An Insider Explains The Havoc That The BC Liberals' New Era Wreaked.

TheOptimismOf
TheCapoVille


The following is from a post I wrote in the deepest, darkest days of GordCo Inc's destruction of British Columbia's social contract back in late 2005:

The central tenet of the neandercons' con is that the private sector can run absolutely everything more efficiently than government.

Thus, the mainstream media-driven mantra that 'privatization is good for everyone.'

Unfortunately, even in specific situations where skeptics like me might, in a weak moment, be willing to meet them halfway, things rarely work out as planned.

Witness CN's recent repeated derailments, or Maximus' repeated problems answering phone calls, or BC Ferries' repeated difficulties keeping propellers turning.

But all of these problems pale in comparison to those that have engulfed the Ministry of Children and Family Development since Mr. Campbell and his minions began to wreak their havoc in 2001.

Sound a little over the top?

Sure.

But.....

Remember Doug Walls?

Remember the ditching of community- based small non-profits for the centralized business model?

Remember how inefficient that turned out to be and how much it cost us?

Remember the eight, maybe nine, figure cutbacks?

Remember the bloviating of former BC Liberal cabinet ministers, one of whom later quit and tried to become Mayor of Vancouver?

Remember the death of the little girl at the hands of a clearly unsuitable relative acting as a foster parent?

Heard about the almost total breakdown of the effectiveness of social workers whose caseloads have skyrocketted?

Sure, we all know all about that.

And now we also know about the tragic case of another little girl's death that was never even investigated because of the total emasculation of child protection oversight initiated by the BC Liberals.

This tragedy is not something that can be waved away with rhetoric. It is political dynamite and a former special investigator who worked with the coroner's office named Kathleen Stephany is not pulling any punches as she comes out swinging with her side of the story.

Of course, as a prelude to the stonewall to come, the savaging of Ms. Stephany has already begun because, rumour has it, she is nothing more than a 'disgruntled former employee'.

Trains jumping the tracks repeatedly because a former crown, now private, corporation is cutting costs in narrow, twisting canyons is one thing, but business model-mediated mistreatment of defenseless children is an act malfeasance that must end.

Now.


Unfortunately, nothing really started to change for another eleven years that wasn't driven by the courts. Even the independent child and youth representative, which was first disappeared early in GordCo Inc's 'New Era' but later reinstated in the wake of a scathing report by Ted Hughes that dealt with, among many other undefensible things, the uninvestigated deaths of  hundreds of children in  the New Era's so called 'care'.

But here's the thing....

Those of us that were paying attention back in the day could see that all of those things listed above (and more) were bad, intentional and ideological. In addition, we could also see that they were driven by willful tax cuts, often for the most wealthy among us, that created huge deficits that required massive budget cuts that helped justified privatization.

How do we now know for sure that we were right all along?

Well, it turns out that one of GordCo Inc's longest serving capos, former BC Liberal minister George Abbott has written a political science dissertation telling everyone concerned that this was, indeed the case;

Andrew Macleod has the story in the Tyee.

Here is a bit about how GordCo's New Era approach resulted in the savaging of the Child and Family Services ministry that ultimately made the Hughes investigation necessary:

...“Although the tax cut was undoubtedly popular among many British Columbians, few fully understood the fiscal repercussions that would follow,” Abbott wrote. “Cautionary advice was dismissed and tax cuts quickly translated into a $4.4-billion deficit and deep expenditure reductions for ministries other than Health, Education, and Advanced Education.”

Since the three protected ministries made up 70 per cent of the province’s budget, deep cuts had to be made in the resource and social ministries that make up the rest of provincial spending.

Abbott goes into detail with chapters on what those cuts meant in three ministries: community, Aboriginal and women’s services; human resources; and children and family development.

In the case of the children and families ministry, where the impact was perhaps most dramatic, the focus became on reducing the caseload. That eventually led to news stories about the deaths of children and the failure to review many of those deaths, and a report by Ted Hughes that traced the issue back to the 2001 budget cuts.

In Abbott’s account, the Liberals’ 2001 campaign promises to maintain and improve services were trumped by tax cuts and fiscal commitments.

