Time to take the big money out of politics

VICTORIA - It was wounding to find out just how dumb the Liberal big guys think I am.
The Liberals had to report that they raked in a huge amount in corporate donations to pay for their election campaign, a potential political problem.
So they cranked their spin machines up to warp drive and sent out a press release headlined "BC Liberals work to match NDP friends' war chest." The first two-thirds of the release railed about "the outlandish third-party spending from big labour" and the Liberals' plucky underdog efforts to raise money.
And then came the news. The Liberals raised $11.4 million between Jan. 1 and election day, almost $5 million more than they got in 2001. The NDP raised barely half as much, at just under $6 million.
OK, so the Liberals had a lot more money to spend. But there were still all those union campaigns, said party chief Kelly Reichert, and the Liberals worked "tooth-and-nail for donations at the grassroots level."
Maybe, if the grassroots you're talking about are found on the fairways of ritzy country clubs.
About 80 per cent of the Liberals' donations came from corporations and other businesses. Corporate donors paid a bigger share of the bills than they did in 2001.
The NDP were largely supported by individuals, getting less than one-third of their donations from unions.
But, Reichert thundered, the NDP's total doesn't include all the money unions spent on campaigns to defeat the Liberals. More than half the individuals and groups that registered as third party advertisers in this campaign were unions.
It is true that unions, like the BCGEU and BC Teachers' Federation, spent a lot of money ato boost the NDP's prospects. But then business groups spent a lot of money - though probably not as much - boosting the Liberals' prospects. My guess is that the Liberals and their supporters will probably still be the bigger spenders, although it could be close.
And that doesn't even take into account all of your money the Liberals spent on government ads that helped the party. The Liberals secretly went $7 million over the government advertising budget last year, with most of the extra spending going for those "Best Place on Earth" ads, with their striking resemblance to the Liberal campaign ads. If you're looking for unreported political spending, that's a place to start.
The Liberals' press release on their campaign fund-raising may have been an attempt to get out in front of the story, and to spin it in a positive way. The final campaign reports - including the lists of who gave how much - won't be available from Elections BC until Monday.
Instead they looked much like the Wizard of Oz in his palace, clutching at the curtain as Toto tugs on a corner, urging Dorothy and friends to pay no attention to the small man pulling the levers. And in the process the Liberals suggested that they had something they wanted to hide. (And ensured that the donation issue would make the news twice, this week and again when the full reports are out.)
The best lesson to be taken from all this is that the rules around political fund-raising and spending in B.C. need a major overhaul. The NDP and Greens have called for B.C. to ban both corporate and union donations, following the lead of Quebec, Manitoba and the federal government.
And the public is concerned that corporate and union donors expect special treatment, and that big money, not policies or public support, drives politics. (Almost 90 per cent of Canadians believe "people with money have a lot of influence over the government," according to a 2000 survey.)
Meanwhile the Liberals slam union donations; the NDP complains of corporate influence; the public grows more cynical.
Surely all parties agree that it's past time to reform a system that British Columbians, of all political stripes, agree is deeply flawed.
Footnote: Gordon Campbell has said he sees no need to change the current system. It is enough that donations are disclosed, he says, allowing the public to keep decide if big donors have special influence. But government decisions are often invisible, and few citizens will plow through the lists of thousands of donors.

Replacement worker ban still makes sense

VICTORIA - It's helpful to think of replacement workers in terms of nuclear war.
I grew up with images of mushroom clouds, calculating the likelihood that Russia would decide to make Buffalo a target - I lived in Toronto - and whether they were competent enough to annihilate that city without accidentally melting my suburb.
The Cold War weapons race was about deterrence through mutually assured destruction. As long as the U.S. and the Soviet Union each knew that the other had enough weapons of mass destruction to ensure a nightmarish retaliation for any attack, they would behave. Give either an advantage, the theory assumes, and they would bomb the other country back to mud, rocks and ruin.
Labour relations sometimes come to the same point.
Wise unions, and wise companies, recognize the benefits of co-operation. They negotiate agreements based on compromise and common interests.
But people aren't always wise. The only thing that force some unions and employers to reach agreements is the threat of mutually assured destruction, in the form of a strike or lockout.
Unions don't want members to give up thousands of dollars in lost wages; companies don't want to see profits vanish, and customers drift to competitors. So when contract talks get tough, they compromise. If the balance of terror is right, both sides give.
Which leads to the issue of replacement workers. B.C. and Quebec are the only provinces that bar companies from bringing in replacement workers if employees go on strike. In B.C., the only people who can try to keep the business going are the managers who normally work in the building. Practically, a strike means most businesses close until the dispute is resolved.
The BC Business Council has again said it's time to reverse the 1993 ban on replacement workers. The current rules give unions too great an ability to hurt companies in the event of a strike, the council argues. That pushes wages to uncompetitive levels, and discourages investment.
There's no right answer on the question.
I managed businesses, and would have welcomed the ability to use replacement workers. The one newspaper that closed on my watch might not have fallen, I expect, saving more than 100 jobs. The unions involved miscalculated the newspaper's resources, and its ability to survive a strike. The possibility of replacement workers might have encouraged a more cautious assessment of the risks.
But anecdote is not good foundation for policy. And there are companies who would treat the ability to use replacement workers as the latest mega-bomb to use against their employees.
It's risky to mess with the status quo in labour relations; changes have big consequences. When the Harcourt government eliminated the secret ballot vote on certification in 1992, unions suddenly doubled their growth rate.
The evidence suggests the current balance of power is about right. The business council cites a study that concludes a ban on replacement workers results in more, longer strikes, higher wages and reduced investment. But the study is based largely on the experience in Quebec, which has other issues of its own. (The council plans to release its own research on the issue this fall.)
The replacement worker ban doesn't appear to be distorting wages. The average weekly wage in B.C is $700, right on the national average, with Alberta and Ontario well ahead. And the province has been through a relatively peaceful period in labour relations.
The Liberals have come to the same assessment so far. And while they have trampled all over public sector unions, Campbell and company have been cautious when it comes to the broader labour relations framework.
New Labour Minister Mike de Jong, like predecessor Graham Bruce, says he's not interested in re-opening the replacement worker question.
It's a good position. Circumstances may change, or new facts may emerge. But so far the evidence is that the balance of terror - for the unions and companies that operate on that level - is about right.
Footnote: A key reason offered for the introduction of the ban, to prevent picket line violence, still applies. Any effort by Teck Cominco, for example, to operate its struck Trail smelter, would spark ugly battles. It's troubling that the rule of law would break down, but it is also a realistic concern.

Maximus problems show privatization risks

VICTORIA - You should be concerned that the private company hired to take over MSP and Pharmacare administration is already running into problems.
Maximus Inc. got the contract last year, a deal that will see the government pay the U.S. company $320 million over 10 years.
Now news has leaked out that the government has imposed penalties under the contract, because Maximus wasn’t coming close to meeting performance targets. The contract says calls should be answered in three minutes. People are waiting five times that long. New applications are supposed to processed in 20 days; more than a third took longer than 40 days. The good news is that the contract has penalty clauses, and the government has used them. (The amounts are secret, says Health Minister George Abbott. Apparently Maximus didn’t want the information known, and the government agreed to the secrecy.)
The bad news is that things have gone wrong so soon after the company’s April 1 take-over. The penalties involve service failures in April and June, when you would have expected Maximus to be pushing to show what good job it could do.
Some start-up pains are normal, the load has been heavier than expected and service was not great when the work was done in-house. Maximus says it will hire up to 40 extra people to clear the backlog, and Abbott is confident things will get better.
There is merit to the argument that it makes sense to contract out some work to specialized companies. They can spread the costs of developing computer systems over different clients, and - theoretically - become experts in the field.
The Liberal government has been keen on the idea, signing more than $1.5 billion worth of deals to contract out work once done by government employees, with more to come. They maintain the work will be done better, and cheaper.
The Maximus problems are a useful warning that things do not necessarily work out as planned. And the potential consequences are worrying.
Penalties are useful short-term weapons, and Maximus is no doubt keen to protect its reputation (despite, or perhaps because of, problems in other jurisdictions).
But ultimately the corporation needs to make money on this deal. Maximus took in $725 million last year, and made $48 million in profit. The B.C. contract is a significant piece of business for the corporation.
If penalties hurt the profitability of the B.C. operations, or the extra staff needed to meet the commitments cost too much, managers will be expected to fix the business problem. Since revenue is limited by the contract, the only option is to cut costs. (I speak from experience as a former corporate guy.)
And while the 27 performance standards in the contract are intended to protect service levels, operators will find shortcuts not covered by the contract.
When it comes to this deal, that's an acceptable risk. Even if there are problems, the consequences are manageable.
But that's not true for all contracting out efforts.
Take the BC NurseLine service, currently slated for privatization, with Maximus considered the front-runner to win the $135-million, 10-year contract.
The NurseLine is valuable. Nurses are available around-the-clock on a toll-free line to answer health questions. They can reassure a worried parent, promote prevention and head off unnecessary emergency room visits. It provides better, cheaper healthy care, fielding about 700 calls a day.
The service has been managed by E-Comm, the non-profit agency that provides 911 services in southwestern B.C. Abbott says E-Comm turned down a government offer to continue the service, leading to the privatization plan.
But the consequences of performance problems are much more serious with NurseLine, and many other services. A corporate operator under pressure to cut costs could compromise the line's value in fundamental ways.
Privatization often makes sense. But not always.
And given the sensitivity of the issues with NurseLine and the problems with the existing Maximus contract, it's hard to see why the government is prepared to sign a 10-year contract with a private operator.
Footnote: It's puzzling that the government hasn't worked harder to expand NurseLine's use. Emergency rooms could all have phone banks to let visitors call the line as an alternative to waiting for service; non-urgent cases could be required to show they had called the service before receiving treatment.

