Liberals admit gambling broken promise

VICTORIA - It's just business, Tony Soprano likes to say.
Which is pretty much the way the B.C. government has decided to approach gambling.
Not entirely. The government could make more money with VLTs in bars, for example, but instead relies on Keno, a less addictive, slower way of losing money. (Although you have to wonder about the morality of trying to get people to gamble while they drink.)
And while gambling has been expanding like crazy in B.C., it has still not gone nearly as far as some other provinces.
But the Liberals' basic approach is clear - gambling is just business.
It wasn't always so. The Liberals fought expanded gambling when they were in opposition. And their New Era campaign promise was clear - a Liberal government would halt gambling expansion.
Instead they've done the opposite. By the end of this year the government will have doubled the number of slots in the province and moved them into bingo halls across B.C. The government's current plan calls for it to take $1 billion from gamblers within four years, double the profits when they were elected.
And the government's plan also calls for BC Lottery Corp. to persuade 200,000 more people to become regular gamblers, while getting everyone who buys lottery tickets or goes to casinos to lose more each month.
Solicitor General Rich Coleman, to his credit, has acknowledged that the Liberals have broken their campaign promise. "I'm not going to say that none of this is expanded gaming, because some of it is," he said in the legislature. "It is by virtue of the fact that we took what was structured gaming and tried to make it so that we gave the corporation the envelope within which to operate in order to actually do its business."
It's just business, in other words, although a business operating within some public interest limits.
But it's risky business. Letting a corporation "do its business" in the gambling world means leaving it to recruit more and more gamblers, while encouraging everyone who already gambles to lose more and more money.
Both goals are part of the BC Lottery Corp.'s business plan. We'll pump more than $3 billion in to government-run slots in B.C. this year, and the corporation hopes to increase that. It has just bought high tech equipment from a Las Vegas company that will give corporation managers in Kamloops the ability to monitor every bet and every turn of the cards at any B.C. casino. "With TableLink PT, profit-critical decisions, such as selecting bonus players, are no longer subject to human observation and guesswork," enthuses Mikohn Gaming Corp., the supplier.
Profit-critical decisions are the most important ones in the business world.
But gambling isn't just another business. Governments run gambling not just because they can make a ton of money, but because it involves serious, unavoidable damage to individuals and families.
None of this is a criticism of the BC Lottery Corp., which is just doing its job of trying to recruit more gamblers - in part through marketing campaigns that pitch gambling as both fun and a solution to your problems.
But the damage done along the way - as the Liberals used to note - is significant.
B.C. has more than 75,000 problem gamblers already; the government's efforts to recruit more gamblers ensures that number will increase every month.
And the next generation of gamblers - and problem gamblers - is already being recruited. A major study released by the McCreary Centre Society found that one-quarter of B.C. youths aged 12 to 17 said they had illegally bought lottery tickets in the last year. Young buyers are attracted by ads, prominent store displays and the chance of an instant win, according to another study of youth gambling.
The money is good. Gambling is on track to equal the forest industry as a revenue source for government.
But the cost is high - too high to treat gambling as just another business.
Footnote: The money is also good for municipal governments. Williams Lake council has just approved a bid for 120 slot machines in a new bingo hall. The town's revenue share is estimated at more than $700,000 a year, the Williams Lake Tribune reports.

Buy ferries offshore if that's the best deal

VICTORIA - The Liberals have got it right on the issue of whether BC Ferries should go offshore to buy new ships.
The Liberals say BC Ferries should shop for the best price, which likely means future additions to the ferry fleet will be built somewhere like South Korea.
NDP leader Carole James, and shipyard unions, want the government to order the ferry corporation to insist on a "Made in B.C." label, even if the ships cost more.
That's a bad idea, both on principle and in practical economic terms.
James claims that it's worth paying a premium - she hasn't said how much - because the money would create jobs and economic activity in the province.
But what she's really saying is that ferry users - businesses, tourists and locals - should donate money to subsidize the owners of big shipyards and their employees. After all, the extra cost of the ships has to be recovered, and that means higher prices for ferry users. Every time a shipper transports goods on BC Ferries, he'd be paying a premium to subsidize the shipbuilding companies.
Sure, there is some benefit to having ships built in B.C., in terms of job creation.
But it would come at cost to the rest of the economy. BC Ferries plans to place orders for two new major ships this year, at a cost of about $225 million. Paying a 10-per-cent premium to buy B.C. means ferry users would be paying some $25 million as a subsidy to the shipyards.
Every ferry trip would cost more than it needed to, and that also has economic implications - for tourism, for businesses dependent on the ferries and for individuals.
It's not even as if the subsidies would be helping to establish a major shipbuilding industry that could someday stand on its own.
We've tried that. The $460-million fast ferry project was supposed to develop a global aluminum shipbuilding industry in the province. It failed. The Canadian shipbuilding industry has successfully lobbied for a 25-per-cent tariff on most foreign-built ships and a string of subsidies and handouts.
They haven't worked. Sales have fallen in half over the last decade, and employment across Canada has gone from 12,000 to fewer than 5,000.
Part of the problem is that other countries are doing the same thing, subsidizing their industry with tax dollars. But lower wages, especially in Asia, also mean ships can be built more cheaply there. (Slamming the door on foreign ships would deny those workers the chance to use their energy and skill - and current lower living standard - to improve their lot.)
B.C. shipyards deserve every chance to compete. And there is lots of work they will likely continue to win, especially in repair and maintenance projects where proximity is a big advantage.
But asking ferry travellers to pay a premium or hidden surcharge to subsidize B.C. shipyards is unfair and economically destructive. Unfair because there's no way a minimum wage worker who needs to use the ferries to make an involuntary contribution to the owners of B.C. shipyards. And economically destructive because the higher ferry costs created by the subsidy damage other businesses.
It's odd that James has grabbed on to this issue. The fast ferry fiasco shredded the NDP's credibility when it comes to shipbuilding policy. Leaping into this fray - on the side of unions and shipyard owners and against the interests of ferry users - just reminds voters of that disaster.
B.C. builders - which effectively means the U.S.-owned Washington Marine Group when it comes to large projects - should get every chance to bid.
But the deciding factor should be where the ferry corporation can get the best value.
That's the right thing to do for ferry users. And it's the right thing to do for the B.C. economy.
Footnote: It's ironic that while B.C. workers are suffering because of unfair U.S. trade barriers erected to keep our softwood out of their market, the New Democrats and some unions want to throw up the same kinds of barriers against foreign shipbuilders. Trade breaks down quickly when every country decides to bar the door to new competitors.

Thousand-year BC Rail deal leaves Liberals looking bad

VICTORIA - The BC Rail sale is turning into a huge problem for the Liberals.
Even people who don't think government should be running a railway are worried about the Liberals' slipperiness and self-serving secrecy, highlighted by the news that CN Rail is getting the right to run the railway for almost 1,000 years.
When the Liberals announced the deal in November, they released a summary of the terms designed to sell the public on the merits of the sale. Everything else was to stay secret until the federal competition bureau approved the deal - when it would be too late for any changes.
And a centrepiece of the Liberal spin was the claim that the deal was for 90 years, with CN Rail getting a 60-year lease with a 30-year renewal option.
That was part of Premier Gordon Campbell's bogus claim that he wasn't breaking a campaign promise not to sell BC Rail.
Now columnist Michael Smyth reports in The Province that the deal includes 15 more 60-year renewal options that the Liberals never mentioned. And CN won't have to pay the government a nickle more if it exercises those options and operates the railway on public land for 990 years.
Normal business practice, says Transportation MInister Kevin Falcon. Sure CN Rail can keep operating the line until 2994 (unless centuries of global warming mean parts of it are under water). But every 60 years government can decide to buy the business back from CN. No big deal.
But if it's normal business practice, and no big thing, why did the government not only keep it secret but mislead the public with its claim the deal was for 90 years? (One answer may be that the money CN paid works out to $750 a year on the longer term.)
The government also kept secret a contract clause that specifies that CN Rail can close parts of the line - after a five-year moratorium - and buy the land for $1.
Falcon defends the provision. It protects the province, he says. If the land is valuable, the government will exercise its right to keep it. But if it's contaminated and requires costly clean-up, the government will be able to force the burden on to CN Rail. It's good business.
But if it's good business, why the secrecy? Why, even now, does the government refuse to release the details of this and other provisions that could bind the people of the province for 1,000 years?
The deal faces other big problems. The courts have ruled that before any Crown land is transferred to private ownership, local First Nations with unresolved land claims must be consulted.
The Liberals maintain that because the government retains ownership of the dirt beneath the tracks, there is no duty to consult. And they set up a $15-million development fund to try and win support from the 25 First Nations along the rail line.
It's not working. First Nations have already served notice that they believe the deal is a sale, and will exercise their legal rights.
BC Rail has turned into a nightmare for the Liberals. Campbell's 1996 campaign pledge to sell the railway helped lose him that election. In 2001, he said he had learned his lesson: BC Rail would not be sold or privatized.
But that's exactly what he's done. The government's claim that because the province continues to own the dirt beneath the tracks BC Rail hasn't been sold is bogus. CN owns all the equipment, and the business, and runs it with no strings attached.
Campbell could have defended the sale of BC Rail. He could have argued that the risk to taxpayers in owning a railway outweighs the potential economic development boost for resource communities. (It's a good argument.)
But it's much tougher to try and deny the broken New Era promise, or defend the unwarranted secrecy - and slipperiness - around this deal.
Footnote: Falcon made much of CN Rail's likely investment of some $3.5 billion in the railway over the next 90 years. But that is comparable to past BC Rail spending each year on maintenance and equipment, money that in recent years has come from the railway's profits.