“When the generous vision for children and families embraced by the New Era document proved incompatible with the twin imperatives of tax cuts in 2001 and a balanced budget by 2004, the vision succumbed to those political imperatives,” he wrote.

“Unfunded cost pressures proved a recurrent challenge across the New Era and demonstrated one point conclusively: demand for services may rise or fall for any number of economic, demographic or social reasons, but concern for a finance minister’s balanced budget will not be among them.”...

Now.

There is much that is laudable in Mr. Abbott's attempt to set the record straight, after the fact.

But.

Why did he not do something about the problem at the time or, at the very least, why did he not quit and tell British Columbians what was really going on when it was still possible do something about it?

Here is Mr. Abbott's explanation, again from Mr. McLeod's Tyee piece:

...“I think some people will be surprised that I’m as blunt as I am,” Abbott said in an interview, adding that his account is a cautionary tale for politicians everywhere. “I think governments should be extraordinarily cautious before launching any tax cut that in an adverse economic shift will produce drastic cuts to public programs.”

The tax cut, despite its large impact, was never debated in cabinet, Abbott said. “There wasn’t a lot of opportunity to say anything at the time. It was a done deal on day one.”

He acknowledged some people would ask why there wasn’t more public dissent from him or others inside the government. Abbott said despite his misgivings and belief that a more modest tax cut would have been wiser, he chose to remain optimistic, work hard and hope for the best...


Personally, I'm not entirely convinced that Mr. Abbott's approach in that regard was so laudable.

Especially that 'hope for the best' part given that the demonstrable evidence at the time indicated that, in many cases, the worst was in fact occurring.


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Update: Apologies for getting monicker wrong initially.


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Why I Quit Hockey Playoff Pools

McEechnieShaveOffThat(Playoff)Beard
BCTeeVeeVille


I consider myself lucky, especially given my obsessive tendencies, that I have not yet been hooked by online sports pools of any kind.

And for that I can personally thank Esa Tikkanen.

Why?

Because I quit such pools, cold turkey, after the 1990 Stanley Cup playoffs when I realized that I had no interest in cheering for players I hated just because I had drafted them.

Case in point - the above mentioned, and pictured, Mr. Tikkanen who helped power, and 'agitate', the Gretzkyless Edmonton Oilers to a surprising Cup win that spring.

So.

With that as background, I, for one, was ecstatic when the slewfooted hypoglossal king, Brad Marchand, was goated, and I mean that in the literal rather than acronymized sense of the word, at the end of a long goal sucking shift on the Blues' game seven winning goal last night...

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Subheader refers to an on-air exchange between a then still young John McKeachie and Jack Webster when the former had the audacity to show up with a scraggly beard that made him look like the butler's younger beatnik brother on the Munsters....Or some such thing.
And, yes, I'm actually old enough to actually remember the spring night in 1970 when Mr. Orr flew through the air to win the series for the Big Bad Bruins...After the goal my brothers and I went outside and started knocking the stuffing out of each other in the twilight...


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CAPPtung Baby?

AllYourProMediaPosts'RBelongTo
UsVille


So, I couldn't help but wonder if...

...there is any connection between the accelerated drop in Lotuslandian gas prices and the end of the legislative sitting 10 days ago?

If you get my drift.



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What's this CAPP/Postmedia connectitudinal thing all about?....Norm Farrell explained it awhile back by channeling the ghost of Rafe Mair.


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The Sweet Yearn Of Youth.

Searching
AlwaysVille


First of all, Song Exploder.

Song

Freaking

Exploder

All right?

****

One of the things that bugs me about getting old is that it inevitably gets more and more difficult to serendipitously stumble across something that smacks you up the side of the head so hard that it lights a fire that can, if you're lucky, turn into an all consuming obsessive bout with insight, however fleeting.

Like, for example, with songs.

I still remember finding 'Jail Guitar Doors' on that fake 'first' Clash Album (i.e. the 'blue' version in Canada) and slapping it on a cassette so I could play/rewind/play/rewind/play/rewind over and over again while driving the backstreets of southern Vancouver Island in the Kenny Van.

And that was before I even knew that the 'Wayne' of the first line was Mr. Kramer of the MC-5.

