This Day In Clarkland...Is The Chief Sparkle Pony Purveyor Playing Chicken With The Trudeau Government?

The
AuraVille


Or...

Is it up to something else?

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What's all about this time, Alfie?

Well, this, from Yadullah Hussain in the Financial Post:

Progress Energy Ltd., a unit of Malaysia’s state-owned Petronas Bhd., is drastically slashing its capital expenditure as it awaits a final approval from the Canadian environmental agency on a proposed liquefied natural gas export project on the West Coast...


So.

If not a game of chicken what could this other thing be?

Well, remember how suddenly, out of nowhere, the Keef started babbling on about how he was 'hearing' that the approval from the Feds is pretty much a done deal recently?

Which looks to me like somebody is trying to cloak all the Sparkly things with an aura of inevitability or some such thing.

Gosh.

Who would do a thing like that?



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Compass Card Hacktacular...The Hatman's Final Revenge.

HowDoYouCreateAProblem
WhereThereIsNoneVille


Well, well, well, whadd'ya know.

Cubic's 'Compass' system, which is holding folks up at Skytrain/CLine stations everywhere throughout Lotusland, is easily hacked.

CTV's John Woodward broke the story and Charlie Smith of the G'Straight followed up, but the rest of the local proMedia herd appears to be cowed on this one.

Gosh, I wonder why.

Luckily for us, ''Zweisystem' writing in the transit blog 'Rail for the Valley' has a trenchant analysis:

Not well reported in the mainstream media is the fact that the $200 million Compass Card/Fare gate system is now next to useless because not so honest people can hack through the system.

The Compass Card is old tech, sold to TransLink after an orchestrated campaign by the mainstream media that fare evasion was rampant and that fare gates were needed; and yes former premier Gordon Campbell’s best buddy, and senior bureaucrat at the City of Vancouver, Ken Dobell, just by coincidence was the lobbyist for Cubic Industries, trying to flog their dated wares.

This debacle is not TransLink’s fault, rather it is the BC Liberal’s fault forcing yesterday’s tech on today’s transit system.

Sometimes the old way to collect fares is the best way and really, $200 million would have been better spent improving transit, rather than financing another boondoggle...


Ah, yes, the self-described man of many hats, the good Mr. Ken Dobell.

And, when the going got tough the original fare evasion dodge from days of yore reared it's terrible, scary ugly head again recently, guess who did the rearing?

I think you are going to be surprised.

Or.

Maybe not...

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And the flying surrender monkeys working the digital refs sure must be happy that the herd is keeping quiet on this one...After all, just think how hard they would have to work to come up with a way to blame the 1990's for this.


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When Ron Obvious Tweets...

...Mr. Spector listens.

Link

Mr. S's bizarre logic notwithstanding, Mr. O's original point, I think, seems to be that the lack of heat on the Clarklandian 'Graftyness 'R Us' initiative is all the Opposition's fault.

Or some such thing.


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This Afternoon In Clarkland...ProMedia Pipeline Plants Of Inevitability.

DoNotForgetThatOilPeopleInventedTheUltimate
CutOutVille


Well, well, well, whadd'ya know...

'One person involved' in the Clarklandian/TrudeauTheYounger negotiations has apparently just told John Ivison of the NaPo pretty much the same thing, allegedly:

...(P)rovincial government sources in Alberta and B.C. say Premier Christy Clark is looking for ways to support the pipeline ahead of next year’s election, particularly if she can win material benefits for British Columbians in the process.

“I think she would dearly love to say she got certain conditions met and she is the ‘premier of yes’ when it comes to resource development,” said one person involved in the delicate negotiations between federal and provincial governments...


Gosh.

You think someone (not, of course, named Sparky Spark) is working the refs here, particularly given the 'premier of yes' verbiage from the 'one person involved'?

And do you think those refs even know they are being worked?


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Interestingly, pretty much the same ref working strate(r)gy was used to get the Keef to push the apparent inevitability of PNWG recently.


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This Day In Clarkland...Of Headers And Stenography.

DoYouReallyWantToKnowWhyBCIsGoingTo
HeckInAHandbasketVille


proMedia stenoing of BC Liberal government press releases and media-managed announcements is one thing.

But when the Header shoots the propaganda into the stratosphere that is quite another.

