Finance ministry records included faked B.C. Rail sale e-mails

A few days ago, I posted e-mails from finance ministry files that indicated former New Democrat MLAs Paul Ramsey, Gordon Wilson, Helmut Geisbrecht and others plotting to attack Gordon Campbell's B.C. Rail sale.
They were fake, as Paul Ramsey has already said.
Wilson has added his notice that the e-mails were bogus.

"I can assure you that I did not author any email to Ramsey on the sale of BC Rail. During my time in politics I was a vocal critic of Campbell's desire to sell off the Railway, and predicted that he would do so despite his constant denials to the contrary.
I am not sure who wrote those emails or why anyone would go to such lengths to try to engage those named. It is quite bizarre, but then so is the whole episode even to the extent to which it has been kept out of the public spotlight.
Gordon Wilson"

So, who was behind the e-mails?

Binder 5: E-mails fake says, ex-Liberal MLA

Paul Nettleton also says the finance ministry e-mail files allegedly showing a campaign against the BC Rail are fakes.

"Your recent blog on BCR was brought to my attention with specific reference to my "letter to former Transportation Minister Reid" on the BCR sale. At no time did I correspond with Minister Reid at the direction of Lois Boone (former NDP Transportation Minister) and/or anyone else in the NDP. Furthermore at no time did anyone in the NDP request that I do so!
Paul Nettleton"

BC Rail paid firms of Liberal campaign co-chair for services

The New Democrats asked about questions yersterday about $297,000 in payments from B.C. Rail to the consulting firms of Patrick Kinsella, the Liberals' campaign co-chair in 2001 and 2005. Sean Holman sets out the details here. It's worth searching on Kinsella on publiceyeonline.com for background.
An alert reader posted an interesting Hansard exchange from May 28, 2003, on my site. The exchange came during debate on the budget for the premier's office.

J. MacPhail: A longtime Liberal Party fundraiser is Patrick Kinsella. He is the lobbyist for CN. Has the Premier or any of his ministers met with Mr. Kinsella and representatives of CN?

Hon. G. Campbell: I don't have an answer for that. As the member opposite knows, if she wants to know about specific meeting times with either myself or the minister, she can do that through freedom of information.

J. MacPhail: My gosh, I didn't think he would refer me to that, because I'm going to get into freedom of information and this government's record on that.

Binder 5: Paul Ramsey says he's never seen the e-mails referred to in the post below

Former NDP cabinet minister Paul Ramsey says he's never seen, and certainly didn't write, any of the e-mails in Finance Ministry files that supposedly include comments from him on the B.C. Rail deal.

"Very strange, Mr. Willcocks, very strange," he said in an e-mail today.
"I did not write the July 10, 2003 e-mail that appears in Binder 5 with my name on it. I never saw any secret "documents" that discussed the BC Rail sale. I was not part of any co-ordinated NDP attack on the sale--though I certainly thought it was a dumb idea (for both policy and political reasons) and said so in print and on the air. I never discussed the sale of BC Rail with Joy (MacPhail, I assume). And I don't know who Ron Cannan is."

I have no doubt that's Ramsey being candid and straightforward.
And I have no idea what's going on here.

Binder 5: New Democrats plot against the B.C. Rail sale, and the government gets the e-mails

Note: See post above. Paul Ramsey says he's never seen and didn't write any of these e-mails. Which raises a whole lot of questions about how bogus e-mails ended up in Finance Ministry files.

But how did e-mails supposedly between former NDP cabinet minister Paul Ramsey, ex-Liberal leader and later New Democrat Gordon Wilson and defeated NDP backbencher Helmut Giesbrecht end up in finance ministry files? Wilson was replaced as Liberal leader by Gordon Campbell; Ramsey represented a Prince George riding until 2001, and Giesbrecht represented Skeena until 2001.
Assuming the trio were not keen on telegraphing their plans to attack the sale of B.C. Rail, how did the Liberals get their hands on the 2003 e-mail exchange?
A mole in their midst? Carelessness? Or are the e-mails faked?
The e-mails are among some 8,000 pages of material — much of it blanked out — released to defence lawyers in the B.C. Rail corruption case under FOI requests. The NDP has posted them here .

