What might the Liberals be afraid of?

Municipal election finance reform shouldn't be a big deal.
B.C. has the most lax campaign finance rules for municipal elections in Canada. Basically, anything goes. There are no contribution limits, or spending limits. A developer or public sector union could effectively place its loyalists on council by spending enough money to them elected.
It's a system open to abuse. And it certainly undermines public confidence.
Premier Gordon Campbell promised reform, a joint task force of MLAs and UBCM reps to look at campaign financing and spending.
And Friday afternoon, a favoured time for such announcements, the government sent out a news release
.
The task force will have six members - three from the UBCM and three MLAs. The MLAs are all Liberals and one of the three UBCM reps ran unsuccessfully for the party.
No public interest representatives. No NDP MLAs, or independent Vicki Huntington.
The fix appears to be in. Campbell has rejected any limits on corporate and union donations to provincial parties.
Any recommendations on limits for municipal donations would be embarassing. Stacking the committee reduces the risk.

Police spying demands explanation, oversight

Police spying on citizens should creep you out.
Not surveillance done as part of ongoing investigations or court-ordered searches or wiretaps. Those are justified.
But that's not what Victoria police Chief Jamie Graham described to the Vancouver International Security Conference this week.
That sounded much more like police spying on citizens just because they could.
Graham was a keynote speaker at the conference, which attracted paying customers looking for insights on security trends. Perhaps he didn't expect his remarks to become public.
He spoke about the Victoria police department's $220,000 effort to provide security for the start of the Olympic torch relay.
And Graham offered the delegates some inside information. The protesters weren't so clever, he said.
"You knew that the protesters weren't that organized when on the ferry on the way over, they rented a bus, they all came on a bus - and there was a cop driving," he said. His comments were reported by Bob Mackin of 24 hours, a Vancouver daily newspaper.
So, based on what Graham told the conference, police secretly found out what bus company a group from the Lower Mainland was going to use.
Then they approached the company and convinced the manager to pull the regular driver and let an undercover officer drive. (It would be interesting to hear what officers told the company about the person chartering the bus.)
And then the officer drove the bus, keeping watch on the passengers in the rearview mirror, presumably eavesdropping and making notes on peoples' names and what they said.
These aren't terrorists. They hadn't done anything wrong. (And there were no arrests at the protests that day.) No court had approved surveillance.
They were Canadian citizens on a bus going to a legitimate public protest. Some opposed Olympic spending. Others thought issues like health care were being ignored.
And the state was spying on them.
So what, some say. Let the police do what they think best to preserve order.
We've seen countries where the state does what it thinks best to keep order - like East Germany or China.
Of course, we don't expect police and security forces would go so far in Canada.
But those charged with keeping order make that the priority.
And without laws, accountability and oversight, it is inevitable they will trade individual rights for collective security.
The issues can be complicated. I see nothing wrong with undercover police walking with protesters in a public place. I hope officers are monitoring groups planning crimes, even infiltrating them.
And I'm deeply concerned if they are spying on citizens, and compiling reports and files, simply because people exercise their right to express their views. Choosing to come to a protest shouldn't make you a police target.
This isn't benign. The people who rented the bus have been publicly branded as dangerous.
More significantly, everyone who attended the protest now must wonder if they were spied on by police officers driving the bus or joining the march. They must wonder if their names are on a list in a government file.
And, perhaps, next time they will just stay home.
Graham is refusing to answer questions. It's unclear if this was a Victoria police operation, approved by the police board, or done by some other agency.
There has been no explanation of the intelligence justifying placing an officer behind the wheel of the bus.
Part of the problem is that Graham's comments and subsequent silence indicate he doesn't consider this to be a serious issue.
At the least, you would hope such an operation would receive serious consideration before it went ahead.
Since 9/11, rights have often been sacrificed in pursuit of security. That's alarming.
To see them reduced still more, casually, to protect the image of the Olympics, is frightening.
Footnote: The exercise also raises questions about prudent spending of taxpayers' money on Games-related security. Did it really make sense to have a police officer, on overtime, work extra shifts to drive a bus? How can the public have confidence that the $1 billion in Games security spending will actually be justified?

Big chance for Chinese tourism arrives

The announcement today that China has granted Canada approved destination status is a big deal for B.C.
Without approved destination status, Chinese travellers faced big problems in coming here. In a 2005 BC Business piece on tourism and China, I put it this way.

