There is no money to help the most vulnerable citizens, but Clark’s Liberals spend billions to help their friends and financial supporters. It is a greedy, hateful style of government.
– Norman Farrell
by Bruce Mason
Let’s cut the crap and cut to the chase. Let’s quit cutting fake bait and wasting more precious time chucking good money after bad. We’ve tossed more than enough of our precious legacy and life-blood overboard, feeding the insatiably greedy sharks and their minions that float at the top of the financial food chain. Truly fed-up, it’s past time for a reset; it’s time to change course, right here, right now.
Make no mistake about it; we’re at the epicentre, caught in a perfect tsunami storm of hot air and tidal waves – the greenhouse gas regression or green revolution – on a collision course. The eyes and hopes of much of this planet are pinned on us in BC where Greenpeace first set sail. We are not only up to the task, but we also don’t have any real choice.
After 16 years hosting The Daily Show, Jon Stewart observed, “Bullshit is everywhere. The good news is bullshitters have gotten pretty lazy and their work is easily detected. So I say to you tonight, friends, the best defence against bullshit is vigilance. So if you smell something, say something.” And may we add, be somebody, do something?
One of my most trusted and vigilant sources is Norman Farrell, a long-time accountant with a well-developed, keen sense of smell. Dubbed “master researcher” by one of my mentors, Rafe Mair, Farrell’s outstanding blog, https://in-sights.ca/, has several thousand posts on everything from “Accountability” to “Wilderness Committee.” He told me, “People have questioned my opinion, but never my facts.” It’s well worth bookmarking and supporting.
Just before this issue of Common Ground went to press, Farrell posted “Pull down the veil of lies” (February 26), utilizing Ministry of Finance numbers to show how the record and promises of Christy Clark (Neo)Liberals are “egregious dishonesty,” in conflict with basic truth and common sense.
In the recently released 2017 Budget and Fiscal Plan, the government that got elected by promising a “Debt-Free BC” forecasted the provincial debt will grow $11 billion to a total of $78 billion over the next three years. But that last number doesn’t include $100 billion-worth of contractual obligations, as if non-existent and without impact.
“Contractual obligations became a major financial commitment in the mid-2000s when BC Liberals privatized public services and moved major capital projects off balance sheets,” Farrell reports. “Schools, healthcare facilities, bridges, highways and power installations – although commissioned by and for the public and paid for by the public – were financed by private organizations and therefore excluded from direct provincial debt.
“People in need of social assistance have had benefits frozen for a decade,” he adds. “There is no money to help the most vulnerable citizens, but Clark’s Liberals spend billions to help their friends and financial supporters. It is a greedy, hateful style of government.”
To wit, Rich Coleman, the second most powerful politician in BC – he’s deputy premier, minister of natural gas and minister responsible for housing – boasted on behalf of his government’s record on poverty: “We have to remember that a person on social assistance, a single person on social assistance in British Columbia, gets double the annual income of a person in the Third World,” he huffed, adding a Trump-like insult-to-injury: “I know you don’t like it when I tell you how good this country is, but that’s fine. All I ever hear is negative, negative, negative, destructive, pessimistic attitude.”
No doubt, Big Rich would include Farrell’s honest, meticulous facts. Here’s something else to mull: if I gave you $1 every second, in one minute you would pocket 60 dollars. After 12 days, you’d be a millionaire, beyond the wildest dreams of most of us. At that rate – to hand over a billion – for you to bank the kind of numbers our politicians toss around would take almost 32 years.
Let’s get serious. Rather than investing in public retrofits, renewables, transit and care giving sectors of health and education to stimulate a rush of well-paying jobs, and instead of improving the lives of hard-working British Columbians – especially First Nations and others receiving a raw deal in an unequal economy (the highest in Canada and growing exponentially) – the BC (Neo)Liberals are attempting to bribe voters with tax money taken during Christy Clark’s term and dating back an unrelenting 16 years in office.
Interesting times. Frustrating as hell, as well, as we fall further behind, as summed up in a recent email from another former high-level politician and talk show host, Rafe Mair: ‘’Thank God for a business oriented govt. BC Hydro bankrupt – debt doubles under Christy – LNG a huge and very bad joke – Budget surplus from kids dying, ignored mentally ill, abandoned homeless – Phoney, ‘balanced budget’ – LNG at Squamish into the atmosphere, shit in Howe Sound to kill restored fish runs, whales, porpoise and dolphins, tankers to keep us all rich and dead – Kinder Morgan to pollute Burrard Inlet, Salish Sea, Gulf Islands and Straits of Juan de Fuca with bitumen leaks and spills.
Now, ICBC’s massive losses from their monopoly insurance company. And to top it all off, a self-styled beauty queen for a premier, who keeps airlines and photographers prosperous with our money, never answers questions and is incapable of telling the truth. BC is in the very best of hands, don’t you think?”
A last word from Norm Farrell: “Because corporate media does not report the above figures, it is up to citizens to correct the record. Do so at every opportunity during the election campaign. Blow up the myth that Liberals, while pandering to special interests, are competent financial managers.”
Do more than just vote, which is every citizen’s right and enviable responsibility. Google the platforms and join the campaigns of the optional parties: the opposition and our best chance, NDP, the Green Party and even the Conservatives. Ask questions, become informed, talk it up. Be able to honestly look anyone in the eye, including future generations, and say, “This is what I did, up to, and including, May 9th, 2017.”
Bookmark Norman Farrell’s site, in-sights.ca, sign-up for his emails and support IN-SIGHTS through donations, a wise investment in your/BC future.
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Bruce Mason is a Vancouver and Gabriola-Island based five-string banjo player, gardener, freelance writer and author of Our Clinic. brucemason@shaw.ca