Crucial new do-over list

In my opinion going into the next election Federally or Provincially under the same conditions is a total waste of time and money.

Four things have to change if the people of BC and Canada are to bring democracy back to Canada.

In BC we have to start three referendums and get them in place before the next provincial election, we did it for the HST and all these issues are at least as important as the HST.

1. A referendum to bring STV to BC by the next election. A referendum to be simple democracy which means 50 percent plus one not 60 percent 70 percent or whatever impossible fiqure the government sets to guarantee defeat of proposed legislation as was done on the 2 occasions for the previous STV referendums.
2. A referendum to outlaw union and corporate money for elections, government financed elections. Strict rules for outside or third party advertising and money.
3. Strengthen referendum and recall legislation.
4. Fines for not voting.  A box on ballot that states ( NONE of the ABOVE) for those voters that want to register a protest vote.

Media Tyranny

Re: News Views The News May 22/2013

The irony is mind boggling, can you say cognitive dissonance or how about hypocrisy or how about good old fashioned conflict of interest,  the News editorial claims the electoral system is broken, really what was your first clue the fact that only 50 percent of voters bothered to vote, maybe you should take a little responsibility for that fact, the constant barrage of dirty tricks, multi-millions of dollars of attack ads, slander, character assassination, outrageous lies, fear mongering, deception, misinformation, propaganda, the bending and breaking many of our laws and expenditure of public funds to bribe Chinese and East Indian votes using public employees to do Liberal election work on the public dime, the medias total bias toward the BC Liberals for less than honest or honourable reasons, let’s call a spade a spade the News owner David Black has about the most serious conflict of interest imaginable with his gas refinery a pretty well done deal with the election of the BC Liberals. Another point made in this editorial is that the present electoral system is an archaic joke, well as I remember it was this same big media that fought against the STV using the same tired sick tactics we just witnessed for this election to defeat the STV, so once again the media has to take much of the blame for what is for all intents and purposes a dictatorship which is more to the advantage of big money and the people that own and control big media. 

The people of BC will continue to be brainwashed and deceived by the likes of Tom Fletcher in these rightwing rags who tell us we should not be interested in justice, it is to expensive and the people of BC do not really need to know whether the people in power in this province are criminals or not and why do we really need to know if development projects will destroy our environment. Really Tom you do not even have to write a column all we have to do to know your position on any subject is just imagine the most extreme ultra-rightwing position on any subject and that is invariably your position. Your insightful comment on the beginning of the end for the old left-right model for BC politics is so you, but it is nothing new it is a very old evil called dictatorship. 

The truth is you Mr. Black and your big media, big money cohorts bought, thus own this election and respectively this government so you are responsible for every mistake, corruption, insult and injury and not to mention damage that is done to the province of BC and it’s people and ultimately the economy, not that you care about that as long as you get your pound of flesh.

The fact is that the wealthier and more powerful the corporate media giants have become, the poorer the prospects for participatory democracy and the chance that this big money, big media monopolies best interests would be in the peoples best interest is highly improbable.

Biased media, Big Money

Re: Our View, Democracy a good thing MR Times May 21/ 2013

I would wholeheartedly agree that democracy is a good thing, but would just as strongly disagree that what we just witnessed was an exercise in democracy, in fact it was anything but.

It was all the worse components of an American style election complete with gerrymandering, big money from all vested interests,  big oil, Alberta oil money, pipeline money, federal Conservative money, more than likely Chinese money all desperate to control the fate of BC as regards to pipelines, oil supertankers access to BC waters, and resource extraction, and I dare say the workers to do these jobs. 

It involved multi-millions of dollars of BC tax dollars to bribe for instance Chinese and East Indian voters, constant unrelenting attack ads, dirty tricks, slander, character assassination outrageous lies, disinformation and propaganda, we are talking about tens of millions of dollars in propaganda, government employees working on this BC Liberal campaign on the taxpayers dime. 

They didn’t even let up when they got caught bending, twisting and breaking the laws of BC and Canada reminiscent of last Federal election. 

