VICTORIA - What do you know, this democracy thing works.
The Liberal government's discovery of climate change, and the resulting extraordinary measures promised in the throne speech, didn't happen just because the premier got a look at China's sprawling cities.
It was you. I can't recall another issue where the public has got so far out ahead of all the political parties and governments, which are now scrambling to catch up.
And Premier Gordon Campbell, a man of enthusiasms, has outscrambled them all. (Of course, the problem with men of enthusiasms is their necessarily short attention span; the next great passion is around the corner.)
Climate change didn't rate one word in the last six throne speeches; the government had no real climate-change plan, just a 2204 document outlining some general directions.
But this week, everything changed. B.C.'s ambitious new climate-change agenda make it a potential leader in North America. The throne speech acknowledged climate change is real, caused by human actions and threatens "life on Earth as we know it." Pretty big change for a government that thought the Kyoto accord was too costly to implement.
The climate-change measures would cut across most areas of our lives. The end target is a one-third reduction from current levels by 2020. A new Climate Action Team, headed by the premier, will set interim targets for 2012 and 2016.
The broad target is backed up by specific commitments. Some are small, like yet another in long history of promises to ban beehive burners.
But others are sweeping. Cars sold in the province will have to meet tough emission standards, with the change phased in starting in 2009. New zero-emission standards for coal plants effectively kill two projects planned for the Interior.
And the oil and gas industry, a major source, will have to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to 2000 levels by 2016. That will be a challenge, even given the technological improvements of the past five or six years.
The changes reach down to the local level too. The province promises a new green building code and better transit.
But for all these big ideas, it will be the details that define success or failure, fad or commitment. A new green building code could order an extra two inches of insulation. Or it could mandate measures to cut average energy use - and emissions - by 75 per cent.
The throne speech got good marks all around, with even environmental groups usually critical of government praising the boldness of the vision.
Now we'll see if the government has the commitment to stick with the effort and deal with the inevitable objections anytime change is proposed.
Beyond the climate change measures, the throne speech was pretty thin gruel, although coming changes in education and literacy were hinted at.
The sections on health were worrying. The government continues to exaggerate - wildly - the problem posed by rising health care costs.
But the speech offered little in the way of specific measures to ease pressures on the system or deliver care more effectively.
And even though the conversation on health has barely begun, the speech suggested the government's mind might already be made up. The speech promised "fundamental health reforms that increase individual choice and maximize the supply of health services within the budgets available."
I don't know what that means. That in itself is worrying.
Sadly, it looks like we'll have to wait another year before public concern about homelessness, addictions, mental illness and street problems forces the politicians to play catch up again.
The speech called homelessness "a plague that weakens our cities, siphons our strength, and erodes our social fabric."
But it didn't reveal any serious plan to address the issues, just tinkering around the edges with small but useful measures like municipal zoning changes.
Which means things will grow worse - and probably be at the centre of next year's throne speech.
Footnote: Education got a fair amount of attention in the throne speech, although a lot of the proposals were vague. The government is going to amend the law to let school boards charge user fees for music, shop and sports academies, a backward step. And it looks like a bigger push on literacy, school readiness and greater experimentation in schools is coming.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Liberals face questions over health letter secrecy
VICTORIA - You can tell a lot about what's wrong in government by the clumsy attempts to censor Fraser Health Authority chairman Keith Purchase's resignation letter.
It's not that there was anything unusual about the attempts to keep the facts hidden. In fact, the point is that secrecy has become the norm, the default position in government.
Which is particularly ironic, in a nasty way, because the Liberals promised to run the most open and transparent government in Canada. If they are, Lord help people who live in the other provinces.
It's also telling that the government's attempt to keep Purchase's letter secret come as it launches a conversation on health. It's like sitting down to talk about how school is going with your son, without him mentioning that he's got a report card with four 'Fs' in his back pocket.
Purchase resigned Jan. 25, out of frustration with inadequate funding for the health authority and Health Minister George Abbott's rough firing of Vancouver Coastal chairman Trevor Johnstone.
To be fair, Abbott acknowledged those were the reasons at the time. But he didn't release the letter of resignation, saying it would have to be reviewed under under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
That took a remarkable 11 days, just to vet a brief letter. No wonder the government routinely breaks the law by failing to respond to information requests within legal deadlines.
When the government did release Purchase's letter of resignation, the government had whited out several sections. No one was supposed to know what Purchase wrote to the minister in those sentences.
But Vaughn Palmer, the superb Vancouver Sun columnist, got the original, uncensored version of the letter. The cuts, Palmer noted, were a "pathetic" attempt to conceal damaging information.
It's a good description, when you consider the sections the government tried to hide.
Purchase noted in his letter to Abbott that the health authority board had already written two letters of concern about inadequate funding for the coming year. He was specific about whjay lay ahead. "Based on that funding information, bed closures and service cuts would be inevitable," he wrote.
The government censored that information in the version of the letter it released.
Purchase warned in the letter that the problems were already hitting the region. "Put simply, we have a crisis situation in the Fraser Health region," he wrote.
The government censored that sentence.
And Purchase explained in the letter why he couldn't sign letters accepting the budget and saying it was adequate to allow care to the standards the government expected.
"I cannot sign this budget or the government's letter of expectation, when I know that Fraser Health will be unable to meet any of your goals with the resources allocated to us," he told Abbott.
The government censored that sentence too.
It's a cover-up. What's the government's justification? It cites sections of freedom of in formation legislation that allow it to invoke secrecy for "policy advice or recommendations developed by a public body or for a minister" and information that could be "harmful to the financial or economic interests of a public body."
First, a resignation letter is not policy advice developed by a public body.
But there's a bigger problem with the government's position.
The law doesn't say the government must keep the information secret. It simply says the government may choose to do so.
An open and transparent government would look at the law and the letter and release it. There's no privacy or public policy reason for secrecy. No reason at all, except to protect the minister and the government from embarrassment.
The case is no one-off example of unwarranted secrecy. The government routinely turned freedom of information law inside out. If the law says information may be kept secret, government acts as if it must be kept secret.
Open and transparent? Not even close.
Footnote: Expect the health authority resignations and firings to be high on the NDP's list of question-period topics now that the legislature has resumed sitting after the long break forced by the Liberals. They're likely also to focus on funding problems in the Vancouver Island, Northern and Interior health regions, where board members have so far made no waves.
It's not that there was anything unusual about the attempts to keep the facts hidden. In fact, the point is that secrecy has become the norm, the default position in government.
Which is particularly ironic, in a nasty way, because the Liberals promised to run the most open and transparent government in Canada. If they are, Lord help people who live in the other provinces.
It's also telling that the government's attempt to keep Purchase's letter secret come as it launches a conversation on health. It's like sitting down to talk about how school is going with your son, without him mentioning that he's got a report card with four 'Fs' in his back pocket.
Purchase resigned Jan. 25, out of frustration with inadequate funding for the health authority and Health Minister George Abbott's rough firing of Vancouver Coastal chairman Trevor Johnstone.
To be fair, Abbott acknowledged those were the reasons at the time. But he didn't release the letter of resignation, saying it would have to be reviewed under under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
That took a remarkable 11 days, just to vet a brief letter. No wonder the government routinely breaks the law by failing to respond to information requests within legal deadlines.
When the government did release Purchase's letter of resignation, the government had whited out several sections. No one was supposed to know what Purchase wrote to the minister in those sentences.
But Vaughn Palmer, the superb Vancouver Sun columnist, got the original, uncensored version of the letter. The cuts, Palmer noted, were a "pathetic" attempt to conceal damaging information.
It's a good description, when you consider the sections the government tried to hide.
Purchase noted in his letter to Abbott that the health authority board had already written two letters of concern about inadequate funding for the coming year. He was specific about whjay lay ahead. "Based on that funding information, bed closures and service cuts would be inevitable," he wrote.
The government censored that information in the version of the letter it released.
Purchase warned in the letter that the problems were already hitting the region. "Put simply, we have a crisis situation in the Fraser Health region," he wrote.
The government censored that sentence.
And Purchase explained in the letter why he couldn't sign letters accepting the budget and saying it was adequate to allow care to the standards the government expected.
"I cannot sign this budget or the government's letter of expectation, when I know that Fraser Health will be unable to meet any of your goals with the resources allocated to us," he told Abbott.
The government censored that sentence too.
It's a cover-up. What's the government's justification? It cites sections of freedom of in formation legislation that allow it to invoke secrecy for "policy advice or recommendations developed by a public body or for a minister" and information that could be "harmful to the financial or economic interests of a public body."
First, a resignation letter is not policy advice developed by a public body.
But there's a bigger problem with the government's position.
The law doesn't say the government must keep the information secret. It simply says the government may choose to do so.
An open and transparent government would look at the law and the letter and release it. There's no privacy or public policy reason for secrecy. No reason at all, except to protect the minister and the government from embarrassment.
The case is no one-off example of unwarranted secrecy. The government routinely turned freedom of information law inside out. If the law says information may be kept secret, government acts as if it must be kept secret.
Open and transparent? Not even close.
Footnote: Expect the health authority resignations and firings to be high on the NDP's list of question-period topics now that the legislature has resumed sitting after the long break forced by the Liberals. They're likely also to focus on funding problems in the Vancouver Island, Northern and Interior health regions, where board members have so far made no waves.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Bennett another victim of the B.C. political disease
Bill Bennett’s fall from grace — or at least cabinet — is partly just a story of bad judgment and bad behaviour.
Bennett is the MLA for East Kootenay and, until this week, was the junior minister for mines. He resigned from cabinet after a constituent went public with a dumb, abusive and offensive e-mail that he’d received from Bennett.
But this isn’t just about Bennett’s lousy manners. The whole exchange highlights a persistent sickness in B.C..
We don’t really talk about policies or how to respond to problems in this province.
We just choose up sides and flail away at each other, like bike gangs or British soccer hooligans. If you’re on a team, you’re expected to support every policy and from your leader and denounce every idea from the other side.
You can’t decide, for example, that the Liberals have a pretty good ideas on encouraging the oil and gas industry, while.the NDP has a better approach to support for children and families.
And you certainly can’t assume that people in both parties are just trying to follow the path they think will lead to a better life for people in the province. The other side have to be seen as the enemies, evil conspirators out to destroy the economy (the Liberals’ view of the NDP) or reward the rich while pushing most of us into poverty and despair (the New Democrats’ view of the Liberals).
Not everyone is so foolish, of course. And in fact, the political leaders have mostly been better behaved since the last election.
But our political life is still dominated by those who trapped in the friends and enemies mindset. Look at the e-mail exchange that led to Bennett’s downfall.
The issue, hunting regulations, isn’t really left-right.
Recreational hunters in Bennett’s riding thought rule changes planned by the Environment Ministry would give commercial guides a larger share of the animals to be killed at their expense.
Bennett is a hunter and was mostly on their side. He said he was in his hotel room, when he thought he should have been downstairs at a mining conference, preparing for a meeting on the issue with Environment Minister Barry Penner.
And in the file was a two-month-old e-mail from a constituent.
Maarten Hart, president of the Fernie Rod and Gun Club, argued commercial guides were getting too large a share. But in the best B.C. fashion, Hart tossed in a pointless insult. “I know that your government bows to the almighty dollar and faces east three times each day (not to Mecca, but to Wall Street),” Hart wrote, an approach hardly likely to win an ally.
Bennett topped him. “It is my understanding that you are an American, so I don't give a shit what your opinion is,” he wrote. Hart was “fool,” maybe an U.S. spy aiming to block coal mines and “a self-inflated, pompous, American know-it-all.”
Obviously, wretched behaviour.
But not so wildly out of character, for Bennett or B.C. People who disagree with our politicians find themselves often considered opponents or enemies, instead of just citizens with a different - and perhaps useful - perspective.
So for Glen Clark, back in his early days as premier, the environmentalists who criticized forest policy weren’t just people with a different policy idea — they were “enemies of B.C.”
Gordon Campbell carried on the tradition in his early days as premier, dismissing people who rallied outside a party convention to express concern about government policies as both stupid and representatives of special interests.
And Bennett had a hard time accepting the fact that people upset about health-care in his riding, for example, had sincere concerns, and might even be right.
Bennett, who had a lot of strengths as an MLA, including a determination to do what was best for his constituents, is the big loser in this case.
But all British Columbians are damaged by our inability to move beyond blind and destructive partisanship.
Footnote: Bennett was named to cabinet after the 2005 election, when he was the sole Liberal survivor in the province’s southeast. His departure comes as health care continues to be an issue and the region faces important debates about expanded coal mining, wildlife conservation issues and the giant Jumbo Glacier Resort ski development.
Bennett is the MLA for East Kootenay and, until this week, was the junior minister for mines. He resigned from cabinet after a constituent went public with a dumb, abusive and offensive e-mail that he’d received from Bennett.
But this isn’t just about Bennett’s lousy manners. The whole exchange highlights a persistent sickness in B.C..
We don’t really talk about policies or how to respond to problems in this province.
We just choose up sides and flail away at each other, like bike gangs or British soccer hooligans. If you’re on a team, you’re expected to support every policy and from your leader and denounce every idea from the other side.
You can’t decide, for example, that the Liberals have a pretty good ideas on encouraging the oil and gas industry, while.the NDP has a better approach to support for children and families.
And you certainly can’t assume that people in both parties are just trying to follow the path they think will lead to a better life for people in the province. The other side have to be seen as the enemies, evil conspirators out to destroy the economy (the Liberals’ view of the NDP) or reward the rich while pushing most of us into poverty and despair (the New Democrats’ view of the Liberals).
Not everyone is so foolish, of course. And in fact, the political leaders have mostly been better behaved since the last election.
But our political life is still dominated by those who trapped in the friends and enemies mindset. Look at the e-mail exchange that led to Bennett’s downfall.
The issue, hunting regulations, isn’t really left-right.
Recreational hunters in Bennett’s riding thought rule changes planned by the Environment Ministry would give commercial guides a larger share of the animals to be killed at their expense.
Bennett is a hunter and was mostly on their side. He said he was in his hotel room, when he thought he should have been downstairs at a mining conference, preparing for a meeting on the issue with Environment Minister Barry Penner.
And in the file was a two-month-old e-mail from a constituent.
Maarten Hart, president of the Fernie Rod and Gun Club, argued commercial guides were getting too large a share. But in the best B.C. fashion, Hart tossed in a pointless insult. “I know that your government bows to the almighty dollar and faces east three times each day (not to Mecca, but to Wall Street),” Hart wrote, an approach hardly likely to win an ally.
Bennett topped him. “It is my understanding that you are an American, so I don't give a shit what your opinion is,” he wrote. Hart was “fool,” maybe an U.S. spy aiming to block coal mines and “a self-inflated, pompous, American know-it-all.”
Obviously, wretched behaviour.
But not so wildly out of character, for Bennett or B.C. People who disagree with our politicians find themselves often considered opponents or enemies, instead of just citizens with a different - and perhaps useful - perspective.
So for Glen Clark, back in his early days as premier, the environmentalists who criticized forest policy weren’t just people with a different policy idea — they were “enemies of B.C.”
Gordon Campbell carried on the tradition in his early days as premier, dismissing people who rallied outside a party convention to express concern about government policies as both stupid and representatives of special interests.
And Bennett had a hard time accepting the fact that people upset about health-care in his riding, for example, had sincere concerns, and might even be right.
Bennett, who had a lot of strengths as an MLA, including a determination to do what was best for his constituents, is the big loser in this case.
But all British Columbians are damaged by our inability to move beyond blind and destructive partisanship.
Footnote: Bennett was named to cabinet after the 2005 election, when he was the sole Liberal survivor in the province’s southeast. His departure comes as health care continues to be an issue and the region faces important debates about expanded coal mining, wildlife conservation issues and the giant Jumbo Glacier Resort ski development.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Liberals face tricky climate-change test
Now things get interesting on climate change. Not just politically, though that’s going to be fascinating.
No, it’s also about us. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report was decisive. Global warming is under way, we’re the cause and the results could be very nasty within 100 years.
Now we find out much we care about our great-grandkids, or even strangers who will be walking these streets as the next century starts.
It’s hard to predict what we’ll do. We’re not much focused on thinking long term. Governments look to the next election; businesses to the next quarter; a lot of us just want to get through the week.
We can decide it’s not worth the cost or inconvenience of changing what we do now, or perhaps rationalize that technology will advance fast enough to solve the problems we create. And there’s always the argument that unless China’s emissions are curbed, what’s the point? (Though China’s per-capita greenhouse gas emissions are about one-quarter of Canada’s.)
But we can’t ignore the facts. The panel report comes from a huge pool of international scientists. They believe it is a 90-per-cent certainty that humans are causing global warming. Temperatures will rise 1.1 to 6.4 degrees Celsius by the end of this century, they predict, and sea levels from 18 to 60 centimetres. Life on Earth will be more difficult for billions.
This is not one of those “someone should do something issues.” Everyone can make a difference — or not.
A family with two cars - one large and one medium-sized - driven a total 2,500 kms a month produces about 8,700 kilograms of CO2 a year.
Trade the big car in for a small one and walk and bike more so travel is cut by one-third, and the family only produces 5,000 kgs. Use a clothesline, not a dryer; turn off the computer when you’re not browsing; buy less new stuff. They all make a difference.
Between 25 and 30 per cent of Canadian greenhouse-gas emissions are the result of individuals’ direct actions. Individual efforts make a difference.
But no matter how much - or little - people are prepared to do personally, all the polls suggest they expect governments to take real action.
So, in a relative flash, Stephen Harper goes from a guy who doubts climate change and thinks the Kyoto accord is a socialist plot to a sort-of convert. Stéphane Dion forgets his record of inaction and practically glows, he’s become so green.
Provincially, the New Democrats were the first off the mark after the scientific panel’s report.
Leader Carole James sees a wedge issue, as they call them, a chance to show a clear divide between the positions of the two parties. (The New Democrats had no position, so they had lots of flexibility.)
The result is some relatively tough proposals. The NDP wants a freeze on greenhouse gas emissions in B.C., with reduction targets set after a legislative committee looks at the issue.
