BC Mary had a point the other day. She was watching a Canucks game on TV and saw a commercial on BC Ferries. Unfortunately I don't have TV and rarely watch it at the outlaws. So I can't comment fully on the meat of this ad. So the question here is why are they advertising? Last time we checked there was no competition. They are a monopoly. Along with obscene raises, this only amounts to more waste.
The other day I was at the outlaws and did see a commercial. It was about "the best place on earth" and there were scenes of mega projects like the Richmond skating oval, the Bennett Bridge in Kelowna, the bridge over a canyon on the Kicking Horse River, Aerospace. You know the one. Well it ended with a statement that the ad was paid for by the province. But I didn't see the provincial logo so it confused me. I sent an e-mail to my MLA and asked him if "the province" meant that the NDP helped pay for it. Or put their stamp on it? The answer was that it was being paid for with taxpayer dollars. Not by the combined forces in the legislature. Not sanctioned by Her Majestys' Loyal Opposition. So what this tells me is that the liberals are using our money to further their own interests.
As I watched this ad I got the distinct feeling that it was geared toward giving us a fuzzy feeling for the liberals not the fact that these mega projects were costing us billions of taxpayer dollars. Not to mention the cost overruns. Which made me think "why are they advertising with a slant toward them being the benefactors, not we the taxpayer". After all it is our money that built these projects. Not the liberals'.
The people of this province and the unparalleled beautiful scenery make this province "the best place on earth".Not that ridiculous smile on the premiers face. Not the money spent on mega projects instead of being spent on the health an welfare of our children and seniors. Or the apparent reneging on the promise for a Spirit Bear Park. Or I allege the delays in proceeding with the Basi-Virk trial. Or the bailing out of a single private corporation by giving them millions to be able to have lower fares in the Christmas season. (note I said Christmas and not holiday. I can't stand a lot of the politically correct bullshit going on these days)
So where does this leave us? Well all I see is a well oiled Propaganda Machine and a premier that has to be in every photo-op going on in this province which is geared to altering the mindset of the population. Kind of like Chinese water torture. The only people in "the best place on earth" who may benefit from this Propaganda are the members of the Liberal Party of BC.
And there in lies my problem. They are using Taxpayer Dollars to advertise themselves.And that, I allege, is fraud.
Many thanks to the ever watchful BC Mary for feeding me a lead in for this post.
11/29/2008
11/18/2008
German Ferries vs the FastCats
The Tyee has written a article on the problems of the German built ferries. The mainstream media hasn't ,or refuses to, pick up on these problems.While researching the fast cats a while back I found the following report at saveourferries.com
Sold for Peanuts
Kvaerner Masa Marine
The following is the introduction segment taken from a report written by Kvaerner Masa Marine on the rehabilitation of the Fast Cats...
REHABILITATE THE CATS
INTRODUCTION
The BC Ferry Corporation, on instruction from the BC Government, built 3 high-speed car-carrying catamarans for service between Horseshoe Bay and Departure Bay on Vancouver Island. This construction program was intended to stimulate shipbuilding in BC and meet the capital replacement needs of the Corporation. The vessels, however, did not meet operational requirements and have been withdrawn from service and offered for sale internationally.
This decision, however, may not be in the public or BC Ferry Corporations' best interests as the vessels could serve residents, tourists and commercial vehicle operators very efficiently for many years.
Indeed cats have many lives.
It appears than only a few options have been offered to date for the use of the catamarans.
These include:
1. Sell to a third party. This option has produced no apparent results and fair market value will not be obtained,
2. Re-power with gas turbines to realise higher speeds. This option is capital intensive and would produce even higher operating costs given the current high price of fuel,
3. Reduce speed of operation to about 22 knots and operate the vessels, with some interior modifications on the originally intended route. This alternative, apparently the BCFC's fall-back position would provide supplementary summer service for passenger vehicles only - Operational costs remain high, vessels are not optimised, but this option is preferable to the other two.