"For all the lurching toward modernization, China is still a controlled society. Citizens can only travel to countries the government approves of, ostensibly to prevent Chinese travellers from being taken advantage of.
But it’s also a handy way to ensure those citizens return home when the holiday ends. If a country wins that approval and stays on good terms with the Chinese government, the result is Approved Destination Status. It’s a big deal. Chinese travellers face a long road littered with mandatory forms and routine refusals to visit non-ADS countries. And group tours – the foundation of any country’s burgeoning outbound tourism industry – simply don’t happen without ADS."



Read more: http://www.bcbusinessonline.ca/bcb/top-stories/2005/07/01/great-leap-forward#ixzz0YgGImvUS permission to visit Canad

Privacy violation scandal widens; govenment's silence deepens

The Times Colonist continues to lead on the serious privacy breach that saw confidential information on 1,400 people discovered in an employees home.
The employee, the newspaper reports today was hired despite recent convictions for theft and passing counterfeit money.
The employee was allowed to stay on the job for five months after the government was told about the risk. The people weren't told for seven months that they were at risk of identity theft.
And Citizens' Services Minister Ben Stewart won't provide any information - including the date he was told of the breach.
The newspaper dealt with some of those issues in an editorial.

B.C. worst for child poverty, again

The annual report card on child poverty was released last week. For the sixth straight year, B.C. had the highest proportion of poor children in the country.
The report, based on StatsCan's 2007 numbers, found 19 per cent of children in B.C. are living in poverty - about 156,000 boys and girls.
Nationally, the proportion was 15 per cent. If B.C. could just achieve the Canadian average, 30,000 children would be lifted out of poverty.
You could have a long, pointless debate about how poverty is measured. There are flaws in any approach.
But the report card, compiled in this province by First Call, uses the same measurement across Canada. And B.C. consistently has the highest number of kids living in poor homes.
Children's Minister Mary Polak, to her credit, didn't try to challenge the numbers.
She said that while B.C. might have the highest rate in Canada, progress was being made. The child poverty rate was the lowest in 20 years, Polak told the legislature.
That's true, barely. In 2002, according to the First Call report released six years ago, the child poverty rate in B.C. was 19.6 per cent and 167,000 children were living in poverty. So in six years of economic growth, B.C. has been able to reduce the proportion of poor children by less than one percentage point.
And since other provinces have been making greater strides, it has stayed in last place.
The NDP was pushing, again, for a plan to reduce child poverty. Six other provinces have them, with targets, timelines, actions and accountability.
But the Liberal government refuses to take the step. (Earlier this year, Premier Gordon Campbell refused Children's Representative Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond's request for a joint meeting with NDP leader Carole James to talk about a non-partisan effort to reduce child poverty.)
James raised the issue in her speech to the NDP convention the weekend. It could fit nicely with the approach the party needs to take to turn its current lead in opinion polls into a victory in 2013.
New Democrats have been fretting since the May election, concerned they blew an opportunity for victory and worried about avoiding the same fate the next time. (The convention rates a separate column.)
Child poverty is a good issue for the party, and not because helping poor children reflects traditional NDP values around social change.
The real opportunity lies in stressing not compassion, but competence and the long-term pragmatic benefits in addressing child poverty and other such issues.
The economic benefits of reducing child poverty are clear. Poor children do less well in school and in work. They have greater lifetime health and social problems. Addressing the issue saves money.
And the Liberals' lack of a plan reflects badly not only on their interest in helping poor children, but their competence.
Having a plan, with actions and timelines and targets, is an essential tool for management and accountability. Without one, the government is at risk of unco-ordinated, costly and ultimately ineffectual efforts.
With one, and commitment, quick progress could be made.
Income assistance rates for families, for example, currently leave families deep in poverty. A single parent with two children, for example, receives about $16,000 a year. After even modest rent - say $750 a month - a family of three has less than $150 a week for everything else, from food to bus passes to kids clothes.
Simply increasing the rates would lift 30,000 children out of poverty.
Those are the kinds of measures that would be part of a plan - if the government would adopt one. In an ideal world, the plan would include a realistic estimate not just of the costs, but also of the future savings and economic benefits.
The moral case is strong too, of course. If this was the best place on Earth, it wouldn't have the highest child poverty rate in Canada.
Footnote: Many people argue that adults should suffer for poor choices. But few people would suggest that children should live in poverty because of an accident of birth in a province with the ability and resources to make an immediate difference in their lives.

