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The Shattered Mirror: What caused the fall of mainstream media – the Internet or shoddy, sycophantic corporate journalism?

Mar 4th, 2017 by

Nine-year-old newsie and his 7-year-old brother ‘Red’ – 1915 (Photo: Lewis Wickes Hine/Shorpy)

OOOOH CANADA, WE STAND ON GUARD FOR WE …

On January 27, an outfit called the Public Policy Forum released a report called the The Shattered Mirror, dealing with the state of Canada’s media. It was quarterbacked and written by Edward Greenspon, best remembered as editor of the *”Toronto Globe & Mail”. Discovering the terms of reference takes some doing and this is the best I could find:

When the Public Policy Forum (PPF) began thinking about a study on the state of the news media in Canada, in early 2016, the headlines were all bad. Within a fortnight in January 2016 alone, Rogers Media and Postmedia announced new rounds of staff reductions, Torstar revealed plans to close its printing plant, and Confederation-era newspaper titles in Guelph, Ont., and Nanaimo, B.C., were shuttered, the first of six daily papers to close, merge or reduce their publishing schedules before year’s end. The situation wasn’t much better on the broadcast news side, where revenues, especially in local television, followed the downward track of the newspaper industry, inducing the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to step in.

A parliamentary committee was formed. News companies and industry associations queued up with complaints of inequities in the marketplace. Some made requests for public assistance.

The Government of Canada contracted with the PPF, a non-partisan and independent think-tank, to assess the situation and make recommendations on what,if anything, should be done. The object was not to defend any mode of news delivery, but to evaluate the risk to democracy.” (Emphasis added)

The Public Policy Forum mandate states “to serve as a neutral, independent forum for open dialogue on public policy, to encourage reform in public sector management and excellence in government”. I’ll have a look at “neutral, independent” in a bit. Continue Reading »

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To Justin: Kinder Morgan pipeline would drive a permanent wedge between BC and Canada

Feb 28th, 2017 by

Dear Prime Minister,

I’ve reached a point where I can say what I please without concern for personal consequences. My age of ambition is long gone and social disapproval simply doesn’t matter anymore.

That is where I am and intend to speak my piece.

I’m a native British Columbia born in Vancouver a long time ago. I have a lifetime love of my province from one end to the other and I inherited a sense of deep anger when I see unfairness.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve resented that my province has been unfairly treated, a resentment that has increased steadily over the years. We have been badly cheated politically and economically, accompanied by an attitude of arrogance from central Canada, which runs everything, an attitude that I find irritating beyond toleration. Continue Reading »

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BC’s “alternative facts” budget

Feb 24th, 2017 by

Erik Andersen

By Economist Erik Andersen

It is unfortunate that the government exploits the public’s ignorance of finances. We know that BC Hydro abuses the privilege of using regulatory accounting. Carrying $6 billion of uncollected expenses as a asset is an insult and the former Auditor General more or less told them so. Prior to 2003 the NDP had BC Hydro clear off all unpaid/collected expenses each year with rate changes. Back in 2005 I had occasion to talk with a BC Finance Ministry retiree. She confirmed my suspicion that they were under heavy orders to capitalize as much as was possible. That order must have kept hundreds of millions out of the current year accounting records and now shows up as long-term liabilities and “Contingencies and contractual obligations”.

The so-called balanced budget has only been achieved by delay, spending suppression or hiding contractual liabilities. This is a form of Enron off-balance sheet accounting, that for the first time ever, caused the independent auditor to title their opinion with a new term. BC Hydro did not deliver an annual “audited” report. Continue Reading »

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The Goddard Report: BC Budget – Pre-Election Propaganda

Feb 22nd, 2017 by

Jim GoddardRafe’s appearance on Febuary 22, 2017, as a guest on The Goddard Report. Topics include the BC budget, BC Hydro, independence of radio journalism, refugees, and Trump (specifically, bad-mouthing judges).

Click here to listen.