But there is a fourth and much better option, that is to give the Cats a new life. This would entail modifying the catamaran to carry all types of traffic, increase overall vehicle capacity, effect passenger space improvements and reduce operating costs. All of these can be achieved with the three new catamaran ferries.
Importantly, the private sector has indicated a strong willingness to be involved in such a plan, providing capital to purchase and lease the vessel, effect modifications and provide long-term, cost effective maintenance. From a risk management perspective, this is an exceptional opportunity for government and the BC Ferry Corporation.
It is also critically important to consider the only other alteinative available to BCFC to meet its capital replacement needs. By any standard, a passenger-vehicle ferry with capacity for 800 passengers and 250 to 300 vehicles would cost $65 to $95 million (Can.) or the Corporation could purchase or charter used tonnage world-wide, but face duty charges and high cost of conversion and maintenance of older ships. These are not good options.
Accordingly, it is our strong belief that we should use what we have, namely the three PacifiCats and, with private sector partnership, make the modifications necessary to guarantee successful operations.
The purpose of this paper is to detail that option for the new Government of British Columbia - because that option is the best option...Read the rest of the report by clicking here.
This government had an option to fix the Fast Cats but instead elected to put the BC shipbuilding industry virtually out of business by outsourcing work that could have been done here. Further they shrink wrapped these ships to leave a monument and reminder that the NDP screwed up.What they don't tell you, is that the ferries could have been altered to conform to what was required.
What they also don't tell you, and the Ferry Corp is dancing around, is that these new ferries appear to have as many problems as the Fast Cats. So I wonder if the Government is going to give these White Elephants away? I really don't think that they know the difference between a Railway or a Ferry Fleet. Do you?
So you see by exempting the Ferry Corp from FOI we the public don't get all the story. In fact this government, I allege, has deliberately manipulated laws and legislation to suit their own ends. And that is to cover up and hide anything detrimental to their looking good in the eyes of the public.
*************************************************************************************************
Following BC Marys' post I took the time to look up her article. I found it in www.pej.org and with her permission I have copied and posted it below. This is a most interesting article not only on the Ferries but on events and manipulation by the Gordon Campbells liberals and the West Coast Media, as she calls it.
Fast Ferries Fine Ferries
PEJ News: I've been reading up on the PacifiCats recently, because the West Coast media got me wondering. When CanWest news declares something is terribly awful and bad ... is it? The story of British Columbia's fast Cat ferries is exciting reading, running the whole range of emotions from triumph to despair, from pride to rage to depression. Shakespeare would have seized such a dramatic theme and called his flagship stage play "PacifiCat Explorer." The king who launched these ships might have been stabbed through the heart but the villain would have caught a terrible disease and rotted a slow and painful death by the time the curtain fell.
Act 1, Scene 1. 1982, San Francisco
A conference paper is presented by Paul Hercus outlining the virtues of high-speed catamaran ferries. He describes them as:
* simple to build
* requiring standard diesel engine technology
* simple propellers
* affordable to own, operate, and travel on.
North America became the testing ground for high speed ferry, commuter, and tourist transport. Such backwaters (I'm thinking like a CanWest editor now) as Boston, New York, Florida, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington State had tried hydrofoils, hovercrafts, the Boeing Jetfoil, the Surface Effect Craft and "Exotically-powered Monohulls" all of which were complex, experimental, unsatisfactory, and expensive, given the results achieved. But (returning to sanity) that's what happens when embarking on a new technology: innovation -> prototypes -> testing -> start over.
Scene 2.
The first Catamaran ferry in Washington State 1984 operates between Long Beach and Catalina during the Olympics, with faster crossings and good response from the public. (Although the first B.C. ferry catamaran was "North Island Princess" refitted in Burrard Dry Dock 1971 and still operating between Powell River and Texada Island.)
