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.

Clark’s stumbles raise political questions

So how’s Christy Clark doing, after four months as premier? That’s a big question for the Liberals. If Clark is doing well, they can afford to delay an election. If not, a fall election is in the cards.
Only a few people know how effective Clark has been in getting the right things done in government - MLAs, deputy ministers, and those affected by government decisions.
Most of us form opinions on what we read about her performance, or see on the news, or our vague sense of what she’s done.
And the media narrative seems to be turning a bit negative.
Clark started well, but that was easy. She just had to not be Gordon Campbell.
So Clark raised the minimum wage - a good and overdue step. She fired both the minister and the top manager in the children and families ministry. She ordered a review of B.C. Hydro’s politically ordered, expensive plans. And she floated a proposal to save the HST, acknowledging the Liberals had been planning to gouge families and benefit corporations.
And she was likable, donning a Canucks’ jersey and just being darn enthusiastic. Clark is a an excellent politician. She sounds good, if you don’t listen too hard.
But the tide seemed to shift last month.
First, Clark sent an unclear message after the Stanley Cup riots. She was hardline initially. “If you are responsible, we will hold you responsible. Your family, friends and employers will know," she said. "We will ensure we have the resources to do this. You will not be able to hide behind your hoodie or your bandana." Get ready for a jail cell, Clark said.
Then she backtracked. The target was a “core” group of instigators, not young people who just got caught “when they were most likely to make a colossal, irreparable mistake.”
Then Clark floated weird ideas for Senate reform in her first official Ottawa visit.
B.C. is shortchanged in the Senate. The province, with 4.5 million people, is represented by six senators. New Brunswick, with 750,000 people, has 10. But fixing the imbalance requires a change to the constitution, virtually impossible given the amending formula and the opposition of provinces that would lose seats.
In Ottawa, Clark said her first choice is abolition. But she had lawyers looking at whether senators could be added for B.C. without changing the constitution, she said.
That’s a nonstarter, experts agree. Adding senators is clearly a constitutional change.
Later, Clark said she had floated a different idea with Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He should leave Senate seats vacant in Atlantic Canada and Quebec so B.C. and other under-represented provinces would have more clout.
The ideas was widely derided as goofy and legally dubious. What prime minister would rile voters in five provinces by deliberately failing to appoint the senators they were entitled to under the constitution?
This week, Clark stumbled on a plan to use a gas tax increase to help pay for a new transit line in the Lower Mainland. Mayors had negotiated the plan and Transportation Minister Blair Lekstrom said the province backed it.
But in a press conference Monday, Clark suggested she might veto the gas tax.
“When British Columbians say that they’re not really excited about paying more gas taxes, I get that,” Clark said. “Because my focus as premier is about how do we make life more affordable for people rather than less affordable.”
By Wednesday, Lekstrom was smoothing the waters and assuring the mayors it was all a misunderstanding.
On one hand, it’s welcome to have a politician willing to stray from carefully crafted and often meaningless talking points. Voters might find some candour, even thinking out loud, welcome.
But the risk is that Clark will be seen as a policy lightweight given to speaking and acting without sufficient thought, and at risk of making big mistakes.
In politics, unfortunately, it’s tough to shake that kind of image once it takes hold.
Footnote: The HST referendum remains the big election factor. If the HST is dumped, the next question will be how many of the former PST exemptions will be cancelled as the government looks to increase revenue. Those decisions could rekindle all the original anti-HST anger and more.

A child's death, a nation's shame

The Times Colonist looked at the shooting death of a five-year-old boy on an Alberta reserve today. The statistical portrait of reserve life was striking and horrifying.


"Consider the numbers. Ethan Yellowbird was a member of the Samson nation. His grandfather is chief. According to the 2006 census, about 3,300 people lived on the reserve. The median age was 20; 37 per cent of the population was under 15.

There were 765 families on the reserve - couples, with or without children, and single parents. And 345 of them, or 45 per cent, were single-parent families. That's more than three times the rate for the rest of the province.

The median family income was $19,776, compared with the Alberta median of $73,823.

The unemployment rate was 27 per cent. Thirty-four per cent of residents over 15 had a high school education or better, compared with 76 per cent of Albertans.

The numbers offer a limited portrait of a struggling community - poor, undereducated and underemployed.

And the large numbers of young people growing up without hope of a better future suggest decades of struggle ahead."

You can read the rest here.

Gambling grant review long overdue

Governments love charities as props whenever they want to expand gambling.
They use them to legitimize what is, overall, a destructive industry. As Gordon Campbell said, before he launched the biggest gambling expansion in B.C.'s history, the only way governments make money from gambling is by creating losers. The B.C. government shouldn't be creating a province of losers, he said.
Governments - Socred, NDP, Liberal - always used the fact that charities get a share of gambling revenues to justify new ways of plucking the public's wallets.
Once the plan is in place, they begin to forget about the charities and grab more and more cash for their own revenues.
There are periodic backlashes. One of the biggest came in 2009, when the government chopped grants to non-profits around the province by 23 per cent. The pool of money went from $156 million to $120 million without warning, consultation or, apparently, a whole lot of thought.
When Christy Clark took over as premier, she added $15 million to last year's grants. But this year, it's once again cut to $120 million.
Clark announced a review of the gambling grants Tuesday, to be headed by Skip Triplett, a consultant and former college president. He's supposed to consult around the province and report by Oct. 31 on better ways of doing the grants.
He is to look at everything - the levels of funding, the criteria, the application process.
The review is overdue. Charities have been getting pushed around on gambling revenue since at least the 1970s. They originally sold lottery tickets in the province, earning commission on the sales that supported their activities. The government pushed them out to make more money.
They ran casinos and bingos, but were shoved out of those activities as well, with the promise that their revenues would be protected. That sparked a lot of fighting when the promise was broken. In 1997, the association representing non-profits that had been involved in gambling signed an agreement with government guaranteeing them 33 per cent of gambling revenues.
If the deal had been kept, charities would be getting about $400 million a year today, not $120 million.
But the Liberals said they wouldn't honour the written agreement.
This year, the government expects to make about $1.2 billion from gambling - lotteries, casinos and online betting. (Which works out to an astonishing $265 in gambling losses for every man, woman and child in the province.)
Non-profits will get $120 million from gambling grants. Communities that have casinos and gambling centres will share $82 million, an incentive to encourage them to accept businesses unpopular with many residents.
And the government will keep the rest - about $1 billion.
The grants are vital to most of the approximately 6,000 organizations that get some funding under the program. School parent advisory councils get $20 per student, for example. Ski patrols, community youth programs, patient support groups, arts organizations - the list is long. The average grant is about $20,000.
The money is never their sole source of income. They fundraise on top of the contributions. But the grants provide a critical support.
There are always grants that could be questioned, by at least some people. But a closer look generally finds the groups are doing useful work.
The review could be useful as well, though many of the needed improvements to the program are obvious. The funding is almost always year-to-year, for example. Multi-year agreements - assuming outcomes are met - would allow much better planning.
The grant criteria are subject to arbitrary changes at any time. When the government chopped grants in 2009, for example, it took particular aim at grants to arts organizations.
The review should be helpful. The grants are part of the justification for expanding gambling. They make a significant difference in communities across the province. It's past time for a proper policy.
Footnote: It's puzzling that MLAs couldn't have done much of this work. The legislature rarely sits and they are supposed to be aware of the opinions of people in their constituencies. At a minimum, they could have reduced the need for provincewide consultations.