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The Goddard Report: BC Premier Christy’s Honesty Questioned

Feb 11th, 2017 by

Jim GoddardRafe’s appearance on Febuary 9, 2017, as a guest on The Goddard Report. Topics include the Trudeau-Trump meeting, the upcoming provincial election, affordability of prescription drugs, and Conservative Party leadership.

Click here to listen.

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BC Green candidate Lia Versaevel brings a lot to the table

Feb 4th, 2017 by

MLA candidate for Nanaimo-North Cowichan Lia Versaevel (photo: BC Green Party)

This coming election, May 9, is the most unsatisfactory one I can remember since, perhaps, 1952,  when the old Coalition broke up. Most people I talk to throw up their hands, saying such a terrible choice – a corrupt, cheating, lying, government and an opposition that hasn’t shown any leadership at all and gives no confidence they’ll be any better the last NDP bunch.

I tend to agree.

At first, I wasn’t going to do any election interviews, mainly because I knew that neither leader would be much interested and I could see no advantage to the reader in  hearing from most of the candidates, David Eby of the NDP being probably the one exception.

My own political persuasion is Green but I am not a member of the party and while I support Elizabeth May federally, I think that Dr. Weaver is a distinct liability to the BC party. His views on IPPs and BC Hydro, propounded by him since 2009, are so thoroughly discredited that his continuing to hold them surely disqualifies him as leader of any party that cares anything about the environment and fiscal responsibility. Continue Reading »

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BC Liberals taking heavy fire, but NDP need to pour on the gasoline

Feb 2nd, 2017 by

BCNDP Leader John Horgan (Flickr/BC NDP) and Premier Christy Clark (Flickr/Province of BC)

It’s not easy to write an article on politics in the quiet backwater of British Columbia in light of the tragedy in Quebec. I’m going to make this, then, a doubleheader. 

This past weekend, the initial story, of course, was all President Trump as he found new ways to prod anti-Muslims by pretending to be concerned about national security. At the same time, there was a story out of Austria that they plan to ban the niqab. To say that there is no connection between those and similar stories and the tragedy in Quebec is to be blindly naïve. This is not, of course, to say that Trump or the Austrian government are directly responsible for Sunday’s dead and wounded but it is to say that when leaders talk the same language as the bigot, it encourages the imbalanced, for whom very little encouragement is needed. Continue Reading »

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The Goddard Report: Christy Clark as Truthful as Trump?

Jan 25th, 2017 by

Jim GoddardRafe’s appearance on January 25, 2017, as a guest on The Goddard Report. Topics include the worldwide women’s marches, the first few days of the Trump presidency, George Orwell, good manners, and the provincial election. Click here to listen.

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The Goddard Report: Everyone Running for Office Lies

Jan 12th, 2017 by

Jim GoddardRafe’s appearance on January 11, 2017, as a guest on The Goddard Report. Topics include the next BC election and LNG, the Federal cabinet shuffle, and the Trump inauguration. Click here to listen.

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The BC election no one can win

Jan 11th, 2017 by

Christy Clark (Province of BC/Flickr) and John Horgan (BCNDP/Flickr)

The election is sufficiently near to develop a few axioms to carry us through the sea of a largely imponderable mass of horse buns that we’ll have to face. I suggest that the following are good starts to our defence mechanisms as our eyes and ears become mercilessly assaulted by heaps of political bullshit, endemic to all campaigns, this one having a master, or should I say mistress, of it?

We can assume the following:

NDP Leader John Horgan probably won’t know what the hell he’s talking about most of the time but he will  honestly believe that it’s appropriate and accurate.

Premier Christy Clark, though it is highly unlikely, may know what she’s talking about on some occasions but no matter what she says, where or when, she’s most certainly lying through her teeth.

In the days and weeks to come, I’ll be examining the Liberal record and Ms. Clark’s role in it with some care. That’s reasonable enough because she has been our elected premier for 3 1/2 years (My God, is that all it is?!) and the Liberals seem to have been in power forever. Let me take a look first at the John Horgan and the NDP. Continue Reading »

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