What Did The Stomping Of The Therapeutics Initiative And The Six Million Dollar Deal Have In Common?

IfGordonCampbellFlewInToday
They'dSendALimosineAnywayVille


A former very fine public servant by the name of Mr. Graham Whitmarsh, who just happens to be one of the two architects of the six million dollar deal that ended the RailGate trial just as Gary Collins was about to take the stand, did not work non-stop for the BC Liberal regimes of Gordon Campbell and Christy Clark before his recent, apparently permanent, departure.

Specifically, the good Mr. Whitmarsh took a little break from the Golden Era government a few years back and went to work for the pillar of society, purveyor of fine (reduced tax-levied) motorcars, and operator of golf courses, Mr. David Ho, with (surprise!) Mr. Gary Collins.

And when he came back to government, first in the Campbellerian end days, and then, later, in the dawning of the Age of Snooklandia, the good Mr. Whitmarsh spent some time running the Ministry of Health.

Which brings us to Rod Mickleburgh's recent post about the re-funding of the Therapeutics Initiative, an Health Ministry-funded entity that both the Campbelleros and the Snooklandians have done their best to kill for years, despite the fact that it has saved British Columbians millions of dollars and helped to protect them from useless and/or adverse drug reactions (or worse).

Here is Mr. Mickleburgh's final paragraph (but I recommend you go and read the entire thing):

...Finally, with the departure of Gordon Campbell-appointee Graham Whitmarsh as deputy health minister and the fine Stephen Brown in his place, the (provincial) government listened. Health Minister Terry Lake announced this week that the Therapeutics Initiative would be resuming its valuable work...

Imagine that!


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There Ain't No Guilt In This Pleasure.

IfYouPassThroughOnAFriday
BetterMakeAStopAtJason'sVille


Look.

I've got a confession to make.

Which is that I actually watch Nashville.

I know, I know, I know, I know - It's only a matter of time until they pull a 'Who Shot JR/Powers Boothe/Jimmy Jones.

But, still, I like the idea of people sitting around just making up songs - and they do almost/kinda/sorta show you a bit of that.

Anyway...

If anybody ever told the real story of all that that sittin' around makin' the thing...

Well,  I would watch and listen over and over and over again.

****

What's that?

They already have? 

And it's playing in Vancouver right now?

The hell you say!

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Dipper Developments: Is The Guard (Really) Changing?...Part Deux

Personally, I'm watching the Twittmachine a little more closely than usual this afternoon to see to see which way the old guard wind is blowing...



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And why don't those fine Dipperian MLA's who are calling up fine folks like Mr. Bailey just go on the record with their comments so that we can keep score? 
In case you missed it, Part One is.....Here.


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Wallin Then And Now....There Is An Actual Documented Record Of What Harper Said.

HeSaid
HeSaidVille


And the thing is, it's not hard to find.

Which is the infuriating, because the proMedia so often refuses to do the digging.

And/or they refuse to print/broadcast what they find/know.

In this specific instance, Norm Farrell gets right to the darkest heart of the matter just by reading Hansard.

You will find Norm's report.....here.


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Dipper Developments...Is The Guard (Really) Changing?

SometimesADateIsJustADateAnd
SometimesIt'sAWholeLotMoreVille


From the CP (unbylined in The Province):

VANCOUVER — The provincial council of British Columbia’s New Democrats has put off a decision on the date of a leadership vote to replace outgoing party leader Adrian Dix.

Earlier this week, the party’s executive recommended that the vote be set for May 25 of next year.

The date needs to be ratified by a vote of the provincial council, which now says a decision won’t be made until the issue has been discussed at a meeting on Nov.17.

The council says the meeting, immediately following the party’s convention, will allow for a better process for discussion...

As we noted previously, this whole 'date for the BCNDP leadership vote' thing may be about a whole lot more than Nathan Cullen.

Which means the kiboshing of the party executive's attempt to ram through an early date by the provincial council may actually open the door to a new guard, from inside the party, to have a run at the thing.