Press Pass on the government's big privacy breach

The Times Colonist runs a Sunday column called Press Pass, compiled mainly by the newspaper's press gallery reporters- currently Lindsay Kines and Rob Shaw - and legislative columnist Les Leyne. The reporters have broken all the stories on the government's bungled response to a major privacy breach.
On Sunday, Press Pass added this background.

"SUGGESTED READING: With all the hoopla around those missing government files, perhaps it's worth brushing up on the fundamentals. What's supposed to happen when government learns of a major privacy breach?

According to the Key Steps in Responding to Privacy Breaches guide, written by the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner in June 2008, there are four key steps. Let's contrast them with what happened in this case:

1. Contain the breach and notify privacy/security officials.

If, by that, you mean don't tell the senior bosses or ministers until the Public Affairs Bureau hears about it seven months later, then done and done.

2. Evaluate the risk of the breach.

Let's see. Employee under criminal investigation for fraud has swiped sensitive personal information that could be used for fraud ... we'll go with "high" risk.

3. Notify people "as soon as possible" to warn them their privacy has been compromised.

In this case, wait more than half a year before writing letters to the wrong people.

4. Prevent a future reoccurrence by investigating the cause of the breach.

Or, repeatedly claim ignorance about when you found out or what you knew and bolt from the legislature to enjoy a four-month winter break.

When should you follow these four steps? According to the guide: Immediately.

Maybe someone in government should read this thing."

Minister looks clued out on privacy breach

Poor Ben Stewart. Up until the last days of the legislative session, most people didn’t even know he was in cabinet.
Now he’s a symbol of bungling.
Stewart, Westside-Kelowna MLA, is the minister of citizens’ services. He’s responsible, among other things, for the protection of the huge amounts of personal information citizens share — often involuntarily — with government.
And right now, it appears he isn’t doing a good job.
This all starts back in April, which is the root of the government’s problem.
The RCMP commercial crime squad got a search warrant for a government employee’s home. They were working with ICBC’s special investigation unit, which handles cases of fraudulent drivers’ licences and identity cards.
In the home, they found government files on 1,400 British Columbians that the employee had taken home from work. Names, addresses, birth dates, social insurance numbers, health numbers and information on income. As Privacy Commissioner David Loukidelis noted, the kind of information that makes it easy for criminals to get fake credit cards or commit identity frauds.
The RCMP notified the government right away (before, it’s worth noting, the election).
Up to this point, the only concern was whether safeguards were adequate. A minister can’t be held accountable if an employee steps out of bounds.
But from then on, the government acted incompetently.
It wasn’t until this month — seven months after being notified that peoples’ privacy had been breached and that they were vulnerable to fraud — that the government sent letters notifying the people that they should be on guard. (That was bungled too; some letters were misaddressed and sent to the wrong people, adding a second privacy breach.)
It was also not until this month that the employee was fired.
And the government never did voluntarily reveal the breach. Reporters from the Times Colonist learned of the letters and broke the story.
Even then, Stewart was less than open and, in fact, misleading. He said he had learned of the breach about two weeks earlier, omitting the fact the government had known since May.
And he said the RCMP discovered the files as part of an “unrelated investigation.”
But an investigation into fraud hardly seems unrelated to a trove of confidential information.
Stewart also failed to reveal that a second employee had been fired in connection with the breach. The Times Colonist reporters uncovered that fact as well. Stewart would not say what job the person had, but she apparently worked in the Public Service Agency — the lead human resources service for 30,000 government employees.
Stewart continued to flounder. He couldn’t, or wouldn’t, provide basic information about the events to reporters or in response to MLAs’ questions.
And while he said he had ordered a complete investigation weeks ago, on Thursday he said there were still no terms of reference for the review. That is simply not competent management.
It was an apt way for the Liberals to finish a difficult legislative session.
It raises three questions.
Why did the government wait seven months to notify 1,400 people their privacy had been compromised and they were at risk of credit fraud and identity theft? (The RCMP checked about 10 per cent of the files and concluded no fraud had yet taken place; but the information could have been sold or passed on long before then.)
Why was Stewart kept in the dark for seven months?
And why do ministers put up with this? Stewart is no dolt. He founded and grew Quails’ Gate Winery and has an impressive resumé, but he’s been left looking like a bungler.
One clue lies in how Stewart was advised, belatedly, of the breach. It wasn’t his deputy, or security officials. It was the Public Affairs Bureau staff, the governments’ PR arm, which finally told the minister. No one is saying how long the PAB staffers had the information.
It’s part of a pattern. Take the wildly inaccurate pre-election budget deficit and the broken promise on the HST. Look back on a session where cabinet ministers refused to answer basic questions about everything from health care to Olympic tickets.
When spin triumphs over openness and substance, bad things ultimately happen.
Perhaps Stewart, and other ministers, will decide it’s time to change course.