The party wants more tax breaks for fuel-efficient vehicles, more money for public transit and a mix of incentives and regulations to reduce emissions from the oil and gas industry.
The New Democrats also want a portion of energy revenues to go into a heritage fund, to be used in part to support efforts to reduce greenhouse gases.
And the NDP wants a ban on coal-fired power plants in B.C.
The Liberals can likely agree on many of those measures. We’ll find out in the Throne Speech Tuesday.
But two will give them pause.
The Campbell government has so far set no target for greenhouse emissions and is likely to consider a cap on emission growth too tough to achieve.
And the government has supported plans for two new coal-power plants, a major source of greenhouse gases.
The New Democrats have dumped the climate-change issue into the Liberals’ laps.
Within the next week the government is going to have to come up with a credible plan of its own.
Footnote: B.C. does have a two-year-old climate-change plan, which you can check out at www.env.gov.bc.ca/air/climate/. But there are almost no measurable targets and an awful lot of talk about consulting and encouraging and enhancing, rather than doing. It’s the kind of plan that in the business world would be bounced back as too vague to be useful.
No, it’s also about us. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report was decisive. Global warming is under way, we’re the cause and the results could be very nasty within 100 years.
Now we find out much we care about our great-grandkids, or even strangers who will be walking these streets as the next century starts.
It’s hard to predict what we’ll do. We’re not much focused on thinking long term. Governments look to the next election; businesses to the next quarter; a lot of us just want to get through the week.
We can decide it’s not worth the cost or inconvenience of changing what we do now, or perhaps rationalize that technology will advance fast enough to solve the problems we create. And there’s always the argument that unless China’s emissions are curbed, what’s the point? (Though China’s per-capita greenhouse gas emissions are about one-quarter of Canada’s.)
But we can’t ignore the facts. The panel report comes from a huge pool of international scientists. They believe it is a 90-per-cent certainty that humans are causing global warming. Temperatures will rise 1.1 to 6.4 degrees Celsius by the end of this century, they predict, and sea levels from 18 to 60 centimetres. Life on Earth will be more difficult for billions.
This is not one of those “someone should do something issues.” Everyone can make a difference — or not.
A family with two cars - one large and one medium-sized - driven a total 2,500 kms a month produces about 8,700 kilograms of CO2 a year.
Trade the big car in for a small one and walk and bike more so travel is cut by one-third, and the family only produces 5,000 kgs. Use a clothesline, not a dryer; turn off the computer when you’re not browsing; buy less new stuff. They all make a difference.
Between 25 and 30 per cent of Canadian greenhouse-gas emissions are the result of individuals’ direct actions. Individual efforts make a difference.
But no matter how much - or little - people are prepared to do personally, all the polls suggest they expect governments to take real action.
So, in a relative flash, Stephen Harper goes from a guy who doubts climate change and thinks the Kyoto accord is a socialist plot to a sort-of convert. Stéphane Dion forgets his record of inaction and practically glows, he’s become so green.
Provincially, the New Democrats were the first off the mark after the scientific panel’s report.
Leader Carole James sees a wedge issue, as they call them, a chance to show a clear divide between the positions of the two parties. (The New Democrats had no position, so they had lots of flexibility.)
The result is some relatively tough proposals. The NDP wants a freeze on greenhouse gas emissions in B.C., with reduction targets set after a legislative committee looks at the issue.
The party wants more tax breaks for fuel-efficient vehicles, more money for public transit and a mix of incentives and regulations to reduce emissions from the oil and gas industry.
The New Democrats also want a portion of energy revenues to go into a heritage fund, to be used in part to support efforts to reduce greenhouse gases.
And the NDP wants a ban on coal-fired power plants in B.C.
The Liberals can likely agree on many of those measures. We’ll find out in the Throne Speech Tuesday.
But two will give them pause.
The Campbell government has so far set no target for greenhouse emissions and is likely to consider a cap on emission growth too tough to achieve.
And the government has supported plans for two new coal-power plants, a major source of greenhouse gases.
The New Democrats have dumped the climate-change issue into the Liberals’ laps.
Within the next week the government is going to have to come up with a credible plan of its own.
Footnote: B.C. does have a two-year-old climate-change plan, which you can check out at www.env.gov.bc.ca/air/climate/. But there are almost no measurable targets and an awful lot of talk about consulting and encouraging and enhancing, rather than doing. It’s the kind of plan that in the business world would be bounced back as too vague to be useful.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
If politicians get income review, why not people on welfare
The latest effort to come up with raises for B.C. politicians is a big step forward over the last debacle, but still falls short of an ideal process.
And it raises some good questions about why MLAs and cabinet ministers think its important that their pay be regularly reviewed, but somehow don't believe a disabled person who relies on government assistance deserves the same consideration. Of course anything would be better than the last sneaky attempt - backed by both parties - that would have given MLAs a 15-per-cent pay raise and total compensation increases worth up to 50 per cent. In case you've forgotten - and the politicians are sure hoping you have - that was in 2005, after the election. They planned the raises behind closed doors and then, using a special rule, rushed them through the legislature in one hour. Such debates usually require three days, so the public has a chance to go, what a minute, what's going on here.
In this case, the public went crazy anyway. NDP leader Carole James reneged on the secret deal and the raise issue went away. This time Premier Gordon Campbell is taking a more responsible approach. A three-person panel has 90 days to review compensation and pension plans and make recommendations.
No real argument there. MLAs earn a base pay of $76,100, with extra money for heading committees or being cabinet or caucus appointments. Cabinet ministers get $115,100; the premier $121,100. There's a living allowance when they're in Victoria and a contribution to an RRSP in lieu of a pension plan. The RRSP contribution is nine per cent of base pay, or about $6,850.
It's not huge money. The work can be hard, MLAs are away from home, they're sacrificing peak years for advancing their own careers and they can be turfed every four years. For many, they're giving up serious money by seeking election.
But it's also not shabby. The base pay is still twice the average wage in B.C. It's about 4.5 times the income of someone working for minimum wage. And it's more than four times the income the government considers necessary for a disabled person, unable to work, and trying to raise a young child.
The panel is a qualified group, chaired by a senior lawyer who specializes in helping employers with labour issues. The other two members are a former B.C. Supreme Court justice back in private practice and a University of British Columbia business professor.
Great expertise. But also a skewed perspective. All three earn more than the premier today; the two lawyers likely take in twice as much. All three would be paid more than 95 per cent of British Columbians.
Given human nature, their views on a reasonable wage will be affected by the fact that they consider their own compensation quite fair.
The panel plans to give the public a chance to make submissions.
But it would have been wiser to include members with a different perspective - someone earning an average wage, living in Trail or Prince George. After all, we elect those kinds of people as MLAs and expect them to make other important decisions.
The whole exercise raises some other pretty good questions.
The government's news release said that MLAs and cabinet ministers hadn't received any "significant increases" since a 1997 review. But their pay is indexed, in a modest way, and recent increases have averaged about 1.1 per cent a year.
Not much. But more than people on minimum wage or most welfare recipients have seen during the same period.
If it's important to examine the compensation for politicians, to keep it current and make sure it's reasonable, what about others, like people on welfare?
Certainly the government looks at those issues. But it's managing a tangle of interests, some of them conflicting.
Why not give the panel another 60 days and ask for recommendations on those rates as well? If it 's important to get compensation right for 79 MLAs, surely it's just as important to take an independent look at the money being provided to some 70,000 disabled British Columbians dependent on income assistance.
And it raises some good questions about why MLAs and cabinet ministers think its important that their pay be regularly reviewed, but somehow don't believe a disabled person who relies on government assistance deserves the same consideration. Of course anything would be better than the last sneaky attempt - backed by both parties - that would have given MLAs a 15-per-cent pay raise and total compensation increases worth up to 50 per cent. In case you've forgotten - and the politicians are sure hoping you have - that was in 2005, after the election. They planned the raises behind closed doors and then, using a special rule, rushed them through the legislature in one hour. Such debates usually require three days, so the public has a chance to go, what a minute, what's going on here.
In this case, the public went crazy anyway. NDP leader Carole James reneged on the secret deal and the raise issue went away. This time Premier Gordon Campbell is taking a more responsible approach. A three-person panel has 90 days to review compensation and pension plans and make recommendations.
No real argument there. MLAs earn a base pay of $76,100, with extra money for heading committees or being cabinet or caucus appointments. Cabinet ministers get $115,100; the premier $121,100. There's a living allowance when they're in Victoria and a contribution to an RRSP in lieu of a pension plan. The RRSP contribution is nine per cent of base pay, or about $6,850.
It's not huge money. The work can be hard, MLAs are away from home, they're sacrificing peak years for advancing their own careers and they can be turfed every four years. For many, they're giving up serious money by seeking election.
But it's also not shabby. The base pay is still twice the average wage in B.C. It's about 4.5 times the income of someone working for minimum wage. And it's more than four times the income the government considers necessary for a disabled person, unable to work, and trying to raise a young child.
The panel is a qualified group, chaired by a senior lawyer who specializes in helping employers with labour issues. The other two members are a former B.C. Supreme Court justice back in private practice and a University of British Columbia business professor.
Great expertise. But also a skewed perspective. All three earn more than the premier today; the two lawyers likely take in twice as much. All three would be paid more than 95 per cent of British Columbians.
Given human nature, their views on a reasonable wage will be affected by the fact that they consider their own compensation quite fair.
The panel plans to give the public a chance to make submissions.
But it would have been wiser to include members with a different perspective - someone earning an average wage, living in Trail or Prince George. After all, we elect those kinds of people as MLAs and expect them to make other important decisions.
The whole exercise raises some other pretty good questions.
The government's news release said that MLAs and cabinet ministers hadn't received any "significant increases" since a 1997 review. But their pay is indexed, in a modest way, and recent increases have averaged about 1.1 per cent a year.
Not much. But more than people on minimum wage or most welfare recipients have seen during the same period.
If it's important to examine the compensation for politicians, to keep it current and make sure it's reasonable, what about others, like people on welfare?
Certainly the government looks at those issues. But it's managing a tangle of interests, some of them conflicting.
Why not give the panel another 60 days and ask for recommendations on those rates as well? If it 's important to get compensation right for 79 MLAs, surely it's just as important to take an independent look at the money being provided to some 70,000 disabled British Columbians dependent on income assistance.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Liberals hit by health-care turmoil
VICTORIA - Those people who argue the government has been underfunding health care have just got some pretty strong support from the best of sources.
Within 48 hours the heads of the regional health authorities serving almost half B.C.'s population were gone from their jobs; one fired, the other resigning.
And in both cases, the central issue was the lack of money to provide the care people needed - the operations, emergency-room care, seniors' homes.
The revolution from within capped what had been a bad week on the health-care file for the Campbell government.
The first to go was Vancouver Coastal Health Authority chairman Trevor Johnstone, fired by Health Minister George Abbott. Johnstone, said Abbott, was being axed because the health authority wasn't managing its spending pressures properly.
The authority and the government had been arguing over $40-million.
The authority said it was short that much and couldn't meet health-care needs in the region for the rest of this year.
It warned the government of the problem well in advance. When there was no solution, the health authority cancelled surgeries and closed acute-care beds to avoid a deficit.
The government, after some confused waffling, ordered the decision reversed and told the authority to find $40 million in other savings - all to be realized in the next two months.
That's pretty much impossible. The authority would have to find an immediate way to cut spending by nine per cent for the rest of the fiscal year.
That can't be done without service cuts, no matter what the health minister decrees from his Victoria office.
Maybe the health region management had done a poor job and Johnstone deserved to go.
But the government looked nervous. On the same day Johnstone was axed Finance Minister Carole Taylor made an extraordinary announcement. She didn't only pre-empt the coming budget by announcing next year's funding for the health authorities. She made the announcement months ahead of any other year. The authorities would get an average 6.3 per cent increase, she said.
The announcement was an attempt to counter the criticism likely to follow the budget-related firing of Johnstone.
It didn't work out too well. Only 48 hours after Abbot fired Johnstone, another health authority chairman said he was quitting. Partly, because of the way the government had treated his colleague.
But more significantly, Fraser Health chair Keith Purchase said Taylor's funding plan would leave the authority unable to provide the region with the needed care.
Purchase is not some well-meaning amateur. He has an extensive background in the forest industry and was CEO of TimberWest. The Liberals named him chair of the Vancouver Coastal authority in 2001 when it overhauled the health system.
The Campbell government then appointed him chair of Fraser Health in late 2005, when the region faced mounting problems.
Health Minister George Abbott said Purchase should have been content with the increase promised by Taylor. Fraser Health is slated to get a 7.1-per-cent budget increase next year, more than any other authority.
But a big one-year increase can't make up for several years of inadequate funding.
Even with the promised jump, the health authorities will have received funding increases averaging 3.5 per cent a year since they began delivering services in 2002.
That's not enough to keep up with population growth and increases in the cost of living.
It's certainly not enough to allow them to deal with the cost pressures Premier Gordon Campbell keeps citing - an aging population, rising drug costs, increased expectations.
The government hoped that the new structure would allow health authorities to cut costs - to deliver more with less, as the big bosses like to say.
But the departures of Johnstone and Purchase suggest that despite their best efforts, the authorities simply don't have the money needed.
The government is now going to have make the tough argument that British Columbians can't or won't pay more to fund their local health authority.
Footnote: Taylor added another problem to the list facing health regions. She warned that they will only receive one-year funding increase in the budget because of possible changes resulting from the Conversation on Health. It makes efficient planning and management of the system much more difficult for the regional authorities.
Within 48 hours the heads of the regional health authorities serving almost half B.C.'s population were gone from their jobs; one fired, the other resigning.
And in both cases, the central issue was the lack of money to provide the care people needed - the operations, emergency-room care, seniors' homes.
The revolution from within capped what had been a bad week on the health-care file for the Campbell government.
The first to go was Vancouver Coastal Health Authority chairman Trevor Johnstone, fired by Health Minister George Abbott. Johnstone, said Abbott, was being axed because the health authority wasn't managing its spending pressures properly.
The authority and the government had been arguing over $40-million.
The authority said it was short that much and couldn't meet health-care needs in the region for the rest of this year.
It warned the government of the problem well in advance. When there was no solution, the health authority cancelled surgeries and closed acute-care beds to avoid a deficit.
The government, after some confused waffling, ordered the decision reversed and told the authority to find $40 million in other savings - all to be realized in the next two months.
That's pretty much impossible. The authority would have to find an immediate way to cut spending by nine per cent for the rest of the fiscal year.
That can't be done without service cuts, no matter what the health minister decrees from his Victoria office.
Maybe the health region management had done a poor job and Johnstone deserved to go.
But the government looked nervous. On the same day Johnstone was axed Finance Minister Carole Taylor made an extraordinary announcement. She didn't only pre-empt the coming budget by announcing next year's funding for the health authorities. She made the announcement months ahead of any other year. The authorities would get an average 6.3 per cent increase, she said.
The announcement was an attempt to counter the criticism likely to follow the budget-related firing of Johnstone.
It didn't work out too well. Only 48 hours after Abbot fired Johnstone, another health authority chairman said he was quitting. Partly, because of the way the government had treated his colleague.
But more significantly, Fraser Health chair Keith Purchase said Taylor's funding plan would leave the authority unable to provide the region with the needed care.
Purchase is not some well-meaning amateur. He has an extensive background in the forest industry and was CEO of TimberWest. The Liberals named him chair of the Vancouver Coastal authority in 2001 when it overhauled the health system.
The Campbell government then appointed him chair of Fraser Health in late 2005, when the region faced mounting problems.
Health Minister George Abbott said Purchase should have been content with the increase promised by Taylor. Fraser Health is slated to get a 7.1-per-cent budget increase next year, more than any other authority.
But a big one-year increase can't make up for several years of inadequate funding.
Even with the promised jump, the health authorities will have received funding increases averaging 3.5 per cent a year since they began delivering services in 2002.
That's not enough to keep up with population growth and increases in the cost of living.
It's certainly not enough to allow them to deal with the cost pressures Premier Gordon Campbell keeps citing - an aging population, rising drug costs, increased expectations.
The government hoped that the new structure would allow health authorities to cut costs - to deliver more with less, as the big bosses like to say.
But the departures of Johnstone and Purchase suggest that despite their best efforts, the authorities simply don't have the money needed.
The government is now going to have make the tough argument that British Columbians can't or won't pay more to fund their local health authority.
Footnote: Taylor added another problem to the list facing health regions. She warned that they will only receive one-year funding increase in the budget because of possible changes resulting from the Conversation on Health. It makes efficient planning and management of the system much more difficult for the regional authorities.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Coal-power plans dim Liberals' green claims
VICTORIA - The people backing two proposed coal-fired power plants in B.C. should be mighty nervous.
The Liberal government has been defending the new power projects against complaints about the environmental cost. But that was before climate change crossed over as an issue. Sometime in the last few months we hit a tipping point on global warming. Most of us decided that it's a serious problem, that reducing greenhouse-gas emissions might help and governments need to lead.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper recognizes the change. The Conservatives didn't mention climate change once in their 2006. Now he's suddenly vying with Liberal leader Stéphane Dion for green honours.
Even U.S. President George W. Bush spoke about the need to manage climate change in his state of the union address, a first.
And Premier Gordon Campbell says he came back from his China trip convinced B.C. had to lead on climate change, promising that the new energy plan would tackle the issue.
That means the Liberals' plans to allow two new coal-fired power plants are a big problem.
It's tough to claim to be serious about climate change and reducing greenhouse gases while backing new coal power.
Environmentally - and especially in terms of greenhouse gases - coal is the least desirable fuel for generating power. It's not just that emission-free projects like wind power or hydro are better. So are gas-fired plants like the ones already supplying B.C. Hydro, which emit about one-third the greenhouse gases of comparable coal plants
But the Crown corporation has agreed to buy power from two new coal-fired power plants, reflecting the government's eagerness to see more mining. Plans call for a 56-megawatt coal and wood-residue burning plant near Princeton and a 184-
megawatt plant near Tumbler Ridge.
