Liberals cheat voters by cancelling fall sitting

You can see why Gordon Campbell decided to cancel the fall sitting of the legislature. His government would spend six weeks getting batted around on bunch of contentious issues.
Cancel the session and everything changes. Instead of facing daily questions from the opposition and journalists, the premier can make one or two carefully planned appearances a week. Cut a ribbon here, speak to a friendly group there, make good news announcements in time for the evening news and dump the bad ones when you're on a private jet bound for another country.
It's an easier life. That's the problem with democracy, even a flawed version like our own. It's inconvenient to face all those questions and criticisms when you just want to wield power.
The Liberals cancelled the scheduled fall sitting this week. They had no legislation to present, so why bother, said house leader Mike de Jong.
That's not exactly true. The Liberals have three bills - on resource roads, improved insurance industry regulation and wills and estates - that they wanted to pass in the spring, but dropped because of lack of time. (They also could have delayed some of the half-dozen bills that were pushed through with no debate on the last day of the spring session.)
They were ready, and considered important then.
And there are other areas where they have acknowledged change is needed - like improving the police complaints process - and have had lots of time to draft the bills.
Even leaving aside the excuse, the Liberals know that the legislature isn't just a place to pass bills. When MLAs - government and opposition - gather in that red-carpeted chamber, it's their chance to speak on behalf of their constituents.
They can raise the issues and concerns that matter to people back home. They can ask cabinet ministers what's being done about issues, from seniors care to forestry to potholed roads.
By cancelling the session, Campbell is denying them and the public that right.
The decision carries some political risk. A recent poll found British Columbians believed Campbell is out of touch and uninterested in their concerns. Shutting down the legislature reinforces that impression.
And the timing, right after Stephen Harper and Jack Layton were pilloried for trying to avoid debating Green leader Elizabeth May, was a problem. It looks like Campbell is afraid of debating Carole James.
But the Liberals figure the risks of a session are greater. There is a lot of anger over the carbon tax, and it's being ramped up by Harper's attacks. Campbell still hasn't provided any justification for the massive hike in pay scales for senior government managers.
There are potential questions on a range of issues that could make the government look bad, from seniors care to forestry problems to the efforts to deny help to the disabled based on an arbitrary IQ level.
And there are smaller embarrassments, like Campbell's decision to fly to the Beijing Games on a private jet with a developer and party supporter.
Campbell says people have told him cabinet ministers and MLAs should be out in the ridings, talking with them.
But the legislature will have sat for only 47 days this year, among the fewest in a non-election year in more than two decades. If the fall session had lasted the full six weeks, MLAs would still have 180 working days free this year. That seems plenty of time to keep up with local concerns.
De Jong was right to say there's no point passing laws just to keep the legislature busy. But he can't really be saying that the government no longer cares about the bills it introduced in the spring and sees no need to update or improve any other legislation.
Still, that's that. MLAs lose their chance to speak for their constituents. The legislature will sit for about 19 days in the spring and then break for the election.
Not democratic, but it suits Campbell's political purposes.
Footnote: There's probably not a big political price for the decision to abandon the sitting. Most people aren't all that aware of where MLAs are or what they're doing. But the decision does reinforce the impression that Campbell doesn't really accept the idea of accountability and raises the perception of arrogance.

Harper carbon attacks bad news for Campbell

Among all the people who didn't want a federal election, Gordon Campbell has to be one of the unhappiest.
For the next five weeks, the Harper Conservatives are going to be attacking Stephane Dion and the Liberals.
And Campbell is going to be caught in the crossfire, unable to take cover or fire back as his supposed allies deliver wounding blows.
One of the Conservatives' big targets is going to be Dion's Green Shift, and especially the proposed carbon tax.
The "tax on everything" that would "screw everyone across the country," Harper has already called it.
And that's before things got rough.
And Dion's proposal is pretty much identical to the carbon tax that Campbell promised in the throne speech and brought in July 1. Use fuels that produce greenhouse gases, and you pay - 2.8 cents a litre on gasoline, for example, rising to 7.2 cents by 2012, and more after that.
The unpopular carbon tax has already given B.C. New Democrats a big boost, without Harper's help. They support a carbon tax in principle. But not the Campbell version, in what seems a rather contrived distinction.
The tax actually makes sense. If you accept that global warming is real, greenhouse gases are a factor and that market forces matter, then a tax on fossil fuels is an incentive to reduce consumption.
But the public isn't buying it, according to the polls. They think it won't work. And they consider it a tax grab, even though the provincial government has introduced offsetting tax cuts equal to the money it will take in from the carbon tax.
Campbell is now in a weirdly vulnerable position, with Stephen Harper and Carole James ganging up on him over a critical policy.
The provincial Liberals have worked hard at getting along with Ottawa - no matter who is in power -with reasonable results.
Partly, that's pragmatic. One of Campbell's real accomplishments is getting people who are passionate Conservatives and Liberals federally to work together in one provincial party. It's no mean feat; federal elections are hard fought and the scars are lasting. Campbell inspires people to check their baggage at the door.
That might be harder this time, especially with the carbon tax as a big issue and the federal stakes so high. Things could get nasty between the Harper and Dion troops in B.C.
It looked that way in the first days of the campaign this week as Harper came to the province. The federal Conservatives had tried to avoid criticizing the Campbell carbon tax directly since he announced it.
But no more. Harper's attacks might have been directed at Dion's tax, but they drew blood from Campbell too.
It was brutal and direct. Harper effectively challenged Campbell's honesty, rejecting the claim that revenue from the B.C carbon tax is balanced by offsetting tax cuts.
"Every politician in history who wants to impose a new tax claims that it's either revenue neutral or it's temporary. It's not true," Harper said. "Everybody knows - especially in British Columbia - that that kind of a carbon tax is not revenue neutral on the average working family."
Ouch. It's rhetoric straight from a Carole James' speech. But because the accusations are coming from Harper, the claims that Campbell is not to be trusted are getting a lot more attention.
The B.C. carbon tax was already a tough sell, especially given rising energy costs this summer.
Now the Conservatives - with bags of money and a good organization - are going to spend the next five weeks trashing the idea as an irresponsible tax grab.
Which will leave Campbell with just six months to try and undo that message before the provincial campaign starts.
And, of course, just six months to encourage federal Conservative members of his coalition to swallow a tax they have been attacking with vigour.
Footnote: The campaign also quickly got stupid. On Tuesday, a controversy over a cartoon on the Conservatives' website that showed a puffin pooping on Dion threatened to overshadow policy announcements and the NDP and Conservative efforts to bar Green leader Elizabeth May from the televised debates.

