HST result shows a new class-based voter division

The HST referendum result might signal a greater political shift, something beyond a tax revolt or anger over an arrogant, untrusted government.
The idea of class-based politics, for want of a better term, after being considered largely irrelevant for the last 60 years, could matter once again.
The HST went down to a significant defeat, with 55 per cent of those who voted rejecting the tax and 45 per cent backing it. A majority of voters in 60 ridings voted to dump the tax; in 25, they supported the HST.
The new tax won the strongest support in three ritzy Vancouver ridings. West Vancouver-Capilano, average household income more than $140,000, topped the list.
The vote to reject was strongest in three lower-income Mainland ridings. Voters in Surrey-Green Timbers, where the average household income is about $70,000, were keenest on dumping the HST.
Broadly, the higher the income in the riding, the more people supported the HST. The lower, the more likely they were to oppose the tax. The trend was consistent across the province.
No matter how you analyze those results, there is a significant division between the way people perceive their interests, based on their income levels.
Canadian elections haven’t reflected that divide for a long time, perhaps since the Second World War. Certainly lower-income voters, particularly with union jobs, have been more likely to support the NDP. But voters from all income levels have found homes in different parties at different times.
Voters, broadly, have considered themselves middle class and voted accordingly. Even if they were, objectively, earning much less than others, people expected their lot in life to improve, and their children’s lives to be better still.
They voted to advance the interests of the people they expected to be. Aspirational voting, you might say.
Until the referendum. People now seem, once again, to be picking sides — by class or income, or simply based on the divide between those who are doing well and those who are being left behind.
Which suggests that more people are losing hope that they, or their children, will cross over into the solidly middle class.
That’s not surprising. My grandparents, British immigrants with limited skills and education, bought a house in Toronto for $500 after they had been in the country for a few years and he was working for General Electric. When I was five, my parents bought a house in the new Toronto suburbs, sprawling out to accommodate the post-war baby boom. I bought a house in Alberta for $67,500 after a relatively short stint in the workforce. We all expected home ownership, opportunity and a better life for our children.
Now the average price of a detached home in Vancouver is more than $1 million. The jobs that once provided steady, good incomes for people in mills and manufacturing are gone.
And with them, the expectations of a better life have vanished for many British Columbians. They can no longer see themselves as middle class.
It’s a significant shift. Canadians have shared the expectation that they would do well. Vote Conservative, Liberal, NDP, Socred — they offered different approaches to a common, better future. Now, many have lost the hope that underpinned those votes.
An Ipsos Reid poll released Tuesday supports that view. It found that 49 per cent of those surveyed thought scrapping the HST would have a negative impact on the B.C. economy, while only 17 per cent thought it would be positive.
But 43 per cent thought axing the tax would be good for their families, while only 25 per cent thought it would be bad for them.
Voters have rated the economy highly as an issue for the last few decades. Parties judged to be good at improving the economy won support across all income groups, because people believed they and their families would benefit.
But not this time.
That’s a significant development, especially for the provincial Liberals. Their message in the next election campaign, whenever it comes, will be that an NDP government would be bad for business.
The HST result suggests voters might be less convinced about putting the economy first, and more concerned with whether the next government would be good for them.

After the HST, government needs a clear plan

OK, the HST is gone. Now it’s time to get things back on track.

For more than two years, things have been a mess in B.C.

Politically, we’ve had a citizens’ revolt, the resurrection of Bill Vander Zalm and the ouster of Gordon Campbell.

Economically, we’ve been a mess. Tax policy has been made up on the fly. Campbell promised a 15-per-cent income tax cut, then the government reneged once he quit. The government cut corporate taxes, then Premier Christy Clark said she would increase them again if the HST survived. The Liberals said the HST was not in the plans during the 2009 campaign, introduced it, then watched as it grew increasingly doomed.

All at a time when the economy was already fragile.

Businesses, and individuals, adapt to different tax regimes. But they like certainty. If a corporation is going to invest $100 million in a mill, it wants to know that the taxes won’t suddenly change once the doors are open. If a family is going to spend $10,000 on a new roof, they want to know that waiting for the result of the HST referendum wouldn’t save them $400.

That’s been missing.

And, despite the referendum result, certainty is still missing.

No one knows what happens next.

Finance Minister Kevin Falcon has said the government doesn’t have to bring back the old provincial sales tax, with all the exemptions were in place in 2009. He said the tax could be more like the HST, applied to more goods and services, to increase revenue.

Health Minister MIke de Jong has taken the opposite view. He told Mike Smyth of the Vancouver Province that the petition and referendum questions were clear.

“The choice is the HST as it exists today, or the PST as it existed previously,” he said. “If people opt to get rid of the HST and go back to the PST as it existed in 2009, that’s what the government is going to do.”

De Jong is right. But until the government is clear, the tax uncertainty continues. And so does the risk of another taxpayer revolt, if the government tries to weasel on the referendum result.

Falcon appears, in the aftermath of the vote, to accepted that reality.

That’s just one issue in the post-referendum world.

Falcon has said that rejecting the HST would mean big changes for B.C.’s budget.

It’s time for the government to lay those out for British Columbians.

The defeat of the HST means about $360 million less in annual revenue, according to the analysis by the government’s independent panel. The federal government’s $1.6 billion incentive payment to encourage the province to adopt the tax has to be repaid over time. The PST tax office has to be restored.

So what’s the plan? Will taxes rise, and if so, who will pay more? Will spending be cut, and who will lose out? Or will the government borrow more to repay the federal government, and accept the interest costs?

They are all legitimate responses. What’s needed is a clear, multi-year government plan, so everyone, businesses and investors particularly, know the rules.

And so voters can decide whether it makes sense.

A serious government would be setting out its plan, accepting the public’ verdict.

Instead, it seems the Clark government is still considering a quick election.

That’s just irresponsible. There is no clear election issue. The Clark government hasn’t set out an agenda, or a prudent budget based on the HST referendum results.

Clark has a chance to set out her government’s plans and priorities, supported by a new budget in February. That would let voters make an informed choice.

It’s been a more than two years of stumbling government and slapdash fiscal policy in British Columbia.

Clark needs to show what alternative her government has to offer before Britisn Columbians go to the polls.

Four lessons from Barry Penner's departure

Four thoughts on Barry Penner's resignation as attorney general and retirement from politics.

First, there's something wrong with any system that expects politicians - or anyone - to work constantly.