“We should fine tune our strategy on rail,” Wilson allegedly wrote in a July 10 e-mail to Ramsey and Giesbrecht. “It will go to cabinet on July 23. Believe me gentlemen this is going to be more controversial than the Coq deal. We have the potential to really nail the coffin shut. Its clear the only thing Campbell cares about is the bottom line. We need to hit them fast and hard on this.” Wilson says cabinet will give the sale the “green light” at the meeting. “It is obvious from what I have seen from our friends, the tax advantages make it almost certain that CN will be the only suitor for B.C. Rail. Paul have you spoken to Joy or Lois? Even the stuff on raiding pension funds is good. Campbell won’t be able to find a place to hide. He will regret his promise not to sell bcr. Everywhere you look the word sale is mentioned.”

Giesbrecht's supposedly sent a response to Ramsey and Wilson within 15 minutes.
“I agree with you. Our good fortune is really hard to comprehend. I spoke to Lois the other day she is working hard with the unions. She spoke to nettleton yesterday and convinced him to write a strongly worded letter to reid. Once the negotiating team is given their obvious bottom line mandate, that will be the time to crank things up considerably. The order of the bids is not what I would have expected. Campbell will dread the word ‘sale’ every time it is mentioned!” (Reid likely refers to then transportation minister Judith Reid and Nettleton to Prince George MLA Paul Nettleton, who by then had been bounced from the Liberal caucus. Lois would be former Prince George NDP MLA Lois Boone.)

Ramsey allegedly responds to Wilson and Giesbrecht that evening.
“I spoke to Lois yesterday. She is beginning to ratchet up the pressure. I advised her to lay low until cabinet decides on july 23. The comments by cibc have been incredibly helpful. That just confirmed to me this was already a done deal. The job losses will be staggering… I can’t believe our stroke of luck. Please ensure you do not pass those documents to anybody else. Let’s keep them under wraps. I have put a call into Lois. I did speak to Joy. She called ron cannan to touch base and stir the pot some more. When I hear what transpired I will fill you in. It’s my understanding Campbell will be trying to sell this to his cabinet up in sechelt. Let’s hope they don’t develop a backbone overnight.”
(CIBC World Markets had been hired to organize the sale and a company analyst had caused a stir by suggesting CN was the logical buyer. Ron Cannan was then a Kelowna councilor who opposed the sale; now he’s a Conservative MP. The cabinet met in Sechelt on July 15; Reid did a telephone press call that day to try and ease fears about the sale and potential job losses.)

Finally, Giesbrecht is supposed to have e-mailed 10 former NDP MLAs on July 11 – Jom Doyle, Lois Boone, Corky Evans, David Zirnhelt, Erda Walsh, Steve Orcherton, Pietro Calendino, Glenn Robertson. Bill Goodacre and Moe Sihota.

“This is the latest. When we get a decision after July 23 I will follow up at that time.”

And there the record stops.

Who is paying lawyers for Basi and Virk?

The New Democrats have posted most of the 8,000-odd pages of material released to the defence in the B.C. Rail sale corruption case here .
I suggested it was a good chance to test citizen journalism; take a look and see if there's something you find noteworthy, and post it here - or anywhere else.
Having slogged through Binder 3, I note that Vaughn Palmer certainly makes people in government nervous.
And that taxpayers are, apparently, picking up the spectacular legal expenses for Dave Basi and Bob Virk. Documents in the binder say the deputy minister of finance and the deputy attorney general approved the indemnity in July 2005.
Taxpayers would pick up the tab for legal costs "in criminal procedures against them arising from conduct that was in the course of their employment as ministerial assistants." The reasons, offered in a briefing note, have been kept secret.
Another memo says, "Both of these individuals were told, as part of the correspondence related to the termination of their employment, that the province would consider giving them indemnity."
Which seems reasonable. If you're doing your job and end up in facing criminal charges related to your work, your employer should support unless clearly improper behaviour has taken place. That certainly hasn't been established.
And it's especially critical in this case. The prosecution appears to have a limitless budget, with a number of lawyers under special prosecutor Bill Beradino working on the case.
And, of course, remember that Glen Clark's legal costs were paid by the public, as they should have been.

Time to become a reporter

The New Democrats have posted most of the 8,000-odd pages of material released to the defence in the B.C. Rail sale corruption case here . It's your chance to be a reporter. Spend some time, find something interesting and post it as a comment, or somewhere else. Wikijournalism, you could call it.