I notice Mr. Groeneveld never mentions the medias part in this sordid tale there is no doubt that the election coverage was totally biased toward the BC Liberals letting obvious lies run as truths, the same BC Liberal rightwing hacks in the paper literally every edition, letting Liberal lies and pie in the sky fantasy pass as credible reality, one of the local papers having a complete conflict of interest in the outcome of this election David Black wants to build the biggest gas refinery in the world and already has the go ahead from the BC Liberal's before an environmental assessment has been done, no conflict of interest there.  

Mr. Groeneveld claims democracy was done and the best man won but takes no blame for the 50 percent of the people that didn’t cast a vote, but I think it has everything to do with the way the negative farce that was the 2013 BC election was carried out and the media who’s job it is to inform the public on the real issues and the credibility of candidates and their respective platforms once again failed the voters of BC in their job.

I wonder how Mr. Groeneveld will explain how Christy Clark who obviously was not the best person for the job will be running the whole province wide sellout for the next 4 years. 

You can say our stupid antiquated electoral system was partially to blame for this unlikely election result and you are probably right but once again it was this same media that did not back the STV and failed the people of BC once again, the simple truth is the best interests of the people of BC are not the same interests of the big money that own these giant media corporations.

You can stand back now and claim this electoral disaster was not your fault, but the truth is you the media own this outcome and everything it produces, all the privatizations, the squandered tax dollar, the diminishing social safety net, the further destruction of the health care system, the corruption and sellouts, the destruction of BCs environment is on your hands and your hands alone.

Democracy Lost

I have never seen such a sordid spectacle as the 2013 BC election for lack of a better word.
It was the 2012 federal election, American Federal election all rolled into one, gratuitous amounts of money from the federal Conservatives, big oil money from Alberta and how much from the one percent and China one can only imagine as they are all hungary for BCs energy and mineral wealth and most important passage through BC to despoil BCs unparalleled beautiful environment, their greed is insatiable their resolve fierce and the poor NDP were swallowed whole  in the process, the BC Lieberals pulled out all the stops incessant attack ads, slander, fear mongering, unbelievable lies and disinformation, even resorting to advertising for the green in case someone was just to disgusted to vote for the BC Lieberals they should vote for the green to split the vote, and it worked.
It was an orgy of raw power unlimited financial resources, total Media control and bias by for one example David Black media mogul and owner of local media who has what any rational person one would consider a major conflict of interest he wants to build the biggest gas refinery in the world in kitimat and ship the gas by supertanker to China and the BC Lieberal's have already rubber-stamped the project before any environmental study. Black's newspaper The News was a perfect example of every kind of biased propaganda, Hitler would have been proud the two big daily's and their local papers were just as slanted and I personally experienced their power as well, unfortunately when the gatekeeper is biased it critically distorts the power of the press or media and this was a seriously one-sided election, the day the writ was dropped they literally stopped printing my letters on provincial election, after a few weeks I complained and they put a few of my letters online but would not put them in print, but printed every rightwing hack every edition I have had the same problem for other elections and the vote for the STV as well, I was shut out of the conversation because I was not saying what they wanted to happen.
A free and unbiased press is crucial in a healthy democracy and we definitely do not have a healthy democracy at this time in history we have no democracy at all Federal or Provincially.

They bought the election pure and simple, sad day for BC sad day for Canada.

The electoral system is broken more than ever, less people voted for the Lieberals than other partys and they get large majority somehow that seems very familiar. 

I see four BC voters on the street and I know more than one of them voted for someone other than a Lieberal, less than one of them voted for a Lieberal and the two ignorant lazy assholes that never voted at all actually voted for the Lieberals.

It has not been commented on or maybe never will be how many election laws were broken or bent to come up with this improbable election result.

The outrageous one sided biased media coverage has to be dealt with somehow maybe even banning the media with serious vested interests in the outcome of this important election such as David Black from being involved at all in all elections federal and provincial.

I see Mark Dalton with a stupid shit eating grin on his face with his Xed fingers as though it was his hard work and good record or even luck that got him another four years at the gravy train, the truth is even after all the lies, propaganda and fear mongering that the voters were subjected to 24/7 more people voted against you than voted for you.
 It is hardly rocket science that multi-millions of dollars of lies and propaganda, fear mongering, character assassination of the opposition a broken archaic electoral system, fear and the colossal ignorance of a brain dead population got the Lieberals another majority, but still after all that money and lies less people voted for the Lieberals than they did the opposition.

