Wednesday, July 16, 2008

AG finds Coleman, government failed to protect public interest while enriching forest company

The auditor general's report on the government's decision to remove 70,000 acres of private land from tree farm licences on southern Vancouver Island to clear the way for real estate development offers a brutal critique of an incompentent process. Former forest minister Rich Coleman failed in his duty to protect the public interest, the auditor general found.
I'll have something up this evening, but in the interim there's a Times Colonist editorial here and a Les Leyne column here.
Both are well-worth reading.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just another reason why we need Vancouver Island to become Its own province. And it shows that we have another lame forestry minister.Mr. Bell was on a Liberal cheerleaders radio show andwas telling the host how great the forest industry is going to be , then dismissed the callers as being too judgemental and wrong about logs going out of the Alberni Valley, according to him it was hardly any and of course the top dog host just agreed.

Anonymous said...

I haven't read the report, but I have been trying to keep up with the commentary. Here's a scary snip from Schreck: "Coleman refused to meet with the Auditor or his staff to discuss why he made the decision to remove 28,000 hectares of land." http://strategicthoughts.com/record2008/publicinterest.html

It boggles the mind the amount of arrogance required to ignore the Auditor and then turn around and criticize the Auditor for being "unprofessional — lacking of integrity," as Forests Minister Pat Bell did.

Anonymous said...

Anon at 8:18 said:

"It boggles the mind the amount of arrogance required to ignore the Auditor and then turn around and criticize the Auditor for being 'unprofessional — lacking of integrity,' as Forests Minister Pat Bell did."

I agree. That's pretty scary - it's how people behave when they think they're above the law. Reminds me of their recent ham-fisted efforts to restrict the independent Representative for Children & Youth.

Kudos to our new Auditor General - keep up the good work! Mr. Campbell's good ole boys clearly need lots of help living up to their commitment to give us the most open and accountable government in Canada.

Anonymous said...

I read the report and it was pretty scathing. sloppy management for sure. Our local paper, the Times Colonist today July 17was full of articles about the way the BC government made a mess of the removal. Worth reading. I don't want to in any way diminish Paul's article, it's one more showing thee inept handling of our resources by an inept arrogant government. We often drove out to the area.No more. A free space to park trailers for tourists, the ocean views are stunning. The folks on boards working the surf. The little hamberger shack was worht the trip. All to be removed and the bulldozers are knocking down the trees. Who cares that the CRD passed bylaws reducing the massive size of planned lots. All because this government doesn't give a damn , doesn't listen to the citizens but sure listen to their friends, who send big bucks their way around election time. It now looks pretty bad.

Oh it's all progress,the poor companies need money so are becoming developers, the kind most of us don't want to see. That land was obtainedas land grants to ensure a railroad was built The foresrty companies got it real cheap with the intent of logging over time, repeatedly, This government changed the rules and now it's easy pickings for the forestry companies. It will happen in other places as well. Vancouver Island has about 24 percent of land in private hands, so it will be worse here than in the rest of the province. Solution? Get rid of Cambpell and Company while we still have trees, and access to the coast line in areas held by private companies

Anonymous said...

"Solution? Get rid of Cambpell and Company while we still have trees, and access to the coast line in areas held by private companies"
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As political analyst recently said on his CTV blog:

"Carole James is woefully inept and totally unprepared to lead any govt."


Ha... That's like jumping from the frying pan into the fire!