Stewart should take responsibility and resign

So, when Citizens' Services Minister Ben Stewart learned — seven months late — that a government employee already being investigated for fraud had been caught with confidential information on 1,400 British Columbians from ministry files, who tells him?
Not his deputy, or officials responsible for privacy or from the ministry involved.
A Public Affairs Bureau staffer brought the minister up to date. How long did the branch responsible for the government's messaging know? That's still a secret.
Rob Shaw and Lindsay Kines from the Times Colonist have been reporting on the issue.
The newspaper argues in an editorial today that Stewart should resign.

Torture inquiry needed to get at truth

The federal Conservatives have crossed into a shameful place.
Career diplomat Richard Colvin came forward, at personal cost, to give evidence that Afghans detained by Canadian Forces and turned over to their own government were tortured.
The Conservatives' response was to attack him personally, rather than deal with the serious allegations.
Colvin is an unlikely whistleblower. He was the second most senior Canadian diplomat in Afghanistan, working there for 18 months as an intelligence officer. He was promoted to a similar post in Canada's Washington embassy. The man that Colvin replaced in Afghanistan was killed by a suicide bomber.
Based on his work in the country, Colvin concluded that Canada was handing over prisoners to the Afghan security forces knowing that they would almost certainly be tortured. He raised the threat of torture repeatedly with senior officials in government and the military.
That's the testimony he gave before the Commons Committee on Justice and Human Rights.
Colvin could be wrong. There might be good reasons to reject his assessment.
But the reaction of Conservative MPs was surreal. They rejected the need for an inquiry to get the facts.
And they attacked Colvin, claiming he was gullible, a dim dupe who didn't really have any idea about how to do his job, who was helping the Taliban and undermining Canada's troops. The MPs had no evidence to support their attacks and no firsthand knowledge of the situation on the ground in Afghanistan.
That did not stop them from denouncing Colvin and rejecting his testimony.
Defence Minister Peter MacKay set the depressingly low tone. "Hearsay," he complained. Anyone Canadian Forces picked up and handed over to Afgahn security forces could only be Taliban, and thus expected to lie about being tortured.
For MacKay, torture does not happen unless a Canadian diplomat is watching. Anyone who suggests otherwise is at worst an enemy sympathizer, at best a stupid dupe.
The premise is ridiculous. Afghan police aren't going to invite spectators to torture.
Worse, it has come out that MacKay and the government knew people were likely being tortured. Even in the last year, the government stopped transferring prisoners to Afghan authorities on three occasions because of concerns about torture and abuse.
Colvin's evidence suggests that for years - and indeed before the Conservatives were elected - Canadian forces were handing over prisoners knowing that, at least, they might be tortured.
Some people writing letters to the editor have suggested that it shouldn't matter if the people Canada's soldiers apprehend are tortured. They are probably guilty of something, the writers' suggest, and it's not our problem if they are beaten, face electric shocks or their families' lives are threatened.
Morally weak, I'd argue.
And pragmatically, a position with two very bad implications for Canadians.
First, there's the matter of war crimes. Torture, and handing people over to be tortured, are the kind of things that can land people in a courtroom in The Hague, answering for crimes against humanity.
Second, there is the increased risk for all Canadians - military, aid workers and diplomats - in Afghanistan. We are striving to win the support and trust of average Afghan citizens, considering it critical to progress.
If we hand over a son to be tortured - a person who has not been convicted of anything - then a family, or a village, become our enemies. Our soldiers are in greater danger.
Colvin said he had reported his concerns about torture as widely as he could, despite efforts to suppress them. His warnings began in May 2006 and continued for 18 months.
Through that period, former defence minister Gordon O'Connor, current Defence Minister Peter MacKay and Prime Minister Stephen Harper insisted that they were confident none of the prisoners captured by Canadians were being tortured.
Canadians need to know if that was true. If information was being suppressed, they need to know why, and by whom.
And given the government's response to Colvin, only a public inquiry will provide the answers.
Footnote: Harper skipped question period on Monday, the first chance opposition MPs would have had to question him on Colvin's schedule. He gave priority to a photo op with Canada's lacrosse team.