Scathing report raise environmental protection concerns

British Columbians should be shocked by a scathing auditor general's report exposing major flaws in the environmental review process for major projects.
The report is devastating and contradicts past government claims about a rigorous reviews and careful monitoring. And the failures should surely have been obvious if anyone in government had been paying attention.
The B.C. Environmental Assessment Office is responsible for reviewing and approving major developments - mines, dams, new resort communities and the like. Right now, it has more than $30 billion worth of projects under review.
It can reject proposals, in theory. But that has only happened once, while 115 projects have been approved.
But when the office issues an environmental assessment certificate, it does include commitments the developer is legally required to meet to minimize environmental damage. The office tries to ensure that the impact of projects is mitigated by these measures.
Auditor general John Doyle looked at that aspect of the office's operations. It was a dismaying exercise.
The Environmental Assessment Office doesn't know if the conditions it imposes in approving projects are "measurable and enforceable," the audit said. The wording is often weak - companies are ordered to "try" to avoid damage, for example. As a result, the developers can't be held to account for violating the legal conditions of their permits.
And anyway, the auditor general found, the office makes no real effort to check on whether the commitments are being obeyed on the ground.
There was a pilot program that saw inspectors actually visit development sites, to see if the rules were being followed and if they were achieving the desired environmental goals. But the program was cancelled.
The assessment office relies on compliance reports from the companies. But some companies don't send them in and there is no formal system for tracking the reports or specific problems.
Doyle also found the Environmental Assessment Office fails to provide enough information to the public to allow accountability.
None of this is to suggest companies or developers are setting out to do environmental damage. And other government agencies, in some cases, are also checking environmental performance.
But it's simply reality that some operators will cut corners and take shortcuts. Some measures will prove ineffective and could be adjusted - if the office was actually visiting the sites.
Without an effective assessment and monitoring process, needless, lasting damage could be done.
The report is bad news for Premier Christy Clark. Like Gordon Campbell, she has insisted the province's process is tough and effective. And both have argued that it shouldn't be necessary for major projects to go through both federal and provincial reviews.
That's a tough sell when the province's efforts are questionable at best.
The provincial assessment process was already being questioned. It approved the Prosperity mine southwest of Williams Lake, judging the environmental damage - which included turning a lake into a tailings dump - as acceptable given the economic benefits.
But a federal review came to the opposite conclusion, and the Harper government said no to the mine. (The company subsequently decided it didn't need to destroy the lake after all, but the project still has not been approved.)
Clark lobbied Stephen Harper to reverse the decision, presumably citing the B.C. environmental review. His refusal looks wise at this point.
B.C. is resource-rich and development - whether of new pipelines, mines, resort towns or run-of-river power projects - brings jobs and economic growth. There has been a significant boom, particularly in the oil and gas sector.
But governments have insisted they are doing an effective job of protecting the environment by imposing strict conditions on companies to ensure damage is minimized.
That's not happening.
The auditor general has offered a damaging critique of a cornerstone of environmental protection. It's up to Clark to respond with an effective plan and funding.
Footnote: Environment Minister Terry Lake wouldn't respond to the report; he said he wants to meet Doyle first. That's baffling. The government gets auditor's reports well in advance so its response can be included in the published version. The minister should have been ready.

Auntie Nan

Auntie Nan, the wife of my dad's brother Eric, died just short of her 96th birthday, dignity intact.
That's her on the left.

Ontario voters get better democracy than we do

Premier Christy Clark is supposedly looking at a fall election. If this were Ontario, voters would be casting much more informed ballots.
And B.C. governments would be much less likely to present bogus pre-election budgets.
An Ontario election is already scheduled for Oct. 6; the province has fixed election dates. The parties are in the long unofficial campaign; the public is trying to sort out their claims and promises.
Voters just got big help with this task, thanks to an Ontario accountability law introduced eight years ago.
The Ontario government is required to present a report on the state of the province's finances and its plans for the next three years before the election. That includes economic assumptions and spending and revenue plans.
The auditor general must review the plans and report publicly on whether they are sound, highlighting any potential problem areas. (The review found the Liberal government's cost-cutting plans weren't realistic.)
If a similar law had been in place in B.C., the outcome might well have been different in two of the last four elections.
The Liberals, not the NDP, might have won the closely fought 1996 election. The New Democrats launched their campaign that year after tabling a pre-election budget projecting an $87 million surplus for the current year and a $16 million surplus for the year that had just ended.
After the election, the real numbers showed deficits of more than $350 million in each year. A subsequent auditor general's report damned the government's budget preparation and said it had unreasonably inflated revenue projections.
And the NDP might well have won the 2009 election. The Liberals' pre-election budget projected a $495 million deficit, a number Gordon Campbell insisted was accurate right through the campaign. The real deficit turned out to be $2.8 billion. Voters might have been much less keen on a government that had sunk the province so deeply into red ink.
The sad part is that B.C. should have just such a law. The 1996 budget scandal triggered a report by the auditor general and an independent review of the budget process. Neither went far enough to head off the wildly inaccurate - and politically advantageous - 2009 pre-election budget.
Which leaves voters in a bad spot.
Clark will decide on when to call an election based on political advantage. The fixed election date law was supposed to end that practice, but it's reasonable for a new premier, facing a two-year wait until the next election, to seek a mandate earlier.
So if Clark thinks the Liberals have greater chances of winning this fall than they would next year, then she'll call an an election. That assessment will be based on polling and the results of the HST referendum - if the tax is hammered, a vote would be less likely.
And the Clark strategists are watching to see if NDP leader Adrian Dix is gaining ground and if Conservative leader John Cummins is attracting enough support to split the traditional Liberal vote.
An election this fall would be fought on the basis of this year's February budget. But it's not credible, particularly in years two and three of the plan. Most ministries had their budgets cut this year; those impacts are just being felt. And the budgets, under the plan, are frozen for the next two years, despite growing population and increased demand. Without deep service cuts, the budget won't be balanced by 2013/14 as planned.
And a spring election, following another pre-election budget, would offer voters no greater certainty about budget credibility.
The best choice for voters? A commitment to match Ontario's commitment to openness and accountability by ensuring an indendent report on the credibility of pre-election budgets.
And a vote in the fall of 2012, when voters have had chance to see the performance of Dix and Clark in dealing with the issues.
Footnote: The federal government provides a similar, even broader independent review. The parliamentary budget officer reports to MPs - and the public - on the credibility of budget plans and the assumptions underlying major projects, like the purchase of fighter jets. The office has expressed concerns about the government's ability to meet its targets for spending cuts based on its current plans.

America’s Apple economy widens the winner-loser gap

That's the headline on an interesting piece in the Globe today.
The column by Chrystia Freeland looks at a study on the economic impact of the iPod. The study found that, in 2006, the dandy device produced 41,000 jobs.
But, despite Apple's California roots, 27,000 of them were outside the U.S. and 14,000 were inside.
The foreign jobs making the iPod paid an average $12,000 a year; the American jobs an average $53,000.
That's one issue. Though it's worth noting that $12,000 is pretty good pay in most of the countries where these people worked, and that if they were paid $53,000 — or if the jobs stayed in the states — an iPod would cost $950 and no one would buy them.
More striking was the winner and loser gap in America.
The study found about 6,100 of the jobs in the U.S. went to 'engineers and professionals,' paid an average $90,000.
The remaining 7,800 jobs were in retail, support services, shipping and the like — and the average wage was $28,000.
Thus the winner-loser gap.
This is a big change. A generation ago, engineers might have been earning the equivalent of $90,000. But non-engineers were working in auto plants, mines, the forest industry or officers, and making the equivalent of $40,000 to $60,000.
Those jobs have gone, or been devalued. A smaller group of workers has commanded much more of the wage pool.
There has been little discussion of whether this is desirable, or right, and what long-term effects it will have.
And an odd assumption that it represents some force of nature, rather than a series of policy choices.

