What do you mean Polak said our Goals are “Aspira-tional”? That was supposed to be kept secret!
I didn’t make that up. Those words came from the mouth of Transportation Minister Mary Polak when she was describing the targets set by her department and questioned by auditor general John Doyle.
This is the same Mary Polak that told us during the HST discussion that BC had the lowest provincial sales tax rate in Canada conveniently leaving out the fact that Alberta has zero.
“Aspira-tional goals she said will be kept on the books to what; fire up the staff who know they don’t have a hope of hitting them.
What about setting some realistic goals with a realistic budget that we can all review and evaluate?
Speaking of budgets,I wonder if balancing the budget is “Aspira-tional” to this BC Liberal Government?
One can only imagine the ” aspira-tional” smoke and mirrors that will come out of Polak’s colleague Finance Minister Mike de Jong when that document is released.
What next? Maybe having an election in May will be “Aspira-tional” and that date will be changed when the house reconvenes in the New Year.
According to current Finance Minister Mike De Jong is a delay in the closing of the sale of Little Mountain housing project. Dejong said he does not expect that to close until June.
DeJong then followed in Clark’s footsteps and said no matter, we will balance the budget next year as in February.
unbelievable.
Here are a few things glossed over by both Premier Clark and Finance Manager de Jong.
2) Whether you were for or against the privatization of the Liquor Distribution Branch,getting caught with their hand in the cookie jar cost the Liberals $700 million which the previous Finance Minister had used in last years budget to project a balanced budget this year.
Lets be clear about this too: As you are reading this thinking they are wasting your money, it’s beyond that. They are into your credit cards ( we don’t have any money) so it’s a lot worse.
To give this some context for you.Yesterday Toronto Mayor Rob Ford lost his job for using his letterhead to raise $3,100 for needy children while the BC Liberals used their letterhead to not only blow another $15 million to raise votes for themselves, but also sink you are your family $328 million further in debt.
A monster horror show of a day by anybody’s standards is just another day at the office for the BC Liberals.
To Wit : The Christy Clark team, as they were winding down their night yesterday were digesting the news that they were once again caught with their hand in the cookie jar regarding the Anti-Dix web-site. Likely as they were tucking themselves in, blackberries went off with the news that BC Liberal-South Abbotsford Abbotsford executive had resigned en masse over the forced nomination of candidate Daryl Plecas.
After tossing and turning all night I would imagine they awoke wondering what next.
What next would have been more stunning news from the land of BC Liberal booze where Gary Mason exposed the Rich Coleman collect a donation for a tax refund scheme.
Think that was the worst news of the day? Think again.
For Premier Christy Clark and her party who have spent her entire leadership career strumming the ole banjo and singing families first comes the news that BC owns a 14.3 per cent child poverty rate, the second worst in Canada.
The report says to cure child poverty the BC Liberal government must attack child poverty with the same gusto that they attack jobs.
I am not talking about a flashy new poll being released, I am talking about excluding Amanda Todd’s mother from the conference on bullying. How dumb can you get?
She should have been front and center showing those people the scars of her childs death.
Premier photo-op and crew have dropped the ball once again.In fact we all did.
This was an opportunity to set politics aside and do the real work to make life more bearable for the kids in the province.
Instead a meaningful conference once again becomes a political football and a huge fumble for the Premier of our province.
You would have thought she would have been a little smarter given the vote she wants to recover is the women’s vote.
I recall, when my granddaughter was killed last October and I was in Comox for the funeral, there were a number of stories written in the local papers about kids, girls in particular committing suicide in the area. The deaths were not necessarily attributable to bullying but symptomatic of a larger problem that affects kids in this day and age.
I think there was three in the space of a month.
Something needs to be done and it has to be a lot more than the political hi-jinks of the last week.
Part of the problem is that we all stand back and accept this stuff from our politicians again and again.
We go to the polls like sheep and vote based on party lines. Those that don’t vote are making a statement albeit the wrong one.
All of us need to get involved,get outraged, be it at the next election or even now and ensure everybody knows that the status quo is no longer acceptable.
Folks did over the HST and it made a difference.
Otherwise we will get more of the same under the guise of change.
In the coming weeks I will write a post describing what I think people want and desperately need in their governments today.
We need to make real change and make the Amanda Todd’s of the world’s lives mean something.
We need to do more than what the BC Liberal government has been doing.
Van Dongen’s request of the Commissioner was done in the form of a 24 page letter.You can peruse it here.
Seems Like MLA Van Dongen has done his homework.
So has Blogger Alex Tsakumis.
He has written a number of outstanding articles on the subject, the most recent of which is here.
The evidence is clearly pointing to Clark having involvement in BC Rail where she ought not to have.