Energy Minister Richard Neufeld, also responsible for promoting mining, has defended the plants. They'll use modern technology that reduces emissions, he says, and diversifying the power sources might help B.C. avoid future price shocks. (Neufeld notes environmental approvals are still needed, but that's something close to a formality.)
On the other side, critics say coal power is simply the wrong course for any government serious about climate change.
Environmental groups say the first two plants would produce about 180 megatonnes per year of greenhouse gases, the equivalent of putting 300,000 extra cars on the road. As a result, B.C.'s greenhouse-gas emissions would increase three per cent when the plants came on line.
Which would be sometime around 2010, when Ontario will have finished phasing out its coal-powered generating plants because of concerns about pollution and global warming.
It's not just the usual suspects who have concerns about coal.
This month the CEOs of 10 of the largest U.S. corporations - including Duke Energy, BP American and General Electric - joined environmental groups to urge Bush to take action on climate change.
And their recommendations included a call to discourage any new coal-power plants, unless they used carbon-capture technology to trap greenhouse gases before they enter the atmosphere. That's not being even considered for the B.C. plants, which won't even use the latest pollution-control technology.
Project supporters argue that if we don't burn the coal here, it will just be shipped to China for the same purpose.
That's neither true, nor relevant. There is no guarantee the additional coal would be mined without these plants; it might be left in the ground for a time when coal gasification - a cleaner use - is cost-effective.
And in any case, China's plants will go ahead with or without or coal. The incremental increase in greenhouse gases comes from our decision to shift to coal.
The province does not need to rely on coal. B.C. Hydro's last call for proposals resulted in 27 other power supply contracts being awarded, mostly for green energy sources. There are other companies ready to step in with alternatives.
It's a problem for the Liberals.
They can go ahead with the power plants. But it's going prove to a lot of voters that they aren't serious about climate change.
Footnote: Another coal problem is rising up again. Cline Mining's plan for a mine in the Kootenays near the U.S. border is running into renewed opposition from Montana. U.S. politicians are threatening to make the project an issue in relations between both countries' federal governments.
The Liberal government has been defending the new power projects against complaints about the environmental cost. But that was before climate change crossed over as an issue. Sometime in the last few months we hit a tipping point on global warming. Most of us decided that it's a serious problem, that reducing greenhouse-gas emissions might help and governments need to lead.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper recognizes the change. The Conservatives didn't mention climate change once in their 2006. Now he's suddenly vying with Liberal leader Stéphane Dion for green honours.
Even U.S. President George W. Bush spoke about the need to manage climate change in his state of the union address, a first.
And Premier Gordon Campbell says he came back from his China trip convinced B.C. had to lead on climate change, promising that the new energy plan would tackle the issue.
That means the Liberals' plans to allow two new coal-fired power plants are a big problem.
It's tough to claim to be serious about climate change and reducing greenhouse gases while backing new coal power.
Environmentally - and especially in terms of greenhouse gases - coal is the least desirable fuel for generating power. It's not just that emission-free projects like wind power or hydro are better. So are gas-fired plants like the ones already supplying B.C. Hydro, which emit about one-third the greenhouse gases of comparable coal plants
But the Crown corporation has agreed to buy power from two new coal-fired power plants, reflecting the government's eagerness to see more mining. Plans call for a 56-megawatt coal and wood-residue burning plant near Princeton and a 184-
megawatt plant near Tumbler Ridge.
Energy Minister Richard Neufeld, also responsible for promoting mining, has defended the plants. They'll use modern technology that reduces emissions, he says, and diversifying the power sources might help B.C. avoid future price shocks. (Neufeld notes environmental approvals are still needed, but that's something close to a formality.)
On the other side, critics say coal power is simply the wrong course for any government serious about climate change.
Environmental groups say the first two plants would produce about 180 megatonnes per year of greenhouse gases, the equivalent of putting 300,000 extra cars on the road. As a result, B.C.'s greenhouse-gas emissions would increase three per cent when the plants came on line.
Which would be sometime around 2010, when Ontario will have finished phasing out its coal-powered generating plants because of concerns about pollution and global warming.
It's not just the usual suspects who have concerns about coal.
This month the CEOs of 10 of the largest U.S. corporations - including Duke Energy, BP American and General Electric - joined environmental groups to urge Bush to take action on climate change.
And their recommendations included a call to discourage any new coal-power plants, unless they used carbon-capture technology to trap greenhouse gases before they enter the atmosphere. That's not being even considered for the B.C. plants, which won't even use the latest pollution-control technology.
Project supporters argue that if we don't burn the coal here, it will just be shipped to China for the same purpose.
That's neither true, nor relevant. There is no guarantee the additional coal would be mined without these plants; it might be left in the ground for a time when coal gasification - a cleaner use - is cost-effective.
And in any case, China's plants will go ahead with or without or coal. The incremental increase in greenhouse gases comes from our decision to shift to coal.
The province does not need to rely on coal. B.C. Hydro's last call for proposals resulted in 27 other power supply contracts being awarded, mostly for green energy sources. There are other companies ready to step in with alternatives.
It's a problem for the Liberals.
They can go ahead with the power plants. But it's going prove to a lot of voters that they aren't serious about climate change.
Footnote: Another coal problem is rising up again. Cline Mining's plan for a mine in the Kootenays near the U.S. border is running into renewed opposition from Montana. U.S. politicians are threatening to make the project an issue in relations between both countries' federal governments.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Payday loans, private colleges and the case for red tape
VICTORIA - Red tape is generally portrayed as this snarled, sticky tangle that chokes and traps you.
And often, it is.
But sometimes it's more like a helpful line strung along a path to warn of real dangers, to the individual or the community. Stay on the path and you never get tangled. After all, laws are red tape and they discourage people from breaking into our homes.
The B.C. Liberals came into office with an anti-regulation bias, which is a good thing. Government's starting point should be that anything that infringes on people's freedom to make choices is bad and needs to be justified based on a greater good.
So we make people were seatbelts - even though that infringes on their right to make choices - because we all pay the costs of putting them back together after a car crash.
But on a couple of current issues we're seeing evidence that ideology, inertia or inefficiency has blinded the government to the need for regulation.
Take private colleges and language schools. The Liberals eliminated a board that regulated the colleges in 2003 and turned the task over to the industry. In 2004, it deregulated the language schools.
Private colleges would regulate themselves out of self-interest, the government reasoned. And it accepted the language schools' argument that regulation made it hard for them to compete with schools in neighbouring states and provinces.
Deregulation was, in this case, a mistake. Students - especially overseas students - were left with no effective way to assess the quality and reliability of private B.C. colleges and language schools. Complaints quickly followed.
Last year a private college owned by one of the people the government named to the industry board was ordered to close after students said they had spent thousands of dollars for worthless degrees.
And the industry's self-regulating agency, the Private Career-Training Institutes Agency, said it had penalized private colleges 86 times over the previous 18 months without any warning to the public. That's hardly in the interests of students.
Similar concerns were raised about the language schools.
It's not just a problem for students who might be ripped off.
The B.C. Progress Board warned that the lack of standards threatens B.C.'s effort to become an international destination. When a college or language school fails students, the entire province is seen as a risky place to go for an education, the board warned.
And that is what has happened. China, in part because of problems in B.C., has warned students not to enroll in Canadian private colleges until they are properly regulated.
Advanced Education Minister Murray Coell, who had maintained regulation was unnecessary, now promises action.
The government is also looking sluggardly when it comes to regulating payday loan companies.
Almost a year ago, Solicitor General John Les promised the government would act "quickly" once the federal government gave provinces the power to deal with the high-interest lenders.
But now Parliament has passed the needed legislation, Les says he might not be ready to respond until 2008.
Les has acknowledged that consumers needed protection from loans that involved effective interest rates of up to 1,000 per cent.
He even indicated general support for an approach taken in Manitoba, where the law requires companies to warn customers in clear language about the high cost of loans and allows them 48 hours to change their minds. The Public Utilities Board regulates fees and interest rates are to be capped once the federal law takes effect.
It's not that payday lenders are a bad thing. They are the only available source of short-term credit for many people. Their clients are often bad credit risks and rates need to reflect that.
But the $2-billion industry is huge, deals with unsophisticated borrowers and is almost entirely unregulated.
Yet the government, despite time to prepare and so little legislation that it cancelled the fall session, can't bring in consumer-protection rules.
Footnote: Les is at the centre of another regulatory dispute. The UBCM, consumers and home inspectors have all been calling for regulation of the industry. Anyone can claim to be a home inspector in B.C., they complain, and prospective homeowners can male a $500,000 commitment based on bad advice. Les has refused to act.
And often, it is.
But sometimes it's more like a helpful line strung along a path to warn of real dangers, to the individual or the community. Stay on the path and you never get tangled. After all, laws are red tape and they discourage people from breaking into our homes.
The B.C. Liberals came into office with an anti-regulation bias, which is a good thing. Government's starting point should be that anything that infringes on people's freedom to make choices is bad and needs to be justified based on a greater good.
So we make people were seatbelts - even though that infringes on their right to make choices - because we all pay the costs of putting them back together after a car crash.
But on a couple of current issues we're seeing evidence that ideology, inertia or inefficiency has blinded the government to the need for regulation.
Take private colleges and language schools. The Liberals eliminated a board that regulated the colleges in 2003 and turned the task over to the industry. In 2004, it deregulated the language schools.
Private colleges would regulate themselves out of self-interest, the government reasoned. And it accepted the language schools' argument that regulation made it hard for them to compete with schools in neighbouring states and provinces.
Deregulation was, in this case, a mistake. Students - especially overseas students - were left with no effective way to assess the quality and reliability of private B.C. colleges and language schools. Complaints quickly followed.
Last year a private college owned by one of the people the government named to the industry board was ordered to close after students said they had spent thousands of dollars for worthless degrees.
And the industry's self-regulating agency, the Private Career-Training Institutes Agency, said it had penalized private colleges 86 times over the previous 18 months without any warning to the public. That's hardly in the interests of students.
Similar concerns were raised about the language schools.
It's not just a problem for students who might be ripped off.
The B.C. Progress Board warned that the lack of standards threatens B.C.'s effort to become an international destination. When a college or language school fails students, the entire province is seen as a risky place to go for an education, the board warned.
And that is what has happened. China, in part because of problems in B.C., has warned students not to enroll in Canadian private colleges until they are properly regulated.
Advanced Education Minister Murray Coell, who had maintained regulation was unnecessary, now promises action.
The government is also looking sluggardly when it comes to regulating payday loan companies.
Almost a year ago, Solicitor General John Les promised the government would act "quickly" once the federal government gave provinces the power to deal with the high-interest lenders.
But now Parliament has passed the needed legislation, Les says he might not be ready to respond until 2008.
Les has acknowledged that consumers needed protection from loans that involved effective interest rates of up to 1,000 per cent.
He even indicated general support for an approach taken in Manitoba, where the law requires companies to warn customers in clear language about the high cost of loans and allows them 48 hours to change their minds. The Public Utilities Board regulates fees and interest rates are to be capped once the federal law takes effect.
It's not that payday lenders are a bad thing. They are the only available source of short-term credit for many people. Their clients are often bad credit risks and rates need to reflect that.
But the $2-billion industry is huge, deals with unsophisticated borrowers and is almost entirely unregulated.
Yet the government, despite time to prepare and so little legislation that it cancelled the fall session, can't bring in consumer-protection rules.
Footnote: Les is at the centre of another regulatory dispute. The UBCM, consumers and home inspectors have all been calling for regulation of the industry. Anyone can claim to be a home inspector in B.C., they complain, and prospective homeowners can male a $500,000 commitment based on bad advice. Les has refused to act.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Big change on politics of two-tier care
VICTORIA - It feels like the political winds are shifting on health care. Governments' interest in private, two-tier care is fading and they're backing away - at least slightly - from the argument that we can't afford to care for sick people.
The Lower Mainland Medical and Laser Clinic was the latest to test the B.C. government's commitment to universal health care.
The doctors decided the Medical Service Plan payment rates aren't high enough. Their solution was to introduce reservation fees to push up revenues, a change announced in a letter to some 1,000 patients.
Patients could choose to pay an annual fee - $125 for families, $75 for singles - that would allow them the right to make doctors' appointments. Or they could pay a $30 fee each time they called to make an appointment with their doctors.
People who didn't want to pay wouldn't be turned away, the clinic said. They would just have to show up and wait in the office to see if their doctor could find time for them after the fee-paying customers had been treated.
The fees are a blatant violation of the Canada Health Act, B.C. legislation and the basic principles of medicare. Doctors simply aren't allowed to take payments from the public system and extra-bill patients at the same time.
With good reason. Those kinds of fees undermine the basic principle of equal access. They allow people with money to get faster, better access to care than their less affluent neighbours. People without the money to pay the fees suffer.
What's the big deal about an extra $30? Studies have shown that even small user fees deter people from seeking treatment. Sometimes that means one less unnecessary trip to the doctor's office or emergency ward.
But other times it means a cancer gains time to spread or a small infection, which could have been easily controlled, becomes a raging problem that requires a hospital stay.
And the user fees, of course, push up health-care costs.
That sounds obvious, but it seems lost on some of the advocates of more private, user-pay care who claim that it would somehow magically reduce health-care spending.
If you go to the doctor, the MSP fee for the basic visit is about $27. (Which explains why it might feel like you're being rushed in and out; that doesn't cover a lot of the doctor's time.)
But the reservation fee would double the cost for the exactly same service. Multiply that effect across the system and the amount of money being consumed by health care soars.
The U.S. experience has shown, user-pay health care costs much more. That's why California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is getting business support for a universal public health-care plan. Health care costs in the U.S. are consuming 14 per cent of GDP; in Canada, about 10 per cent. If our costs rose to the U.S. level, we would spend an extra $80 billion a year on health.
And that's why Alberta this month officially abandoned plans to develop a "third way" in health care that included user fees and two-tier care. The approach would do nothing to make the system stronger or mores sustainable, the government concluded.
Despite all that, B.C. - under both Liberal and NDP governments - has done little to stop the slow, steady spread of two-tier care, preferring to ignore the violations. Clinics routinely offer speedier surgery, tests and treatment to those who can pay extra while government looked the other way.
Until this time, when the government and College of Physicians and Surgeons moved quickly to press the clinic to abandon plans.
It t might be a blip. But equally, following closely on the shutdown of another clinic planning to offer premium emergency care to those who could pay a surcharge, it might mark a change.
Two-tier care is illegal, wrong and sends health-care costs soaring.
Most of the public knows that. Perhaps the government has been listening to you.
Footnote: The clinic's bold effort to introduce the fees shows how confident those in the industry have become that the government won't enforce the law. But the old response, a mix of willful blindness and then tough talk and no action, no longer seems to apply.
The Lower Mainland Medical and Laser Clinic was the latest to test the B.C. government's commitment to universal health care.
The doctors decided the Medical Service Plan payment rates aren't high enough. Their solution was to introduce reservation fees to push up revenues, a change announced in a letter to some 1,000 patients.
Patients could choose to pay an annual fee - $125 for families, $75 for singles - that would allow them the right to make doctors' appointments. Or they could pay a $30 fee each time they called to make an appointment with their doctors.
People who didn't want to pay wouldn't be turned away, the clinic said. They would just have to show up and wait in the office to see if their doctor could find time for them after the fee-paying customers had been treated.
The fees are a blatant violation of the Canada Health Act, B.C. legislation and the basic principles of medicare. Doctors simply aren't allowed to take payments from the public system and extra-bill patients at the same time.
With good reason. Those kinds of fees undermine the basic principle of equal access. They allow people with money to get faster, better access to care than their less affluent neighbours. People without the money to pay the fees suffer.
What's the big deal about an extra $30? Studies have shown that even small user fees deter people from seeking treatment. Sometimes that means one less unnecessary trip to the doctor's office or emergency ward.
But other times it means a cancer gains time to spread or a small infection, which could have been easily controlled, becomes a raging problem that requires a hospital stay.
And the user fees, of course, push up health-care costs.
That sounds obvious, but it seems lost on some of the advocates of more private, user-pay care who claim that it would somehow magically reduce health-care spending.
If you go to the doctor, the MSP fee for the basic visit is about $27. (Which explains why it might feel like you're being rushed in and out; that doesn't cover a lot of the doctor's time.)
But the reservation fee would double the cost for the exactly same service. Multiply that effect across the system and the amount of money being consumed by health care soars.
The U.S. experience has shown, user-pay health care costs much more. That's why California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is getting business support for a universal public health-care plan. Health care costs in the U.S. are consuming 14 per cent of GDP; in Canada, about 10 per cent. If our costs rose to the U.S. level, we would spend an extra $80 billion a year on health.
And that's why Alberta this month officially abandoned plans to develop a "third way" in health care that included user fees and two-tier care. The approach would do nothing to make the system stronger or mores sustainable, the government concluded.
Despite all that, B.C. - under both Liberal and NDP governments - has done little to stop the slow, steady spread of two-tier care, preferring to ignore the violations. Clinics routinely offer speedier surgery, tests and treatment to those who can pay extra while government looked the other way.
Until this time, when the government and College of Physicians and Surgeons moved quickly to press the clinic to abandon plans.
It t might be a blip. But equally, following closely on the shutdown of another clinic planning to offer premium emergency care to those who could pay a surcharge, it might mark a change.
Two-tier care is illegal, wrong and sends health-care costs soaring.
Most of the public knows that. Perhaps the government has been listening to you.
Footnote: The clinic's bold effort to introduce the fees shows how confident those in the industry have become that the government won't enforce the law. But the old response, a mix of willful blindness and then tough talk and no action, no longer seems to apply.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Our squeamishness means more women die
VICTORIA - Up in Prince George, the city has just lost a legal fight to deny a business licence to a woman running an escort agency.
Down in Vancouver, the courtroom is being readied for the trial of Robert Pickton, charged with murdering 26 women, prostitutes working the city's dangerous streets.
Can you spot the connection?