Government failed girl found in home with her dead mother

Anyone paying attention - especially people being paid to do just that - could have seen things were going to end badly for the 15-year-old girl with Down's syndrome and her mom.
And things did end badly. The girl spent days alone in a dirty trailer with her mother's decomposing body last fall. She was filthy, emaciated and covered in an angry rash when found - and frightened.
When neighbours came to her rescue, she couldn't hear them. Her hearing aids had stopped working at some point in the past. No one had noticed. She had lived in needless silence.
B.C. Representative for Children and Youth Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond reported on the case this week. It is grim reading.
The desperate family's downward spiral occurred over years. There was ample evidence of deteriorating conditions for both mother and daughter. For almost four years, the Ministry of Children and Families had been warned the child was being abused and neglected. Investigations were incomplete and inadequate, failing to take the modest steps needed to get at the truth of the family's collapse.
As all this happened, the government was supposed to be providing children with special needs and their families help with assessment, planning and services. That didn't happen either.
Lord knows the child needed support. She was sickly and weak, needed leg braces and hearing aids and glasses. At 15, she had the intellectual functioning of a pre-schooler.
She was also a warm and loving child, lo9ved in turn by her mother.
In a family with money and savvy, she might have fared well.
But her mother was poor. When her car broke down, she had to give up the two jobs she was working. She was on income assistance – a life of poverty - and sometimes collected cans and bottles to get by. She couldn't afford a phone.
And she battled her own issues with illness, physical and mental, and, apparently, with alcohol.
Families of children with special needs are supposed to be getting support to make sure services are there. But the government shuffled responsibility to Community Living BC from the children's ministry in 2005, then decided that was a bad idea and shuffled them back in 2009. Supports were inadequate, caseloads overwhelming and children fell through gaping cracks.
And all children are supposed to be protected from harm by the ministry of children and families. That's impossible, of course. But in this case, the report found, there were complaints about the home and warning signs of obvious risk. At the least, this family needed support; it's likely the child should have been apprehended.
Instead, things got worse and worse.
Turpel-Lafond also found this case was not just an aberration, or the result of individual failures. "Is this a unique circumstance, a cruel anomaly?" she said. "Tragically, it is not."
One of the government workers responsible for supporting the child had a caseload of 200 families. There is simply no way to do the work properly under those conditions.
The government cut off the mother's income assistance in the month of her death, although it knew she was supporting a disabled child, without visiting the home or warning the children's ministry.
In short, the systems that were supposed to protect children and support those with special needs were structured to fail.
Children's Minister Mary McNeil promised action on the report's recommendations. But the public has heard that before. Only three years ago, Turpel-Lafond outlined the problems with supports for children with special needs. Nothing happened.
There's one simple test of the government's commitment. The report called on the government to assess the services, resources and support required for children with special needs, the province's current commitment and the actions that would be taken to close the gap.
Until that's done and released, it would be foolish to accept yet more promises of improvement.
Footnote: The ministry's initial position was that the case did not involve a "serious injury" so it did not have to report it to the representative. An internal ministry review found "all of the required standards were complied with" in its dealings with the family.
Which confirms that the problems are built into the current system.

Money to fight for BC Rail-scandal secrecy, not for Oppal inquiry

So Attorney General Barry Penner has money in his budget to pay lawyers to go to court and fight the release of documents in the B.C. Rail scandal to NDP MLA Leonard Krog. (They failed, not surprisingly since the documents had already been released to reporters during the trial.)

But he doesn't have money to provide the legal support Wally Oppal says is needed to get answers at the missing and murdered women inquiry.

(For why Penner is wrong on the inquiry funding, read this. For more on the B.C. Rail scandal secrecy, read this.

Auditor fights secrecy on Basi-Virk $6-million payment

Add another question to the mess that is the B.C. Rail scandal.
Why did the provincial government, in handing over $6 million to pay Dave Basi and Bob Virk's legal fees, agree to - or ask for - a secrecy clause so sweeping that it's impossible for the province's auditor general to do his job?
Auditor general John Doyle has been forced to go to B.C. Supreme Court in a bid to get the government to hand over documents about the deal.
Doyle says he needs the information to fulfill his obligations to ensure money was spent legally and properly reported. He's seeking "the approvals, expenditures, records and documents supporting the expenditures" made to cover "the provision of public funds to Basi and Virk," according to the petition to the court.
The government has refused to provide the information. It signed a confidentiality agreement with Basi and Virk, so everything has to stay secret, it says. The auditor general and the public can't know anything about how the decision to spend the $6 million was made.
The government would waive privilege and the confidentiality agreement for the purposes of the audit, it said in a statement. But Basi, Virk and their lawyers haven't.
The legal funding violated government policy. Politicians and government employees are promised funding for lawyers if they end up in work-related legal proceedings. But if they are found guilty of wrongdoing, the legal bills become their responsibility. The government had even registered a mortgage on Basi's home to ensure it could collect at least some of the money.
Basi and Virk admitted guilt in a plea bargain after the government promised it would cover their legal fees. But the government paid the $6 million anyway.
And, it turns out, struck a deal that ensured the details would be kept secret.
Why? The government was handing over $6 million. It had every right to say no to secrecy, but didn't.
The perception is, inevitably, that there was something to hide.
Doyle wants to know details of the payment to cover legal fees for Basi and Virk. The public should too.
The $6 million promise, remember, came after the trial had begun. It was a powerful incentive for Basi and Virk to plead guilty to corruption charges. If they didn't, and were found guilty, they risked losing everything - homes, any savings. The smart move was to accept the plea deal, with the multimillion-dollar sweetener.
And the plea bargain ended the trial, which had already proved embarrassing for the Liberal government. Doyle's review would be welcome.
Premier Christy Clark maintains there is no need to seek further answers in the B.C. Rail scandal.
But many questions remain.
Basi and Virk admitted taking bribes from Erik Bornman, a lobbyist and political foot soldier, and Brian Kieran, a lobbyist and former journalist. The men were lobbyists for one of the bidders for B.C. Rail.
But they were never charged.
In statements to obtain search warrants - not tested in court - police swore Bornman told them he started paying bribes to Basi even before the Liberals were elected in 2001. The money was to pay "his political support, his support in referring clients to my business and for assistance on client matters," Bornman told police.
That suggests other well-connected people were paying for preferential "assistance" in other areas. The government seems uninterested in establishing the facts.
A police search found that Bruce Clark, a federal Liberal activist, lobbyist and Christy Clark's brother, had B.C. Rail sale documents "improperly disclosed" by Basi and Virk. Clark was working for the Washington Marine Group, which was interested in buying the B.C. Rail line to the Roberts Bank superport.
But it's never been explained why Basi and Virk shared the material or what Clark did with it. (Christy Clark is now lobbying the federal government to help the same company win a shipbuilding contract.)
The government has consistently ignored important questions raised by the B.C. Rail scandal. The auditor general is standing up for the public interest.
Footnote: Attorney General Barry Penner says it's up to Basi and Virk to decide whether to share the information. But he has refused to order a review of the $6 million deal - including the secrecy clause. The government is reviewing its policies on paying for lawyers.

Google tramples sex workers' rights

Google censorship isn't just in China. The company refuses to allow a group seeking rights for sex workers to advertise, while it sells ads to a group campaigning to make the work illegal.
Read Jody Paterson here.

CLBC's soaring management salaries and service cuts

Jody Paterson reports here that top managers at CLBC have seen compensation jump more than 55 per cent over four years while services to developmentally disabled clients and their families are cut.

And she looks at the folly of those cuts in a column here.

Six lessons from a highly predictable riot

It's bizarre that the authorities in Vancouver claim to be surprised by the Stanley Cup riot.
I was on a 9 a.m. ferry from Victoria to Vancouver that day. Within about 30 minutes, it was clear trouble was likely.
The ferry was crowded with young people, mostly male, wearing Canuck's sweaters. They weren't criminals or 'anarchists' (which always suggests a bearded, skinny guy with a round bomb).
They were young fans, ready for a day of drinking and a hockey party. Some of the guys led the passengers in 'Go Canucks go" chants. They had jobs or were in college or university.
One young man in a Luongo jersey told friends he'd been over for Game 5. You had to line up to get into a bar at 2 p.m., he warned them. And you had to keep drinking or you'd lose the table. (Which, he said, was not a problem.)
"Ferry jammed with young people in Canucks' jerseys," I tweeted. "Vancouver police should be biggest cheerers for Canuck win." (Yes, I'm on Twitter.)
I'm no security expert. But it was clear that there would be trouble if the Canucks lost.
My ferry fellow travellers might not set a car on fire or loot a store. But some would watch and cheer, or taunt police, perhaps get in drunken fights if they felt wronged.
People have been drawing an extraordinary range of messages from the riots.
I'd settle for six conclusions.
First, that a proportion of young men are capable of stupid and dangerous behaviour. Destruction and violence please them. The trait must serve some genetic purpose, or it did in the past, but it is a great nuisance today.
It's not a question of intelligence, upbringing, thwarted opportunity or philosophy. Look at Nathan Kotylak, the 17-year-old caught trying to set a police car on fire. His dad is a surgeon. He's a water polo star, set to head off on a university scholarship, a potential Olympian. That's not some loser anarchist wannabe in a hoodie. (And we should also acknowledge that it can be exhilarating to break the usual rules.)
Second, that alcohol remains our most destructive drug. The Canucks' fans on the morning ferry were the usual mix of people, great and not so great, but none of them would do you harm. Many would help if you needed it.
Unless they were drunk. Then, all bets would be off.
And the crowds watching the final game in Vancouver were drunk. People drinking in the street - tens of thousands - were joined by people pouring into the streets after spending six hours drinking in bars.
It was predictable that any incidents would quickly escalate.
Third, that mobs are dangerous. People who would never loot a store or confront police individually can be swept, sheep-like, into stupid and dangerous activities. That conclusion applies just as well to those - generally online - who urged vigilante justice against those involved in the riot. The herd mentality swept them along as well.
Fourth, that we need to at least consider whether our culture - the things our society celebrates - is increasing the risk of such violence and disruption. Hockey did not make people set fire to cars. But it's not unreasonable to wonder if commentators who celebrated violence and actions outside the game's rules legitimized similar acts on the streets. Or whether a steady diet of TV that makes stars of the selfish, stupid, rude and violent influences behaviour.
Fifth, that Vancouver blew it. The police presence was inadequate, several smaller public venues - ideally in open areas - would have been safer, and it's baffling that city staff and police were caught by surprise.
Sixth, that parents should recognize that some of the rioters were people like their own children (or sons, to be more accurate). It's a good chance to point out the perils of drunken gatherings.
We're never going to eliminate stupidity and violence. We can do a lot better than we did this week.
Footnote: Premier Christy Clark ordered a review and promised swift justice and public humiliation for rioters. That led Attorney General Barry Penner to reverse his decision to cut sheriff's hours, a cost-saving measure that had led to even longer delays and more dismissed charges in the courts.