Children and families failing, says the front line

VICTORIA - The people at the front end, locked in the daily struggle to help children, families and troubled teens, they say the government has messed things up.
Child and Youth Officer Jane Morley talked to them to prepare the "Asking Questions" review. It's not, she says, her report. The message is based on more than 100 interviews and meetings across the province with the people and agencies who do the work.
It's grim. Families who need help to avoid tragedy can't get it, because there's no money or time. Scared teens who want to kick their addictions are turned away, because there's no treatment programs. Young adults suffering from fetal alcohol effect are launched alone into the world at 18, to become criminals, addicts, prey. A little continued support and their lives would be saved (and taxpayers would be spared the far more costly consequences of their later disasters).
There are successes, and these people are proud of what do. But they say the wins come despite the government's role, which has been to drive budget cuts and a mismanaged re-organization.
This is a testing time for Children and Families Minister Stan Hagen.
The government line has maintained that everything is fine, the resources are in place and the situation is well in hand.
Now the people on the front line say that is not true.
“Service providers described a chronic lack of funds sufficient to provide quality, consistent, timely and necessary services,” Morley reports. “Many service providers expressed a belief that the government's agenda is simply to reduce spending, rather than ensuring that the needs and interests of children are met.”
Yes, these people - some ministry staff, some from contract agencies - have their own interests. But Morley says they spoke from the heart, and the message needs to be heard.
The reality is that the ministry budget is seven-per-cent lower this year than it was when the Liberals were elected. Figure even a small amount for inflation, and you find it would take $250 million in extra funding to get back to the former commitment.
Money spent is not a measure of effectiveness.
But the reforms that were supposed to allow the reduced spending have not, for the most part, been put in place.
Clients, workers and almost anyone else involved with the system have warned that the cuts were hurting children and families.
And now the people who do the terribly difficult work say we've cut the budget so much that people can't be helped. (The Liberals acknowledged that the ministry was underfunded before they made their cuts. In opposition Gordon Campbell said the budget was inadequate, and urged the NDP to increase it. )
The government could argue that better support and protection for children and families is not affordable, or a priority.
But there's an economic problem with that argument. The report raises the idea of a vicious circle. The government doesn't provide enough support to deal with problems when they're small, which leads to much greater future costs, further reducing the money available for prevention. There is nothing more expensive than responding to each new crisis, instead of dealing with the causes.
And there's a moral problem. These people - the young addict, the neglected child, the scared mother - have one thing in common. They need help that we can provide.
None of this should be about politics. The NDP mismanaged the children and families ministry badly, and so have the Liberals. The ministry has had eight ministers in the last nine years, including three different political masters in the Liberals' four years.
Right now, Hagen faces a challenge. He can dismiss the observations and analysis of the people doing the work, using whatever justification.
Or he acknowledge the serious problems, and explain what he will do to begin to deal with them.
Children and families across the province are waiting on the decision.
Footnote: Morley confessed to some nervousness in releasing the report, fearing that the negative assessment may encourage cynicism and reduce hope about the prospects for improvement. She concluded, rightly, that the problems have to be raised, and that the people on the front lines are the core strength of the system.

More answers in the sad case of Sherry Charlie

VICTORIA - Two weeks after releasing a five-page summary of its review of the death of 19-month-old Sherry Charlie, the government changed course and made the full report public.
And the full version revealed significant omissions in the summary.
Sherry was battered to death almost three years ago, days after being placed in the care of relatives under a new ministry policy. The man who beat her, the father in the Port Alberni home, had a long and violent criminal record. He was on probation for assaulting his spouse. The children’s ministry had already investigated concerns about the well-being of other children in the home.
Sherry wasn't properly protected.
There's no shattering differences between the summary and the full report on most of the facts.
But the ministry's summary left out significant context about how this came to happen, and what needs to be done prevent similar cases.
The summary reported that Usma Nuu Chah Nulth Community Services, acting on the authority of the ministry, placed Sherry in the home of her uncle, the man convicted of manslaughter in her death. (The ministry believes - rightly - that placing a child with family is generally preferable to foster care with non-relatives.)
The agency had not done a criminal record check. It had done only one reference check. It had contacted the ministry to find out if there were any previous concerns about the home. There were, but the ministry didn't tell the agency about them.
The whole process was new to all concerned. The government had just proclaimed the sections of a six-year-old act that set up a separate, less involved procedure for placing children with family and friends as an alternative to foster care. Sherry was the first child the Nuu Chah Nulth Agency placed under the new policy.
The summary acknowledged problems. "The newness of the policy, the lack of training and the lack of clarity on the requirements contributed to some confusion in the agency," it said.
But the report adds useful detail. The six-page policy was faxed to the agency that summer, with no follow-up or training, and the language suggested the guidelines were optional.
And it adds context about the change. "It was introduced in 2002 as an element of MCFD's new strategic shift, placing more onus on communities (families, informal support networks) to care for children, to reduce the number of children in foster care by a specific percentage and, in the opinion of the review to reduce costs," the report says.
Children and Families Minister Stan Hagen disagrees with the report. Placing Sherry in foster care would have been less costly, he notes, since the federal government would have paid.
But the finding is consistent with other, similar concerns about the ministry's direction, and it is relevant. It should have been disclosed.
Just as the report's observations about the wider issues that led to the case should have been disclosed. The report notes sherry was from Ahousat, a small island community about 40 minutes from Port Alberni by boat.
"The resources available to social workers in small, isolated communities are often woefully inadequate; there are often waiting lists for alcohol and drug treatment programs, day care facilities are inadequate, family support programs do not address underlying social problems," says the full report. "The lack of resources and the isolation result in agencies having difficulty supervising the progress or lack of progress a family is making."
To me, that's important enough to make the summary.
Hagen has, to his credit, acted to deal with the obvious perceived conflict involved in having ministry staff summarize reports that may be critical of their actions. Future reports will simply be released in full, subject to editing for privacy issues.
But the three-year delay, the reluctant disclosure and the missing information are all troubling.
Things are going to go wrong sometimes in this ministry.
What the public, the children and families served, and the people on the front lines all deserve is quick, full disclosure, and fast action to fix any problems.
Footnote: Sherry's brother remained in the home for five months after her death on Sept. 4. The summary said "between September, 2002, and January, 2003, the agency and ministry received information that the coroner was suspicious about the explanation for the child’s death." The full report shows the ministry was told Sherry's death was suspicious on Sept. 17.

U.S. war on drugs belongs on other side of the border

VICTORIA - Do the crime, do the time.
That's a fair starting point for looking at the plight of Marc Emery, Vancouver's high-profile marijuana activist. The Americans have come gunning for Emery - with the help of Canadian police and prosecutors - and want to take him across the border and lock him up for a long time.
Look a little harder at the issues, and the picture changes.
Emery has been running a big marijuana seed business, with a catalogue that reads like a brochure for an upscale wine shop. His business is effectively legal in Canada. The law banning the sale of seeds hasn't been enforced since 1968, and Emery has been selling at his store and through multi-page magazine ads without any police action.
But Emery has also been selling seeds to customers in the U.S., and the Americans have spent years - and a pile of money - building a case against him.
On one hand Emery apparently made the decision to send seeds into the U.S., despite the obvious risks. (None of this has been proven, but there haven't been a lot of denials.) Decisions, especially bad ones, have consequences.
But the case isn't quite so simple.
Start with the legal issues. Canada and the U.S. have extradition treaties that make it easy to yank people across the border to face charges. Prosecutors just have to show is that there is enough evidence to justify a trial - whether a conviction is likely or not - and the suspect is on his way.
But the treaties say that people can't be extradited for offences that aren't considered crimes in their own country.
That raises one likely argument. The law against selling seeds is on the books in Canada, but unenforced. Prime Minister Paul Martin has promised to remove marijuana possession from the Criminal Code. Emery can make a good case that what he has been doing is no longer illegal in Canada, and he shouldn't face extradition. In Canada, there is no effective penalty for selling seeds. In the U.S., Emery and the two other people charged face a minimum term of 10 years, and the possibility of life behind bars. It's the kind of disparity that should raise doubts about the extradition request.
There are other questions.
While Canada has a legal obligation to respond to extradition applications once the U.S. has gathered the evidence, Canadian police and prosecutors still have the right to decide how much time they're prepared to devote to helping make the case.
When the U.S. police and prosecutors asked for help in investigating Emery, their Canadian counterparts could have politely declined.
That would have been a legitimate response. When DEA officers want to operate in Canada, they first need RCMP consent, and are shadowed by Canadian officers. It's time-consuming and diverts effort from other priorities. In the past Canadian police have just said no when the targets didn't justify the commitment.
Common sense says they should have said no this time, rather than spending almost a  year working with American officers. After all, they hadn't considered the seed sales a priority for the last decade. The public, based on most polls, doesn't consider it important.  
And there are a lot of crime problems that do need tackling, from meth labs to gang activity to violent assaults.
The U.S. government has been waging a costly, ineffective war on drugs for decades. The approach - trying to reduce supply, and lock up offenders - has accomplished nothing. 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.  
Addiction, death, crime and prisoners have all increased. The Americans are, of course, free to choose their response to drug use, no matter how irrational.
But the Canadian government doesn't have to sign on as partners helping bring a ineffective, destructive war on drugs across the border.
Footnote: One reason for Canadian police co-operation with the DEA is their belief that if they don't agree, the U.S. officers will go ahead illegally. The BC Supreme Court tossed out an extradition request in 2002 because of DEA wrongdoing in Canada. "The illegal conduct is extremely offensive because of the violation of Canadian sovereignty without explanation or apology," the court found.  