Let’s make lost opportunity an election issue

I took a break from working on a look at big issues in the federal election campaign and flipped through some old newspapers sitting on a chair in the office.
They were from 1961. And they raised a question for all the political parties – how come we aren’t happier or better off than we were then?
Stephen Harper and Stephane Dion will go back and forth about crime and climate change and leadership. Those are all important. They will slag each other in quite nasty and unfair ways. That’s not so important.
But no one is going to talk about the sense that a lot of Canadians feel like things have got worse for them over the years.
The 1961 paper had a front-page story about a new contract for teachers. The top wage was to be $8,360. Today, the top teacher wage here is about $78,000.
Then I flipped to the classifieds. There was an ad for a four-bedroom house on a quiet street in Oak Bay for $10,000. I checked; it’s assessed today at $575,000. (Both prices are typical for the time.)
So an established teacher could figure on buying that home for 14 months’ salary. Mortgage payments would be one-sixth of his income.
Today, the same house, at $575,000, would cost the equivalent of more than seven year’s gross pay. The mortgage payments would consume more than 40 per cent of the income.
It’s not just teachers, of course. Forest workers, office staff, people on an assembly line or fixing cars, even journalists – they all faced a different, cheerier future in 1961. They could afford a house and new car and if not a cabin, at least a couple of weeks at one. Moms could stay home (or were forced to). Families expected things would be even better for their children. Things like the introduction of medicare were on the horizon.
Today, a lot of people see their kids facing a much tougher time than they did, or perhaps their parents did.
John Diefenbaker was prime minister in 1961; Lester Pearson led the Liberal opposition; Tommy Douglas was the leader of the truly New Democratic Party, formed that year. Not pantheonic, necessarily, but have we had three leaders who commanded similar respect in the last 20 years. Paul Martin? Brian Mulroney?
Maybe that’s what this election — and the provincial election next May, and the municipal elections in November — should be about. Which politicians understand the concerns of the average Canadian? Who among them thins things could be better, and has some ideas? Who, in Parliament or cabinet, wouldn’t disillusion or embarrass the people who voted for, and against, them?
Who would make the priority creating happier, more prosperous average Canadians?
It’s hard at this point to see which leader is going to step into that role. Stephen Harper comes off as kind of cranky and doesn’t seem to see government as responsible for bringing a better life to Canadians. There’s a sense that the Conservatives are too infatuated with the failed polices of American Republicans, from militarism to simplistic lock-em-up crime responses.
Stephane Dion seems barely in control of his own party, fuzzy on the direction his government would go and a little shell-shocked. Jack Layton, Elizabeth May, Gilles Duceppe — none are likely to captivate voters with vision and plans.
Some voters, of course, would disagree. They are passionate in their belief that one party or another has the answers.
Most voters, I’d suggest, aren’t looking really forward to casting their ballots. Many have resigned themselves to voting against someone, rather than for a politician or platform they truly support.
Maybe we should keep that in mind over this election campaign. We can assess the issues and look at hard at the local candidates.
But it would be nice to hear a candidate or a leader acknowledge that for a lot of people, things seem harder than they did a few decades ago.
And that making them better was one of their concerns.
Footnote: B.C. should be a critical battleground in a close election. Some five Conservative seats and four seats each for the Liberals and the New Democrats, are likely in play. The Island and Lower Mainland should see most of the focus from the parties.

Poll suggests big problems for Campbell, Liberals

It's not the fact that the Liberals and NDP are tied in a recent poll that raises doubts about a third term for Gordon Campbell after next May's elections.
Poll results bounce around and people often have reasons for being irked at the party in power.
But the poll - and the reaction - raises a couple of more profound issues for the B.C. Liberals.
The poll itself reveals a grim assessment of Campbell as leader, and the party's direction under his rule.
And the reaction, based on an unscientific and unrepresentative survey, suggests that a lot of the Liberals core supporters are dangerously unhappy.
The poll, by Angus Reid Strategies, found the NDP had the support of 41 per cent of British Columbians, compared with 38 per cent for the Liberals. That's within the margin of error; practically, the parties are tied. (The Green party is at 14 per cent.)
That's still good news for Carole James and the NDP. For most of her term as leader, the party has lagged at least 10 points behind the Liberals. Another defeat seemed inevitable.
The poll, conducted Aug. 21-25, was likely affected by what could-be short-term issues - the carbon tax, which took effect July 1, and the massive raises for senior government managers this month.
But the company also asked some broader questions that revealed deeper, much harder to deal with issues for the Liberals.
The biggest revelation, assuming the poll accurately reflects public opinion, is what a liability Campbell is with an election only nine months away.
The pollster asked respondents a number of questions about the leaders of the two main parties. The judgment of Campbell was harsh and involved perceptions that would be hard to turn around at this point.
Parties and leaders can always launch new policy directions to get out from under an unpopular issue. But turning things around once people have decided they just don't trust someone is harder.
And it appears they don't trust Campbell. If the poll reflects reality, they really don't trust him.
Only 18 per cent of those polled believed Campbell is honest and trustworthy; 60 per cent said he isn't to be trusted. (Almost half - 45 per cent - said James is honest and trustworthy; only 16 per cent said she isn't.)
Does Campbell inspire confidence? Sixty per cent said no. Does Campbell understand the problems of British Columbians? Again, 59 per cent said no. Agree with you on issues you care about? Sixty per said no.
Campbell scores high for having a vision, but the poll found 43 per cent of British Columbians think the province is on the wrong track. The visionary thing might not be a plus.
And he is rated significantly more highly than James in two important areas. Campbell is seen as significantly stronger and more decisive, qualities that are over-rated by voters. And he's seen as able to manage the provincial economy effectively.
But overall, James was seen as the person who would make best premier by 35 per cent of those surveyed; 31 per cent said Campbell would do the best job. (Leaving a critical 34 per cent who weren't sure.)
Sixty per said the Liberals hadn't delivered the promised "new hope and prosperity." More people though the province is on the track than supported the government's direction
And 58 per cent said it's time for a new party to govern; only 29 per cent said the Liberals should be re-elected.
Polls this far out don't necessarily reflect the way people will actually vote.
But it was a pretty damning view of the current government. And, based on a scan of blogs and comment streams, a lot of people who identify themselves as right-wing are incensed with Campbell. It's been assumed those voters had nowhere else to go, but some seemed ready to stay home next May 12.
Footnote: Campbell has been seen as a one-man government, certainly setting the agenda on big issues like climate change, which adds to the problems if people decide he's the wrong guy. Don't expect any real talk of replacing him, but the poll suggests some big challenges ahead for the Liberals.\

