Thursday, December 26, 2002

Coleman off base with "war on marijuana"
By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - Defence Minister John McCallum gives up drinking after Air Canada staff decide he's too drunk to board a flight.
Alberta Premier Ralph Klein cuts down after a nasty scene at a homeless shelter, where he argues abusively with residents, throws a handful of bills on the floor and stomps off.
And Ontario Premier Ernie Eves promises to crack down on MLAs drinking on the job after an evening sitting degenerates into vicious, drunken abuse. Drinking on the job has been a constant problem over at least two decades, he admits.
And we're worried about marijuana?
Solicitor General Rich Coleman has weighed in with his views on decriminalizing marijuana, a step backed by federal Justice Minister Martin Cauchon.
A huge mistake, Mr. Coleman says. "I want us to go out and fight the war on drugs because it's hurting our kids, it's hurting our communities and it's time we stood up to it," he said. "We need to come to grips with the fact that this is a serious problem in our country, that we have to get tougher with regard to the penalties."
It's the kind of position that shreds a politician's credibility. First, it's impossible to make a credible claim that marijuana use should be treated as a high priority public menace. Alcohol was directly blamed for about 300 deaths in B.C. last year; hard drugs - and prescription drugs - were blamed for about the same number. For marijuana, pretty much none. Our courts are crowded with people who stole or hurt someone or acted stupidly while they were drunk.
That's not to say pot is harmless. The last thing an unmotivated 15-year-old needs is a drug that will make him more likely to sit around instead of going to class. The healthiest people likely don't use any intoxicants - but most of us do.
But ask any police officer or social worker what causes more problems, alcohol or marijuana, and you'll see the plausibility of the "marijuana menace" claim vanish. (A new RAND study also debunks the idea of marijuana as a gateway drug.)
Coleman did focus on the involvement of organized crime in grow ops, a legitimate concern. Big grow ops mean big, illegal money, and that will attract a range of bad guys. (Although an RCMP study of 12,000 grow op reports in B.C. revealed guns were found at six per cent. About 24 per cent of homes in the province have firearms; police are far more likely to encounter a gun in the average domestic call.)
Increased police pressure hasn't worked. B.C.'s Organized Crime Agency reported that police action on grow-ops was forcing organized crime to switch to methamphetamine labs. That hardly seems like progress.
Instead of a "get tough" stance, government should be tackling the crime problem effectively. Perhaps eliminating the risk of prosecution for people interested in growing a few plants would do the most to make life harder for gangs.
The saddest thing about Coleman's comments is that they undermine the basic foundation for an effective drug strategy.
People need credible information that will let them assess and avoid the risks of all drugs, from cognac to cocaine. Paint a false picture of the risks of marijuana, and you will no longer be believed when you deliver a vital warning about the effects of heroin. That's especially true for young people, lost in their own invulnerability and quick to dismiss any warnings.
They have been to parties with drinkers, and parties with people who have smoked pot. They know where the greatest stupidity and violence are found.
We don't need to wage war on marijuana; we need to get smart on drugs.
Education to avoid damaging addiction. Support for people who want to quit. Harm reduction for people who can't or won't quit.
Solutions that work, not words.
Paul Willcocks can be reached at willcocks@ultranet.ca


Friday, December 20, 2002



A plea for the New Year - pay attention
By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - I figure that I've directed some 70,000 words your way this year, spent more than 100 working days figuring out what I need to tell you.
It's a considerable privilege, and a good job, and I thank you all for reading.
Today I want more. Call it a proposal for a New Year's resolution.
Resolve, swear, that today, and every day this year, you will pay attention.
Not just when it's important, when your partner is angry, or the boss is warning you, or things have spun out of control..
But now, right now. Who is in the room, or the house, with you? Pay attention - what are they thinking? Are they worried, sad, delighted? What's the one thing you could say or do that would bring them peace or joy? What's the one thing you could say or do that would bring you peace or joy?
Pay attention, to your lover or friend or child's eyes when they speak to you, or don't speak to you. Pay attention to the way your eyes look in the mirror. What do those eyes say? Are they happy, or sad, or lost?
Pay attention to the way your child leans into you, when you read a story that will stop much too soon. Pay attention to the way you parents look, when they wonder how your story will end, and realize that they will never know.
Pay attention to the small yellow light from a candle warming your living room and the cold, bright light from a handful of stars in the night sky. Pay attention to what you have, and what you long for. Pay attention to the sound of rain on the roof, to the wind in the trees, to the music your daughter plays behind the closed door to her room.
Pay attention.
This isn't just about you, and the people around you. It's about the world.
My job is inherently interesting. I get to talk to a wide variety of people, and read everything from government reports to company financial statements and write about what they mean to you.
But it only makes sense, it only serves any real purpose, because I start with a fundamental belief in the common sense and decency of people. All those 70,000 words are based on the idea that people want a better community and a better world, and that given enough information they will figure out what needs to be done to make that happen, and act.
And if we do want a better world the first huge step is to pay attention to the one we live in now.
After all, if we were paying attention to the people addicted to cocaine or heroin in our community, would we really be content to watch them die in alleys, or see their lives waste away each day? Would we still allow nervous politicians to deny them a place to inject drugs safely? Anyone who thinks about it for a moment knows it's not in their interest or ours to have addicts injecting drugs in alleys or parking lots. But we're just not paying attention.
If we were paying attention, would we condemn thousands of children to a terrible start in life, simply because they are born to parents without the ability to provide a home that can give hope? Or would we find a way to ensure that every little child entered kindergarten well-fed and with an equal chance to make her way in this world?
So today, and the next day and the day after that, open your eyes.
Making this world better is within our individual grasps. We are fundamentally decent. When we finally see the problems of those around us, we will act.
This year, simply pay attention.
Paul Willcocks can be reached at willcocks@ultranet.ca
Balanced budget target looking dangerous
By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - It's time to get nervous about just how the Liberals are going to balance the budget by 2004/5.
They've still got a shot. But the latest economic news isn't encouraging, and the latest financial update from the government featured more bad news than good.
You may have missed that report, delivered by Finance Minister Gary Collins on the same day the Romanow report was released. That ensured the Liberals' quarterly financial report would be bumped off the front pages.
When the last quarterly report was released Collins was forecasting that the government would take in $220 million more revenue than it had budgeted, a gain that would reduce the deficit this year and make the job of getting to a balanced budget in two years easier.
Now he expects to fall short of budget by about $100 million, a $320-million swing. Tax revenue will be more than $600 million below the Liberals' expectations. (It will also, thanks to the tax cuts, be $2.4 billion less than when the Liberals took office.)
The news gets worse. The tax revenue problem reflects a $300-million shortfall last year, which meant this year's base was set too high.
And that means the Liberals already face a similar $300-million gap in their plan for next year, as government staff work towards a budget day that's less than two months away.
What's saved the government, strangely enough, is our status as a have-not province. Collins now expects B.C. to get $770 million from Ottawa in equalization payments, because our economic performance has been weak. The money wasn't included in the budget, so it's offsetting the unexpected tax shortfall.
The problem for future years is that the equalization payments aren't guaranteed just because isn't doing well. The complex formula weighs the relative economic performance of provinces, and divides the available money among the losers. If other provinces hit a slump, B.C. could lose its share even if the economy here hasn't improved much.
The Liberal budget predicted a record $4.4-billion deficit this year. Even with the bumps they'll beat that handily, thanks in part to a $750-million contingency allowance Collins included in this year's budget. But the deficit will still be over $3 billion.
And the time left to make that go away is very short.
The Liberals will introduce their next budget in February. and one year later, they have to come up with a balanced budget.
Their current plan calls for government revenues to jump 5.6 per cent next year and five per cent the year after.
Maybe. But the finance minister's economic forecast panel reported last week, and predicted general economic growth next year - including inflation - of only 4.6 per cent.
Sometimes the revenue problems can be offset by spending cuts. If your hours get cut at work, you find a way to reduce your grocery spending.
But that's not really an option for the Liberals. All the complaints about spending cuts you're hearing come in a year in which the government has actually increased spending slightly. The real cuts come in the next two years, when the Liberals are looking to chop $1.2 billion.
The Liberals really need some economic good news. Each one-per-cent increase in GDP, the measure of economic activity, brings in about $250 million to government. When the economy is growing, more people are working and investing and buying things, and the province takes in more taxes and fees and royalties.
And while the gap is closing, the government's own advisors are predicting growth will lag the Canadian average for next year and 2004.
It all leaves the government in a spot. The revenue targets are no longer conservative or comfortable; any cushion is gone. And the spending cuts ahead are already fierce.
Unless the economy surprise with its performance, the Liberals will face some very hard decisions if they keep to their promise to introduce a balanced budget 14 months from now.
Paul Willcocks can be reached at willcocks@ultranet.ca