A father’s advice, on the eve of war with Daneland

VICTORIA - Son, I know you’re ready to serve your country.
Art school is fine. Perhaps you’ll go back there some day.
But right now, it’s important to stand up to the Danish war machine, before they launch a sneak attack from Daneland and crush the non-existent inhabitants of Hans Island.
No, that’s not near Saltspring. Don’t you students watch the news?
Hans Island is in the north somewhere between Greenland and some Canadian cold place. Defence Minister Bill Graham angered the war-mongering, cheese-loving Danes when he flew over the island in a helicopter and, in a rare carefree moment, said ‘Hey, let’s land on that rock and take some pictures.
Provocation, the Danes whined, scoffing their fancy open-faced eel sandwiches. Eel sandwiches, son. These people are barbarians, who have never even grasped the concept that a sandwich requires two pieces of bread.
Now the Danes are ready to do battle to try and take away an important Canadian rocky outcrop, which they falsely claim as their own.
Sure, Hans Island is nothing special. A flat rock in a cold ocean, about 100 metres wide and 3,000 metres long. Even birds aren’t dumb enough to live there, and based on that penguin movie they are not picky.
But darn it, son, Bill Graham says it belongs to us. And if we aren’t willing to support a man who has spent a lifetime travelling the world preaching the Gospel in overheated arenas, can we really be Canadians?
Yes, it’s a useless lump of rock today.
But wait a few centuries and global warming will turn Hans Rock into a strategic must-have, our government says. Cruise ships and oil tankers will be booting it through the Northwest Passage as if it was a police-free shortcut home from the bar on Friday night.
Hans Island could be our toll booth, or help us protect the environment, or something. And maybe there’s oil, or kryptonite, waiting to be discovered.
Anyway, that’s not the point, son. This is about sovereignty, and national pride.
Those Danes are laughing at us, an insult made more cruel because of their normal melancholy. They’re taking breaks from watching their beloved women’s handball games to sneer at our way of life, wandering around with their freakishly large dogs, munching their beloved Danish pastries, telling each other Canadian jokes.
They’ve been tormenting us for years, those Victor Borge loving lowlanders.
Consider Ole Kirk Christansen, his company supposedly making ironing boards, stepladders and wooden toys, flying under the radar. In 1955 Christansen struck, unleashing Lego. Three generations of Canadian parents have spent the best years of their lives on their knees each evening, picking up hundreds of tiny plastic blocks, inevitably missing the ones that will later stab into their heels.
The coming conflict won’t be easy, son. It took Germany less than four hours to conquer Denmark in 1940, but we aren’t Germany. Denmark has about twice as many tanks as Canada, and air and sea forces are evenly matched. (Although we outnumber them six to one in population.) We need to negotiate rules of engagement that allow some sort of time-out if anybody gets hurt or one of our submarines catches on fire.
I know what you’re thinking, son.
Is this really your fight? How come I’m talking so tough for somebody who never fought anyone? Where is Daneland? What don’t Graham and his Danish counterpart fight this out on the island, with an appropriate split of the pay-per-view money? What’s with all the question marks?
But ultimately this is simple. The enemy isn’t just trying to take our freedom, or extract some revenge because Aqua was a global one-hit wonder. (Though Barbie Girl was catchy.) No, they hate our freedom, and our liberty.
It’s tough to go to war.
It’s especially tough when the whole conflict would have been ignored if it wasn’t summer and the media desperately short of real news stories.
But life is cruel. Good luck, son. Bring us back some cheese.
Footnote: The Danes have a secret weapon - “hygge.” Hygge is a Danish term for a happy life, suggesting a "warm, fuzzy, comfortable feeling of well-being," a life of good food, good company, wine, nice furniture, good music. The risk, of course, is that our brave young warriors may end up lounging on an oiled teak chaise, knocking back Aquavit and herring. Be strong, son.

Here's what so bad - and good - about being a politician

VICTORIA - Almost 60 per cent of Canadians say there's no way they want their son or daughter to become prime minister.
And two-thirds don't want their children to go into politics at all.
The concern about being prime minister is understandable. It's a hard job.
I sat beside Jean Chretien at a dinner when he was about three years into his first term, as things were falling apart in the former Yugoslavia. It was a big problem, he said. If I send Canadian soldiers, some of them will be killed. If I don't send them, people will be massacred. Tough decision.
Chretien seemed like a decent, worried human being that night - even if things later went wrong. (I'm not a soft touch. A couple of encounters with Brian Mulroney just left me feeling like I needed a shower.)
The poll suggests a concern that goes beyond the workload and tough decisions. Elected office has become disreputable, like being a hung-over salesman in one of those used-car lots that opens on Thursday and is gone by the end of the weekend.
I write mostly about provincial politics, and the MLAs I've met have all been people who got involved because they wanted to make life better in their communities.They won the nomination because they were good organizers, and seen as smart, fair and able to bring people together. They won the election because a lot of people thought they would do the best job. Being an MLA pays $75,400; many of them took a pay cut, most abandoned careers and turned their lives upside down.
But then things fell apart.
Look at the way politicians talk about each other. Liberal cabinet ministers accuse New Democrat MLAs of wanting to drive everyone in the province on to welfare, and the New Democrats come up with equally outrageous slurs. (Stephen Harper and Paul Martin and their minions are even worse.)
If politicians treat each other with public contempt, braying their way through debates, is it any wonder that polls find that they are are held in low regard? If they say the people on the other side lack honesty, decency and compassion, why shouldn't people believe them?
I don't understand what happens to people who get elected.
They're reasonable, smart, forthright, people of integrity, respected in their communities because they listen, and can build consensus. And they get elected and lose their minds. If the premier says the sky is purple - or that the government hasn't expanded gambling - they agree.
And then there is my small role in all this. A likable Liberal asked recently - again - about why I was so hard on the government.
My columns are generally about things that have gone wrong. I figure that's your expectation as a reader. What matters to you are the problems that need to be fixed. You expect that services will be delivered competently; that's why you pay taxes. If things have gone wrong, you want to know. (I take heart from the fact that the same people now disgruntled about the columns were big fans back when the focus was on NDP missteps,)
I am possibly the last naive person working in the rather splendid legislature building. So my hope is that when the new crop of MLAs arrives in September, they'll behave in a way that reflects their personal values, and the qualities that led their fellow citizens to send them to Victoria.
That's all it would take. The next poll, in a year or two, would find a lot more parents keen on their children growing up to be politicians.
It can be a great job. We all have the chance to change a few lives.
But our elected representatives, MLAs and MPs, have the chance to change thousands, millions of lives.
Nothing in society should be more important, or more valued.
Footnote: The real issue may be around MLAs' divided loyalties, between the people in the riding who elected them, and the premier who has so much control over their ability to be effective. And the real solution may lie in the kind of electoral reform that 58 per cent of British Columbians supported in the May referendum. Campbell's response is expected within the next few months.

Bingo hall slots rake in cash, promote addictions

VICTORIA - The B.C. government's push to create more losers is going well.
Gambling losers, that is.
The government has set out to increase both the number of gamblers, and their individual losses.
The numbers are just in on the latest tactic, locating addictive slot machines in community bingo halls around the province.
It's working. The BC Lottery Corp. reports that in the first four months after slots appeared in the Williams Lake bingo hall, people lost $2.4 million to the machines. Down in Kelowna, people lost $400,000 in three weeks after slots hit the bingo hall - $20,000 a day, or a forecast $7 million this year.
The lottery corporation is keen on slots in bingo halls. Slots and VLTs- the crack cocaine of gambling - are the same machines. The difference in location. And bingo halls, with liquor licences and restaurants, are a way to get the machines into more communities.
The local governments are wooed by a lottery corporation sales effort, and the promise of 10 per cent of the losses. And they're reminded that if they say no, BC Lotteries might put the slots in the next town down the road.
The communities are making the leap with little information on the social and economic damage. That $2.4 million that people lost in Williams Lake is money that they might have spent on local services and entertainment (or in some cases to buy groceries for their families). That economic benefit is gone, because the mini-casino business generates few jobs and sends most of the money down to Victoria.
Communities are left with the social costs - the lost jobs, broken families, crime. ("The people it hurts most are the ones we have a responsibility to protect, such as the poor, women and abused families," said Kamloops MLA Kevin Krueger in opposition. He's been quiet on the plan to put slots in small communities; the bingo hall in Kamloops added 50 slot machines in March.)
The public knows the risks. The government has just released a "baseline study" to begin tracking the effects of gambling in the Lower Mainland. (A little late, you might say.)
It surveyed residents, and found 55 per cent of people believed the harm from gambling outweighs any benefits; only 18 per cent said the benefits were worth the costs.
But governments are hooked, consciously choosing to trade a certain number of casualties for more money.
The B.C. government, through the lottery corporation, has a plan to lure more people into gambling. In 2003, 58 per cent of British Columbians gambled through the corporation. The government plans to recruit enough new gamblers to push that to 67 per cent 2007. That means about 360,000 more people lured into gambling, by ad campaigns, increasingly accessible slots and now Internet betting.
Lots of them will just lose a few dollars. But a new Canada West Foundation study found that 6.9 per cent of British Columbians are either problem gamblers, or at risk. That means that the government's gambling recruitment efforts could spell disaster for some 25,000 families. (The study also found that, despite increased funding , only Newfoundland spends less per capita on problem gambling treatment and prevention.)
All this will be damaging to individuals, and communities. That's why Campbell ran in 2001 on a promise to "stop the expansion of gambling that has increased gambling addiction and put new strains on families."
But the money counts more. So the government has pushed the number and availability of slots. There were 2,400 when the Liberals were elected, now there are 6,600. There were 10 locations with the machines. Now there are 21, with another half-dozen on their way this year.
It's allowed gambling on the Internet, and alcohol and ATMs in casinos and bingo halls.
All this is working. The government is on track to almost double its take to more than $1 billion a year.
The damaged and lost lives are just the price it has chosen to pay.
Footnote: B.C. has avoided the destructive trap of allowing VLTs, called the crack cocaine of gambling. But the only difference between a slot machine and a VLT is location - VLTs are slots in bars or stores. The machines are designed to be addictive, with those bells and lights and occasional payouts all aimed at keeping gamblers on their stools.