Penner said he's leaving politics because he wants to spend time with his wife and six-month-old daughter, and a cabinet post makes that impossible. "I was supposed to be on holiday the last two weeks," he said. "And I think I got maybe one-and-a-half days . because of urgent issues in the ministry that had to be attended to."

BlackBerries are always buzzing and crises emerging.

Really, a cabinet minister should be able to go away for two weeks, and even take most weekends off. Real emergencies are rare. Most decisions don't have to be made instantly, and perhaps shouldn't be. Not every political issue demands immediate action.

But organizations can easily slip into phony crisis mode, where people compete to be busiest.

For example, if an article troubling to the government appears in the Times Colonist on a Saturday, the offended ministry often springs into action and fires off an email letter to the editor, supposedly from the minister, the same day or on Sunday. At least a few people's weekends are ruined.

But it's pointless. No one at the newspaper looks at emailed letters to the editor until Monday morning.

There isn't a newspaper until Tuesday.

There is no reason for the panic or the weekend work, except a desire to look busy or important.

Worse, it's unlikely we get good decisions from ministers constantly frazzled and overloaded and rushing from meeting to meeting, half-listening to staff while they scroll through emails. It's tough to think, or read, or pause for a thoughtful response when you're crushed in busy work.

It's also unlikely that we get the diversity we need in cabinet, and government. Anyone not prepared to put up with being on call 18 hours a day, seven days a week, has less chance of advancing to the top jobs.

Surely, among the driven workaholics, we want people at the cabinet table who value time with their children, or to read or make music. People who think reflection or going to a friend's house for dinner - without checking a BlackBerry surreptitiously under the table throughout the meal - are important. (I write as a reformed workaholic.)

Some politicians do maintain balance. But Penner's resignation suggests the pressures, self-imposed and external, to keep on working.

Second, while Penner certainly did not criticize Premier Christy Clark, neither did he show much support.

He resigned as attorney general now, Penner said, because Clark and the party are pushing MLAs to set up campaign teams in case she decides on a fall election. Penner felt it would be wrong to recruit campaign staff if he wasn't going to run in the next election (which, legally, is to be in 2013) and wrong to stay in cabinet if he's not running. Without the pressure to declare, he might have stayed in cabinet, he said.

And Penner made his own announcement; the premier's office didn't get the chance to manage the news.

The third point is a little complicated. I think well of Penner. I don't believe he's lied to me. He's not a jerk in the legislature. He always seems to enjoy representing the people in his riding, seeing it as a serious job and an honour. He doesn't run from issues. Sometimes, his sincerity seemed like it might be a liability in his party. I rate him highly.

But when you think about it, rating a politician highly for those reasons alone seems a little sad.

And fourth and finally, Penner's departure shows Clark is still seriously considering a fall election. The HST referendum results will be released in the next few days - Thursday is the target. Clark and the Liberal strategists have a narrow window to decide whether to call a vote, likely in October in advance of municipal elections.

Footnote: Clark's continued interest in a fall election might not be wellreceived in caucus. MLAs would have almost two years left in their terms under the fixed election date law, but face tough battles - and possibly defeats - if the vote is held this year.

Others fear the practical problems of raising money and recruiting volunteers when many political activists are already looking to the November municipal elections.

Riots, rubbish and the decline of Britain

A remarkable amount of rubbish has been spoken and written about Britain’s riots.
Start with Prime Minister David Cameron. “These riots were not about poverty,” he said this week. “That insults the millions of people who, whatever the hardship, would never dream of making others suffer like this.”
The beleaguered prime minister might wish poverty was not a factor, but he can’t possibly know it wasn’t.
In fact, The Guardian, in a fine piece of journalism, gathered the addresses of 1,100 people charged in the riots and plotted them against a map showing neighbourhoods’ official measures of “multiple deprivation.”
The majority of areas where suspects lived were deprived, and two-thirds of them had got poorer between 2007 and 2010. More than 40 per cent of the suspects lived in the bottom 10 per cent of communities on the deprivation index.
That does not justify rioting or theft or any other crime. But it does suggest it is stupid, if the goal is understanding and prevention, to pretend poverty, joblessness and deprivation are not factors.
Then move on to consider the moral outrage of politicians of all stripes, who spoke as if the rioters were aliens who had emerged, to everyone’s shock, on British streets.
Peter Oborne, the chief political commentator for the Daily Telegraph, a staunchly conservative newspaper, laid that to rest brilliantly.
There was something “very phony and hypocritical about all the shock and outrage expressed in Parliament,” he wrote. “MPs spoke about the week’s dreadful events as if they were nothing to do with them.”
“I believe that the criminality in our streets cannot be dissociated from the moral disintegration in the highest ranks of modern British society,” he wrote. “The last two decades have seen a terrifying decline in standards among the British governing elite. It has become acceptable for our politicians to lie and to cheat. An almost universal culture of selfishness and greed has grown up.”
Sir Richard Branson, he wrote, was considering moving his Virgin operations to Switzerland to avoid taxes. A report said that might be a blow to the Chancellor of the Exchequer — the finance minister — because it would mean less government revenue.
“In a sane and decent world such a move would be a blow to Sir Richard, not the Chancellor,” Oborne wrote. “People would note that a prominent and wealthy businessman was avoiding British tax and think less of him. Instead, he has a knighthood and is widely feted.” People who have become rich in part because of the structures of British society — schools, roads, police — no longer wish to pay their share.
MPs stood in Parliament to deplore the looters’ theft of TVs and designer clothes, Oborne wrote. But the same politicians greedily grabbed whatever they could under their lax expense provisions until they were exposed. Can a Labour MP who made taxpayers pay for a $14,000 Bang & Olufsen television really claim to be much different from a looter lugging a flat-screen TV out of a shop?
“The prime minister showed no sign that he understood that something stank about yesterday’s Commons debate,” Oborne wrote. “He spoke of morality, but only as something which applies to the very poor ... He appeared not to grasp that this should apply to the rich and powerful as well.”
I visited England four years ago, for the first time in years.
The greatest shock was the drunken louts, obnoxious and threatening. They weren’t all young, and it wasn’t a matter of being in the bar zone at night. They were in Exeter, a quiet university town, at night, and on trains at midday. They seemed a symptom of a decaying society.
As do the riots.
I don’t want to add to the rubbish. But any society that restricts upward mobility, cuts supports to those on the bottom who have become dependent on them over generations and not only accepts a perpetually uneducated, unemployed underclass, but tolerates lawless acts by some of its members, is going to face big problems.
If it increasingly celebrates the gap between the rich and the rest — winners and losers under the system set up by the winners — those problems will be more dramatic.
And no amount of politicians’ pronouncements, policing or moralizing are going to change the reality.
Canada is, of course, much different. But we should, perhaps, think about just how much different.