Tuesday, December 10, 2002

Gun registry scandal shows waste, arrogance and dishonesty
By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - The federal gun registry scandal should make you sick to your stomach.
And the Liberal's defence of their incompetence, their refusal to take any responsibility for cheating you, should make you furiously angry.
Allan Rock was the justice minister when legislation was introduced back in 1995 requiring owners to register their guns. It would cost $117 million, the government promised, but fees would cover most of that cost.
Taxpayers would be on the hook for only $2 million.
Now Auditor General Sheila Fraser has exposed the government as incredibly incompetent, dishonest, or both - the explanation I favour.
She reviewed the program this year and found it will cost taxpayers at least $1 billion by 2004-5. She couldn't even do a full audit to find out where the money went, because "the financial information provided for audit by the department does not fairly present the cost of the program to the government." The government couldn't or wouldn't provide an honest, complete account of what it did, to the official auditor.
Fraser's sharpest criticism came over the government's failure to go back to Parliament - and the public - and get approval to turn a $2-million program into a $1-billion one.
"The issue here is not gun control," she reported. "And it's not even astronomical cost overruns, although those are serious. What's really inexcusable is that Parliament was in the dark." When costs were skyrocketing the ministry never told Parliament; never stopped to think if the whole exercise made sense.
The Liberal government's response is truly pathetic.
Prime Minister Jean Chretien tried to blame the provinces and gun owners, saying they didn't do enough to co-operate.
Rot. The challenges in bringing in such an unpopular program were completely clear in 1995. Any competent plan would have incorporated the costs of dealing with them.
Rock, now justice minister, now defends the program by saying "What value can you put on human life?"
It's a stupid response. The issue is what value do you put on responsible, competent spending of public money. What value do you put on honesty in government? What value do you put on the other programs that could have been funded with $1 billion?
Rock is saying wasteful spending of your money doesn't matter, and accountability doesn't matter. Lord help us if he stays in the Liberal leadership race.
Current Justice Minister Martin Cauchon says the program is working and no one - politician or bureaucrat - will be disciplined for blowing your money.
Gun registration makes sense, if it's affordable. If your neighbour starts making threats, it's valuable for police to be able to check if there are guns in the house and decide if they should stay there.
And Canadians don't, and shouldn't, have a right to own guns. It's a privilege, to be balanced against their record of responsibility.
But if the registration system made sense at $2 million, it's hard to see any results that are worth $1 billion, or about $500 per gun registered.
The percentage of homicides involving firearms has increased by 13 per cent since the registration plan was put in place. (Handguns are the real issue, and they have been subject to registration in Canada for almost 70 years.)
Undoubtedly the process has kept some people who shouldn't have guns from hanging on to them. And it has almost certainly saved lives, simply by ensuring that a violent person didn't have a deadly weapon at hand in a moment of anger.
But how many more lives would have been saved if $1 billion had been spent on more effective policing, or domestic violence prevention - or health care?
They wasted your money, abused Parliament and kept the truth hidden.
And as far as I can tell, they don't even care.
Paul Willcocks can be reached at willcocks@ultranet.ca

Campbell ignores warnings on education, rural woes
By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - Gordon Campbell is too quick to brush off concerns that he doesn't want to hear.
Even when they come from his own MLAs.
The legislative finance committee - 10 Liberals and New Democrat Joy MacPhail - toured the province and came back with what could have been useful warnings about education under-funding and a growing rural-urban gap.
But it took the premier only a few days to say, basically, forget about it.
The committee, chaired by Blair Lekstrom, heard from groups with comments on how the Liberals should approach the next budget.
It reported there is still general support for staying the course and balancing the budget by 2004/5.
But at the same time its report pointed out a growing gap between life in rural and urban B.C., and placed some of the blame directly on the Liberals' policies.
"The situation is becoming critical for resource-dependent communities hit hard by the combined impact of the government's restraint program and the current economic uncertainly in the forestry and the mining sector," the report said.
The committee simply acknowledged reality. The government's spending cuts have struck hardest outside Vancouver and Victoria. The report rightly notes that the loss of even a few jobs in a smaller centre has a significant economic impact, and warns that threats to already limited services undermine community viability.
And while it said the support remains for achieving the balanced budget target, there are also immediate needs out there, and it proposed immediate solutions.
It proposed an aid program for rural communities. The Liberals keep talking about the importance of helping communities hurt by the softwood crisis, but says it's up to Ottawa to come up with the money. The committee says that's not good enough, and says the aid needs to be extended beyond forest-dependent communities.
The committee also came back with a valuable warning of growing problems in B.C.'s schools.
"The shortage of funds is reaching a critical stage for rural schools and schools-based programs in urban areas," says the report. Lift the three-year spending freeze, the committee said, or at least seriously consider lifting it.
The Liberals increased the education budget by less than one-half per cent this year, despite higher costs for everything from MSP premiums to salaries. They've frozen it for the next two years. That means that school districts have to cut something like $100 million from their real spending each year, just to absorb rising costs.
And the committee - of Liberal MLAs mind you - came back convinced that's going to do damage.
It's politically risky - and socially and economically foolish - to begin to put the quality of education children receive at risk. That's not to say that more spending equals better education. But forcing cuts on the fly, based on an arbitrary freeze, increases the risks of falling educational quality.
The issue is growing in importance. Lekstrom said education was a bigger issue than health care during the tour. And the last McIntyre and Mustel poll showed support for the Liberals among parents of school-age children falling from over 50 per cent to 35 per cent this fall.
But only a few days after the report was released, Campbell dumped cold water on any hopes that the government would look for ways to find the money for schools called for by Liberals MLAs.
Tax cuts and balancing the budget come first, he said. "When we have a healthy balance sheet and there are additional revenues, we certainly would look at education as one of the top priorities for expenditure," he said.
To be fair, it's important to remember that the committee reported support for staying the course on balancing the budget within two years.
But it also highlighted wide concerns about harm being done to children and communities. And it said those concerns were real, and should be heeded.
Paul Willcocks can be reached at willcocks@ultranet.ca

By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - Funny how BC Ferries has never quite achieved the beloved status of BC Hydro.
Islanders value the service, sort of, but there aren't that many of us. And even Islanders spend more time grumbling about the ferries than singing their praises.
So the Liberals didn't have to worry much about political fallout when they set out to shake up the ferry corporation.
The plans for BC Ferries, unveiled by Transportation Minister Judith Reid, look like a reasonable stab at figuring out what to do with the corporation.
It's sort of semi-privatization. BC Ferries will no longer be a taxpayer-supported Crown corporation. But it won't be a real private company either.
Bear with me here.
First, BC Ferries gets a new name, BC Ferry Services. It won't be a Crown corporation; just another company out there trying to make a buck.
Sort of. The voting shares in the new company will be held by something called the BC Ferry Authority, run by a government-appointed board. That group will in turn name the board for BC Ferry Services.
It's a compromise. The new company isn't really private. If it angers people too much, they can still squeeze the politicians, who can fire the authority board.
But it does offer politicians some insulation. If people get mad at the ferry corporation - and I expect they will - the politicians can always initially blame the board, which can always blame the need to balance revenue and expense.
That's not such a bad principle really. Islanders like to talk about the ferry service as an extension of the highway system. But there aren't highways everywhere; some communities are served by cruddy gravel roads. And it's a bit much to expect people in those communities to dig deep to subsidize ferry service for people who have decided they want to live on an island.
The government has built in some protection for Islanders, at least for the first five years.
The average rate increases for the main routes between the Island and the Mainland will be 2.8 per cent; across all other routes the increases will average 4.4 per cent a year. Add that to a 3.8-per-cent rate increase that take effect Sunday, and fares will be 30 per cent higher on most routes five years from now, and 20-per-cent higher on the main routes.
But the real crunch will come in five years.
Reid says the new company is going to have to invest $2 billion in news ships and terminal improvements over the next 15 years. It can borrow the money, but only if lenders are confident that enough money will come in to pay the loans back. And it's not at all clear that these fare increases will provide enough profits to allow that.
Chair David Emerson hopes that the corporation will start pulling in a lot more money from other profit centres. Now the head of Canfor, Emerson previously ran the Vancouver Airport Authority, the model for this effort. He hopes restaurants and boutiques - and even bars - on boats and at terminals can produce a steady stream of cash for the new company. "It's my hope that people will actually celebrate going for a trip on BC Ferries," he says.
BC Ferries has done a poor job of trying to grab extra money from passengers, as anyone who has tried to eat in the terminal restaurants knows. But even doubling the revenue from food and retailing will only add about $20 million a year to the corporation's bottom line. The new company will need more than that to service those loans.
That means cost-cutting will be on the agenda.
And so, likely, will be more fare increases once the first five-year agreement expires, especially if the government tries to renege on the promised share of gas tax revenues for the ferry system.

