This Fiscal Year In Clarkland: You've Got To Pick A Pocket Or Two...

...To Bring In $2.5 Billion Dollars.

Never mind that 4 percent MSP increase removal for 2017 thingy that the Clarklandians have bamboozled the Lotuslandian proMedia into focussing on over the past few news cycles (Ooooooh! Look! Shiny!!!)...

Because Dermod Travis of Integrity BC has instead noted the fee-for service gouging that has been going on during the entirety of the years of Clarklandia:

Moving out from individuals to the entirety of the British Columbian citizenry, the prediction by Cookie Dough Mike and his minions is that MSP will bring in a collectively regressive $2,549,000,000 this fiscal year (see pg 127).

Now....

First: No other government in Canada hauls in money in this completely non-progressive way.

Second: Take away that $2.5B gouge/regressive pretend-it's-not-a-tax and Cookie Dough's new prediction of a $1.9B surplus is completely gone.

Assuming, of course, I still know how to do the new anti-Clarklandian math which is based on fee-for-service subtraction.

So.

Given all that, should we be surprised that the good Ms. Clark is suddenly running around (again) saying that she is going to reform things (for absolute sure this time) because she says "I really don't like the way MSP works."

And, even more so, should we be surprised that proMedia organs like the CBC play this codswallop straight-up?

Sheesh.


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For those not from BC, those premiums above are monthly...Annual fees are $900 for individuals and $1,800 for families.


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This Weekend In Clarkland...The Heartlessness Of Cookie Dough Mike.

TheTrueMeasureOf
ASocietyVille


The Clarklandian Finance Minister on why he and his leader (and, presumably, their patrons who pay for all that they do) forced the bus pass claw back on our fellow citizens who need our help most:

“They’re exercising a new-found freedom and choice that heretofore didn’t exist,” de Jong said. “So that was the whole purpose of the exercise: to give people choice.”


I mean, even the Tin Man...


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 Tip-O-The-Toque to Laila Yuile on the Twittmachine.

And, I for one, couldn't help but note how the proMedia 'round here focused almost exclusively on the 10% of the folks who need our help chose food over their bus pass...Why?...Because that means that 90% made the 'choice' to do the opposite...Think about that flip-side for a minute.
Quote is from Bob Mackin's piece in BIV.


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Who Might Be Helping To Fold All That The Vancouver Real Estate Laundry?

FollowThe
YouKnowWhatVille

Following up on the discussion we had yesterday about who might benefit from any and all laundering 'round here, Sam Cooper of Postmedia has been good enough to delve into this a little more in his latest piece:

...In a new report, the Financial Action Task Force, a Paris-based intergovernmental group that makes recommendations for fighting money laundering, said Canada has improved standards since the agency’s last evaluation in 2007. But “law enforcement results are not commensurate with the money laundering risk, and asset recovery is low."...

{snip}

...A major theme of the agency’s report is that compared to other countries, Canada is at significant risk for money laundering because in 2015 Canadian lawyers won a Supreme Court case exempting them from financial reporting rules that professionals such as bankers and realtors must follow. The constitutional challenge was launched by lawyers in B.C., using client confidentiality arguments.

The agency report suggests that money laundering in real estate and services provided by lawyers, such as creating investment vehicles that can shield true ownership of property, go hand-in-hand...

Gosh.

Say it ain't so Sam.

Say it ain't so.


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This Day In Clarkland....Thirty-Six Dollars.

HeyRubes!
LookOverHereVille


The following is lifted straight from Finance minister's latest bit of PAB-Botian puff-fluffery:

...Higher revenues also mean the B.C. government is cancelling the planned 4% increase to MSP premiums, and those eligible for Regular Premium Assistance will see a 4% reduction of their premium beyond what was announced with Budget 2016. Cancelling the January 2017 premium increase and keeping regular MSP premiums at 2016 levels will save adults up to $36 per year...


Hmmmmm....

A temporary reduction on the already ridiculously egregious?


Gosh.