Which was a point that John Horgan made the other day on the MoCo.

Which makes this date change stuff a pretty big deal, right?

Particularly when you consider the fact that the entire puffed-up punditry around here has been calling for a changing of the Dipper guard, pretty much non-stop, since May 14th at approximately 8:17pm give or take 90 seconds or so.

Well, apparently not.

Because if you are the Dean of the Lotuslandian Legislative Press Gallery it would appear that it is actually a point of cynical derision.

Or some such thing....

Sheesh.


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Is Mr. Frum The Greatest Serial Obfuscator Of Them All?

Look.

I don't give a hoot-in-heckfire about how or why David Frum pulled off his resurrection shuffle down south so that he could re-merge, unscathed and Sunday show-safe, as the 'reasonable' conservative who never really believed in the Bush Doctrine, the Prince of Darkness, or the divide, stomp and conquer strategy of the four horseman of the racist apocalypse (eg. Atwater/Ailes/Rove/Luntz) that is killing America.

But I do care that Frum might try to pull off his 'reasonable' act up here in the event that his buddy in Straussianism, Mr. Harper, finally pulls the chute and brings him home to run the MoCo.

Which is why, I think, it is important to point out that Mr. Frum has been making stuff up about Canada for quite awhile now.

We noted one particularly egregious instance of this awhile back, here.

And another more recently, here.

****

As for the tweet, from yesterday, above....

Well, Frummy does know that what he wrote there is actually the opposite of what is really going down, right?

Which has me wondering if he will soon coin some sort of nifty descriptor for the dynamic Wallin-Duffy duo like, say....

...The Axis of Bo-Weevils?

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This Day In Snookland...A Twittmachine Feed That Is Not Ours.

The Inonoaklin River valley. Goodbye, trees. Enjoy your trip to China! #bcpoli http://t.co/PiaakVyFgv pic.twitter.com/La6dC9SWj1
— Premier Barbie (@Premier_Barbie) October 23, 2013

Not that we have taken a disliking to said feed based on anything that has flowed through it so far...


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When I Was A (Much) Younger Man...

...Hats!

Bigger E. was not always thus.

In fact, back in the days of Berkeley she was the tiniest of e's.

And on Saturday mornings we almost always got up early and walked up Hopkins past Monterey Market to the park next to the King School Pool.

It's just a little park, really, with a few swings and a climber, a small field, and a toddler area right next to a huge eucalyptus tree.

Because the lab I worked in back then was up in the hills, the smell of eucalyptus will aways be Berkeley too me.

But for tiny e. eucalyptus trees meant hats.

Because that's what the shells of their fallen seeds look like:

And on those Saturday mornings I would line those little fallen hats up along the edge of the toddler area.

And e. would rush around knocking them down as fast as she could up screaming 'hats!' gleefully as she did so.

Afterwards, sometimes, we would head across the Bay to the Zoo to watch, amongst other things, the giraffes reach up to grab and chew eucalyptus leaves.

Often we would rent a wagon to haul our kid around when she got tired.

But sometimes our kid would help me pull it.

Gosh.

It really does all go by in a flash...

****

Here's Bigger E. and me, from this just past summer, covering a Danny Michel song....

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The last of our tiny tomato haul this year, which is lined-up, hat-like, on our deck railing in the image at the top of the post  somehow got me to thinking of all this....


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Hey, Dippers!...Before You Decide On That Leadership Date...

....Why Don't You Listen To What Horgan Has To Say?

Here is the link to nine minutes of Mr. Horgan talking to that other Gregor guy on the CluffMaster-free MoCo Morning Show from Victoria yesterday.

****

For the time-challenged and/or link-hitting averse, here's my short and snappy summary...

1) He wants the party to give the new/younger (i.e. non-old guard) MLA's like Mungall, Eby, Hebert and Fleming time to blossom.

2) He is in favour of waiting until 2015 for the Leadership decision to facilitate the above.