Harper chose fall election over principle

Stephen Harper seems about to force an election on Canadians on completely bogus grounds.
And, at the same time, he's breaking a key promise from the last election campaign.
Harper has launched a blizzard of phony excuses over the last few days to try and justify an election.
But really, this is just about political opportunism. It's exactly the kind of abuse of power Harper promise to end in two election campaigns. Once the Conservatives won, as part of his commitment to improve democracy, he followed B.C.'s lead and established four-terms for governments.
"Fixed election dates prevent governments from calling snap elections for short-term political advantage," Harper said. "They level the playing field for all parties."
So the Conservatives passed a law. The next election was to be Oct. 19, 2009.
But Harper's law is full of holes and now he's decided short-term political advantage isn't so bad after all.
The Liberals don't have much money and aren't really ready for an elections.
And things could get worse for the Conservatives, especially on the economy, by next fall.
So Harper looks ready to call an election. He's tried to come up with justifications, but the arguments are empty, and kind of insulting.
Parliament has become "dysfunctional," he says, whatever that means. There has been "impasse" on a range of issues, the prime minister complains. The Liberals have different policies than the Conservatives.
It's all apparently just too much.
Except there is no deadlock. The Conservatives haven't been stopped from governing. Their budget and tax program passed. Crime bills have made their way through Parliament. The Conservatives have made changes in ministries and at least a start on increasing military capability.
Even the commitment to keep fighting in Afghanistan until 2011 was reached in a way that suited the Harper government. For a minority government, the Conservatives have had a pretty free hand, thanks in large part to the Liberals' disarray.
There has been lots of bad behaviour and partisan jockeying, particularly in Parliamentary committees.
But the Conservatives have contributed their share to the shabbiness; the Prime Minister's Office gave committee chairs a manual on how disrupt and delay things to make sure that nothing would come out that embarrassed the government.
Those are peripheral. The main point is that the Conservatives have been able to govern. They have never lost a vote on a significant bill, let alone a confidence vote.
It's possible they have felt constrained by being a minority government. Harper hinted at that this week, saying that even if an election produced another minority government, the party in power will have a "mandate to proceed and to proceed quite aggressively for some period of time." (That might make some voters nervous.)
But this is the Parliament that Canadians chose - Conservative minority, with strong counterbalancing forces. Harper has shown no reason to ignore the will of the public.
It might be better if Harper took a more candid approach, and just said he decided he'd made a mistake in giving up the political advantage by committing to fixed election dates. The Liberals are weak and it's a good time to try for a majority, he could argue.
Harper mentor Tom Flanagan, a University of Calgary political science professor, thinks the goal is more strategic. The Liberals are having trouble raising money. An election would be expensive. Another leadership race, if leader Stephane Dion got dumped, would require more fundraising and divide the party.
As long as the Conservatives keep win at least minority governments, they could plunge the Liberals into years of hard times.
The parties are all pretending to be ready and eager for an election, though that's not likely too.
The big losers are the Canadian people. The election will cost some $200 million, a fair chunk of it from taxpayers. And there is no indication the public is looking for a chance to pick a new government.
Footnote: So what would the election be about? Mostly, it seems likely, about how bad the other guys are. Harper will talk about Dion's carbon tax and say he's too free-spending. Dion will say Harper has forgotten ordinary Canadians and is too right-wing. It won't be pretty.

STV and the legislative goon show

Sometimes Gregor Robertson had this slightly dazed expression on his face in the legislature, like someone who has shown up at a party, realizes he's the only sober person in a crowd full of rowdy drunks and isn't sure how long he has to stay.
Carole Taylor had a different look, sitting serenely at her desk with an expression that hinted she wasn't even prepared to acknowledge the party-goers dancing in the koi pond in their droopy underwear.
David Cubberley's look - a half-embarrassed smile - suggested he'd decided to be a good sport about the whole weird business.
All three were keen on being MLAs in 2005, when they were first elected. And barely three years later, they've had enough. None of the three is running again.
That should worry us. It suggests that our style of politics, and in some part the abusive, stupid things that go to often in the legislative chambers, are driving sensible people from the job.
Robertson was billed as a rising NDP star in the 2005 election. A youngish, good-looking, earnest guy who had started a successful wholesome juice business - he was a dream candidate.
But he never made an impact, at least a public one. And it certainly looked like he found the legislature foolishness somewhere between inexplicable and repugnant.
Taylor made much more of an impact as finance minister. She just refused to participate in the foolishness and acted like a serious, courteous person who had an important job to do. And as a result, did it well. But only for one term.
Cubberley, a NDP MLA for the Victoria area, should have thrived in the job. He'd spent years in government on the policy side and more than decade as municipal councillor. But he didn't last either.
All three had good reasons for not running again, as did the other MLAs packing it in.
And there are lots of drawbacks to the work, from long hours to the required adherence to the party line, often dictated without much consultation.
But still, the legislature itself - especially question period - is both part of the problem and a symptom.
It is really appalling most of the time. Shouting, insults, bad questions and worse non-answers. Most days, at least some MLAs act out in ways that get them kicked out of a Grade 6 class. Almost none of them would act in the same way around the kitchen table or at a meeting back in their ridings. It's irritating or embarrassing, depending on the day.
And it's got to be demoralizing for a sensible MLA.
It doesn't have to be such a horror show. In fact, after the 2005 election - perhaps because there were so many new MLAs - the tone wasn't bad for a while. But things deteriorated in time.
Which leads, in a roundabout way, to the referendum, to be held at the same time as next May's provincial election, on changing the way governments are elected in B.C.
This is a repeat of the 2005 referendum. A majority of voters - 58 per cent - wanted to change to a single-transferable-vote system of proportional representation.
But the referendum law required 60-per-cent support. The proposal failed.
Premier Gordon Campbell, to his credit, said that because the results were so close, the public should get another chance to vote on the change in May.
It will take a separate column to look at all aspects of the STV option. But one huge advantage is that candidates' qualities and reputations would become more important. It would not be enough to be a New Democrat in a traditionally left-leaning riding; you would have to be seen as the best representative from several NDP candidates.
And that would mean, I hope, a different kind of legislature - one where the loud and obnoxious no longer felt at home.
Footnote: Some of the enthusiasm for electoral reform might have faded since Campbell launched the project in 2001, after the second straight election that produced wildly unrepresentative results. This time, however, the yes and no sides will both have provincial funding to make their cases.