How did that Clarklandian gambit, pre-election 2013,  ultimately work out for the Rubes....errrr....fine upstanding citizens who are forced to use the ice-bomb bridge everyday, especially for those who are late with their 'payments'?


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My Morning Ride...

GrassyKnolls
AboundVille


Noticed this morning....

Riley Park sure is looking park-like these days.

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30th and Ontario, across the street from Nat Bailey and Hillcrest pool. 


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When You Do A Whole Lot Of Laundry Aren't You Going To Make Bubbles?

LetAThousandSpotlights
ShineVille


Regarding the Lotuslandian RealEstate situation, it sure is amazing what a little concerted shining of light into the corners of a real story by the proMedia can do, eh?

And three of the carriers of the biggest flashlights have been Ian Young of the SCMP, Kathy Tomlinson of the Globe and Sam Cooper of Postmedia.

Yesterday, in the wake of the latest revelations, Mr. Cooper had this to say on the Twittmachine:

Now that is some bombshell if Mr. Cooper has the documentary evidence to back it up (and so far, he always has had the goods).

But then, downthread, in response to a conversation with a guy that is not me, Mr. Cooper went one step further:

So.

I guess the real question is...

If this is really the case, why has no one been held to account?

Or, put another way...

Who benefits from such a lack of accounting?


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And, just to be clear, it's not just proMedia members who have been carrying the high wattage flashlights...


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HydroVille...Can Those IPP Contracts Be Canned?

InAndOut
CronyTown


In the wake of Norm Farrell's excellent Tyee piece on Hydro and his follow-up visit with Jon McComb on CKNW, we've had a bit of discussion around here about whether or not we can dump those most egregious IPP contracts that are costing us billions.

As a result, a sharp Anon-O-Mouse had this to say:

...Yes the "throwing out of signed contracts" can easily be done, as was done then. Indeed the use of "orders in council" to remove what can be deemed as unreasonable or questionable contracts, in terms of taxpayers ability to fund and or pay for them, could be used. The legal ramifications? Not many, if at all. While the bluff factor may be employed by the IPP's, I believe the risk they took initially, probably takes this into account...


A most interesting POV don't you think?


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This Day In Clarkland...Where Are The Data Mr. De Jong?

PolicyByPoll
NumbersVille


So.

Just where are those foreign buyer numbers Cookie Dough Mike promised us?

After a speedy start, it seems it’s taking much longer for the province to release new data on homes being bought by foreign nationals than it has in the past.

New numbers haven’t been released since mid-July, even though the finance minister had agreed to produce the data monthly...



Meanwhile.

Why are Canadian Banks furiously pumping helium into the Lotuslandian Real Estate Bubble?



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First linked story from Jill Drews of CKWX 1130.
Second linked story from Kathy Tomlinson of the Globe....Ron of all obviousness has a follow-up...Here.


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My Morning Ride...

Boxed
CompassVille


What's with the pre-8:00am traffic jams on Blenheim, anyway?

I mean, I know Lotusland is becoming a North-South kind of place, but this getting ridiculous.

Or.

Has the Westside suddenly developed some sort of (notreallythat) early morning work ethic-type thing?


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Where Everybody Knows His Name...

ATrueAssetTo
BritishColumbiaVille


Norm!

Writing on BC Hydro in The Tyee.

Here is Mr. Farrell's kicker:

...BC Hydro came into existence because private enterprise failed to meet power needs and a premier stood up for citizens who faced electricity prices set at punishing levels.

Now, badly managed BC Hydro is trending toward failure unless electricity prices are raised to punishing levels. Unlike W.A.C. Bennett, B.C.’s current premier is not standing up for citizens and small businesses.

With more than $50 billion in contractual obligations to private power producers, billions committed to Site C construction and billions in deferred expenses that will have to be covered in the future, BC Hydro faces a crippling financial crisis.

Special interests and private companies are benefiting. And the public will pick up the bill...


If you haven't already, go read it all.


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The Bloggodome Files.

YouCan'tReadItInThe
SundayPapersVille


What with summer holidays and all, I fell a little behind in my reading of the best of the local long form blogs over the past month or so.