Paul Willcocks can be reached at willcocks@ultranet.ca














Tuesday, November 26, 2002

Plans for Hydro a cautious compromise
By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - The world hasn't been turned upside down by the Liberals new energy policy.
Electricity is going to cost you more, probably four or five per cent a year based on extremely rough calculations. That's after a nine-year freeze on rates.
But one way or another, energy was going to cost more.
We're in a happy situation in B.C., with about two-thirds of Hydro's needs produced by dams. It's a clean energy source, and the dams have mostly been paid for long ago. Keeping them running is cheap, so they can produce energy at around two cents a kilowatt hour.
The dams can't produce enough energy. Thermal plants, that burn gas or oil, cost more to build and run, and are subject to spikes in energy prices. Power from them costs about five cents a kilowatt hour.
That means that as our energy needs increase, we'll need more of the expensive stuff and the average price will go up.
That's just reality, and it doesn't matter whether BC Hydro or Paul's Discount Power Company builds the new plants. Both will need to get paid enough for the electricity to cover the costs.
The Liberals have made a political decision. They want private companies, not BC Hydro, to build and operate all future power plants. It's also likely that they will press Hydro to sell off existing thermal plants, leaving the Crown corporation to run the Hydro plants, arrange the contracts to buy power from the private companies and deal with the end user - you and I.
The Liberals have also promised a separate Crown corporation will manage the 18,000 kilometres of transmission lines around the province. The new company will make money by charging power producers for access. Someone who builds a power plant can count on being able to transmit power, either to BC Hydro, or directly to a large industry, or to customers in the U.S.
And here is where things get interesting on the pricing front.
Opponents, like renegade MLA Paul Nettleton, argue that allowing open access to transmission guarantees both privatization and soaring prices.
The reasoning goes like this. Only private companies will be allowed to build new plants under the Liberals' policy. That means BC Hydro will have to pay a high enough rate for the power to attract them. And the companies will be looking for the kind of prices they can hope to capture in the hottest markets in North America.
And that will cost consumers more.
It is a problem, especially if we keep seeing wild swings in energy markets. Given time, and consistency, energy markets will likely stabilize. But consistency is in short supply. The Ontario government's decision to leap into market pricing, and then go back to fixed rates in a panic, sends investors a clear message that governments can't be trusted.
But in return for the risks, we get real competition. Clever people competing to figure out the best way to meet our needs. And without that, we won't really know if BC Hydro is operating as efficiently as possible.
Why not get the best of both worlds by allowing Hydro to compete with private companies, with the utilities commission picking the winning bid? Several reasons, but the biggest is likely the perception - among Liberals and independent power producers - that BC Hydro wouldn't play fair. Put the province's second largest corporation, with a captive market, up against a small independent at the utilities commission and see who wins.
What's really changed?
The Liberals have accepted the idea of market-based pricing for new power, while preserving the hydro system's cheap power for the public benefit. They've started down a path that will lead, in about 35 years, to more than half the province's power being produced by private companies.
And they've given consumers the first steps towards real competition.

Paul Willcocks can be reached at willcocks@ultranet.ca




Random notes from the halls of power
By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - Mostly what I felt, slogging through the 90 pages of the Glen Clark conflict of interest report, was embarrassment and relief.
H.A.D. Oliver's finding that Clark did violate the conflict of interest rules seems remarkably anticlimactic, the last tuneless note in an inept soundtrack. Clark, through his lawyer, said the findings exonerated him.
It didn't seem that clear. Consider the house renovations: "Clark must have been aware that Mr. Pilarinos' gift of free construction work was connected directly or indirectly with Mr. Clark's duties as premier and that he should not have accepted it," said conflict commissioner H.A.D. Oliver.
Or the role of Mike Farnworth, the gaming minister: "There is no doubt in my mind that Mr. Clark should have refrained from engaging in any discussion with minister Farnworth relevant to the outcome of Mr. Pilarinos' proposal," Oliver found. "I am particularly troubled by his conduct in light of the evidence that Mr. Clark recognized at the outset the need for him to remain uninvolved."
Clark takes a lie detector test. Adrian Dix, his closest political advisor, fakes up a memo to file that would clear the boss, rolling the office date stamp back to hide when it was typed.
It's pathetic, but at least it's over.

George Abbott has always seemed a conscientious MLA. So it's painful to award him the prize for worst answer to a legitimate question this week. New Democrat Jenny Kwan asked about layoff notices at the Cridge Child Care Centre in Victoria, one of about 40 centres affected by funding cuts. It was a question that deserved a real answer. Instead, it was ranting about the fast ferries and a lot of rubbish and rhetoric, and not one word about the issue.
It's disappointing.

As it's disappointing to learn the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives took a $200,000 gift from the NDP government in the last days before the election. The CCPA is a leftish counterpart to the Fraser Institute.
The bias is clear for most such groups, and their financial supporters expect a certain perspective. But taking money from a political party - especially in such dubious circumstances - is a terrible mistake, one that fatally compromises the CCPA's independence. Gordon Campbell and the Fraser Institute would be pilloried for such a deal. The NDP and the centre deserve the same.

Is there anything more ludicrous than U.S. drug czar John Walters' visit to warn against the perils of marijuana and safe injection sites? The Americans have been waging a stupid, costly and ineffective war on drugs for decades. The result has been more addiction, deaths, crime and prisoners. Twenty years ago there were about 80,000 drug offenders in U.S. jails; now there are 400,000, at a cost of $16 billion a year.
U.S. policies have been a colossal failure. Having Walters come here to lecture Canada on drug policies makes as much sense as having Saddam Hussein give a seminar on effective international relations.

Paul, readers have cried out to me, in that over-familiar way they have, why do you not quote Premier Gordon Campbell more often?
It's not my fault. Past premiers submitted themselves to questions from people like me three times each day when the legislature is sitting. Scrums, they're called, with reporters getting a few minutes in the halls to question the premier.
But unlike past premiers, Campbell won't do scrums. So now, toward late afternoon, if he's available, there's what reporters call the secret scrum in his office reception area. The premier stands before two flags, under specially installed lights. You pay for a government sound guy to keep watch. Instead of looking engaged, and quick-thinking, Campbell looks stiff.
Sadly, I and several others are writing then, on tight deadlines. So I can't even tell you what he says.

Paul Willcocks can be reached at willcocks@ultranet.ca

Wednesday, November 20, 2002


Nettleton reflects lack of trust in Campbell team
By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - Even after talking to him, I'm not sure Paul Nettleton meant to poke such a sharp stick right in the eye of Premier Gordon Campbell.
Nettleton has always struck me as a thoughtful MLA, a good representative for his constituents in the stunning country north of Prince George. If you were betting on the Liberal MLA most likely to speak his mind - carefully - he'd be on your list.
So it wasn't a total shock when Nettleton weighed in with a critique of the Liberal approach to BC Hydro, sent to all his party's MLAs.
Lots of people share at least some of his concerns about the government's plans to hand one-third of the Crown corporation over to a private operator, break the rest into two pieces and invite private companies into the power business.
But Nettleton didn't just disagree with the policy direction. He placed himself firmly in the camp of the people who think the Liberal leadership has a secret agenda, and can't be trusted.
Lord knows we need more backbenchers who are prepared to say what they think, instead of biting their tongues, rolling their eyes and hoping for better days. For most of the NDP government's long, slow journey on to the rocks, MLAs stood loyally on deck, saluting the captain. Liberals MLAs have watched as the government shredded their communities or broken promises.
It's a bad system, for governments and for the public, and some straight talk would be welcome.
But Nettleton went much farther.
"I am firmly convinced that this legislation is only the opening move in a strategy whose ultimate goal is the wholesale privatization of the utility," he said in his letter. Going ahead in the face of public opposition betrays "the sort of arrogance I recall, now with some chagrin, denouncing from the Opposition bench."
"I think we have just become infected with the same sort of ideological blindness that once plagued the NDP," he continued.
And given an out - apologize for calling the premier a sneak, stand by the criticism of the policy and accept a suspension - Nettleton stood firm on all his charges.
And that meant he had to go.
What about Nettleton's actual critique, the substance of his concerns?
He goes too far. Nettleton argues that splitting Hydro into two companies, one to make and sell power and one to take over the transmission lines, will inevitably sound "the death knell for BC Hydro." Letting power companies sell to the highest bidder could mean British Columbians would pay soaring prices if California had another crisis.
But splitting the Crown corporation in two makes sense. Letting Hydro control the transmission lines and the power plants is like letting one car manufacturer decide who gets to use the roads. No one else could ever compete.
The change could work well - given a good regulatory framework and a strong commitment to maintaining the benefits of low-cost power for all British Columbians.
That's the Liberals' real problem. People do not trust them to deliver those controls. They do not believe that Campbell will keep his promise not to privatize Hydro.
That suspicion has been reinforced by the secretive approach taken by the Liberals. Energy Minister Richard Neufeld has had a major task force report on energy, including Hydro, for about eight months. He could have released it - we did pay for it - to allow public participation in the debate, while the government worked on the policy. He could have shared the briefing on splitting Hydro up that caucus got three months ago. The debate could have been public, and the Liberals could have made an effort that they do listen to concerns.
Instead, they kept the debate behind closed doors.
Now they're left with a hard question. If the Liberals can't even convince their own MLAs that they're playing this straight, how can they ever convince the public?
Paul Willcocks can be reached at willcocks@ultranet.ca