CLBC service cuts hurt most vulnerable

It's understandable that Social Development Minister Harry Bloy is ashamed of cruel cuts to services for some of B.C.'s most vulnerable citizens.

But his refusal to acknowledge the reality and his flat-out false statements are insulting to people with developmental disabilities and their often exhausted and frightened families.

"Developmental disabilities" is a clunky term. Many of the adults supported by Bloy's ministry are what we once called mentally handicapped. Some have severe autism or fetal alcohol syndrome; many have major physical and mental health problems as well. Some need round-the-clock medical care and constant supervision for their own safety, and the safety of others.

Much of that care has been provided through group homes. To save money, the government has been closing group homes and pushing people into cheaper arrangements.

And, based on the evidence, the government and Community Living B.C. know this is wrong. Bloy has insisted no people have been forced to move against their will and families have been consulted. Families say both claims are false.

Connie and Ken Greenway told Times Colonist reporter Lindsay Kines they were given little warning and no say in a decision to close the group home where their 46-year-old disabled son Darrin has lived for 15 years.

CLBC, the Crown corporation created by the government to provide services to the developmentally disabled, wanted the company operating the group home to sign a new contract with a deep funding cut. The company refused.

So the home will close and residents will be forced to move.

Remember, we are talking about fragile, vulnerable people with serious problems and great difficulty in dealing with change. Many, like Darrin, have spent years in the same home. It is, for them, like being ripped from family and sent into the unknown.

For their families, the changes bring a whole new set of fears. All parents fret about their children's future. But the fears are much more real as aging parents confront the reality that their vulnerable children will continue to be at risk after they die or are incapable of providing support and advocacy.

The closures aren't isolated. Community Living B.C. closed more than 40 group homes last year, forcing the residents to move and - often - reducing they support they received.

And the closures are not driven by revelations of waste, or innovations in support.

This is about cutting costs. The government has chosen not to put these families first.

According to CLBC, the amount of funding per client has fallen every year since it was created by the Liberals six years ago, under Christy Clark's watch as children's minister.

In 2006-07, the first full year of operation, funding provided an average $51,154 per client. This year, funding will be $45,306. And by 2013, according to the government projections, it will be cut to $41,225 per client.

If you factor in inflation, by 2013 the funding available for each client will be 30 per cent less than it was in 2006.

The effect of the cost-cutting goes far beyond group home closures. People who have, with extensive support, lived full and rich lives are seeing that ripped away, condemned to spend their days alone in a room.

And parents whose children are turning 19 face a special nightmare. Services for developmentally disabled youth are provided by the Ministry of Children and Families. Strong school programs offer opportunities.

On the day clients turn 19, those supports are ripped away. CLBC assumes responsibility, and parents find their children's lives are dramatically worse. Programs are unavailable, waiting lists are long and growing. Even when CLBC's own assessments say supports are needed for safety reasons, help is not provided.

This is not a case of families or interest groups demanding more, or better, support and care.

They just want the levels that have been in place for years to be maintained.

They want assurances that an adult child, unable to fend for herself, will not be put in danger, or forced to live a needlessly diminished life.

But the government, on your behalf, has decided it costs too much to continue helping vulnerable people live life fully.

Hydro report raps corporation, government

The government’s review of B.C. Hydro and power rates was grim reading.
The initial attention was focused on inefficiency within the Crown corporation.
The review panel — John Dyble, Premier Christy Clark’s deputy minister, Peter Milbrun, deputy minister of finance, and Cheryl Wenezenki-Yolland, acting deputy minister of advanced education — found B.C. Hydro paid too little attention to controlling expenses.
Hydro has an admirable commitment to quality, reliability and safety. But it has been paying a high premium to achieve those goals, and passing the cost on to its customers.
The result, the panel said, has included overstaffing. It suggested about 20 per cent of the 6,000-person workforce could be eliminated. Compensation had not been properly managed — 99 per cent of eligible employees received performance bonuses — and the corporation had missed opportunities for savings in dealing with suppliers.
The frank, independent look was welcome, though it raises questions about the attentiveness of B.C. Hydro directors — five of the 10 have been on the board for more than two years — and past energy ministers.
The report also suggested the government’s policy orders to B.C. Hydro have resulted in large and unnecessary rate increases.
Gordon Campbell, for example, said B.C. Hydro must make the province self-sufficient in electrical by 2016. It was ordered to have enough capacity to meet the entire power needs of the province even in a year of record low water — and to build a big buffer on top of that.
That has proved an expensive, wasteful order. B.C. Hydro had to ramp up staffing to achieve the goal.
And because the power was to be acquired by contracting with private producers, the public corporation had to commit to costly, long-term contracts for electricity that might never be needed.
B.C. Hydro estimates its current round of power from private producers will cost $124 MWh, for example. That’s more than twice as much as the market price, and one-third more than power from a Site C dam would be.
Because of the government’s order, B.C. Hydro faces the real risk of buying expensive power from private producers and selling it at a loss on the open market.
There is little risk in adopting a more conservative approach in adding capacity; in a crunch, B.C. can buy power from U.S. or Alberta producers, as it has in the past.
There’s another major policy issue. The report indicates that the government has been, effectively, using B.C. Hydro to bring in hidden tax revenue.
B.C. Hydro pays government for water rights — the use of rivers and streams across the province. It charges twice as much as other Canadian governments charge power companies, the report found.
If B.C. charged rates in line with Manitoba and Quebec, then B.C. Hydro’s costs would fall by $150 million a year, the panel noted. That would result in an immediate rate cut of at least four per cent.
And the government also claims a larger share of B.C. Hydro’s revenue as a dividend than comparable utilities — more than $600 million this year.
Energy Minister Rich Coleman said that’s not likely to change. The government is running a deficit; it needs the revenue from water rights.
But it’s an inefficient and unfair way to collect revenue. Taxes, generally, are imposed based on some principles, with a primary one being that they are progressive — the amount paid rises with income or wealth.
Raising revenue through electricity bills doesn’t work that way. A low-income family with an older house — perhaps heating with electricity — would pay a larger share than an wealthy couple in an expensive condo.
And this approach to taxation also imposes larger costs on energy-dependent industries, reducing what should be a competitive advantage on attracting investment.
B.C. Hydro has some work ahead in improving its efficiency and cutting costs. But the government has an even larger role in fixing flawed policies.
Footnote: The review panel looked at the smart meter program and concluded it was justified based on future savings, although it urged B.C. Hydro to seek ways of cutting the $930 million cost. The panel also notes that unless the corporation introduces differential rates to discourage power use at peak periods, some potential savings under the smart meter program won’t be achieved. Government policy has rejected differential rates; that too should be reviewed.