This U.S. vessel then went to Alaska for successful tourist service in Prince William Sound. Another catamaran operated in Puget Sound for many years between Seattle and Alderbrook Resort before being sold for operation between Oakland, Alameda and San Francisco. Another catamaran was then purchased for sightseeing around San Francisco Bay.
So Act 1 establishes that the high-speed catamaran was not only accepted world-wide but had become a craze because of its simplified technology. Customers were lining up for shipyards capable of building them. British Columbia was ideally situated.
Act 2:
Fjellstrand, one of the first new overseas designs to sell, inaugurated Clipper Navigation's service between Seattle and Victoria. At this point in the report, "Fifteen years of fast ferries in North America," it shows the basis for B.C.'s decision to enter this proven industry and it was good. Former Social Credit cabinet minister Sam Bawlf participated in these talks to convince Premier Glen Clark to undertake the project to build 3 new high speed catamarans in B.C.
Other catamarans had begun service in Hawaii, the Caribbean, Puerto Rico, as troop transport in the Marshall Islands, on the Great Lakes, and one fast ferry which docked at the foot of Wall Street in New York. The king's decision seemed wise as well as good. [Applause, applause.]
There was a set-back, however, before B.C. ferries entered the scene. 1987 brought a Wall Street crash which was felt world-wide.
As interest rates rose, businesses stopped investing in new projects. This didn't affect the fast Ferry industry until 1990 when aluminum prices began to rise, and wash problems were being documented in Rich Passage, between Seattle and Bremerton. Mono-hulls produced even greater wash. But Washington State ferries kept testing and found that their two fast Cats with longer, more slender hulls produced much less wash.
However, that process of testing took several years, so orders were held up for that reason. Setbacks are inevitable in a new technology but the outlines of a coming Shakespearean tragedy are forming ... not in the technology ... but in the sidewalk superintendents who saw that propaganda could be harvested from the delays. Pride could be turned to impatience and impatience into anger.
Act 3. 1994. West Coast ports
A new boom in fast ferries begins and U.S.A. is looking for new vessels. British Columbia's N.D.P. government takes the giant step forward and calls for "Expressions of interest" from marine designers around the world.
B.C.'s expressed aim is written in: "To put together the best possible team to design and construct a car- and passenger-carrying ferry system which would bring the greatest economical benefit not only to B.C. ferries but to B.C. as a whole."
BC. ferries received 22 proposals, 14 of which were for catamarans. They chose the one best suited and granted the design contract to International Catamaran (Incat) of Sydney, Australia and to Canadian naval architects Robert Allan Ltd., in December 1994.
British Columbia was nicely placed for a booming market ... which, by 1998, would see a virtual explosion of fast Cat building.
Act 4, Scene 1. Vancouver, B.C.
PacifiCats, as they were now called, were being watched closely, for two particular reasons (as well as a secretive 3rd reason).
* B.C. wanted to train its own skilled workforce,
* B.C. wanted to build its own aluminum facility.
Although very few citizens could have foreseen, at the time, how this tragedy would unfold, there were also:
* powerful people in British Columbia who wanted the fast Cat project to fail. The propaganda value of an N.D.P. failure could guarantee their hopes for a change of government.
Our first clue (how Shakespeare would have ridiculed such a low ambition!) was the name the nay-sayers chose. These beautiful B.C.-built ships were to become known, the rascals hoped, as the Fast Ferry Fiasco. F.F.F. Any fool could remember that tag.
Act 4, Scene 2.
"All expectations were met" when the first PacifiCat Explorer was launched in 1998. By the time PacifiCat Discovery was launched in 1999, and PacifiCat Voyager in 2000, the cost for all 3 ships had gone from the expected $250 million to $450 million and that was their cue, "WASTED MILLIONS"! The media went mad.
"Extreme public scrutiny" dogged every move. But others pointed out (to no avail) that the simple cost of having trained those workers in regular classrooms would have equaled this price. The B.C. media didn't want to know. The eastern media didn't care.
