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Dix Let Liberals Get Away with Murder

May 16th, 2013 by

Christy Clark has pulled off the sort of miracle the Boston Bruins managed when coming back from a 4-1 deficit to the Leafs recently. One would be ungracious not to extend congratulations.

The story is more than a matter of manners, for the truth is that Adrian Dix blew the election – big time.

I warned the NDP over and over about how their campaign was letting the Liberals get back into the fight after the NDP had a 20 point advantage in the private polls.

With over two weeks to go in the election, I wrote in thetyee.ca and on this website:

It surprises me that Adrian Dix is playing softball with these issues. This is looking like ’09 all over again.

Mr. Dix, your position on the Kinder Morgan tanker port proposal was nice but marred by the delay. I told you many months ago that if you were opposed to Enbridge that logic should make you opposed to Kinder Morgan as the issues are the same.

Continue Reading »

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Posted in The Common Sense Canadian | 4 Comments »

Video: Liberals Bankrupting BC with $171 Billion Debt Legacy

May 13th, 2013 by


Former Socred Cabinet Minster Rafe Mair tells it like it is in this powerhouse speech on April 24 in Merritt, at the outset of the BC election campaign. Mair minces no words, zeroing in on the BC Liberals’ real economic record, which stands in stark contrast to the one being presented by Christy Clark throughout her campaign.

“Christy Clark has on the side of her bus, ‘Debt Free BC’. We owe $171 Billion dollars! Since the Liberals came to power, our per capita share of debt has gone from a little over $5,000 to $40,000 – every man, woman and child…Ask the folks in Greece or in Cyrpus or in Italy what happens when the day of reckoning comes. And the day of reckoning is going to come with this.”

Throughout the emotional 10 min address, Mair speaks of his concern for today’s youth and future generations. “We have now a situation in British Columbia that keeps me from shutting my mouth. I can’t do it – not as an old man. I see the country literally at a watershed. I see the province at a point where if proper decisions are not made promptly, we’re condemning our children and grandchildren to eternal debt.”

Required viewing for all British Columbians on the eve of the May 14 election.

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Posted in The Common Sense Canadian | 3 Comments »

Five Reasons to Turf Christy Clark’s Liberal Crew

May 13th, 2013 by

Cartoon by Ingrid Rice

Cartoon by Ingrid Rice

They’ve proven to be no friends to BC’s finances, nature or the truth.

The polls are “tightening”? Have we taken leave of our senses? Surely the people of B.C. can’t endure another four years of corruption and mismanagement!

Here are my top five reasons why Christy Clark and her party must be refused a new mandate:

1. The BC Liberals have been lousy fiscal managers.

This gang, Jesse James in drag, in 2008 presented an election budget that later turned out to be $1.2 billion out of whack. Now they expect another chance?

Since 2001, the Liberals have increased the individual debt of every man, woman and child in this province from about $8,000 to $40,000. That’s nearly five times more, and in a non-inflationary era. The province on the Campbell/Clark watch is in hock for over $170 billion. (To see how I come by these numbers, read this earlier column by me.)

British Columbians are accustomed to ignoring these sorts of numbers as being just accountants’ jargon they need never be concerned about.

Well, friends, that same sentiment not too long ago prevailed in Iceland, Cyprus, Greece, Ireland, Italy and Spain. They learned as we will that size does matter. Continue Reading »

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Posted in The Tyee | 1 Comment »

Dix Fails to Call Clark on ‘Debt Free BC’ Whopper

Apr 27th, 2013 by

On the side of the Christy Clark bus are the words “Debt Free BC”.

This could mean one of two things – we are now debt free or we will be. Either way, this statement stands as the all-time whopper in BC history and that covers a hell of a lot of territory.

I do not rely on politically-oriented think tanks for my information, rather noted independent economist Erik Andersen. If you add the $70 Billion in direct debt projected in Clark’s latest Budget to secret “taxpayer obligations” relating to private power contracts and public-private partnership (P3) infrastructure deals, you get – wait for it – over $170 BILLION, that’s with a “B”.

What is important to know about the debt is that in 2001, when the Liberals took over, every man, woman and child owed a shade over $8,000. Today we each owe $40,000 – five times what we owed before this so-called business-oriented, fiscally careful bunch of cheats and hypocrites took over. Continue Reading »

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Posted in The Common Sense Canadian | 1 Comment »

Dix Wise to Decline Debate Duel with Clark

Apr 15th, 2013 by

Savvy tactics dictate avoiding the ‘gotcha’ trap set by one-on-one format.

I think Adrian Dix would be mad to “debate” with Premier Clark one on one.

I realize that as one who thinks Premier Clark and the entire BC Liberal government have been a catastrophe you might expect I would feel this way.

In the three elections that pitted Bill Bennett against Dave Barrett, Bennett refused the “one on one” and won all three. He said, essentially when you debate Barrett you don’t know if you’re “debating Karl Marx or Groucho….” The real reason was that Bennett knew that Barrett was the better showman — Bennett didn’t have any showmanship that one could detect and that he wanted to be premier not court jester. The public evidently agreed. Continue Reading »

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Posted in The Tyee | 1 Comment »

Enbridge Review Panel’s Skimpy Insurance Requirements Fail to Reassure Public

Apr 14th, 2013 by

Who will cover the cleanup costs of an oil spill like this one by Enbridge into Michigan's Kalamazoo River?