The first five thoughts on the BC Hydro review

Five early thoughts on the BC Hydro review.

1) Where were the board, ministers responsible and government as BC Hydro, apparently, was mismanaged and staff soared 20 per cent over the levels needed over a period of years?

2) The government now should explain the huge amounts of money wasted by its discredited policy directives that BC Hydro use IPP purchases in pursuit of a foolish goal of electricity self-sufficiency.

3) The government has to explain its decision to use BC Hydro rates as a vehicle for tax increases. The review found, for example, that the government charges Hydro excessive rates for water rights, which are passed on to customers in the former of higher electricity bills. That's a regressive tax, and potentially destructive to industry in the province, encouraging investment elsewhere.

4) The review read much like something that would be done after a new party was elected to government and set out about fixing - and highlighting - the errors of the previous administration. Christy Clark deserves credit for the hard look (although there are political advantages to distancing herself from Gordon Campbell). But not all Liberals might agree - Bill Bennett and Blair Lekstrom, for example, were briefly energy ministers during the problem years. Half the B.C. Hydro board have been in place for more than two years, and the report raises serious questions about their effectiveness.

5) The report suggests failures of government policy and management. It is good to bring them into the light, but does raise questions about other areas of government.

Full post to come.

Banishment our way of treating mental illness

Donovan Seward’s banishment from Saltspring Island is a nice metaphor for the way we deal with mental illness.
Seward was ordered off the Island by a justice of the peace after a bail hearing. He faced several charges, including a dine and dash and assaulting an RCMP officer during his arrest. He was also a nuisance since joining the local homeless community.
So he was banished. Problem solved, at least for Saltspring residents.
But not really.
Seward is 31. He’s suffered from mental illness since childhood, says his mother, Myrna Seward. He’s had past brushes with the law, stints in hospitals and a suicide attempt. He’s tormented by voices in his head sometimes, she says, and if he quits taking his medication, he lives in a fantasy world. “He’s completely delusional,” she told the Times Colonist. “He thinks he’s John Lennon half the time.”
The bail conditions didn’t include a requirement that he get medical help or supervision. The officers didn’t take him to emergency for assessment, a possibility under the Mental Health Act.
Really, the problem has just been pushed along from Saltspring to wherever Seward lands next.
Don’t criticize the justice of the peace, the police or the people of Saltspring. Our whole approach to mental illness is based on pushing people away so they become someone else’s problem if things go wrong. (It’s important to note that most people with mental illness manage quite well, as do most people with diabetes or any other disease.)
The health care system shortchanges people with mental illness. There are always other priorities, usually with more skilful advocates. Boomers demanding timely hip replacements are more likely to be heard than someone struggling with unmanaged schizophrenia.
Alan Campbell, who retired last year as director of mental health and addictions for the Vancouver Island Health Authority, said B.C. and Canada lag. “For every one of the five years I’ve been doing this job, we’ve put forward strong, well-reasoned cases for more funding,” he said. “My understanding is that our requests are given real consideration, but they just don’t fare well in the end.”
The health system manages its costs by denying or rationing treatment. But it’s actually banishing troubled patients, just as Saltspring did.
Sometimes families or social service agencies are forced to pick up the pieces. Communities deal with the fallout, as people who are not treated fall to the streets.
And often, the police, courts and jails take on the responsibility the health care system shunned - as they did in Seward’s case.
Police spend their days dealing with people who are addicted, intoxicated or mentally ill. They face challenges, and sometimes danger, acting as social workers and counsellors.
Officers know that because the root problems aren’t being addressed, they’ll deal with the same people and the same behaviors the next day.
When the problems become serious enough, or annoying enough to the community, then people with unmanaged mental illness end up in court and, far too often, in prison.
Correctional Investigator Howard Sapers, who oversees the federal correctional system’s operations, estimates that 36 per cent of men in federal prisons, and 50 per cent of women, have some form of mental illness. The figures are similar for provincial jails.
There is a cruel irony in all that. Governments closed down large residential mental health facilities, partly to save money and partly because they were considered inhumane. But they failed to deliver the promised health care, housing and community support, with the result that people with mental illness ended up in prisons, which are far more inhumane, and offer no effective treatment.
There is no universal, simple solution. People with mental illness have rights, including the right to refuse treatment. Seward had been living in subsidized housing, with support, in Victoria, but decided to move to Vancouver.
But the current approach is a shambles. And rather than dealing with the issue and providing the health care and community support needed to allow people to deal with their illnesses, we are, like Saltspring, just pushing them along to become someone else’s problem.

Cuts to B.C. human trafficking office

The B.C. government has cut funding for an office dedicated to dealing with human trafficking.

Which does not displease Jody Paterson, who argues the money could be spent much more effectively on more pressing issues.

"We spent $2.25 million on this office in the last four years, apparently to help 100 people. It kills me to think how that money could have been used for real needs rather than for chasing ghosts.
You'd think that with all the sex workers I'd met over the years in B.C., I might have met one who'd been trafficked at some point in her life. Nope."

You can read the rest here.

More on solving America's debt crisis

I wrote last week that the U.S. could go a long way toward solving its debt crisis simply by being a bit more like Canada and raising taxes to our level.

"The U.S. collects taxes equal to 24 per cent of its GDP. If the take was increased to 31 per cent - the amount collected in Canada - the current year's deficit would fall from $1.5 trillion to $500 billion....

In fact, if the Americans increased overall tax revenue as a share of GDP to the average for OECD countries - 34.8 per cent - they could have a balanced budget immediately, without cutting anything from spending."

(You can read the post here.)

The New York Times makes the same point in an editorial today.