To wit, the following is the header above the latest 'piece' by Mr. Tom Fletcher in the Black Press:

Single parent employment growing


As for the stenography in the piece itself, the lede (and a bit more) is illustrative:

"The B.C. government's new training and employment program for single parents on income assistance has grown to 2,500 applicants in its first five months.

Social Development Minister Michelle Stilwell said she is encouraged by the continued growth of applicants, with 60 to 100 people per week applying at WorkBC employment centres. The majority are women, and most are required to seek employment as a condition of assistance once their children are three years or older.

"One of the good things that I see is that about two thirds of those clients who have come forward have employment obligations, but one third are not actually obligated to look for work, and they are looking for work," Stilwell said.

The program covers tuition, daycare and transportation costs for up to a year of on-the-job training or education towards in-demand jobs for single parents on social assistance or disability payments. The benefits can continue for up to the first year of employment, including extension of government-paid dental and other health benefits...

You see anything about 'growth' in employment (vs. number of trainees/applicants) there whatsoever?


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Of course, reporters, columnists and, one can only assume, stenographers don't write headlines to their pieces...However, the good Mr. Fletcher was happy to wurlitzer the piece, not with a descriptor about the growth of trainees but rather with the employment growth promoting header on the Twittmachine.
Wondering about the sub-header to this particular post?....Well...This.
On the Twittmachine, Curious George has much better, more accurate suggestion for a header, which is..."More Single Parents on Income Assistance in BC"... 


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Do Members Of The BC Liberal Government Executive Have A Personal Financial Incentive To...

...Force BC Hydro To Borrow Money?

Yesterday, BC Liberal Government Minister Bill Bennett stated, with no equivocation, what everybody who has been paying attention (except, apparently, the local proMedia pundit gentry) already knew about why he and his force BC Hydro to give them millions of dollars every year that it doesn't have (and thus has to borrow, which increases costs for 'ratepayers' sometimes known as 'us'):

“But we couldn’t (decrease the 'dividend' from BC Hydro which is in the hundreds of millions per annum). We’re on a fiscal plan and we want to balance the budget every year and we just couldn’t afford to do it before we did.”...



Which got reader Lew wondering if, perhaps folks like the good Mr. Bennett themselves might have a personal financial incentive for 'wanting' to balance the budget every year.

More specifically Lew pointed us towards the following from a wee hangover from the GordCo Inc. years known as the "Balanced Budget and Ministerial Accountability Act":

Prohibition against deficit budgets
Section 2:  
The main estimates for a fiscal year must not contain a forecast of a deficit for that fiscal year.

Section 3 (salary holdback)
(1) The salary otherwise payable under section 4 of the Members' Remuneration and Pensions Act to each member of the Executive Council must be reduced by 20%.

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Now.

Of course, in reality, this entire thing is pure, unadulterated codswallop.

How do we know that?

Because, whenever the going got really tough in the past (i.e. before they got better at stealing MSP dollars from healthcare 'clients' sometimes known as 'us') the BC Liberal government would just suspend the act.

Which is exactly what occurred in 2009 (i.e. before they got even better at stealing MSP, ICBC and BC Hydro dollars from 'us'):

The B.C. Liberal government is taking a temporary leave from its championed balanced-budget law to clear the path for two years of deficit spending.

Finance Minister Colin Hansen introduced amended legislation Monday that allows the government to spend in the red, but he promised to return the province to balanced budgets in the near future...


So, if this thing can be suspended at will why even have it at all?

Well, in my opinion it, as is so often the case with this government, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with real policy for 'us' and everything to do with spin, PR and the Cronification of Everything (to wit, see Norm Farrell's series on falling revenues from resource-intensive corporations as MSP, ICBC and BCHydro transfers, and more, rose).

OK?


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This Day In Clarkland...Bill Bennett Admits That B.C.'s Balanced Budget Is Bullshite.

BullshitIsNot
GroceriesVille


From Rob Shaw's latest in the VSun, in which a proMedia Club member is finally forced to start playing catch-up to Norm Farrell:

...BC Hydro) owes around $852 million to the government over the next three fiscal years in mandatory annual dividend payments. But it doesn’t have the cash, and so it will have to borrow the funds, said Energy Minister Bill Bennett.

The contentious practice sees the monopoly energy company borrow money — which ratepayers will have to pay back in the future — so that it can meet government’s annual demand for a share of its profits.

Bennett has admitted the practice is unsustainable, and will begin to be reduced by $100 million a year in 2018 until it is eliminated.