De-spinning the HST numbers

It’s not easy to sort the HST facts from the spinning by both sides in the tax debate.
Start with Finance Minister Kevin Falcon’s claim that going back to the PST would blow a $3 billion hole in B.C.’s fiscal plan over this year and the next three.
That’s a stretch. The analysis by the independent panel that reviewed the HST’s impact suggests a much smaller hit.
This column will be a heavy on numbers. But numbers matter.
The referendum will result in one of two options: A return to the old PST/GST taxes; or staying with the HST, with promised future rate reductions, some new rebates, corporate tax increases and cancellation of the plan to eliminate the small business tax.
Going back to the PST would bring some costs. The federal government took over sales tax administration when the HST was introduced; the province would have to spend $20 million to re-establish the PST collection office and about $35 million a year to keep it operating, the panel found.
Axing the tax could result in reduced economic growth, reducing provincial revenues by $80 million a year, it estimated.
And the panel noted the province would have to pay back $1.6 billion the federal government put up to encourage adoption of the new tax.
The panel — including former Alberta finance minister Jim DInning and ex-B.C. auditor general George Morfitt — judged the impact of that would be an extra $85 million a year in interest costs because of the increased provincial debt.
And, based on the panel’s analysis, the PST would deliver about $610 million a year less in tax revenue for government than the HST, even if reduced from 12 per cent to 10 per cent. (That, of course, means a saving for families.)
But the panel also noted that the government would save about $441 million a year because it could cancel the rebates and tax reductions brought into cushion the HST’s impact.
All in, based on the panel’s analysis, going back to the PST would cost the government about $362 million a year, mainly because families would pay less tax.
Falcon’s estimate is much higher. The main reason is that he concludes, based on preliminary advice from the province’s comptroller general, that the $1.6 billion would have to be repaid immediately and counted as an expense.
Accounting debates aside, the panel offers a more realistic view. Provincial taxpayers wouldn’t suddenly pony up $1.6 billion; they would pay the long-term interest costs.
The claims about impacts on families are just as muddled.
Christy Clark says the revised HST would see taxpayers pay less than under the PST.
That would eventually be true. But not until 2014. In the meantime, individuals and families would be paying more in sales taxes than under the PST.
Based on the panel’s analysis, individuals and families are paying an extra $1.3 billion in sales taxes this year because of the HST’s wider reach. (The portion of a typical families’ spending subject to provincial sales tax jumped by almost 60 per cent under the HST, the panel found.)
Even with the first rate reduction, from 12 to 11 per cent on July 1, 2012, families would still pay $690 million more in sales taxes in the next fiscal year under the HST. The following year, they would pay $430 million more than under the PST.
It’s not until the following fiscal year — 2014/15 — and another one-point cut in the rate, that families would pay less than they would have under the HST - about $330 million less. That amount would increase in future years.
So families would have spent an extra $2.5 billion in sales taxes over three years before they started seeing lower taxes than under the HST. (Rebates to low-income seniors and all families with children would reduce that by about $200 million.)
There are other reasons for voting to keep or kill the HST. But understanding the numbers is a a good starting point.
Footnote: A problem with any look at the numbers is that the government did not ask the independent panel to report on its estimates after announcing the HST rate cut and corporate tax increases. Given the government’s dismal record in providing accurate HST information, that raises serious doubts. Check hstinbc.ca for more on these numbers.

Falcon heads to New York to explain two years of chaos

It's not surprising that Finance Minister Kevin Falcon went to New York to reassure big lenders about the province's books.
The last two years have been a fiscal gong show. The government's erratic policy stumbles are the kind of behaviour that makes lenders and bond rating agencies edgy.
Start with the government's botched deficit forecast in the 2009 campaign budget. The deficit, then premier Gordon Campbell vowed in the May election campaign, would not exceed $495 million.
Four months later, the government said the deficit would actually be $2.8 billion.
That's a spectacular failure, the kind that makes lenders wonder what else the government is messing up.
Then, of course, there is the HST. The Liberals ruled it out during the election campaign and then, two months later, announced the introduction of the new tax.
Leave aside the pros and cons for a moment. There is no debate that lenders and investors like stability in tax policy.
A surprise introduction of a major tax change, especially one that had been rejected months earlier, does not increase confidence. And especially when the government concedes it made the tax change without any economic analysis of its impact. (Falcon acknowledges cabinet ministers were heavily focused on the chance to get $1.6 billion from Ottawa to reduce the deficit problem.)
Then things got more erratic.
As public anger about the HST increased, Campbell went on television in November and announced a 15-per-cent income tax cut. That would knock about $1 billion a year off provincial revenues; there was no clear plan for dealing with the shortfall.
Again, a well-considered, affordable tax cut would likely find favour with rating agencies and lenders. This looked like an impulsive effort to shore up a failing government. That impression was confirmed a few weeks later, when Campbell quit and the Liberals said they weren't going ahead with the promised tax cut.
If you're watching this from a New York investment fund or bank, you are likely getting nervous about the competence and stability of the government.
How much more chaotic could things get?
Quite a bit more, it turned out. Because the government last month announced more surprise tax changes. The HST would be reduced in two steps if it survived the referendum, Premier Christy Clark said.
She had rejected that during her leadership campaign. It would be akin to bribing people with their own money and leave the province short of revenue for health care and other needed services, she said.
And the government would raise corporate taxes 20 per cent, said Clark, reversing past cuts - the most recent less than six months ago. (NDP leader Adrian Dix proposed the same increase during his campaign. George Abbott said the idea represented the "leading age of 18-century socialism." Mike de Jong said an increase would be "chasing jobs and investment away.")
You can debate all these individual changes, their benefits and costs.
But taken together, they paint a picture of an erratic, incompetent government that doesn't have a coherent tax policy.
Add to that the government's inability to provide accurate information on the HST. It claimed the tax would result in 113,000 new jobs by 2020; a credible independent panel report commissioned by the government estimated 24,400. It said the tax was revenue-neutral; the panel found it was a tax increase; it said a middle-income family would pay $100 more a year under the HST; the panel said it would be five times that much.
No wonder Falcon needed to head to New York. The last two years of lurching, incoherent tax policy would likely alarm any lender or bond rating agency.
Clark should also be wondering if the last two years have alarmed B.C. voters as well. Because if so, a fall election could be highly risky for a party that has always claimed to offer stable, consistent administration.
Footnote: The latest Angus Reid poll found 56 per cent of decided voters would vote yes to get rid of the HST. It also found 40 per cent of those surveyed considered Clark credible on the tax; 35 per cent considered Dix credible; and 47 per cent thought Bill Vander Zalm credible (he's not). The media came in at 37 per cent (sigh).

I just like this obituary on 'the Lindbergh of hobbyists'

From a Wall Street Journal obit:

"On a clear Saturday evening in early August of 2003, Maynard Hill stood on a hillside on Cape Spear, Newfoundland, started the motor on his model airplane and heaved it into a light wind.