Who will cover the cleanup costs of an oil spill like this one by Enbridge into Michigan’s Kalamazoo River?

The news out of the Joint Review Panel looking into the Enbridge pipeline should have a profound effect on us all.

One of the conditions is a requirement that Enbridge carry close to $1 billion in insurance, plus $100 million on hand to cover losses from spills.

I find this interesting, since normally an assessment of future damages covered is accompanied by an assessment of the risk to be covered. What is the size of the risk and how big a part of that risk will be taken? This so in every kind of insurance – be it life, casualty, automobile, what have you. This means not only must there be an assessment of the risk – i.e. is there likely to be a loss – but how much is a loss going to cost? This is especially true of casualty insurance, as the Joint Review Panel is dealing with here.

The second critical point is whether or not the insurer will continue to cover Enbridge after a loss has occurred? Can they cancel, leaving Enbridge’s further damages up to us the people? Continue Reading »

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Posted in The Common Sense Canadian | No Comments »

What I Want from Next BC Government

Apr 9th, 2013 by

I was recently asked by a reader what it is I want, presumably in the way of government.

I’m not so naïve as to think I’ll ever be satisfied, but neither is anyone else. Unless we’re members of a party or one of its cheerleaders we understand that human institutions will contain the human frailties we all have.

First, I want an understanding of this simple proposition – the NDP in the 90s were hit by the failure of the Thai baht, which crippled our forestry industry, thus our provincial coffers. The NDP had no notice of this event nor did anyone else. During their time in office, the BC Debt increased two fold.

On the other hand, the Liberals suffered from the crash of the stock market and a fairly deep recession. They did or ought to have had notice of this. All the signs were there. The longest Bull Market in history. Bad mortgages being bundled as “securities”. An over-heated economy. If the BC Ministry of Finance didn’t report the obvious signs, they should have been cashiered to a person. Or, more likely, if the Finance Minister didn’t demand the key figures on a regular basis, or didn’t report the truth to the cabinet, he should have been cashiered. But I go further – it wasn’t just the Minister of Finance who had that obligation but Treasury Board. I’ve been there and know how the system is supposed to work. Continue Reading »

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Posted in The Common Sense Canadian | No Comments »

HST and Pipelines: The Elephant in the Cabinet Room

Apr 2nd, 2013 by

There is an elephant in the cabinet room and it can only be dealt with if the occupiers of that room don’t oppose any of the proposed pipelines to run through BC – this thanks to the Campbell/Clark HST mess.

In simple terms, we owe Ottawa $1.6 BILLION by backing out of the HST. It’s not brain surgery – any deal Prime Minister Harper makes to lessen this burden will require Premier Clark to not oppose the pipelines.

What other explanation can be made when you consider how quickly and enthusiastically she supported David Black’s proposed refinery in Kitimat? How is the bitumen to get to this refinery? By carrier pigeon?

Going back to the beginning of her premiership, Clark has shown sympathy for pipelines, albeit opaquely at first, until she moved to the position that if the money’s right, no problem. Of course she will demand that the pipelines be built very carefully and that any leaks are promptly taken care of by “world class” methods and, of course, Enbridge will – cross its heart and hope to die – promise that this will be done. Continue Reading »

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Posted in The Common Sense Canadian | No Comments »

“In the Name of God, Go!”

Apr 1st, 2013 by

Cartoon by Ingrid Rice

Cartoon by Ingrid Rice

Surveying the BC Liberal wreckage brings to mind Cromwell’s famous exhortation.

Judging from the madness coming from Victoria the gods must be very angry indeed.

The premier promises to pour more than $100 billion into a so-called Prosperity Fund (this from a government that has tripled the provincial debt since taking office). The money is supposed to flow from development of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), the riches at first promised to arrive three years from today, and now projected to be five years away — safely past the 2017 election. All of those billions are to be generated by a source that may not even exist if natural gas prices don’t rise and the betting is they won’t.

In fact Russia has now identified the two largest shale gas deposits in the world and the latest from China is that she has sufficient energy to last her 500 years. America will be self-sufficient in two years using, ironically, tar sands oil. Whether these stories turn out to be 100 per cent right remains to be seen. “Fracking” shale gas in quantity is new on the world energy stage but it does tell you that this is not a very good time to be declaring huge Prosperity Funds from gas sales five years hence. Moreover, even if LNG does turn out to be a moneymaker for B.C., thanks to the fiscal ineptness of the Liberals the money will be badly needed in general revenue. Continue Reading »

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Posted in The Tyee | No Comments »

Oil Pipeline, Tanker Spills not a ‘Risk’ but a Certainty

Mar 27th, 2013 by

This 2007 spill from Kinder Morgan's pipeline to Vancouver covered the streets of Burnaby in oil

This 2007 spill from Kinder Morgan’s pipeline to Vancouver covered the streets of Burnaby in oil

Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad. It looks like the gods are doing just that with the Premier and her government.

What I’ve seen the past several weeks forces me to ask, Madame Premier: Is that thing on your shoulders just for photo-ops?

For starters. Is the Kitsilano Search and Rescue Centre really a bargaining chip with the federal government over the Enbridge pipeline proposal? Do you really believe that David Black’s proposed refinery is going to make things better? That 3 pipelines carrying bitumen are safer than two?

I’ve got to say it, Premier: you don’t know a damned thing about pipelines and tankers. Continue Reading »

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Posted in The Common Sense Canadian | No Comments »

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