A child is dead, and three years later big questions remain

VICTORIA - Little Sherry Charlie shouldn’t have died.
The Port Alberni toddler was battered to death days after being placed in a foster home.
The man who beat her, the father in the home, had a long and violent criminal record. He was on probation for assaulting his spouse.
The children’s ministry knew there was a risk. It had already investigated concerns about the well-being of other children in the home.
But the ministry, and the First Nations agency that arranged the placement, both failed Sherry. And a little girl - 19 months old - died a terrible death.
Bad things happen. And in the difficult world of the ministry of children and families, some things will inevitably go very wrong.
When they do, the public needs quick, complete answers, to help avoid future errors. We are the ones responsible.
It took the government almost three years to release a report on her death. There were reasons for some delays. But taking three years to report on the death of a child is inexcusable.
When the report was finally released, the public got a five-page summary - prepared by the ministry - which left huge unanswered questions. The actual report, still secret, was almost 50 pages long.
The summary confirms that Sherry shouldn’t have died. It reveals that the ministry and Usma Nuu Chah Nulth Community and Human Services made major mistakes.
But while it offers up some facts, it does not provide needed answers.
The Nuu Chah Nulth agency, acting on the authority of the ministry, placed Sherry in the home of her uncle, the man convicted of manslaughter in her death. (The ministry believes - rightly - that placing a child with family is preferable to foster care with non-relatives.)
The agency had not done a criminal record check. It had done only one reference check before Sherry and her few possessions were dropped off at the home.
Why not more diligence? The summary doesn’t provide the needed answers. The agency may have violated ministry policies, the summary says. But it adds that the agency staff thought the policies were just guidelines.There was no training in the new rules. Nobody really knew what it all meant.
Why not? Was the ministry unclear? Were things happening too fast? Was there no money for training? Did the push to find family placements take priority over proper checks? Those questions aren’t answered in the skimpy summary.
When the First Nations agency did try to to get information, the ministry failed.
The agency asked the ministry to check its files to see if there were any issues with the prospective foster family.
There were. The ministry had information about past concerns in the same home. But it didn’t disclose them to the First Nations agency.
The summary says only that the failure was “inadvertent.” But why did it happen? Are ministry files incomplete? Was the worker too overloaded to check? Was training inadequate? No answers.
In the 15 days Sherry was in the home before she died, were there any follow-up visits to see how how was she doing? The ministry summary doesn’t say.
All this matters because we need to know if the problem has been fixed. If frontline workers are prevented from doing their job because budget cuts have left them with too many clients, and too few resources, we need to know. If training is inadequate, or systems don’t work, we need to know that.
Three years after Sherry’s death the only completed review has been done by the ministry - an obvious conflict of interest. The public still doesn’t have answers to basic questions.
The immediate solution is simple - release the full review, edited to protect individuals’ privacy rights.
The real answer is to bring back the Children’s Commission, eliminated by the Liberals, and restore effective independent review of the ministry.
Sherry didn’t have to die this way. At least let’s make her death mean something.
Footnote: The ministry contracted with Nicholas Simons, then employed with a First Nations service provider on the Sunshine Coast, to conduct the still-secret review. Simons is now the newly elected NDP MLA from the area, an indication of how long this has taken - and that the government can expect informed questions when the legislature resumes sitting in September.

Montana poses big threat to B.C. energy development plans

VICTORIA - Some time in the next several weeks Premier Gordon Campbell hopes to sit down with Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer and head off a damaging cross-border battle over a Kootenay coal mine.
The battle over the mine has been quietly - mostly - going on for about 18 months. And so far, the B.C. government has been unsuccessful in managing the dispute, which is bad news for people looking for coal or coalbed methane development in the region.
It’s a tricky problem, politically complicated on both sides of the border. The issue is a pretty small open-pit coal mine planned by Cline Mining for a site about 30 kms from the U.S. border. A lot of Montanans - from environmentalists to the pro-development governor - are worried about the mine. They fear that it will put the headwaters of the critical Flathead River - a big wilderness symbol for Montanans - at risk of pollution.
B.C.’s response has been, basically, butt out, we know what we’re doing and it’s our province. And anyway, the government has maintained, it’s early days and there might not be a mine.
That last claim is one of the things making Montanans nervous.
Cline says it’s spending $1.8 million this year drilling 51 test holes, building a seven-km road and taking out 90 tonnes of coal to send to steel mills around the world. The company’s annual report suggests mine development could be mostly completed by the end of next year.
Which has left some Montanans - like Schweitzer - worried that the B.C. government isn’t providing all the information about the project.
Mostly the B.C. government has reacted with irritation to the concerns. MLA Bill Bennett, now junior mining minister, even got into a heated debate with Montana Senator Max “Blame Canada” Baucus in Fernie over the project.
The reaction is understandable. Schweitzer, for example, is opposing the Kootenay mine while at the same time pushing a plan to develop new coal mines in Montana, along with new refineries to turn the coal into oil.
But B.C. has often seemed needlessly belligerent, and hasn’t answered reasonable questions.
The politics are complicated. Alongside their pragmatic concerns about the mine, Montana politicians know it’s always popular to oppose a potential polluter in adjacent country. (As proved by the battle against the SE2 project across the U.S. border from Sumas.)
The last thing British Columbia need is yet another cross-border dispute to add to the long list of Canada-U.S. issues. Schweitzer and Baucus have both pushed the Bush administration to oppose the current plans for the mine. The U.S. government position - supported by Montana’s governor and senators - is that unless B.C. reaches an agreement with Montana, the dispute should be sent to an International Joint Commission - a long, slow process.
The consequences of U.S. pressure are significant. Energy Minister Richard Neufeld denied approve for another mine Cline planned, closer to the border, in part because of U.S. opposition. (The company says it still hopes eventually to develop the mine.) An auction of coalbed methane rights in the area last year drew no bids, and uncertainty about U.S. opposition to development was one of the factors that kept the companies away.
And opposition from Montana is going to be a factor as B.C. tries to open the federally controlled Dominion Coal Block for exploration. The 50,000-acre parcel is just north of Cline’s proposed mine.
Intergovernmental Affairs Minister John van Dongen is planning a Montana visit, hoping to spend several days finding out about their concerns and talking about B.C.’s position.
But Campbell has the best opportunity to at least reduce the strength of the U.S. opposition. The meeting with Schweitzer could be an important step.
It doesn’t really matter if the concern in Montana is legitimate. If the B.C. government doesn’t reassure at least some of the critics, then plans for mine and methane development in the region face big hurdles, and long delays.
Footnote: The development opponents in Montana have already begun linking up with Kootenay residents opposed to mining and coalbed methane development, another headache for the B.C. government. The position taken by the NDP - which won three of four Kootenay seats in May - will be important in this debate.

Bigger fares and fees hurt economy - just look at BC Ferries

VICTORIA - We Islanders have just escaped an eight-per-cent ferry rate increase, the kind of thing that makes any consumer crabby.
Just like, I imagine, someone who lives in Merritt feels when they roll up to the toll booth on the Coquihalla, or we all feel when we contemplate the tax component of $1 gas.
But we tend to forget that the economic impact goes far beyond our individual problems.
Take the BC Ferries' proposed rate increase, which the corporation wanted to offset rising fuel costs. (The BC Ferry Commissioner, the independent watchdog over fare increases, ultimately reduced the levy to four per cent.)
The proposed eight-per-cent fare increase, based on BC Ferries' models, would have reduced ferry passengers between Vancouver Island and the Mainland by 2.5 per cent. That's more than 70,000 cancelled trips.
Some of those cancellations would come from Islanders, giving up on a plans for a Vancouver weekend.
But a lot of the lost travelers would be tourists who decided that it was too expensive to zip over to the Island to see Butchart Gardens.
It's a simple economic law. As price rises, demand falls. If you're a tourist in Vancouver, trying to decide whether to head to the Okanagan or the Island, the ferry costs are a factor. Figure $135, with reservation charges, for the round trip. That's enough to take the family out for a day at the water park, or to splurge on a flashy dinner. The Interior starts to look like a better destination.
BC Stats looked at the impact of ferry rate increases last year. It found that fares had consistently risen faster than inflation over the last 30 years. The average inflation rate was 4.5 per cent; ferry fare increases averaged 6.5 per cent.
Those excess increases are costing Vancouver Island's tourist industry more than $25 million a year in room revenues alone, BC Stats projected. Include food and other spending, you're looking at an annual $40 million loss to the economy.
BC Ferries rates may be a good deal by global standards. But that's not the issue.
Back in 1975 a car and driver could make the crossing for $5. If price increases had kept pace with inflation, today's fare would be about $18. Instead, it's more than $30.
That's enough to discourage some travellers, the evidence suggests. B.C.'s population has increased more than 55 per cent since 1980. Ferry traffic has risen only 33 per cent., and the Island is capturing a smaller share of overall provincial room revenues.
"The trend in Vancouver Island's share of room revenues has closely followed changes in ferry prices," BC Stats reported. "This suggests that BC Ferries has been, to a degree, pricing Vancouver Island out of the tourism market."
It's not just an Island issue. Vancouver Island is a destination for visitors from outside the province, and BC Ferries rate increases discourage visitors who could range through other parts of B.C.
And the issue goes far beyond BC Ferries.
Prices have to go up as costs rise. But all price increases, and taxes, and fees, have their consequences for the overall economy.
The Liberal government's appointment of a BC Ferry Commissioner to rule on rate increases is a good step. (Although the government has refused to act on Commissioner Martin Crilly's warning that he can't do his job properly because he has no power to review reservation fee increases. This creates "potential for misuse of monopoly power" by BC Ferries, says Crilly. BC Ferries raised reservation charges 17 per cent last year; they are effectively required on many sailings.)
But it's often up to the public to be vigilant when governments or councils decide they need extra revenue.
Services need to be paid for. But the wrong decisions - like excessive ferry rate increases - can cause unintended damage to the economy, and communities.
Footnote: It's not just a question of rates. The discussion of tougher ferry travel security measures in the wake of the London bombings should also scare the tourism communities. Travellers have come to hate the hassles of airport security. Bringing metal detectors and line-ups into ferry travel will give people another reason to stay away, for what seems a very dubious threat.