Thirty-eight hours and nearly 1,900 miles later, the 11-pound plane with a six-foot wingspan landed in Ireland, the first radio-controlled model to make a trans-Atlantic crossing.

Mr. Hill, who died Tuesday at 85, was the dean of model airplane hobbyists and spent decades setting records for altitude, duration, speed and distance. His planes outflew those of the Soviets in competitions during the Cold War.

During the 1980s and 1990s, he developed unmanned aircraft for the armed forces, expendable models carrying radar-jamming equipment, cameras and antitank weaponry.

But despite decades spent convincing Pentagon brass to embrace his ideas, Mr. Hill was a poor fit with the gold-plated contractor's culture and dropped out of defense work.

'He didn't believe his planes should be used for war,' said his wife, Gay Hill."

The rest is here.

A patient's perspective on mental health emergency services

The route to in-patient mental health care on Vancouver Island is through the Archie Courtnall Centre, or psychiatric emergency services. Patients can wait more than a week, sleeping in chairs, before a bed becomes available.
Tara Levis offers a patient's perspective.

"Psychiatric emergency services is nothing short of a nightmare. It is a holding cell for people at rock bottom, waiting for a transfer to the in-patient unit. It is a small room, overseen by a glassed-off nursing station, that at some points holds over a dozen people.

Claustrophobia sets in the minute I walk through the secured doors and if I'm not on edge to begin with, I most certainly am bordering on psychosis when the door shuts and I am confined at the mercy of an overburdened health-care system.

My personal items are examined with a fine-tooth comb and promptly locked away until further notice. I am allowed to keep a journal and a book. I want to cry when they take away my cellphone, my last connection to the outside world apart from the public phone they provide, which is always in use. The items on my person must be guarded at all times as theft is rampant in PES. Blink and my stuff would be gone, likely to be sold for cigarettes."

Read the rest, please, here.

Nurse-family initiative means better lives

It's proven. Support disadvantaged women during pregnancy and through the first two years of their children's lives and you produce positive changes in their lives.
The B.C. government deserves full credit for being the first in Canada to launch a nurse-family partnership program that will see nurses work closely with first-time moms who need support.
Specially trained public health nurses will connect with women early in their pregnancies beginning next year. The nurses will visit once a week during pregnancy and in the infant's first months, with visits tapering to monthly by the time the child turns two.
It's not a new idea. The approach has been used in the U.S. for more than 30 years and results rigorously tracked. And they are impressive.
That's not surprising. Lots of women have great support networks when they become pregnant, and the skills and resources to solve any problems that do come up. They've learned useful lessons growing up they can apply to the challenges of pregnancy and child-rearing.
But others don't. They're poor, perhaps alone in the world or less well-educated. Some have more experience with bad parenting than with good examples.
The program targets those women, likely about 5,000 a year in this province.
The nurse visits to talk about healthy eating and living during pregnancy, planning for the birth, relationship issues -- really, anything the women wants to talk about. For women without real support or advice, the presence of one caring, competent person in their lives makes a huge difference.
The visits continue after the baby is born, with the same goals of providing support, skills and helping mothers make smart decisions and plans.
The benefits seem obvious.
But major long-term research on U.S. versions of the program, which in some cases followed the life course of the mothers and children for almost two decades, are shocking (in a good way).
Dr. Charlotte Waddell, director of the Children's Health Policy Centre in the Faculty of Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University, says nurse visits can mean dramatic improvements in life for mothers and children.
"Even if that's all you do, you can track the mother and child 15 or 20 years later and find that not only is the mom doing much better, but the kids stayed in school," she says. "They didn't get involved in crime, they were at less risk of substance abuse, and there was a significant reduction in conduct disorder."
On one level, it's stunning that a brief intervention -- less than three years -- in the lives of mother and child can set them on a course that helps determine, 19 years later, a teen will be less likely to be involved in crime.
But on another, it's not that surprising. The program sets in a motion a whole range of changes which cascade through the participants' lives.
The research found, for example, that mothers in the program tended to delay any subsequent pregnancies for a longer period than peers who did not have nurse-family support. That meant more time for their first child, and more opportunity to find work and maintain a stable life.
The research also found that mothers who had received the support were more likely to be economically self-sufficient and in stable relationships in future years.
Children were healthier and one study found a 48 per cent reduction in cases of child abuse and neglect, and a 56 per cent reduction in emergency room visits during the child's second year of life. They also did better in school.
The B.C. program is part of a $23-million Health Start effort aimed at mothers and young children.
While governments are often not good at long-term efforts, particularly on social issues, this is an example of just how great the benefits can be.
Not just economically, although society can count on reduced future costs and greater contribution from those involved.
But we will, for a relatively small investment, be changing lives.
Footnote: The details will matter. Success depends, for example, on finding the right nurses to do the work and stability in the nurse-family relationship. It takes time to build trust and understanding; changes that disrupt the relationship undermine results.

HST adds $5 million to B.C. Ferries expenses

From B.C. Ferries latest financial report:

"On July 1, 2010, the harmonized sales tax (HST) became effective, combining the existing 7% provincial sales tax with the 5% federal goods and services tax (GST) into a single tax of 12%. We expect this tax to add approximately $5 to $6 million annually to the cost of our operations. The HST will also increase the price to our customers for our food and certain retail offerings. Our vehicle and passenger tariffs which were exempt from GST will be exempt from HST."

Which means the HST will also result in higher ferry fares,

Liberals just won't face persistent poverty problem

A Times Colonist editorial thought it "baffling" that the government has repeatedly refused to set out a plan to reduce poverty.
Any competent manager understands the need for plans, the editorial observed, and the Liberals have campaigned on claims of competence.
It's not baffling. I've been a manager. I was keen on plans for people who reported to me. If they set out their targets and what they would do to achieve them, I could look at results and assess their effectiveness.
The government wants to avoid that kind of accountability.
It's a shabby position. Especially for a government that, after a decade in power, has still left more than 500,000 people - and 87,000 children - living in poverty.
There has been progress in reducing the number of people whose lives are blighted by poverty.
But, objectively, not much. The B.C. Progress Board, set up by Gordon Campbell to provide reports on government effectiveness, tracks the poverty rate.
It has found B.C. has ranked tenth among provinces every year since the board was created in 2002. More people live in poverty here, year after year, than in any other province. Their numbers have been reduced, but not enough to move B.C. from last place.
B.C. has also had the highest rate of child poverty, according to StatsCan, for seven straight years. The number of children living in poverty has decreased, but, again, not fast enough to move B.C. from its ranking as the worst in Canada.
That's hard to reconcile with Gordon Campbell's claims about the best place on Earth, or Christy Clark's talk about families first.
This should be a fundamental issue for any government. Research has shown that growing up poor greatly increases the likelihood of a lifetime of problems. The Progress Board notes that "people with low income may experience more physical and mental health problems, rely more on charity, attain lower levels of education or have higher secondary school dropout rates."
Leaving aside the human cost and suffering, poverty loads costs on to future generations just as surely as large government deficits do.
The Campbell government repeatedly refused to accept the need for a plan to reduce poverty, and Premier Christy Clark has so far taken the same position. The Liberals say they are doing lots of things that reduce poverty, from policies to increase employment to tax cuts.
But it's striking that when the government decided climate change was an issue, it set legislated, specific targets for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and developed a plan to meet them.
As it's striking that, after 10 years, progress hasn't been enough to raise B.C. from its ranking as the most poverty-ridden province.
The editorial was right. "Any competent manager" knows a plan is the first step toward achieving goals.
In this case, it would start with an analysis of the current situation - the causes of poverty, the demographics, the policies that have been tried. It would look at anti-poverty efforts in other jurisdictions and learn from success and failures.
And then it would set targets and action plans with timelines, accountability and budgets. Progress would be assessed and the plan adjusted.
It's an obvious, necessary approach to dealing with any problem.
Such a review would identify easy first steps. About 37,000 children are in families living on disability or income assistance. There are among those living in poverty; a single parent with two children who is deemed employable gets up to $660 a month for housing and another $623 a month for everything else. That's poverty. Addressing that - by letting parents earn some income without being cut off, or increasing rates for families - would cut child poverty by 40 per cent.
But the first step is a plan. And by refusing to accept the need - and the accountability for results - the government is ensuring too many British Columbians remain mired in destructive poverty.
Footnote: The New Democrats introduced the Poverty Reduction Act on the last day of the legislative session, which set out a reasonable approach to developing a poverty plan. The Liberals won't support it, but if Clark is serious about "families first," they should announce their own plan.