The sex trade makes most of us deeply uncomfortable. We don't like the idea that men and women will perform sex acts with strangers for money. We don't like to think too much about the thousands of customers who keep the trade alive.
Our squeamishness is understandable. But it's also fatal.
Prostitution is legal in Canada. In part, that's in recognition that people have the right to decide what to do with their bodies. And in part we have acknowledged that the trade has flourished for more than 2,000 years and we're not likely to change that now.
But we don't like it. And our response is to push the sex trade into the shadows and out of sight.
So municipalities make life difficult for escort agencies and massage parlours - as Prince George did in illegally denying a licence renewal to the Black Orchid escort agency. (There are, as always, lots of points to argue about the case; the bottom line is that the B.C. Supreme Court found the city had no legal basis for its actions.)
Police, usually responding to public pressure, push the local stroll into the darkest, least-populated corners of the city or town.
Here in Victoria, it's an older industrial district on the far reaches of the downtown, deserted at night. No neighbours to be bothered by cruising cars and sex-trade workers on corners. But also no witnesses when things go wrong, few people to call for help. The 80 to 100 people working the streets are alone.
It is a gift to predators.
Sometimes the authorities go farther. Last month Lower Mainland police pooled their resources and dozens of officers swooped down on 18 massage parlours in one night.
The goal, police said, was to protect the women working in them and fight the risk of human trafficking.
But the 78 women police "helped" were led away in handcuffs. Police found all were at least 21 and in the country legally. While their workplaces were shutdown and they were cuffed, not one was charged.
In fact the while exercise did not result in one charge. Most of the businesses have re-opened.
It's not even any sort of accomplishment if a few have closed. Those women might well now be working the streets, in much greater danger than before the police launched their pointless raids. (At least pointless in terms of any actual measurable outcome.)
That's not to criticize police, or Prince George's city staff, for that matter. They are simply responding to our discomfort by attempting to push prostitution somewhere out of sight.
Police generally acknowledge that reality. When Prince George RCMP launched a program aimed at arresting johns in 2004, they were clear about the reason for trying to reduce the number of clients.
"If there is no longer persons buying the sex trade services then those sex trade workers may feel the need to move away from this community and to pursue their activities elsewhere," the police said.
The women wouldn't stop working. They would just go somewhere - anywhere - else.
Usually, somewhere more dangerous.
The message to sex-trade workers is also clear: We don't want to see you, hear from you or deal with your problems.
And that too makes them easier prey. Former Prince George provincial court judge David Ramsey attacked young girls, most working as prostitutes, over nine years before he was arrested.
Our determination to push them into the shadows helped make that happen.
Most of us don't like the idea of prostitution.
But it is here. Our unwillingness to accept reality and help people find safer ways to work doesn't change that.
It just means that more women will die.
Footnote: Most out-of-touch quote on the topic goes to Solicitor General John Les who described the Lower Mainland raids as "a huge shot across the bow" for anyone considering going into the sex trade. How? No one was charged; most were back at work within days. The effect of the raids was, more or less, nothing.
Down in Vancouver, the courtroom is being readied for the trial of Robert Pickton, charged with murdering 26 women, prostitutes working the city's dangerous streets.
Can you spot the connection?
The sex trade makes most of us deeply uncomfortable. We don't like the idea that men and women will perform sex acts with strangers for money. We don't like to think too much about the thousands of customers who keep the trade alive.
Our squeamishness is understandable. But it's also fatal.
Prostitution is legal in Canada. In part, that's in recognition that people have the right to decide what to do with their bodies. And in part we have acknowledged that the trade has flourished for more than 2,000 years and we're not likely to change that now.
But we don't like it. And our response is to push the sex trade into the shadows and out of sight.
So municipalities make life difficult for escort agencies and massage parlours - as Prince George did in illegally denying a licence renewal to the Black Orchid escort agency. (There are, as always, lots of points to argue about the case; the bottom line is that the B.C. Supreme Court found the city had no legal basis for its actions.)
Police, usually responding to public pressure, push the local stroll into the darkest, least-populated corners of the city or town.
Here in Victoria, it's an older industrial district on the far reaches of the downtown, deserted at night. No neighbours to be bothered by cruising cars and sex-trade workers on corners. But also no witnesses when things go wrong, few people to call for help. The 80 to 100 people working the streets are alone.
It is a gift to predators.
Sometimes the authorities go farther. Last month Lower Mainland police pooled their resources and dozens of officers swooped down on 18 massage parlours in one night.
The goal, police said, was to protect the women working in them and fight the risk of human trafficking.
But the 78 women police "helped" were led away in handcuffs. Police found all were at least 21 and in the country legally. While their workplaces were shutdown and they were cuffed, not one was charged.
In fact the while exercise did not result in one charge. Most of the businesses have re-opened.
It's not even any sort of accomplishment if a few have closed. Those women might well now be working the streets, in much greater danger than before the police launched their pointless raids. (At least pointless in terms of any actual measurable outcome.)
That's not to criticize police, or Prince George's city staff, for that matter. They are simply responding to our discomfort by attempting to push prostitution somewhere out of sight.
Police generally acknowledge that reality. When Prince George RCMP launched a program aimed at arresting johns in 2004, they were clear about the reason for trying to reduce the number of clients.
"If there is no longer persons buying the sex trade services then those sex trade workers may feel the need to move away from this community and to pursue their activities elsewhere," the police said.
The women wouldn't stop working. They would just go somewhere - anywhere - else.
Usually, somewhere more dangerous.
The message to sex-trade workers is also clear: We don't want to see you, hear from you or deal with your problems.
And that too makes them easier prey. Former Prince George provincial court judge David Ramsey attacked young girls, most working as prostitutes, over nine years before he was arrested.
Our determination to push them into the shadows helped make that happen.
Most of us don't like the idea of prostitution.
But it is here. Our unwillingness to accept reality and help people find safer ways to work doesn't change that.
It just means that more women will die.
Footnote: Most out-of-touch quote on the topic goes to Solicitor General John Les who described the Lower Mainland raids as "a huge shot across the bow" for anyone considering going into the sex trade. How? No one was charged; most were back at work within days. The effect of the raids was, more or less, nothing.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Time for government to obey law and help disabled
VICTORIA - Surely the government will now give up its wrongheaded legal fight to deny help to people whose lives will be utterly wrecked without it.
Two courts have said the government is breaking its own law by denying needed help to damaged people based on an arbitrary IQ standard.
The people - usually youths turning 19 - can have emotional and mental problems, fetal alcohol disorders, a whole load of issues, even ones that makes them a risk to the community. The government says those don't matter.
If the damaged person scores 70-plus on an IQ test then the government, through Community Living BC, cuts off help.
Neil Fahlman turned out to be the perfect test case to challenge the government's arbitrary action.
Fahlman is a huge, strong young man with lots of problems - fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, attention deficit disorder and an autism variant. As a result he often makes terrible decisions and acts impulsively. He - like a lot of people with fetal alcohol disorders - doesn't see the link between action and consequences, a disastrous disability.
Fahlman has had help all his life. His adoptive mother, a lawyer with the government here, worked hard to line up support and the children and families ministry came through.
But by the time he was 15, Fahlman was too volatile and strong for Gow and her
husband to manage. Foster homes couldn't handle his behaviour.
Then, a solution. Fahlman started living by himself in a small cabin on Vancouver Island. Community Living B.C. provided one-on-one support every day for seven hours to help him and make sure things went well.
It was expensive, about $77,000 a year. But the alternatives were all more costly or dangerous. It was the best way to handle a tough problem.
But Fahlman was going to turn 19. And because his IQ was 79, government policy said he would be cut off support on his birthday.
Community Living BC ordered a review to see if the teen qualified for support as an adult.
"Without the supports now in place Neil would be extremely vulnerable to his own aggressiveness and impulsivity," the psychologist appointed by the agency found. "He could do significant harm to himself and the community."
But Community Living BC, following the ministry's policy lead, said Fahlman's 79 IQ -placing him in the bottom 10 per cent of the population - is over the 70 cutoff. Support denied.
Gow appealed and ended up in B.C. Supreme Court, which found the government's arbitrary denial of help to Fahlman and thousands of others is wrong.
The Community Living BC legislation is clear, the court noted. It is to "promote equitable access to community living support" and "assist adults with developmental disabilities to achieve maximum independence and live full lives in their communities."
The law doesn't say it can deny support to people based on arbitrary standards.
If government wants to set those kinds of rules, it needs to amend the legislation or pass a cabinet order.
Instead, government took the fight to deny aid to the B.C. Court of Appeal - and lost again.
The three justices agreed the legislation doesn't allow the use of IQ to deny services to people who need them. They noted Liberal ministers Gordon Hogg and Linda Reid had both made comments in the legislature that suggested the cutoff was never contemplated when the law was passed.
Fahlman is one among many denied help because of the IQ standard. In too many cases the result has been damaged, lost and wasted lives. The people unable to cope without help have ended up in jail, hospital or on the streets.
All that could have been avoided, in many cases with a just a small amount of support - help with housing, with managing money, with life.
Children and Families Minister Tom Christensen said he's considering the government's next steps.
But the right decision is simple. Obey the law. Increase Community Living BC's budget so it can provide the needed help.
Keeping these people from disaster makes obvious moral and economic sense.
There's no excuse for more stalling.
Footnote: Another aspect of support for people turning 19 is likely to be contentious this year. Children in government care have been effectively pushed out on their own at 19, ready or not - often not. New Child and Youth
Representative Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond - like her predecessor Jane Morley - will likely have harsh words for the failure to give the kids a fair chance in starting adult life.
Two courts have said the government is breaking its own law by denying needed help to damaged people based on an arbitrary IQ standard.
The people - usually youths turning 19 - can have emotional and mental problems, fetal alcohol disorders, a whole load of issues, even ones that makes them a risk to the community. The government says those don't matter.
If the damaged person scores 70-plus on an IQ test then the government, through Community Living BC, cuts off help.
Neil Fahlman turned out to be the perfect test case to challenge the government's arbitrary action.
Fahlman is a huge, strong young man with lots of problems - fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, attention deficit disorder and an autism variant. As a result he often makes terrible decisions and acts impulsively. He - like a lot of people with fetal alcohol disorders - doesn't see the link between action and consequences, a disastrous disability.
Fahlman has had help all his life. His adoptive mother, a lawyer with the government here, worked hard to line up support and the children and families ministry came through.
But by the time he was 15, Fahlman was too volatile and strong for Gow and her
husband to manage. Foster homes couldn't handle his behaviour.
Then, a solution. Fahlman started living by himself in a small cabin on Vancouver Island. Community Living B.C. provided one-on-one support every day for seven hours to help him and make sure things went well.
It was expensive, about $77,000 a year. But the alternatives were all more costly or dangerous. It was the best way to handle a tough problem.
But Fahlman was going to turn 19. And because his IQ was 79, government policy said he would be cut off support on his birthday.
Community Living BC ordered a review to see if the teen qualified for support as an adult.
"Without the supports now in place Neil would be extremely vulnerable to his own aggressiveness and impulsivity," the psychologist appointed by the agency found. "He could do significant harm to himself and the community."
But Community Living BC, following the ministry's policy lead, said Fahlman's 79 IQ -placing him in the bottom 10 per cent of the population - is over the 70 cutoff. Support denied.
Gow appealed and ended up in B.C. Supreme Court, which found the government's arbitrary denial of help to Fahlman and thousands of others is wrong.
The Community Living BC legislation is clear, the court noted. It is to "promote equitable access to community living support" and "assist adults with developmental disabilities to achieve maximum independence and live full lives in their communities."
The law doesn't say it can deny support to people based on arbitrary standards.
If government wants to set those kinds of rules, it needs to amend the legislation or pass a cabinet order.
Instead, government took the fight to deny aid to the B.C. Court of Appeal - and lost again.
The three justices agreed the legislation doesn't allow the use of IQ to deny services to people who need them. They noted Liberal ministers Gordon Hogg and Linda Reid had both made comments in the legislature that suggested the cutoff was never contemplated when the law was passed.
Fahlman is one among many denied help because of the IQ standard. In too many cases the result has been damaged, lost and wasted lives. The people unable to cope without help have ended up in jail, hospital or on the streets.
All that could have been avoided, in many cases with a just a small amount of support - help with housing, with managing money, with life.
Children and Families Minister Tom Christensen said he's considering the government's next steps.
But the right decision is simple. Obey the law. Increase Community Living BC's budget so it can provide the needed help.
Keeping these people from disaster makes obvious moral and economic sense.
There's no excuse for more stalling.
Footnote: Another aspect of support for people turning 19 is likely to be contentious this year. Children in government care have been effectively pushed out on their own at 19, ready or not - often not. New Child and Youth
Representative Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond - like her predecessor Jane Morley - will likely have harsh words for the failure to give the kids a fair chance in starting adult life.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
A dangerous sales job on Afghan war
VICTORIA - It's dangerous when governments do a sales job on the idea of going to war.
Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay has just dropped into Afghanistan on a visit that seemed largely aimed at making Canadians feel better about that troubled mission.
He toured a small Canadian-funded school where youths are learning to be tinsmiths and announced a $10-million aid program to make sure Afghani police officers actually got paid. Those the kinds of "untold success" that Canadians aren't hearing about, MacKay said.
Cabinet ministers have to sell government policy. That's part of their job, perhaps even in times of war.
But it's troubling. Politicians looking to build support end up downplaying problems and over-emphasizing successes. That's a moderate problem if they're selling the merits of a dubious tax proposal.
It's a much more serious when the public is being sold on sending Canadian troops to die and kill on our behalf.
One risk is that we get slogans - like the foolish argument that "Canadians don't cut and run" - instead of real, considered policy.
Another is that politicians mislead us about the difficulty, length and cost of the struggle ahead. Simply because this war, or any other, may be justifiable does not mean it should be pursued at any cost.
There are success stories. The Taliban has been unable to extend its influence significantly. Afghanistan is safer for some citizens. Women have less reason to fear attack if they go to school or exercise what we consider basic rights. The country is less of a haven for global terrorists.
But the small, incremental improvements mean little in terms of the challenge.
While our politicians sell the mission's success; virtually every independent observer warns of big problems.
As MacKay was preparing to fly into Kandahar, an article in the respected journal Foreign Affairs offered a warning. U.S. expert Barnett Rubin, who visited Afghanistan four times last year, said the country is "at risk of collapsing into chaos."
NATO's military and aid efforts, despite small successes, have not achieved any measurable progress toward real stability and security, Rubin says.
The article - available at www.foreignaffairs.org - warns that as a result the country remains on the brink of disaster. The wholesale re-emergence of the Taliban and the collapse of the current government are both real possibilities.
Only a much greater military effort and much more aid will save Afghanistan, Rubin argues.
It is the story Canadians have not been getting from their government.
Afghanistan is desperately, unimaginably poor - poorer than any country outside the blighted nations of sub-Saharan Africa.
That in turn means the government has no money to provide services. Its revenues, aside from foreign aid, are about $400 million Canadian. That's about 1.5 per cent of the B.C. government's revenues, to meet the needs of a population of almost 30 million. About $15 per person to provide roads, schools, police, defence and everything else.
Foreign aid helps. Canada has committed $100 million this year, about 10 per cent of our total aid budget. Another $3.50 per person for services.
But the reality is that the Afghan government can't deliver the services needed to ensure that it is seen as a legitimate authority.
Consider policing. MacKay's $10-million grant recognizes that officers have often not received even the meagre official pay of less than $2 a day. Because of that, they have been easily bribed to ignore drug trafficking, thefts and murders.
For many Afghanis the Taliban's harsh system of Islamic law appears a preferred alternative to the current corruption and crime. At least they were protected. As a result, parallel Taliban governments are re-emerging.
There are reasons for Canada to have a role in Afghanistan. The people there need help and a re-emergent Taliban would decrease global security.
But this is a military mission that could take a decade and billions in aid. Based on current evidence, the results would still be uncertain.
The evidence is that the way ahead is much longer, tougher, more expensive and more deadly than the government has so far told Canadians.
Footnote: Canada is committed to a military Afghan military mission until 2009. But debate should be starting now on what needs to be done to ensure there is real progress before that date. The benchmarks need to be measurable and the resources needed - in military support and aid, from Canada and other NATO nations - need to be clearly set out. Then we can decide whether to press on.
Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay has just dropped into Afghanistan on a visit that seemed largely aimed at making Canadians feel better about that troubled mission.
He toured a small Canadian-funded school where youths are learning to be tinsmiths and announced a $10-million aid program to make sure Afghani police officers actually got paid. Those the kinds of "untold success" that Canadians aren't hearing about, MacKay said.
Cabinet ministers have to sell government policy. That's part of their job, perhaps even in times of war.
But it's troubling. Politicians looking to build support end up downplaying problems and over-emphasizing successes. That's a moderate problem if they're selling the merits of a dubious tax proposal.
It's a much more serious when the public is being sold on sending Canadian troops to die and kill on our behalf.
One risk is that we get slogans - like the foolish argument that "Canadians don't cut and run" - instead of real, considered policy.
Another is that politicians mislead us about the difficulty, length and cost of the struggle ahead. Simply because this war, or any other, may be justifiable does not mean it should be pursued at any cost.
There are success stories. The Taliban has been unable to extend its influence significantly. Afghanistan is safer for some citizens. Women have less reason to fear attack if they go to school or exercise what we consider basic rights. The country is less of a haven for global terrorists.
But the small, incremental improvements mean little in terms of the challenge.
While our politicians sell the mission's success; virtually every independent observer warns of big problems.
As MacKay was preparing to fly into Kandahar, an article in the respected journal Foreign Affairs offered a warning. U.S. expert Barnett Rubin, who visited Afghanistan four times last year, said the country is "at risk of collapsing into chaos."
NATO's military and aid efforts, despite small successes, have not achieved any measurable progress toward real stability and security, Rubin says.
The article - available at www.foreignaffairs.org - warns that as a result the country remains on the brink of disaster. The wholesale re-emergence of the Taliban and the collapse of the current government are both real possibilities.