Cache Creek trust broken in chicken crisis

VICTORIA - The government plan to dump dead chickens at the Cache Creek landfill relied on trust. Local farmers had to believe that the process would be safe. Local residents - and people along the route - had to trust that the governments had exhausted every alternative before using emergency powers to force dead chickens on Cache Creek.
The governments didn't really consult or explain, or justify their actions. We know best, and you can trust us, they said.
Sadly, that's a doomed position. Citizens don't trust governments. That's not a slag on any particular political party. The NDP brought us the fast ferries; Gordon Campbell vowed not to rip up contracts; the federal Liberals brought us political abuses and the sponsorship scandal. Our skepticism is reasonable.
Because we don't trust them, governments have two choices. Act unilaterally and face the consequences. Or make the effort to convince us that they are right, and that the risks are small and necessary.
The governments chose the first course, trying to force their plan through using emergency powers to let them break the written agreements developed as part of the plan to move Lower Mainland garbage to Cache Creek.
It didn't work. The local people - led by Mayor John Ranta, a politician with Liberal ties, and supported by their MLA - blockaded the dump.
The governments' initial misstep made their problem much greater.
Trust had been, once again, broken. Efforts to justify the decision - belatedly - faced a much tougher audience as a result.
So far, the arguments from the people in Cache Creek opposing the transfer make more sense than the governments' defense of the plan.
All precautions are being taken, the governments say. The dead chickens will be double bagged; the bags will be disinfected and then placed in a watertight bin which is covered with a tarp. The trucks that carry the bins will be followed by an emergency clean-up truck in case of accident. At the dump, a layer of bags will be covered with six inches of lime and two feet of clay. A second layer of dead birds will be covered by another six inches of lime and three feet of clay.
Sounds like serious precautions.
But all through the outbreak, a lot of serious precautions have been taken, and the avian flu just keeps on spreading. The newest site is in Cloverdale, well outside the containment zone. Special checkpoints have been set up at ferry terminals and truck inspection stations to halt the spread.
And people in the Cache Creek area note warily that the government so far hasn't identified the landfill at Burns Bog in the Lower Mainland as a chicken disposal site. If the process is so safe, why aren't the birds staying in the region, they ask. How will the government guarantee that a seagull won't rip open one of those bags, or human error won't allow the virus to spread to their farms?
The dead chickens have to go somewhere, but the governments will have to make their case much more convincingly before they can expect to find a community willing to become home to someone else's hazardous waste.
The best method of disposal, according to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, is on the farm. The carcasses can be composted in the barns, a process which generates enough heat to kill the avian flu virus. In European outbreaks mobile incinerators have been brought around.
The second choice is incineration at other sites.
And landfill disposal comes third.
Meanwhile, the people of Cache Creek aren't going to accept government claims on blind faith. And other communities considering allowing landfill sites - on the basis of promised protections from the province - are now going to see that those promises may be broken too easily.
No one expects a perfect response in a time of crisis. But now it's time for governments to learn from their errors and move on.
Footnote: Our methods of raising and marketing chickens may be partly responsible for this disaster. When millions of birds are being raised in a small area, the stage is set for a devastating outbreak. Our system of marketing boards - limiting the number producers to keep prices high - may be increasing the risk by encouraging centralized production and blocking smaller and regional producers unable to afford to buy quota. It's time for a closer look.

The rich do get richer, and the poor poorer

It's official - the rich do get rich while the poor get poorer.

Especially in B.C.

BC Stats reports that the income gap between the richest and poorest British Columbians has been steadily widening.

"Urban inequality in BC increased over the last two decades, as the gap between the lowest and highest-income earners expanded in both Victoria and Vancouver," BC Stats reported.
The findings come from a Statistics Canada study that compared incomes in 27 urban areas across Canada.

B.C. topped the list both for the income gap and the rate of increase in the chasm between rich and poor.
In Vancouver the poorest tenth of the population saw their real income fall 11 per cent between 1980 and 2000. Meanwhile, the wealthiest 10 per cent had a real income - that's income adjusted for inflation - nine-per-cent higher than in 1980.

Back in 1980 the top 10 per cent of the population had incomes on average 5.3 times as large as their counterparts on the bottom of the economic ladder. But by 2000, they were earning 6.4 times as much as the tenth of the population with the lowest incomes in Vancouver.

Results were similar in Victoria, where the poorest 10 per cent saw their incomes rise two per cent over 20 years. The top tenth of the population had an average increase of 14 per cent.
The gap between rich and poor in Vancouver is the greatest in Canada.

The increasing inequality may be linked to immigration levels, the BC Stats review found. Recent immigrants made up 16.6 per cent of the Vancouver population in 2000, up from 10.3 per cent in 1980.

"New immigrants often experience a period of relatively low income while they establish themselves in the new country," the report said. More new immigrants means more low-income earners.

The study found that new immigrants are increasingly likely to wind up with low-paying jobs. In 1980 about one in fine recent immigrant was working at a low-income level.

"This suggests that new immigrants are becoming increasingly isolated, economically, from the mainstream of society," the report suggested.

Forest communities face huge crisis in 15 years

VICTORIA - The crushing economic impact of the pine beetle disaster is going to slam B.C. communities in 15 years.
The infested trees will mostly be gone, either harvested or too damaged to have any value. The next generation of trees will be decades away from maturity.
Across the Interior and North, forest-dependent communities - that's almost all of them - will be facing annual allowable cut reductions of 20 per cent to 30 per cent. There won't be enough fibre to keep mills operating, or loggers working.
That's the bad news.
The good news, or at least hopeful news, is that we have 15 years to prepare. And communities and government have taken the first step in looking ahead to the grisly problem.
Roger Harris, minister for forest operations, outlined the problem at the last televised cabinet meeting. The cabinet's reaction was a little disturbing. No minister asked about the coming crisis. (They did make sure no extra money would be spent on efforts to prepare.)
But still, the problem was placed on the table. That's remarkable. We're not as a society much good at long-term thinking. It is a huge advantage to begin working now to prepare for an economic crisis 10 years that will come after the Vancouver Olympics.
There's been lots of talk about the pine beetle infestation. An area about six times as large as Vancouver Island has been affected, and thousands of trees are dying.
The immediate focus is on using the infected wood. For 10 to 15 years, depending on the climate, the timber is still useful. Harvesting it before the value is lost will save jobs and protect government revenues. (Targeted harvesting could also slow the infestation's spread.)
But the much bigger problems are about 15 years away, when communities find themselves facing a sharply reduced timber supply.
Harris said across the Interior and North the annual allowable cut will be cut by 20 per cent to 30 per cent.
The impact is enormous. In the Quesnel area the timber supply is expected to be cut by almost one-third. About three-quarters of the 12,000 area jobs are tied to the forest industry. Do the math, and you find that about 2,600 jobs at risk. Multiply that across scores of communities, and you have an idea of the impact. (Imagine a coming economic blow that would see 300,000 people laid off in the Lower Mainland.)
It may not be that bad. But the best predictions are for a huge crisis.
There are no easy solutions. The current efforts are aimed at harvesting the beetle-infested wood before it loses value. Harris told cabinet some 500 million cubic metres of wood will be affected within three years. At current harvest levels about 200 million cubic metres of that timber will be wasted. That's more than three years' harvest for the entire province.
The solution is to use the wood more quickly, But although the government has raised the allowable cut, companies haven't found markets for the wood. Cabinet accepted Harris' plan to try and encourage new uses for the damaged wood.
The effort is worthwhile, but faces huge challenges. Solutions like an OSB plant sound fine, but a plant like the one going into Fort St. John costs $200 million and only uses about one million cubic metres a year, a fraction of the glut.
And no amount of success will change the future reality.
Harris won approval for the first steps. An economic diversification director has been appointed to help communities prepare for the crisis. A community advisory group, including First Nations, municipalities, industry and environmentalists will meet twice a year to review progress.
It's a small start.
But it's an important one, and the Liberals deserve credit for facing the problem.
Footnote: Cabinet asked no questions about the long-term crisis after Harris' presentation. Premier Gordon Campbell and Financed Minister Gary Collins did make sure no extra spending was involved this year, noting that the Liberal commitment to balance the budget has left no room for extra spending.