By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - That was a dead bleak election day for Premier Gordon Campbell. School board and council votes across the province weren't really a referendum on the Liberals' policies. Voters are first looking for candidates who can make the best decisions on zoning issues or local school questions.
But from Vancouver to Prince Rupert to Nelson voters also sent a chilling message to the Liberals.
The left-wing sweep in Vancouver, where the COPE party captured the mayor's job, council, school board and parks board, grabbed most of the headlines.
Mayor-elect Larry Campbell has already promised a referendum on the Olympics and has major differences with the Liberals on health-care policies.
The new school board, facing a huge deficit because of the Liberals' funding freeze, will be much more vocal in fighting for more money.
And generally voters were sending the message that they are concerned with social and quality of life issues -- not just spending cuts.
Given the media attention they can command, the new slate in Vancouver can be a formidable problem for the Liberals.
But it wasn't just Vancouver. In Nelson, incumbent mayor Gary Exner fell. He was not seen as a strong enough defender of the community against Liberal cuts. In Prince Rupert, incumbent mayor Don Scott ---who tried for the Liberal nomination -- was also seen as too close to the provincial government. And down he went.
Even in defeat, candidates made their point about public opposition to the Liberals. In Victoria, a mayoral challenger ran largely on the importance of fighting the Liberal cuts, and pulled one-third of the votes. In Nanaimo Larry Whalley of RecallThemAll, a group advocating recall campaigns against Liberal MLAs, attracted the support of about 20 per cent of voters in the mayor's race.
Campbell -- the premier that is -- says he doesn't see the election results as a rebuke, or an expression of concern.
That's too bad. He's missing an important message from the public. No one should expect the Liberals to abandon the platform they were elected on.
But the growing discontent -- and the prospect of more organized opposition from councils and school boards -- should give them pause about the pace of change and the effects on real people.
Mayors, councillors, school trustees are going to expect to be listened to, not brushed off. And they are going to be emboldened by election results that show many British Columbians share their concerns.
Even the Liberal-dominated committee that toured the province to get advice on next year's budget came back convinced that a crisis has hit communities outside Vancouver and Victoria.
"The growing gap between rural British Columbia and the large urban centres has to be addressed now," their report said. "The situation is becoming critical for resource-dependent communities hit hard by the combined impact of the government's restraint program and the current economic uncertainty."
The committee also provided support for new school trustees, warning that funding shortages are already reaching "a critical stage."
And that's before the next two years of frozen budgets that will leave school districts with no money for rising salaries and other costs. The government should give up on the education spending freeze, the committee found.
Voters were looking first for the best people to direct their communities and schools.
But at the same time, they sent Campbell a clear message of growing dissatisfaction with the effects of Liberal cuts. He'd be wise to listen.
Footnote: Premier Campbell thinks an Olympic referendum, promised by Vancouver's new mayor, would be wrong, since the city has already indicated support for the Games.
"How can people decide to work up front and honestly with a city council that makes agreements and then breaks them?"
Unconvincing words from a premier who has ripped up more than his share of signed agreements in a very short time.
Paul Willcocks can be reached at willcocks@ultranet.ca






Thursday, November 14, 2002

Let ICBC face real competition
By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - You should be looking for a quick explanation for the government's apparent cold feet on allowing real competition for ICBC.
Because without real competition, you'll never know if you're paying too much for your car insurance.
The Liberals' campaign platform promised "greater competition in auto insurance, to create increased choice and reduce motor vehicle premiums." A reasonable person would expect that meant that ICBC's monopoly on basic insurance coverage would be ended. Private companies would have the chance to compete for your business, offering lower prices or better services or cleverer coverage. That's also completely consistent with the Liberals' stated belief in the effectiveness of competitive markets.
It looks like that won't happen. Finance Minister Gary Collins is responsible for ICBC. He says the "core review" of ICBC should be ready for presentation to the public before year-end.
But Collins isn't sounding like a man in a hurry to end ICBC's monopoly grip on the market. The timing isn't good, he says, because private insurers are having trouble and aren't eager to compete.
That's news to them. The Insurance Bureau of Canada says companies are eager to enter the game here. One company, Pembridge Insurance, has just closed its B.C. office, laying part of the blame on the government's foot-dragging.
They want to compete. The Liberals say they like competition. What's the problem?
Collins offers a clue. This would be a bad time to sell ICBC, he says. Tough times for the industry have depressed the Crown corporation's value.
The Liberals never said anything about selling ICBC during the campaign. But it could be that the core review has suggested a rewarding path to competition. Instead of opening the market, and letting ICBC compete, why not offer ICBC for sale first. It would be still be a competitive market, but the wining bidder - or bidders - would start with a customer base giving them 100 per cent of the market. What's it worth to know you have $2.5 billion in annual premium revenue the day you open your doors?
And if that's the plan, the desire to put things off for a few years makes more sense. A delay could mean a much bigger cash windfall for the government.
That leaves some questions, including whether that approach would really allow competition, or simply exchange a privately owned monopoly for a public one.
And in the meantime, what about us, the drivers who will still be waiting for real competition and choice by the time the next election rolls around?
It doesn't look good. ICBC sailed a 6.6-per-cent rate increase through cabinet one year ago. The corporation just released its third quarter financial results, and is talking about another rate increase this Jan. 1. Claims are costing more, investment income is down, the corporation's own operating costs are down 12 per cent so far this year, and more than 1,000 jobs have been chopped. So it wants more money from customers.
Sounds reasonable, although I've never really looked at ICBC's numbers with as much confidence since the corporation claimed it was on the brink of financial disaster when it wanted to force no-fault insurance on us, then miraculously recovered once the battle was lost.
But the Liberals haven't yet set up an independent rate review process. Instead, this proposal will head back to cabinet, a process that Forest Minister Mike de Jong complained last year "defies logic."
Twelve months on, and things aren't any more logical. And it's no clearer when - or if - British Columbians will get a free insurance market.
Footnote: One reason claims are up, says ICBC, is that crashes are happening at higher speeds. That raises interesting questions about the Liberals' decision to kill photo radar, the most likely explanation for the increased speeds and higher costs.
Paul Willcocks can be reached at willcocks@ultranet.ca





New deal for tenants strikes a fine balance
By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - Despite the flap from both sides, the Liberals have done a pretty fair job of changing the rules for renters in B.C.
Tenants will run the risk of much larger rent increases, especially when apartments to rent get really scarce in a community. That's an immediate risk in Vancouver and Victoria, where the vacancy rate is already extremely low.
But the trade-off should be an improved supply of housing in future.
The Liberals have dumped the old rules, which allowed any tenant to appeal a rent increase to an arbitrator. The landlord then had to show why the hike was necessary.
It wasn't a terrible solution. Landlords knew not to push too hard; tenants theoretically knew they had options beyond moving if they faced a big increase.
And it was a potentially useful weapon for tenants in bad buildings. Landlords seeking increases knew they better be able to show at least some repair and maintenance costs.
But the reality was that most tenants, especially most tenants in bad housing, weren't likely to use the arbitration process.
And the prospect of a permanent and uncertain constraint on rent increases made investors unwilling to put up new buildings. They were left with the risks of building ownership - a recession which forced down rents or left them with vacant units. And they didn't have the chance to cash in when vacancies got tight.
Now the Liberals have allowed landlords to increase rents by four to six per cent a year without facing any challenge. They can even put off increases for three years and do them all at once, bad news for tenants who could face a 20-per-cent hike in one year.
No one on either side of the landlord/tenant divide seems delighted with the change.
Tenants fear they'll face increases beyond what they can afford.
Landlords - supported by many Liberal MLAs - wanted a true free market. If rents start to rise, they say, more apartments would be built. And then rents would stabilize or fall.
I'm keen on the effectiveness of free markets.
But the Liberals' change recognizes that markets aren't perfect and some controls are needed in an area as critical as housing. Markets work slowly. In a growth period, the lag between rent increases and the arrival of new buildings could leave families homeless or in desperate economic trouble.
Effective markets also require honest buyers and sellers. I offer my goods - say a car I've made - and people decide if they will buy them at my price. If they don't, I stop making the car or cut the prices. If they snap them up, I raise the prices. It's a good balance.
But that falls apart if I can't be trusted. If I rig the prices with other carmakers, or promise people new cars but deliver them junk.
The housing and development industry in B.C. has forfeited its right to a free market. Thousands of people spent their life savings on homes which the builders, and government, presented as adequate quality housing. Instead they got condos that leaked and fell apart.
The Liberals have also come up with a decent compromise on the question of pets in rental units, the other hot topic.
Pet owners wanted landlords to be forced to accept animals. Landlords wanted to retain the right to decide if dogs and cats could live in their buildings.
The Liberals' solution is to allow landlords to collect an extra half month's security deposit if they accept pets.
The change may provide people with pets more options; it may just bump up security deposits. It's worth a one-year trial.
There's lots of smaller puts and takes in the bill. Security despoits weren't increased; landlords may have gained too much power to enter apartments.
But on balance, give the Liberals good marks on this one.
Paul Willcocks can be reached at willcocks@ultranet.ca



Attacks on forest code changes unfair
By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - It's far too early to be predicting disaster because of the changes to the Forest Practices Code.
Despite the eye-glazing details involved in the code, it's worth paying attention.
Make the rules governing logging in B.C. too tight, and companies aren't going to bother with any marginal operations. That means fewer jobs and damaged communities.
Make the rules too loose, and some companies will cut corners, damaging streambeds or cutting roads that end up as giant eroded slashes down the hillside.
The NDP - supported by the Liberals - dramatically increased regulation of the industry in 1995.
It wasn't just an act of concern for the environment. B.C. forest products were facing the threat of an international boycott over logging practices. Action was needed to head off a devastating international campaign.
Most British Columbians back moves that will make sure that logging doesn't do permanent harm.
But how far you go, and the way you choose to get there, are still up for debate.
The NDP code, which they later conceded was a tangle of red tape, attempted to regulate every aspect by setting out, in great detail, what companies could and couldn't do.
The Liberals are moving to a results-based approach. Instead of saying no logging within five metres of a stream bed, they will have a regulation that says you can't harm streams. If companies can find a way to log within two metres without doing harm - or if the stream is dry - they can go ahead. If they do harm the stream, then penalties will be imposed.
Sounds good. But there are a few big worries.
One is that the damage is done before anything is detected. Fines don't return a stream to health.
Another is that the Liberals have left a big loophole in the law. If a corporation can establish that it believed it was doing the right thing, it can avoid penalties even if there is damage.
And a third is that the systems depends on active enforcement and tough penalties. Unless inspectors are on the ground, checking, they won't know whether damage is being done.
That's a worry as the Liberals slash the forest ministry by one-third and close 24 regional offices. Forests Minister Mike de Jong says there will be 300 dedicated enforcement officers. But officials can't say how that compares to past enforcement efforts.
Those weaknesses should make British Columbians nervous.
And the Liberals' commitment won't be certain until the regulations setting out the detailed results expected of forest companies are released over the next few months. Again, that's a concern. Those standards should have been included in the legislation, rather than left up to the shifting standards of cabinet.
But all that said, it's a little galling to hear environmental groups already talking about a new international boycott.
Sure, there are concerns.
But nothing in the forest practice code changes announced so far justifies that kind of extreme, damaging response.
Companies will still have to prepare forest stewardship plans, approved by the government. And they will have to have site plans available for inspection by the public. If the government ensures an adequate level of detail is provided in those plans, the public interest will be protected.
I don't know how the new act will ultimately balance the competing interests of industry efficiency and environmental protection. No one can really say until the details of the regulations are released.
But there's nothing so far that justifies an alarmist attack on the B.C. industry, or an international boycott based on fear, not facts.
We need an efficient, sustainable forest industry in B.C. The previous forest practices code was an unnecessary barrier. And so change is justified.
Let's wait and see how well they work before we leap to man the old barricades.
Paul Willcocks can be reached at willcocks@ultranet.ca