3) If Mr. Dix were to step down prior to a 2015 leadership race he would be willing to consider a short stint as interim leader.

4) He seems to be really concerned that, especially if the new/younger folks don't get a chance to really step to the fore, that the BCNDP may truly become a perpetual opposition party.

(if anybody has issue with the above, feel free to correct me/add insight in the comments)



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My take?...Makes a heckfire lot of sense...Also seems that Mr. Horgan made the decision to step aside for all the right reasons.
BTW...Scotty on Denman called the potential for an interim leadership deal before any of the proMedia punditry (see comments, here).


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This Day In Snookland...The Neighbourhood.

TheNeighbourOfMyNeighbour'sNeighbourIs
Mo'MoneyVille

(Updated at the bottom of the post...)

...“Could be in that neighbourhood”...

That was Premier Christy Clark's erudite and very finely-tuned, extremely fiscally thoughtful response to the floating of the kinda/sorta/maybe possibility that the Massey Megabridge thingy might cost three billion dollars, as re-quoted by the Dean in the VSun yesterday.

Mr. Palmer also noted that there may be little incentive for the Snooklandians to spend that kind of money on a rapid transit line out Broadway to UBC for all kinds of reasons (Beware the Shiny Gregor!), including the fact that, unlike the Massey Megabridge, such a line will service ridings that they do not own.



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Interestingly, in response to our latest Ferries post, a reader sent along a note in which they wondered if, maybe, the Snooklandians don't give a hoot-in-heckfire about BCF because most of VIsle and the rest of the Coast is currently Dipperland...
Update: Peter Ladner makes a good point about all this bridge building/car carrying madness, which is....Car travel on Lotsulandian bridges is actually down, significantly....Gosh....Perhaps the good Mr. Bateman (you know the fine fellow from the CTF who is so worried about how public monies are spent), who ran, in my opinion, an Astroturf operation that helped pave the way for the three billion dollar Ice Bomb bridge, could tell us what he thinks about that (and if you click through on the link you might find the name of the fine fellow who was promoting the Turf most interesting....In a 'Quick Wins' sort of way...If you get my drift).


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Lotuslandian Media Circles Within Circles Circling Most Circularly...

And it's all being done very smoothly, of course (i.e. no herky-jerky stuff allowed).



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In cased you missed it (and why wouldn't you have unless you, like me, are a member of the 'cult' that the good Mr. Baldrey helped name), Ms. Cox is quite close to one of the original RailGate principals (i.e. the guy who was scheduled to take the stand just before the six million dollar, prior inducement-assisted, 'deal' went down)....Interestingly, back in the day there was very little (i.e. no) concern raised in the proMedia's smoothly moving circles about (at the very least) the potential for...Well...You know...

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This Day In Snookland...Credit Where Credit Is Due...

There'sNoProblemThatTheyMake
ThatTheyCan'tFix(AndTakeCreditFor)Ville


...For finally fixing a problem/disaster that they themselves (and their Golden Era Cronies) created.

Stephen Hui, of the GStraight, was one of the first off the hop on this one. Here's his lede:

THE HEAD OF the University of British Columbia's faculty of medicine says it's "good news" that the B.C. Liberal government has restored funding for the Therapeutics Initiative.

Managed by faculty members, the project provides evidence-based information about prescription drugs with no money from the pharmaceutical industry. The province had suspended its contract with the Therapeutics Initiative in September 2012, making the project's future uncertain.

According to the government, the reinstated contract is worth $550,000 a year and compensates UBC for providing health education and carrying out PharmaCare evaluations...

However, all is not completely happy-shiny-people quite yet.

Why?

Because the (in my opinion) deflector spinsterish 'probe' of the Snooklandians continues. Cindy Harnett of the VTC has that story at the bottom of her piece, here.


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Need background on the TI, and all that it is really and truly is good for, not to mention evidence that the initial attempts to kill it preceded the 'probe'?.... See this.


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BC Ferries: Enjoy The Death Spiral While You Escape The Crowds...