School fundraising creating two-tier education

VICTORIA - Most parents know that schools are becoming more and more dependent on their fund-raising abilities.
That dependence isn’t just an inconvenience. It threatens to undermine the basic principle of public education, which guarantees every child a more or less equal chance to learn.
A Canadian Teachers’ Federation study surveyed more than 3,000 schools and found parents - and teachers - raised an average $15,700 for their school during the last school year. If the results are representative, that suggests some $225 million in education spending in Canada each year dependent on parents’ ability to collect donations, or children’ willingness to sell chocolate almonds.
That raises lots of problems, but the biggest one is equity.
My children went to public schools in affluent sections of Victoria. There were stay-at-home parents with time to work on fund-raisers. People had the money to write a cheque, if that was needed. When it came time for a silent auction, a couple of lawyers would donate the time required to prepare wills, and people who were good customers of local restaurants could usually get gift certificates donated. Fund-raising was still work, but it paid off.
But parents in a struggling coastal community, or in Vancouver’s poorer neighbourhoods, have a harder time. They could put in much more effort, and raise a fraction of the money.
The gap is large, and growing. The survey found the smallest fund-raising effort at an elementary school was $180; the largest $240,000. The gulf was even wider for high schools. (All these figures are on top of school fees and sponsorship deals with pop companies or other marketers.)
The official line of governments - including our own - is that the fund-raising isn’t that significant, and only pays for non-essentials.
It’s a claim that’s wearing thin. Queen Mary Elementary School, in an affluent Vancouver community, is one of the fund-raising heavyweights. Parents are asked for a $100 donation to cover textbooks and other materials, and the annual gala silent auction, at a yacht club, has attracted Premier Gordon Campbell as a speaker.
It’s tough for many elementary school in Port Alice to do anywhere near that well.
The money matters. The government put out news release last year celebrating the fact that it had come up with an extra$10 million for text books across the province. It was a significant step towards improved learning, then education minister Tom Christensen said.
For Queen Mary, the news meant about $6,000 - less than one-fifth what the parents raised for books and other school needs.
The quality of children’s education is increasingly dependent on whether they’re in an affluent community.
There are short-term solutions. Parent advisory councils could agree to equalization within a district. Schools could keep two-thirds of the money they raise, for example, and contribute the rest to a fund shared among all schools on a per-student basis. Parents’ efforts would still produce direct benefits for their children, but the playing field would be a little more level.
The real solution is for governments to fund all schools to a level that parents consider adequate.
The money going to B.C. school districts increased 8.2 per cent during the Liberal’s first term. The consumer price index, a basic measure of cost pressures, rose 14.2 per cent.
The government notes, rightly, that the number of students dropped, so school districts have to expect less money. But a drop in enrolment doesn’t necessarily mean lower costs for the school - if there are 10 fewer children, maintenance costs, even the number of teachers, may stay the same.
School should be the great equalizer. Some children get a great start at home; some don’t. It’s hard to change that reality.
But in school, every child should have an equal chance to learn, to make the most of his or her potential - and to set the stage for future contributions to our economy, and society.
We’re letting that principle slip away.
Footnote: The increasing reliance on fund-raising almost inevitably puts schools outside the large urban centres at a disadvantage. Fund-raising is more difficult when school populations are spread out, and the communities may lack the kind of large businesses that can be hit up to help with campaigns, and the concentration of affluent families in one school area.

IWA's health care deals causing big problems

VICTORIA - Usually corruption charges against a union local are a problem for the members, and the parent union.
This time it's different.
The union under a cloud is United Steelworkers Local 3567, the former IWA local that signed sweetheart contracts with the companies that took over health sector support services.
A Steelworkers' audit found big problems at the local, including "extremely serious financial misconduct." The auditors found the local was spending $2,000 a month on alcohol, had misused union money and made unauthorized loans.
The local, and its president Sonny Ghag, were already reviled in the union community for signing what looked like sweetheart deals with the health sector companies. Now those agreements are unravelling, and the labour stability they were supposed to provide is falling apart. The current hearings into the local will just hasten the process.
The Liberals saw privatizing health sector support services as a way to reduce costs, with the the savings coming mainly by cutting wages.
But the plan faced some problems. The people doing the work had contracts that limited contracting out. The labour code said that even if a new company took over the service, the contracts would apply. And Gordon Campbell had specifically promised to honour the Hospital Employees' Union contracts.
He didn't. The government passed a law to remove job protections from the union contracts, and exempt the private companies from successorship obligations. The health authorities were free to fire their employees, and sign deals with the companies.
But the health authorities were still nervous. What if they contracted the work out to a corporation, but the employees of that company decided to form a union? The whole deal was built on reducing wagelevels - firing someone paid $650 a week to do laundry, and replacing them with someone paid $400 a week. If they had a real union, the employees would soon be seeking higher wages.
Some of the companies were ready to take their chances, prepared to address employee concerns directly, or deal with a union if that was the employees' choice. The health authorities said no way.
Enter the IWA, ready to negotiate contracts with the three main companies bidding for the work before a single employee was hired. Job applicants had to first join the union and agree to accept the contract terms before they were interviewed by the company. (They weren't allowed to take the contract home and read it.)
The contracts weren't great, and obviously didn't address employees' concerns - there were no employees when they were drafted. The employees never got the chance to decide if they wanted a union, or the terms of their contract.
The union local did well though. The IWA’s forest-sector contracts include an education fund, paid for with a three-cent-an-hour employer contribution and managed jointly by the industry and the union. The health contracts called for 15 cents an hour to be paid into a fund controlled solely by the local.
The whole arrangement is now falling apart. The HEU has successfully challenged many of the certifications at the labour board, and signed up enough people to win back about half the members it lost.
Negotiations on legitimate contracts have started, under difficult circumstances. The companies - counting on their deal with IWA - signed agreements with the health authorities. They have tight financial constraints. The union is looking for significantly more than the IWA's contracts provided. It's a formula for conflict. Employees with Sodexho in the Lower Mainland and Victoria have given their union a 96-per-cent strike mandate.
Job action isn't the only risk. Companies facing unexpected wage costs may press the health authorities for more money, or simply walk away.
The transition to private service delivery, at much lower wages, was certain to be difficult, as wide concerns about cleanliness and food quality have shown.
By signing dubious contracts, the IWA local and the companies have made the process even riskier.
Footnote: The Steelworkers are holding hearings on the allegations, which could prove embarassing all around. Former IWA president - and federal Liberal candidate - Dave Haggard was warned of problems in the local 18 months ago, but nothing happened.

Ottawa dodges chance to reduce pine beetle disaster

VICTORIA - The pine beetle is taking the province inexorably towards a massive natural disaster.
The economic damage will dwarf anything Canada has experienced in the last decade, with consequences more severe than B.C.'s forest fires, or Quebec's ice storm.
But the government response, provincially and federally, has so far not matched the seriousness of the problem.
Federal Industry Minister David Emerson has just rejected the province's request for a $1-billion aid package over the next decade. Too expensive, he says. Ottawa wants to find cheaper ways of helping communities cope with the crisis.
Part of the problem is the way the disaster is unfolding in slow motion. The 1998 Quebec ice storm hit in a day, and Ottawa quickly came up with about $1 billion in today's dollars.
The beetle disaster's consequences are still up to 15 years away, and governments are not good at thinking that far ahead.
The beetles are killing the forests now.Ultimately scientists figure 80 per cent of the province's lodgepole pine - the dominant species across much of the Interior - will be dead.
The dead trees will retain their value for 10 to 15 years. The rush to harvest that timber before it goes to waste is creating a boom in communities across the Interior and North.
But at the end of that boom will be a brutal bust.
Once the trees are harvested, or lose their value, those communities face dramatic reductions in the amount of timber available for harvest. Even with aggressive reforestation, replacement trees will be decades away from maturity.
Across much of the province communities are facing 20 to 40-per-cent reductions in their annual allowable cuts by 2015.
What that means is a crushing loss of jobs and economic activity. In the Quesnel area the timber supply is expected to be cut by one-third. About three-quarters of the 12,000 area jobs are tied to the forest industry. That means about 2,600 jobs are at risk. The spin-off effects - on schools, housing prices, retailers- will be enormous. (The impact would be the same as 35,000 people losing their jobs in Greater Victoria.)
The current boom will make the crash even harder. Forest employment could fall by 50 per cent in Quesnel from its peak, Canadian Forest Service economist Bill White told a Prince George conference this week.
All of which makes Emerson's rejection of B.C.'s request for aid surprising.
The federal government has been providing $8 million a year since 2002, mainly for research. Earlier this year Ottawa came up with a one-time $100 million contribution for beetle response efforts.
But what's needed is stable, long-term funding to allow a sweeping response. The to do list is daunting. Reforestation is critical, as is a search for ways to get more value - and jobs - out of the timber remaining for harvest.
Communities will also need help looking beyond the forest industry for new job creation, and support in investing in the changes needed to attract those businesses. Displaced workers will need retraining. Work needs to start now on promoting mining, and ranching and tourism in the affected regions.
And everyone deserves information to let them make informed decisions about their futures.
That kind of response requires a long-term funding commitment.
The provincial government has been moving slowly on its own financial commitment, in part because it feared giving Ottawa an easy out.
The province has allocated $89 million for reforestation efforts over the next three years, and Premier Gordon Campbell promised $30 million in pine beetle support for Northern communities in the eve of the election campaign. There's an economic diversification co-ordinator, and an advisory committee that meets twice a year.
But given the size of the problem, concern is increasing that not enough is being now to deal with a crisis that is clearly on the horizon.
It's rare that you can see a disaster coming. Nothing will stop it, but we do at least have the chance to plan and prepare.
Footnote: The defeat of Skeena Liberal Roger Harris has been a setback in the beetle response efforts. Harris had responsibility for the issues as junior forest minister, and appeared to be moving the government towards a more complete response.