Citizens' assembly makes Liberal MLAs twitchy

VICTORIA - The citizens' assembly on electoral reform seems to be making some Liberal MLAs pretty nervous.
The assembly is the most important thing that's going to happen to politics in B.C. in your lifetime. A group of 160 randomly selected citizens are getting together to decide if there's a better way of electing governments. If they think there is, a proposal will go to a referendum at the same time as the provincial election in May 2005.
It's a bold democratic move from Premier Gordon Campbell. Not many politicians would tamper with the system that got them into power; fewer would take the risk of handing the task to ordinary citizens. Give Campbell credit.
But not all the Liberals are so confident in the peoples' judgment. (Odd, since it was the people who put them in office.)
The citizens' assembly is independent, but a legislative committee has been appointed to receive its reports, including five Liberals, New Democrat Joy MacPhail and newly independent member Elayne Brenzinger.
And at the committee's first meeting this month, a couple of Liberal MLAs got mighty skittish about this democracy thing.
Kamloops MLA Kevin Krueger, the committee's vice-chair, was especially concerned about the assembly's first public report. That eight-page document set out the results of months of research and study and was intended as a starting point for 49 public meetings around the province in May and June.
Krueger accused the assembly of being close-minded. "I was surprised, Dr. Blaney, that the preliminary statement so clearly demonstrated that the assembly had made up its mind to lean in a particular direction, being proportional representation." (Jack Blaney is the government-appointed chair for the process.)
Krueger pulls one sentence from the report to back his claim, citing a passage in which the assembly says it wants to hear if the public agrees "that a more proportional system would better reflect the basic values of our province's population."
It's a risky accusation. It hardly seems sensible to ask ordinary citizens to bring their common sense, commitment and knowledge to a task only to have the government members sniping at them.
But it's bizarre in this case, because the assembly's report was remarkably balanced, noting the strengths and weaknesses of the current system and potential alternatives. The report was clear to emphasize that the assembly had reached no decision on whether any change is needed. That's why the public hearings are so important.
In fact Gordon Gibson, hired by the Liberals to come up with the assembly process, had suggested a much more specific set of proposals from the group by this point. Instead, they decided to keep the options as open as possible for public discussion.
Krueger wasn't alone in his concerns. Vancouver Kingsway MLA Rob Nijjar said he shared the worries.
And Nijjar had his own complaint, one that revealed something about life in the Liberal caucus.
Nijjar was worried about "a highly politically charged" letter to the editor in the Vancouver Sun from one of the the assembly members. Shouldn't members have to clear all letters or communications with Blaney, Nijjar asked?
I checked the letter. It was five paragraphs long. It opened with an observation that the Liberals' secret caucus suspensions might not be appreciated by constituents of the banned MLAs. And it mainly encouraged people to participate in the work of the assembly if they thought the system could be improved. It wasn't highly politically charged.
Blaney rightly responded that the process involved trust in the judgment of the assembly members.
But it makes you wonder about the Liberal MLAs' view of the world, and if they think everything they write or say has to be run past the party chiefs.
It was a disappointing start for the legislative committee.
The citizens' assembly is an excellent, brave initiative. Check out its web page - www. citizensassembly.bc.ca. The project deserves your attention and support.
Footnote: What's odd about the position taken by Krueger and Nijjar is that one of the main results of a shift to a more proportional form of representation would be a strong role for MLAs. We've drifted into a system in which power is concentrated in the office of the premier or prime minister; change offers a chance to give it back to elected MLAs.

Liberals take aim at Carole James

VICTORIA - The Liberals are getting positively obsessed with Carole James.
Her name came up about 20 times in barely the space of an hour one afternoon before the legislature shut down for Easter, with most of the references from Christy Clark.
And when Labour Minister Graham Bruce did a press release to talk about the latest job numbers, he took the extraordinary step of singling out James as part of a little anti-NDP political spin. Cabinet ministers' news releases are political, of course, but not usually so blatantly partisan. (The job news was good - about 20,000 more people were working in the province in March than were a year ago.)
The Liberals have reason to be rattled. Under James' leadership, the NDP has risen steadily in the polls and is now ahead. Her personal approval rating is much higher than Gordon Campbell's.
But there's a dangerous lack of self-examination in the Liberal response. It's reasonable enough for the Liberals to try and get James to take firmer positions before the election, targets they can then attack.
And it's natural to conclude that when people no longer support you, it's because they just don't understand what you're doing, or don't have a full appreciation how much worse the alternatives are. That's the kind of thinking that leads to tactics like the focus on James.
But it's more important to consider the possibility that people have lost confidence because they don't think you're doing a good job, and think about how you need to change to regain their trust.
The Liberals took after James for her decision not to run in Surrey Panorama. Liberal MLA Gulzmar Cheema has won a federal Liberal nomination; he'll resign his provincial seat when the election is called. James should take the first chance to enter the legislature, Liberals say.
It's not going to happen. James says she can accomplish more this year by travelling around the province than she can in Victoria. She doesn't want to commit to a byelection campaign that could come anytime in the next year, depending on when a federal election is called and when Campbell decides to hold the byelection. And she doesn't want to risk defeat if the Liberals find a star candidate. Surrey Mayor Doug McCallum and Conservative MP Chuck Cadman have both been rumoured as potential Liberal candidates.
And, most importantly, what she has been doing has worked. Why mess with it now?
(The Liberals' claim that it was urgent that a party leader be in the legislature rang a bit hollow anyway. Campbell rarely shows up in the legislature, compared with past premiers. No attendance record is kept - it should be - but my last tally had him missing about 60 per cent of sitting days.)
Voters do have a right to expect more specifics from James and the NDP before the election.
She has opposed offshore oil and expansion of the current types of aquaculture, both important issues for coastal communities. Her position on mining, and balancing the inevitable land use conflicts, is unclear.
And while it is fine to talk about restoring funding to programs like child care for low-income British Columbians, voters are going to want to know where the money will come from. (Though it was striking that a recent Ipsos-Reid poll found that 60 per cent of British Columbians would pay higher property taxes for better municipal services.)
The Liberals risk making two mistakes with this approach.
The emphasis on James - and the rather blatant misrepresentation of her positions at times - is also raising her profile, and indicating just how nervous the Liberals have become.
And it is keeping them from some needed self-examination.
James will need to provide answers.
But she has a year to do that. And it's not likely that the Liberal attacks are going to bump the New Democrats from their election timetable.
Footnote: One of the things James is doing is raising money. The NDP pulled in about $3.4 million last year, up by more than 50 per cent over 2002. The Liberals still raised more, up 20 per cent to $5.5 million. And the Liberals also start with a significant advantage - about $1.5 million on hand for the coming campaign, compared with $150,000 for the NDP. The Greens raised $135,000 last year; Unity $42,000.

Children and families' ministry plans a mess

By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - The Liberals have made at least a great a mess of the ministry of children and families as their predecessors.
And that is saying something.
After thousands of hours of work by volunteers across the province - and millions of dollars - the Liberals have slammed the brakes on plans to hand responsibility for child and family services over to new regional authorities.
It's an admission of massive and damaging mismanagement.
Here's what was supposed to happen. The LIberals wanted to create 10 new regional authorities, semi-independent boards like the health authorities. There would be five non-aboriginal authorities, and five aboriginal. As well, a new community living authority would take over province-wide services for the mentally disabled.
Decision-making would be returned to involved communities, producing better results. (And saving money. The Liberals' hopes of slashing the ministry budget were based on cheaper service delivery as a result of the restructuring.)
Now it's fallen apart.
All five non-aboriginal authorities and the community living authority should have been operating now, according to the plan affirmed by former minister Gordon Hogg a year ago.
They aren't. And deputy minister Alison MacPhail, brought in after Hogg's resignation, has just emailed staff and told them the changes are put off until late 2006 or 2007. The regional committees which have worked tremendously hard on the change for two years have been shut down.
The future for the community living authority also remains uncertain. Preparations became tangled up in the Doug Walls scandal. A "readiness report" on when - or if - the transition can go ahead was supposed to be ready Feb. 27. Six weeks later, it remains outstanding.
Meanwhile, the Liberals are chopping $185 million from the ministry budget over two years, with the final $65 million coming this year. (In opposition both Gordon Campbell and current minister Christy Clark said the ministry was under-funded and should get more money. Who knew they didn't mean it?)
Hogg had justified the cuts in part by pointing to the savings from regionalization. But while that's not happening, the cuts still are.
The government has also betrayed thousands of people who have volunteered to make these changes happen. They worked their way through about $7.5 million in planning money, and devoted a huge amount of energy and time. Service clubs, churches, agencies - they all pitched in.
Those people don't understand this decision. The government says it has belatedly decided that the aboriginal and non-aboriginal authorities should start operating at the same time. The aboriginal authorities won't be ready until well into 2006. So everyone waits.
But the regions say they are ready to move forward, and note the plan was always to have the non-aboriginal authorities come on-line as they are ready. They fear the government is backing away from the whole shift. They feel abused and tricked.
It's reasonable for the government to be cautious. The Liberal track record with the ministry does not inspire confidence.
But the word from the field is that the regions are ready. Joyce Preston, the province's Child, Youth and Family Advocate for six years, has worked with transition committees in the Island and Interior regions. They are on track, she says, and the change should go ahead. (Preston also wonders how aboriginal communities are supposed to develop the needed capacity when funding for that purpose is being cut.)
The government has mishandled the ministry since the election, ignoring the obvious risk of slashing budgets while trying to push forward on a major restructuring. It ha squandered money, and time.
And with that, it has lost the right to our confidence or trust.
Before the transition is put off for another three years, the people who have worked so hard on the change - and the people who depend on the services - deserve an independent review of the decision, and a full public report.
Footnote: The Liberals' handling of the ministry also raises critical questions of basic competence - the ability to develop and execute a sensible plan. The Liberals' budget plans for the ministry have been wildly over-optimistic, virtually every deadline in its restructuring has been missed, the people who signed on to support the policy changes feel betrayed and action has been pushed off past the next election.