Only a much greater military effort and much more aid will save Afghanistan, Rubin argues.
It is the story Canadians have not been getting from their government.
Afghanistan is desperately, unimaginably poor - poorer than any country outside the blighted nations of sub-Saharan Africa.
That in turn means the government has no money to provide services. Its revenues, aside from foreign aid, are about $400 million Canadian. That's about 1.5 per cent of the B.C. government's revenues, to meet the needs of a population of almost 30 million. About $15 per person to provide roads, schools, police, defence and everything else.
Foreign aid helps. Canada has committed $100 million this year, about 10 per cent of our total aid budget. Another $3.50 per person for services.
But the reality is that the Afghan government can't deliver the services needed to ensure that it is seen as a legitimate authority.
Consider policing. MacKay's $10-million grant recognizes that officers have often not received even the meagre official pay of less than $2 a day. Because of that, they have been easily bribed to ignore drug trafficking, thefts and murders.
For many Afghanis the Taliban's harsh system of Islamic law appears a preferred alternative to the current corruption and crime. At least they were protected. As a result, parallel Taliban governments are re-emerging.
There are reasons for Canada to have a role in Afghanistan. The people there need help and a re-emergent Taliban would decrease global security.
But this is a military mission that could take a decade and billions in aid. Based on current evidence, the results would still be uncertain.
The evidence is that the way ahead is much longer, tougher, more expensive and more deadly than the government has so far told Canadians.
Footnote: Canada is committed to a military Afghan military mission until 2009. But debate should be starting now on what needs to be done to ensure there is real progress before that date. The benchmarks need to be measurable and the resources needed - in military support and aid, from Canada and other NATO nations - need to be clearly set out. Then we can decide whether to press on.
Monday, January 08, 2007
Liberals face tough questions on Alcan deal
VICTORIA - So why did Premier Gordon Campbell back a power deal that would have gouged British Columbians and handed the proceeds to Alcan?
That’s one of the tough questions that is going to be asked after the latest twists and turns in the aluminum giant’s 58-year dance with provincial governments.
Back in August Campbell took a break from his holidays to celebrate a complex agreement with Alcan.
The corporation said it intended to modernize its Kitimat smelter. The $1.8-billion project would result in about 550 fewer jobs, but would ensure the plant stayed open for a couple of decades.
As part of the deal B.C. Hydro agreed to buy electricity from Alcan for the next 20 years.
Campbell maintained that the power sale was a good deal for British Columbians. But all the parties fought to keep its terms secret.
The bid for secrecy failed. And the details that emerged prompted angry complaints from consumers and companies developing other power projects.
Alcan’s deal was wildly generous, they maintained. It handed the company huge profits - in the hundreds of millions of dollars - for no reason. The mega-corporation got the agreement even tough the government should have had all the negotiating power.
The government brushed off the concerns.
But it turns out, according to the B.C. Utilities Commission, that the critics were right.
The commission, the watchdog that makes sure consumers are protected, said the deal was fundamentally flawed. B.C. Hydro was agreeing to pay too much for the power, handing Alcan windfall profits. Consumers, individuals and companies would pay unnecessarily high power rates as a result.
The initial ruling supports complaints that this was a sweetheart deal for Alcan.
B.C. Hydro and the government agreed to pay Alcan $110 million in up-front “incentive payments.” It also committed to pay at least $70 per megawatt/hour for electricity, comparable to the rates in its latest open tender process.
Too much, said the commission.
First, Alcan didn’t have to meet all the requirements demanded of the other bidders.
And those companies had to construct new plants. Alcan would simply be tapping its existing Kemano power project, which produces some of the cheapest power in B.C. The electricity that B.C. Hydro was buying for $70 per megawatt/hour costs Alcan $5 to $10 to produce.
Alcan would have made something like $1 billion in profits over the life of the deal.
Now things get interesting. Alcan says unless it’s allowed to make big profits from selling the power it won’t modernize the smelter. It’s not an idle threat; aluminum companies routinely seek and get big concessions from governments in return for investment.
The whole affair will add to fears, especially in Kitimat, that the B.C. government is more interested in making Alcan happy than in protecting the public interest.
The municipality has been in a fierce battle with the government over the Alcan’s power sales. Kitimat argues that the 1950 legislation giving the corporation the right to dam the Nechako River and build the Kemano power project was clear. It could only use the electricity for the smelter or other industrial development in the region.
If the deal was enforced, Kitimat argues, Alcan would have to expand the smelter to use the electricity - protecting jobs - or the power ownership would revert to the government.
The Liberal government says the rules have changed and Alcan can do what it likes with the electricity.The corporation could close the smelter and sell all the electricity, the government maintains.
But the government hasn’t explained when the rules changed, why or who made the decision. Kitimat took the government to B.C. Supreme Court last month to try and make it enforce the 1950 agreement. A decision is expected soon.
There’s no way to predict how this is going to be resolved.
But the whole affair is certain to raise more tough questions about whether the government is paying more attention to Alcan’s arguments than the public interest.
Footnote: An Alcan executive warned Thursday that the expansion will be scrapped if the company can’t sell the power at market rates. But he didn’t deal with the question of what would happen to the electricity if the sales deal doesn’t go through. Kitimat maintains the power - a hugely valuable resource - would belong to the public.
That’s one of the tough questions that is going to be asked after the latest twists and turns in the aluminum giant’s 58-year dance with provincial governments.
Back in August Campbell took a break from his holidays to celebrate a complex agreement with Alcan.
The corporation said it intended to modernize its Kitimat smelter. The $1.8-billion project would result in about 550 fewer jobs, but would ensure the plant stayed open for a couple of decades.
As part of the deal B.C. Hydro agreed to buy electricity from Alcan for the next 20 years.
Campbell maintained that the power sale was a good deal for British Columbians. But all the parties fought to keep its terms secret.
The bid for secrecy failed. And the details that emerged prompted angry complaints from consumers and companies developing other power projects.
Alcan’s deal was wildly generous, they maintained. It handed the company huge profits - in the hundreds of millions of dollars - for no reason. The mega-corporation got the agreement even tough the government should have had all the negotiating power.
The government brushed off the concerns.
But it turns out, according to the B.C. Utilities Commission, that the critics were right.
The commission, the watchdog that makes sure consumers are protected, said the deal was fundamentally flawed. B.C. Hydro was agreeing to pay too much for the power, handing Alcan windfall profits. Consumers, individuals and companies would pay unnecessarily high power rates as a result.
The initial ruling supports complaints that this was a sweetheart deal for Alcan.
B.C. Hydro and the government agreed to pay Alcan $110 million in up-front “incentive payments.” It also committed to pay at least $70 per megawatt/hour for electricity, comparable to the rates in its latest open tender process.
Too much, said the commission.
First, Alcan didn’t have to meet all the requirements demanded of the other bidders.
And those companies had to construct new plants. Alcan would simply be tapping its existing Kemano power project, which produces some of the cheapest power in B.C. The electricity that B.C. Hydro was buying for $70 per megawatt/hour costs Alcan $5 to $10 to produce.
Alcan would have made something like $1 billion in profits over the life of the deal.
Now things get interesting. Alcan says unless it’s allowed to make big profits from selling the power it won’t modernize the smelter. It’s not an idle threat; aluminum companies routinely seek and get big concessions from governments in return for investment.
The whole affair will add to fears, especially in Kitimat, that the B.C. government is more interested in making Alcan happy than in protecting the public interest.
The municipality has been in a fierce battle with the government over the Alcan’s power sales. Kitimat argues that the 1950 legislation giving the corporation the right to dam the Nechako River and build the Kemano power project was clear. It could only use the electricity for the smelter or other industrial development in the region.
If the deal was enforced, Kitimat argues, Alcan would have to expand the smelter to use the electricity - protecting jobs - or the power ownership would revert to the government.
The Liberal government says the rules have changed and Alcan can do what it likes with the electricity.The corporation could close the smelter and sell all the electricity, the government maintains.
But the government hasn’t explained when the rules changed, why or who made the decision. Kitimat took the government to B.C. Supreme Court last month to try and make it enforce the 1950 agreement. A decision is expected soon.
There’s no way to predict how this is going to be resolved.
But the whole affair is certain to raise more tough questions about whether the government is paying more attention to Alcan’s arguments than the public interest.
Footnote: An Alcan executive warned Thursday that the expansion will be scrapped if the company can’t sell the power at market rates. But he didn’t deal with the question of what would happen to the electricity if the sales deal doesn’t go through. Kitimat maintains the power - a hugely valuable resource - would belong to the public.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Private liquor industry gets big gift from taxpayers
VICTORIA - Forget anything under your tree. The best present this year was given to private liquor stores by the B.C. government.
And you’re generously picking up the tab. The gift will cost taxpayers more than $20 million this year and keep on growing year after year.
The government quietly offered private liquor-store owners yet another price break before Christmas, cutting the prices they will have to pay for wine, beer and other alcohol by five per cent across the board. The lower prices start Jan. 28.
Great news for the private store owners and their shareholders. The change means an extra $20 million to $25 million for them.
The Liquor Barn Income Fund, one of two big new players pushing into the B.C. industry, said the government’s largesse will mean a 10-per-cent jump in its before-tax profits. Investors and executives should be thrilled.
Not so good for the rest of us. The price cut means $20 million less revenue for the government. That’s about 4,500 knee or hip replacements that could have been done, if the government hadn’t made improving the liquor industry’s profitability a priority.
Bear with me for a primer and some history. Private stores in B.C., for reasons not entirely clear, have to buy their stock from the government’s Liquor Distribution Branch. They get the goods at a wholesale price based on a discount from government liquor store prices.
When the Liberals decided to allow private stores in 2002, they set the discount at 10 per cent below the government store retail rate.
That was supposed to be enough to let the private operators thrive. A mark-up of $1 per six-pack seemed fair.
But the government messed up the introduction of private stores. It said government stores would be closing, a big factor for private-sector investors who saw a huge opportunity.
Then ideology crashed into reality. The Liberals realized how much revenue would be lost if they got out of the business and reversed their plan. The government stores would be staying open.
Good for them, bad for the private investors.
Rich Coleman, then solicitor general, was handed the job of cleaning up the mess. He decided in 2003 that the playing field could be levelled if the government increased the private store’s discount to 12 per cent. For a store doing about $2 million in sales, that meant an extra $40,000 in profits.
Not enough, the companies said. They got another increase in the discount in 2004, to 13 per cent.
This time they really scored. The industry convinced Solicitor General John Les, responsible for liquor sales, that it needed another break from government. He agreed to increase the disocunt from 13 to 16 per cent.
The profit for a typical store will jump by $60,000, thanks to the increased discount.
Les said the owners of private liquor stores argued government stores had an unfair advantage.
And the industry convinced him that it wasn’t making enough money, creating a risk of instability, he said. “This is really an effort to make sure that we had a balanced system,” he said.
Maybe the industry will pay higher wages with some of the money, he says, or reduce prices. You can wait and see after Jan. 28.
It’s tough to see why the government felt compelled to offer a cash bonus to the industry.
The people investing in private liquor stores knew the rules, including the discount level. If their businesses aren’t as successful as they hoped, that ‘s their problem. Other people can’t run to governmen for help.
And in any case, there is no evidence that the private stores aren’t doing just fine at the current levels.
Stores aren’t closing or laying of staff. In fact, the number of private stores jumped by more than 10 per cent in the last fiscal year.
The Liquor Barn managers said last spring they expected great growth in B.C. under the old discount rate.
Why are taxpayers giving the industry a $20-million gift?
Footnote: Les said he believes government liquor stores have an unfair advantage in that they are paying less for the product. That’s tough to establish and irrelevant. The people who invested knew the rules and went ahead. Taxpayers don’t owe them any special compensation now. Liquor profits will be worth about $800 million to government this year, up barely 2.4 per cent from the previous year.
And you’re generously picking up the tab. The gift will cost taxpayers more than $20 million this year and keep on growing year after year.
The government quietly offered private liquor-store owners yet another price break before Christmas, cutting the prices they will have to pay for wine, beer and other alcohol by five per cent across the board. The lower prices start Jan. 28.
Great news for the private store owners and their shareholders. The change means an extra $20 million to $25 million for them.
The Liquor Barn Income Fund, one of two big new players pushing into the B.C. industry, said the government’s largesse will mean a 10-per-cent jump in its before-tax profits. Investors and executives should be thrilled.
Not so good for the rest of us. The price cut means $20 million less revenue for the government. That’s about 4,500 knee or hip replacements that could have been done, if the government hadn’t made improving the liquor industry’s profitability a priority.
Bear with me for a primer and some history. Private stores in B.C., for reasons not entirely clear, have to buy their stock from the government’s Liquor Distribution Branch. They get the goods at a wholesale price based on a discount from government liquor store prices.
When the Liberals decided to allow private stores in 2002, they set the discount at 10 per cent below the government store retail rate.
That was supposed to be enough to let the private operators thrive. A mark-up of $1 per six-pack seemed fair.
But the government messed up the introduction of private stores. It said government stores would be closing, a big factor for private-sector investors who saw a huge opportunity.
Then ideology crashed into reality. The Liberals realized how much revenue would be lost if they got out of the business and reversed their plan. The government stores would be staying open.
Good for them, bad for the private investors.
Rich Coleman, then solicitor general, was handed the job of cleaning up the mess. He decided in 2003 that the playing field could be levelled if the government increased the private store’s discount to 12 per cent. For a store doing about $2 million in sales, that meant an extra $40,000 in profits.
Not enough, the companies said. They got another increase in the discount in 2004, to 13 per cent.
This time they really scored. The industry convinced Solicitor General John Les, responsible for liquor sales, that it needed another break from government. He agreed to increase the disocunt from 13 to 16 per cent.
The profit for a typical store will jump by $60,000, thanks to the increased discount.
Les said the owners of private liquor stores argued government stores had an unfair advantage.
And the industry convinced him that it wasn’t making enough money, creating a risk of instability, he said. “This is really an effort to make sure that we had a balanced system,” he said.
Maybe the industry will pay higher wages with some of the money, he says, or reduce prices. You can wait and see after Jan. 28.
It’s tough to see why the government felt compelled to offer a cash bonus to the industry.
The people investing in private liquor stores knew the rules, including the discount level. If their businesses aren’t as successful as they hoped, that ‘s their problem. Other people can’t run to governmen for help.
And in any case, there is no evidence that the private stores aren’t doing just fine at the current levels.
Stores aren’t closing or laying of staff. In fact, the number of private stores jumped by more than 10 per cent in the last fiscal year.
The Liquor Barn managers said last spring they expected great growth in B.C. under the old discount rate.
Why are taxpayers giving the industry a $20-million gift?
Footnote: Les said he believes government liquor stores have an unfair advantage in that they are paying less for the product. That’s tough to establish and irrelevant. The people who invested knew the rules and went ahead. Taxpayers don’t owe them any special compensation now. Liquor profits will be worth about $800 million to government this year, up barely 2.4 per cent from the previous year.
Friday, December 29, 2006
A resolution: Pay attention, and be outraged
VICTORIA - My partner’s stocking stuffers this year included a bumper sticker, the first one for her truck.
“If you’re not outraged, then you’re not paying attention,” it said.
For the last five New Year’s, I’ve written about the same resolution I’ve made each year, and taken the chance to urge it on others.
I wanted us all to pay attention.
The idea started as I sat with my first grandson asleep on my lap at the Island Music Fest. I looked around and realized there was not much point in worrying about his future. Thirty years from now, he could be anything - on the festival stage, or watching with his own child on his lap, working 5,000 miles away or slouched in the beer garden.
Who could know what’s ahead? Who would want to know?
Instead, I thought on that sunny day, my arm slowly falling asleep under the weight of Paxton’s head, we should be paying attention to this minute and making it matter.
It’s not easy, at least for me. Worrying about the future - about whether I’ll get the next column done on time, how my own children’s lives will go, if I’ll have enough money - comes naturally. And it’s reinforced by a lifetime of being told how important it is to think ahead.
But the risk is that we stop paying attention to right now as we fret about a future we may never see. Every year brings a few more deaths to remind me that you can really only count on this moment.
Paying attention starts with the world and people right around you. Right now, is that person - friend, or child, or partner - across the room happy, or sad? What do you see in their eyes when they laugh? How does the air feel on your skin when you step out into the day? How are you?
But it’s not just about your life, or personal growth. I figure making a better world, for the people we know and the people we don’t, starts with paying better attention to this one.
That’s a vote of confidence in your decency. I believe that if we really paid attention to the homeless people we saw, or the kids in care booted out in to the world with no real support when they turn 19, or seniors waiting struggling without adequate care, we would make things better.
But if we don’t notice them, nothing happens.
Writing columns is interesting, pleasant work. But the job only has a point because I believe that readers, once aware of problems, will see that they are fixed. They’ll act on their own or pressure government, but they’ll get something done.
It’s my job, I think, to try and pay attention on your behalf. And, at least in print, as a result I probably seem perpetually outraged. Why not write more about the good things we do, politicians from a couple of governments have asked?
Mostly, because that’s a waste of the great opportunity each column offers. There are too many things that should demand your attention, things you would care about that need fixing. Certainly, governments do many fine things and they will undoubtedly tell you about them. My role is to tell you about the things that I think would make you unhappy.
Not to be gloomy, but because I believe you’ll deal with them. It’s like the bumper sticker says: “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.”
But paying attention isn’t really all about problems.
It’s often a reminder of just how wonderful our lives are: Moments of shared kindness, the wonder of mist rising from water, the pure joy of being in love or seeing a little kid smile at the world.
I urge it on you, one again, as a resolution. This year, really pay attention - to the people around you, the world at your door, the joys and sadness and beauty and pain that are all sure to be part of the next year.
We’ll be better off.
“If you’re not outraged, then you’re not paying attention,” it said.
For the last five New Year’s, I’ve written about the same resolution I’ve made each year, and taken the chance to urge it on others.
I wanted us all to pay attention.