Backbenchers lose power in second Liberal term

VICTORIA - Back in 2001 Gordon Campbell said it was important to give real power to backbench MLAs.
So he boldly set up five government caucus committees. A backbencher - or private member as they prefer to be called - chaired each one. Cabinet ministers sat on the committees, but they were always a minority.
The committees would "open up decision-making, create new opportunities for public input, and involve all government MLAs in developing solutions to the challenges we face," Campbell promised.
There were committees on health, the economy, communities and safety, government operations and natural resources. They were to hear presentations, and develop policy.
And they were to grill cabinet ministers about their plans, and budgets.
The idea - like much from the Liberals' first year- was lifted from Alberta, where Ralph Klein introduced them in 1992. He saw the committees as a needed check on cabinet ministers.
Ministers, Klein observed, want to spend. No one wants to be known as the minister who cut services. One they get the posts, they want to introduce new programs and clever plans - and a good deputy minister will likely have a stack of projects at the ready.
Enter the government caucus committees, and an alert group of backbenchers ready to pounce on sloppy ministry budgets, or plans that failed to meet the needs of their communities. (Backbenchers have a special freedom. Cabinet ministers know that if they ask tough questions about a colleague's plans, they may take a retaliatory beating when their turn comes to take centre stage.)
Backbenchers liked the chance to contribute; ministers - and their staffs - grumbled about the process.
Now the committees are effectively dead, an early casualty of the Liberals' second term. The original five government caucus committees are gone. (Alberta still has six, and counts them an important part of the checks and balances of government.)
Two comittees are left, one on social development, and one on natural resources and the economy. The old emphasis on backbencher power is nowhere to be seen. Cabinet ministers outnumber regular MLAs by two to one. The experiment is over.
Liberal caucus chair Gordon Hogg thinks this analysis too harsh. There are three other cabinet committees, he notes, and they all have backbenchers on them.
But back in 2001, there were five other cabinet committees, all with backbenchers on them.
And even among the three surviving committees, regular MLAs have a much smaller role.
Hogg notes, for example, that backbenchers have half the seats on the committee that reviews all legislation before it reaches the House - "one of our most important committees."
But in 2001, backbenchers had two-thirds of the places on that committee.
Backbench MLAs, speaking for their communities, got almost one-third of the places on the committee that developed the government's priorities. Now one backbencher has a place among seven cabinet ministers.Their role on Treasury Board, the spending watchdog, has also shrunk.
In short, backbenchers are playing a reduced role on important government committees.
There are a lot fewer Liberal MLAs than there were four years ago. But there are still enough to handle the committee work with ease - if the premier had given them the chance.
Campbell raised expectations with his bold commitment to empowering backbench MLAs in 2001.
Now he has pulled power back to the centre.
That's a shame. Not everyone is a good choice for cabinet, and even some excellent candidates get left our because of issues like the need for regional balance.
But individual MLAs have a good sense of what's important to their communities, and bring the kind of diversity to decision-making that leads to better results. The idea of expanding their role recognized those advantages, and the need to make sue that all MLAs have a significant chance to shape government policy.
The government caucus committees did that, according to the premier.
Too bad the idea has fallen out of favour so quickly.
Footnote: One knock heard against the committees was that backbench MLAs lacked political judgment, and that as a result the committees were responsible for some of the government's unpopular decisions. Based on my conversations with MLAs, it's more likely that paying attention to them is a way of avoiding political missteps.

Columbia Basin Trust looks at big dam, power plant buy

Note: I don't post news stories I've done as a rule, but this is quite interesting.


VICTORIA - The Columbia Basin Trust is laying the groundwork to buy more than $200 million worth of dams and power plants from the province.
Chair Josh Smienk confirmed the trust has taken the first steps towards exercising its option to buy the Columbia Power Corp. (CPC), giving it total control over three power plants and other assets in the Kootenays.
The move is the latest twist in the trust's tangled recent history, and represents a 180-degree shift from last year's abandoned plan to sell its share in the power projects.
"The first step is gathering information and analysing it," Smienk said.
Economic Development Minister Colin Hansen confirmed the government is working with the trust to asses the deal.
"We certainly haven't come to any conclusions in that regard," said Hansen, who has just taken over responsibility for the trust from Energy Minister Richard Neufeld.
The trust and the power corporation are both Crown corporations, set up by the NDP in the mid-90s as part of an effort to deliver some of the benefits from the 1961 Columbia Treaty to the region.
The two corporations are equal partners in the power developments, with the original intent that Columbia Power Corp. build and operate the dams and the trust distribute profits and income from investments to the communities.
But the relationship has become strained over a range of issues and the trust is looking at gaining total control.
Smienk said the construction phase is largely complete.
"We're looking at some to form some permanent closure to the initiative," said Smienk. "It allows for the transfer of the management of the assets to the region."
The future of the trust and Columbia Power Corporation have been uncertain for the more than a year.
In January of 2004 the provincial government announced its intention to give the trust control over the CPC, and create a new power company to manage the assets.
That project was abandoned when the trust's directors told the government it wanted to sell its share of the projects to BC Hydro.
The government agreed it would also sell Columbia Power Corp.'s interests in the joint ventures to BC Hydro.
But the deal fell apart in the face of fierce opposition in the region.
And in January, Neufeld said said the existing structure would remain in place.
The Columbia Power Corporation wrote off $750,000 in costs related to the abandoned restructuring effort.
Now the push for change is on again.
Smienk said the possible purchase would be on the agenda when the trust holds a community meeting in Cranbrook this weekend.
Nelson NDP MLA Corky Evans, the party's energy critic, said he's reserving judgment on the proposal.
Last year's plan to sell the power assets was poorly explained and the public felt excluded from the process, he said.
"The trust is now putting forward the opposite alternative," he said. "I don't know if that's a good idea."
Community control and influence over the trust has been weakened since 2001, Evans said. "The trust went into the core review process and never really came out."
The NDP government gave the trust an option to buy Columbia Power Corporation's assets in 2001, just before the election.
The option expires at the end of this month, but the Liberals have agreed to extend it to the fall.

Liberal ad spending details show need for reform

VICTORIA - Now that the details about government advertising are out, you can see why the Liberals kept them secret.
The Liberals budgeted $12 million for advertising, down from the previous year because - they said - non-essential advertising was banned in the four-month run-up to the election.
But the ads kept on coming through the year, and no one would say what each lavish campaign cost.
The Liberals had reason to be embarrassed. They blew through the $12-million budget, and spent another $7.5 million, keeping the over-run a secret until after the election.
And the big spending was on ads that most looked partisan pitches for the Liberals’ good works.
Remember those  best place to work TV ads? The information released by Finance Minister Carole Taylor reveals they started with a weird goal - "A campaign to inform British Columbians about employment opportunities resulting from the improved economic climate."
C’mon. Was it really necessary to spend $3.8 million to tell British Columbians it’s was a good time to check the 'Help Wanted' section in the newspaper, start a business or hit the boss up for a raise?
The government's tourism ads made slightly more sense - but only slightly.
That campaign cost you $4.4 million. The stated goal was to get British Columbians - and Canadians - to vacation in B.C.
But almost all the ads ran in the province. And if the government was really interested in tourism development, all it had to do was pass the extra cash on to Tourism BC. The Crown corporation has detailed strategies for promoting the province, and needs only money. Another $4.4 million would have made a big difference.
The government didn't give the money to Tourism BC. It tossed it into the pot for a series of ad campaigns that to many people seemed much like the Liberals' election commercials.
And there was the $2.5 million on the best place to go to school, telling people to check a web site, because there were more post-secondary and trades education opportunities than they might think.
It's worth reminding people that there are educational opportunities.
But probably $800,000 in advertising, targeted effectively, would have done the job. The remaining $1.7 million would have funded another 180 post-secondary spaces across the province.
The problem is not just with the campaigns, but the way the Liberals handle the over-spending. They could have tapped the contingency budget,and disclosed the extra spending. They did in other areas. Embarrassing , but open and transparent.
Instead, the public affairs' bureau - part of the premier's office budget - sent bills out to ministries, which hadn't budgeted for any ad expense. One of the Liberal reforms was to fund all advertising out of one central budget.
That had allowed former health minister Colin Hansen to maintain steadfastly that not one penny from the health budget was being spend on ad campaigns.
Until the election year. There was still no money in the budget, but the ministry got a surprise invoice from the premier’s office for $630,000 for ad costs, enough to clear some 170 people off the waiting list for hip replacements.
Of course the NDP governments were just as bad, probably worse. They spent more and were equally partisan.
Government advertising will always be controversial.
But other jurisdictions have tackled the problem. The United Kingdom has had guidelines since 1985 to reduce the risk of partisan, publicly funded advertising intended to help the political prospects of the government in power.
And in fact then B.C. Auditor General George Morfitt recommended similar guidelines for the province in 1996. The NDP did nothing about the recommendations, and the Liberals followed their example.
Guidelines don’t make the issue go away, and there will always be grey areas.
But they would be a start, and at least set standards that guard against the use of taxpayers’ money to promote the interests of the party in power.
Footnote: Taylor deserves credit for releasing the information, which the government had kept secret. She says it’s important for governments to communicate effectively, but plans a review of the advertising efforts over the summer, before the budget is introduced in September.

