraight polls, likely happened over at Laila's place last weekend...


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Quick Wins Resurrection Shuffle (ctd)...The Dean Buries The Lede With A Backhoe.

Email?
WhatEmail?Ville


Vaughn Palmer's latest column in the VSun revels in the minutiae of the Bonney-Robertson Quick Wins-related Election Act charges.

With stuff like this:

...Dubbed “quick wins” because of the suggestion that the Liberals could reap a political gain from a government apology to the Chinese community for historic wrongs, the scandal dominated the news in the weeks before the election call. It did not prove to be a decisive issue in the campaign itself....

{snip}

...The specific allegation, set out in the charges, is that the two accused and their company paid an employee, Sepideh Sarrafpour, to work on the byelection without disclosing the amount ($2,240) as a political contribution.

Not a decisive amount for a campaign where the Liberals spent almost $100,000 trying to win the byelection and still lost. But as required under the Election Act, the charges were approved by Chief Electoral Officer Keith Archer, the independent watchdog on the integrity of the electoral process...


So.

We thank Mr. Palmer for 'informing' of the details of what Tom Hawthorne has dubbed the 'Hanky Panky'.

But...

Nowhere in is entire column does Mr. Palmer specifically mention a certain Email that was written by the good Mr. Bonney BEFORE the last general election.

That particular Email was only revealed by a massive BCLiberal government document dump that occurred AFTER the last general election.

Of course, that dump, and that election, were both preceeded by an internal 'investigation' by the BC Liberal government that very finest of the fine members of the Lotuslandian proPundits Club accepted, pretty much unquestioned, without demanding the actual documents it was based on at the time (i.e. BEFORE the last general election).

The Email concerned contained the following passage:

..."Have [MLA] Harry Bloy meet with her and explain how doing anything would damage the Premier and the party. Have him say how he will try to find her work and get her back involved... If need be, offer x dollars per month to do non public work up to election [developing her database of potential supporters]."...


And who was the former staffer, now Whistleblower, that was supposed to receive this 'work' and those 'x dollars' per month, if the Email written by the good Mr. Bonney was acted upon, in the wake of explaining to her how 'doing anything would damage the Premier and the party'?

Why, that would be the Ms. Serrafpour mentioned in Mr. Palmer's minutiae, above.

Now.

Let's revisit the sentence bolded, also above, from Mr. Palmer's latest that goes like this:

"...It (Quick Wins) did not prove to be a decisive issue in the campaign itself..."

Established and credible my derriere.


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It would appear that the good Mr. Palmer buried the lede even further in his latest column when he mentioned that, because of Quick Wins, the Premier of this province, for whom Mr. Bonney worked, IN HER ACTUAL OFFICE, at the time the scandal broke, was required to apologize twice...However, Mr. Palmer gave his readers no specifics regarding the details of said apologies...We can only assume that one of the apologies that Mr. Palmer was referring to went like....This.


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Tell Me Now Baby Is He Good To You?

NevermindTheOriginalsHereComeThe
CoversVille


I've listened to a heckuva lot of covers of Springsteen's 'I'm On Fire' and I've rarely been disappointed by any of them.

The same goes by this new one from Low....

Want more?

Well there is an entire Born In The USA Album in the can.

You can read more about it, and snag tracks from it.....Here.


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My most recent Sprucian cover is...



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The Dean Dabbles In Stenography?....Who Knew?

AllYourGovernmentPressReleases
'RUsVille


It would appear that the ever vigilant Norm Farrell has noticed that a recent column by Vaughn Palmer in the VSun on 'healthcare' savings makes a point that is closer to the provincial government line than it it is to reality.

Mr. Farrell's story, in all the glory of it's established credibility (i.e. actual reality-based facts) is....Here.


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Not that there is a club or anything.


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This Just In....Big Banks Say Thomas Mulcair Was Right!

DemocraticBigBankEmbedded
Socialism?Ville

Yessirree.

It's true.

And it's about that old saw...Dutch (notElm) Disease.

Daniel Tencer has the story in the HuffPo. Here is his lede:

Is Canada’s oil sector harming the rest of the economy? According to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, the evidence points to yes.

In a new report, the bank has come out squarely in favour of the "Dutch Disease" theory — the notion that Canada's oil and gas boom has driven up the loonie to the point it's hurting other export-dependent parts of the economy.

“Ten per cent of our economy is due to energy. That’s a relatively small share, but when you look at our currency we’ve seen an increasing correlation between the Canadian dollar and the price of energy,” BofA Merrill Lynch economist Emanuella Enenajor, a former CIBC economist and one of the authors of the new report, told BNN....


Gosh.

How long before we start seeing attack ads aimed at the Bank of America on our TeeVees?

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Kinder Morgan To Burnaby...'All Your Parks 'R Us'.

Bylaws?
WeDon'tNeedYourStinkingBylaws!Ville


Thanks to a recent ruling by Mr. Harper's National Energy Board, Kinder Morgan can, apparently, do whatever they want, wherever they want in Burnaby.

Luckily for the rest of us the folks in Burnaby are fighting back.

Jennifer Moreau has the story in the Burnaby Now. Here is her lede:

The City of Burnaby has filed a civil claim in B.C. Supreme Court to keep Kinder Morgan out of the Burnaby Mountain conservation area.

The move, made Monday, is the latest in the legal battle over the city-owned land, where Kinder Morgan has been cutting trees for survey work for a new pipeline route. The city is also asking the court for a temporary injunction to stop the company from cutting trees before the court decides on the matter.

"We have no other options. We tried to raise these issues at the NEB, we tried to deal with the company itself, and now we are in B.C. Supreme Court," said the city's lawyer, Gregory McDade. "It's fairly straight forward. Municipal bylaws are enforceable by court injunction."

The bylaw McDade was referring to forbids anyone from cutting trees in a city park, something Kinder Morgan did last week during survey work. ...

Thing is.

If they don't go through parks 'n stuff, the 'ol Bush Ranger-led outfit that the Knotty Gordians welcomed to town back in the heady early days of the 'Golden Era' just might be 'forced' to go through Burnaby backyards.

And that, based on the experience of other folks in other jurisdictions, may not be a good thing for those who are not particularly enamoured with Kinder Geyser Surprises.


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#BCED...Has Someone Spoken That Christy Clark Will Finally Listen To?

AWakeUpCallFrom
FarAwayVille


She won't listen to teachers.

She won't listen to students.

She won't listen to academics.

And she sure as heck won't listen to parents.

But will she listen to these fine folks?

The government of China has stepped into the B.C. teachers' strike and that is raising concern about a major source of lucrative international students for B.C. school boards.

Officials from the Chinese Consulate in Vancouver met recently with Education Ministry officials to express concerns about the teachers' strike, which has delayed the start of the school year by nearly two weeks, with no end in sight...


What's this one all about Alfie?

Well, kids from away pay big money to come to BC to go to our very fine public schools.

And, in addition to not getting to go to school during the strike, many of them are also forfeiting that big money that they laid out in advance.

Personally, I don't understand that last part (we have a sabbatical family visiting us who are in this bind)...I mean, are they trying to destroy the reputation of a program that is, unlike the private school subsidy debacle, actually really helping to support public education in this province?


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The story quoted above is Tracy Sherlock, Chuck Chiang and Rob Shaw's in the VSun....It's good reportage.


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