“If we could have afforded to have started to reduce the dividend by $100 million a year sooner, it would have been great,” Bennett said Monday.

“But we couldn’t. We’re on a fiscal plan and we want to balance the budget every year and we just couldn’t afford to do it before we did.”...


Surprise.


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Subheader about grocery bills and budgets and all that that ignore the bullshit entirely?...Why, the Dean, of course.


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This Afternoon In Clarkland...Slot Machine Anti-Stenograpy.

TheNewNewNew
MacauVille


As Laila Yuile and Sandy Garrossino have made clear all day long, this isn't the first time that the BC Liberal government has instituted a super elite team to ensure that large scale money laundering, and worse, is not happening within Lotuslandian gaming emporiums.

To wit:

...The 12-member (Integrated Illegal Gaming Enforcement Team) IIGET was dissolved on April 1, 2009 by then-Housing Minister (and BCLiberal Minister of Everything) Rich Coleman...


Which, of course, means that a certain segment of the puffed-up proMedia punditry will soon be telling us that hockey bags full of cash on casino floors are actually all the fault of the 1990's NDP.

Because war rooms!

Or some such thing.


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Our Man In Vegas Appears To Be On The Side Of The...

...Angels....errrr...Adelsons.

Republico has the story:

LAS VEGAS — Dispirited over a Republican Party primary that has devolved into an ugly, damaging fight, some of the GOP’s biggest financiers are reevaluating whether to invest in the 2016 presidential contest at all. 

Among those on the sidelines: Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino mogul who hosted the Republican Jewish Coalition’s spring meeting at his Venetian hotel this weekend. His apparent ambivalence about 2016 was shared by many RJC members here. With grave doubts about the viability of the few remaining Republican contenders, many of these Republican donors have decided to sit out the rest of the primary entirely. And while some are reluctantly getting behind a remaining candidate, others are shifting their attention to congressional contests...

{snip}

....On Thursday evening, Adelson hosted some of the organization’s top officials at his palatial mansion. While former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper discussed how fractured parties can unite, Adelson listened but said little, according to three people who were present...


Gosh.

If Republican rubes with billions want to throw a little cash Mr. Harper's way to hear him pretend that his takeover of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada in the wake of the bamboozlement of little Petey was an exercise in 'uniting fractured parties' it's their money, I guess.


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This Day In Clarkland...Slot Machine Stenography.

CasinoIndustrialComplexes
'RUsVille


Black Press' Tom Fletcher has the 'story':

The B.C. government is establishing a 22-member police group dedicated to taking organized crime activity out of B.C. casinos.

Finance Minister Mike de Jong and Public Safety Minister Mike Morris announced the new team in Vancouver Monday. De Jong said the province is making a five-year commitment that will also include dedicated inspectors from the Gaming Policy Enforcement Branch and have a budget of $4.3 million a year.

Morris said he expects the new team to perform better than a previous dedicated police unit that was federally funded and not well integrated with provincial agencies.

The new unit will be administered by B.C.'s Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, which focuses on organized crime. Kevin Hackett, chief officer of the anti-gang unit that includes RCMP and city police forces, said it's a complex problem that requires international police co-operation.

"We won't get people walking into casinos with hockey bags full of cash," Hackett said...



Don't know about you but I, for one, feel much better now.

Than I did, say, oh I dunno...

Six years ago.


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You Want To Know Why This Province Is Going To Hell In A Handbasket?

ThereIsA
ClubVille


You really want to know?

Go and read Merv Adey's latest post (and this is where I convert to my John Lydon impersonation).

Rrrrrrright....

Now!

****

You still here?

OK, I guess I'm going to have to give you a teaser from Merv's post:

...(L)et’s deconstruct the bullshit, otherwise known as talking points, first on party fundraising. Some of these points come from the likes of Ben James. Some from pro “status quo” pundits....

{snip}

...“There is no quid pro quo” in special access fundraisers. This is Norman Spector’s line. It’s a way of saying campaign finance reform is a solution in search of a problem. To quote him again, “The choice in BC is between a pro-industry party and a pro-union party.” There! It’s solved! It’s not an ethics problem at all. Federal rules and the rules in many provinces were changed in the last fifteen years because of Adscam and other high profile issues. Spector is arguing (unbelievably) that industry players donate to the BCLiberals tens of millions in election years and non-election years because they hate the NDP. It’s not because they want lax regulation , non-existent enforcement, inside tracks on contracts etc. The collapse of government revenue from resource extraction (down about $4 billion annually from 2002, despite increased export volume) has nothing to do with a steady stream of industry cash to the party coffers...