Liberals ignoring Games cost over-run risk

VICTORIA - The Liberals sound lost on the threat of Olympic cost over-runs.
Before the first lick of work has started, Vancouver Olympics organizers are warning that they don't have enough money to build the rinks and ski trails and other facilities needed for the 2010 Games. They'll be coming back to provincial and federal governments for more cash, says Games chair Jack Poole.
That should be a cause for concern. The Games are going to cost about $3 billion; even a small percentage over-run can turn into big dollars. And the government had promised that every cost was included.
The NDP raised the issue in the legislature, asking the government what it has found out about the size of the cost over-runs and what measures are in place to control spending.
Christy Clark responded to the questions - you couldn't say she answered them - in her capacity as deputy premier.
Nothing to worry about, she said. The province won't come up with any more money. The budget is fixed. Contingency funds are built into budgets.
That's a remarkably inaccurate answer. There is no limit to the province's commitment. To win the Games Premier Gordon Campbell promised to assume all responsibility for any Olympic cost over-runs or revenue shortfalls.
It's a reasonable enough risk, but it remains a risk. And simply wishing away the problem of cost over-runs, or hiding from them, is irresponsible.
Especially because the Games' organizers are already warning that the construction cost allowances aren't adequate to cope with inflation and other pressures over the next six years. The Games has a capital budget of $620 million, with the cost shared between the federal and provincial governments. If it's not enough, BC. taxpayers -the ones ultimately on the hook - need to know.
Cost over-runs are a constant Olympic reality. The team organizing the 2006 Games in Piedmont, Italy, visited Vancouver this month to share information. Figure on up to 15 per cent in extra costs for unexpected emergencies, they advised, and 20-per-cent cost over-runs on construction.
Provincial Auditor General Wayne Strelioff has also warned that the $139-million contingency fund included as part of the Games budget might not be adequate. "Achieving the financial results predicted by the Bid Corporation will need excellent management, effective marketing and a favourable economy," he warned.
There's no reason to panic here. There will be lots of ups and downs over the next six years of work to prepare for the Olympics.
But the government's head-in-the-sand approach does a disservice to taxpayers.
Clark didn't provide any information on possible cost over-runs. She responded with a rant about how great the Olympics would be for the province. The New Democrats just hate the idea of the Games, she said, ignoring the fact that the NDP government launched the bid for the 2010 Games. "Those members don't oppose the Olympics because of the cost," Clark said. "Those members oppose the Olympics because they don't want British Columbia to do well." (It is the kind of response that should make everyone cringe. Legitimate questions deserve real answers. Failing that, call the New Democrats stupid, or incompetent. But it's just dumb to argue that they ran for office because the want the province to do badly.)
Clark likewise brushed off a suggestion that makes imminent sense. Why not appoint the province's auditor general as the official auditor for the Games committee, asked the New Democrats?
Again, no answer. But it's a sound proposal, given the taxpayers' interest in financial accountability.
The Games and the Sea-to-Sky Highway improvements are slated to cost provincial taxpayers $1.3 billion, with our share of convention centre expansion and the RAV line to the Vancouver airport on top of that.
If cost over-runs are already threatening to push our share higher, we have a right to answers, not bluster.
Footnote: Clark accused NDP leader Carole James of opposing the Games, and called on her to seek a seat in the legislature so people would know where she stands on this and other issues. The attack - part of a new Liberal attempt to focus on James - backfired when MacPhail noted Campbell is rarely in the legislature either; his attendance is the poorest of any premier in history, she added.


Martin's Dosanjh move makes mockery of democracy
By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - How dumb does Paul Martin think we are?
Mr. Democratic Deficit has been going on about the need to give politics back to the people, promising a new way of doing things.
But then he rolled in to Vancouver and did exactly the opposite, a genial despot with a pleasant smile.
Martin wiped out the democratic right of thousands of voters to decide who should represent them in Ottawa, turned our system on its head and still maintained he's the champion of political reform.
By appointing Liberal candidates - or clearing the way for them - Martin exempted his favourites from that irritating nomination process, where you have to win community support and sign up members in order to become a Liberal candidate. That's apparently for the lesser lights. If Martin thinks you have the right stuff, you can skip all that annoying democracy stuff - just like ex-premier Ujjal Dosanjh.
I like Dosanjh. And while his move from provincial NDP leader to federal Liberal candidate raises lots of interesting questions - where are the provincial Liberals on the political spectrum, if an alleged federal Liberal finds a more comfortable home in the NDP - it's his decision.
But it's outrageous that Martin presumes to dictate to the Liberal voters in Vancouver South who their candidate will be. Basic democracy gives them the right to make that choice. Martin is taking it away, because he knows best.
Which is one of the problem with politics as practised today. Martin doesn't know best. We do. Martin, Gordon Campbell, Stephen Harper, Jack Layton, Carole James, they are all very smart I'm sure. But we are, collectively, smarter.
It's bizarre on so many levels.
The Liberals don't actually need a lot of help in arranging nomination contests to get the results the party bosses want. A guy named Bob Russell worked for a long-time to win the Liberal nomination over here in Saanich-Gulf Islands. But he wasn't on the good side of the Martin machine, which backed a succession of candidates against him. The first two dropped out; the third, Pia Shandel, was pushed out of the race by the Martin people only days before the nomination meeting.
That should have clinched it for Russell. Party rules say would-be candidates have to declare at least seven days before the nomination meeting. But rules are apparently meant to be bent. With three days to go, lawyer David Mulroney - a former vice-president in MP David Anderson's riding association, whose firm gets almost a $1 million a year in federal government work - got special permission to enter the race. And surprise, with no time to campaign or sign up members, he won. (Fired Liberal aide David Basi had earlier signed up hundreds of new members in the riding.)
Dosanjh is the only candidate officially imposed by Martin so far. But the way was also cleared for former Canfor head David Emerson and Shirley Chan, with similar treatment likely for B.C. party president Bill Cunningham.
Either through dictate, or backroom dealing, Martin and his people arranged for their favourite candidates to get special treatment.
Voters lose in at least two ways. Their right to choose a candidate has been stolen.
And the favoured candidates owe their loyalty not to the people in the riding, but to Martin and his team. How independent are MPs who owe their nominations to the boss going to be?
Martin is counting on the hand-picked candidates to be high-profile enough to turn around the Liberal fortunes in B.C.
It's a risk. In Dosanjh's case, two other Liberals had already been working to get the nomination. Brushed aside by Martin, neither they nor their supporters are likely to work terribly hard in this election campaign.
And for voters concerned about the Liberals' scandal-plagued reputation for political favoritism, Martin's machinations have just reinforced their worst fears about the "new" Liberal government.
Footnote: Dosanjh's jump to the federal Liberals prompted rare agreement between provincial Liberals and New Democrats - all agree it's a bad thing. New Democrats accused Dosanjh of opportunism and betrayal, lending legitimacy to the Martin government. And provincial Liberals not only don't look forward to dealing with Dosanjh in Ottawa, they aren't happy with Martin's endorsement of a key player in the former NDP government.