In hindsight, I think what really struck me was the evolution of Mr. Jones' vocal layered over top of Strummer's overdrive that would soon become so prominent on that third double album to come.

Which makes sense, maybe, given that the primordial version of the tune concerned was first scaffolded together by Strummer back in his old 101'er days.

Anyway...

I've been enjoying the musical work of a young woman named Sharon van Etten for awhile now.

But I wouldn't say I've been obsessed.

But today, on the way home I put on the Song Exploder episode wherein she explains how she built one of her new tunes, Seventeen, from melodic, sonic and lyrical perspectives.

All this explanation built to such a crescendo that when they finally played the tune in its entirety at the end of the podcast I couldn't wait to listen.

And then, when that was done, I got off the bus immediately so that I could walk the long way home.

And listen again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

Until I finally made it back to the subterranean blues room where I madly stitched together a bit of digitally enhanced back story into my fading memory before writing this.

OK?

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Interestingly, Ms. van Etten's tune is only disguised as a yearning thing...Instead, as she explains, it's really about how the reckoning can lead to closure and more....And it's also about building a wedge to rock out on...And, get this, Michael Cera's Jupiter 4...Go figure.
Don't give a hoot-in-heckfire what the kids (or, at least, the near kids) are up to these days?....Well, check out this edition of SExploder to learn how Lindsay Buckingham conceived of and built one of Fleetwood Mac's biggest hits...You'll be surprised by the level of literalness coupled with introspection and very little cynicism...Seriously.



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Is Big Rich's Wurlitzer Crank Broken?

Don'tKnowMuchAboutStenography
WhatAWonderfulVSunWorldVille


First there was the stenography report by the Postmedia's number two man in sick society town that was apparently based on the highly prized and completely unbiased notes of one Ms. Mary Polak...

Speaker Darryl Plecas called an investigation conducted by the former chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada “pathetic” and said she was “stupid” for having listened to the accused men, according to the Opposition Liberal house leader who was in the room at the time and took notes of the conversation.

Liberal house leader Mary Polak released 16 pages of detailed notes she took during a Wednesday meeting with Plecas, Green house leader Sonia Furstenau and NDP MLA Gary Begg.

In them, Plecas railed against the report by former chief justice Beverley McLachlin and promised to use B.C.’s police act to conduct his own probe into alleged wrongdoing involving officials in the building...


Then came Big Rich's attempt to turn the wurlitzer's crank...

Based on the comments, Mr. Coleman's gambit did not work.

How sad for the former Minister of Everything.



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Getting ready to climb back into the cigar tube for the final cross country sardining of the season...That plan to save 'Bohemian Rhapsody' for last on the monopoly mongers' AV feed is looking pretty good right about now...
Update: Here is a decidedly non-stenographic account from Jon Woodward of CTV in which he actually uses independent facts to fisk the notes of the good Ms. Polak....And, yes, the #@*$in' plane is late!


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Public Inquiry Preview...The Friendly Disappears The Lede.

WhenInDoubt
LubeAllTruthsVille


Black Press' very fine legislative columnist Mr. Fletcher of Tom's Harbour recently told us all that GordCo Inc's former Minister of Everything is happy that the public inquiry on all that he and his did to facilitate the exponential growth of 'Hockey Bags Full Of Dusted Cash, Llc.'

But why, we couldn't help wonder, would the former Minister of Everything be happy?

Because, according to the good Mr. Fletcher, this:

...(Rich) Coleman was minister in charge of the B.C. Lottery Corporation in 2009 when a dedicated illegal gambling enforcement team was disbanded. A new dedicated team was set up in 2016 as large casinos were operating in Metro Vancouver...


Except...

Didn't the former Minister of Everything tell Sean Holman in 2010 that he dismantled  the IGET team back in 2009 because he had something else better to go right then and there (i.e. seven years BEFORE he and Cookie Dough Mike pretended to actually do something)?

Why, yes, he did!

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Lotuslandian Real Estate Correction: Nevermind The Soft Landing...

...Bring On The Developer Party-Friendly Disaster Scenarios!