The idea started as I sat with my first grandson asleep on my lap at the Island Music Fest. I looked around and realized there was not much point in worrying about his future. Thirty years from now, he could be anything - on the festival stage, or watching with his own child on his lap, working 5,000 miles away or slouched in the beer garden.
Who could know what’s ahead? Who would want to know?
Instead, I thought on that sunny day, my arm slowly falling asleep under the weight of Paxton’s head, we should be paying attention to this minute and making it matter.
It’s not easy, at least for me. Worrying about the future - about whether I’ll get the next column done on time, how my own children’s lives will go, if I’ll have enough money - comes naturally. And it’s reinforced by a lifetime of being told how important it is to think ahead.
But the risk is that we stop paying attention to right now as we fret about a future we may never see. Every year brings a few more deaths to remind me that you can really only count on this moment.
Paying attention starts with the world and people right around you. Right now, is that person - friend, or child, or partner - across the room happy, or sad? What do you see in their eyes when they laugh? How does the air feel on your skin when you step out into the day? How are you?
But it’s not just about your life, or personal growth. I figure making a better world, for the people we know and the people we don’t, starts with paying better attention to this one.
That’s a vote of confidence in your decency. I believe that if we really paid attention to the homeless people we saw, or the kids in care booted out in to the world with no real support when they turn 19, or seniors waiting struggling without adequate care, we would make things better.
But if we don’t notice them, nothing happens.
Writing columns is interesting, pleasant work. But the job only has a point because I believe that readers, once aware of problems, will see that they are fixed. They’ll act on their own or pressure government, but they’ll get something done.
It’s my job, I think, to try and pay attention on your behalf. And, at least in print, as a result I probably seem perpetually outraged. Why not write more about the good things we do, politicians from a couple of governments have asked?
Mostly, because that’s a waste of the great opportunity each column offers. There are too many things that should demand your attention, things you would care about that need fixing. Certainly, governments do many fine things and they will undoubtedly tell you about them. My role is to tell you about the things that I think would make you unhappy.
Not to be gloomy, but because I believe you’ll deal with them. It’s like the bumper sticker says: “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.”
But paying attention isn’t really all about problems.
It’s often a reminder of just how wonderful our lives are: Moments of shared kindness, the wonder of mist rising from water, the pure joy of being in love or seeing a little kid smile at the world.
I urge it on you, one again, as a resolution. This year, really pay attention - to the people around you, the world at your door, the joys and sadness and beauty and pain that are all sure to be part of the next year.
We’ll be better off.
Friday, December 22, 2006
The meaning of Christmas: A Canadian family journey
We were making the trip from Saint John, New Brunswick, to Ottawa, for a family Christmas.
It was cloudy, foggy and bleak as we abandoned the grey station wagon in the snowy parking lot. (I don't really remember the weather, but it was almost always cloudy and foggy and bleak for the three years we lived in Saint John.)
The airport was crowded with lost and discouraged travellers, their eyes pleading for help, or release from their misery.
We dragged two children and too many suitcases stuffed with dubious presents and a range of clothes for every social experience. Sam was five; Rebecca seven. It was for them a grand adventure.
We were bound for Ottawa, and Christmas at my ex father-in-law's home, one of those charming Eastern brick houses with a front porch, and a park - with a skating rink - next door.
So the luggage included skates, not the easiest thing to pack. Rebecca's skates wouldn't fit in any of the suitcases, so we crammed them in a backpack with other last-minute items, kids books and snacks. Even in those happier, simpler times, it turned out two long sharp blades were not the best thing to send through an airport X-ray machine on the busiest day of the year.
I wasn't sad that we weren't heading to Christmas with my family. We were all still recovering from a special family Christmas in Lake Louise the year before, which ended with smashed china, broken bones and my brother spending $700 to change his cheap airline tickets so he and his wife could fly home several days early.
Some 15 years on, we still don't speak about it. Ovid was wrong. Time does not heal all wounds.
But I was still faintly apprehensive. My father-in-law was one of the smartest people I have known, with a photographic memory and a vast store of useful information, a fine journalist and beloved professor.
He was also proudly eccentric, and more so in the years he had been a widower.
But it was Christmas. So I thought brave thoughts as we herded on to the plane, and off, struggled to find our baggage and battered our way through too many desperate people, their glazed, blank eyes staring straight head, sweat beading on their brows as they dragged oversize suitcases through the airport in search of a gate that didn't exist.
Don - that was my father-in-law's name - had prepared.
Sitting in a corner of the living room was a Christmas tree, that I truly believe had once been the finest on the lot.
"I shopped early, to get the best one," he said proudly.
But sadly, he had brought the tree into the house that day three weeks earlier, and leaned it against the wall without water, beside the out-of-tune piano.
My daughter went to look at its splendour, touched a branch. The cascade of dry needles made sound like gently falling snow. The floor looked lovely, like a pine forest. I thought of posting a fire hazard warning.
The tree didn't stand a chance.
Don's quirks extended to the domestic.
Perhaps because of a Depression boyhood on a farm near Moose Jaw, he preferred to keep the house at a balmy 82 degrees year-round, enough to keep him comfortable if he wore his customary bright red sweater over a dress shirt.
Don also preferred to keep all the lights on 24 hours a day, but that was merely disconcerting, like you were living in a science experiment. The heat - which seemed to suck all oxygen from the house - that's what got you.
But hey, a tree wasn't that important.
We dragged our bags upstairs, and went to check on the food supplies for Christmas dinner. Who knew what small, last-minute items might have been forgotten. Oh look, Don's hasn't got cranberries. Those men.
In the fridge there was cottage cheese, medium bright orange cheddar, HP sauce, half a loaf of brown bread and a bag of celery that had melted into a green puddle.
Did I mention that Don had no car, had never driven? So at 4 in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, in the growing dark and deepening cold, I hunted on foot for the food for a Christmas dinner for 15, and staggered home with white plastic grocery bags draped all over my body, my fingers growing numb. It seemed especially unfair that I got lost.
But over the next several hours the family arrived, from Toronto and Vermont, shaking off the snow, comparing travel stories.
Rebecca ran upstairs to get Meplauseth, her favorite doll, to show Fiona, her favorite aunt.
Her scream was epic, one of two times in her life to date that I have heard voice given to the purest terror.
We ran up the stairs, but I think I knew what was wrong.
We had not warned about Suzie.
You see Don collected. Books mostly. He had some 30,000 of them by then. Shelves walled every room. The basement looked the library in a struggling community college.
He also collected Mounties.
It started with souvenirs - plastic Mounties on horses, Mountie paperweights, Dudley Do-Right. But it grew out of control, as people lunged desperately at a possible gift for an impossible-to-buy-for man. He even got, from somewhere, a full red-serge dress Mountie uniform, used, but impressive. His son Murray had long ago found a female mannequin in an alley.
The mannequin - Suzy - modelled the uniform proudly, despite the chip to her nose.
So what Rebecca saw as she reached the top of the stairs was a crazed-looking women wearing an ill-fitting Mountie uniform and a dated wig, staring at her unblinking.
I guarantee you would scream too.
(Although, it could have been worse. For a time Don and family lived in Montreal, near the home of former defence minister Pierre Sevigny, famous for sleeping with a Soviet spy in CanadaÂ?s only really good sex scandal. Sevigny a war hero, and lost a leg in battle. When he updated his artificial leg, he threw out the old one. Murray - he of the mannequin - claimed it for the family collection.)
It was not, of course, all bizarre. We ate, and drank, and watched movies - I am still fond of the Three Amigos - and wore funny paper hats. Bound by weirdness, I think we all even behaved just a bit better.
But I had a dream. A Canadian dream.
In Ottawa, you can skate for five miles on the Rideau Canal, through the heart of downtown. I had told the kids about it back home, showed them a newspaper article about hot chocolate and bonfires, happy crowds and a skating dog. Rebecca read it to Sam, especially the part about stands selling Beaver Tails, giant flaps of fried dough dipped in sugar.
Now it was our last full day.
It was 32 below, and the wind pushed loose bits of snow down the street. The sky and the snow were the same pale grey colour.
Come on kids, I said. We're going skating.
They say exposed flesh, in those conditions, freezes in six minutes.
I can say that it takes nine minutes to tie three pairs of skates in an unheated wood hut. Sam was weeping quietly by the time we fell down the bank to the ice, where we stood alone, trying to decide if it would be better to stumble into the wind, and face it on the way back, or go with the wind now and suffer later. I didn't think they would go into the wind. I was afraid we wouldn't make it back if we skated the other way.
So we shuffled back and forth for three minutes. Rebecca and I were weeping then too. My feet were frozen, and I couldn't feel my fingers. It took 10 minutes to undo their skates.
We drove, in a borrowed car, to get Beavertails. Our spirits rose, and no marks of our ordeal remained.
Except on Sam. The tears had frozen on his face, and each one had left a white, frostbitten mark.
And then I realized the true spirit of Christmas. It's not about receiving gifts, or giving them. It's not about family, or forgiveness, or the brotherhood of man.
It's about courage. In the face of Mountie-clad mannequins, and frozen tears, and the certain knowledge of coming disappointments, Christmas is all about courage
It was cloudy, foggy and bleak as we abandoned the grey station wagon in the snowy parking lot. (I don't really remember the weather, but it was almost always cloudy and foggy and bleak for the three years we lived in Saint John.)
The airport was crowded with lost and discouraged travellers, their eyes pleading for help, or release from their misery.
We dragged two children and too many suitcases stuffed with dubious presents and a range of clothes for every social experience. Sam was five; Rebecca seven. It was for them a grand adventure.
We were bound for Ottawa, and Christmas at my ex father-in-law's home, one of those charming Eastern brick houses with a front porch, and a park - with a skating rink - next door.
So the luggage included skates, not the easiest thing to pack. Rebecca's skates wouldn't fit in any of the suitcases, so we crammed them in a backpack with other last-minute items, kids books and snacks. Even in those happier, simpler times, it turned out two long sharp blades were not the best thing to send through an airport X-ray machine on the busiest day of the year.
I wasn't sad that we weren't heading to Christmas with my family. We were all still recovering from a special family Christmas in Lake Louise the year before, which ended with smashed china, broken bones and my brother spending $700 to change his cheap airline tickets so he and his wife could fly home several days early.
Some 15 years on, we still don't speak about it. Ovid was wrong. Time does not heal all wounds.
But I was still faintly apprehensive. My father-in-law was one of the smartest people I have known, with a photographic memory and a vast store of useful information, a fine journalist and beloved professor.
He was also proudly eccentric, and more so in the years he had been a widower.
But it was Christmas. So I thought brave thoughts as we herded on to the plane, and off, struggled to find our baggage and battered our way through too many desperate people, their glazed, blank eyes staring straight head, sweat beading on their brows as they dragged oversize suitcases through the airport in search of a gate that didn't exist.
Don - that was my father-in-law's name - had prepared.
Sitting in a corner of the living room was a Christmas tree, that I truly believe had once been the finest on the lot.
"I shopped early, to get the best one," he said proudly.
But sadly, he had brought the tree into the house that day three weeks earlier, and leaned it against the wall without water, beside the out-of-tune piano.
My daughter went to look at its splendour, touched a branch. The cascade of dry needles made sound like gently falling snow. The floor looked lovely, like a pine forest. I thought of posting a fire hazard warning.
The tree didn't stand a chance.
Don's quirks extended to the domestic.
Perhaps because of a Depression boyhood on a farm near Moose Jaw, he preferred to keep the house at a balmy 82 degrees year-round, enough to keep him comfortable if he wore his customary bright red sweater over a dress shirt.
Don also preferred to keep all the lights on 24 hours a day, but that was merely disconcerting, like you were living in a science experiment. The heat - which seemed to suck all oxygen from the house - that's what got you.
But hey, a tree wasn't that important.
We dragged our bags upstairs, and went to check on the food supplies for Christmas dinner. Who knew what small, last-minute items might have been forgotten. Oh look, Don's hasn't got cranberries. Those men.
In the fridge there was cottage cheese, medium bright orange cheddar, HP sauce, half a loaf of brown bread and a bag of celery that had melted into a green puddle.
Did I mention that Don had no car, had never driven? So at 4 in the afternoon on Christmas Eve, in the growing dark and deepening cold, I hunted on foot for the food for a Christmas dinner for 15, and staggered home with white plastic grocery bags draped all over my body, my fingers growing numb. It seemed especially unfair that I got lost.
But over the next several hours the family arrived, from Toronto and Vermont, shaking off the snow, comparing travel stories.
Rebecca ran upstairs to get Meplauseth, her favorite doll, to show Fiona, her favorite aunt.
Her scream was epic, one of two times in her life to date that I have heard voice given to the purest terror.
We ran up the stairs, but I think I knew what was wrong.
We had not warned about Suzie.
You see Don collected. Books mostly. He had some 30,000 of them by then. Shelves walled every room. The basement looked the library in a struggling community college.
He also collected Mounties.
It started with souvenirs - plastic Mounties on horses, Mountie paperweights, Dudley Do-Right. But it grew out of control, as people lunged desperately at a possible gift for an impossible-to-buy-for man. He even got, from somewhere, a full red-serge dress Mountie uniform, used, but impressive. His son Murray had long ago found a female mannequin in an alley.
The mannequin - Suzy - modelled the uniform proudly, despite the chip to her nose.
So what Rebecca saw as she reached the top of the stairs was a crazed-looking women wearing an ill-fitting Mountie uniform and a dated wig, staring at her unblinking.
I guarantee you would scream too.
(Although, it could have been worse. For a time Don and family lived in Montreal, near the home of former defence minister Pierre Sevigny, famous for sleeping with a Soviet spy in CanadaÂ?s only really good sex scandal. Sevigny a war hero, and lost a leg in battle. When he updated his artificial leg, he threw out the old one. Murray - he of the mannequin - claimed it for the family collection.)
It was not, of course, all bizarre. We ate, and drank, and watched movies - I am still fond of the Three Amigos - and wore funny paper hats. Bound by weirdness, I think we all even behaved just a bit better.
But I had a dream. A Canadian dream.
In Ottawa, you can skate for five miles on the Rideau Canal, through the heart of downtown. I had told the kids about it back home, showed them a newspaper article about hot chocolate and bonfires, happy crowds and a skating dog. Rebecca read it to Sam, especially the part about stands selling Beaver Tails, giant flaps of fried dough dipped in sugar.
Now it was our last full day.
It was 32 below, and the wind pushed loose bits of snow down the street. The sky and the snow were the same pale grey colour.
Come on kids, I said. We're going skating.
They say exposed flesh, in those conditions, freezes in six minutes.
I can say that it takes nine minutes to tie three pairs of skates in an unheated wood hut. Sam was weeping quietly by the time we fell down the bank to the ice, where we stood alone, trying to decide if it would be better to stumble into the wind, and face it on the way back, or go with the wind now and suffer later. I didn't think they would go into the wind. I was afraid we wouldn't make it back if we skated the other way.
So we shuffled back and forth for three minutes. Rebecca and I were weeping then too. My feet were frozen, and I couldn't feel my fingers. It took 10 minutes to undo their skates.
We drove, in a borrowed car, to get Beavertails. Our spirits rose, and no marks of our ordeal remained.
Except on Sam. The tears had frozen on his face, and each one had left a white, frostbitten mark.
And then I realized the true spirit of Christmas. It's not about receiving gifts, or giving them. It's not about family, or forgiveness, or the brotherhood of man.
It's about courage. In the face of Mountie-clad mannequins, and frozen tears, and the certain knowledge of coming disappointments, Christmas is all about courage
Ombudman's probe into lottery wins welcome
VICTORIA - Solicitor General John Les and the B.C. Lottery Corp. have done a poor job of explaining why lottery retailers seem to be winning way more than their fair share of prizes.
It's not some little statistical blip. According to records obtained by the Vancouver Sun, the people who own or operate lottery ticket and Keno sales outlets have won 4.4 per cent of the prizes worth more than $10,000 in the last six years.
There are just 21,000 people who sell the tickets. That's about 0.7 per cent of the total population.
Which means that the people selling the tickets or collecting the Keno forms are about six times as likely to win a big prize as the average British Columbian.
There are only a couple of possible explanations. The people who work in the 4,400 lottery outlets, in malls and stores and bars, are spending much more than the rest of us.
Or there might be fraud at the expense of legitimate gamblers.
The issue first arose in Ontario, where a CBC report uncovered a similar high number of wins for the people selling the lottery tickets. That raised concerns unscrupulous sellers were cheating customers, either by telling them that their tickets weren't winners and then claiming the prize or by "pinpricking" scratch tickets to identify winners.
Neither the B.C. Lottery Corp. nor Les were reassuring.
The corporation speculated that people who worked in lottery kiosks are just big gamblers and win more as a result.
But it had no facts to support the theory. Ontario's lottery corporation, facing the same concerns, did research and found ticket sellers were twice as likely to gamble on scratchies - not enough to explain the big winnings. Les said he had asked the province's Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch "to confirm the integrity of the technology systems used for BCLC's lottery retail network" and was told everything was fine. That doesn't really address the concerns.
He also said that more changes to protect consumers will be announced soon.
And anyway, the lottery corporation said, security staff have only confirmed four such scams in the last two years, all based on customer complaints.
That could mean everything is fine. It could also mean that there's just no enforcement to detect problems.
That's a real fear. In the last three years the Liberals have continued to expand gambling in B.C., adding Internet betting, minicasinos in communities across the province and new games aimed at bar patrons. Gambling-related crime, unsurprisingly, spiked, up 36 per cent last year alone.
But in the same three-year period the budget for the Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch has been cut each year.
Gamblers have some protection. About half the lottery outlets have machines that let consumers check their own tickets. At every outlet, a display screen is supposed to show the customer the results when the operator scans a ticket.
But that's not enough, given the serious questions.
The lottery corporation doesn't even know what share of prizes under $10,000 are being won by retailers, for example, a critical information gap. It could ban retailers from participating, or at least require them to gamble at another outlet. It could step up enforcement and spot checks.