Harper’s drug flyers a dishonest abuse of tax dollars

The federal Conservatives seem set on confirming many people’s worst fears with their sleazy, dishonest and just plain stupid direct mail pieces to millions of Canada homes.
And at the same time, they’re playing fast and loose with taxpayers’ money, pretending that partisan promotional material is legitimate communication between MPs and the public.
You’ve seen them. The flyers are cheap looking single sheets, with a picture or two of Steven Harper and a headline on some issue. Then there’s a ballot, with an arrow aimed at Harper’s name.
And the flyer likely came to your mailbox from some Conservative MP you’ve never heard of in another province.
MPs can send mail at no cost; the government compensates Canada Post. The intent is to let them keep their constituents informed. (You can write MPs without putting stamps on the envelopes too.)
But these aren’t information pieces. And they’re not going to the people MPs represent. They’re political ads, masquerading as legitimate communications.
A lot of people voted for Harper’s party because they were sick of seeing these kinds of abuses. They wanted a moral, conservative government that respected the rules and the need to spend taxpayers’ money responsibly. They expected better.
And other people voted for them because recent Liberal governments appalled them. Some worried a Conservative government might impose an aggressive social conservative agenda, but decided to trust Harper.
And a flyer that has attracted a lot of attention has made a lot of them figure that was a mistake.
It has a picture on the outside of a syringe laying a playground, and a big headline: “Safe?”
Inside, there’s a jail door and more headlines: “Junkies and drug pushers don’t belong near children and families. They should be in rehab or behind bars.”
The Liberals let thugs and drug pushers write the rules, the flyer says. The Conservatives will “keep junkies in rehab and off the streets.”
It’s really offensive, perhaps mostly because the flyer assumes Canadians are both dumb and lacking in basic compassion. While many Canadians might be sick of dealing with the effects of addiction, they are not stupid.
The language in the flyers tells part of the story. A junkie is someone you sweep off the street, into the garbage. An addict, someone with a mental illness, they are people – someone’s son or daughter. And most of us – most of the time – see that.
And the wording of “keep junkies in rehab and off the streets” is plain dishonest on two levels.
No party – including the Conservatives – has called for compulsory detention and treatment for people with addictions.
It wouldn’t work, it raises a slew of rights issues and Canadians wouldn’t stand for government round ups of thousands of people in B.C. alone.
The capital region has 1,500 to 2,000 injection drug users, and thousands more with other addictions. Would a Harper majority government send squadrons out to drag them all off to rehab?
And where, exactly, would they go? There are about 100 residential spaces for the entire Vancouver Island. How would the Conservatives increase treatment capacity 40 or 50 times?
While the government is promising to lock up thousands of people, addicts who want to get clean today and seek help are being told there is no space for them and sent back to the streets.
And this all came as Health Minister Tony Clement accused the Canadian Medical Association members of unethical conduct because the organization supports safe injection sites. All the legitimate research shows the sites reduce sickness and death and connect users with other services, including treatment. There are no negative consequences.
But Clement doesn’t like the idea, so Canada’s doctors are accused of acting unethically.
There is a lot to be said for a true conservative party – one that respects individual rights and taxpayers’ money and approaches problems pragmatically.
Too bad Canada doesn’t have one.
Footnote: It’s odd, really. The Conservatives’ dishonest flyers might be appealing to a minority who already would likely vote for them. But in the process, there are scaring away the voters Harper needs to win a majority – moderate Canadians who just want competent, pragmatic government.

Campbell’s raises a poke in eye for public

There is no way in the world Gordon Campbell can justify the giant pay increases just handed to government senior managers.
Not that he bothered to try.
No owner of private business would throw his own money around so irresponsibly. A corporate exec who did would be grilled by the board.
About 150 people are eligible the big increases. Assistant deputy ministers are in line for retroactive raises of 22 per cent, in one jump. The new top rate of pay for the job is $195,000.
Deputy ministers - the chief operating officers of ministries - are in line for 35-per-cent raises, taking them to $299,215.
And the deputy minister to the premier, the top manager in government, gets a 43-per-cent raise in pay scale, from $240,000 to $348,600. That's a $108,600 raise, equivalent to seven years of full-time work at minimum wage.
Organizations sometimes have to pay big money to get the best talent. That's why some NHL team will end up paying Mats Sundin $8 million a year to play hockey.
And market forces could apply equally to the need to pay a big premium to attract the best scientists, doctors - or managers.
But well-managed organizations only spend the money when they have to.
The Campbell government has offered no argument that it needs to send salaries skyward to attract competent people. The only justification offered in the news release on the increases was a desire to make B.C.'s pay scale for top managers one of the highest of any government in Canada.
In fact, the government didn't issue the release until a Friday after the increases had already taken effect. Campbell was off in China, unable to explain or defend the huge pay hikes. The best other government reps could do was note that not all senior managers would necessarily get the raises.
There was apparently some sort of salary review, but the government hasn't released it.
These are not catch-up increases, needed because pay scales have been neglected.
Managers have been getting raises every year. And just two years ago, the government announced major increases and the promise that the pay scales would stand until 2010.
In that round of raises, the top pay for deputy ministers was increased by nine per cent and for assistant deputy ministers by 40 per cent.
So, since the 2005 election the government has handed senior managers pay scale increases of 50 per cent to 70 per cent.
But there has been no evidence of high turnover or difficulty filling these positions. While some of the jobs are demanding, the compensation - before these extraordinary increases - put them in the top one or two per cent of wage earners. And many of the jobs don't pose the kind of challenges that justify the pay scale.
And the incumbents all took the jobs knowing what the pay scales were and presumably considering it acceptable.
The cost of the increases is estimated at some $4 million a year.
But that's just the start. The government increased pay for MLAs by 29 per cent - and the premier by 54 per cent - last year. Defenders of the increase noted that elected representatives were falling behind the bureaucrats. This opens the door for more increases.
And everyone working in government, starting with managers one level below, can now make the argument that they too need increases for just the same reasons.
The raises, and the way they were introduced, show a remarkable disdain for the public. Campbell had to know that there would be anger and concern.
Yet he made no effort to explain, defend or justify the extraordinary windfall for those at the top of the public service period. There was no indication that government even felt a need to justify its actions.
It's a far cry from the political party that campaigned in 2001 on the need for accountability and responsibility in spending taxpayers' money.
Footnote: The whole affair should be discouraging for the NDP, which has made a questionable pledge to roll back the increases. It suggests the Liberals feel they can thumb their noses at the public and still win next May's election.