And the best of those just may be Paul Ramsey's 'Clever Elephant'. A few weeks ago Paul gave us an in-depth breakdown of our New Era government's latest expenditures on IT outsourcing:

...(I)n this year’s analysis of IT outsourcing we have a surprise result: total spending on IT contractors by the BC central government actually fell in the 2015/16 budget year.

The fall-off is almost entirely the result of a collapse of billings to the central government by IBM, though Deloitte had a small fall-off also.

Other IT contractors continued to bill heartily, including massive category leader HP Advanced Systems (HPAS) who billed a very respectable $163,499,787. For comparison, that’s more than was spent on the Ministries of Energy & Mines, Agriculture, Small Business, and International Trade, combined...

{snip}

...The fall-off is almost entirely the result of a collapse of billings to the central government by IBM, though Deloitte had a small fall-off also.

Since 2010, IBM’s billings to central government have fallen in four of the last six years, which leads me to a question: what’s the matter with Big Blue?

After further research, the answer is this: nothing at all. Big Blue is doing just fine. It turns out that the fall off in IBM billing to central government has been more than offset by a massive increase in IBM billing to the Provincial Health Authorities...

{snip}

...When Health Authority spending is taken into acount, IBM revenue from the BC government has not fallen at all. It has instead been on an almost unbroken tear upwards, taking total government IT outsourcing spending to just under $700 million dollars in 2014/15...


Paul also chronicles how underwhelming the spending has been for locally-sourced IT companies.

'Cause that's where the real jobs for real British Columbians isn't, right?

****

And speaking of real jobs for real British Columbians in the Clark government portion of the Golden Era (i.e. the entire five years, not just the last bubble-driven year which the Klout Club loves to trumpet, even as those numbers, too, are now starting to fall off), Dermod Travis of Integrity BC has the direct comparisons with the other big four provinces:

Mr. Travis, who is indefatigable, is also breaking through regularly into the proMedia, which is a good thing.

****

And, of course, regardless your employment and/or bus pass situation, in British Columbia that tax shift away from the de-regulated money piles of the cronies onto the backs of the citizenry just keeps on keepin' on, which got Harvey O hopping uppity recently:

...The Liberals LOVE to tell you … and the investment world … how LOW our TAXES are.

Unfortunately, you can’t get that deal … if you live here … without buying the rest of the package.

And adding those extra costs on to your “low” provincial income taxes will cost you plenty … MUCH more than they advertise!

Just this week, ICBC announced yet another price hike for MANDATORY basic coverage: 4.9% … on top of another 5.5% increase last year … and, if you drive, no way to avoid it.

I don’t know about you …but I surmise whether you are employed or on pension ..YOUR income has NOT come close to rising that much over the past two years!

ICBC blames rising costs related to accidents, injuries, claims.

But don’t forget: the BC government … like an organized crime syndicate … has also shaken down ICBC for more than HALF A BILLION DOLLARS since 2012 in ”dividends”. Vito Corleone would have smiled at that!

Let’s face it, that “dividend” is just another tax.

This year …nothing to do with the coming election, I’m sure … the BC government says it will forego its $160 million “dividend” from ICBC. Are we really supposed to be grateful? I wonder if re-elected, they’ll make up for that next year …and the year after …and the year after?...


And then, of course, there's that small matter of Hydro rates and MSP premiums which Mr. Oberfeld also goes into.

****

Speaking of Hydro, to digress from the chronicling of the blogs themselves (but not necessarily blog writers) for a moment...

This!

Somehow I do not think that Norm Farrell and/or the actual consumption numbers support the good Ms. McDonald's claims.

****

Speaking of Site C, Laila Yuile had Roger Bryenton of the BC Hydro Ratepayers Association explain the magnitude of the 'mistake' over at her blog recently.

Turns out it's not the just cost of the dam that will keep us paying and paying and paying...