Courtesy, of course, those fine folks at Postmedia;

After all, how else are you going to bamboozle the citizenry into voting against their own self interest down the road if you don't start the boozlement right this instant.

Or some such thing.



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When In Doubt, Always Thank Your Own Personal Flack Hackery First....

Link

Do you see what I see?

****

Now.

You would think that the shame, it would burn.

But, when you and yours are working the refs, hard, in an effort to have them recognize a phantom political reincarnation worthy of a pre-public inquiry Senate seat, perhaps not.



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And as for that 'Strategies Of The Inlet' hashtag thingy?....Well...You know


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Awaiting The Celebratory VSun Headline In 144pt Type...

Reverse
SchadenfeudeVille

Link

Or.

Perhaps not.

After all, the fine folks over at Postmedia's pacific division can always start fussing about...

....This.



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Wither The Inquiry, Public Or Otherwise.

AllYourConsequences'RBelongTo
UsVille


I'm just about to climb into the goddamned cigar tube and then will be forced to endure 48 hours in the windowless science geek dungeon with little to no natural light and bad coffee for the duration.

Which means I'll probably not hear about whether or not we'll get a public inquiry into the Whaling Industry and all that entails until well after the fact.

But, before I go, I feel compelled to say something about the Dean's missive wherein he concludes the following, in his kicker, sans, you know, actual...

Evidence:

...(W)hen cabinet meets next Wednesday, I expect the New Democrats will brush past any last-minute reservations and get on with a public inquiry whose main purpose is political...


Sure, Mr. Palmer does quote David Eby saying this:

...Eby would like everything wrapped up in two years. He sees an inquiry as an exercise in “political accountability … who made the decisions, who benefited, why did they make those decisions?”...


Which isn't the same thing.

As the Dean's kicker, I mean.

But here's the thing...

I don't give a hoot-in-heckfire if there are no convictions, or even additional blockbuster-type evidence.

Because, at the very least, I want the perpetrators (starting with Vader, Darth) to be publicly shamed by their words, actions and deeds that facilitated the flow of corrupted billions into the province that is killing our kids' dreams, not to mention our body politic.

OK?


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Would You Find Me?

PuttingThePedalDown
ToPutTheWheelsInMotionVille


This is a special apology for that tiny percentage of you who stop by here occasionalaly looking for a new Sunday Set.

Just so you know, I've got the tune list for the next edition all ready to go. Furthermore, the Whackadoodle and I have been diligently working on the playing and the singing during our evening walks down the alley and around the corner, not to mention during our weekly strolls along the sandy strip where the north arm of the big muddy meets the sea.

But I'm just too slammed with science geek stuff at the moment to get things recorded this weekend.

Anyway.

When I have to go to work on a Sunday, in this case to finish reading and ranking the latest batch of my colleagues' grant applications, I often like to let the musical algorithms run.

And this afternoon this, from the bastard who set me and my kids to 'forcing-our-music-on-strangers' thing off in the first place, popped up.

Watch for the foot stomp-induced pedal break at the 4:20 mark.

And what comes after, of course...

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And if you want to hear Mr. Hansard wax on, in that most Irish way of his, about all things musical, including why Van Morrison songs work for busking, give this a listen.


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How The BCL's Wild West Donor Deluge Worked...

YouPay
YouGetToPlay(WithRealMoney)Ville


Cause*:

Effect:

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*Courtesy Norm Farrell via his Twittmachine feed.


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Was There A Method Behind Rich Coleman's (Most Recent) Madness?

DeflectorSpikeSpin
UberAllesVille



At the very least you've seen the headline...

Which is that Rich Coleman, to quote Andrew Wilkinson, drew 'parallels' between the holocaust and Dipperian legislation designed to protect the ALR that Mess'rs Coleman and Wilkinson, together with their best friends and influential donors, errrrr, uncles, did their best to dismantle.

However, given the way the proMedia works it's more likely you've heard/read/seen much more about the (mostly righteous) furor that followed.

And then, of course, there is the blanket coverage of the full apology that only came after Mr. Coleman first tried floating a non-apology apology that was savaged by pretty much everyone.

But, here's the thing...