Lessons from a swim in the Gorge

We went for a swim Monday, about two blocks from home, in the Gorge waterway. We swam in the salt water as the tidal currents swept under the Tillicum Bridge toward Portage Inlet.

It was just a swim. And it was more. Because even 15 years ago, I wouldn't have ventured into the questionable Gorge waters.

The swim was a reminder that even when things are truly wrecked, we can fix them.

All it takes is one person with the will to start.

The Gorge is an urban waterway that extends inland from Victoria's harbour until it widens into Portage Inlet.

There are a few creeks feeding into the inlet and the Gorge, but the big influence is tidal. Water surges in, and out. The rapids under the Tillicum bridge run one way, then the other.

In the last 120 years, the Gorge has gone full circle. Its heyday was the late 19th and early 20th century, although First Nations had fished for herring and salmon and used it as a gathering place for centuries.

Victorians travelled in boats and by wagon and streetcar to the Gorge narrows to picnic, enjoy the natural setting and listen to concerts.

In 1911, as Dennis Minaker noted in his book, The Gorge of Summers Gone, the British Columbia Railway Company built its own version of Coney Island at the narrows to encourage more people to use the streetcar line. There was a roller-coaster and an early version of Splash Mountain that sent terrified customers down a steep ramp in small boats that plunged into the Gorge.

The water was always central to the activities. People swam and boated and gathered clams. There were races and exhibitions and bathhouses. Promoters built towers and staged diving shows - until, in 1922, 19-year-old Billy Muir was paralysed in a 110-foot dive. He died three years later.

But a few decades into the 20th century, the Gorge waterway was too polluted for anyone but the foolhardy to go swimming.

Residential development all along its length and around Portage Inlet meant increasing runoff, often with storm water and sewage spilling into the waters. Industry along the harbour and Gorge had added its own toxic legacies over Victoria's early years. And the Gorge had become a dumping ground for unwanted items large and small.

It was fine for boaters, but its attractiveness for swimmers - and its once-rich environment - seemed to be lost forever.

But John Roe didn't think so. In 1994, he and his nine-year-old son started spending their days hauling stuff out of the water - shopping carts, rusted metal, car tires.

It seemed, frankly, nutty - a classicly quixotic exercise in the impossible. The Gorge seemed too far gone for any effort to succeed, let alone one driven by one man and a boy in their spare time.

But individual efforts can have a powerful effect.

Other people started helping haul stuff from the water or contributed money. Scuba divers volunteered to pull up the junk Roe couldn't reach.

Business and governments offered support.

Roe, who had covered all the initial expenses, led the formation of the Veins of Life Watershed Society.

Grants and donations paid for equipment and bigger workforces. The cleanup efforts moved beyond pulling junk from the water and started focusing on stopping the flow of pollutants.

And at some point, there was a transformation. It was no longer accepted as an inevitable that the Gorge would remain unusable.

Instead, its recovery was seen as the imperative.

By 2000, a symbolic milestone Roe had set was reached. The Gorge was the site, for the first time in 65 years, of a swimming race.

Today, the transformation is remarkable. Salmon have returned, cormorants and eagles perch in trees along the waterway and herons and kingfishers haunt the shoreline. Emerald green eelgrass beds wave in the tides and otters and seals fish in the water.

And all because one man and a boy took a look at the state of the Gorge and decided to do something about it.

It's worth remembering, in these days of problems that seem too large or complex to yield to our efforts.

And pondering - perhaps as you enjoy a swim in the Gorge on a sunny afternoon.

U.S. could fix debt crisis by being more like us

Americans could fix their giant deficit/debt crisis relatively painlessly. All they have to do is become more like Canadians.

Specifically, they just have to pay the same level of taxes that Canadians do.

U.S. politicians have spent the last few weeks in a destructive exercise in brinkmanship over raising the country's debt limit. Republicans said they wouldn't allow more debt without a plan to reduce the deficit, and the plan couldn't include any tax increases.

Democrats didn't want the deep spending cuts that would be required. Failing to raise the limit could mean the U.S. couldn't borrow the money to pay its bills, causing all sorts of international economic problems.

A last-minute deal appears to have put off the crisis for a while.

Basically, the problem is simple. The U.S. spends much more than it takes in. The Tea Party politicians pretend it's feasible to cut spending by 40 per cent to deal with the gap. It's not.

But there is a solution. The U.S. collects taxes equal to 24 per cent of its GDP. If the take was increased to 31 per cent - the amount collected in Canada - the current year's deficit would fall from $1.5 trillion to $500 billion. (Instead, the compromise deal imagines spending cuts that would reduce the deficit by about $200 billion.)

Canada manages with that level of taxation. Our economy is stronger than the U.S. economy. Our society, arguably, functions better. Creativity and entrepreneurship aren't strangled. We grumble, but the tax burden isn't really onerous - people aren't fleeing for tax havens so they can pay less.

But a large chunk of Americans have bought into the dual notions that they are heavily taxed, and that all taxes are bad.

Neither is true. In fact, if the Americans increased overall tax revenue as a share of GDP to the average for OECD countries - 34.8 per cent - they could have a balanced budget immediately, without cutting anything from spending. No more mounting debt for future generations to repay, no risks of default or massive interest costs on rising borrowing.

Most of us grumble about paying taxes, especially when governments do goofy things with our money - like spending on fast ferries or stadium roofs or submarines that don't work.

But the current level of taxation in Canada isn't obviously punitive. We share the costs of services like schools and health care and police and get obvious value for much of the money we send off to government.

OECD countries function well, for the most part, with their levels of taxation. Even Germany, with tax revenue at 39 per cent of GDP, seems to manage.

It's not like the money disappears. Seniors get pensions and spend the money in their communities. The navy employs a few thousand people in Victoria, and buys services from scores of companies. We drive on the roads that our tax dollars pay for, and call the police when we need them. And the police, in turn, spend their salaries in the community.

It irks some that the payments are compulsory. I can boycott stores I don't like, but I have to send a cheque off to Revenue Canada. People without kids pay for schools, and those who oppose the war in Afghanistan pay for bigger military budgets.

But that's the price of living in a democratic society. It's pretty good value.

We can and should go wild when governments waste our money. We shouldn't pretend that paying for the things we need and use is somehow a bad thing.

Many Americans, and their politicians, seem trapped in a dangerous fantasyland.