And paying some more, despite what the Ol' Turdstormer said back on April Fools day:

..The “numbers” for the cost of power from Site C, delivered to the lower mainland and Vancouver Island, locations of most of the power users, is $145/MWh, based on Eoin Finn and Erik Andersen’s numbers we have developed. This is in sharp contrast to the Minister’s email from April 1st, stating that the cost would be $64/MWh. Either he is badly informed or he is lying. The $145 is also much greater than the IPP’s have been criticized for selling to BCH, at $100/MWh...


And, as Norm Farrell has explained ad nauseum, the ridiculous 'contracted' prices of IPP electricity is already costing us dearly.

****

Merv Adey, the blogger who elicited the comment from the BC Hydro CEO above, ended his summer with an excellent post on the 'weathervane' governance practices of the Clark government:

...The BC Liberals in their approach to public education have long since abandoned any pretense to a realistic appraisal of needs in the system, though their own finance committee has repeatedly recommended raising public education spending after a decade and more of cuts vs inflation.

Likewise, the philosophy of deregulation in real estate has reached a predictable and absurd end in which a culture of criminality has permeated a most important industry to government revenues, and the government has decided it’s time to take a bigger slice of the pie, while nibbling at the margins of the real problems driving housing unaffordability throughout the lower mainland and southern Vancouver Island...

****

Changing gears, but only a wee bit...

In the wake of a NaPo story which noted that the private Cambie Surgery Centre provides care for worker's compensation board clients, the notorious NVG had this to say:

...(Cambie Surgery Centre's) Dr. Day is funding his legal challenge to privatize the health care of all Canadians using funds 'earned' from the BC Provincial Government coffers...

 Imagine that!

****

And finally, local philosopher king Mr. Beer 'N Hockey, who has an important post up today about root causes, also had this to say about those lemmings without a cliff who have been mindlessly partaking in the summer's already fading fast fad:

...Sonja and I went for a picnic. More of a wine-nic really. Eventually I had to water my horse so I walked over to the sh*thouse while Sonja kept an eye on the wine.

There were a lot strange looking motherf*ckers in the vicinity of the sh*thouse. They appeared to be lost. As if their smartphones were all acting up or something.

I asked one of them, "Pokemon?"

He nodded.

Motherf*cking morons...


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Ol' Turdstormer?....Well...You know.


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The Money Shot From The Latest Vancouver Real Estate Piece By Kathy Tomlinson.

WhyGovernmentPolicy
ReallyDoesMatterVille


From Ms. Tomlinson's piece this morning in the Globe:

...The papers that (whistleblower) Mr. (Demetre) Lazos provided The Globe paint a fascinating picture, revealing a network of players – local and foreign – who are parking money in Canadian real estate. They also show how loopholes and lax oversight make it easy for the speculators to play the system – and profit tax-free – by obscuring their ownership and earnings, all the while treating the properties as commodities, not homes...


The point?

This is entirely OUR (and our elected representatives') doing.

Not to mention 'our' banks.


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Welcome To The (End Of) The Working Week...

YouGottaDoItTillYou'reThroughIt
SoYouBetterGetToItVille


The day the work week started it sure seemed like summer, from a weather point of view of least, ended also.

And, just as suddenly, there were kids everywhere at the place I work.

Kids that, at least in part, it is my job to teach a thing or three.

Which always scares the bejeebuz out of me for the first few days or so.

Anyway...

When I finally got back to the non-teaching stuff near week's end, I found myself staring at the word 'forgot' as I was writing an Email to a colleague.

Because it just didn't look right.

That word, I mean.

And, given one of my New (School) Year's resolutions, this time I eschewed the Google and instead reached for my wee little pocket Oxford dictionary.

Which, when I stuck my thumb in it opened directl to the page above.

Gosh.

Do you think the non-digital parallel universe of real things was trying to tell me something?


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Earworm from the header?....Try...This!
And, ya, I stayed away from the Loverboy on purpose, especially given the fact that I was recently informed that even the cowbell might not be real on the original track.


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This Day In Clarkland...How Do They Get Away With It?

They'llHuffAndThey'llPuffAndThey'll
BlowNothingDownVille


How do they get away with things like this ferry switcheroo thing, I mean?