Good case for bigger rate cuts from ICBC

VICTORIA - You can make a pretty good argument that’s ICBC’s rate cut should be four times what has been promised, and paid out to more customers.
The Crown corporation has announced a rate reduction, but only for those customers who buy optional insurance from ICBC. The rates for the basic insurance - where ICBC has a monopoly, will stay the same.
And the amount going back to customers - about $130 million - is looking tiny given ICBC’s robust profits and big reserves. The average rate cut will be worth $61. The corporation can afford something closer to $250, critics argue convincingly.
ICBC has made profits in each of the last three years, including a record $389 million last year. On the same day it announced the rate hike, the corporation reported it was ahead of last year’s record pace after the first three months of this year.
ICBC has now piled up about $1 billion in special reserves. That’s beyond the large reserves required to be available for future claims.
In a normal company, that money wouldn’t be sitting there. Managers might use it to invest in some new project, or pay down debt. If they didn’t have a use for it, they would be expected to return it to shareholders.
But ICBC isn’t a normal company. It doesn’t have debt, or the prospects of making estraordinary investments. And it’s forbidden from returning profits to the government, a principle intended to make sure no politicians starts eying ICBC as a way to boost revenues.
That leaves two options - hang on to the money, or cut rates for customers. And the purpose of ICBC is to deliver low-cost insurance to British Columbians.
There’s a case for a cushion. ICBC has been profitable 11 of the last 15 years, but it has lost as much as $250 million.
But there’s not enough volatility in ICBC’s situation to justify a $1-billion cushion. Claims have been rising fairly modestly - about three per cent a year over the last four years - and there’s no reason to expect that to change. Private insurers may grab more of the optional insurance business, hurting profits. The corporation earns about $400 million in investment income, so a weaker economy could be costly.
Still, consider all the factors and a $500-million cushion would be enough to protect drivers from any quick rate increases.
The refunds also came under quick criticism because they only applied to optional insurance policies.
ICBC has a monopoly on the mandatory basic insurance required of all drivers, which provides benefits for people hurt in crashes
But private companies are allowed to compete for optional insurance - protection against vehicle damage, or higher maximum coverage, for example.
It hasn’t been much of a competition. ICBC has about 85 per cent of the optional market, in part because it’s just easier for people to tack the coverage on to their main ICBC policy.
But the private insurers say it’s not a fair fight, despite the Liberals’ 2001 campaign pledge to introduce more competition in car insurance.
They say the Liberals still haven’t implemented important parts of a bill they passed in 2003 that would level the playing field.
And they will argue before the Public Utilities Board later this year that these optional rate cuts are unfair, claiming ICBC is shuffling profits from basic insurance to subsidize the optional policies.
That will be a tough case to make. The board has already, after a long review, approved, ICBC’s cost allocations between optional basic insurance. The corporation says it can show that its profits have come from the optional side, so those customers should get the break.
But that still leaves ICBC facing intervenors who a much bigger rate cut.
The good news is that - thanks to the Liberals - the utilities board will provide an independent review, something that was never allowed to happen under the NDP.
Footnote: The utilities board only has authority over basic insurance. That means drivers will have to trust ICBC about the fairness of the rate cuts. Vancouver Island drivers, for example, are getting smaller break; drivers in Prince George and the Peace more. The biggest savings will go to drivers with good records, driving fairly new cars.

Liberals kept multi-million ad budget over-runs secret

VICTORIA - Somebody hung Carole Taylor out to dry in her first big appearance as finance minister.
It was mostly a good news announcement down in the underground Press Theatre at the legislature. The Public Accounts - the final tally of the last fiscal year ‘s results - showed a record $2.6-billion surplus, a big payment on the debt and the fastest growing provincial economy last year. All in all, pretty upbeat.
But the numbers hadn’t changed much since the budget, so not much of the information was new or surprising.
And the journalists had some waiting questions.
All through the last year the Liberals refused to say how much of your money they were spending on those slick ad campaigns saying what a great job they were doing. All the information would be in the year-end Public Accounts, they promised.
Everyone knew that wasn’t true. The accounts tell you an ad firm got $2 million, or $20 million, but they don’t reveal the cost of specific campaigns - like the government ad blitz that reminded you that the Olympics are coming.
The people in government paid to worry about such things could have anticipated tough questions for Taylor about the promised ad spending information.
Especially because that morning Vancouver Sun columnist Vaughn Palmer had written about “potential embarrassment” in the numbers.
“Rumours persist that the Liberals, in their enthusiasm to tell the public about the great job they were doing, overspent the advertising budget,” wrote Palmer. “They may have found some way to hide it. But that's no way for Taylor to begin her time as finance minister.”
If you’re working for the minister - or the government - you should anticipate a problem here. Taylor is certain to be standing in front of cameras, facing difficult questions.
But when the time came, she didn’t have the answers.
Palmer was right. The Liberals had budgeted $12 million for advertising under the Public Affairs Bureau, in the premier’s office. That was down from the previous year, they said, because of the new ban on non-essential advertising in the four months before an election.
Partway through the year, Campbell and company suddenly decided that they needed to spend a lot more money on advertising. You had to be told B.C. was the best place on Earth, over and over and over.
The government could have announced that, and tapped the contingency budget for the extra $7.5 million in ad money.
But that would have meant acknowledging the over-spending before the election. So instead the premier’s office sent bills out to other ministries to cover the over-run.
That looks sneaky. And it shatters the already dubious claim that none of the advertising spending comes at the expense of patients, or students. The health ministry got a bill that it hadn’t expected, because the premier’s office wanted to spend more on ads. That’s money that could have paid for more hip surgeries.
Taylor struggled with the questions, defending the ads as necessary to encourage investment, suggesting people don’t want to know what each campaign costs and promising to look at the issue.
Two hours later, she committed to releasing the information within the next couple of days.
It was a good recovery, and a good start for Taylor’s tenure as finance minister. She put the principle of openness about how the government spends your money first, and ended the slippery secrecy around ad spending.
But a lot of questions remain.
Taylor has to wonder why no one in government thought it might be good to warn her this was an issue, so she could prepare. (And she has to wonder why she ended up explaining dubious decisions taken eight months ago in the premier’s office.)
And taxpayers have to wonder why the Liberals abandoned openness, and the principles behind their ban on pre-election advertising, and spent millions of your money on feel-good ads, all the while keeping the spending spree a secret.
Footnote: ``What this government does with taxpayers' money, wasting it on propaganda like this, is obscene. With children on surgical waiting lists, why should they be spending anything on advertising?'' Nope, not a cranky New Democrat on the latest scandal. That’s how Gordon Campbell felt about government ad campaigns when he was in opposition.

BC Hydro $120-million failure demands an inquiry

VICTORIA - The collapse of BC Hydro’s plans for a Vancouver Island power plant - and the loss of more than $120 million of your money - deserves a way closer look than it’s likely to get.
It may be that the loss of all that money, and the 11-year trail of broken relationships and misleading public statements, was just one of those management missteps. No obvious errors along the way, just a collective stumbling into disaster.
But it also may be that big mistakes were made.
This all turns into a bit of a snarl, with the necks of both NDP and Liberal governments tangled in the loops.
Flash back to 1994. Forrest Gump was the big movie, and the Harcourt government told BC Hydro to look for new power sources on Vancouver Island. Hydro started negotiations on two projects, for Port Alberni and Campbell River. After four years of talks, a gas-fired plant plant for Campbell River got the green light.
It took two more years of shuffling before Hydro pulled out of talks with Atco on an Alberni project . (That’s six years, and a tonne of money, on a project that never got built. Meanwhile, Port Alberni got caught up in a kind of Music Man dream of an aluminum smelter.)
Undaunted, BC Hydro pressed on in 2000 with a new partner, Calpine. But then Port Alberni wouldn’t deliver needed rezoning, and the dream died.
We’re up to 2002, eight years after government started the process. Hydro and Calpine look to Duke Point, south of Nanaimo. A proposal for a new undersea natural gas pipeline to supply the plant, with another private partner, is working its through approvals.
Vancouver Island’s power security is threatened, warned Hydro, unless the plant is in operation by the end of 2004. "We are on a tight time line, we have to move," said a spokesman. Otherwise, brownouts may hit and Islanders will be shivering in the dark.
Those kind of warnings start coming more frequently. Urgent need, power supply at risk, got to start taking shortcuts.
Meawhile, BC Hydro dumps Calpine - with no explanation - and says it’s going to build the plant on its own.
Enter the Liberals’ 2002 energy policy, which rightly requires the BC Utilities’ Commission to review the Duke Point plant to make sure it’s needed, and the best deal for Hydro customers.
That takes 10 months, and the commission - after hearing opposition from the big industrial power users and environmentalists - rules Hydro’s plan doesn’t serve customers well.
So, closing in on the tenth anniversary of the whole effort, Hydro abandons the gas pipeline project, gives up on building its own power plant, and calls for proposals from private companies.
The accountants do their work, and BC Hydro writes off $120 million spent on the two projects, a loss that will be tacked on to customers’ bills.
Now it’s 2005. The lights aren’t flickering, and BC Hydro has selected Pristine Power as the preferred builder-manager. The utilities commission says yes.
But then, this month, the big industrial users file one more appeal. And BC Hydro kills the project.The private partner feels betrayed. Nanaimo Mayor Gary Korpan is furious that all the work the city did is wasted.
And Hydro now says it can do without the plant - previously essential - by improving transmission cables from the mainland.
It’s not the fast ferries, but it’s in the ball park. More than 10 years of work for nothing, three private partners burned, $120 million wasted, alarmist talk about power shortages.
It is a hopelessly bad record.
Premier Gordon Campbell seems relaxed about the whole debacle. Lessons to be learned, maybe, he says, but no need for an independent inquiry.
But really, is that what he would have said in opposition?
The auditor-general needs to be on this one. Because otherwise, this could all happen again.
Footnote: The NDP started this, but the Liberals paid little attention through their first year while Hydro sank deeper into the goo on Duke Point. Consumers - giant industry and individual - pick up the costs when BC Hydro spends too much. The Liberals deserve full credit for restoring BC Utilities Commission oversight of Hydro.