Government stalling on broken police complaints process

It could have been funny, if it weren't such a serious issue.
B.C.'s police complaints process is broken. Four years after the police complaints commissioner started changes were badly needed to make the system work better, and 18 months after a review recommended 91 changes, the government hasn't acted to fix it.
So the B.C. Civil Liberties Association and other groups that help people who feel they have been wronged by police announced a boycott.
From now on, they will encourage people with complaints to sue the officers or force involved.
Police don't like the idea. Tom Stamatakis, head of the Vancouver police union, warned the court process would be costly and time-consuming. It would take too long to get decisions, he added. "By the time you get to an outcome, you lose the opportunity to learn from it."
Stamatakis should spend some time with Thomas McKay and his family.
On April 23, 2004, McKay was celebrating the end of the college year. He was arrested for causing a disturbance and being intoxicated in public. At the police cells, in handcuffs, he was pushed or tripped to the floor. He suffered a serious head injury.
McKay's father believed unnecessary force had been used. Within four days, he filed a complaint with the Victoria Police Department. That's the start of the current process.
But there are no timelines in the legislation. Victoria police didn't complete their internal investigation for 19 months - an inexplicable delay. The officer had done nothing wrong, the force found.
Police complaints commissioner Dirk Ryneveld examined the internal review and concluded further investigation was required. That's part of the process too.
He took only three weeks to ask for the review. But it took Victoria police 10 months to review their own investigation - and come back with the same conclusion.
That's 2 1⁄2 years, with little to show.
The police complaints commissioner still wasn't satisfied with internal review and ordered a public hearing on the complaint.
That began last month, more than four years after McKay's father went to police with a complaint his son had mistreated and injured. (The hearing was adjourned until fall because of McKay's continuing problems from his head injury.)
It's not likely the McKays would be buy Stamatakis' argument that the current system delivers results in a timely way.
The case is not an aberration. Delays are the norm.
Those aren't the only problems.
In February 2007, former appeal court justice Josiah Wood delivered a review of the complaints process the province had commissioned.
On a key point, his report pleased police. He didn't feel that B.C., like four other provinces, should create a separate investigative unit to deal with complaints.
Police could continue to investigate themselves, with officers from another department doing the review in some cases.
But he also recommended 91 changes.
Woods also audited 294 complaints against the 11 municipal police departments covered by the provincial policy as part of his review. (RCMP detachments, even those providing municipal policing, do not accept the province's complaint process.)
He found 19 per cent of the complaints had not been properly investigated. In some cases, complaints that clearly should have been upheld were dismissed.
The more serious the complaint, the greater chance of a flawed or incomplete internal review by police.
Wood's audit found, for example, that 38 per cent - more than one-third - of complaints that police used excessive force weren't properly investigated.
The finding makes it hard to accept the recommendation that police should continue to investigate themselves.
What's even harder to accept is the government's inaction on Wood's recommendations and the changes sought by Ryneveld.
With a fall legislative session unlikely, change could be put off until next year, 2010 or indefinitely.
We ask police to do a tough, sometimes dangerous job and give them considerable powers. It's necessary that their be a process to guard against abuse of those powers.
And in B.C., that process isn't working.
Footnote: The RCMP won't accept the B.C. complaints process and its own is hopelessly inadequate. Those who feel they have been wronged can complain to the RCMP Commission for Public Complaints. But the commission relies on the RCMP's own investigation and the top Mountie routinely rewrite its reports to eliminate criticism of officers' actions.