More specifically, how do they keep getting away with first creating problems of massive proportions and then subsequently claiming that they've created a brand new victorious solution that had nothing to do with the original problem they created when they reverse course years down the road?

Well, Les Leyne of the VTC, thinks they do it because of 'gall':

...It takes a certain amount of gall to disguise a complete capitulation and about-face on a transportation initiative as a major forward step, but that’s what the B.C. Liberals are trying to pull off.

Even the slightest rueful expression of regret was missing from Tuesday’s announcement that they’ve given up trying to make do with the pathetic stand-in service that was concocted three summers ago when they decided the ferry service to Bella Coola was too expensive. In fact, they didn’t even acknowledge the original reduction. Instead, the planned restoration of service to some kind of respectable level was pitched as an exciting, brand-new idea...


Personally, I think a big driver in the Clarklandian calculation here is the knowledge that they will get away with it.

Every.

Single.

Time.

Because, despite the initial piece by Mikey-Mike and the follow-ups by Mr. Leyne and the Dean, the Clarklandians know that our fine local proMedia will now move on as if nothing has happened.

And when it happens again they (the local proMedia) will act surprised and pretend that this business of using past self-created pain for future faux feel-good photo-ops is NOT the Clarklandian way.

Now.

With that in mind, is anybody willing to give me long odds on the (very likely) fact that there is a small gaggle of wizards holed-up somewhere trying to figure out the photo-op sequence of events that could be used to roll out a fake reverse bus clawback strate(r)gy?


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Meanwhile, the CEO of BC Hydro has the 'gall' to go on the Twittmachine to tell Merv Adey that, in fact, Site C power is actually needed by actual British Columbians...


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This Day In NOT Clarkland...

ImagineIfWeHadGovernmentByPolicy
RatherThanPressReleaseVille


Just in case you missed it, given the ensuing (manufactured?) flap over his pipeline comment, yesterday opposition leader John Horgan spoke to British Columbians like they are adults about the Lotuslandian real estate situation through his open letter to our fine premier.

Here is a good chunk of that letter:

...Unfortunately while you and your colleagues were denying the very existence of a problem in the Lower Mainland real estate market, conditions worsened. Moreover, in the month since your government passed the hastily written Bill 28, we have seen numerous reports about the many ways in which your tax on foreign nationals is both failing to address the real problems facing Lower Mainland residents and creating significant unintended consequences.

During debate on Bill 28, my colleague David Eby proposed several amendments to the tax that we believe will have a meaningful impact on affordability in the Lower Mainland. While you rejected those amendments out of hand, subsequent developments have both validated those concerns and underscored the need for significant improvements.

First, we proposed amending Section 3 of the bill to define foreign national as an individual who has not paid his or her worldwide income tax in British Columbia for the most recent complete taxation year. It is now clear that such a change would significantly extend the reach of the tax to individuals who may have residency status in British Columbia, but who derive their primary income from foreign jurisdictions. This amendment would make the tax more effective and ensure that its effect was focused on individuals income sources rather than on their nationalities.

Second, we proposed that the Bill be amended in section 3 by redefining foreign national to exempt individuals who hold federal or provincial work permits. It is now clear that your tax on foreign nationals has effectively penalized individuals who are working and paying taxes in British Columbia but who continue to hold foreign passports. This measure is both discriminatory and counterproductive in that it effectively punishes people with unique skills such as visiting university professors and international researchers who are critical to building an educated workforce. Worse still, your Bill makes it even harder for growing BC companies to recruit international talent to the Lower Mainland.

Third, we proposed that the Bill be amended in section 3 to remove the loophole that allows foreign capital to use bare trusts to avoid the current or amended property transfer tax. We can only assume that you chose to leave this well-known loophole in place in an effort to encourage the sale of commercial and multi-unit residential properties to international buyers. However given the crisis in the Lower Mainland rental market, this measure makes little sense and creates an uneven playing field for those who have the financial wherewithal to establish and administer bare trusts...



I mean, honestly...

Can you imagine having a government that actually thought, hard, about what it was doing before it did it?


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