And there is a real risk that the blind anti-tax fervour, fed by some elements of the media, will catch hold in Canada. To some extent, it already has. The Campbell Liberals treated taxes as inherently bad. And at least some of the anti-HST sentiment comes from people who oppose all taxes.

The consequences of the American tax delusion are on display. Let's hope we learn from them.

Footnote: There are still serious questions about how taxes should be collected. The initial HST opposition, for example, came in large part because it was supposed to shift $1.9 billion in taxes from companies to families. That's been a trend in B.C.

Since 2001, the share of government revenues derived from direct corporate taxes and royalties of various kinds has fallen by more than 50 per cent.

Americans could learn from us on deficit

Americans could fix their big deficit/debt crisis relatively painlessly.

All they have to do is pay the same level of taxes as Canadians do.

U.S. politicians are playing brinkmanship over raising the debt limit. Posturing and ideology have replaced any hint of intelligence or common sense. The risks to the U.S. and world economies are serious.

Basically, the problem is simple

The U.S. spends much more than it takes in. The Tea Party politicians pretend that it's feasible to cut spending by 40 per cent as a solution. It's not.

But there is a solution. The U.S. collects taxes equal to 24 per cent of its GDP. If the take was increased to 31 per cent - the amount collected in Canada - the current year's deficit would fall from $1.5 trillion to $500 billion.

We manage with that level of taxation. Our economy is stronger than the U.S. economy. Our society, arguably, functions better. Creativity and entrepreneurship aren't strangled.

If the U.S. tax revenue was increased to the OECD average of 34.8 per cent of GDP, Americans have a balanced budget without cutting anything from spending.

Most of us grumble about paying taxes, especially when governments do goofy things with our money - like spending on fast ferries or stadium roofs or mismanaged convention centres.

But the current level of taxation in Canada isn't obviously punitive. We share the costs of services like schools and health care and police and get obvious value for much of the money we send off to government. OECD countries function well, for the most part, with their levels of taxation.

It's not like the money disappears. Seniors get pensions and spend the money in their communities. The navy employees a few thousand people in Victoria, and buys services from scores of companies. We drive on the roads that our tax dollars pay for, and call the police when we need them.

It irks some that the payments are compulsory. I can boycott stores I don't like or decide not to eat out, but I have to send a cheque off to Revenue Canada. People without kids pay for schools. People who oppose the war in Afghanistan pay for bigger military budgets.

But that's the price of living in a democratic society. It's pretty good value.

Taxes pay for services we need. We can and should go wild when governments waste our money. We shouldn't pretend that paying for the things we need and use is somehow a bad thing.

American politicians seem trapped in fantasyland.

Let's hope we learn from their delusion.

Province undermining missing women inquiry

It might be time to pull the plug on the public inquiry into missing and murdered women.

The Liberal government's support for the inquiry, headed by former attorney general Wally Oppal, has always been suspect. Even when police joined the widespread calls for an independent review, the government dragged its feet.

Now Premier Christy Clark and Attorney General Barry Penner are undermining the inquiry. They have overruled Oppal's decisions on what's required to make it an effective, thorough review of how Robert Pickton could prey on women for years.

Oppal heard applications from individuals and groups that wanted standing at the hearings - the right to review documents, question witnesses, provide evidence and respond to the testimony.

He narrowed the list to 13 groups, and recommended the government provide funding for their legal costs. He was only seeking funding for those groups who were needed to get answers and had "satisfied me that they would not be able to participate fully without financial support," Oppal said.

Penner said no, and Clark has supported the position despite Oppal's pleas for reconsideration. The government can't afford the legal costs, they say. The commission will have lawyers. Perhaps they can look after the interests of the groups. (The government will pay for one lawyer for the families of Pickton's victims.)

Five of the 13 groups have already pulled out of the inquiry, including the Native Women's Association of Canada and WISH, a drop-in centre for Downtown Eastside sex workers.

Penner's concerns about costs are understandable. Inquiries can become expensive.

Except his concern about costs extends only those representing the victims and other missing women. Those groups can be expected to have an interest in, and knowledge of, the factors - police and political indifference, racism, poverty, lack of social supports - that might have played a role in allowing Pickton to kill for years.

Police officers called before the inquiry will have publicly funded lawyers. Any politicians, past or present, who might be called to testify, or even mentioned in the course of the inquiry, will have taxpayer-funded lawyers. So will government employees.

But Clark isn't suggesting those people should rely on the commission's lawyers.

If the concern is costs, and Penner really believes that it's adequate to have the commission's lawyers ensure fairness and a thorough examination of the facts, then he should provide a level playing field. That means no public funding for anyone involved.

Penner won't do that. He is prepared to provide legal funding for those with power, but not for those without it. They are, like the missing women, second class.

It's not just the groups. Kim Rossmo is a former Vancouver police officer whose warnings that a serial killer was at work were ignored. He is a professor in Texas now and was to be an important witness at the inquiry.

But the government has also refused to pay for legal representation for Rossmo. Other officers will have taxpayer-paid lawyers to question him, review documents on their behalf and protect their interests. He is expected to pay for his own lawyer.

The inquiry's credibility is rapidly being eroded. On Friday, the Native Women's Association of Canada called for a federal inquiry.

"The government of B.C. has shut us out of the British Columbia Missing Women Commission of Inquiry, and now we have no confidence that it will be able to produce a fair and balanced report," president Jeannette Corbiere. "The decision of the B.C. government to restrict funding for counsel primarily to police and government agencies demonstrates how flawed and one sided this process has become."

This inquiry should be important. Scores of women disappeared; dozens were killed. The institutions that were supposed to protect all citizens failed them. Without an inquiry, we won't know what went wrong - and whether women continue to be killed.

But the government is undermining before work even starts.

Footnote: Penner also says the groups might be able to participate in less formal hearings that will be held in conjunction with the inquiry. But again, he has not explained why these groups should be denied full participation in the inquiry, as Oppal has recommended, while the legal representation to allow police and politicians to participate is fully funded.

Gap between rich and rest widening

We've become a lot more unequal society in Canada, widening the gap between the rich and the rest. The top earners have increased their share of after-tax income in the last three decades, with the gap widening since 2000.

Middle and lower-income families saw their shares shrink.

The highest income quintile - the top 20 per cent of Canadians - shared 39 per cent of all income in 2009. The bottom 20 per cent split seven per cent of the total income.