"... the revitalized [B.C.] shipbuilding industry should feel particularly proud of their achievements," concluded the 15-page report by Ben Hercus. "The future of fast ferries in North America could, at last, be considered safe and secure" as, by 1998, 27% of the world's 59 fast Cats had been built in North America. And B.C. shipyards were now ready to build more.
Was the Fast Ferries project a success? Yes. Was it an abject failure? Well, yes, too, as it fed into the unscrupulous need to find fault for political benefit.
So in 1999, Premier Glen Clark called in the largest independent naval architecture consulting firm in North America to do a technical assessment of the design and construction quality of the 3 PacifiCats. That ought to have silenced the nay-sayers, when John J. McMullen Associates Inc. reported that "the vessels are fine ships ... of good quality throughout." But by then, nobody could hear a thing. And besides, it appeared as a small item buried deep inside the newspapers.
To this day, there are many people who remain convinced by the barrage of negative publicity. And who can blame them, for that's what they saw in their daily newspapers.
Soon, a Clark family back porch would overtake the front pages and as more invective was heaped upon NDP Premier Clark, he resigned. Of course, it was eventually proven that there was nothing wrong with Glen Clark's back porch, but this took months to prove that the Guilty was Not Guilty.
Meantime, Gordon Campbell had been busy. His Socred/Liberals romped to an easy triumph in the 2001 election. No report surfaced of the $1.4 Billion surplus -- the biggest in B.C. history -- which was left by the defeated New Democrats. The new Liberal government's reign began with the biggest lie of all: that they had inherited such a financial mess that only they could save B.C.
If this really had been a Shakespeare play, the stage now would darken as the exhausted king collapses on the floor with a dagger in his back; in the background, there would be a shipyard in flames. The villain, in a smooth business suit, would swagger to centre stage to take the throne as the curtain slowly lowered. But the way he slump over, clutching his heart, is telling us that he is already infected by a terrible disease of his own making.
The end.
Many British Columbians simply couldn't believe that anyone would deliberately set out on a campaign of falsehoods to wipe out a government which they had voted into power. Nobody could imagine British Columbian leaders actually destroying a proud B.C. industry.
The truth only began to dawn when the PacifiCats were put up for sale. The barrage of insults intensified.
Who would buy a used car with the town screaming that it was a "fiasco"? Who could risk using the fast cats as public ferries if they had been denounced as terrible ships?
Even as scrap metal, the 3 ships were worth $60 million. But in the end, with no other buyers daring to show up, the 3 beautiful PacifiCats sold to the Washington Marine Group for $17 million. For an extra $3 million, WMG got all the spare parts and the shipyard too.
All three PacifiCats are still docked there in North Vancouver, where they are lovingly maintained. One unsubstantiated rumour says that they will return to service between Tsawwassen and Swartz Bay, in direct competition with B.C. Ferries.
British Columbia had one more hard lesson to learn when the Oligarchy simply stopped being subtle.
When new ships were needed for the B.C. ferries fleet, no contracts went to our own "revitalized shipbuilding industry" -- which had built the beautiful big B.C. super-ferries "Spirit" ships, the sparky little Queen of Cumberland -- in fact, 33 of the 35 ships of the B.C. Ferries fleet -- as well as the PacifiCats. Nor were B.C. shipyards invited to tender a bid. This was the final measure of what had been done to the shipbuilding industry in B.C.
The Gordon Campbell government gave the contracts to a German shipyard which ... incidentally ... wasn't capable of building our new ships. Only by making their employees take a cut in wages they were able to re-fit their shipyard.
Shakespeare would have discarded such a hopeless ending as illogical. British Columbia had committed no crime, no outrage, no genocide, to have made us deserving of such mythic punishment. All we did was to vote in two New Democratic governments. Legally. Democratically. But that was it, wasn't it? The people wanted more say, in a kinder gentler government.