How many proMedia stories have you seen since Thursday, when this all began on the floor of the Ledge, that are focussed on the recent re-kindling of the Casino-Industrial-Complex scandal in the wake of recent revelations regarding the coddling of the high rolling offshore whales?

If you get my drift.


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Of course, as you might expect, the good Mr. Wilkinson didn't bother to mention that it was Mr. Coleman that generated this ridiculously non-parallel parallelogrammatic upside down cake..




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What's NOT The Matter With Kansas?

AllYourBestInterestsCanBecome
OursAgainVille


Gosh.

Is it possible that Thomas Frank's thesis is no longer entirely correct?

From Reis Tebault of the WaPo...

Julie Burkhart was in her early 20s when she responded to the person yelling at her as she walked into work. How could she ever take a job at a place like that? the woman wanted to know. Burkhart didn’t realize it then, but she’d have that same argument for decades.

It was 1991, and Burkhart had returned from college to discover that her hometown of Wichita had become the front line of the religious right’s battle against abortion. She went straight into the trenches.

At a local clinic, she took calls from women who wanted abortions and scheduled their appointments. That’s where she met the protesters, and there were a lot of them that year.

Those sweltering months would come to be known as the Summer of Mercy, when members of the bellicose antiabortion group Operation Rescue traveled to the Midwestern city in droves and swarmed abortion clinics. The next month and a half radically changed the politics of abortion in Kansas...

{snip}

...Nearly three decades later, Burkhart sat down at her desk in a women’s clinic not far from the place where she first encountered the antiabortion activists. On Friday, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that the state’s constitution fundamentally protects abortion rights.

The news flashed across her screen, and her staff rushed in to read it with her.

Kansans have “the ability to control one’s own body, to assert bodily integrity, and to exercise self-determination. This right allows a woman to make her own decisions regarding her body, health, family formation, and family life — decisions that can include whether to continue a pregnancy.”... 

{snip}

...“I’m not sure it’s really sunk in yet,” she said Friday evening. “It means, for me … this has been worth the fight."

And there were times, over the past 20-some years, when she wondered whether it would be worth it — like in 2009, when an antiabortion extremist murdered her mentor, physician George Tiller, who also ran a clinic in Wichita...



All of which just goes to show that, maybe, just maybe, it is still possible for folks to understand what is actually best for them and theirs, especially if the fox-flung sand can be washed from their eyes and the hate radio prop-goop can be drained from their ears.


OK?




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Coddling All Whales.

AllYourHighRollers'RUs
HockeyBagsFullofTwentiesVille


The Dipper-mandated investigation of staff harassment at that casino with its own Canada Line station down at the edge of the Big Muddy is out and Bob Mackin has the fully story over at the Breaker.

Here are a few pull quotes from Uncle Bob's very thorough report:

...The Project Guardian report by Paladin Security senior investigator Jared Brin, commissioned by B.C. Lottery Corporation in November 2017, was published May 1 with the names of complainants redacted. The report said those who gambled with more money at the Great Canadian Gaming-owned casino were cut slack, even when those high-rollers misbehaved and harmed staff...

{snip}

...“Two individuals told us that a manager or supervisor explicitly told them that they are to acknowledge and actively facilitate a different standard of behaviour for VIP patrons as compared to non-VIP patrons. According to several dealers and supervisors, verbal abuse bordering on uttering threats occurs daily, if not hourly,” said the 37-page report...

{snip}

...Paladin was originally hired to examine complaints of sexual harassment by high rollers against staff, but it found problems much worse: at least 18 instances of documented physical assaults and at least seven instances of assault with weapons, at least four reported patron-on-staff instances of sexual harassment, and at least four unreported staff-on-staff instances of sexual harassment.

Paladin found one case of a table games dealer who had been threatened with death by a player, but the suspect was given only a 24-hour ban. Respondents said managers discouraged table games dealers from reporting assaults with unspecified weapons to the Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch and RCMP...


Gosh.

It really is beginning to look like Big Rich and his very Fine Friends in High Rolling Places built the local Lotuslandian Whaling Tank Laundry Industry by completely dismantling oversight at the front end, the back end and all points in between.

And, of course, damn the consequences.

Imagine that!



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In case anyone interested missed it...




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