In or out, Nettleton makes his point
By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - Even after talking to him, I'm not sure Paul Nettleton meant to poke such a sharp stick right in the eye of Premier Gordon Campbell.
Nettleton has always struck me as a thoughtful MLA, a good representative for his constituents in the stunning country north of Prince George. If you were betting on the Liberal MLA most likely to speak his mind - carefully - he'd be on your list.
So it wasn't a total shock when Nettleton weighed in with a critique of the Liberal approach to BC Hydro, sent to all his party's MLAs.
Lots of people share at least some of his concerns about the government's plans to hand one-third of the Crown corporation over to a private operator, break the rest into two pieces and invite private companies into the power business.
But Nettleton didn't just disagree with the policy direction. He placed himself firmly in the camp of the people who think the Liberal leadership has a secret agenda, and can't be trusted.
And even if Campbell forgives, he's not going to forget.
Lord knows we need more backbenchers who are prepared to say what they think, instead of biting their tongues, rolling their eyes and hoping for better days. For most of the NDP government's long, slow journey on to the rocks, MLAs stood loyally on deck, saluting the captain. Liberals MLAs have watched as the government shredded their communities or broken promises.
It's a bad system, for governments and for the public, and some straight talk would be welcome.
But Nettleton went much farther.
"I am firmly convinced that this legislation is only the opening move in a strategy whose ultimate goal is the wholesale privatization of the utility," he said in his letter. Going ahead in the face of public opposition betrays "the sort of arrogance I recall, now with some chagrin, denouncing from the Opposition bench."
"I think we have just become infected with the same sort of ideological blindness that once plagued the NDP," he continued.
Nettleton will find out Monday or Tuesday whether he's out of caucus. He says he stands by his letter, so he's likely gone.
What about Nettleton's actual critique, the substance of his concerns?
He goes too far. Nettleton argues that splitting Hydro into two companies, one to make and sell power and one to take over the transmission lines, will inevitably sound "the death knell for BC Hydro." Letting power companies sell to the highest bidder could mean British Columbians would pay soaring prices if California had another crisis.
But splitting the Crown corporation in two makes sense. Letting Hydro control the transmission lines and the power plants is like letting one car manufacturer decide who gets to use the roads. No one else could ever compete.
It could work well - given a good regulatory framework and a strong commitment to maintaining the benefits of low-cost power for all British Columbians.
That's the Liberals' real problem. People do not trust them to deliver those controls. They do not believe that Campbell will keep his promise not to privatize Hydro.
That suspicion has been reinforced by the secretive approach taken by the Liberals. Energy Minister Richard Neufeld has had a major task force report on energy, including Hydro, for about eight months. He could have released it - we did pay for it - to allow public participation in the debate, while the government worked on the policy. He could have shared the briefing on splitting Hydro up that caucus got three months ago. The debate could have been public, and the Liberals could have made an effort that they do listen to concerns.
Now they're left with a hard question. If the Liberals can't even convince their own MLAs that they're playing this straight, how can they ever convince the public?
Paul Willcocks can be reached at willcocks@ultranet.ca






Monday, October 28, 2002

The perils of high speed health change
By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - It sounds pretty ominous, the threat of even deeper health care cuts in the north.
And it didn't come from some alarmist. It was the Northern Health Authorities acting CEO who passed the bad news on to doctors and staff. Costs were running over budget after the first four months, he said, and the changes that were supposed to improve things were taking longer than expected. "If we do not deal with our deficit now there will be major service cuts down the road," warned Peter Warwick.
NDP Leader Joy MacPhail confronted the Liberals with the memo in the legislature, charging that it showed disaster is looming in the north.
Health Minister Colin Hansen said it's no big deal, just a small financial problem.
So what's the real story?
Here's the facts. Warwick, who was replaced this month by a permanent CEO, reported the massive health authority had shown a deficit of $1.3 million for the first four months of this fiscal year, when it had planned on a surplus of more than $2 million.
Mr. Hansen was quick to point out that the deficit is less than one per cent of the authority's budget. They're simply responding to the problem quickly as any good managers would, he said. And they're allowed to run a deficit this year, because the government recognizes that restructuring the health care system will be expensive. Several of the authorities are in a similar position.
All true. But it's wrong to downplay the significance of the problem. Even on a big budget, missing the targets by $3.3 million over four months is a serious gap - as the CEO warned. Projected over the full year, and it's a $10-million problem. And cutting $10 million worth of services is bound to do damage.
The health authorities are all struggling to find ways to provide better care at less cost. The budgets, set by the province, are not adequate to allow them to pay for already negotiated wage increases and maintain current services. They need to make cuts and savings.
So they're re-engineering and re-organizing and restructuring like crazy. But those things always take longer than expected. "Cost savings that we intended to have implemented by now have not completely materialized, which is affecting our bottom line," Warwick said in his memo. And general cost control, over things like overtime and sick leave, weren't having the effect the authority had hoped.
Those are familiar problems to anyone who has tried to re-organize an operation, large or small.
And so are the solutions. The memo urges managers not to fill vacant or relief positions, and says that cost-cutting initiatives that had been planned for the next two years would now be rushed forward. It's standard stuff for a cost-cutting organization.
Except this isn't just another organization. I used to manage newspapers. If we decided not to fill a vacant reporters' job to save money, stories were missed. The stakes are a lot higher in health care.
The memo is a reminder just how much pressure the heath authorities are under, caught between the Liberals' desire to control costs and the public's desire for quality care. They got more money this year, though not enough to deal with the cost pressures they faced.
But next year and the year after their budgets will be frozen, while their costs will still climb. Nurses get a general wage increase of 1.5 per cent next year, but most will also move up through the salary grid based on their experience, bringing their increase closer to five per cent. The health authorities will have to find that money from cutting within their existing tight budgets.
And they'll have to do it on the run, the organizational equivalent of changing a tire on your car while you're driving down the road.
Consider the memo another warning of just how wild that ride will be.
Paul Willcocks can be reached at willcocks@ultranet.ca

Librals back-tracking on openness
By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - For people who claimed to value open government, the Liberals sure seem eager to promote secrecy.
Back in the old days the opposition Liberals were quick to attack government secrecy. They were big users of provincial freedom of information laws, ferreting out the information that the government wanted to keep hidden. And they promised to bring more openness. But since the election, they've done nothing to strengthen the public's right to know and taken several steps to make it harder for you to find out what's going on.
The latest attempt to curb your right to information is unfolding in a stumbling fashion in the legislature . Among the creations of the new government were government caucus committees on key areas like the economy and health, an idea lifted from Ralph Klein's Alberta. The committees -- chaired by a backbencher -- are supposed to review polices and budgets. It's a good idea.
Cabinet discussions are protected under freedom of information law. The theory is that ministers need to be free to debate ideas and consider options, and that freedom would be lost if their discussions were made public. That protection is traditionally extended to subcommittees of cabinet ministers, like Treasury Board.
But the government caucus committees weren't covered. Half the members are MLAs, not cabinet ministers. They don't meet the legal test required to allow the government to keep their discussions secret, according to the independent privacy commissioner ruling. Faced with that ruling, the Liberals could have just made the information public.
Instead they rushed to change the law to keep things secret. And they did it by introducing changes to the freedom of information law that would have let government hide almost any committee behind a secrecy barrier. The Liberals retreated this week, sort of. They amended their amendment, to make it slightly harder to shield information.
But the new version still makes it easier for the Liberals to deny the public information that up to now has been a matter of public record. All they have to do is make sure one-third of the members are ministers and claim the committee is doing the work of cabinet. But in fact, it's hard to see why the committees should be protected from the law.
When they were established the Liberals had trouble deciding how open they would be. But after some confusion, Premier Gordon Campbell pledged that any time an outside group presented to the committees the meeting would be open to the public. That happened once, when the oil and gas industry made its pitch.
But since then a succession of special interest groups have made pitches to the committees, from the arthritis society to the hotel association, all behind closed doors. The public has no idea when the committees will meet, or who will be there. The Liberals have a poor record on respecting the public's right to know. They've already given themselves longer to respond to requests, increased costs and chopped the budget for the information and privacy commissioner. And reports -- like the work of the energy task force, or the group reviewing Pharmacare payment policies -- stay secret long after they have been received by government. It's a shame.
The Liberals used to welcome the public's right to information. Now they want to restrict it.