Can the RCMP survive with its credibility gone?

I covered court in Alberta for a little while. RCMP officers often testified. Sometimes, they were a little evasive or obviously coached.
But almost invariably, I assumed you could trust their version of events.
More importantly, so did judges and juries.
Now the Dziekanski inquiry evidence shows that is no longer true.
The inquiry into Robert Dziekanski’s death is on a two-week break. But the evidence so far has been devastating for the RCMP’s credibility.
Three of the four officers involved have testified. Their actions seemed to me reckless and unnecessary; their response to the dying man unprofessional. But those are judgment calls the inquiry will make.
Two other things have been much more alarming.
The first is the conflict between what really happened, captured on a video that has been played over and over, second by second, and what the officers - and the RCMP said - happened.
Officers will make mistakes given the quick judgments and stresses of police work.
But we expect them to be reliable, competent, honest witnesses, even in stressful times. We believe their notes, “made in their own handwriting, at the time,” as they say in court, reflect what really happened.
The three officers who have testified at the inquiry failed that test. And the false information they provided, in their notes and in interviews that night and the next day with RCMP investigators, was self-serving. It would probably by the accepted record, if a Victoria traveller hadn’t kept his video camera rolling throughout the deadly encounter.
Const. Gerry Rundel was the first to testify at the inquiry. He told the RCMP homicide officers investigating the death that Dzienkanski had waved a stapler above his head in a threatening way.
But the video showed that never happened. Dzienkanski picked up the stapler, but never brandished it as a weapon or held it above waist height.
Const. Bill Bentley wrote in his notes that night that “subject grabbed stapler and came at officers screaming.” He told the investigators that Dziekanski “came at the police screaming.”
Bentley said that as soon as they arrived, Dziekanski started backing away, looking for something to grab. He had picked up something and “kind of swung it at us.”
The video, he conceded at the inquiry, showed that none of those things actually happened.
Bentley also told the homicide investigators Dziekanski was “fighting through” the Taser so the officers had to wrestle him to the ground. That didn’t happen either. The video shows Dziekanski being hit and falling on his back instantly. Police jumped on top of after that.
Const. Kwesi Millington told investigators Dziekanski had raised the stapler in the air and stepped toward the police in a “threatening manner.” The video showed that didn’t happen.
Millington, who fired the Taser, told investigators Dziekanski didn’t go down when he was hit. He had to be shot again and wrestled to the ground by the three officers.
The video showed Dziekanski fell immediately. The second Taser shot came literally one second later as he lay on his back, legs in the air. The officers didn’t wrestle him to the ground.
It could be understood if there were small errors in their notes and evidence. It was a stressful night.
But police are trained observers. How could they recall three officers wrestling a man to the ground, or someone charging at them screaming, when those things just didn’t happen?
Either the officers are terribly incompetent, or they were dishonest. And without the video - which the RCMP tried to suppress - their stories would not likely have been questioned.
The other troubling aspect of their testimony was the statements by all three that they had followed policy and their training. They would do nothing different if confronted with the same situation, they testified.
The RCMP’s credibility is essential to its effectiveness. It is now in tatters.
Footnote: The inquiry is on a two-week break. The fourth RCMP officer will testify on March 23, when it resumes. Crown prosecutors decided against charging the officers with any offences after receiving the report from RCMP investigators. It’s not known how significant the officers’ inaccurate statements were in that process.

Not all sex trade workers are on the street

It's easy to fall into cliche and stereotype when it comes to sex workers. And false assumptions usually work to push many of them farther into the margins. Jody Paterson highlights a good example here .