Salmon farm class-action suit survives a B.C. challenge

It's tough to keep up with all the action on the salmon farm issue, but the proposed class-action suit by the Kwicksutaineuk/Ah-Kwa-Mish First Nation is worth watching.
The First Nation is asserting fishing rights in the Broughton Archipelago. And it's arguing the provincial government is hurting the interests of members by allowing salmon farms, which it says hurt wild salmon stocks.
There is a long way to go before the court approves the class action suit, let alone delivers a judgment on the issue.
But the province lost a preliminary bid to have the suit tossed in a B.C. Supreme Court ruling here.
The judgment notes the supporting materials for the bid to certify a class action include an affadavit from Fred Whoriskey, who will provide evidence for the First Nation.
The name might be familiar. In 2007, the government appointed Bill Smart, the special prosecutor in the Glen Clark case, to act as a special prosecutor on a file involving allegations that sea lice from salmon farms were damaging wild stocks. Smart concluded the farms were likely damaging wild stocks. He recommended against proceeding because it was unclear if their actions were against the law. His key expert was, yes, Fred Whoriskey. You can read more in these two columns from 2007.

By the by, I highly recommended the Recent Judgments section of the B.C. Superior Courts website. Judgments from the B.C. Supreme Court of Appeal are posted almost daily. Browsing them offers a direct view of the justice system - you'll marvel at how much of the courts' time is taken with divorces and insurance claims - and a lot of useful bits of information. (I learned, for example, that a paramedic injured in a crash estimated his continuing income, with overtime, would have been over $100,000 a year.)
You'll also be impressed, I think, with how sensible the judgments are in criminal cases.

The Hebei Lion, and why you should worry, at least a bit, about tanker traffic

A proposed pipeline to get oil from the tar sands to Kitimat and then into ships that would sail off to China has sparked a new debate about tanker traffic along B.C.'s coast.
There would be a lot of construction jobs, a small number of permanent employees in Kitimat and a boost in Canada's exports.
The risk is that something would go wrong and there would be an oil spill.
Proponents say that won't happen. But on Thursday night, the winds were howling in the Strait of Georgia. The bulk carrier Hebei Lion was anchored off Mayne Island, but the gusts pushed it onto a reef. It was a serious environmental threat.
That was Wednesday night. Have you heard about the grounding of the ship, which is as long as two-and-a-half football fields?
I didn't until today - Saturday afternoon. And then, only thanks to the Washington State environment ministry, (or the department of ecology, it's called).
It issued a news release.

"Ecology was notified by the British Columbia Ministry of Environment, and monitored the incident because it posed a significant risk of a large black oil spill," the Washington government told the public.
“Damage to fuel tanks on a cargo ship that size could have oiled the islands on both sides of the border,” said Dale Jensen, manager of Ecology's Spill Prevention, Preparedness and Response Program. “A major spill also could have forced a closure to vessel traffic. Given the profound environmental and economic risks we're relieved and pleased at the outcome. We mobilized staff and were prepared to deploy response systems as needed.
"State Sen. Kevin Ranker, who represents the 40th District, including his San Juan Island home, said, “This incident once again highlights the importance of having a strong spill prevention and response system in place, not only for Puget Sound but also for large transboundary spills that can have potentially devastating effects on our environment and economy.”

So the B.C. Environment Ministry told Washington State, but provided no information to British Columbians.
The DFO, as far as I can tell, provided no public information.
The Gullf Islands Driftwood had the story by Thursday afternoon.
But 72 hours after an incident that "could have oiled the islands on both sides of the border," according to the government of Washington State, only a small number of British Columbians knew about the grounding. Governments were silent.
The argument for tanker traffic relies heavily on the effectiveness and accountability of governments in protecting the public interest.
But only Washington seemed to think this important enough to tell the public about. The B.C. and Canadian governments didn't think you needed to know.

A late addition: For more on the grounding, check out the posts here.

The need for an Afghan detainee inquiry

I'll write about this in the next day or two, but, for now, I recommend Norman Spector's brief, useful comments here.