Paul Willcocks can be reached at willcocks@ultranet.ca

Monday, October 21, 2002

Inquiry needed into Kamloops shootings
By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - It's wrong to blame the shootings in Kamloops on government job cuts.
Just as it's wrong to say cuts had nothing to do with the killings.
I hesitated before writing about the whole sad case. It's important to respect the families of all three men who died, each of whom was by all accounts a dedicated, decent man who did his best on the job.
But there is benefit in examining what happened to see what we need to learn. Not to ensure that such a thing will never happen again, because we can never achieve that. But at least to reduce the chance that it will.
An RCMP investigation will provide some answers, but the police focus is on the hours around the shooting - what happened, and when, not why. The government plans an internal inquiry, to be conducted by the same branch responsible for developing the layoff and discipline policies. That will be useful in determining if warning signs were missed or policies failed to provide enough support for those being fired, and those doing the firing.
But the internal review will be compromised by the government's immediate - and puzzling - declaration that layoffs and job cuts had nothing to do with the shootings.
Solicitor General Rich Coleman has had the thankless task of handling the government's public response to the shootings. And he's repeatedly maintained that the layoffs - and the plan to cut 8,000 more jobs over the next two years - had nothing to do with the shootings. "This is an isolated personnel issue that's got nothing to do with the workforce adjustments," he said in a variety of ways.
How in the world could Coleman know that? The evidence from others is that Anderson was distressed by the task of firing people, and felt swamped by the workload. Hours before receiving the disciplinary letter, which threatened his job, he had been at another office telling three employees their jobs were going to be cut.
That doesn't mean the cuts are to blame. Firing people and being fired are part of life in the workplace, and most people deal with the stress.
But the quick claim that job cuts played no role in the events is impossible to justify, based on the available information.
That information has been sketchy.
Coleman said initially, even before police had entered the building, that Dick Anderson had been fired hours before the shooting. That seems a risky, potentially inflammatory statement, given the possibility that a potential hostage situation was under way.
The next day Coleman reversed himself, and said Anderson had simply received a letter of discipline.
And no one in government could even say how many jobs the environment ministry planned to cut in the round of layoffs that were supposed to begin this week. (They have been put on hold.)
An independent inquiry - perhaps through a coroner's inquest, perhaps through something broader in scope - is needed to look at this case.
Not to find someone to blame. All the evidence indicates Anderson went into the workplace with a gun, and shot two people and then himself. No circumstances change the reality of personal responsibility.
But there's reason to wonder if this isn't a symptom of a deeper problem that needs to be addressed and factored in to the handling of layoffs.
Auditor General Wayne Strelioff reported earlier this year that morale is abysmal among government employees. They don't trust their managers, don't know what their departments are trying to achieve and overwhelmingly dissatisfied with their ministry leadership. And that was based on a survey done before the Liberals took office and announced that one-third of government workers weren't needed.
We need to look hard, and with an open mind, at these killings, and see what there is to learn.
Paul Willcocks can be reached at willcocks@ultranet.ca



Education system cheating rural kids
By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - If you live in the northern two-thirds of B.C., your children are getting an inferior education, one that hurts their chances in life.
It should be an outrage. If your child goes to school in Prince Rupert or the Cariboo, they stand a much greater chance of leaving school without basic reading, writing and math skills.
You pay the same taxes. Your children have the same dreams. But they're getting a second-rate education.
I've been waiting for a wave of anger and government action since the Foundation Skills Assessment test results were released this month. The province-wide tests showed, again, that if you live in the urban south your children are far more likely to leave school with the basic literacy and numeracy skills needed to give them a good chance in life.
But in the rest of B.C. it's a very different story.
In the seven highest ranked school districts, more than 80 per cent of Grade 10 students are meeting provincial standards for reading. Those districts were generally in Vancouver and Victoria.
But in the 10 lowest ranked districts barely half the students are reading at an acceptable level. Results for math and writing showed the same dismal disparity. Those districts were in the north, the Interior and on Vancouver Island.
This isn't a case of individual districts doing a poor job. The results show a structural problem. The system is failing children in rural areas and small cities across B.C.
And it isn't a case for political debate, or a chance to rant about the NDP or the Liberals or the teachers' union. It's about kids, and a fair chance at life.
So far, the response has been lame. Everyone comes up with explanation for the results; no one takes any real action. It's as if a doctor thought his job was done when he told you you were seriously ill, without offering any treatment.
We don't owe these kids explanations for why they are starting life at a huge disadvantage. We owe them an education and a fair chance. And accountability contracts for school districts are not going to solve this problem.
Education Minister Christy Clark has appointed a rural education task force. That's welcome, but this is a far more serious problem, and calls for immediate, significant action.
B.C. doesn't have to invent solutions. Manitoba has recognized the problems of teachers in rural districts and provides special training opportunities and extra classroom help. The state of Virginia offers a range of support programs for struggling districts, from coaching to an additional staff member in each school to help raise students' performance. Alberta provides funding for district projects aimed at improving students' success.
This should be a crisis. People on the coast, in the north and across the province have the same hopes for their children as people in Vancouver. They count on government to provide their children with an equal opportunity to make the most of their lives.
And it's not happening. Take two children starting school, one in West Vancouver and one in the Cariboo. The city kid will almost certainly gain the skills needed; the rural child stands a high chance of being sent into the world ill-prepared.
Or go into a Grade 4 class in Delta, and you'll find one child not doing math at a provincial standard. Go into the same class in the Prince Rupert district, and you'll find 11.
We don't guarantee success in life. People have different abilities and ambitions, and the right to make as much or as little of their opportunities as they choose.
But we do owe children an equal chance. And we're not doing that. It's a cruel way to treat children. It's a waste of talent the province badly needs. And it should have parents around the province demanding action.

Paul Willcocks can be reached at willcocks@ultranet.ca


Wednesday, October 16, 2002


Softwood aid too little; time for some provincial action
By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - Too little, too late.
Ottawa's response to the softwood crisis in B.C. shows again how badly out of touch the federal government is with the needs of people in this province.
Knock off the money destined for a special project in Quebec, and the pine beetle aid, and your left with $71 million to help workers and $110 million to help communities and the industry.
But that's not for B.C. That's for all of Canada, with the split still to be determined.
Figure $30 million for B.C. workers, maybe $40 million for communities, through existing programs. That's not nearly enough to cope with the crisis they face.
Forget all the politicians' predictions of doom, and turn to BC Stats, the highly professional B.C. government agency. BC Stats looked at the softwood dispute and projected 16,000 direct job losses in B.C., concentrated in communities that are both already in trouble and hugely dependent on the forest industry. Add at least that many in indirect job losses to get a glimpse of what lies ahead.
Even those numbers are too abstract. To really understand the extent of the problem, consider BC Stats' analysis of the impact on one area, the Alberni Regional District on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Alberni will lost 1,000 forest industry jobs and another 1,500 jobs.
That means one of every six jobs in the region will be gone. Apply the same ratio to Greater Vancouver, and the result would be more than 165,000 lost jobs.
Given those numbers, how significant is the $30 million for workers? That's about $1,800 per worker who will lose his job - enough for an extra five or six weeks of employment insurance.
Government bailouts are most often a waste of money that do little but postpone a day of reckoning. If an industry can't compete, or sell its products, handing it government cash won't change that.
And employees working in those industries are ill-served by programs that keep them hanging on, hoping for a better day that will likely never come.
But the softwood case is different. The current crisis comes because the U.S. and Canada have failed to reach a trade agreement. Both Canadian and B.C. governments continue to insist the 27-per-cent duties will be eliminated, either through negotiations or legal actions. That means aid is appropriate.
What people in forest communities also deserve is some candour, about the prospects for a resolution to the dispute and about the future of the industry.
With or without a deal, there are going to be significant job losses in the industry. Workers deserve candid information from the provincial government and companies about what the industry will look like in B.C. in five years. How many inefficient mills will close? How many operations will be mechanized? How many jobs lost?
People have to decide if it is time to move on.
Ottawa's handling of this issue has been, and continues to be, shameful. They stalled and dragged their feet on an aid package, mishandled negotiations and mocked industry and workers. A claque of federal ministers - including David Anderson - even refused to meet with Forests Minister Mike de Jong and a union-industry delegation that went to Ottawa last week.
But the B.C. government has to accept its responsibility as well. Smaller communities have been hit hardest by government cuts. They now face more job losses, and an inadequate federal response.
The province needs to step in, starting with a rural summit to set out actions that can be taken quickly to strengthen the economic base of rural of B.C. People in smaller cities and towns deserve an active, targeted response to their problems from their provincial government.