Let's not forget where that money came from to finance this farce, the fat cat criminals who have been the recipients of the rape of BC so-far, and the fat cat oil corporations of Alberta that want to turn BC into a unreasonable facsimile of polluted Alberta without the financial benefits of resulting pollution and I wonder how much the Communist Chinese government pumped into the brainwashing propaganda blitz that BC citizens were subjected to to get their pipeline through BC to pollute our land and coastline and of course let's not forget the Federal Conservative and our ruler Harper who is counting on Chrispy to let Harper put his pipelines through BC unchallenged.

All in all a object lesson on a fraudulent election practice not resembling democracy at all even using minimal qualifications.

 Seriously I do not know what to do at this point, my first instinct is to move to Vancouver Island and start a campaign to separate from Canada, at least they had the brains to get rid of the corrupt destructive corporate whores the so called BC Lieberals.

Magic Money

RE: Economy: Concerns about banks safety unfounded The Times May 9/2013

Mr. Dixon are you telling us that Mr. Flaherty did not bring the same unregulated financial players into Canada that caused the American crisis with their 40 year no down payment loans, and they didn’t deregulate the whole financial sector, and it hardly matters whether those toxic loans ended up with CMHC or the gamblers that made them because those insurance polices you talk about are paid with out with Canadian tax dollars. 

Whether you want to call this present situation erroneous conspiracy theories or solid government policy the fact is that calling Canada's or any other countries monetary system stable at this time in history is just plain wishful thinking. 

Every country has to print at least as much new money every year to cover all interest on all loans but for the most part this is far from the present practice, America is printing $85 billion a month or about 3.2 trillion in the last 5 years, the European balance sheet is even higher $3.45 trillion or how about Japan which will double it’s currency in the next two years and most countries in the world are doing the same thing just to keep this monitory system afloat and while Canada is apparently just printing enough to cover interest it’s deficit is growing at an alarming rate and will be $673.1 billion by the end of the year. This policy is called Quantitive easing or the opposite of what was done in the great depression, printing massive amounts of money out of thin air and holding interest rates at record lows, only history will tell if this monetary experiment works and saves the present monetary system from collapse, but the simple fact is that every new dollar you print devalues the already existing ones so savers and seniors on fixed incomes are the biggest losers.  

It is not surprising that Conservatives always expand a countries debts, it is wealth redistribution from the taxpayer to the rich from whom the government borrows the money, the Republicans and Harper would like nothing more than to bankrupt the nation so they can justify eliminating all social safety nets.

Mr. Dixon appears to be very happy with the view from where he is sitting and thinks I need to join the real world, but this is the real world and the consequences of years of Conservative magic money theory. 

PS You might want to check out a very well done article on the whole world financial reality  PeakProsperity.com

Joseph Gobels would be so proud

Talk about Hitlers big lie technique the huge picture of Christy Clark standing in front of a giant NDP SPEND-O-METER on the front page of a newspaper and calling it NEWS.

Of all the lies and doublespeak told by these unrepentant liars, talk about rewriting history, these people and the people passing this misleading propaganda on truly have no shame. 

The untarnished historical truth is it took BC 98 years from 1903 to 2001 this included Conservatives, real Liberals, Social Credit, NDP, to accumulate a $ 33.8 Billion provincial debt and the outgoing NDP left a 1.2 billion dollar surplus for the BC Liberals in 2001, making a $13.8 Billion increase under the NDP, it then took the BC LIberals 11 years to increase that debt to $53.4 billion and that is if you do not include the further $80.2 billion dollars of unfunded P3s which brings the grand total to $134.6 BILLION which is nearly a whopping 400 percent provincial debt increase in 11 years these are unfunded contractual obligations that we have paid dearly for because the government can always get money for cheaper than the private sector. 

I believe these figures are just the tip of the iceberg as the BC Liberals have been using Enron style accounting practices for their entire term of office and have been chastised by the Auditor General repeatedly over the years for this deception, only after a proper accounting by a new government will we find out the true debt these incompetent money managers have saddled BC with.