The sad story of the passengers' bill of rights

This is a story about a proposed airline passenger’s bill of rights. It suggests, most of all, that those at the top of government aren’t serving the public. They’re catering to the needs of powerful special interests.
The story starts in 2008. Liberal MP Gerry Byrne prepared a motion calling on the government to introduce an airline passenger’s bill of rights. Travellers would be guaranteed remedies for lost bags, unreasonable delays or overbooked flights. The model was similar to protection in Europe.
Politically, it’s a winner. Most people fortunate enough to be able to fly have had bad experiences. Sometimes, the airline has responded admirably. But sometimes, not.
MPs from all parties professed to support the idea, including then transport minister Lawrence Cannon.
But behind the scenes, his office was pleading with the airlines to launch a lobby campaign to defeat the motion, according to documents obtained by Canwest News Service.
While Cannon was promising to bring in a travellers’ bill of rights, a key political staffer in his office was telling the airlines the Conservatives really wanted it killed.
Lobby the Liberals and the Bloc Québécois, Paul Fitzgerald e-mailed the airlines. “I don’t want us to be forced into regulating passenger protection issues.”
It’s creepily dishonest. The minister is pretending to stand up for passengers while his staff is rallying the industry to kill protection.
The government could legitimately oppose such consumer protection. The airlines argued safety would be compromised. Pilots might take off in dangerous conditions if they feared their employer would have to compensate passengers for delays.
More realistically — I hope, as a passenger who relies on those pilots — the Conservatives could argue that protection is not needed because market forces ensure airlines don’t abuse customers, because they would lose business.
But that’s not what happened. The minister claimed the protection was necessary and he supported the measures.
It gets worse.
The motion passed in Parliament with the support of all parties, and the government set about drafting the protection.
Canwest News Service filed a freedom of information request for files on the process. Usually, documents are censored to the point of uselessness. This time, apparently by mistake, the full documents were released.
They showed the minister’s office — despite concerns from non-political Transport Department staff — let the airlines play a major role in drafting the measures. Company executives reviewed several drafts of Flight Rights Canada, as the initiative came to be called. They proposed changes and approved the final version.
The airline bosses even got to approve Cannon’s speech launching the program in advance.
It was sensible to involve the airlines in the process. They can provide useful information on the effects of any passenger protection.
But the government didn’t seek input from consumer associations or the travel industry or groups that could speak for business travellers. They catered to the industry, not the public.
The department staff also told the minister there was no money to let travellers know about their rights.
But he went ahead and read the industry-approved announcement, promising an information campaign that has never happened.
The government has spent a total of $3,640 to let airline passengers across Canada know about their rights.
So, to recap, MPs decided airline passengers needed some basic protection if flights were cancelled without good reason or their bags vanished.
The government pretended to go along, while working behind the scenes with the airlines to try and sabotage the initiative. Their loyalty was to the big corporations.
The minister’s office was attentive to the needs of the airline companies. The public interest was a problem to be managed, not a priority.
This isn’t a Liberal-Conservative thing. I have no confidence that the cozy relationships between the powerful depend on party labels. Mostly, it’s a sad example of how little the interests of voters really matter to those in power.
Footnote: The government’s failure to respect the 2008 motion brought a new private member’s bill from Manitoba NDP MP Jim Maloway to provide travellers with protection modelled on the European Union’s consumer protection for passengers. The Conservatives oppose the protection.

Barry Penner is awesome

No, that's not my political commentary. I do think he's a good MLA who works hard and wants to do a good job.
But over at barrypennerisawesome.com the creators have dedicated a whole website to "Chronicling the adventures of B.C.'s most awesome MLA."
It's clever fun.
(And thanks to Brenton Walters for posting about the site dedicated to the Chilliwack MLA and environment minister.)

MLA Norm Letnick shows how it's done

I certainly think Liberal MLA Norm Letnick is right about the risks of the government's ill-advised bill that would let police use force to take people to shelters in bad weather, for reasons set out here.
But, in explaining to Sean Holman why he voting against the legislation, Letnick also showed how MLAs can take advantange of Gordon Campbell's promise to allow free votes to use their own judgment and represent the people who elected them.
You can see Letnick's explanation at publiceyeonline.com.

Minister for welfare, housing and horse racing

Rich Coleman might be great at juggling priorities, but I'd argue a ministry dealing with housing issues - from condo concerns to homelessness to affordability - and income assistance and job training should focus on those priorities.
Tossing gambling and liquor sales into the mix just because the minister is interested doesn't make good management sense.
(Sean Holman has interesting additional information here.)