Paul Willcocks can be reached at willcocks@ultranet.ca






Wednesday, September 11, 2002

A licence to extend the state's power
By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - There's something at once wrong and frightening about the fervent celebration of the attack on the World Trade Centre one year ago.
Wrong, because it rests on the false pretence that Sept. 11 was a defining moment that changed everything, for everyone.
And frightening because it is being used to justify mindless conformity, an erosion of individual rights in favour of the state - and even war.
It was a terrible day. But most people have placed that devastating event into some appropriate place among the other terrible and joyous moments that define a life. About 40,000 children were born in B.C. last year. For those families, 2001 won't be the year the World Trade Centre was destroyed; that pales beside the wonder of a new life beginning. About 315 British Columbians killed themselves last year. For those families, it will be the year that someone was lost, and something in them died too.
The attacks were terrible. But they were not different in purpose or effect than the decades of horrors that the current generation has witnessed.
Even their scale is not beyond comparison. Some 3,000 people died last Sept. 11. Twenty times as many died when the second bomb fell on Nagasaki; twice as many died in Bhopal after the 1994 Union Carbide disaster; about the same number of Africans will die of AIDS while you are at work today.
Last Sept. 11 was an awful day, but everything didn't change because of it. We still go to work, look for happiness, slide into despair. We raise our children. Just like always.
And one year later, I am much less frightened of a terror attack than I am of the governments supposedly on my side.
The state - Canada or Afghanistan, America or Iraq - always wants to increase its power over the people. It's not sinister; if you are in charge of keeping order, then you will want to make that task easier - surveillance cameras on every corner, fewer legal right for citizens. But it's an imperative that means citizens must always be prepared to push back.
For a year governments have been using Sept. 11 as a licence to extend the state's power. And an uncertain public has failed to push back.
Airport security may have needed upgrading, perhaps through improved training. But after last Sept. 11 Ottawa introduced a $24-per-ticket security surcharge, taking $400 million a year from travellers' pockets and wounding regional airlines and the communities they serve. The take from Vancouver alone will be enough to hire more than 600 extra security staff; the need has never been demonstrated.
The federal government likewise made no effective case for $8 billion in increased security spending over the next five years, money it could never find to help Canada's poorest children or reduce the tax burden.
And now the U.S. government is pressuring Canada to spend more on defence, even after a 10-per-cent increase this year. (The Americans spend $400 billion a year on their military, more than the next 25 countries combined. To match their level of per-capita spending, Canada would have to more than triple its defence budget.)
Sadly, it's not just about money. The Bush administration quickly passed the "USA Patriot Act" (the name, commanding mindless acquiescence, should sound alarm bells). Americans lost rights they had treasured for 200 years. The right to legal representation, to a speedy and public trial, to protection from unjustified searches - all gone. Americans can now be jailed indefinitely and secretly, without a trial.
Canada didn't go as far. But the prime minister can now outlaw groups based on secret evidence. Police gained the right to arrest someone who has broken no law on the suspicion that they are involved in terrorist activities. You can now be jailed for refusing to answer police questions.
And then there is war. Canada fought in Afghanistan, to little obvious effect. And now we are being asked to fight in Iraq, not because of anything that nation has done, but because the U.S. believes Saddam Hussein may someday do something. This is not a war on terrorism; it's a beating for a nation the U.S. simply wishes had a different leader.
Enough. Everything did not change in a few terrible hours one year ago. We have rights and freedoms and values worth defending, and a commitment to the rule of law that should not be abandoned when a government finds it convenient.
We will betray our past and our future if instead we allow ourselves to be defined by a single day of terror.
willcocks@ultranet.ca



Monday, September 09, 2002


Phoney war on terror Sept. 11's worst legacy
By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - One year after the attack on New York, and I'm more worried about what the governments supposedly on my side are doing than I am about any terror threat.
The media seems determined to relive last Sept. 11, long after most people have placed the terrible events into some appropriate context among the terrible and joyous moments that define a life.
It's pointless to try and come up with some ranking of horrors, based on numbers or cruelty or intent. Some 3,000 people died in the terror attacks last year, innocents just trying to live their lives. Twenty times as many died when the second bomb was dropped on Nagasaki; twice as many died in Bhopal due to a disaster at a Union Carbide plant. About the same number of British Columbians killed themselves in the last decade, and each of those deaths likely means more to a family than Sept. 11.
It was bad. But it wasn't the day that changed everything, a licence for governments to act as if all the old rules no longer apply. New airport taxes in Canada, an attack on Iraq, chipping away at citizens' rights - they're all being defended with the phoney claim that they are part of a necessary war on terror.
Ottawa slapped a $12-per-ticket surcharge on airline tickets after Sept. 11. That ill-conceived and unfair tax is expected to take $2.1 billion from travellers' pockets and has hammered airlines offering service to smaller communities. The tax adds the same amount to a $99 flight as it does to a $4,000 business trip; the result has been to harm the regional airlines providing vital service to smaller centres. Travellers lose; so do the communities.
But common sense seems to have been one of the first casualties of the terror attacks. No one has demonstrated that Canada needs to spend billions more each year on airport security, or $10 billion on other security measures; certainly no one has shown why that is a higher priority than providing education or health care or tax relief.
One of the duties of every citizen is fighting what seems to be an inevitable government impulse to increase the state's power at the expense of the individual. People in positions of authority are eager to make their own jobs easier, even if that means reducing citizens' rights. (That's true in Canada or the U.S., Iraq or Afghanistan.)
So the U.S. government quickly passed the "USA Patriot Act," stripping away rights Americans had enjoyed for 200 years. The right to legal representation, the requirement that the state have some reason to search your home, the right to a speedy and public trial - all gone. Americans now be jailed indefinitely without a trial or a hearing, locked away secretly.
Canada didn't go as far. But the prime minister can now outlaw groups based on secret evidence, making it a crime to belong or even to help a member. About half-a-dozen groups have been designated; the government will add another half-dozen this fall. Police gained the right to arrest someone believed to be involved in terrorist "activities," even if they have broken no law. Citizens lost the right to remain silent; you can now be jailed for refusing to answer questions - even if you are charged with no crime.
The war in Afghanistan has been fought, to little obvious effect. Now the Americans want to bomb Iraq, not because of anything that country has done, but because the U.S. government thinks it might do something bad, someday. It's not a justification that would have survived the most cursory scrutiny a year ago. Now it's good enough.
The Sept. 11 attacks were terrible, and we need to learn from them.
But more terrible still would be allowing governments to use the attacks to justify undermining the fundamental rights of citizens.

Paul Willcocks can be reached at willcocks@ultranet.ca

Class action suit over BC Hydro deserves to fail
By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - Sorry to break the bad news to the people planning a class action suit against the Liberals over BC Hydro's future, but so far they don't have a case.
The proposed class action suit rests on two foundations: that the Liberals are violating their duty to British Columbians, the owners of Hydro, by selling it off cheaply; and that they're breaking their word to voters, justifying the court's intervention.
The Liberals did mislead the public on a range of issues during the election campaign.
But Gordon Campbell was relatively clear on BC Hydro. Power generating facilities and transmission lines would stay under public ownership, he promised.
He never made the same promise about the front end of the business, the part that's now being handed over to Accenture. (British Columbians should be worried about the costs and benefits of handing over about one-third of Hydro's operations - accounting, human relations, computer technology - over to a multinational. But it's not a step towards inevitable privatization, or a broken promise.)
Campbell never hid the fact that the Liberals would consider splitting BC Hydro up into smaller Crown corporations, and would certainly try to get private power producers to play a larger role.
That's not a radical plan. There's no reason BC Hydro has to build and own every power plant in the province. If a community wants to set up its own generating plant, meeting its own needs and selling the surplus, or a company wants to set up wind turbines, why not? As long as the power is competitively priced, then the arrival of more producers, trying different approaches, should benefit consumers and create jobs.
But that's not likely to happen as long as BC Hydro controls both the power plants and the transmission lines. Monopolies don't welcome competition, and with control of the transmission lines - and the rates charged for access - Hydro can slam the door on private power generators.
Imagine you had a monopoly on the grocery business in the province - and also owned the only trucking company able to transport produce. How much are you going to charge me for hauling vegetables when I tell you I want to start a store to compete with your's?
Splitting up BC Hydro isn't a new idea. Mark Jaccard headed a task force that looked at electricity markets for the NDP. It recommended splitting off the transmission functions of BC Hydro into a separate Crown corporation to encourage competition in electricity production. Jaccard's review found encouraging private producers could provide value, shift the risk of developing new capacity off consumers and encourage more green power sources.
And Campbell didn't hide the fact that splitting up Hydro might be part of the Liberals' plans.
There's a certain irony here. The same people who deplore - rightly - the problems created when private companies grow too large and exercise monopoly powers, seem to think that somehow a state-owned giant monopoly - like BC Hydro - is OK.
The real battle over energy in B.C. is just over the horizon. Sometime in the next few weeks the government will release an energy policy paper it's been sitting on for months.
It's going to acknowledge reality. New power is going to cost more. And that means rates are going to go up, or no company, public or private, will be able to build the new capacity that will be needed.
Footnote: British Columbia's outrage over the American's plans for the Sumas II power plant just across the border from Abbotsford may be merited, but it's sure hypocritical. The plant's B.C. opponents - including the government - point to increased air pollution. But the newest, most modern major plant generating power for BC Hydro is in Campbell River. Unlike Sumas II, it was built without the latest pollution scrubbers. As a result it pours out three to 10 times the pollutants of the planned Sumas plant.
Paul Willcocks can be reached at willcocks@ultranet.ca