This all happened while at the same time they were liquidating many BC assets for pennies on the dollar such as BC Rail, BC Ferries, BC Gas etc etc . These great money managers watched a convention centre cost ballon almost 200 percent and is still 40 percent vacant, a new roof on BC place that ballooned another 200 percent, a new Port Mann bridge  that it may be years to find out the real cost and how much over budget and what about BC Hydro paying triple the market value for private power merchants.

To me this front page is a perfect example of the total bias the media has demonstrated in this whole BC election process due to vested and conflicts of interests by the main media groups and their respective owners, it is without a doubt a sad day for democracy, and if the BC Liberals manage to steal another 4 years out of these lies and misrepresentations, the media will undoubtedly be the main culprits in this outrageous spectacle of lies and deceit.

PS I sent this letter of protest to all the papers but it of coarse will not be printed so I will have to start getting creative I already have this blog and I think I will publish all my letters on Facebook also, whatever it takes, whatever it takes to fight big media.

BC Media RIGHTWING BIAS

The right wing bias in BCs media is sickening and a clear and present danger to the little democracy we have left when it comes to a fair provincial election for instance. Check out the articles and letters to the editor, rightwing scare tactics and lies, every edition filled with the same tired rightwing apologists, the left and centre almost totally excluded. 

It is not hard to find the reason for this rightwing bias the Vancouver Sun and Province and all their associated local papers are owned by Paul Godfrey of the National Post which is well known for singing the praises of neoconservatism and obviously wants the same rightwing crowd kept in to fleece the Citizens further, so they can pick up another BC Crown corporation for pennies on the dollar at the ongoing corrupt fire sale of all BC assets to the fat cat chosen few, still up for sale Crown Corporation cash cow jewels, like BC Hydro, LCB, to name a couple, you can be sure the LCB will be gone within days of the election if the BC Liberals retain rule. 

Then you have David Black another media magnate who has some of the most rightwing nut-balls in print today in his publications and has a direct interest in returning the BC Liberals to power as they have already pretty well rubber-stamped before any studies or anything resembling an environmental study for his Kitimat vision of the largest gas refinery on earth complete with pipelines, supertankers and cheap asian equipment, how about cheap foreign labour, not to far a stretch when looking at what goes on in the rest of the resource extraction in BC under BC Liberal policy.

PS This letter has been sent to all the papers noted but I have no illusions that it will be printed as none of my letters have been printed since the writ was dropped except some are put on line and the PittMeadowsToday an online paper prints most of my work.
Foreign workers in BC 74,000 and counting. Yes that is thousands.

Silver Tongued Devil

A friend commented to me what a great talker Christy Clark was the other day and I reminded him that being a smooth talker was not a good reason to vote for a candidate for political office, as any police officer will tell you that is a prerequisite for any successful CON man or CON women, you should be listening to what they say not how they say it and even more importantly does what they are saying make any sense and how many of the promises they have made in the past have they acted on, or to put it more simply do they have a long history of lies and broken promises BC Rail, BC Gas, HST, and literally hundreds of lies and broken promises. 

Here is a well researched article about the hundreds of lies, broken promises and failed destructive policies of the last 12 years of BC Liberal rule. http://www.pittmeadowstoday.ca/100reasons-the-bc-liberals-must-go/ 

check it out and pass it on you and your children's future depends on it.

Had Her Chance

Christy Clark stated in this election campaign we have a choice - a stark choice - that is nothing less than a battle for the values that we hold dear as a society. 

I could not agree more with the ideal but would seriously doubt that it would be Clark and her BC Liberals that would be the ones to deliver the values the people of BC hold dear as a society.

As far as I know the people of BC still want to live in a democracy where the MLA they elect goes to Victoria and vigorously participates in the democratic process that is supposed to keep this province running smoothly and efficiently, that happened less than 4 weeks last year and has been the way this BC Liberal government has governed for the last 12 years.

A legitimate democratic government get’s a mandate from the voters they do not tell people what they want to hear and literally the day after the election do the exact opposite, for example BC Rail, BC Hydro, HST, etc etc.