Heeding threats and playing nice with government not best course

Today, a lesson for everyone who deals with government, courtesy of John Les and the rural stores that sell alcohol.
The stores' owners believed they were being treated unfairly a few years ago.
The government had cut wholesale prices for private liquor stores, boosting their profits (at taxpayers' expense). But the rural agents hadn't got the same break.
Keep quiet, Les warned them in 2007, and I might get you a better deal.
But if the issue hit the media or was raised in the legislature, they could forget about getting anything done.
"One more question in QP [question period] or an article in the paper and it's over," said Les, then the solicitor general.
So the stores' owners stayed quiet, for two years. Until finally, this year, the owners decided they had been played for saps. Staying quiet for two years got them nothing.
It's a dilemma, for businesses and social service agencies and municipalities and anyone else who think they're getting a bad deal from government.
Play nice with the party in power, work quietly and hope things turn out OK.
Or raise the problems publicly, so the government feels political pressure to deal with the issue.
It's a scary decision. Government's have immense power. A school district or social service agency or business worries about reprisals if it makes waves. What if funding disappears?
Most reporters have talked with people representing organizations who feel they're being hurt by poor government policies, but are afraid to air their concerns.
Better to work within the system, most decide
The rural liquor agents said they took Les's 2007 comments as a threat. It wasn't right, some said, but they decided to keep things quiet.
It does sound much like that.
"All this talk and e-mails flying around is not helpful," Les wrote. "It will get out to those who are not helpful and a huge fuss will break out and I won't be able to help you."
If the store owners let anyone know they felt they were being treated unfairly, that would be it, Les said. They would be shut out, their concerns ignored.
Which is interesting, in that another group - an association of home inspectors - had earlier claimed Les threatened them, not because they went public, but because the premier with their concerns.
Les, the home inspectors said in a subsequent letter to the premier, had responded by calling them stupid. He warned that if they "ever wrote to the premier again, he would drop the issue of consumer protection for B.C. homebuyers." Les denied the claims.
Here's where the lesson gets meaningful. The home inspectors went public, made their case and, after almost three years, won their goal - licensing and government regulation.
The liquor agents played along with Les and the Liberals. They got nothing. While the private liquor stores - much better politically connected - have received financial help from the government, the liquor agents have been left out of the generosity. (That's probably the right decision. The businesses signed on to sell liquor based on the existing price structure. If they don't like the deal, they can give up the business.)
It's an example that others should consider, especially as we head into what looks like a year of cuts to services and supports. The politicians from the party in power always urge silence and patience. Just work with us, they say. And behind the vague promises, lies the implied threat that making waves will kill any hopes of progress on the issue.
But it didn't work out that way in these examples.
Which seems understandable. Governments are moved by public pressure. And as long as problems are hushed up, they're more apt to ignore them and concentrate on other priorities.
Working to persuade government is useful. But the threat of a little public heat can help make things happen as well.
Footnote: Meanwhile, Les remains under investigation by a special prosecutor in relations to land deals when he was mayor of Chilliwack in the 1990s. A special prosecutor has been on the case for 20 months. It is unfair to the public - and especially to Les - that the investigation is taken so long to come up with any conclusions.

Taxpayers supporting Liberal attack campaign

Here's what the NDP transportation critic said about the Port Mann bridge project in question period yesterday.

M. Karagianis: Well, the minister cannot be serious about that. But listen. The reality is the project is late, it's massively over budget, and the financing scheme has collapsed. This isn't just a failure, but it's an embarrassment for the minister and it's also a colossal waste of taxpayers' money. My question to the minister is simply: will he reveal to British Columbians the cost of this embarrassing failure? How much are we paying because he ignored the warnings, blindly pursued a privatization scheme, wasted time on his failed financing deal and pushed the costs through the roof?

And here's the resulting news release from the Liberal caucus, produced by government employees.

BC Liberal Government Caucus
NEWS RELEASE

For Immediate Release
March 2, 2009

NDP CALL PORT MANN 'A COLOSSAL WASTE'

VICTORIA -NDP transportation critic Maurine Karagianis continues to reject the new Port Mann Bridge and the 8,000 jobs that will be created during construction.
The NDP's opposition to the bridge was reconfirmed in today's Question Period at the B.C. Legislature, when Karagianis called the Port Mann Bridge project: "...a colossal waste of taxpayers' money."

It seems dishonest, the kind of activity that brings politics and politicians into disrepute.
And it raises the question of why, when the government is citing a desperate need to cut spending, taxpayers' money is being used for this kind of activity instead of for health care or commun ity safety.