Fortunately, B.C.'s Ombudsman has decided to investigate. Kim Carter plans to look at the lottery corporation's efforts to monitor retailers' participation and enforce the rules.
Lottery tickets are a bad bet. Start spending $2 a draw on 6/49 tickets when you're 19, pocket the occasional win along the way, and the odds say that by 65 you'll be down $5,200. Take the same money and invest it in a mutual fund that earns six-per-cent interest and you'll have a retirement fund of just over $50,000 when you hit 65.
But British Columbians are still spending almost $20 million a week on lottery tickets, Keno and the rest.
They at least deserve better assurances that the games are straight.
Footnote: The people selling their tickets are claiming the biggest number of prizes from Keno. The B.C. Lottery Corp. suggests that because there are games every five minutes and the odds are good. But it's worrying that Keno is also played in bars by gamblers who have been drinking and are vulnerable to fraud.
It's not some little statistical blip. According to records obtained by the Vancouver Sun, the people who own or operate lottery ticket and Keno sales outlets have won 4.4 per cent of the prizes worth more than $10,000 in the last six years.
There are just 21,000 people who sell the tickets. That's about 0.7 per cent of the total population.
Which means that the people selling the tickets or collecting the Keno forms are about six times as likely to win a big prize as the average British Columbian.
There are only a couple of possible explanations. The people who work in the 4,400 lottery outlets, in malls and stores and bars, are spending much more than the rest of us.
Or there might be fraud at the expense of legitimate gamblers.
The issue first arose in Ontario, where a CBC report uncovered a similar high number of wins for the people selling the lottery tickets. That raised concerns unscrupulous sellers were cheating customers, either by telling them that their tickets weren't winners and then claiming the prize or by "pinpricking" scratch tickets to identify winners.
Neither the B.C. Lottery Corp. nor Les were reassuring.
The corporation speculated that people who worked in lottery kiosks are just big gamblers and win more as a result.
But it had no facts to support the theory. Ontario's lottery corporation, facing the same concerns, did research and found ticket sellers were twice as likely to gamble on scratchies - not enough to explain the big winnings. Les said he had asked the province's Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch "to confirm the integrity of the technology systems used for BCLC's lottery retail network" and was told everything was fine. That doesn't really address the concerns.
He also said that more changes to protect consumers will be announced soon.
And anyway, the lottery corporation said, security staff have only confirmed four such scams in the last two years, all based on customer complaints.
That could mean everything is fine. It could also mean that there's just no enforcement to detect problems.
That's a real fear. In the last three years the Liberals have continued to expand gambling in B.C., adding Internet betting, minicasinos in communities across the province and new games aimed at bar patrons. Gambling-related crime, unsurprisingly, spiked, up 36 per cent last year alone.
But in the same three-year period the budget for the Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch has been cut each year.
Gamblers have some protection. About half the lottery outlets have machines that let consumers check their own tickets. At every outlet, a display screen is supposed to show the customer the results when the operator scans a ticket.
But that's not enough, given the serious questions.
The lottery corporation doesn't even know what share of prizes under $10,000 are being won by retailers, for example, a critical information gap. It could ban retailers from participating, or at least require them to gamble at another outlet. It could step up enforcement and spot checks.
Fortunately, B.C.'s Ombudsman has decided to investigate. Kim Carter plans to look at the lottery corporation's efforts to monitor retailers' participation and enforce the rules.
Lottery tickets are a bad bet. Start spending $2 a draw on 6/49 tickets when you're 19, pocket the occasional win along the way, and the odds say that by 65 you'll be down $5,200. Take the same money and invest it in a mutual fund that earns six-per-cent interest and you'll have a retirement fund of just over $50,000 when you hit 65.
But British Columbians are still spending almost $20 million a week on lottery tickets, Keno and the rest.
They at least deserve better assurances that the games are straight.
Footnote: The people selling their tickets are claiming the biggest number of prizes from Keno. The B.C. Lottery Corp. suggests that because there are games every five minutes and the odds are good. But it's worrying that Keno is also played in bars by gamblers who have been drinking and are vulnerable to fraud.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Health and big surpluses the stories of the year
VICTORIA - I’m writing this as I get ready for a radio chat about the big stories of 2006.
Of course it won’t really be about peoples’ big stories of the year. Those are all individual - a divorce, a new child, a dying friend, love, loss.
No one is going to look back in 20 years and say I remember 2006, that’s the year the Harper minority government pulled out of the Kelowna Accord. It will be the year their daughter went off to school in another country or they moved into that smaller house with so much light.
It’s not that hard to come up with a list of the “big political stories” of the year.
The election of the Harper government in January, with B.C. seats critical to the outcome, seemed big, though the impact hasn’t been that great.
David Emerson’s leap from Liberal backbench to Conservative cabinet, which set new standards of wretched political behaviour, led only to a mediocre softwood-lumber deal.
Premier Gordon Campbell was able to go all enviro in February with a land-use deal for the Great Bear Rainforest and celebrated a raft of public-sector labour agreements through the spring. The Queen of the North went down in March. More charges were laid in the legislature raids in April and Ted Hughes delivered his devastating report on Liberal government bungling in services for children and families.
By fall, three First Nation draft treaties had been initialled. Government approval is a formality. If even two by band members decide to support the treaties it will be a gain for the B.C. Treaty Commission process and an enormous step forward for the province.
They’re are big stories. But it’s like watching the winter ocean waves rolling into a tangle of logs on a rocky beach. The big waves you notice - the splash, the crash.
But it’s the steady, grinding of the smaller waves that changes things, that turns big tangles of logs into little pieces of bark and wood strewn along the beach.
There was no giant health story in 2006. There were big ones. The Fanny Albo case where a woman was cruelly taken far away from family and friends to die alone. Maybe the revelation that public hospitals were allowing people to pay extra to jump the wait lists for tests.
But there were a succession of smaller stories, about patients on stretchers in halls and closets, about jammed emergency rooms and terrible suffering while people waited for surgery.
Together, health care worries were probably one of two really big stories in 2006.
Another - closely related - was the government finances. Finance Minister Carole Taylor’s February budget forecast a $1.45-billion surplus for this year, an enormous cushion. After the first three months of the fiscal year, she said the surplus would be more than $1.5 billion. After another 90 days had passed, the forecast was increased again, to $2.15 billion.
It’s not a blip. The February budget forecast surpluses of $950 million and $550 million in each of the next two years. But Taylor quickly revised those numbers as well. The surpluses are forecast at more than$1.8 billion in each year.
Those my choice for the two big stories. The quality of health care and the big surpluses. And they’re closely linked.
The heath care system needs more money. The current plans call for per-capita spending to lag inflation for the next two years, despite an aging population and much higher costs.
And the province has lots of money, for health care and education and children and families and making a payment on the debt.
But the Liberals seem to have other ideas. Finance Minister Carole Taylor and Premier Gordon Campbell have used wildly wrong numbers in a bizarre effort to care people about the affordability of health care.
Despite the public’s demand in budget consultations for more services , the government seems set to rein in health spending and pay down the debt more quickly.
Look for the response to that decision to be one of the big stories of 2007.
Footnote: Stephane Dion’s selection as Liberal leader could also turn out to be a big B.C. story, and not just because of the strong organizing support he found here. DIon’s focus on the global warming could raise the profile of the issue. Bad news for the B.C. LIberals, who have only a vague climate-change plan and are contemplating several new coal-fired electrical plants.
Of course it won’t really be about peoples’ big stories of the year. Those are all individual - a divorce, a new child, a dying friend, love, loss.
No one is going to look back in 20 years and say I remember 2006, that’s the year the Harper minority government pulled out of the Kelowna Accord. It will be the year their daughter went off to school in another country or they moved into that smaller house with so much light.
It’s not that hard to come up with a list of the “big political stories” of the year.
The election of the Harper government in January, with B.C. seats critical to the outcome, seemed big, though the impact hasn’t been that great.
David Emerson’s leap from Liberal backbench to Conservative cabinet, which set new standards of wretched political behaviour, led only to a mediocre softwood-lumber deal.
Premier Gordon Campbell was able to go all enviro in February with a land-use deal for the Great Bear Rainforest and celebrated a raft of public-sector labour agreements through the spring. The Queen of the North went down in March. More charges were laid in the legislature raids in April and Ted Hughes delivered his devastating report on Liberal government bungling in services for children and families.
By fall, three First Nation draft treaties had been initialled. Government approval is a formality. If even two by band members decide to support the treaties it will be a gain for the B.C. Treaty Commission process and an enormous step forward for the province.
They’re are big stories. But it’s like watching the winter ocean waves rolling into a tangle of logs on a rocky beach. The big waves you notice - the splash, the crash.
But it’s the steady, grinding of the smaller waves that changes things, that turns big tangles of logs into little pieces of bark and wood strewn along the beach.
There was no giant health story in 2006. There were big ones. The Fanny Albo case where a woman was cruelly taken far away from family and friends to die alone. Maybe the revelation that public hospitals were allowing people to pay extra to jump the wait lists for tests.
But there were a succession of smaller stories, about patients on stretchers in halls and closets, about jammed emergency rooms and terrible suffering while people waited for surgery.
Together, health care worries were probably one of two really big stories in 2006.
Another - closely related - was the government finances. Finance Minister Carole Taylor’s February budget forecast a $1.45-billion surplus for this year, an enormous cushion. After the first three months of the fiscal year, she said the surplus would be more than $1.5 billion. After another 90 days had passed, the forecast was increased again, to $2.15 billion.
It’s not a blip. The February budget forecast surpluses of $950 million and $550 million in each of the next two years. But Taylor quickly revised those numbers as well. The surpluses are forecast at more than$1.8 billion in each year.
Those my choice for the two big stories. The quality of health care and the big surpluses. And they’re closely linked.
The heath care system needs more money. The current plans call for per-capita spending to lag inflation for the next two years, despite an aging population and much higher costs.
And the province has lots of money, for health care and education and children and families and making a payment on the debt.
But the Liberals seem to have other ideas. Finance Minister Carole Taylor and Premier Gordon Campbell have used wildly wrong numbers in a bizarre effort to care people about the affordability of health care.
Despite the public’s demand in budget consultations for more services , the government seems set to rein in health spending and pay down the debt more quickly.
Look for the response to that decision to be one of the big stories of 2007.
Footnote: Stephane Dion’s selection as Liberal leader could also turn out to be a big B.C. story, and not just because of the strong organizing support he found here. DIon’s focus on the global warming could raise the profile of the issue. Bad news for the B.C. LIberals, who have only a vague climate-change plan and are contemplating several new coal-fired electrical plants.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Injection site condemned for saving lives, reducing addiction
VICTORIA - Who would think that the most disturbing words I’ve seen in print for years would come from a Mountie?
When people look back on these times, they will be baffled by our persistent stupidity when it comes to drugs. From alcohol in the ‘30s to crystal meth 70 years later later we keep trying to police addictions and abuse out of existence.
In the process we have spent untold fortunes, bankrolled every organized crime group from the Mafia to bikers to Asian gangs and watched as more people suffered and died, more families were destroyed and more communities damaged.
And in all that time the approach never once showed any signs of working.
The disturbing — even obscene — words came in an RCMP report on Insite, the Vancouver safe-injection site.
The site opened in late 2003, Canada’s first experiment in giving addicts a safe, clean place to shoot up. The theory — tested in other countries — is that the site offers big benefits. People injecting drugs in the centre don’t share needles, so they don’t spread HIV and hepatitis and other illnesses. If they overdose, help is near. They can get medical care. If they’re ready to try quitting, they can be referred to services.
And they aren’t sticking needles in their arms on the street, a significant benefit to neighbours and nearby businesses.
It has worked. More than dozen serious research studies have looked at Insite’s impact. They’ve been reviewed by independent scientists and published in The Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine and other journals. The site has increased the chance addicts will decide to try treatment. It has cut the spread of deadly diseases and saved lives. Street problems are reduced.
And there is no evidence that it has increased drug use, which is not surprising. People are not going to go say, “hey, a safe-injection site, I think I’ll try heroin.”
But the Conservative government is unconvinced.
Insite’s three-year operating certificate was up for renewal this fall. Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he didn’t have enough information to make a decision, despite the research and the support from Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan, Premier Gordon Campbell, Vancouver police and public-health officials.
The federal government refused to renew Insite’s operating certificate, instead giving the site a temporary reprieve until the end of next year. The prime minister said he wanted more research (then his goverment cut off research funding). Harper said he especially wanted to hear from the RCMP.
Peter O’Neil of the Vancouver Sun made a freedom of information request for RCMP documents on Insite. He found that the Mounties’ regional co-ordinator for drugs and organized crime awareness had prepared a negative report.
There were no statistics or analysis in the three-page document, just opinion. The RCMP doesn’t actually patrol the area where the site is located.
And the report didn’t provide any evidence to challenge the studies showing the site has resulted in more people seeking treatment and saved lives.
In fact, the RCMP argues, the fact that the site saves lives might be a bad thing.
''The RCMP has concerns regarding any initiative that lowers the perceived risks associated with drug use," the report says. 'There is considerable evidence to show that, when the perceived risks associated to drug use decreases, there is a corresponding increase in number of people using drugs.”
Stop and think what those two sentences say.
The RCMP “has concerns” about a safe-injection site or any other measure that makes drug use less dangerous.
If someone’s daughter gets AIDs, or someone’s father dies in an alley, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, says our national police force. More deaths and illness might deter others from doing drugs.
It’s cruel and stupid, especially as people have been dying for years and drug use continues.
Safe-injection sites save lives, reduce addiction and make the community safer.
And those, apparently, are seen as bad things by the RCMP and the Harper government.
Footnote: The safe-injection site has been criticized by U.S. drug officials. And reports this week revealed the Harper government has been consulting U.S. government officials on its new drug policy, holding meetings between “various senior-level meetings between U.S. officials and ministers/ministers’ offices.” It would a be a tragedy if Canada followed the disastrously expensive, ineffective U.S. approach.
When people look back on these times, they will be baffled by our persistent stupidity when it comes to drugs. From alcohol in the ‘30s to crystal meth 70 years later later we keep trying to police addictions and abuse out of existence.
In the process we have spent untold fortunes, bankrolled every organized crime group from the Mafia to bikers to Asian gangs and watched as more people suffered and died, more families were destroyed and more communities damaged.
And in all that time the approach never once showed any signs of working.
The disturbing — even obscene — words came in an RCMP report on Insite, the Vancouver safe-injection site.
The site opened in late 2003, Canada’s first experiment in giving addicts a safe, clean place to shoot up. The theory — tested in other countries — is that the site offers big benefits. People injecting drugs in the centre don’t share needles, so they don’t spread HIV and hepatitis and other illnesses. If they overdose, help is near. They can get medical care. If they’re ready to try quitting, they can be referred to services.
And they aren’t sticking needles in their arms on the street, a significant benefit to neighbours and nearby businesses.
It has worked. More than dozen serious research studies have looked at Insite’s impact. They’ve been reviewed by independent scientists and published in The Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine and other journals. The site has increased the chance addicts will decide to try treatment. It has cut the spread of deadly diseases and saved lives. Street problems are reduced.
And there is no evidence that it has increased drug use, which is not surprising. People are not going to go say, “hey, a safe-injection site, I think I’ll try heroin.”
But the Conservative government is unconvinced.
Insite’s three-year operating certificate was up for renewal this fall. Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he didn’t have enough information to make a decision, despite the research and the support from Vancouver Mayor Sam Sullivan, Premier Gordon Campbell, Vancouver police and public-health officials.
The federal government refused to renew Insite’s operating certificate, instead giving the site a temporary reprieve until the end of next year. The prime minister said he wanted more research (then his goverment cut off research funding). Harper said he especially wanted to hear from the RCMP.
Peter O’Neil of the Vancouver Sun made a freedom of information request for RCMP documents on Insite. He found that the Mounties’ regional co-ordinator for drugs and organized crime awareness had prepared a negative report.
There were no statistics or analysis in the three-page document, just opinion. The RCMP doesn’t actually patrol the area where the site is located.
And the report didn’t provide any evidence to challenge the studies showing the site has resulted in more people seeking treatment and saved lives.
In fact, the RCMP argues, the fact that the site saves lives might be a bad thing.
''The RCMP has concerns regarding any initiative that lowers the perceived risks associated with drug use," the report says. 'There is considerable evidence to show that, when the perceived risks associated to drug use decreases, there is a corresponding increase in number of people using drugs.”
Stop and think what those two sentences say.
The RCMP “has concerns” about a safe-injection site or any other measure that makes drug use less dangerous.
If someone’s daughter gets AIDs, or someone’s father dies in an alley, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, says our national police force. More deaths and illness might deter others from doing drugs.
It’s cruel and stupid, especially as people have been dying for years and drug use continues.
Safe-injection sites save lives, reduce addiction and make the community safer.
And those, apparently, are seen as bad things by the RCMP and the Harper government.
Footnote: The safe-injection site has been criticized by U.S. drug officials. And reports this week revealed the Harper government has been consulting U.S. government officials on its new drug policy, holding meetings between “various senior-level meetings between U.S. officials and ministers/ministers’ offices.” It would a be a tragedy if Canada followed the disastrously expensive, ineffective U.S. approach.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
The big question about treaties
VICTORIA - Three draft treaties in less than two months. Not a bad way for First Nations and the provincial and federal governments to end the year.
And at the same time, the latest deals are a reminder of the need to get moving on treaties across the province.
The Maa-nulth First Nations from Vancouver Island's west coast were the latest to initial a treaty, days after the Tsawwassen band agreed to tentative terms. Add in the deal reached with the Lheidli T'eneh in October and you've got a large chunk of the province covered - a coastal group of First Nations, an urban band and one from the northern Interior.
First Nations don't like the idea that these agreements are setting patterns for future settlements. Each of the 47 sets of negotiations is different, they maintain.
But practically, these deals are setting benchmarks. Or they should be.
These aren't yet treaties. The federal and provincial governments have to approve them - a formality now that the Campbell Liberals have abandoned their past objections to treaties. There have been complaints about provisions that would see land taken out of the Agricultural Land Reserve as part of the Tsawwassen deal and concerns that non-
natives leaving on reserve lands won't have votes on all decisions.