Legislature an embarrassment to British Columbians

VICTORIA - It was a sleazy week down at the legislature, one that should make every MLA rethink what they are doing here. No one can be happy with the way the legislature has worked for the last decade.
Last week was a particularly low point, on both sides of the House.
The New Democrats have been raising questions about alleged financial and personal improprieties by Liberal MLAs, based on information provided to them by unidentified sources. It's a risky area; great damage can be done with false accusations.
The Liberals opened the door for the questions. When MLA Elayne Brenzinger quit the party and criticized Premier Gordon Campbell, whip Kevin Krueger revealed that she had been secretly suspended from caucus last year after an altercation with a staff member.
Has anyone else been secretly suspended, reporters asked. A few, Krueger replied, before deciding it was time to invoke caucus secrecy.
Too late, though. Because now people wondered which MLAs had been suspended, and what they had done that was bad enough to get them booted.
And they wondered why the Liberals didn't tell suspended MLAs' constituents that they weren't represented within the government. (It didn't used to be that way. The NDP had no secret suspensions; in Opposition the Liberals said when and why MLAs were suspended.)
The NDP has been pushing for answers. They have made specific charges, asking if MLA Richard Stewart had been suspended for "inappropriate behaviour involving a staff member" and whether Burnaby-Willingdon MLA John Nuraney had been suspended from caucus for "financial improprieties."
The Liberals were outraged. Stewart denied the charges. MacPhail acknowledged she had no proof, and accepted the denial. But she wouldn't apologize. (Nuraney wouldn't confirm or deny his suspension.)
A case can be made for raising the issue. McPhail said Krueger opened the door, the issue is significant, and her source had previously proved accurate.
But once she accepted Stewart's denial, she should have apologized.
MacPhail didn't. So when she rose in Question Period, the Liberals shouted, booed and then walked out. Finance Minister Gary Collins said MacPhail's questions would be ignored until she apologized.
MacPhail attempted to remedy her error, apologizing the next day.
But the Liberals also need to acknowledge their errors. Walking out of the legislature was wrong, and abused the voters who sent them there. The Liberals are free to be angry, but in any workplace, you are expected to swallow your anger and do your job.
And the voters in MacPhail's riding sent her there to represent them. Part of that representation includes asking question of the government. The Liberals may not like that. But voters, not governments, get to decide who can be an opposition MP.
The Liberals also have to lift the secrecy from these suspensions of caucus members. They did when it was useful to make Brenzinger look bad; they can't go all noble now.
Voters have a right to know. Liberal MLAs don't work for the party, or the caucus. They work for the voters. And if the voters are deprived of their representation in government because of alleged misconduct, they should know.
The principle of caucus secrecy is fine, allowing governments to have intense internal policy debates before emerging with a common position. But it wasn't intend as a way to cover up serious wrongdoing by members of a government.
Much is made of tradition down at the legislature; it sometimes inures us all to reality.
Force an average British Columbian to spend a day watching the legislature at work and he would be angry and ashamed - at the rudeness, the mindless obstructionism, the foolish posturing, the softball questions, the negativity.
The legislature should represent our best ideals, a place of compassion and commonsense, of meaningful debate and honest answers.
It's not. It's so far removed from that ideal that we should all be a little ashamed.
Footnote: Several Liberal MLAs wrote letters to the editor disputing my suggestion that they were doing themselves and their constituents a disservice by using Question Period to lob softballs at ministers. Here's Brenzinger on the process: "The questions are given to us. We're told who's going to say it, at what time. We practice in caucus what the question is. The minister knows the question and answers it. I just thought: 'This isn't democracy.'"

Poll bad for Liberals, worse for democracy

Poll bad for Liberals, worse for democracy
By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - The Iatest poll showing the NDP ahead of the Liberals is depressing, no matter which party you support today.
The Ipsos-Reid poll results should be most gloomy for Gordon Campbell and the Liberals. His party, which won the support of almost 60 per cent of B.C. voters only three years ago, has fallen to second place. If an election were held today, 42 per cent of voters would support the NDP, and only 39 per cent the Liberals. Only one-third of voters approve of Campbell's performance on the job.
It's a dazzling collapse, and so far the Liberals seem to be blind to its significance. If you were in charge of an organization, and 60 per cent of the people it served thought you were doing a poor job, you would likely acknowledge their view and change your actions and direction in response to their concerns. That isn't happening.
But that's not what is so depressing.
The truly grim news is that about half the people prepared to vote Liberal, or New Democrat, aren't actually making the choice because they think the party they back will do a good job. Their support is based on their dislike for the other options available.
OK, we're cynical these days. We even have a right to our suspicion of the ability of any party to deliver competent, even-handed government that responds to our concerns.
But these poll results should scare us. Some 1.2 million people will likely vote NDP or LIberal next year. And almost 600,000 of them won't actually have confidence in the party they are supporting. They will just find them less appalling than the other guys. (The Liberals have slightly higher positive support, but not enough to matter.)
Grumpy people have always voted that way, muttering bleakly about all politicians being the same as they marked their ballot. And more people have been simply opting out, staying home on election day.
But half the people who plan to vote now say they will be holding their nose and expecting a government that doesn't represent them, and won't do a good job.
That's dangerous.
Practically, it leads to the kind of big swings we're seeing now. B.C. needs a government that can win continued support from a majority of voters and offer a program that unfolds over a decade. Instead we get governments that are considered disappointments by two-thirds of voters before the first year is out. (That's no exaggeration - take the people who voted for other parties, add the people who voted for the winner just because they were least offensive, and you have a majority of voters already expecting bad things from the new government.)
It's partly our problem, I suppose. We don't acknowledge the difficulty of governing, and we cling too desperately to the idea that some new government can make everything right.
But political parties - Liberals and New Democrats - have to demonstrate that they recognize a responsibility to deliver the kind of government that voters want. When 60 per cent of voters think you are doing a bad job, you have an obligation to respond. That doesn't mean that politicians need abandon principle and flutter in the political winds. They do need to acknowledge an obligation to respect the views of the public.
Give Campbell credit. He's taken the biggest step of any political leader in North America by setting up a Citizens' Assembly to reform the way we elect politicians, with their recommendation to go to a referendum at the same time as the next election in May 2005. The assembly is now entering the most important part of its work, and deserves our support and attention.
But that's not enough given the current political crisis.
The political parties - all of them - have to accept responsibility for the growing and dangerous gap between government and the governed.
Footnote: The poll results are bad news for Lower Mainland MLAs. The Liberals' lead has vanished in the Greater Vancouver area with the two parties tied at 41-per-cent support. The wild card may be Chris Delaney and the Unity Party, at six per cent in the region. Unity growth could be fatal to Liberal candidates in close battles.

Harper stands a real chance - if he finds the centre

By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - You've got to hand it to Stephen Harper.
He helped merge the Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance, a move that actually resembled a take-over.
He put together a national leadership campaign that managed to capture significant support in Ontario, the nut the right must crack if it's to be a national party.
And he's managed to emerge as the leader of the new party as it is about to face a tired, scandal-plagued Liberal government in an election.
For Harper, that last fact is the most significant.
Uniting the right isn't enough in Canada. Take all the Conservative and Alliance votes in the last election and put them in one pool, and the Liberals would still have won enough seats to form the government. 'The right' in Canada - admittedly a vague enough concept - isn't big enough to win a national election in normal times. Track the polling on all the most important issues, and Canadians come down solidly in the centre. We support spending on public health care, and taxes to pay for it; oppose two-tier medical care; believe that effective markets require strong government regulation; and value personal freedom on issues of conscience like gay marriage and abortion.
If Harper simply tries to impose the old Alliance-Reform policies on the new party it will remain on the edge of success.
That's especially true if voters get any hint that Harper and the party are ideologues, people who are not prepared to temper their own beliefs with a healthy respect for the views of other Canadians.
Harper has shown every sign of avoiding that error, carefully reaching out to the Conservative faction in the new party. "We need the Red Tory vision of important national insitutions and sustainable social programs because the Conservative party will never leave the vulnerable behind," Harper said in his victory speech, a clear attempt to reassure the mainstream that he's not an extremist.
It worked within the new party. Harper won the victory with 55-per-cent support. He took every B.C. riding, and three-quarters of Ontario's ridings, and even did better in Quebec than expected. (Atlantic Canadians were less supportive, apparently still miffed about Harper's earlier comments that the region has a culture of defeat. Truth is apparently not a sufficient defence.)
Harper and BC NDP leader Carole James should be comparing notes, because both face the same challenge. They each have a constituency - he on the right, she on the left - that is not in itself large enough to elect a government. They each have the challenge of convincing other voters that they can form an inclusive government, one that is prepared to moderate its policies to win broad support.
It shouldn't be that difficult. The parties' core supporters should recognize that ideological purity will mean perpetual opposition status. It's not necessary to abandon all principle; it is necessary to recognize that compromise is essential.
But there was a certain contrariness in the old Alliance crew, an innate mistrust of power that led them to get nervous whenever the party became too successful.
Harper isn't seen as the warmest of politicians - he's a proudly dull economist.
That may be an asset. Canadians see an out-of-control federal government, and may welcome the idea of a quiet, competent leader to put things right.
You don't have to want to go out and hang out with a political leader; you just need to think he'll reflect your view of the world and provide competent leadership.
That's Harper's real challenge, and it's a significant one.
But given where the Conservatives and Alliance stood a year ago, compared with where they are today, he's already made massive progress.
And he's getting enormous help from Paul Martin, who has been unable to convince Canadians that the Liberals have not been terribly tainted by corruption, scandals and arrogance.
Footnote: Martin is left with a difficult choice. If he calls a vote this spring, then he is vulnerable to charges that he's trying to race to the public before the sponsorship scandal is complete. But if he waits until the fall, Harper has valuable time to organize a national campaign.