Kindergarten for three-year-olds a great idea

I've been doing newspapering work for quite a few years, in quite a few places. It's like building sand castles below the tide line in some ways. The best column is forgotten in a few days.
But ask me what I'm proudest of, and I can answer in a flash. It started with a column and ended with a letter from a premier.
Columns can come easily. This one did. I was standing outside a school portable on a freezing day in a suburb of Saint John. (The one in New Brunswick.)
I'd lined up to register our ferociously bright daughter for a great kindergarten.
New Brunswick was and is a have-not province. Kindergarten wasn't part of the school system. If you wanted your child to go, you had to pay.
And I looked at the line of parents, and thought this was crazy. We were affluent and had been able to give our kids a lot already. Now, we were setting them up for success when they started Grade 1.
But in Saint John's scruffier neighbourhoods, or in rural communities, the children who really could benefit from kindergarten didn't get the chance.
Imagine how awful it would be to show up for the first day of Grade 1 and find out a bunch of the other kids - the ones who had been to kindergarten - knew what to do, and you didn't. You're six. You figure you're just not as smart.
That was the column, and it was good. I was in charge and our papers kept on writing about public kindergarten.
I left Saint John for a job in another province. But a few months after I'd headed down the road, New Brunswick introduced public kindergarten for all five-year-olds. And Frank McKenna, the premier of the day, sent a kind note saying that when he had wavered on the change - an expensive hit for a poor province - he had reread some of the pieces from our newspaper.
Which leads, in a twisty way, back to B.C. In the throne speech in February, Gordon Campbell committed the government to "assess the feasibility and costs of full school day kindergarten for five-year- olds."
Campbell also promised a look at much more aggressive agenda - optional day-long kindergarten for four-year-olds by 2010, and for three-year-olds by 2012.
It was a bold commitment. But the government appears to be taking a serious look at a great new approach to early childhood education.
Research from the jurisdictions around the world that have tried such early schooling has been overwhelmingly positive. Children benefit academically and socially and the results are long-lasting. Almost all children make gains, but the help is greatest for those kids who start with disadvantages.
Which shouldn't be surprising. A child who grows up in an affluent home, perhaps with a stay-at-home mom, with parents who have experienced academic success, has a lot of advantages heading into school. Those children have likely done art classes and reading groups and already made a lot of progress.
A kid from a poor home, perhaps with parents who don't read all that well themselves, is likely to have much tougher time in those first critical years in school.
The Education Ministry is seeking public comments on the idea. (You can participate; the website is www.bced.gov.bc.ca/ecla/.) There's been big interest and the deadline has been extended to Aug. 15.
It's a big project and there are lots of questions, like who would teach and what it cost to provide places for 80,000 thee and four-year-olds.
Perhaps the program could start in a targeted away - offered wherever schools consistently perform poorly on FSA tests, for example.
But this is an opportunity to build a brighter future for the province and give a lot of children a better chance to the most of their abilities.
Footnote: Her's one sign the government is serious. The Education Ministry, which had effectively encouraged school closures through its funding program and by requiring districts to come up with large chunks of cash for capital projects, has now told school districts to hang on to underused properties in case space is needed for new kindergartens.

Innovation in severance, anyway

Les Leyne continues to mine the salary disclosure forms for public sector agencies and discovers that the B.C. InnovationCouncil devoted almosthalf its salary budget to severance payments to executives, including a CEO who only lasted seven months and manager who resigned voluntarily but got severance anyway.
Read it here.

Government’s attack on mentally disabled a moral failure

There's room for disagreement on lots of policy issues.
But when government passes a cabinet order so it can abandon people with developmental disabilities to the streets - or worse - that's just callous, and irresponsible.
We're not talking about borderline cases.
These are people who, by the government's own assessment, need support in making their way in life and face face terrible risks without it. Two court decisions have found the government has a legal duty to them.
But, on the recommendation of Premier Gordon Campbell and Children's Minister Tom Christensen, cabinet issued an edict this month that freed it from obeying the court rulings.
The issue is straightforward. The government has passed laws setting out its responsibility to help people who are genuinely unable to make their way in this world.
But the cabinet didn't really want to provide the support.
So an arbitrary rule was created. No matter how badly a developmentally disabled adult might need assistance, no matter how severe the problems or clear the looming disaster, if he scored 70 on an IQ test, he was cut off services.
Parents could spend years fighting for help for a young person with mental handicaps and serious problems - autism, FASD, emotional trauma. The support - social workers' time, housing, work programs - could be working, giving hope to all involved.
Everyone - doctors, counselors, family, social workers - might agree the young person couldn't make it on his own. They might even agree that without support he would be a danger to others, destined for the streets or jail.
But despite all that, the government said the magic IQ score of 70 absolved it of all responsibility. The same rule denied help for older people with disabilities when their parents, some in their 70s or 80s, could no longer provide the needed support.
A IQ of 70 to 80 puts a person in the bottom 10 per cent of the population in mental functioning. In a competitive society like ours, that's a big disadvantage. Add other problems and the situation is dire.
That's what the courts found when a Victoria mother challenged the policy. Her adoptive son, whose IQ was just over 70, had been receiving intensive daily support. Without it, the agency's own psychologist warned, the young man's disability, FASD, autism and other problems would make him a threat to himself and others in the community.
But Community Living B.C., the agency delivering services to the developmentally disabled on behalf of he government, said it would him he turned 19.
The B.C. Supreme Court ruled the arbitrary IQ cutoff violates the law setting up Community Living B.C., which said it was to provide needed services to help people independently. It didn't say needed services, unless the person scored over a certain level on an IQ test. The government challenged the decision in the B.C. Court of Appeal and lost.
The courts noted the government could pass a cabinet order exempting itself from the requirement.
But Christens said that would be wrong. A solution would be found.
But the cabinet shuffle took responsibility for services to adults with disabilities away from Christensen and handed them to the new Housing and Social Services Minister Rich Coleman.
Wrong became right and Christensen and Campbell signed the edict giving the government the right to deny help based on an IQ test.
Coleman says it's a temporary measure. Another pending lawsuit meant the government had to do something.
Which is rubbish. The lawsuit could have been delayed with an interim promise of continued services. The government consulted no one before making the change, which it didn't announce publicly.
And it has had two years since the court ruling - and five years since cabinet minister Linda Reid acknowledged the arbitrary IQ standard was wrong and should be changed - to deal with the issue.
Now people with serious disabilities, who could live successful lives, are being punished terribly for the government's.
It's one thing to disagree with government policies - that kind of debate is normal and healthy.
But this is a question of morality. The government, for no good reason, has placed itself above the law and chosen to make people whose lives are already difficult suffer
Footnote: Coleman and Campbell didn't consult the B.C. Association for Community Living, the Children and Youth Representative or anyone else on the change. Coleman's bleak record as a cabinet minister has been attributed in part to a failure to consult with those directly affected by government decisions. This decision has added to fears about his new role of minister for gambling, alcohol sales, welfare, the disabled and housing.

Poor people and lottery tickets

A comment on the gambling post - see below - included a link to this interesting study that looked at why the biggest buyers of lottery tickets are the people who can least afford to waste the money.