NEWS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
November 17, 2009

Ministry of Housing and Social Development

NEW MANAGEMENT AIMS TO REVITALIZE HORSE RACING INDUSTRY

VANCOUVER – The new B.C. Horse Racing Industry Management Committee will help to revitalize and restore financial strength to the province’s horse racing industry, Housing and Social Development Minister Rich Coleman announced today.
“Across North America, the horse racing industry is confronted with competing entertainment attractions that necessitate new, innovative approaches to this sector,” said Coleman. “Here in B.C., the Province is working with leading industry and business experts to help horse racing thrive, with a strong, coherent new management approach that includes centralized financial planning.”

Ontario makes Campbell look bad on HST

It was a dramatic tale of two different approaches to governing this week.
In Ontario, the government introduced HST legislation Monday, setting out the details of the new tax which will take effect July 1, as it will here.
The plans include other big tax cuts and a promise that the total government tax take will fall by $7.7 billion over the next four. Families will get a $1,000 rebate to cover the added costs. Seminars are already underway around the province for businesses.
In B.C., the legislation won't be introduced until next spring. The government acknowledges families will face higher taxes, with much smaller offsetting reductions.
And poor Finance Minister Colin Hansen couldn't even say Monday whether school districts would get funding to cover some $40 million in extra costs because of the harmonized sales tax.
Two governments, heading in the same direction, but in very different ways.
Both know voters will find the new tax tough to swallow. Only Ontario is making much of an effort to win them over.
You could argue that the Liberal government in Ontario is buying support with other tax cuts. This week, it announced HST exemptions for fast food under $4 and newspapers. But seminars on the new tax for small business, in their communities, are simply good, competent government. Clear rules well in advance of implementation help everyone.
The Campbell government is looking inept, or indifferent, in comparison.
That's not good. The Liberals promised, in writing, not to introduce the HST during the May election campaign - and then did just that. Hansen's claim the tax was "not even on the radar" during the campaign makes the decision to introduce it a few weeks later look reckless and ill-considered.
Here's the primer on the HST. It's a new tax that will combine the seven-per-cent provincial sales tax and the five-per-cent GST. For many items, adult clothing for example, there is no net change.
But the GST applies to more things than the provincial sales tax. Provincial governments introduced exemptions, like no PST on bicycles to promote health. Services, like cable or child care, attracted GST but not the provincial tax.
Under the harmonized tax, the GST rules take precedence. A lot more things will be taxed.
The GST also lets businesses deduct the sales tax they pay for inputs. Treating the PST the same way will save B.C. businesses about $1.9 billion. Individuals and families will pay more to offset the business tax break.
The theory is that companies will pass the benefits on in lower prices and B.C. will be more attractive for businesses investors because of lower tax costs.
The provincial government has not been forthcoming with information on what it means for families.
But TD Economics, the analytical arm of the big bank, has released a special report on the tax that offers a useful starting point.
Individuals and families will pay more, the report concludes, as "The tax burden will shift from businesses to consumers."
The TD Economics analysis estimates about 20 per cent of British Columbians' expenditures will now face an additional seven-per-cent tax.
An average household will pay an extra $840 in taxes. But the analysis also projects that businesses will pass on some of the savings from reduced taxes to consumers. That will cut the actual net increase in costs to $400.
The TD Economics report favours the harmonized tax. It's more efficient, it says, and will help Canadian businesses compete for domestic and international markets, the report said.
And the B.C. government continues to cite to the need to offer tax breaks to the forest industry and other big businesses.
But as the legislature finance committee found in its budget consultations, the public isn't buying it. The HST remains unpopular; most submissions said it should not be introduced.
Ontario's government faces the same backlash. But it's doing much more to inform people and try to win them over.
Footnote: The TD Economics' report says the tax will add about 0.7 per cent to the rate of inflation to the province, as the costs of consumer goods and services rise.

Rich, Geoff here - can we talk liquor policy?

Rich Coleman and Geoff Plant spent five years in opposition battling the NDP, and four more years in cabinet as the solicitor general and attorney general respectively.
And now a big private liquor store owner has hired Plant to lobby Coleman for changes that would boost the company's profits.
Plant is a lawyer and smart. Perhaps he would be in demand for such jobs based on his experience and those qualities alone.
But if I were a smaller liquor company, or a community group concerned about increasingly wide open alcohol sales, I'd wonder if Plant also had better access and influence than most to Coleman, after the two spent nine years working together.
And whether that meant I needed to hire someone else - another insider - to make sure I had the ear of the powerful.
You can read it more at publiceyeonline.com, where Sean Holman had the story first. (He does that quite a lot.)