A commentor on The Tyee wrote: "the FastCats were not so much a victim of objective technological or product development issues, as they were the politics of the day, and the particular atmosphere of hysteria generated by Fiberal and partisan Big Media interests. The hysteria was carried to such a level that it even over-rode the making of a prudent business decision, and the good sense and self-interest even of the public. It was a demonstration of the power of media to shape public opinion, more than it was a poor business decision by the NDP."
If only Gordon Campbell's group trusted the people and had co-operated, there would have been a very happy ending in B.C. And I wouldn't be thinking that the West Coast media's performance was almost criminal.
So I certainly don't think the fast ferries project was terribly awful ... or at all bad. In fact, I think it just barely, tragically, missed being spectacular.
copied here from http://www.pej.org and posted with permission from BC Mary
A conference paper is presented by Paul Hercus outlining the virtues of high-speed catamaran ferries. He describes them as:
* simple to build
* requiring standard diesel engine technology
* simple propellers
* affordable to own, operate, and travel on.
North America became the testing ground for high speed ferry, commuter, and tourist transport. Such backwaters (I'm thinking like a CanWest editor now) as Boston, New York, Florida, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Washington State had tried hydrofoils, hovercrafts, the Boeing Jetfoil, the Surface Effect Craft and "Exotically-powered Monohulls" all of which were complex, experimental, unsatisfactory, and expensive, given the results achieved. But (returning to sanity) that's what happens when embarking on a new technology: innovation -> prototypes -> testing -> start over.
Scene 2.
The first Catamaran ferry in Washington State 1984 operates between Long Beach and Catalina during the Olympics, with faster crossings and good response from the public. (Although the first B.C. ferry catamaran was "North Island Princess" refitted in Burrard Dry Dock 1971 and still operating between Powell River and Texada Island.)
This U.S. vessel then went to Alaska for successful tourist service in Prince William Sound. Another catamaran operated in Puget Sound for many years between Seattle and Alderbrook Resort before being sold for operation between Oakland, Alameda and San Francisco. Another catamaran was then purchased for sightseeing around San Francisco Bay.
So Act 1 establishes that the high-speed catamaran was not only accepted world-wide but had become a craze because of its simplified technology. Customers were lining up for shipyards capable of building them. British Columbia was ideally situated.
Act 2:
Fjellstrand, one of the first new overseas designs to sell, inaugurated Clipper Navigation's service between Seattle and Victoria. At this point in the report, "Fifteen years of fast ferries in North America," it shows the basis for B.C.'s decision to enter this proven industry and it was good. Former Social Credit cabinet minister Sam Bawlf participated in these talks to convince Premier Glen Clark to undertake the project to build 3 new high speed catamarans in B.C.
Other catamarans had begun service in Hawaii, the Caribbean, Puerto Rico, as troop transport in the Marshall Islands, on the Great Lakes, and one fast ferry which docked at the foot of Wall Street in New York. The king's decision seemed wise as well as good. [Applause, applause.]
There was a set-back, however, before B.C. ferries entered the scene. 1987 brought a Wall Street crash which was felt world-wide.
As interest rates rose, businesses stopped investing in new projects. This didn't affect the fast Ferry industry until 1990 when aluminum prices began to rise, and wash problems were being documented in Rich Passage, between Seattle and Bremerton. Mono-hulls produced even greater wash. But Washington State ferries kept testing and found that their two fast Cats with longer, more slender hulls produced much less wash.
However, that process of testing took several years, so orders were held up for that reason. Setbacks are inevitable in a new technology but the outlines of a coming Shakespearean tragedy are forming ... not in the technology ... but in the sidewalk superintendents who saw that propaganda could be harvested from the delays. Pride could be turned to impatience and impatience into anger.
Act 3. 1994. West Coast ports
A new boom in fast ferries begins and U.S.A. is looking for new vessels. British Columbia's N.D.P. government takes the giant step forward and calls for "Expressions of interest" from marine designers around the world.