B.C.'s online gambling plan means more problems

The nice people at B.C. Lotteries have just offered me $5 to try online gambling.
"Pay for Play Promo Cash," they called it in the e-mail. If I go online to gamble, the corporation will match the money I spend up to $5.
The Crown corporation's marketing people are just doing their job. It has a goal of recruiting more gamblers every year and increasing the average amount each one loses. That's how the business grows.
But it seems risky - or perhaps just destructive - to try and lure people into online gambling, with its great risks of addiction or problem gambling.
Especially for this government. In opposition Gordon Campbell opposed gambling because it destroyed lives and families and created a province of "losers." The party promised to halt gambling expansion.
And then did the opposite, including the introduction of Internet gambling in 2005.
It's a risky kind of kind of gambling to be promoting through e-mails sent to thousands of people like me.
A study released last week found online gamblers "play" more frequently and bet more aggressively than those who go to casinos. The study, by professors from the University of Western Ontario and the University of Nevada, found Internet gambling participants gambled much more frequently and risked more than people who went to casinos or bought lottery tickets.
Their gambling was easier to hide from family and friends and more likely to become part of their daily routine.
All in all, a higher risk activity with a greater likelihood of problems for the gamblers and their families.
The study concluded that governments should consider getting into the business, perhaps in partnership with casino companies, to protect gamblers from the risks of semi-legal Internet betting sites.
That might justify B.C. Lotteries early ventures into Internet gambling.
But the study raises some questions at the same time, starting with the wisdom of trying to offer cash to people to come online and bet.
B.C. Lotteries sets targets for the number of new gamblers - people who bet in some way each month - that it wants to recruit. Those have been public, part of the corporation's service plan, until this year.
Last year, for example, the corporation planned to use ad campaigns and promotions to recruit 240,000 new regular gamblers in B.C. (In fact, the number of gamblers dropped as a result of the scandals that hit the corporation.)
The government sets out to lure people who had stayed away from gambling and into buying lottery tickets or putting money into slot machines down at the local bingo hall.
Or into gambling online, a kind of betting that attracts younger participants.
B.C. Lotteries has set some significant limits to reduce the potential damage from its Internet gambling. Participants can't transfer more than $120 a week into their gambling accounts, so an individual's losses are limited to $6,240 a year, assuming he hasn't managed to set up one or two accounts in other peoples' names.
The corporation has controls to ensure gamblers are 19 and bar themselves from future betting on the site.
But the study suggested greater safeguards: Cross-checking new users with a list of pathological gamblers; having the site send messages when people have lost a lot of money or are playing long hours; and clear and large numbers on screen to tell the gambler how much he had lost during a betting session.
More fundamentally, it recommended government-controlled Internet gambling as a necessary evil. If people wanted to bet online, better it was regulated.
That's different than setting out to persuade people who otherwise wouldn't gamble that they should start betting.
Online gambling hasn't worked that well for B.C. Lotteries. The goal was to hit $18 million in revenue last year, but it fell short at $14 million. But the corporation still hopes people will be betting $48 million a year by 2010.
And some of that money is going to come from individuals and families who really can't afford to join Campbell's club of "losers."
Footnote: B.C. Lotteries online offerings include Keno and round-the-clock sports betting as well as "interactive games." These involve bettors, by letting them do things like click on balls to try and keep them aloft. But the clicking is actually meaningless in terms of the outcome, which is determined by a computer as soon as the bet is placed. Like the whirring and spinning of slot machines, it's just a way of keeping people involved so they lose more money.

Cabinet betrays young disabled adults who badly need help

I'll deal with the issue in a column, but here's the first response from the B.C. Association of Community Living to cabinet order signed by the premier that's disastrous for disabled people in the province who badly need support.
Two court rulings have rejected a government edict denied support to people with IQs of 70 or above, even if they were assessed as needing help.
So cabinet, instead of its obligations, simply passed an order exempting the government from its own rules.


BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: GOVERNMENT QUIETLY TURNS ITS BACK ON VULNERABLE YOUTH

New Westminster, B.C., July 23, 2008 - The BC Association for Community Living (BCACL) is deeply concerned by recent changes made by the provincial government to the regulations of the Community Living Authority Act, in regards to I.Q. eligibility requirements. This is the Act and regulations that guide the work of Community Living BC (CLBC), the crown corporation that is responsible for supports and services to people with developmental disabilities in BC.

Faced with a second court case filed by the Community Legal Assistance Society (CLAS) on behalf of a youth who did not meet CLBC's eligibility criteria based on I.Q., the provincial government has changed the regulation to enshrine an I.Q. of 70 or below as a criterion for receiving services. The change was made without any community consultation or notice.

This effectively means that those youth with significant social or behavioural issues - in particular young adults with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) or autism who have an I.Q. over 70 and who require individualized support - are left to fend for themselves. Too often this is resulting in youth being forced to leave a safe home and at worst, the criminal justice system becomes the default support system.

Community advocates have been unanimously urging government, across all ministries, to move away from traditional psychological assessment tools that focus on I.Q. and to develop mechanisms that effectively and equitably assess individual needs. Instead of resolving the issue, the government, with the stroke of a pen, has removed any hope of recourse for families who are desperate for services for their young adult children. This is devastating for many families.

"This regressive step by the government is only a further example of the sweeping changes that happen behind closed doors, without any community consultation and at the expense of those most vulnerable," says Laney Bryenton, BCACL Executive Director. "It is completely unacceptable that vulnerable youth will be denied the services they so desperately need to achieve independence."

 

Big pay for small executive jobs at B.C. Rail

Among the surprises in last week's release of figures on management pay in the B.C. public sector was news that the B.C. Rail CEO Kevin Mahoney received $570,000 in total compensation to run a business with $18 million in revenues, fewer than 30 employees and not much to do.
Sean Holman has been on the story over the last week and Les Leyne weighs in with a column in today's Times Colonist.

The unofficial official 2010 theme song

I caught Geoff Berner up at the Vancouver Island Music Fest a couple of years ago and was impressed with his quirky, biting songs and sharp wit.
He's written a theme song for the 2010 Games, with one of those infectious choruses that will be sure to get you singing along. Check it out at his website..