Now you can be in the scrums

The NDP has started mining the 8,000 pages of FOI material that defence lawyers in the B.C. Rail corruption trial obtained from the government. The first revelations dealt with the public affairs bureau tactics in controlling the news agenda when the legislature is sitting and allegations government employees are working on Liberal party fundraising. You can check Hansard for today's question period to get the highlights, or go here .
But I wanted to draw your attention publiceyeonline.com's video of Attorney General Wally Opall's response to the issue. Sean Holman has begun posting video from scrums. It's a great service. People can now see exactly what their elected representatives are saying about the issues, no matter where they are in the province. And instead of half-a-dozen reporters assessing the answers, experts and those on the front lines can respond to the politicians' claims.
It is a great step forward in political reporting.

Falcon wrong; taxpayers will pay for Port Mann

No to appear smug, but when the government announced a few weeks ago that the Port Mann bridge cost had doubled to $3.3 billion and that taxpayers would loan more than $1 billion to the public-private partnership because no private lender would take the risk, I raised some concerns. One was that the numbers no longer made sense - that the $3 tolls, rising with inflation, would not be enough to cover construction and operating costs and taxpayers would end up subsidizing the private partners.
No way, said the enthusiastic Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon. Full speed ahead.
Now the public-private partnership has fallen apart, because - in large measure - the companies didn't think the future tolls would cover their cost. (Which raises the question of how I could do the numbers and Falcon couldn't.) Either tolls wil be higher, or taxpayers will be paying for the bridge, contrary to Falcon's repeated commitments.
Public-private partnerships can be a sound choice. The costs are potentially higher, but the risks of overruns and delays - the norm in megaprojects - can be largely transferred to the private partners.
But if the private sector walks away from the projects with too much risk, questions can be asked about whether government should be looking harder at traditional approaches for projects - even large ones - where risks are manageable.
One area of debate about public-private partnerships has been the extra cost of corporate borrowing compared to the government's low rate. Jeff Nagel nailed down the premium in this case and learned interest costs will be reduced by $200 million now that the Port Mann is not a P3. Again, that could be a worthwhile investment in risk reduction in some cases, but not for every project.

Child care "system in crisis" starved in budget

Let us begin with four realities.
It's bad to be a kid in the government's care - in foster care or group homes. No matter how well it goes - and statistically, it likely won't - the care of the state is not the same as a family home.
It's challenging to give kids in care a real chance. When parents can't care for a child, things have usually already gone wrong. Children born into neglect, abuse, poverty, illness, disability - or simply unlucky - wear some scars.
It's certain that things will go wrong, sometimes with terrible consequences. Child protection workers, for example, make huge decisions based on their best professional judgments. Leave a child with a struggling family or send her off, with a little suitcase, to a home of strangers? Either way, the outcome can be bad.
And how we do in helping these children is one of those fundamental tests of whether we are a successful society, or a collection of self-interested individuals. There is no moral difference between walking past a lost toddler in the street and failing to pay attention to the life of a four-year-old in care.
The NDP had a leaked government report this week that suggested that, in some form, that's what we're doing.
The ministry of children and families had noticed that residential costs for the some 9,000 children in care were rising, even though the number of children being raised was stable and they weren't doing any better.
So it set up a group to look at why costs were going up.
They did good work, although the recommendations focus heavily on process and more study.
The report, completed last summer, found costs were rising for a lot of reasons.
The level of support required for children in care has risen. They are more likely to have serious health and behavioural problems. That could be seen as a positive, of course, because it might mean children with fewer problems are being supported with their homes.
Compensation, for foster parents and care home workers, has fallen behind. The ministry report noted that the pays is the same for hosting an international student, with few responsibilities, or a troubled 14-year-old foster child with attitude to burn.
Foster parents were either aging, or inexperienced. (About 12 per cent per cent were over 60.) Either way, they really weren't able to foster the more challenging children.
And schools, facing their own pressures, have become more inclined to expel or suspend students, the report found. That's obviously bad for the children and also increases the costs of providing care.
The results of all this compound the problems. The report found social workers were scrambling to deal with the lack of resources. That means less attention to the needs of the children - barely one in four children in care have the required plans for their development. And it means more foster parents give up in frustration.
The number of foster homes fell by eight per cent across B.C. in the 18 months prior to the report. In the North and on Vancouver Island about 15 per cent fewer homes were available; in the Interior, about 11 per cent.
As a result, foster homes often had more children than ministry guidelines called for and costly alternative placements became more common.
The report, done by the ministry's own staff, highlights real problems. It concludes that the review "revealed a system in crisis and in need of innovation."
You would expect some specific actions in response, starting with the most obvious - additional funding to deal with the problems.
But the provincial budget for child and family development is effectively frozen for the coming year - it will increase less than one-quarter of one per cent. The budget increases for the following two years are about the same.
It's no response to a "system in crisis."
Footnote: Child and Youth Representative Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, the legislative officer tasked with monitoring the ministry as a result of the Hughes report, said she had asked for any reports dealing with financial pressures. This report had not been provided by the ministry. Christensen could not say why.