This all didn't happen as the result of some unavoidable force of nature (or economics). Governments, for example, made changes that delivered a greater share of the overall income to the rich. Which meant a smaller share for everyone else.

And despite the shift's significance, there was not much public debate.

The Conference Board of Canada has just offered a useful look at the issue (see conferenceboard.ca), and raised important questions.

A few hard-core ideologues see the issue simply. But it's complex.

If you work too hard to reduce income inequality, the theory goes, you remove the rewards that encourage people to build businesses or climb the corporate ladder. The economy is weaker as a result.

If income inequality becomes too great, a society suffers other problems. There are economic ones - when success is only rewarded for a relative handful of winners, the incentive for most people to strive is reduced.

There are also moral issues. The idea of some people enjoying huge incomes while children live a few streets away in desperate poverty should be troubling.

And the Conference Board notes another risk. "To participate fully in society, individuals need a level of resources that is not too far below the norm in that community," it noted.

When people's incomes fall too far - when the gap becomes too great - they are excluded. Which means they have much less stake in accepting the laws and rules imposed by the society that has left them out.

Especially when the rebuff is so pointed. The Conference Board report cites a Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives study that tracked the incomes of the richest one per cent of Canadians, using tax return data. That group - 246,000 people whose average income was $405,000 - claimed almost one-third of all growth in incomes during the boom years from 1998 to 2007.

Market forces have played a role. Globalization meant manufacturing moved offshore to countries with lower labour costs; that reduced demand for workers and resulted in lower wages in countries like Canada. Highly skilled people, by contrast, are in greater demand.

But government policies have widened the income gap. Traditionally, governments have redistributed income to reduce the distance between the rich and the poor. Taxes are progressive, so the rich pay more. Transfer payments - disability assistance, unemployment insurance, pensions - boost the incomes of those at the bottom of the heap. Minimum wage laws and other regulations protect those with the least economic bargaining power.

The Conference Board found that between 1976 and 1994, the tax and transfer system increasingly reduced income inequality.

But since 1994, the trend reversed. Tax and transfer policies played a role in increasing the income gap. In 1990, for example, about 83 per cent of unemployed people were eligible for EI benefits; that was chopped to 48 per cent by 2009.

It's not all gloom. The high-income earners reaped the largest share of economic growth. But the Conference Board reports the average income level of the poorest group of people rose, "marginally," from $12,400 in 1976 to $14,500 in 2009 - about 17 per cent over 33 years. (The numbers are adjusted for inflation.)

But the highest-earning quintile saw a 26 per cent increase in average income. The income gap widened from $92,300 in 1976 to $117,500 in 2009.

A widening income gap isn't inevitable. The Conference Board found Canada had among the highest income gaps among peer countries, ranking 12th out of 17. Many of the more equal countries had equally strong economies.

This should be a central political and social issue for Canadians. The gap between those at the top of the income pyramid and the rest in the middle and bottom is widening. There should be, at least, a discussion of what that means and how much disparity Canadians are prepared to accept.

Globe: Firms with B.C. Liberal ties awarded secret contracts in pro-HST campaign

The Liberals bypassed normal tendering processes and its pro-HST campaign secretly arranged deals with friendly companies and a former aide to Colin Hansen, who introduced the tax as finance minister, Sean Holman reports in The Globe and Mail today.

Campaign Research Ltd., which worked on George Abbott's leadership campaign got $167,800 to conduct those town hall telephone meetings on the tax.

Backbone Technology, which has worked for the Liberal party for 10 years, got $52,747 contract to do the HST website.

And Marc Andrew, Hansen's former aide, was paid more than $33,000 to provide "political advice" to Tom Syer, the head of the HST sales campaign, and help the independent panel that assessed the tax.

None of the contracts were tendered, the normal procedure for contracts worth more than $25,000.

Holman reports the government's response.

There is a simple test of the appropriateness of these contracts.

What would Christy Clark have said if the former NDP government had done the same thing? Would she have accepted the reasons for awarding $250,000 in contracts to friends of the government without competitive bids?

Or cried foul?

MLAs get thousands for 22 minutes work on committee

MLAs Norm Letnick and Rob Fleming got an awful lot of extra money for almost no work last year.

Letnick, a Liberal from Kelowna-Lake Country, was paid $13,353 - on top of MLAs' base pay of $101,859 - to chair a legislative committee that met once, for 22 minutes. Fleming, a New Democrat from Victoria-Swan Lake, was paid $8,903 as deputy chair.

The two led the grandly named Select Standing Commitee on Parliamentary Reform, Ethical Conduct, Standing Orders and Private Bills.

The committee met once in the last fiscal year, rubber stamping two housecleaning bills for non-profits. It took less than half an hour.

Letnick and Fleming didn't set the pay. All MLAs approved the pay rates after a 2007 report on MLAs compensation. They took the money though.

They weren't alone. New Democrat Jenny Kwan was paid $4,437 as deputy chair of the legislative initiatives committee, which met twice, for three hours, to discuss the HST petition.

The legislative committee on children and youth met four times in the fiscal year. Chair Joan McIntyre was paid $13,353 for the work; deputy chair Maurine Karagianis, $8,206.

That was a more serious committee. There was work between meetings and a five-and-a-half hour session on poverty in Vancouver. But the chair was still paid more than $3,000 per meeting.

On one hand, you can't fault the MLAs. The pay scale was put in place by the legislature. Their parties backed them for the positions.

Letnick notes he had the second lowest travel expenses among Interior and Northern MLAs and worked long and diligently. "I work really hard to make sure I can defend everything that I have control over," he said.

Still, $13,353 is a lot of money for presiding over one meeting.

The pay didn't used to be so grand. Until 2007, MLAs got $6,000 for chairing a committee and $3,000 for serving as vice-chair.

The committee set up to review MLAs' compensation and expense allowances decided that wasn't enough.

The three-member panel's recommendation of a 29-per-cent increase in base pay, from $76,100 to $98,000, got most of the attention. But it also recommended big increases in the wide range of extra pay that sees just over half the MLAs in the legislature get a salary top-up. (The actual average pay rate is over $120,000.)

Compensation for committee chairs, for example, more than doubled, from $6,000 to $14,700; vice-chairs got an even larger increase, from $3,000 to $9,800. The committee didn't explain why the compensation should be tripled.

Parliamentary secretaries - helpers for ministers - were receiving an extra $6,000 a year. Now they are paid an extra $15,000. Caucus chairs got $6,000. Now they are paid more than $20,000.