...In The Scenic 'Seawest Lounge'.

Jack Knox has a piece in the Victoria Times Colonist today on a report/submission from the 'Ferries Advisory Committee Chairs', which is a group that represents coastal communities that depend on BC Ferries for all manner of things.

Interestingly, it would appear that the 'Chairs' were never taken over by the Golden Era quislings and cronies that Mr. Campbell (and his successor) have installed, willy-nilly, province-wide.

Why have I arrived at that conclusion?

Because the Chairs have just released a report that says something that we, and others, have been saying for some time now.

Which is that the constant fare increases (and, yes, that includes that bloody reservation fee) are driving down ridership and, thus, revenue:

...“This is an affordability death spiral,” the submission states. “It is the core problem facing coastal ferry service.”

The paper argues that instead of increasing revenue, fare hikes are choking off ridership. It predicts that means Ferries will miss budget targets by at least $20.5 million during its current four-year contract with the government...

****

Now.

There has been quite a bit of caterwauling from the usual suspects recently about executive compensation at BC Ferries, approved, of course, by the above mentioned cronies and quislings.

Which I agree is an issue.

But a bigger issue, I think, is the fact that it would appear that that the very same, very well compensated executives do not have to travel on BC Ferries regularly like the rest of us.

Why have I arrived at this second, somewhat more tentative, conclusion?

Well...

Firstly, because I spend lots of time walking the Whackadoodle up and down a little strip of sand where the North Arm of the Fraser meets the Georgia Straight, I see those Helijets filled to bursting with cronies, quislings and executive types (but never ever uber-fine fellows dressed in Spiderman garb) whipping by non-stop.

Secondly, every time I cross the Straight on a ferry that luxurious Seawest Lounge pictured above, which was built to buffer said executives, cronies and quisling from the great unwashed, sits pretty much empty.

In fact, much of that luxury seating sat unused, on both trips we took, coming and going, on the Thanksgiving Weekend just past while the regular riders paying the salaries and stipends of said executives, cronies and quislings (eg. families with small kids) were were forced to sit on the floor in steerage due to the lack of seats.

OK?


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You can read the full submission of the Chairs, here....Gosh, wonder how long it will take the Snooklandians to get rid of them now?....I mean, it's not like they haven't gotten rid of truth tellers before...Right?


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RailGate Resurfacing....Boss! Boss!...The Spur!!!

There'sNo40LikeTheGolden
FourtyVille


Well, well, well.

Looks like that little chunk of track that may or may not have been dangled as some sort of bizarre 'stay in the game/quid pro quo' strategy a decade ago, is back in the news again.

Lori Culbert had the latest chapter in the BC Rail 'Spur Line' saga in Thursday's VSun. Here is her lede:

Troubled BC Rail sold off its trains almost a decade ago and was absorbed into the transportation ministry in 2010, and yet it still has 20 executives and staff that collectively made nearly $4 million last year.

The question critics ask is what are these employees doing, after the government sold its trains and leased its rail lines to CN in a controversial 2004 deal that sparked a police raid of the Legislature, a high-profile criminal trial, and the public paying $6 million in defence lawyer bills?

According to government documents, the primary mandate of BC Rail now is to support the expansion of goods coming into the province through the Pacific Gateway Strategy, which involves “acquiring, holding and managing railway corridor and strategic port lands and making related infrastructure investments.”

BC Rail still owns the 40-km spur line to Roberts Bank port, manages the CN lease of its railbed and tracks, and operates a real estate subsidiary...

All of which is interesting, as far as it goes.

But...

What Ms. Culbert's piece (as published at least) failed to mention is the fact that, just like the rest of BC Rail tracks, the Spur Line was also for sale way back when.

And then, suddenly, in the spring of 2004 (i.e. a few months after the Ledge raids when the investigations were going pretty much every which way) the bidding on the Spur was suddenly halted when the Horsemen informed a very fine fellow named Kevin Falcon that the process was 'tainted'.