Random notes: Brenzinger, BC Rail follies and cursing premiers
By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - Random notes from the front.

The Liberals' response to the angry departure of Surrey MLA Elayne Brenzinger has left them looking sleazy.
You can expect them to be angry with Brenzinger, who left with all barrels blazing. Gordon Campbell showed " a complete and utter disregard for the opinions of caucus and its elected members, instead pressing ahead with his own secretive mandate," she wrote in her goodbye note. "Mr. Campbell's administrative style has proven itself to be chaotic, haphazard and destructive to B.C."
Any party is going to respond to that kind of criticism. The Liberals said that Brenzinger was a lightweight, and had never complained before about feeling shut out.
The public will get to judge who is most right, and the best indication will likely be Brenzinger's own performance as the legislature resumes sitting, and the issues she chooses to raise. (That didn't go well on her first day back this week.)
But the Liberals stepped boldly into the muck in responding to Brenzinger's barbs..
They offered the juicy news that she had been suspended from caucus for two weeks in December, for allegedly grabbing a staffer by the throat.
That tidbit came from caucus whip Kevin Krueger, apparently offered as a demonstration of the bad character of the MLA. Instead it raised as many questions about the general character of the Liberals.
Brenzinger's suspension was kept secret in December. Her constituents never knew that they had lost their representation within the party.
And they weren't alone. Krueger said other MLAs had also received secret suspensions for offences. But he wouldn't say who, or for how long, or what they had done to get in the premier's bad books.
It looks sleazy. MLAs have apparently done things as bad or worse than Brenzinger, and lost their right to participate in debates in caucus. But their constituents were never told, because those kinds of things must be kept secret, say the Liberals.
The need for secrecy doesn't apply when in it's in the Liberals' interests to smear someone.

The premier comes off badly in the Brenzinger affair as well. He told reporters that he didn't know she was unhappy. But Campbell did confirm that he swore at her in caucus, adding that he was just kidding around.
Most competent managers have learned that it's not just kidding around when the boss decides to swear at one member of the organization publicly. He may think it's all in good fun, but at least some of the 70 MLAs sitting in the caucus room, likely wondering if they would be next next, wouldn't be so sure.

And then there's the latest nasty fallout from the police raids on the legislature.
The government has been trying to sell another chunk of BC Rail, the short line that serves Robert Bank port south of Vancouver. Three companies are bidding, and the the deal could be worth more than $50 million.
But the Liberals had to scrub the whole thing after police warned them that confidential information about the line could have been leaked to one or more of the companies trying to buy the line.
Bad news for the Liberals, who have tried to downplay the raids' significance. But the corruption allegations have now cost taxpayers' money and stalled the government.
And they've sent a message to business that B.C. remains a wacky and risky place. The companies spent time and money preparing their bids. As of today, that's wasted capital.

Surrey MLA Gulzar Cheema is going after a federal Liberal nomination. If he gets it, he'll have to resign, paving the way for an interesting byelection. NDP leader Carole James will have to decide if she could win in Surrey, and whether her time would be best spent in the legislature.
The Liberals should be worried that Unity's Chris Delaney will run and establish a profile for Unity as a right-wing alternative. That would be Campbell's worst nightmare in the 2005 campaign.

Footnote: Several MLAs wrote letters disputing my column noting that backbenchers were serving their constituents - and themselves - badly by not raising real concerns in Question Period. Here's Brenzinger on the process: "The questions are given to us. We're told who's going to say it, at what time. We practice in caucus what the question is. The minister knows the question and answers it. I just thought: 'This isn't democracy.' I can't get up and ask the hard questions of my riding."

Time for a B.C. health consumers' association

By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - I'm tired of being the forgotten person in the health care system.
We health care consumers are the only ones without a real say in the way services are delivered.
Nurses and other workers have their unions; the doctors have the BCMA; and drug companies their lobbyists. All push to advance their interests.
But you and I, the people who rely on the system, have no voice. The power people make the decisions, and trade off their goals. We have no say.
It's not fair to say that government should represent us. Any government balances a huge range of interests and pressures, and we the health care consumers are just one interest group.
Health Minister Colin Hansen thought about us, when he got in that noisy battle with Nanaimo emergency room doctors. But he also thought about the government's freeze on compensation for doctors, the businesses that want lower taxes, the people pushing other spending and his government's commitment to a balanced budget.
That's his job, and it does not involve focusing on the needs of people who use the system.
People get touchy when you talk about health care consumers, seeing some sort of political judgment in it. But that's what we are. We pay money - an average $2,700 per person for health care - and we get something in return.
We're particularly powerless consumers, because government - for sound reasons - has created an effective monopoly on health care. If I decide my local grocery store is doing a bad job, I can shop somewhere else. That can't happen with the health care system.
It's not just that we're voiceless. Because we're silenced, all sorts of special interest groups claim to advocate for consumers when they're really pushing their own interests.
The Cancer Advocacy Coalition, for example, does an annual report that this year linked higher spending on cancer care with lower death rates. B.C. spends the most per-capita spending on cancer, the report found, and has the lowest mortality rates. More money equals lives saved.
But perhaps we have a lower cancer death rate because of anti-smoking efforts, or because people are generally healthier here, or because we have a large Asian population less predisposed to cancer.
A consumer organization would look at all those factors, and weigh the effectiveness of using the same money for other health priorities.
But while the cancer coalition is doing important work, it doesn't speak for consumers. It's mission is to make cancer the top health care priority, not to promote better overall health care.
It's only one of many such groups. And like almost all the other illness organizations, it depends on funding from big pharmaceutical companies which have their own goals.
Drug policy expert Alan Cassels of the University of Victoria says drug company funding creates obvious conflicts for organizations dependent on millions in contributions. "You can almost see the influence of the money."
But when Health Canada holds big consultations, these are the groups it calls to the table. Each advances its special interest; no one speaks for us. When the decisions are made, we're not even there.
Gordon Campbell and the other premiers talked about reinventing health care when they met in Vancouver. But the consumers need a real role in that process if it is going to work.
Australia has found a way to make it work. Its Consumers' Health Forum is almost 20 years old, formed with government support after consumers demanded a voice. The association is a coalition of health and community groups - no providers or care workers or corporations.
It publishes articles and reports, handles complaints and speaks to the government on behalf of the consumer.
All for about $750,000 a year from government and a bit more from members, and with a lean paid staff of eight.
It's time for the Consumers' Health Forum of BC, with government support and a recognized place at the table.
Footnote: The idea makes lots of people nervous. What if the forum is somehow captured by a small group, politicians worry. But the fact is that efforts to improve health care are not going to work if the end user is left out of the process.

An easy way to save young drivers' lives

By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - They've been dying at an alarming rate, the young people around Victoria.
For the last 12 months it seems like every few weeks I open the newspaper to read about them, another young person killed in a car crash. Their friends manage to get up some sort of roadside shrine. But I've got kids; I'm not interested in more shrines.
Partly, it's a streak of bad luck. Across B.C., the number of young people killed in car crashes fell by almost 40 per cent between 1995 and 2001.
But that's not much comfort when you're looking at the high school grad photo of another young person who didn't have to die.
We can't solve the problem. But we could save lives, with one simple, unintrusive change to the driving rules.
Vancouver Island has had an RCMP crash team for nine months, so far studying the details of six major crashes. They don't call them accidents. That suggests some inexplicable mechanical failure, or fate. In every case reviewed so far, the crash was no accident. Someone made a bad choice and caused the wreck.
The team looks at every aspect of the crashes. Not just the road conditions, or the driver's actions, but the type of car, the role of the passengers or the friends who let someone leave a party.
All the crashes share "an incredible amount of risk-taking," says Staff Sgt. Ted Smith. Speed, drugs and alcohol, crowded cars, hot cars - all are part of the equation.
And the drivers most likely to take those risks are young. Anyone who looks back honestly will acknowledge a certain combination of stupidity and self-confidence; men will remember a sense of invincibility and a huge inability to calculate consequences.
Tough to change.
But all six crashes share one common element we could address. "The lack of seatbelts is absolute - there wasn't one crash we went to where seatbelts had been used," Smith recently told Victoria media.
And we can change that. For drivers with 'New' or 'Learner' status, we can make seatbelt use effectively mandatory. The offence carries a $75 fine. But the regulations could be changed to impose a 90-day licence suspension for any inexperienced caught not wearing one, with serious enforcement.
At the least, we'll keep some people alive. At best, the very act of putting on a seatbelt will reinforce the idea that driving is an activity with some significant risks, that calls for care and caution.
There's no discrimination here. The rules would apply to all new drivers, not young drivers. And the law requiring seatbelt use is already in place.
At the same time, the province should make failing to wear a seatbelt an offence that carries points for drivers, instead of just a fine. Most other offences already do - including some that don't involve an actual driving error. If we're serious about the law, it's a reasonable step.
It's tough to be exact about seatbelt use. ICBC estimates about 87 per cent usage for the province as a whole. A Transport Canada survey in 2002 found that in smaller communities in B.C., seatbelt use was about 80 per cent, eighth among provinces and territories.
That translates into a lot of needless deaths and injuries, a significant burden on the health care system and too many tragedies for families.
There are lots of things we could consider. Vancouver Island's chief medical health officer - along with many police officers - has said the return of photo radar would save lives. The government's planned changes to impaired driving laws - killed too quickly by an ill-informed public outcry - would also have helped.
But meanwhile, changing the seatbelt rules shouldn't be difficult, or controversial. A few simple regulatory changes, a clear mandate to police ? and we've saved some lives.
Footnote: Anyone looking for more motivation should know that if you don't wear your seatbelt, ICBC gets to keep a whack of your money if you're hurt. Even if you're the innocent victim, you'll generally lose 25 per cent of any settlement if you aren't wearing a seatbelt at the time of collision. An Alberta court cut one award by 75 per cent.