Food, cleaning woes symptoms of major health care problems

VICTORIA - Check into a hospital in B.C. today, and you’ve got a one-in-four chance of ending up in a place that’s too dirty to meet basic standards.
That’s the grim finding of a new independent audit ordered by the six health authorities around the province.
The results back up the widespread complaints that conditions have grown worse in hospitals and seniors’ care centres in B.C., and that the problems are most serious in centres where cleaning was contracted out to private corporations.
It’s not just cleanliness.
Complaints about bad food - cold, badly prepared, not nutritious, even inedible - have also been mounting. Generally, the concerns have been dismissed by government and the health authorities.
But the Vancouver Island Health Authority has just announced the astonishing news that the largest hospital kitchen in the region has been slapped with a high health hazard rating by inspectors.
And the Interior Health Authority - which got high marks in the cleanliness audit - has released a report identifying major problems with the food it is serving up to patients.
It’s a bleak picture.
I don’t really care who cooks hospital meals, whether they work for a corporation or the government, or if they are in a union. I just want to know that if someone in my family ends up in hospital or a seniors’ home, the place will be clean, the food will be OK and the services will be delivered in a cost-efficient way.
That’s not happening.
The cleanliness audits found problems across the province, with 26 per cent of the health facilities failing to meet the accepted standard. (Some of the failing grades came close, but almost clean is a lame boast.)
More than half the institutions in the Fraser Health Authority - including the Surrey Memorial Hospital, which has been subject to huge attention over infection problems - failed to meet the standards. More than half the centres on Vancouver Island fell short, and about one-quarter of the centres in the North and in the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority failed the audit.
The bright spot was the Interior Health Authority, with more than 90 per cent of facilities passing the audit.
But when it comes to food quality, the IHA has nothing to brag about. It released a report last week - credit to the authority for that - which outlined major problems.
Consider just a couple. The review found that unless they had a family member to help them, seniors in care homes waited as their meals, not great to start with, grew cold. Acute care patients were served food that was cold, and fell short of meeting nutritional requirements.
And health inspectors were worried about food safety problems.
Just as they were in the Vancouver Island Health Authority, where the main kitchen - serving several hospitals - has just received a “high hazard” rating for health violations. Kitchen staff weren’t wearing proper gear, the inspection found, and food wasn’t protected from contamination. There was “inadequate cooling and refrigerated storage of potentially hazardous foods,” temperatures weren’t monitored and the place was dirty - broken floor tiles were trapping dirt in the kitchen, while mould and mildew were taking hold on the walls near the dishwashing area. Walls were chipped to the point that inspectors feared bits of them could fall into the food.
Is contracting out to blame? The Vancouver Island Health Authority fired its food preparation staff and hired a British-based corporation, the Compass Group. People doing the work now are paid about $10 an hour, instead of the former $18. Turnover is high, and training a constant challenge.
And health regions that contracted out cleaning have far worse results than those - like the Interior - that kept the services in-house, and under their control.
These results are alarming. Patients can’t judge most aspects of their care.
But they know when the rooms are dirty, and the food grim, and the basic health care promise is being betrayed.
Footnote: The big question is why the government encouraged or forced high-speed privatization and re-organization. The Interior food review found the authority had rushed plans for central food preparation without adequate planning. Privatization deals with big corporations were pushed across the province instead of more sensibly being tested in one or two settings.

James' shadow cabinet continues moderate push

VICTORIA - Everybody got some sort of prize when Carole James announced her shadow cabinet this week, just like one of those elementary school track and field days where everyone leaves with a ribbon.
All 32 NDP MLAs got a post or position that gives them a role beyond the basic duties of an opposition backbencher.
That's an obviously smart thing to do. The NDP caucus is bigger than most people expected before the election, but still small enough that leaving out a handful of MLAs would sting.
But while everyone got jobs, James still put her stamp on the caucus by deciding who got the good jobs. And the message continued to be that the NDP is moderate, and has broken with its past.
So despite having two former health ministers to call on - Corky Evans and Mike Farnworth - James gave the main critic's job to David Cubberly, a rookie MLA from Saanich South. (Though a rookie with 12 years on municipal council and
seven years as an assistant to several cabinet ministers in the last NDP government.)
James also signalled a big emphasis on health. The Liberals eliminated junior minister positions for seniors' care and mental health and addictions. James made Cariboo South MLA Charlie Wyse critic for mental health, a natural fit given his work on mental health issues in the North. Katrine Conroy takes on seniors' health issues; she'll have lots of issues to raise given the Liberals' broken promises and missed deadlines on long-term care.Farnworth wasn't left out of the picture. He's House Leader, and will deal with
Liberal counterpart Mike de Jong on when and how things move through the legislature. It's an encouraging pairing; the two could deliver on both party leaders' claims they would like to see a more productive, positive atmosphere
in the House.
Evans ends up with energy and mines. That's an important post for his Kootenay region, where coal and coalbed methane development plans are sparking protests. But it's not a prime post.
There other early winners. Adrian Dix, the former Glen Clark strategist, is the children and families' ministry critic, a tough but important job. Jenny Kwan gets finance, facing off against Carole Taylor. Shane Simpson, a Vancouver rookie with experience in sustainability issues, gets environment.
John Horgan - another former NDP government staffer - gets education, and Scott Fraser, from Alberni-Qualicum, is the aboriginal affairs critic.
But not everyone fared so well. Yale-Lillooet MLA Harry Lali, a fervent Clark loyalist to the end, is critic for citizen services, a tiny part of Mike de Jong's labour ministry.
And some MLAs seem underemployed, like Powell River MLA Nicholas Simons, critic for tourism, sports and the arts, and Gregor Robertson, in advanced education.
James said she asked the MLAs to do written reports on their areas of interest, why they believed they were qualified to tackle those issues and the goals that should be set. She then interviewed them before naming the shadow cabinet.
Expect lots of changes in the line-up. James said the NDP caucus support staff - despite a much larger budget - is still small enough that she's expecting the critics to do effective research on their own.
And it's hard to predict which MLAs are going to emerge as effective critics, holding ministers to account in the legislature and getting the party's position across in the media. It takes a special set of skills to do the job
well.
But the critics start with a couple of advantages. By the time the legislature resumes in September, they'll have a wide range of issues and problems to raise.
And they will be facing Liberal ministers who are just as green as they are. Only Children and Families Minister Stan Hagen and Income Assistance Minister Claude Richmond have face a real opposition. The rest are in for a new, and
challenging experience.
It's going to be a more interesting, and more effective, legislature.
Footnote: James disputed Gordon Campbell's claim that he had consulted with her on the choice of Bill Barisoff as Speaker; Campbell just gave her the news in a brief call 20 minutes before his cabinet announcement. But she noted she had
found Barisoff reasonable when they were both school trustees; he'll likely have NDP support when MLAs formerly elect the Speaker.

Abbott faces quick test from clinics pushing two-tier care

VICTORIA - A posh Vancouver clinic that promises better health care - for a steep annual price - is going to be one of the first tests for new Health Minister George Abbott. .
The Copeman Healthcare Centre is pushing the boundaries for two-tier care, promising an elegant waiting room, Internet access and most importantly "unparalleled levels of patient care."
The centre, set to open this fall, sounds great. But to get the benefits, you'll have to come up with a $1,700 initiation fee, and $2,300 a year. (Tax-deductible, of course.)
It may well be worth it, for those with the money.
But their gain comes at the expense of the rest of British Columbians.
The clinic is selling is access to better health care. Salaried doctors will see a dozen patients a day, instead of the typical 30 or 40. They will work on keeping clients healthy and do lots of testing to allow early diagnosis of problems.
But there is - or should be - a problem. The intent of the Canada Health Act is to prevent some people from slipping doctors, or hospitals, a big tip to make sure they get faster, better care. So far, Canadians have agreed that health care should be delivered on the basis of need, not on who can write the biggest cheque.
That principle has been steadily eroded, in B.C., and across Canada. Both NDP and Liberal governments in this province have turned a blind eye to the increasing number of private surgical clinics. The clinics offer paying customers - like Environment Minister Barry Penner - a chance to jump the queue and get speedier treatment, for a hefty price.
The Copeman clinic is a bid to take two-tier care to the next level, offering better basic health care for people with money, while still collecting from the Medical Services Plan at the same time.
Abbott will have to decide whether the clinic is legal, and two-tier health care is in the best interest of British Columbians.
Ministry staff met clinic owner Dan Copeman last week, but so far the government has taken no position on the private care centre.
That's surprising.
The clinic, and others like it, will actually ensure British Columbians who can't pay will get poorer treatment than they do today. (Effectively increasing the market for private clinics.)
Look at just one aspect, the effect on the doctor shortage in B.C.
The clinic wants to hire 12 doctors from within the province by the time it starts operations. Right now those doctors are practicing somewhere, and typically providing care to about 15,000 British Columbians.
But the clinic promises doctors will see one-quarter the number of patients.
Not only will the 15,000 patients lose their doctors, but the overall capacity of the system will be reduced, in order to improve the care for a small number paying a premium for better care. Some 200,000 people in the province can't find a family doctor today, and BCMA head Dr. Michael Golbey says the clinic will make the problem worse.
And there is the basic underlying principle.
So far, Canadians have agreed that equal access to health care is part of a fair society. We've said that if two children are sick, they both deserve the same treatment. Having parents with less money shouldn't mean a greater risk of sickness and death, or second-class medical treatment.
The clinic violates that basic principle. If parents register, their children are also covered. They receive the same promise of superior treatment.
The track record of B.C. governments is not good in this area.
Private surgical clinics opened under the NDP, and grew to more than two dozen under the Liberals. They provide faster treatment for thousands of people who can pay to jump the queue, while waits in the public system have risen.
The government has taken no action.
British Columbians will find out quickly if Abbott is prepared to act, where his predecessors waffled.
Footnote: Private clinics are proving that people are willing to pay more money for better health care. In this case, they are paying directly. But their willingness could equally extend to higher taxes  -- if they were convinced the money would result in benefits to them. (The clinics will automatically push up overall health care costs.)