Would you buy this submarine?

From today's Times Colonist, a photo of the HMCS Corner Brook, one of the four used British submarines Canada bought in 1998.
And the Corner Brook is actually supposed to be in good shape.
The submarine is in the news because it struck the ocean bottom in exercises this week, the latest chapter in a sad and costly bungled purchase, which I explored here.

Clerk's appointment violates democratic principles

From a good Times Colonist editorial on the appointment of Craig James as clerk of the legislature.

"Our political system includes measures designed to keep a check on potential abuses by the party in power. A key principle is that some positions must be seen to be entirely non-partisan.

"Once again, the Liberal government has violated that principle.

"This week, the government imposed its candidate for clerk of the legislature, a lifetime appointment. The quaint title doesn't reflect the position's importance. The clerk, through advice to the Speaker, interprets the rules of the legislature for MLAs from all parties."

Read the rest here.

For background, here's the column I did on the same issue when James was appointed interim chief electoral officer by the Liberals - another post that's supposed to be made by all parties.

The clerk appointment highlights how wrong the Liberals were in putting James in the chief electoral officer role for 15 months. The officer is supposed to be completely independent and serves a fixed term of two elections plus one year.

But the inevitable perception is that James knew he was a candidate for the $250,000-a-year clerk job during his times as interim chief electoral officer. And that taints the public view of his true independence in making decisions on recall efforts, the HST initiatives and other issues.

Maybe we just don't need MLAs any more

Do we really need MLAs?
They're nice enough people. But as the legislative session ended Thursday after just 24 sitting days, I wondered if we need to pay 85 people salaries starting at $100,000 a year to fill the seats in the red-carpeted chamber.
At least as it operates now.
It's not as if they changed anything in the 24 days. The government introduced its budget. The Liberal MLAs voted for every element of it; the NDP voted against.
There was debate on spending, but because the session was so short MLAs were reviewing and approving about $2.5 billion in spending a day. People spend more time choosing a new sofa.
Bills were passed, but the debates and votes were largely irrelevant. Once the governing party introduced the legislation, passage was a done deal.
There were some excellent private members' bills - legislation advanced by MLAs without official government support. But they went nowhere, as is the norm.
The opposition got the chance to raise issues in question period, which is 30 minutes each day. But maybe there's a cheaper, better way to accomplish that. Issues were raised in other debates, but who reads Hansard?
Really, the elected MLAs could have stayed home. A few performers could have read the expected lines from both sides of the house, MLAs could have given their proxies to the party leaders and nothing would be much different.
MLAs do other work, of course. But constituents' issues could he handled by a competent manager in each riding. And I am unconvinced that the views of a backbench member often have a great role in shaping party policy.
And if MLAs hadn't shown up, they would have been spared the embarrassment of thumping their desks on cue and shouting insults - or watching as their peers shouted - across the floor.
In fact, do we even need candidates to stand for election in 85 ridings, if their role is peripheral? Perhaps it would be more efficient to just let people vote for the parties in each riding, and give the leaders chits for each one they win. They could then use those to cast votes in the legislature.
Since the 2009 election, the legislature has sat for less than 120 days. That's not an indication that there is much pressing work to do.
It might seem radical to suggest MLAs' time in the legislature is largely irrelevant.
But Liberal House leader Rich Coleman apparently shares the view.
The New Democrats had suggested spending another two weeks to deal properly with the budget and the legislation.
But Coleman said no, the government would use closure to end debate on any outstanding business and force bills and budget through the legislature.
He could offer no reason for shutting down the legislature. It's not as if MLAs are exhausted after 24 days, or have somewhere else pressing to be.
Coleman is not out on some partisan limb here. The New Democrat governments of the 1990s showed no more respect for MLAs and the legislature. (Though they did have the legislature in session about 76 days a year, much more than the Liberals have done since 2001.)
I'm overstating the case. Debate can be useful and even, on occasion, bring improvements to bills. MLAs get a chance to raise issues of concern to constituents, or propose legislation. (Independent MLA Bob Simpson had several useful proposals.)
But those are the exceptions.
It's not supposed to be like this. Traditionally, voters would elect MLAs. Those who won the most seats would chose someone to be premier. The premier would owe allegiance to MLAs, who would have the support of voters. We've turned the relationship upside down. And as MLAs' roles have shrunk, the pay scale has risen.
Party leaders have little interest in giving up power. That means MLAs have to find some way to demand it - more Independent MLAs would be a start - or voters have to reward a party committed to real change.
Footnote: It was interesting to see the attention focused on the way Simpson and fellow Independent Vicki Huntington voted on the HST changes. (They both supported them, without saying they supported the tax.) Presumably, their votes mattered because they were the only two MLAs actually using their own judgment on the issue.

Only dead sex workers get our support

From Jody Paterson's column:

"So we’ve got an inquiry into a B.C. mass murder headed up by a man tainted by his political connections, presiding over a process that shuts out almost everyone on the side of the victims.
"Yup, that sounds like a solid way to get at the truth about the Robert Pickton case.
"Only sex workers could draw straws this short. Then again, only sex workers would be left to go missing and murdered on our streets for so long in the first place. It’s baffling and heartbreaking, this misery we sustain in the name of 'morality.'"

It's worth reading the rest here.

Clark betrays participants in missing women's inquiry

Christy Clark faced a serious issue in her first question period as premier.
Her response was empty. Attorney General Barry Penner was a more capable government spokesman.
The issue is the missing and murdered women's inquiry.
Commissioner Wally Oppal, a former Liberal attorney general, had to decide who had a right to participate in the inquiry - to question witnesses and play an active role.
Oppal ruled 13 groups had a legitimate interest. They included families of the women killed by Robert Pickton, a coalition of sex-worker groups, several aboriginal organizations and some agencies who worked with the Downtown Eastside people who were Pickton's prey.
And he said that to play their proper role, they would need public funding to help with legal costs.
The government rejected Oppal's recommendation. The families of the missing women would get funding for a shared lawyer. No one else would get public money.
Except, of course, police. They will have a battery of publicly funded lawyers to look after their interests when the botched investigation is examined. Crown prosecutors will have taxpayer-funded lawyers. So will the government and any politicians who might be called as witnesses or even referred to during the inquiry.
But the organizations supporting prostitutes, whose concerns about missing women were ignored, they're shut out. First Nations who want to ask questions to see if racism played in the role in the lack of urgency when women began disappearing, they're on their own.
Oppal said he had only recommended funding for those who had a role to play in getting answers and had "satisfied me that they would not be able to participate fully without financial support."
The government decided to exclude those groups from full participation. Police and politicians would have a battalion of lawyers to protect their interests. Natives, poor women, the disadvantaged - they would have no one.
And it made the decision despite having provided funding for groups with standing at the inquiry into the death of Frank Paul, who died after being left in an alley by Vancouver police.
The NDP basically repeated a single question - would Clark and the government accept Oppal's judgment and fund some legal costs for all parties that should be part of the inquiry.
Clark expressed sympathy. She did a bizarre little riff about families first and the HST rate reduction and B.C. Ferries fares and ICBC, although what that had to do with murdered women was unclear.
But she never addressed the questions or Oppal's recommendations or the issue.
MLA Carole James noted the inquiry would not have been called without the efforts of some of the groups.
Clark responded that "the government said at the time that they would support an inquiry when the legal proceedings were complete. The government kept their promise."
That's not true. The Liberal government consistently refused to commit to an inquiry even when police called for one.
And she maintained the groups could participate even if they didn't have lawyers to represent them at the inquiry. Oppal disagrees.
And if Clark is serious, she could prove it by announcing no public funds will be spent on lawyers for politicians, police and prosecutors. But she won't.
Penner at least addressed the issue. It would cost too much to pay for the legal representation. There were parts of the inquiry where people who didn't have lawyers could be heard.
But he also failed to address the fact that insiders - police and prosecutors and politicians past and present - have unlimited public funding for legal representation.
The outsiders get nothing.
Inquiries do become costly as legal fees mount. But why not impose limits on all involved, while providing equitable funding?
Instead, the government decided that the powerful would have all the funding needed to protect their interests at the inquiry. The powerless could watch from the spectators' gallery.
And Clark never really defended the decision, or even showed that she understood its significance.
Footnote: One aspect of the question period was welcome. Because of the serious topic, MLAs on both sides refrained from the normal shouted insults, rants and cheap theatrics that degrade the legislature.
Sadly, some journalists seemed disappointed by the lack of rudeness and stupidity.