The peoples business should be carried out in an open, transparent democratic fashion , not in dark secret rooms with shadowy unelected people with vested interests and come up with agreements that the government has no mandate or even any input into such as TILMA, NERT, EPIC and many other shady sweetheart deals to do with Crown corporations such as BC Hydro which have drastic consequences for the people of BC.

Selling off Crown corporations is a serious act and should be something a government definitely has a mandate for as these entities belong to the people of BC not the government of the day. 

Christy Clark has had plenty of time to show the people of BC how a government with her as leader would perform and as far as we have seen it is just more of the same basically a dictatorship with none of the signs of a healthy democracy, the same old back room deals, privatizing Crown corporations for pennies on the dollar without a mandate (LCB) which without a doubt will be privatized within days of a new BC Liberal government, the further bankrupting of BC Hydro, costly overruns on every project the Liberals attempt from the Convention centre , BC Place, bridges etc etc.  Apparently BC has the second most corrupt construction industry in Canada, no wonder with the government one of the biggest villains in this public fleecing.

The biggest lie of all that we have low taxes in BC, since the BC Liberals have come in our taxes have skyrocketed I pay $1600.00 for MSP alone a TAX that only BC and Alberta pay, I pay $50 to $60 dollars a month on bridge toll (TAX), the people of BC have been paying over $2 billion a year more for the HST (TAX), gas TAX, environmental TAX and literally dozens of new fees and taxes, not to mention the doubling and tripling of existing fees, (drivers licences, passports etc).

At the same time the BC Liberals have been cutting all our benefits such as medical benefits and at the same time increasing costs such as MSP, I now have $500 total medical benefits a year which doesn’t get me through January.

So far the liberals greatest accomplishments have been having a huge fire sale on the people of BCs assets and hatching flash projects that end up costing twice as much as promised and bankrolling casinos to the detriment of the charities that would normally receive these funds,  I wonder if the highest child poverty rate in Canada is also part of those values that are so dear to us as a society.

B.S.

They are at it again telling us what we want to hear Mark Dalton and Doug Bing spinning a wondrous tale about what them and their glorious leader are going to do for all of us if we are foolish enough to give them another 4 years in charge of the public Kitty. 

Well I have heard it all before Gordon Campbell's deceitful promises to help seniors then shifting 2.1 billion in new taxes on us not only once but twice, then comes Christy with her false promises to help seniors and families first. 

What a sick joke that is, this BC Liberal government has affected my life all-right, let me count the ways.

In 1999 I had to take a medical severance due to severe fibromyalgia from BC Transit, I was to receive a small pension, just enough to get by and paid medical and dental and MSP for the rest of my life, that lasted till 2001 when Gordon Campbell gained power he immediately started screwing with the medical, cutting benefits, increasing cost’s, increasing deductibles then they cut the free dental the next few years was a steady assault on my medical and dental plans until my medical was so diminished that we had to get my wife's medical also to help pay the costs of dealing with my fibromyalgia, they also tried to take the transit pass I had received upon taking my severance package, not that I ever used it but I thought it might come in handy if I was unable to drive at some point in life. At this point my medical plan from transit is not even worth having as it is a maximum of $500 dollars a year and that unfortunately doesn’t get me through January. This treachery was pushed through the courts but apparently unless you are some rich CEO with an iron clad golden parachute these union pension agreements are about as water tight as toilet paper. 

Then surprise, surprise all of us get another 2 billion plus tax hike, the HST that especially targeted seniors and the sick hard, I paid over $1000 in HST just on my RMT treatments alone, then came another blow to the kidneys part of that medical severance was they would pay my MSP another better BC Liberal idea to fleece the citizens of BC of yet more tax's and now I had to pay that also. 

I have just waited 76 weeks to have a hernia operation and I was bumped once because the BC Liberal's have basically run the whole Medical system into the ground, the end result giving BC some of the worst hospitals in Canada probably just one more phoney ploy to justify privatizing the whole health care system.

Then I hear people like Mark Dalton and Doug Bing tell me that they are going to make things better for you and me, I say where have you been for the last dozen years, this government has never ceased wringing every last penny I have to finance their corporate masters.

P.S. 

Fool me once shame on you.

Fool me twice shame on me.

Fool me three times and who is the FOOL.

Fool me four times, time for a brain transplant.