Clark says she will cooperate with the commissioner during any inquiry yet she knows full well that any inquiry by the commissioner must come before the house to be voted on.
First and foremost the problem there is the Premier conveniently prorogued the house so unless she recalls it there would be no vote until the spring.
Secondly, the premier holds a majority in the house and her party would most likely vote down any potential inquiry the commissioner requests.
What she needs to do is to take leadership of the issue,recall the house and call an inquiry herself.
Failing that she should come clean and explain her involvement in BC Rail and what the conflict that she suggested was.
Of course coming clean would no doubt lead to her stepping down.
For BC and the families she allegedly cares about its time to do the right thing.
Martyn Brown has a point and I will help him make it!
In the last provincial election according to both statistics and the mainstream media, 50% of the people did not vote.
I have said for a long time that is not true. I believe most people are voting when they don’t show up at the polls. I think they are voting in a way most people are not accustomed to. They are voting with their feet!
That means by not showing up at the polls and voting with a pencil they are voting in a different way saying that politics doesn’t matter because the way politicians and people in the backrooms conduct business and themselves is not relevant and is a waste of their time.
Martyn Browns new book reaffirms what I have felt for a while.
Brown’s excellent book, Towards a New Government in British Columbia, could just as easily be entitled Towards a New Government in any Province. To wit: just look at the gong show that is known as an election in Quebec.
There are no platforms revealed and it is basically 3 parties at war with each other while 1 of those parties is also taking on the country.
I am surprised the polls show anybody will vote.
In our province,BC, the Conservatives and the Liberals are at war with each other while the BC NDP hasn’t said much of anything other than they will have something to say when the election is on relative to their platform.
I am also surprised the polls show anybody will vote.
I have been involved in backroom discussion at municipal, provincial, federal and the board level. I can tell you the discussion revolves around 3 questions. They are: How do we get young people involved, how do we get women involved and how do we reach the 50% of the people who don’t vote.
I can also tell you from discussions with friends in all parties they are the same questions they all ask.
The answer, as Brown clearly says and he is right is this: If you keep going the way you are you can’t and won’t.
Why would they?
Elections and governments always go the same way. One side wins,hangs on for a few terms and gets booted out either by scandal or for not doing the few things they pledged to do during the election.
What about the favorite expression coined in the media around North America. That would be ” It’s the first year of their mandate, they are doing the hard things now so they don’t have to do them near election time” or some similar coined phrase.
What about politicians who run on this’ we are here to do politics differently’ and then they don’t.
We elect politicians and governments for 4 year terms and expect them to carry out the work for the whole four years not one and buy my vote for the other three.
I have argued for term limits on these pages and that would be a start but even with a limited term there would still be time for shenanigans.
We, the voting public, need to hold governments and wanna be governments to account.
It is no longer good enough to wait until the election to reveal a platform.
It is no longer good enough to vote for faux change.
We need term limits and tough recall laws.
What we need most, however, are politicians who are not afraid to lay it on the line. People who will talk out loud about what they will do,why they will do it and then stick to the course and not break our hearts.
We need the backrooms and the parties to stop going to war.
It’s no longer good enough to go to the polls and vote for more of the same.
Something drastic has to happen.
For until it does, this former backroom guy, will join the 50 % and vote with my feet.
After all the BS on the National Stage a new poll says if an election were held today the Christy Clark Liberals ( That what they are, the by-election signs said so) would get 4 whole seats and be whipped off the map by the NDP.
Clark’s seat in Vancouver-Point Grey certainly wouldn’t be one of them.
All the folks you love to hate on the Liberals side , gone.
Clark is dead premier walking and will surely be replaced by the fall convention.
What astounds me, is given all the mayhem with the accounting in the legislature this week,why anybody would want to vote for any of them including the incumbent NDP.
The whole house needs to be cleansed, new rules and procedures put in place.
The BS with lining your own pockets at the tax payers expenses has to stop.
So whatever happened to picking up the phone and talking with another ministry.
Why does everything have to be reviewed ad nausea?
Case in point:Three provinces ( Ontario,Quebec and Saskatchewan) fund a breast cancer test that examines genes and helps predict whether breast cancer will return to patients that have formerly had the disease.
In BC if a women wants to get this test done,it costs her and her family $4,000 out of her or her family’s pocket.
The outcome of this test is used by doctors as a tool to decide whether or not Chemotherapy should be undertaken.
The Oncologists changed their mind 30% of the time as a result of findings this test provided.
Seems like a good test and a great deal for families having to go through the torture of Chemotherapy.
In Christy Clark’s BC calling the other provinces who fund the test and asking for faxed copies of their studies does not appear to be an option.
They will undertake yet another review ( you remember we are reviewing the justice system?)
You would think a government with a family first agenda who sucks in the polls would get on this a little quicker.