Watchdog finds bungling, negligence in forest deal that enriched company

After the auditor general's devastating report on the government's incompetence and negligence in removing vast tracts of prime Vancouver Island land from a tree farm licence, things shouldn't have got much worse.
Within hours, they did.
Current Forests Minister Pat Bell responded to the report as if he hadn't read a single word.
Instead of accepting the recommendations, or offering a fact-based rebuttal, he attacked Auditor General John Doyle, an Australian chosen for the independent post by a unanimous vote of the legislature. "If Mr. Doyle thinks this is the way we do business in Canada, he's dead wrong," Bell blustered.
It was a lame attempt to divert attention from the most damning auditor general's report since the fast ferry scandal.
And a written response from the ministry, while it raised some sound points, did nothing to refute the auditor general's main findings.
Last year, then forests minister Rich Coleman handed Western Forest Products a big gift. The international corporation wanted the government to release 70,000 acres, including prime real estate along the coast of Victoria, from tree farm licences.
The land had been protected as working forest and managed under the same rules as Crown land. In return, the government had provided extra harvesting rights on Crown land.
Getting the land out of the tree farm licence meant up to $200 million in windfall gains for WFP, which could sell it for real estate development, export more raw logs and work to lower environmental standards.
But for communities, the change meant loss of wildlife habitat, green space and other economic opportunities.
All development planning became irrelevant when Coleman signed the deal and what had been 280 square kilometres of protected green space was opened for subdivisions.
The auditor general found Coleman made the decision without knowing how much the deal was worth to the corporation. He didn't seek compensation - normal in such deals - because he wanted to company to get all the benefits.
Coleman thought Western Forest Product needed the money to strengthen its balance sheet.
But he didn't how much it needed, or whether other sources besides the taxpayers were available or what Western Forest Products would do with the windfall.
And he made the decision without any consultation with affected communities or other stakeholders and without information on the costs to the public.
Coleman got a five-page briefing note from the ministry and said OK. He's never offered any explanation beyond saying the company needed the money and supporting it was good for the coastal forest industry. But Coleman could never produce an analysis or cost-benefit study to justify the decision.
In fact, the auditor general asked Coleman for a meeting as part of his reviews so he could understand the minister's thinking. Coleman refused. (Which makes Bell's bluster more ridiculous.)
The auditor general found the removal was made "without sufficient regard for the public interest."
The government failed to do the most basic due diligence to see if the company really did need assistance.
And the watchdog found the government failed to make any effort to assess whether the gift to the corporation would be of any public benefit, whether in protecting forest jobs or in some other area.
Coleman had made the decision based on a five-page briefing note, which Doyle found was "incomplete" and "did not make a persuasive case for allowing the land removal."
The option of compensation wasn't even considered in the material.
"There was no explanation of how allowing the land removal was in the public interest," the report found.
And Coleman was ultimately responsible.
"The minister was the final check in the process and the statutory decision-maker but, given the importance of the decision, he did not do enough to ensure that due regard was given to the public interest," the auditor general concluded.
It's a devastating report, one that finds both incompetence and negligence.
Footnote: Bell's bizarre reaction included a complaint that there were no recommendations in the report, as if a call for basic competence and diligence was not enough.
Coleman's place in cabinet should be in count as a result of the report, particularly given the sensitivity of his new role responsible for welfare and services for the disabled.
Premier Gordon Campbell also faces some tough questions about his role.

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

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

Khadr video confirms Canada’s disgrace

Most of us haven't paid much attention to the case of Omar Khadr, the Canadian captured by U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan in 2002.
Khadr, then 16, was shot twice in the back during the fight; the Americans believe he threw a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier.
Since then, he's been a prisoner, mostly at Guantanamo Bay, the detention centre the U.S. set up in Cuba to escape its own and international laws on the treatment of prisoners.
Other western countries, including Britain and Australia, have repatriated their nationals from Guantanamo because of concerns about prisoner abuse and the lack of rights.
Canada, even though Khadr was a boy when he was captured, hasn't made any effort to bring him here to be dealt with in our courts.
And the Canadian government has insisted that it was monitoring the situation and Khadr was being treated humanely.
That probably reassured a lot of people, who then felt they didn't need to think much about the case.
Khadr said he was tortured, but both the Liberal and Conservative governments said everything was fine.
Except the Canadian government lied to us.
CSIS and Canadian Foreign Affairs officials questioned Khadr in 2003 and 2004, when he was still not old enough to vote here.
The government knew then that the Guantanamo interrogation experts had decided to soften up Khadr before the Canadian officials arrived.
For three weeks, the teen was moved to a different cell of holding area every three hours night and day. That's three weeks with no real sleep or human contact.
I'm no expert in international law. But I'm a parent, and if a child of mine were treated that way, I'd call it torture.
And I'd certainly call any government that said the treatment was "humane" both dishonest and morally bankrupt.
The U.S. interest in Khadr is understandable. His parents were Islamic extremists who lived in Toronto and Pakistan. His father was killed in an anti-terrorist raid in 2003. Omar played with Osama bin Laden's children.
When he was captured, less than a year after the attack on the World Trade Centre, the U.S. was desperate for any information on bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
So interrogators started questioning the 15-year-old as soon as he regained consciousness in a U.S. military hospital at Bagram in Afghanistan.
The first U.S. interrogator told Michelle Shephard of the Toronto Star that it was "neat" to watch Khadr's vital signs change on the life support machines as he answered questions.
Humane treatment, says the Canadian government.
Khadr's interrogators at Bagram included U.S. Sgt. Joshua Claus, later convicted of maltreatment and assault in the killing of another prisoner - an innocent Afghan taxi driver - during questioning. Claus says he didn't torture Khadr; censored statements by Khadr suggest he did.
Given that governments lied about humane treatment, it is hard to accept claims that Khadr was not tortured.
This week, the videos of the Canadian officials questioning of Khadr were released by court order.
They show no torture.
But they do show what you would expect: A scared 16-year-old, trapped indefinitely in a detention centre, threatened and sleep-deprived, who thinks the Canadian officials are there to rescue him.
He soon learns that's not true. The hidden camera captures him pleading with them to "Help me" or "Kill me." The words aren't clear.
The bare facts should shame Canadians. A child soldier brainwashed by his parents - anyone who knows 15-year-olds knows they are mostly big kids - is captured.
The evidence on whether he threw the grenade is uncertain.
He's abused and says whatever his captors want to hear.
While Guantanamo Bay prisoners from every other western nation are repatriated, Canada won't ask for Khadr's return and questions him - after three weeks of abuse - and turns the results over to the U.S.
And the federal government - under both the Liberals and the Conservatives - lies to Canadians about Khadr's treatment and won't make the simple effort to have him returned here to face a legitimate court.
Footnote: The video released this week made headlines around the world. Most of the coverage focused on the abominable treatment Khadr had received, the pathetic state he was in and the Canadian government's inexplicable failure to do the right thing.