Tuesday, September 03, 2002


Recall plans fading as reality sinks in
By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - Recall is looking more and more like one of those ships that sink before they leave the dock.
There are some enthusiastic backers out there, anxious to send a message to the Liberals, and some ridings where work is already under way.
But the key individuals and organizations needed to make recall work - NDP supporters and unions - are backing away from the whole idea.
Recall doesn't come cheap. The people who launched the first recall effort against former NDP finance minister Paul Ramsey spent more than $35,000 on the campaign; his defenders spent about the same. Even a half-a-dozen serious efforts would cost around $250,000.
That's a big sum to raise, especially with no organization ready to foot the bills or take over the fund-raising. The union movement doesn't have the money and isn't convinced it would be well-spent. And New Democrats fear that donations to recall campaigns will take away from the party's own fund-raising efforts. (Donors are already going to be facing plenty of pleas, with a federal election likely in late 2004 and a provincial vote in May 2005.)
That's not the New Democrats' only concern.
Many party members never did like the recall legislation. Former cabinet minister Corky Evans spoke for them this month when he wrote his hometown Nelson Daily News and argued against a recall effort aimed at Liberal MLA Blair Suffredine.
Recall is an "abomination," Evans said. "No individual, including our MLA, deserves that kind of character assassination in the guise of democratic activity." If an MLA does a poor job, voters can toss him out at the next election, Mr. Evans argues.
There are plenty of pragmatic concerns too.
To recall an MLA and force a byelection campaigners have to get signatures from 40 per cent of the eligible voters from the last election. That's 11,700 names in Suffredine's riding, more than half the people who actually voted last year, all to be gathered in 60 days. That's a huge challenge.
And if recall fails - the most likely outcome - some Liberal opponents worry the campaigners will have spent enthusiasm better saved until the general election.
NDP supporters see one major benefit to successful recall bids (although the party pledges to stay firmly on the sidelines). Two successful campaigns, followed by NDP byelection wins, would bring the party up to four seats, enough to guarantee official opposition status. That would mean an extra $150,000 a year for the caucus, allowing them to hire badly needed staff. And the new MLAs - especially ones without ties to the old government - would help share the daunting workload.
But before any of that can happen, not only does recall have to succeed but the NDP has to win the resulting byelections, and that's far from certain.
The Liberals could well retain the seats, given their popularity, people's discomfort with recall and the likelihood of a vote split on the left. An independent candidate could win, or even a high-profile Green Party candidate (likely the NDP's worst nightmare).
Add the negatives up, and recall looks like a dubious enterprise.
Recall bids can be launched 18 months after an election, meaning campaigns could start in November. But municipal elections are coming, preoccupying many activists, and then we're into holidays and winter. A realistic date is next spring - barely two years before the next election.
Some efforts will likely go ahead, with the ones driven by strong local issues likely to come closest to success. Suffredine is a potential target for Nelson residents angry about health care cuts; Val Roddick may draw fire from Delta voters angry about threats to hospital services; Jeff Bray, who barely won in Victoria-Beacon Hill, faces criticism over public service job cuts.
But it's unlikely that many serious campaigns will be launched, or that any will succeed.

Paul Willcocks can be reached at willcocks@ultranet.ca


Clark earned his trial, and his acquittal - let's move on
By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - Glen Clark isn't a criminal. He was still a bad premier.
I'm pleased Clark wasn't convicted. He had his faults as premier, but I wouldn't have pegged him as someone interested in personal financial gain.
Poor judgment, sloppiness, questionable honesty in dealing with the public, self-delusion - it's hard not to see all those things in Glen Clark after reading the court judgment, and after watching him in action. But something so petty as greed? I don't think so.
There seems to be some rush to find a moral in this saga, something beyond Virgil's "beware of Greeks bearing gifts."
But strip away all the hype, and you've got suspect behaviour and sufficient evidence to justify charges and a trial - according to the judge - and an acquittal based on the evidence. No Liberal-RCMP-media conspiracies or criminal-NDP conspiracies or unexplained forces conspiracies. Just a premier with bad judgment, a government desperate for some gambling money and some small-time operators sniffing out a big score.
Clark comes out looking fairly dismal. His most trusted aide thought it was OK to create a phoney memo covering his tracks; Clark misled the public about his friendship with Dimitrios Pilarinos and about the renovations. (Clark always talked about the deck added on his house, when really Pilarinos also added a dormer, installed a gas fireplace, moved a window, replaced the roof and put in new floors and closets. People who aren't ashamed don't mislead you about things like that.) And he stuck gambling minister Mike Farnworth in a wretched position.
But he's not guilty, a finding which should allow him to move into the next stage in his life.
Conspiracy buffs should move on to their next issue too. Supreme Court Justice Justice Elizabeth Bennett was clear that the charges were justified, based on the evidence. Defence attacks on the integrity of RCMP Staff Sergeant Peter Montague, a potential Liberal candidate, were bogus and offensive, she said. This trial wasn't about left versus right, or Liberals versus New Democrats. It was about whether laws were broken.
Clark seemed to realize that from the day the RCMP searched his home, quickly taking on the role of criminal defendant. Consider his first public statement about Pilarinos, after the search of his home "He is a neighbour of mine. We see each other occasionally, our children attend the same school and they play together." No mention of frequent meetings and phone calls, or time at the cottage. Not dishonest, but far from candid.
"As a result, I gave explicit instructions to my staff last summer to ensure that I was insulated from the decision-making process for this licence application," Clark went on. "I am sharing with you a copy of the memorandum to file prepared by my staff confirming this fact.'' Except the memorandum was a fake, written months after the fact and filed with a phoney date.
What's the ultimate lesson? Bad judgment manifests itself in a wide and disturbing variety of ways.
What's the long-term significance? Not much.
NDP leader Joy MacPhail was invited in several interviews to blame Clark's legal problems for her party's thumping defeat. To her credit, she said the bigger problems were the voters' belief that the New Democrats were "dishonest, fiscally irresponsible and not good managers."
Consider it another bizarre, embarrassing and ultimately irrelevant episode in B.C. politics.
And then let it slide. Clark can make his own way in the world, taxpayers can write the cheques, the lawyers can find new clients, and we can quit worrying about this sideshow.
The system, in its lumbering way, worked. Serious charges, against the powerful, were taken to the justice system. The court heard the evidence and ruled in a way that seemed pretty fair.
And that, out of this whole sordid affair, is something to celebrate.

Paul Willcocks can be reached at willcocks@ultranet.ca

Wednesday, August 28, 2002

Recall plans fading as reality sinks in
By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - Recall is looking more and more like one of those ships that sink before they leave the dock.
There are some enthusiastic backers out there, anxious to send a message to the Liberals, and some ridings where work is already under way.
But the key individuals and organizations needed to make recall work - NDP supporters and unions - are backing away from the whole idea.
Recall doesn't come cheap. The people who launched the first recall effort against former NDP finance minister Paul Ramsey spent more than $35,000 on the campaign; his defenders spent about the same. Even a half-a-dozen serious efforts would cost around $250,000.
That's a big sum to raise, especially with no organization ready to foot the bills or take over the fund-raising. The union movement doesn't have the money and isn't convinced it would be well-spent. And New Democrats fear that donations to recall campaigns wil take away from the party's own fund-raising efforts. (Donors are already going to be facing plenty of pleas, with a federal election likely in late 2004 and a provincial vote in May 2005.)
That's not the New Democrats' only concern.
Many party members never did like the recall legislation. Former cabinet minister Corky Evans spoke for them this month when he wrote his hometown Nelson Daily News and argued against a recall effort aimed at Liberal MLA Blair Suffredine.
Recall is an "abomination," Evans said. "No individual, including our MLA, deserves that kind of character assassination in the guise of democratic activity." If an MLA does a poor job, voters can toss him out at the next election, Mr. Evans argues.
There are plenty of pragmatic concerns too.
To recall an MLA and force a byelection campaigners have to get signatures from 40 per cent of the eligible voters from the last election. That's 11,700 names in Suffredine's riding, more than half the people who actually voted last year, all to be gathered in 60 days. That's a huge challenge.
And if recall fails - the most likely outcome - some Liberal opponents worry the campaigners will have spent enthusiasm better saved until the general election.
NDP supporters see one major benefit to successful recall bids (although the party pledges to stay firmly on the sidelines). Two successful campaigns, followed by NDP byelection wins, would bring the party up to four seats, enough to guarantee official opposition status. That would mean an extra $150,000 a year for the caucus, allowing them to hire badly needed staff. And the new MLAs - especially ones without ties to the old government - would help share the daunting workload.
But before any of that can happen, not only does recall have to succeed but the NDP has to win the resulting byelections, and that's far from certain.
The Liberals could well retain the seats, given their popularity, people's discomfort with recall and the likelihood of a vote split on the left. An independent candidate could win, or even a high-profile Green Party candidate (likely the NDP's worst nightmare).
Add the negatives up, and recall looks like a dubious enterprise.
Recall bids can be launched 18 months after an election, meaning campaigns could start in November. But municipal elections are coming, preoccupying many activists, and then we're into holidays and winter. A realistic date is next spring - barely two years before the next election.
Some efforts will likely go ahead, with the ones driven by strong local issues likely to come closest to success. Suffredine is a potential target for Nelson residents angry about health care cuts; Val Roddick may draw fire from Delta voters angry about threats to hospital services; Jeff Bray, who barely won in Victoria-Beacon Hill, faces criticism over public service job cuts.
But it's unlikely that many serious campaigns will be launched, or that any will succeed.

Paul Willcocks can be reached at willcocks@ultranet.ca