Which brings us to another chapter of the saga that appears to have little, if anything, to do with clandestine meetings at lupine-like restaurants and/or gladiator games on mile-high gridirons. We summarized that part of the tale thusly:

...(The following is from) the transcript of a RailGate-associated RCMP wiretap of a conversation between Mr. David Basi and Mr. Bruce Clark (Ms. Christy Clark's brother) wherein they discuss a 'Request for Proposals' (RFP) for the BC Rail 'Spur Line' in the fall of 2003. The transcript was finally released to the public in early 2011:


David Basi: "So basically, um, what we have is the draft RFP."

Bruce Clark: "Okay."

Basi: "Um, that uh, we have t' make changes and y'know, uh, um, we can draft it anyway we want now, right: so..."

Clark: "Whose, wh', whose hands is it in?"

Basi: "It's, it's in our hands right now."

Clark: "Okay."

Basi: "Uh, and then it'll go back to transportation. And then they'll look at it and then they'll uh, um, issue the official RFP."

Clark: "Okay. What are the time lines like?"

Basi: "Uh, two weeks."

Basi: "So, I can sit on this thing for two weeks. So if you come back next week then you can take it and look at it, show it to them. They can, they can, y'know, change some of the words around, that's obviously, some buzz words they wanna see in there, right?"

Clark: "Yeah."

Basi: "And these, these companies know how to, how to, y'know, get the fluff out of this shit and how to tailor it to themselves, right?"

Clark: "Of course." 

...{snippety doo-dah}... 

Clark: "Wonder, wonder if it would be better if you got it couriered from here or not?"

Basi: "I don't care. Whatever you want. I don't care."

Clark: "Okay, well maybe I'll get you to courier it to Europe for me, or something."

Basi: "You want me to courier it to Europe?"

Clark: "Sure, you could do that."


...{snippety doodle-dandy}...


Clark: "Or uh, or, or can it be faxed or something or?"

Basi: "Oh it can be faxed, yeah. Do you wanna give me a fax, secure fax number?"

Clark: "Yeah, I'll get you a secure fax number and we can do it that way."

Basi: "Yeah, you get me a fax number and I'll fax it to you.

Clark: "Sounds great my friend."

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One last thing....As for that 'troubled' descriptor right at the top of Ms. Culbert's pyramid lede....In our opinion (and we are not alone) that type of stuff lives on because a fiction that was deliberately written by the architects of the Golden Era so that it could be used both to change public opinion and to make a massive tax write-off possible for the pre-selected winning bidder of the big prize....OK?


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That Day In Snookland...The Railgate Reunion?

HeWhoKeepsDiggingFindsAllTheNuggets
MackinVille


Bob Mackin has been doing a little digging into who was 'invited' to Christy Clark's 'private' Cabinet swinging Swear-In back in the early summer:

Premier Christy Clark broke from tradition on June 7 with a Cabinet Naming Ceremony at Canada Place. In case you missed it, the entire 54-minute, 37-second extravaganza is available on YouTube...

{snippety doo-dah}

...So who went? That is a good question. The attendance list was not released, but the list of invitees was. See it below. I pored over the document and made some lists of my own...

****

And, guess what...

Pretty much the entire BC Rail 'Sale/Not-Sale gang (sans Spiderman, of course) was invited to the really big show:

...There were eight key figures from the 2003 controversy on the invite list: CN chair David McLean, ex-Premier Gordon Campbell, lobbyist/strategist Patrick Kinsella, ex-lobbyist/Campbell aide Jamie Elmhirst, ex-BC Rail director James Shepard, ex-Finance Minister Gary Collins, ex-Deputy Minister Chris Trumpy, ex-BC Liberal Party executive director Kelly Reichert...


Imagine that!


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Go read Uncle Bob's entire post to learn more, including how the 'timing' of the Swear-In ensured that there was no need to follow lobbyist reporting rules.
Speaking of digging and nuggets and all that.....Norm!



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