Balancing the budget at the expense of kids in care

The budget for child and family services is neffectively frozen in the budget, with token increases averaging less tahn 0ne-half per cent per year.
Yet a ministry working group reported last year that children are already being hurt - and social workers swamped - because of inadequate residential care for many of the more than 9,000 children in care. A Times Colonist editorial looks at the betrayal.

Bleak moments in the legislature

A video from Hansard of so-called debate in the legislature that is worth viewing. The dispute came as Kevn Krueger, always a loyal foot soldier, refused to answer even the most simple questions about spending in his ministry, looking increasing a person who had lost all contact with reality. It ends with a spectator getting kicked out for an outburst about Krueher's bizarre performance. The only wonder is that people aren't moved to shouted protests more often.

Games security secrecy, overruns and taxpayer abuse

One of the surreal moments in last week's budget lock-up came when Finance Minister Colin Hansen was asked about Olympic security costs.
Yes, there was extra money in the budget for Games security, he said.
But the amount was secret.
So was where it had been hidden in the hundreds of pages of budget documents. The federal government wanted the costs to be kept from the public for now, Hansen said.
Two days later - on the day Barack Obama visited Ottawa and grabbed all the media attention - the federal government came clean.
Games security, which was to cost $175 million, is now forecast at $900 million. The cost might go higher and the figure doesn't cover all the Games-related security costs.
It's the kind of trick governments play when they hope to get away with something. If there's bad news - and a 500-per-cent increase in security costs is bad news - they try and release it on a day when there's a bigger story, or late on a Friday afternoon before a long weekend.
Hansen then came clean on the province's contribution. It's the kind of deal that would make most corporate CFOs nervous.
This gets a little hard to follow - always a bad sign when it comes to organizations' financial wheeling and dealing.
The original agreement was that the federal and provincial governments would each pay half of the $175 million.
As the real costs rose higher and higher, the governments secretly wrangled about how much the province should pay. B.C. feared being stuck with paying for new equipment or training exercises that weren't really needed for the Games.
Everyone played nice and B.C. agreed to pay about 22 per cent of the excess costs, instead of half - about $163 million on top of the already committed $87.5 million.
That was still bad news, since both Hansen and Premier Gordon Campbell had insisted the security budget was adequate.
The promised cap of $600 million on provincial Olympic spending - a total misrepresentation itself - had also been broken.
The Games are now, even by Campbell's accounting, more than 25 per cent over budget.
But here it gets weirder. The deal won't see the province actually write a cheque to Ottawa for the extra costs.
Instead, it cut a side deal. The federal government and B.C. have about $2 billion worth of cost-shared infrastructure projects in the works. The province will increase its contribution to those by $163 million; the federal share will be reduced.
On the plus side, it lets the province spread the spending over the next three years.
But the deal also distorts the province's budgets. You're supposed to record expenses as they occur. The Games security costs would have been included in the budget that Hansen just introduced. That would have pushed the projected deficit from $495 million to $650 million.
The whole Games security costs should be a significant scandal.
The $175-million security budget was part of the package used to sell the Games to British Columbians. The IOC said it was inadequate almost from the outset of the process. The auditor general warned six years ago that more money would likely be needed. The RCMP sounded the alarm.
But Hansen and Campbell continued to insist the funding was adequate. Even last year Hansen told the legislature he didn't expect the province to contribute more than $87.5 million for security.
So either the costs increased 500 per cent in the last few months, the government wasn't paying adequate attention or it wasn't being open and straightforward with the public. Or perhaps some combination of the three.
The big political problem is the secrecy and evasions. The Games' costs have actually been well-managed, particularly venue construction.
An early admission of problems with the security budget, along with a straightforward willingness to acknowledge all the real Games costs, would have headed off the scandal.
Footnote: How ridiculous was it to keep defending the original $175-million security budget? Consider that security in Salt Lake City for the 2002 Games cost twice that amount. By the Turin Games four years ago, the security budget had reached $1.4 billion. Yet B.C. still claimed that protecting the scattered sites in Vancouver and Whistler would cost far less.