But without a political party leading the opposition, as the Liberals did in trying to kill the Nisga'a treaty, speedy government approval is assured.
The bigger risk lies in the membership votes each First Nation will hold. The band members are making an enormous decision. The treaties are final settlements of all outstanding claims. There's no chance to try again if a mistake is made. The members know that their vote will affect the lives of future generations.
They will be looking at the fairness of the agreements, in terms of what's been lost and what is offered. And members will be wondering if their negotiators have left anything on the table - whether waiting could produce a better deal.
That's more of a problem. Broadly, these agreements look fair. The five first nations that are part of the Maa-nulth group, for example, will get about $300 million over the next 25 years. They'll get about 240 square kilometers of land - figure 60 Stanley Parks - including some high-value oceanfront with development potential. That's about eight per cent of the traditional territory they claimed.
But Maa-nulth voters s will be wondering if they could get more by waiting.
It's a fair question. Setting a value on a treaty deal is difficult, but estimate this agreement at $200,000 per member in land and cash over the next few decades.
That's significantly better than the Nisga'a did with their agreement, approved in 2000. And it's much better than a tentative agreement reached on behalf of the Maa-
nulth and other Vancouver Island First Nations in 2001, just before the election. That agreement fell apart and led to a breakup of the native negotiating group.
The lesson - for First Nations voting on these treaties and others still bargaining - could easily be that waiting pays. That's especially true, as B.C.'s acting auditor general noted in a report earlier this month, if interim agreements developed as part of the province's "new relationship" provide some of the benefits of treaties without any commitments. There are benefits to First Nations in getting treaties done quickly. The sooner the agreements are signed, the sooner they can begin working towards what should be a better future.
But federal and provincial government negotiators are also going to have to be clear. While First Nations can still expect meaningful negotiations at treaty tables, the compensation pattern, in broad terms, is being set now. The Tsawwassen, Maa-nulth and Lheidli T'eneh need to know that it will not be a mistake to lead the way.
If they have that confidence, B.C. could be on the brink of an important step forward on treaties.
Footnote: The rising costs of settlement raise again the question of how different things might be today if the B.C. Liberals had not fought the Nisga'a treaty and given up at least two years of potential progress while they conducted the now-ignored referendum on treaty principles.
And at the same time, the latest deals are a reminder of the need to get moving on treaties across the province.
The Maa-nulth First Nations from Vancouver Island's west coast were the latest to initial a treaty, days after the Tsawwassen band agreed to tentative terms. Add in the deal reached with the Lheidli T'eneh in October and you've got a large chunk of the province covered - a coastal group of First Nations, an urban band and one from the northern Interior.
First Nations don't like the idea that these agreements are setting patterns for future settlements. Each of the 47 sets of negotiations is different, they maintain.
But practically, these deals are setting benchmarks. Or they should be.
These aren't yet treaties. The federal and provincial governments have to approve them - a formality now that the Campbell Liberals have abandoned their past objections to treaties. There have been complaints about provisions that would see land taken out of the Agricultural Land Reserve as part of the Tsawwassen deal and concerns that non-
natives leaving on reserve lands won't have votes on all decisions.
But without a political party leading the opposition, as the Liberals did in trying to kill the Nisga'a treaty, speedy government approval is assured.
The bigger risk lies in the membership votes each First Nation will hold. The band members are making an enormous decision. The treaties are final settlements of all outstanding claims. There's no chance to try again if a mistake is made. The members know that their vote will affect the lives of future generations.
They will be looking at the fairness of the agreements, in terms of what's been lost and what is offered. And members will be wondering if their negotiators have left anything on the table - whether waiting could produce a better deal.
That's more of a problem. Broadly, these agreements look fair. The five first nations that are part of the Maa-nulth group, for example, will get about $300 million over the next 25 years. They'll get about 240 square kilometers of land - figure 60 Stanley Parks - including some high-value oceanfront with development potential. That's about eight per cent of the traditional territory they claimed.
But Maa-nulth voters s will be wondering if they could get more by waiting.
It's a fair question. Setting a value on a treaty deal is difficult, but estimate this agreement at $200,000 per member in land and cash over the next few decades.
That's significantly better than the Nisga'a did with their agreement, approved in 2000. And it's much better than a tentative agreement reached on behalf of the Maa-
nulth and other Vancouver Island First Nations in 2001, just before the election. That agreement fell apart and led to a breakup of the native negotiating group.
The lesson - for First Nations voting on these treaties and others still bargaining - could easily be that waiting pays. That's especially true, as B.C.'s acting auditor general noted in a report earlier this month, if interim agreements developed as part of the province's "new relationship" provide some of the benefits of treaties without any commitments. There are benefits to First Nations in getting treaties done quickly. The sooner the agreements are signed, the sooner they can begin working towards what should be a better future.
But federal and provincial government negotiators are also going to have to be clear. While First Nations can still expect meaningful negotiations at treaty tables, the compensation pattern, in broad terms, is being set now. The Tsawwassen, Maa-nulth and Lheidli T'eneh need to know that it will not be a mistake to lead the way.
If they have that confidence, B.C. could be on the brink of an important step forward on treaties.
Footnote: The rising costs of settlement raise again the question of how different things might be today if the B.C. Liberals had not fought the Nisga'a treaty and given up at least two years of potential progress while they conducted the now-ignored referendum on treaty principles.
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Catching criminals before they steal your car
VICTORIA - What if instead of waiting for people to commit crimes, you identified and stopped them before they broke into your house or grabbed your mom’s purse?
That was the premise of a Tom Cruise flick of a couple of years ago called Minority Report. Future police were able to identify people on the brink of killing a spouse or committing some other crime - don’t ask how - and sweep in for a preventive arrest.
And it’s also, minus the sci-fi, what the B.C. Progress Board is recommending in its report on reducing crime in the province.
Instead of focusing on hiring more police and building more jails to house more criminals - an approach that hasn’t worked all that well so far - the Progress Board report says we should work harder at keeping people from committing crimes.
It’s a good idea, one of a succession of first-rate efforts from the board since Premier Gordon Campbell set it up in 2001.
There’s no fancy science or magic tests involved.
The report says we know what turns people into criminals. Or at least we know about the people who commit 90 per cent of the crimes. There are still the crimes of calculation, blind anger or - based on my brief stint as a court reporter - the extraordinarily rare and scary people who are just evil.
But mostly we can look out into our communities and know who will be committing crimes in a few years.
Which means we can stop them, or at least a lot of them.
The report from the Progress Board, a hard-headed, business-dominated group, recommends that approach.
The major cause of criminal activity - no surprise - is drug and alcohol use, the report notes.
People steal to pay for both. Both make them stupid and unable to see the consequences of their crimes. Users are angrier, more violent. Suppliers - except for the Liquor Distribution Branch - commit crimes to protect their businesses.
About four out of five federal penitentiary inmates are substance abusers, the report found. Deal with that problem and crime plummets.
But, the report found, we aren’t doing well. We talk about the four-pillar approach - prevention, harm reduction, treatment and enforcement. But treatment isn’t available across most of the province and there’s no help to keep people sober. The report says the problem is especially serious outside the Lower Mainland.
Much more needs to be done, the report says: "Most of all there needs to be some action."
It’s not just drugs. The report identifies a second - equally unsurprising - cause of crime. That guy shoplifting today was a neglected or poorly parented four-year-old in 1995. Give kids some help and a fair chance and they’ll do OK, the report says.
But we haven’t given many kids a chance. "Clearly, existing health and social services that address childhood development issues are not adequate at this time," the board reports.Little kids need help; they don’t get it.
Then there are the crazy people, or, more politely, the mentally ill. Hospitalization is rare now. But there’s not enough community support either. So people with mental illness end up in jail. The justice system has a “revolving door” just for them, the report says.
The Progress Board identifies another potential crime group that includes people from all of the first three categories. People living "impoverished and chaotic lifestyles" are prone to crime, the report notes.
These are incredibly difficult people. Think of the hardcore streetpeople you see. But the board’s report says making an effort to deal with their problems and "colossal unmet needs" would pay off in reduced crime.
All these people have something in common besides a propensity for crime. They also aren’t going to be deterred by more enforcement or tougher penalties. A mentally ill addict with fetal alcohol disorder doesn’t calculate the odds of getting caught and punished. She leaps.
Just imagine, stopping crimes before they happen. All we have to do is try.
Footnote: The report offers three options for dealing with the drug trade: Legalize, or if that’s not possible or practical, then spend a great deal on a serious 10-year effort to wipe out the trade. Or, the report suggests, launch the attack with legalization to follow. The board makes no recommendation on which course the government should choose.
That was the premise of a Tom Cruise flick of a couple of years ago called Minority Report. Future police were able to identify people on the brink of killing a spouse or committing some other crime - don’t ask how - and sweep in for a preventive arrest.
And it’s also, minus the sci-fi, what the B.C. Progress Board is recommending in its report on reducing crime in the province.
Instead of focusing on hiring more police and building more jails to house more criminals - an approach that hasn’t worked all that well so far - the Progress Board report says we should work harder at keeping people from committing crimes.
It’s a good idea, one of a succession of first-rate efforts from the board since Premier Gordon Campbell set it up in 2001.
There’s no fancy science or magic tests involved.
The report says we know what turns people into criminals. Or at least we know about the people who commit 90 per cent of the crimes. There are still the crimes of calculation, blind anger or - based on my brief stint as a court reporter - the extraordinarily rare and scary people who are just evil.
But mostly we can look out into our communities and know who will be committing crimes in a few years.
Which means we can stop them, or at least a lot of them.
The report from the Progress Board, a hard-headed, business-dominated group, recommends that approach.
The major cause of criminal activity - no surprise - is drug and alcohol use, the report notes.
People steal to pay for both. Both make them stupid and unable to see the consequences of their crimes. Users are angrier, more violent. Suppliers - except for the Liquor Distribution Branch - commit crimes to protect their businesses.
About four out of five federal penitentiary inmates are substance abusers, the report found. Deal with that problem and crime plummets.
But, the report found, we aren’t doing well. We talk about the four-pillar approach - prevention, harm reduction, treatment and enforcement. But treatment isn’t available across most of the province and there’s no help to keep people sober. The report says the problem is especially serious outside the Lower Mainland.
Much more needs to be done, the report says: "Most of all there needs to be some action."
It’s not just drugs. The report identifies a second - equally unsurprising - cause of crime. That guy shoplifting today was a neglected or poorly parented four-year-old in 1995. Give kids some help and a fair chance and they’ll do OK, the report says.
But we haven’t given many kids a chance. "Clearly, existing health and social services that address childhood development issues are not adequate at this time," the board reports.Little kids need help; they don’t get it.
Then there are the crazy people, or, more politely, the mentally ill. Hospitalization is rare now. But there’s not enough community support either. So people with mental illness end up in jail. The justice system has a “revolving door” just for them, the report says.
The Progress Board identifies another potential crime group that includes people from all of the first three categories. People living "impoverished and chaotic lifestyles" are prone to crime, the report notes.
These are incredibly difficult people. Think of the hardcore streetpeople you see. But the board’s report says making an effort to deal with their problems and "colossal unmet needs" would pay off in reduced crime.
All these people have something in common besides a propensity for crime. They also aren’t going to be deterred by more enforcement or tougher penalties. A mentally ill addict with fetal alcohol disorder doesn’t calculate the odds of getting caught and punished. She leaps.
Just imagine, stopping crimes before they happen. All we have to do is try.
Footnote: The report offers three options for dealing with the drug trade: Legalize, or if that’s not possible or practical, then spend a great deal on a serious 10-year effort to wipe out the trade. Or, the report suggests, launch the attack with legalization to follow. The board makes no recommendation on which course the government should choose.
Sunday, December 03, 2006
Dion's win good for Liberals, and the country
VICTORIA - You should feel good about Stephane Dion's fourth-ballot victory to become Liberal leader, even if you loathe the party.
Dion has the usual mix of strengths and weaknesses. But he offers the Liberals a relatively fresh start. He was never implicated in the sponsorship scandal that so disgusted Canadians. He was never associated with the destructive internal party fighting that reached its peak in the Martin-Chretien wars.
More Canadians will now feel they have a real choice in the next election, which could be only months away.
That means Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives will have to work harder to sell their policies, instead of relying on Canadians' loathing for the Liberals to guarantee support.
That's good. Our system works best when there is real competition for the chance to form government. Parties have to justify - and moderate - their policies to win voters. There's a real debate, leading to better decisions. That all breaks down, as British Columbians saw in 2001, when one party collapses.
Dion is not a newcomer. He's been a Quebec MP for a decade. But he was untouched by the sponsorship scandal and has a reputation for integrity. He served in senior cabinet posts under both Paul Martin and Jean Chretien, a relatively rare achievement in that polarized world.
And, critically, he wasn't seen as the candidate of the Liberal party old guard - the people responsible for its current low status - that had largely lined up behind Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff. (That wasn't true in B.C., where the Martinite political operatives largely backed DIon.)
That was important. Ignatieff and Rae did well on the convention's first ballot. But they stalled. Delegates sent a message that they weren't interested in the choices of the establishment.
Of course it's not quite that easy to break with the past.
Dion's acceptance speech confirmed that the environment is going to be one of the themes he will hit hard in the coming months.
He has serious green credentials. As federal environment minister Dion championed the Kyoto accord and received good marks for his efforts. He'll be betting - rightly - that Harper is out of touch with Canadians on climate change. Dion is such an enthusiast he even named his pet husky Kyoto.
But the Conservatives will be able to go right back at him. Dion may have championed the deal, but he was also in cabinet when the Liberals failed to take any serious efforts to meet Canada's commitment.
Dion faces other challenges. There's been some fretting about yet another Liberal leader from Quebec, especially one with a relatively low national profile.
And there are worries about his ability to build support within that province. As the point man in 2000 on the federal Accountability Act, which imposed terms for any future votes on separatism, Dion took a lot of flak.
That's a plus in the rest of Canada, establishing his federalist credentials. (His convention performance suggests fears about his English skills are overblown.)
And Dion's economic policies are still largely unknown, although he will point to the record of growth under the Liberal governments.
But the good news is that Canadians now have a real choice in the next election between two parties capable of forming government. (That is not to discount the significance of the NDP, Bloc Quebecois and even Greens.)
And they will be offered significantly different policy choices.
Not just on the environment. Dion has called for an honourable withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, arguing too little is being accomplished at too great a cost. No matter where Canadians stand on the issues, they should welcome a real, vigorous debate on the mission we have asked our troops to undertake.
Those kinds of debates are much more likely with Dion's victory. That makes it a step forward for all Canadians.
Footnote: Dion is 51 and was a hotshot academic in Quebec before entering politics. He's widely seen as very bright and hard-working, well-prepared before he tackles issues. Critics complain he can be close-minded when he believes he is right and lacks charisma. Calgary Herald columnist Don Martin describes him as Stephen Harper with a French accent.
Dion has the usual mix of strengths and weaknesses. But he offers the Liberals a relatively fresh start. He was never implicated in the sponsorship scandal that so disgusted Canadians. He was never associated with the destructive internal party fighting that reached its peak in the Martin-Chretien wars.
More Canadians will now feel they have a real choice in the next election, which could be only months away.
That means Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservatives will have to work harder to sell their policies, instead of relying on Canadians' loathing for the Liberals to guarantee support.
That's good. Our system works best when there is real competition for the chance to form government. Parties have to justify - and moderate - their policies to win voters. There's a real debate, leading to better decisions. That all breaks down, as British Columbians saw in 2001, when one party collapses.
Dion is not a newcomer. He's been a Quebec MP for a decade. But he was untouched by the sponsorship scandal and has a reputation for integrity. He served in senior cabinet posts under both Paul Martin and Jean Chretien, a relatively rare achievement in that polarized world.
And, critically, he wasn't seen as the candidate of the Liberal party old guard - the people responsible for its current low status - that had largely lined up behind Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff. (That wasn't true in B.C., where the Martinite political operatives largely backed DIon.)
That was important. Ignatieff and Rae did well on the convention's first ballot. But they stalled. Delegates sent a message that they weren't interested in the choices of the establishment.
Of course it's not quite that easy to break with the past.
Dion's acceptance speech confirmed that the environment is going to be one of the themes he will hit hard in the coming months.
He has serious green credentials. As federal environment minister Dion championed the Kyoto accord and received good marks for his efforts. He'll be betting - rightly - that Harper is out of touch with Canadians on climate change. Dion is such an enthusiast he even named his pet husky Kyoto.
But the Conservatives will be able to go right back at him. Dion may have championed the deal, but he was also in cabinet when the Liberals failed to take any serious efforts to meet Canada's commitment.
Dion faces other challenges. There's been some fretting about yet another Liberal leader from Quebec, especially one with a relatively low national profile.
And there are worries about his ability to build support within that province. As the point man in 2000 on the federal Accountability Act, which imposed terms for any future votes on separatism, Dion took a lot of flak.
That's a plus in the rest of Canada, establishing his federalist credentials. (His convention performance suggests fears about his English skills are overblown.)
And Dion's economic policies are still largely unknown, although he will point to the record of growth under the Liberal governments.
But the good news is that Canadians now have a real choice in the next election between two parties capable of forming government. (That is not to discount the significance of the NDP, Bloc Quebecois and even Greens.)
And they will be offered significantly different policy choices.
Not just on the environment. Dion has called for an honourable withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, arguing too little is being accomplished at too great a cost. No matter where Canadians stand on the issues, they should welcome a real, vigorous debate on the mission we have asked our troops to undertake.
Those kinds of debates are much more likely with Dion's victory. That makes it a step forward for all Canadians.
Footnote: Dion is 51 and was a hotshot academic in Quebec before entering politics. He's widely seen as very bright and hard-working, well-prepared before he tackles issues. Critics complain he can be close-minded when he believes he is right and lacks charisma. Calgary Herald columnist Don Martin describes him as Stephen Harper with a French accent.
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