Now...

Go read it all immediately, and then come back and tell me that the inability of our local puffed-up punditry to call a spade a spade is not THE biggest problem with the body politic in this province.

OK?


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What Happened In Edmonton Will Not Stay In Edmonton.

PartiesRunDemocraticallyWillAlwaysHaveACertainLevelOf
DiscordVille


Cliff, the propietor of 'Rusty Idols' has a thoughtful take on what went down at the FedDip convention:

Here is his lede, but go read it all if you're interested:

I'm a proud New Democrat and I've always felt more sympathy for the left wing of the party. I believe the party made a tragic and mindbogglingly stupid decision to run too far to the right during the election.

Mulcair had to go and deserved to lose.

But the vote to study and debate the Leap Manifesto (NOT adopt it, an important distinction you can expect to be roundly ignored in the coming days and weeks.) massively overcompensated and took the party too far left...


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Cliff's follow-up post is worth having a look at also.
Mr. Beer 'N Hockey was there as well and he has been blogging this weekend also.....Beer looks at things a little differently than Cliff, but he is no less thoughtful.


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Sometimes At The End Of The Day...

...It's easy to pick the Bruce tune that fits.

Even when it is the one that is not his own.

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And, for every kid stuck in a real or virtual North Carolinian purgatory of a certain kind, there is always....Mr. (and the other Mr.) Sedaris.


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This Weekend In Clarkland...Conflicty Business? (Part Deux)

Peddling
InAReallyInfluentialTimeVille


Yesterday, following up on a recent development in the super-secret, big-money BC Liberal donor hook-up story, we asked the following question:

Why, exactly, is the Conflict Commissioner himself now ignoring the perception of bias in a matter pertaining to Ms. Clark (when he did not in 2012) given the fact that the Commissioner's son is still, it would appear, in the employ of Ms. Clark's government as an OIC-appointed Deputy Minister?



Today, Bob Mackin, writing in the Tyee, notes that a couple of folks about Lotusland, one of whom  wrote to the Conflict Commisioner in the first place on the big-money hook-up matter, are now thinking similarly:

...Dermod Travis of Integrity BC, which describes itself as a non-partisan political advocacy group, said Fraser should also recuse himself from the review of Clark's fundraising activities.

''He should not be undertaking any investigation that involves the Premier's office because of the appearance of conflict of interest,'' Travis said. ''Nothing has changed that gets around that particular issue for him.''

(Opposition MLA David) Eby said he will be writing Fraser to ask if someone else should be dealing with the complaint.

In an interview, Fraser confirmed he was investigating the complaints but would make no further comment...


But of course.

After all, why should a Conflict Commissioner comment on conflictyness.

I mean, that would be crazy.

Wouldn't it?


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Site C Environmental Breach...When In Doubt Obfuscate.

RuleBreakingIsTheirWayOfWorkingWithThe
SystemVille


From Mike Carter and Jonny Wakefield of the Alaska Highway News:

Construction crews on the Site C dam failed to adequately control sediment and runoff into the Peace River, potentially hurting fish populations, Environmental Assessment Office (EAO) investigators have found.

In a report issued April 7, the regulator found BC Hydro breached two conditions of its environmental assessment certificate aimed at minimizing the flow of silt and runoff into the Peace River.

The utility has been ordered to work with sediment control specialists to develop a new plan to combat erosion and runoff by April 22...

{snip}


...Site C spokesperson Dave Conway said the EAO order is an example of the system working...


I mean.

Do these spokethingies of the flack-hackerious kind even pay attention to the things that are coming out of their mouths?

****

So.

How long has this 'system working' thing been going on, and what's the problem with a little silt anyway?

...."They've been digging in that river since October, and we've been complaining about silt in the river since October," (Peace Valley Landowner Ass'n President Ken Boon) said. "Our concern was they were creating way too much silt in the river itself with all the digging they did."

Elevated levels of silt and sediment put Peace River fish populations at risk—especially during spawning season, Boon said.

"Silt and eggs don't mix," he said. "That's why they make these conditions on these permits." ...


And if this were happening in, say, that big river out by the farm of the guy who dances, but hates EMail?



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And, for the details that matter,  Laila has been all over this for months.


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