And of course the extra pay for being premier doubled, from $45,000 to more than $90,000.

The increases, including a much more generous pension plan, were all recommended by an independent panel.

But the government picked the panelists - two senior lawyers and a business professor. Their average income, I'd wager, was well over $200,000. Their perspective on compensation would inevitably be skewed by their own experiences. Unlike past compensation committees, there was no one earning the average B.C. wage of abut $40,000.

The money, in the grand scheme of things, is small. MLAs work long hours and, in my experience, mostly seek office out of a real desire to improve life in their communities.

But the huge increases show a disconnect between the lives of British Columbians who are also working hard, taking on extra tasks and count themselves fortunate to get any pay raises. The $13,353 Letnick got for chairing one 20-minute meeting is 23 per cent more than a disabled person on assistance gets to live on for an entire year.

MLAs deserve fair pay. But it is troubling that a sense of entitlement seems to have taken hold, one that distances them from the realities of life for most British Columbians.

Footnote: For more than 20 years, the Washington state has had a 16-person salary commission to deal with pay for elected officials. One member is selected at random from the voters' list in each of nine geographical areas. The politicians appoint five members - one each from universities, business, personnel management, the law and organized labour. The state's HR department and universities get to name one person each. Other states have taken similar approaches.

Corporate sponsors and special access to the premiers

An editorial today in the Times Colonist:

The unseemly premiers

Convention organizers often seek sponsors willing to pay to curry favour with attendees.

But the country's premiers shouldn't be asking corporations to subsidize their meetings.

When provincial and territorial premiers meet in Vancouver this week, the events will be subsidized by business donors, commentator David Schreck notes.

The Insurance Brokers Association of Canada, lobby group for that industry, is the platinum sponsor. Amgen, campaigning for public funding for an expensive cancer drug, is a gold sponsor, along with CN and the major beer companies.

Encana, a major player in Alberta and B.C. gas fields, and a beneficiary from government decisions on royalty rates, is a silver sponsor. So is the lobby group for research-based pharmaceutical companies and Borealis Infrastructure, a player in public-private partnerships.

Licia Corbella, in a column on this page on similar sponsorships for a federal-provincial energy ministers' conference in Alberta, notes the damage done.

The companies are spending money in the interests of shareholders. They must feel they will gain special access to the premiers, or favourable consideration in future. Even if they don't, the perception will exist.

Corporations who choose not to pay up will wonder if that will be held against them, by the politicians or the conference organizers.

And ordinary citizens, or businesses that can't pay, must worry that their concerns will come second to the interests of the corporations that donated.

HST a cash cow, and other news from the Public Accounts

The HST as cash cow, the incredible shrinking deficit and three other interesting things from the Public Accounts, the final report on the province's financial performance in the last fiscal year.
First, the Public Accounts reveal that, government claims to the contrary, the HST represents a significant tax increases targeted at individuals and families.
The HST was in effect for the final nine months of the last fiscal year, which ended March 31. It pulled in $4.2 billion, or about $467 million a month.
In the previous year, the PST take was about $392 million a month.
So the HST provides government with an extra 19 per cent - roughly $900 million more a year than the PST, or about $210 per man, woman and child in the province. (That's slightly overstated - about $100 million of the increase is due to economic growth, based on the government's budget assumptions.)
That's on top of the HST impact of shifting some $2 billion in taxes off corporations and businesses and onto individuals and families.
Second, the government continues to introduce budgets - except for the 2009 election budget - with huge cushions. The budget forecast a deficit of $1.7 billion. The actual deficit, according to the public accounts, was $309 million. As recently as February, the government was still forecasting a $1.3-billion deficit.
Tax revenues were $780 million higher than expected, in large part because the government underestimated HST revenues in the budget. Crown corporations revenues were $181 million over budget, mainly because the government took $180 million more from B.C. Hydro revenues than it expected.
And spending was reined in. Overall, spending increased $903 million, or 2.3 per cent over the previous year. But that largely reflects health spending, up 4.1 per cent. Education spending - K to 12 and postsecondary - was up about one per cent. Other spending was effectively frozen, despite the huge pressures in areas like Community Living B.C.'s support for people with developmental disabilities.
Prudence is a virtue, of course; better to err on the side of caution and all that. And some room for unexpected occurrences has to be built into a $30-billion-plus budget.
But consistently coming in under budget by huge amounts cheats MLAs and the public.
A more accurate budget forecast might have resulted in different choices by the legislature. Perhaps, had MLAs known the deficit was to be $309 million, not $1.7 billion, they would have voted to spend more on support for schools or additional surgeries.
Or they might have decided there would be room for substantial across-the-board income tax cuts, given the relatively small deficit.
Those options were removed because of the inaccurate budget presented to the legislature.
Third, the Public Accounts report that the B.C. economy grew by four per cent in 2010, third strongest among the province. That's obviously good news and the increased economic activity played a role in the increased government revenues. But the report warns growth is expected to slow to two per cent this year.
And it noted the recovery didn't ease the unemployment rate. Full-time employment increased 1.1 per cent, and the number of people working full-time is still below 2007 and 2008 levels. Unemployment improved slightly, to 7.6 per cent - the highest level since 2003.
Finally, the accounts reported the province's total debt, despite recent deficits and infrastructure spending, increased by $3.3 billion, to $45.2 billion. Taxpayer-supported debt equals 15.7 per cent of GDP, a manageable level.
The NDP did highlight a big jump in long-term commitments that will bind future governments - and taxpayers - well into the future. The contracts, for everything from payments to private companies building hospitals to highway maintenance, increased from $53 billion to $80 billion in one year. More than half the commitments - $45 billion - bind B.C. Hydro to buy expensive electricity from private power companies.
Footnote: The Public Accounts - available online at www.fin.gov.bc.ca - also reports on MLA pay and expense claims.
The base pay for the fiscal year was $102,000. But 44 of the 85 MLAs qualified for additional payments because they were in cabinet, chaired committees or played various other roles.
The actual average pay for an MLA was a record $120,198.

So who's managing the government's HST sales job? It's a secret

Sean Holman filed an FOI to find out who was working in the government's HST sales office and managing the multimillion ad campaign to convince people to vote to keep the tax.
But the government wouldn't reveal the names of anyone, including a "special adviser" from outside government.
See his piece here.