Mangling the facts on 'social entrepreneurs'

I was intrigued when MLA Gordon Hogg stood up in the legislature to talk about "social entrepreneurs."

"Some of the world's leaders in social innovation live right here in British Columbia. The Lower Mainland was recently called by the Ottawa Citizen: 'The Silicon Valley of social innovation in Canada,'" Hogg said.

That would be a useful article to get a better handle on the government's push for social entrepreneurship, I thought.

Except the Ottawa Citizen never said any such thing.

The closest thing was a quote from Axiom News — a website paid by clients to share positive news. "Vancouver was praised as 'the social Silicon Valley' and other glowing accolades as the city played host to the first Canadian Social Innovation and Social Finance tour," said a report on the website.

Members' statements are written in advance; Hogg gets an extra $15,000 on top of the base $100,000 for the parliamentary secretary job; it seems reasonable to assume they would be accurate.

ICBC and the politicians

From Craig McInnes in the Sun:

"On the flip side, the government also gets to decide what to do when ICBC is deemed to have collected more cash than it needs to meet claims. The B.C. government chose to take for itself $778 million over three years that was collected from motorists in premiums that were subsequently judged to be excessive.

In Manitoba, when the Public Utilities Board found recently that the public insurance company had over-estimated the amount it needed to charge to cover claims, it ordered the money to be returned to the people who paid it rather than be turned over to the government.

The refunds averaged $450 per customer, or about 45 per cent of the previous year's premiums."

You can and should read the rest here.

CLBC funding per-client chopped every year since its creation

The cuts to supports for people with "developmental disabilities" - what we once called the mentally handicapped - are taking a terrible toll. And worse times are ahead.
According to Community Living B.C., the Crown corporation set up to provide services, the amount of funding per client has fallen every year since it was created six years ago.
In 2006/7, the first full year of operation, funding provided an average $51,154 per client. This year, funding will be $45,306. 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. (There is a small amount of additional money for a personalized supports initiative; it doesn't change the reality of the annual cuts.)
The result is damaging. People who have lived in group homes for years, happily and in a family-like setting, are being forced out as homes are closed to save money.
People who once had full lives - supported in jobs and social activities - are now spending all day alone. The supports that involved them in the community, helped them keep jobs and gave them rich lives have been pulled away.
Waiting lists for services are growing and, in many cases, services are just denied. No money, says CLBC.
CLBC says several factors, all predictable, are pushing up demand for services.
The corporation takes responsibility for supports when people turn 19. CLBC says parents, after seeing their children assisted through the school years, expect quality services to continue.
Too often, they don't. Teens who have been thriving with effective supports face disaster when they become adults.
Like Jonathan Martin of Burnaby. He has Down syndrome and autism. He's been supported as a youth and CLBC's own report says he needs continued support and access to day programs next month when he leaves high school. "There is a grave concern that Jonathan's independence and acquired skill would quickly decline after he finishes school and if day program is not available," the agency's report says, according to the Burnaby NewsLeader. "Constant supervision is required for huge safety concerns."
But CLBC says it has no money. Jonathan will go on a wait list, with no real chance of getting support.
At the other end of the age spectrum, CLBC reports that people with developmental disabilities are living longer and needing more support as they age.
At the same time, many aging family caregivers, usually parents, can no longer provide as much support and are turning to CLBC.
They are finding the support isn't there.
That is particularly cruel. All parents worry about their children. But most enter old age knowing that their sons and daughters are launched.
Imagine the anguish in fearing that your death or incapacity will leave your developmentally disabled adult child at risk of exploitation or neglect. Knowing that the efforts you made to help ensure a safe, productive, satisfying life could end in tragedy.
The B.C. Association for Community Living has supported CLBC since its creation and continues to applaud the efforts to provide individualized supports.
But executive director Faith Bodnar says underfunding has reached a critical point. "Insufficient funding to CLBC has meant reacting to crisis only and the real danger of relegating people to lives of isolation and subsistence as their supports and services are cut," she wrote this month. "For people with developmental disabilities and their families it has created uncertainty, desperation, vulnerability and real suffering as they experience cuts to services or are placed on waitlists without hope."
There are pragmatic reasons for providing these services.
But this is also a moral issue. These are vulnerable people who, with help, can live rich, satisfying lives. They have the right to that opportunity. We have the collective ability to give them the chance.
But the government, on our behalf, has decided that would cost too much.
Footnote: CLBC notes that part of the pressure from services comes from the province's "five great goals," set by the government in 2005. The third goal called for B.C. to "build the best system of supports fpr persons with disabilities, those with special needs, children at risk and seniors." It turns out families believed the government was serious.

Desperate, expensive gamble to save HST

Governments aren’t supposed to make tax policy — or prepare budgets — like this.
The Liberals’ last-ditch attempt to save the HST is a dramatic flip-flop on tax principles they once said were essential for the province’s future.
Finance Minister Kevin Falcon says that if voters decide to stick with the HST in this summer’s referendum, the government promises to cut the rate from 12 per cent to 11 per cent on July 1, 2012. There would be another cut to 10 per cent on July 1, 2014, assuming the Liberals are still in office.
By 2014, Falcon claimed, the tax burden on individuals and families would be less than it was under the provincial sales tax,
But wait, as they say on late-night infomercials, there’s more. If voters stick with the HST, the government will send out one-time payments to help cover some of the increased tax burden. Families with children under 18 will get $175 per child; low-income seniors would also get $175. (Using taxpayers’ money to send cheques to the province’s richest families hardly seems sound public policy.)
Cutting the HST rate by one percentage point, according to Falcon, would cost the government about $850 million a year. So by 2014, the government would be taking in about $1.7 billion less in revenue than it had planned.
No worries, says Falcon. The government would still balance the budget by 2013/14 and manage despite the lost revenue.
If the HST is approved, he said, the government would raise the corporate income tax rate from 10 per cent to 12 per cent, reversing past cuts. That would bring in about $400 million a year.
And the government would cancel the planned elimination of the small business tax, adding about $250 million a year to government revenues.
That still means government revenue would fall by $1.7 billion a year when the HST rate reductions were in place.
The other tax changes would bring in about $650 million, leaving a billion-dollar gap.
Falcon’s claim the budget can still be balanced on schedule rests on the fact that the full impact of the HST cuts won’t hit until after the target date. Even so, the government’s forecast allowance and contingency funds — the cushions against unexpected revenue losses or spending needs, like a bad forest fire season — are now committed. There is no margin for unforseen events And the budget already called for spending cuts in most ministries this year, with a freeze in place for the following two years. (Health being a notable exception.)
Given the Liberals’ track record of HST misinformation, Falcon should present a clear budget plan showing how the revenue shortfalls will be handled before people vote in the referendum.
The Liberals’ credibility overall is hurt by the latest lurch from tax policies they once said were critical to the province’s future.
Take the corporate tax increase. When NDP leader Adrian Dix advocated the same tax change, Falcon said corporate tax increases would threaten the fragile economic recovery. Education Minister George Abbott said the proposal represented “the leading edge of 18th-century socialism in this province.”
Or the HST rate cut. When Falcon proposed an HST rate reduction during his leadership campaign, Christy Clark was critical, saying the government couldn’t afford to give up billions in revenue. Anyway, she said, changing the rate before the referendum would just look like the Liberals were trying to buy people’s support for the tax with their own money.
Credibility is a big referendum problem. The Liberals have provided misinformation on the HST every step of the way, underestimating the costs to families, inflating the economic benefits and claiming it was revenue-neutral. All the claims were contradicted by an expert panel the government appointed.
And now they are offering a new tax policy and making new claims with only weeks to go before the referendum, leaving no time to commission a new independent analysis to replace the now largely useless one.
Trust us, Clark says. This time we’ve got it right.
Some voters will. Some will look at the costs of getting out of the HST and decide it’s best to stick with the tax.
But many will likely be seeking much more information before buying the government’s claims this time.
Footnote: The New Democrats seized on past comments from Clark in question period Wednesday. During the leadership campaign, she rejected Falcon’s call for a rate cut. “Cutting the HST by one point is more than $800 million out of the budget this year and every year after, $1.6 billion for a two-point cut, and we need to ask ourselves where we’re going to get that money, because we’re either going to have a $1.6-billion bigger deficit, or we’re going to get $1.6 billion fewer heart operations, special needs teachers, school facilities, hospital emergency rooms.”