Time for a B.C. health consumers' association

By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - I'm tired of being the forgotten person in the health care system.
We health care consumers are the only ones without a real say in the way services are delivered.
Nurses and other workers have their unions; the doctors have the BCMA; and drug companies their lobbyists. All push to advance their interests.
But you and I, the people who rely on the system, have no voice. The power people make the decisions, and trade off their goals. We have no say.
It's not fair to say that government should represent us. Any government balances a huge range of interests and pressures, and we the health care consumers are just one interest group.
Health Minister Colin Hansen thought about us, when he got in that noisy battle with Nanaimo emergency room doctors. But he also thought about the government's freeze on compensation for doctors, the businesses that want lower taxes, the people pushing other spending and his government's commitment to a balanced budget.
That's his job, and it does not involve focusing on the needs of people who use the system.
People get touchy when you talk about health care consumers, seeing some sort of political judgment in it. But that's what we are. We pay money - an average $2,700 per person for health care - and we get something in return.
We're particularly powerless consumers, because government - for sound reasons - has created an effective monopoly on health care. If I decide my local grocery store is doing a bad job, I can shop somewhere else. That can't happen with the health care system.
It's not just that we're voiceless. Because we're silenced, all sorts of special interest groups claim to advocate for consumers when they're really pushing their own interests.
The Cancer Advocacy Coalition, for example, does an annual report that this year linked higher spending on cancer care with lower death rates. B.C. spends the most per-capita spending on cancer, the report found, and has the lowest mortality rates. More money equals lives saved.
But perhaps we have a lower cancer death rate because of anti-smoking efforts, or because people are generally healthier here, or because we have a large Asian population less predisposed to cancer.
A consumer organization would look at all those factors, and weigh the effectiveness of using the same money for other health priorities.
But while the cancer coalition is doing important work, it doesn't speak for consumers. It's mission is to make cancer the top health care priority, not to promote better overall health care.
It's only one of many such groups. And like almost all the other illness organizations, it depends on funding from big pharmaceutical companies which have their own goals.
Drug policy expert Alan Cassels of the University of Victoria says drug company funding creates obvious conflicts for organizations dependent on millions in contributions. "You can almost see the influence of the money."
But when Health Canada holds big consultations, these are the groups it calls to the table. Each advances its special interest; no one speaks for us. When the decisions are made, we're not even there.
Gordon Campbell and the other premiers talked about reinventing health care when they met in Vancouver. But the consumers need a real role in that process if it is going to work.
Australia has found a way to make it work. Its Consumers' Health Forum is almost 20 years old, formed with government support after consumers demanded a voice. The association is a coalition of health and community groups - no providers or care workers or corporations.
It publishes articles and reports, handles complaints and speaks to the government on behalf of the consumer.
All for about $750,000 a year from government and a bit more from members, and with a lean paid staff of eight.
It's time for the Consumers' Health Forum of BC, with government support and a recognized place at the table.
Footnote: The idea makes lots of people nervous. What if the forum is somehow captured by a small group, politicians worry. But the fact is that efforts to improve health care are not going to work if the end user is left out of the process.

Liberals the kings of expanded gambling

By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - It's bizarre to see the party that promised to stop gambling expansion now planning on slots in every corner of the province, from Fort Nelson to Prince Rupert.
That's the next phase in the government's plan to get more money from gambling.
The communities won't be getting casinos. And the government hasn't yet abandoned its oppositions to slots in bars.
Instead the next step is to put slot machines in local bingo halls, or "community gaming entertainment centres," as the BC Lottery Corp. now wants to start calling them.
There's nothing unusual in government's becoming addicted to gambling. B.C. isn't even that bad yet, compared to other provinces.
But it's downright weird that a party which opposed expanded gambling ferociously for years, pointing to the damage done, would turn out to be the gambling kings.
The Liberals New Era campaign promise was clear: "Stop the expansion of gambling that has increased gambling addiction and put new strains on families."
Nice words, but what's happened since?
Instead of stopping the expansion, the Liberals jumped heavily into the gambling business.
When the Liberals were elected, there were 2,400 slots in 10 casinos. By the end of this year, the Liberals will have doubled the number of slot machines. (The Liberals also said they opposed slots at race tracks during the election campaign; now they're on their way.)
And when they took over, gambling netted $562 million for the government. The Liberals have increased that by 50-per-cent in three years, to $850 million this year. They want to crack the $1-billion profit mark in two years, making gambling as important to government revenues as the forest industry.
Their official explanation is lame. Solicitor General Rich Coleman told an open cabinet meeting that the NDP indicated to some casino operators, sometime, that they could someday have slots. Freezing the expansion would break these vague promises and the province might get sued, he said.
It's an ironic claim from a government that has happily ripped up real agreements. And it's simply not credible. The Liberals have worked to expand the scale and scope of gambling; they could have slowed the expansion legally and fairly by holding proponents to their original plans and schedules. Many would be gone by now.
The defense certainly doesn't cover the plan to put slots in bingo halls, providing gambling opportunities in many more towns and neighbourhoods. (We already pumped about $3.2-billion into slot machines in B.C. last year.)
The new fondness for gambling is understandable. Without the expansion since the election, the Liberals would be looking at a $200-million budget deficit this year, not a surplus.
They're looking to recruit even more gamblers, through advertising and appealing games. The BC Lottery Corp. says 59 per cent of B.C. adults bet with the corporation in a typical month. Its goal is to get that up to 65 per cent over the next four years. That's another 200,000 people persuaded to gamble. Most of them will just waste a bit of money. But according to the corporation's own figures, about 8,000 will become problem gamblers, joining 75,000 existing problem gamblers in B.C.
The Liberals used to put those people first. They warned about the damage to families, the increased crime, loan-sharking and suicides. That's why they said no gambling expansion.
The BC Lottery Corp. is just doing its job, and doing it well enough that the corporation was honoured as the 2003 BC Marketer of the Year. It has an 18-person marketing department and a $10-million budget just to get more people to play lotteries and Keno.
But it should scare us that the best marketers in the whole province are promoting gambling, in co-operation with a government that's encouraging its spread.
There's no doubt the money is good. But the Liberals used to think that wasn't enough.
Footnote: The flip-flop is breathtaking. In 1998 Gordon Campbell bristled at the idea that the Liberals might waffle on gambling. "We fought tooth and nail against their plan to bring Vegas-style gambling, slot machines and VLTs to B.C. We want an independent review of gambling and a provincial referendum. The social costs of gambling expansion -- increased crime, broken families and increased poverty -- are simply too high a price to pay."

