Puffed-UpPunditryBeDarnedVille
I'm not even going to bother with the preamble today.
Instead, I offer only a single passage from Bob Mackin's latest.
Please note that it mentions a number of the usual suspects, not to mention MO's:
"...In case this is your first time here, Exel is the world's largest third-party logistics company and an arm of German giant Deutsche Post DHL, one of the biggest corporations in the world and a Formula 1 auto racing sponsor. Exel gained the Alberta liquor warehousing and distribution monopoly in 1994. Expansion to B.C. is part of a strategy to gain dominance in liquor logistics throughout Canada and the U.S.
Back in 2005, Exel hired BC Liberal insiders Mark Jiles and Patrick Kinsella to pressure the government to let it take over the province's liquor warehousing and distribution. In a 2009 internal memo (called Project Last Spike), Exel pondered using its close relationship with liquor minister Rich Coleman to influence the writing of the request for proposals. Read the basics here in Business in Vancouver and here in The Tyee.
Since Feb. 23 -- two days after the privatization was announced by Finance Minister Kevin Falcon in the latest provincial budget -- I have diligently sought any and all of the government's business cases and cost-benefit analyses justifying the privatization. I have requested interviews with Coleman and his predecessors Shirley Bond and John Les. Les was in charge of the liquor file from 2005 to 2008. He was not only a target of heavy lobbying by Jiles, but I know for a fact that he also offered Jiles confidential advice on several occasions.
My repeated interview requests have been denied. My Freedom of Information requests have been an adventure, to say the least. Join me as I recount the roller-coaster journey that is far from over..."
Will the crony capitalism never end?
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The cronyism will never end as long as the right wing is in power. We got to get them out. PERIOD!
ReplyDeleteDairyland.
ReplyDeleteRemember when Dairyland had that huge plant/warehouse in Burnaby that serviced all of BC? All of the milk produced in BC came into that facility, was processed, packaged and shipped out to consumers and retailers. And then they were bought out, the plant and warehouse were shuttered and all of the staff were fired. BC's milk now goes straight from BC farms to Alberta to be processed and packaged by Albertans, and then shipped back to BC retailers - by Albertans.
Those dairy jobs are NEVER coming back to BC.
Now think about TILMA/NWPTA and the mostly passed Bill C-311 and what that means down the road. The deal (successorship) that the BCGEU did for their members who work in the BC Liquor warehouses will be useless when those facilities are closed and the enterprise is consolidated into Exel's Alberta operations.
Those BC Liquor jobs will NEVER be coming back to BC.