Poll results support early election call

There’s good and bad news for both B.C. parties in the first big poll after the leadership races.
For starters, they’re both probably relieved to be in a tie.
The Liberals have the support of 41 per cent of decided voters, the New Democrats 39 per cent, according to the Ipsos Reid poll released this week. That’s within the margin of error.
And both parties are even likely heartened that people think the Liberals are unethical and doing a lousy job of governing, for different reasons, of course.
It has to be reassuring for Christy Clark and company that the Liberals have 41-per-cent support when the government is widely seen as incompetent, according to the poll. That indicates a deep concern about the NDP would be even worse.
The survey found dissatisfaction with the Liberal government on every issue.
Respondents were asked if they approved or disapproved of the government’s performance since the 2009 election. The only positive was on its handling of the economy — 51 per cent approved, 43 per cent disapproved.
But on education, environment and crime and justice, a significant majority of those polled gave the government thumbs down.
The results were even more negative for the government’s handling of taxes and health care — and on spending taxpayers’ money wisely. Sixty-five per cent of those polled thought the government is doing a poor job in managing spending; only 29 per cent gave the Liberals positive grades.
And the results were worst for ethics and accountability. Only one in five respondents approved of the government’s performance in this area; 70 per cent found the Liberals wanting in terms of ethics and public accountability.
That’s why Clark has been working so hard to distance herself from Gordon Campbell — no easy task given the presence of all his key lieutenants at her side — and reduce obvious irritants, like parking fees in parks. If the party is doing well in the polls now, while people think it’s doing a poor job, there’s a chance of gains.
But Adrian Dix and the New Democrats can take encouragement from the Liberals’ poor marks as well.
They show Clark is vulnerable if the NDP can convince voters that it’s ready to provide better government.
And the poll results suggest that’s possible.
Clark scored much better when the pollster asked about the leaders. Almost 50 per cent of voters said she would make the better premier; only 25 per cent picked Dix.
And 36 per cent of voters said they have a positive impression of Clark, while 22 per cent have a negative impression.
Dix scores the same for negative ratings, but only 20 per cent have an overall positive impression.
That means, of course, that almost 60 per cent of voters don’t have views one way or another on Dix. His challenge is to shift more of those people into the positive column, while hoping Clark faces enough tough choices that her numbers slide.
That’s certainly possible. Being premier, even a new, election-mode premier, means you have to do some things people don’t like.
But when former NDP leader Carole James started, polls found a large portion of the public had no opinion of her and she had difficulty in shifting them into the “positive” camp.
The poll included another finding, one that adds to the factors encouraging Clark to call an election in the coming months.
The relaunched provincial Conservative party — which hasn’t been a significant factor — had the support of 10 per cent of decided voters. That’s a serious base for party leader John Cummins to build on. And it’s already enough to raise the threat of vote-splitting in close ridings. If enough Liberal voters opt for the Conservatives, then New Democrat candidates have a much better chance.
All in, the poll suggests Clark should be looking at an election as soon as possible. Her approval is high, Dix is unknown and the Conservatives aren’t yet organized.
All those could have change by the end of the year.
Footnote: NDP support is concentrated on Vancouver Island; the Liberals are strongest in the Interior and North, while the parties are even in the Lower Mainland. Conservative support in the Interior is above 15 per cent.
And, significantly, the Liberals have a lead among people over 34 — the ones most likely to vote.

Criminal record searches, free, public, online

That's what the B.C. government has provided. Wonder if your son's girlfriend has a criminal record? Your boss? Check them out.
Jody Paterson has the info here. Like her, I'm still thinking about this. (A triumph for information freedom, or a destructive invasion of privacy. I'm leaning toward the former.)

UPDATE

I'm reminded the criminal record information has been available, at no charge, since the fall. Fees were lifted as a result of the award-winning Access Denied project by Times Colonist reporters Lindsay Kines, Rob Shaw and Louise Dickson. The series looked at the erosion of access to information that was supposed to be public in courthouses.

So what if the world is going to end Saturday?

The Times Colonist has some useful thoughts in an editorial today.

Clark promises more democratic nomination contests

Colin Hansen's convention pitch for a new name for the Liberals sparked much talk - and many jokes.
It's interesting. But much more significant was Premier Christy Clark's pledge to end the party's practice of preventing nomination challenges for incumbent MLAs. That's been an unwritten, but strictly enforced, rule.
It's profoundly undemocratic. Someone who wins a Liberal nomination in a safe seat can sleepwalk through a couple of decades in the legislature without having to worry about being challenged for the party nomination.
There's little incentive to pay much attention to the concerns of local residents. The nomination is guaranteed and, in many ridings, victory in the election would be almost certain no matter who the party ran.
And there is considerable incentive to place the interests of the party brass ahead of local residents, because they're the key to job security.
And there's little chance for party renewal. A brilliant potential candidate, with great credentials and broad community support, might be in the wings. But unless the incumbent decides to retire, it's impossible to challenge for the nomination.
It's an odd position for the Liberals, who talk a lot about how free competition brings the best results. Except when it comes to competition for MLA jobs, with their $100,000 base salary and dandy benefits.
Clark said that's going to change. Well, actually, she claimed that there had never been a ban on nomination challenges and wouldn't be as we head toward an election. "The B.C. Liberals have never had a policy of protecting incumbents," she told the Globe and Mail, "and we are not going to start doing that now."
Clark's claim was immediately contradicted by MLA Kevin Krueger, who said he enforced the ban on nomination challenges as caucus whip. People who wanted to challenge an incumbent were "encouraged" to look elsewhere, he said. "It was not 'open season' and it won't be 'open season' this time," he said.
Krueger is more believable. That raises the possibility that Clark doesn't really want to end the practice, just to pretend it's not happening.
That would be a shame.
There are risks to allowing open nomination contests. A well-funded, ambitious would-be candidate could hijack a constituency association, sign up a bunch of instant party members and take over without real support from party members.
But simple rules could prevent that. Something as basic as requiring people to be members of the party for at least six months before being allowed to vote in a nomination contest reduces the risks.
And the benefits, for the public interest, are great. MLAs would have to pay much more attention to the concerns of the riding, rather than the interests of the party, to ensure they weren't replaced.
Meanwhile, Hansen's call for a new party name had to have been made with Clark's blessing. Many voters are confused and think the provincial party has some connection with the federal Liberals, he said. Which is not a good thing these days.
Perhaps a different name might better reflect the party's coalition of centre and centre-right voters, Hansen said.
A name change would mean a pretty short run for the modern incarnation of the Liberal party, revived by Gordon Wilson in 1991. It's interesting that after winning three elections, the party still doesn't feel comfortable with its name. Or believe that it has built loyalty among voters.
It's possible that nothing will come of the idea - that simply floating it was a way to suggest to voters that the party is keen to distance itself from its own record. (No wonder Gordon Campbell chose to skip the convention.)
Whatever the party is called, it would be welcome if it loosened the straitjacket that prevents party members from nominating the best candidates to represent their ridings in favour of a system based on seniority, not performance.
Footnote: The convention also saw Clark promise some sort of changes to the HST in an effort to win a yes vote in next month's mail-in referendum. And she continued to signal a desire for an early election, urging delegates to prepare for the campaign.

Conrad Black on the war on drugs

"Unfortunately, like archaic cultures that clung to the belief that the Earth was flat, those who support mandatory minimum sentences for drug crimes are willfully ignorant of the near universal consensus that mandatory minimum sentences are both extremely costly and ineffective."

And a joint byline with UBC's Evan Wood. Read it here.

And, loosely related, an excellent and personal argument in favour of Insite here is also worth your time.