More fizzle than boom from Games benefits so far

Unless things change significantly, the economic benefits of the Winter Games are looking pretty thin.
Take jobs, one of the big selling points.
According to an economic study done for government by
PriceWaterhouseCoopers, having the Games created about 18,400 person years of employment from 2003 to the end of last year.
That sounds dramatic, but spread over six years it's about 3,000 additional jobs at any given time.
Nothing to sneer at, but with about 2.2 million people employed in the province, not that significant either.
Especially when at least some increased employment would have resulted if the money spent on the Games went for other projects or was left in taxpayers' pockets.
The report on increased economic activity from the Games tells a similar story. The report found that the Games had meant an extra $685 million to $890 million in economic activity over the six-year period.
Take the midpoint, and that's about $130 million a year.
Given that the provincial GDP is about $150 billion, that's less than one-tenth of one per cent.
You could argue that these results aren't surprising. They're consistent with a forecast of Games benefits done for the government in 2002.
But they're a far cry from the rosy picture painted by politicians talking about the dramatic economic benefits from next year's festivities.
And in one area - possibly the most important for British Columbians outside Greater Vancouver and Whistler - the forecast got it badly wrong.
The 2002 report predicted increased tourism revenues during the period of $40 to $600 million between 2003 and 2008.
Based on the midpoint, that would have translated into some 6,500 person-years of increased employment
The PriceWaterhouseCoopers report found there was no increase in tourism as a result of the Olympics. The expectation that increased awareness would lead to more visitors to the province was wrong. The report estimates the Games have likely meant about 10 additional jobs in the tourism sector each year.
That should be a particular concern to communities outside the immediate Games area. Vancouver, Richmond, Surrey and Whistler all end up with guaranteed Games legacies - buildings and infrastructure. Much of the spending by Games organizers, from salaries to supplies, also benefited those communities. And realistically, the promised potential future investment is likely to provide the greatest boost to those areas.
The rest of the province has fared less well. Leaving aside nice but hardly essential items like Spirit Squares, the Games so far have represented a transfer of tax dollars to the Lower Mainland.
Tourism gains should have broader benefits. The theory is that travellers, newly aware of B.C.'s charms because of the Games, would likely venture beyond the Lower Mainland.
According to the 2002 report, the biggest tourism gains are still ahead. It set out several scenarios, but the mid-range forecast projected about $2.9 billion in increased tourism because of the Games between 2008 and 2014.
The failure to achieve the increase forecast for the initial period raises doubts about those numbers.
It's especially troubling that the failure might be partly self-inflicted. The PWC report notes the 2002 projections envisioned that "a co-ordinated and effective marketing plan would be in place" before the Games. It wasn't.
The government had warnings about the problem. In 2003, the auditor general noted a well-planned, well-funded marketing effort was needed to seize the potential benefits from the Games.
In a follow-up report in 2006, the auditor general noted that hasn't happened. "The marketing effort to date has been delayed and unco-ordinated, with no central agency taking the lead," the report warned.
The confusion continues. Tourism Minister Kevin Krueger eliminated Tourism B.C., the highly regarded industry marketing agency, without warning of consultation in August.
The big opportunities for tourism promotion are coming in the next three or four months.
For British Columbians outside Greater Vancouver, benefits from the Games depend on how well the job is handled.
Footnote: It's important to note that the benefits, except for tourism, are much as projected in the 2002 report. Which raises questions about the level of scrutiny and analysis brought to the report by journalists and politicians and policy groups. The pro-Games rhetoric drowned out the few cautionary voices.

The bigger problem at B.C. Ferries

It's understandable that the comptroller general's findings about overly rich executive and board pay and sloppy governance at B.C. Ferries grabbed headlines.
But the report raised a much more serious problem. The new structure for ferry service the Liberal government set up in 2003 failed to provide any criteria for considering the public interest, in terms of travellers, ferry dependent communities or the economic impacts of soaring fares.
The Times Colonist set out the problems clearly in this editorial.
Will the government act? One bad sign is that the comptroller general's recommendations included having the Ferry Commission regulate reservation fees, currently outside its mandate. The commissioner has been seeking that small change since 2004,. noting that the fees - $17.50 and a $12-million revenue stream for the corporation - are part of the fare structure.
In nine years, the government hasn't responded to that basic request.