Truth in budgeting

I did not think the Liberals would stumble like this . The government has earned good marks for financial transparency and - except for the excessive conservatism that produced excessive surpluses - reasonable projections.
But last week's budget underestimates expenses and, according to at least one respected economist, inflates revenues.
What's particularly strange is that this is all unnecessary. As Stephen Harper showed, deficits are considered OK in the face of the economic slide. (As they should be.)

The effectiveness of Patrick Kinsella

The client list of adviser Patrick Kinsella - former provincial Liberal election campign co-chair - is impressive. So was his dismissal of B.C.'s lobbyist registry as, ultimately, a failure.
Sean Holman has identified another interesting client .
Once you've read the piece, search Holman's site on Patrick Kinsella and read the other posts.

Budget looks more hopeful than credible

The more time I spend with the government's numbers, the more improbable the budget looks.
The plan - especially in years two and three - looks to rely heavily on optimism. The claim that budgets will be balanced by the 2011 fiscal year, after small two deficits, is shaky at best.
Unless, that is, the government is prepared to do some heavy slashing and burning in programs and services.
It's a touchy subject for both main parties. In 1996, the NDP tabled a budget that claimed two successive surpluses - in the fiscal year just about to end and the new budget year.
The claims were false, based largely on unrealistic revenue forecasts. A lot of Liberals believe the NDP stole that election. It still rankles.
Now, on the eve of another election, the Liberals are projecting a skinny surplus this year and two years of small deficits before a legislated return to balanced budgets.
The surplus this year should be attainable. There are less than two months until the March 31 fiscal year-end and a big contingency fund.
And the government might be able to hit its projected $495-million deficit in the coming year.
But there are questions even about that.
Finance Minister Colin Hansen has abandoned one of the symbols of Liberal prudence. Budgets have included "forecast allowances" of about $800 million - a cushion against surprises.
There is no forecast allowance for the next three years. If something goes wrong, spending must be cut or deficits will rise.
And spending cuts would be difficult.
The three-year-plan sees overall expenses rising by about two per cent on average.
But that's mostly health spending. Strip away health and education, and government spending is to be cut almost four per cent this year, three per cent next and then frozen at the lower level in the third year, resulting in a barely balanced budget.
Which, as you run options through a spreadsheet, might seem perfectly possible.
But the Environment Ministry, for example, faces a five-per-cent budget cut this year, and then another one per cent cut in each of the next two years. By 2011, the ministry responsible for environmental protection and climate change action, will have seven per cent less resources than it does today.
Attorney General Wally Oppal has been batted around in the legislature in the days since the budget.
With good reason. His budget calls for cuts to prosecutors and court services, at a time when gangs are doing their best to act out Scarface on Vancouver streets. The 767 people working on prosecution services are to be cut to 661 over the next three years.
Pressed in a scrum, the lightly prepared Oppal said the budget numbers for the last two years of the three-year plan were flexible. If the ministry needed more money, it would spend it.
But that means either cuts somewhere else or a deficit instead of the promised balanced budget in 2011.
And there really isn't anywhere else to cut. The Ministry of Children and Families gets increase of one per cent, one per cent and zero. It plans to cut almost 200 positions in child and family development work.
There's less money for housing, forests, tourism, at a time when needs are acute.
The budget documents even highlight the problems.
The finance deputy minister notes that the budget includes $250 million more in spending cuts by 2011/12 that have yet to be identified.
It's weird, really. Instead of deficits of $495 million and $245 million, big risks and harsh cuts, the government could have gone with $1.2-billion deficits each year and put off a balanced budget for an extra year.
The debt increase wouldn't have been significant, especially if the government's prediction of a quick return to growth is accurate.
And services and the Liberals' credibility would have both been protected.
Footnote: Politically, the budget makes no sense. If Stephen Harper has embraced five years of deficits, surely three years in B.C. would be acceptable. And why raise the spectre of a hidden agenda of cuts to programs and services?