Unions, governments head toward bizarre showdown

By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - RMH Teleservices wasn't ready to roll over when the BCGEU tried to sign up the 1,600 workers at its Surrey call centre.
The union launched its organizing campaign; the company campaigned right back. And things got weird, and ugly.
The resulting dispute has created the Liberals' first big battle with unions over a private sector issue. They're threatening to boycott the Labour Relations Board over its support for the company's tactics.
The Liberals have had skirmishes with private sector unions, but generally they have steered a moderate enough course to avoid the kind of major battles it's had with public sector unions.
But business did win some changes, including labour code revisions that give managers much freer rein to communicate with employees during a union drive.
Code changes in the Harcourt era had strictly limited company's right to respond to a union organizing effort. The aim was to prevent companies from intimidating employees so they wouldn't join a union. The effect was to give the union's supporters a free hand to promote the benefits of certifying, while leaving managers convinced that any but the most limited comment would see them slapped with an unfair labour practice complaint. That could result in automatic certification, or a mandatory vote even if the union had signed up only a few people.
The Liberals opened things up in 2002. And RMH is the first company to push the envelope under the new rules.
Some of the happenings were just weird. RMH projected changing messages on the walls of the huge workplace constantly for a week to encourage employees not to sign up, a move a touch reminiscent of 1984.
Some seemed harmless enough. Management handed out frisbees and other toys with printed messages questioning the union claims.
And some were ugly. The company's big Surrey parking lot was the scene of several encounters where anti-union employees abused women organizers with vicious and obscene insults.
The result was a string of union complaints to the LRB, charging the company with unfair labour practices in its attempts to persuade employees not to sign a union membership card.
My guess is that the complaints would have been upheld in the past.
But LRB vice-chair Ken Saunders tossed them, finding that the company's activities hadn't violated the labour code. Employees had no reason to feel coerced or threatened by the company's efforts, he said, and that's the test.
Business leaders approve. Phil Hochstein of the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association says companies should be able to make their case, like the union, and the employees can decide. "They're not children," he adds.
Union leaders don't. BCGEU head George Heyman says the campaign - especially the parking lot abuse - was threatening. The employees were left believing that the company was dead opposed to a union. They were left to wonder, the union suggests, whether the phone centre would close if employees unionized.
The unions have asked the Labour Board to reconsider the decision. If not, the BC Federation of Labour has threatened a boycott of the LRB, the referee in labour disputes.
One way or another, the issue is going to end up back in the lap of Labour Minister Graham Bruce. When he gave companies more latitude to communicate, Bruce said some ground rules might be needed. He raised the idea of supervised forums where both company and union would get a chance to make their pitch.
None of those regulations ever appeared. Bruce says he was waiting to see how the changes worked out on the ground.
It's time for some action. The Liberals have done an adept job at changing the labour environment without sending the pendulum swinging back wildly toward the employers' side. That stability is good for the province.
But in the RMH ruling, the pendulum has taken too big a swing. Bruce needs to find the balance point again.
Footnote: Both sides have have signed on for this battle, with most major business organizations planning to apply for intervenor status if the labour board does hold a gearing to reconsider the decision. It's being viewed by many unions and employers as a test of where the Liberals are likely to go with their next round of labour changes.

Tax cuts for rich in budget, but rest will pay more

By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - Add to your list of regional grievances the news that taxes are going up for middle-income and lower-income British Columbians this year, while their better-off neighbours get another tax break.
Since their first day in office, when Premier Gordon Campbell cut income taxes by 25 per cent, the Liberals have been accused of favouring higher-income British Columbians with their policies.
So far, they've been able to point out that while the rich may have done the best from the changes, all British Columbians have seen their taxes go down.
Until this year. The budget documents reveal that while total provincial taxes were reduced for people with big incomes, low and middle-income British Columbians will pay more as a result of this bydget.
The New Democrats raised the issue. But there's no spin. The numbers are straight from the budget, which always includes tables showing the taxes that will be paid by half-a-dozen typical households. The report pulls in all taxes - income tax, sales tax, MSP premiums.
It provides a review for three typical families, each with both parents working and two children.
A family with a household income of $90,000 will get another tax cut, worth about $150. But a family with income of $60,000 will pay $130 more than they did last year. A family with $30,000 will pay $435 more.
That's a big hit for a family that's already on the edge, almost an entire week's income gone to pay higher taxes.
It's not just families. A single person making $80,000 a year got another tax cut this year, but two seniors living together on combined pensions of $30,000 will pay more in taxes.
Yes, says Revenue Minister Rick Thorpe, but everyone is still paying lower taxes than they did before the 2001 tax cuts.
But the benefits aren't evenly distributed. The family raising two children on $90,000 have seen their tax bill fall by 15-per-cent under the Liberals - about $1,600. The family attempting the same feat on $30,000 has had a five-per-cent tax reduction, or about $200.
The Liberals have reduced taxes across the board. But they have also shifted the burden of paying for government services from high-income British Columbians to the rest of us by bumping fees and flat taxes.
Economically, this may make sense. There is no significant economic benefit to cutting tax rates for middle-income earners. Cutting taxes for them means they'll spend the money, not the government, but that doesn't generate increased economic activity. They're not going to move here to save a few hundred dollars in taxes.
But you can make a sound case that targeted tax cuts aimed at the top end can help attract investment and the kind of people who create jobs. The theory is that a competitive tax structure may make it worthwhile for those people to set up shop here, not in Alberta.
There's no right answer about how much each person should pay. But B.C. does appear to be out of step with other provinces. A single person in B.C. being paid $80,000 a year will pay slightly less in provincial taxes this year here than he would in Alberta. But that family of four earning $30,000 would pay twice as much in B.C. as they would on the other side of the Rockies.
Take average taxes for Alberta, Ontario and Quebec and the story is the same. Seniors living on $30,000 pays six per cent less in B.C. than the average rate for the other provinces. The $90,000 family pays 29 per cent less.
Why is it a regional issue? Because the people paying more tend to live outside Greater Vancouver, which has a higher household income. The effect has been to leave more dollars in their hands, while this year taking dollars away from B.C.'s regional communities.
The government can take a shot at making its case for shifting more of the tax dollars onto the middle class.
But it's not something I'd be happy to campaign on, heading into an increasingly difficult election.
Footnote: Thorpe was also not eager to defend the tax increases. He dodged the issue in the legislature, than ducked reporters waiting to hear the government's position by scooting out a side door of the chamber. The Liberals need a better response than a vanishing act.

Question Period makes Liberal MLAs look foolish

By Paul Willcocks
VICTORIA - I admire MLAs. They work hard, they're committed and they sacrifice a huge amount to serve.
Maybe that's why I get so worked up when I see them behaving badly. Like Mike Hunter, Rob Nijjar, Randy Hawes and Jeff Bray.
When this session started, and those four MLAs got the chance to stand up in Question Period and ask the premier or any cabinet minister a question on behalf of their constituents, they blew it.
Question Period is only 15 minutes a day. It's precious time, when backbenchers stand on equal footing with the big guys, and the reporters - and some TV viewers - are paying close attention.
So what did they want to know, this quartet? They're bright; they represent Nanaimo, Vancouver, Mission, and Victoria respectively. You would expect insightful questions, a reflection of what people who live in their communities really want to know about the government's direction.
Instead you got posturing.
On Feb. 12 Hawes and Bray had their moment, and used it to ask Finance Minister Gary Collins to respond to on a budget commentary from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a leftish alternative to the Fraser Institute. On Feb. 16, Nijjar had the spotlight, able to ask any question on behalf of his community. He asked Collins to reflect on the same CCPA budget commentary.
On Feb. 17, Hunter had his chance to ask questions on behalf of the people of Nanaimo. He asked Economic Development Minister John Les to comment on the same CCPA budget commentary.
I accept that the Liberals are looking for ways to paint Carole James as fiscally irresponsible. Lord knows, based on the last NDP government's track record, that's a genuine concern for voters.
And I accept that the NDP government's decision to award $200,000 in grants to the CCPA in the last days before the election looks dubious, and makes the association an easy target.
I'm even willing to accept the fact that Liberal MLAs kept picking away at the CCPA report in the so-called debate on the budget. Some day MLAs may actually offer their real insights and analysis in even routine debates, but the reality is that for now debates are generally a political performance. The Liberals want to convince people that the New Democrats are tax-and-spend wastrels. The CCPA proposals include a range of tax and fee increases. By claiming those are the New Democrat positions, the Liberals hope to convince voters that it's true or force NDP leader Carole James to offer more specifics.
But Question Period should be special. Traditionally, the opposition grills the government. But with the two-person NDP opposition limited to one set of questions each, Liberal backbenchers have had a chance to represent their constituents.
I don't expect them to try and embarrass ministers; but there is every reason to expect them to raise important local issues, and to push for answers and results.
And the best the quartet can do is asked repetitive, silly questions.
It's not just this issue.
Liberal MLAs regularly embarrass themselves with scripted softball questions that could be roughly summarized as "Could the minister tell us what a great job he's doing?" They virtually never follow up, or press for more detail
I don't want to be seen as critical of the MLAs. They are all working harder for their communities than I ever have, and accomplishing more. I accept their assurances that they are pressing hard for their communities behind the scenes. And they certainly have a role in helping the government's PR efforts.
But some of the crueler people in the Press gallery describe their daily Question Period efforts as "stooge questions."
They're right. And the MLAs deserve better, as do the people they represent.
Ultimately, the Liberals would also find that some real, effective public representation from backbenchers would help reverse the party's long slide in the opinion polls.
Footnote: The Liberals have engineered Question Period as a showcase for the competence of cabinet ministers and the government. In the process, they've made their backbench MLAs - many facing tough re-election battles - look like people who have no idea what's important to their communities. It's inaccurate and unfair.