B.C.'s expressed aim is written in: "To put together the best possible team to design and construct a car- and passenger-carrying ferry system which would bring the greatest economical benefit not only to B.C. ferries but to B.C. as a whole."
BC. ferries received 22 proposals, 14 of which were for catamarans. They chose the one best suited and granted the design contract to International Catamaran (Incat) of Sydney, Australia and to Canadian naval architects Robert Allan Ltd., in December 1994.
British Columbia was nicely placed for a booming market ... which, by 1998, would see a virtual explosion of fast Cat building.
Act 4, Scene 1. Vancouver, B.C.
PacifiCats, as they were now called, were being watched closely, for two particular reasons (as well as a secretive 3rd reason).
* B.C. wanted to train its own skilled workforce,
* B.C. wanted to build its own aluminum facility.
Although very few citizens could have foreseen, at the time, how this tragedy would unfold, there were also:
* powerful people in British Columbia who wanted the fast Cat project to fail. The propaganda value of an N.D.P. failure could guarantee their hopes for a change of government.
Our first clue (how Shakespeare would have ridiculed such a low ambition!) was the name the nay-sayers chose. These beautiful B.C.-built ships were to become known, the rascals hoped, as the Fast Ferry Fiasco. F.F.F. Any fool could remember that tag.
Act 4, Scene 2.
"All expectations were met" when the first PacifiCat Explorer was launched in 1998. By the time PacifiCat Discovery was launched in 1999, and PacifiCat Voyager in 2000, the cost for all 3 ships had gone from the expected $250 million to $450 million and that was their cue, "WASTED MILLIONS"! The media went mad.
"Extreme public scrutiny" dogged every move. But others pointed out (to no avail) that the simple cost of having trained those workers in regular classrooms would have equaled this price. The B.C. media didn't want to know. The eastern media didn't care.
"... the revitalized [B.C.] shipbuilding industry should feel particularly proud of their achievements," concluded the 15-page report by Ben Hercus. "The future of fast ferries in North America could, at last, be considered safe and secure" as, by 1998, 27% of the world's 59 fast Cats had been built in North America. And B.C. shipyards were now ready to build more.
Was the Fast Ferries project a success? Yes. Was it an abject failure? Well, yes, too, as it fed into the unscrupulous need to find fault for political benefit.
So in 1999, Premier Glen Clark called in the largest independent naval architecture consulting firm in North America to do a technical assessment of the design and construction quality of the 3 PacifiCats. That ought to have silenced the nay-sayers, when John J. McMullen Associates Inc. reported that "the vessels are fine ships ... of good quality throughout." But by then, nobody could hear a thing. And besides, it appeared as a small item buried deep inside the newspapers.
To this day, there are many people who remain convinced by the barrage of negative publicity. And who can blame them, for that's what they saw in their daily newspapers.
Soon, a Clark family back porch would overtake the front pages and as more invective was heaped upon NDP Premier Clark, he resigned. Of course, it was eventually proven that there was nothing wrong with Glen Clark's back porch, but this took months to prove that the Guilty was Not Guilty.
Meantime, Gordon Campbell had been busy. His Socred/Liberals romped to an easy triumph in the 2001 election. No report surfaced of the $1.4 Billion surplus -- the biggest in B.C. history -- which was left by the defeated New Democrats. The new Liberal government's reign began with the biggest lie of all: that they had inherited such a financial mess that only they could save B.C.
If this really had been a Shakespeare play, the stage now would darken as the exhausted king collapses on the floor with a dagger in his back; in the background, there would be a shipyard in flames. The villain, in a smooth business suit, would swagger to centre stage to take the throne as the curtain slowly lowered. But the way he slump over, clutching his heart, is telling us that he is already infected by a terrible disease of his own making.
The end.
Many British Columbians simply couldn't believe that anyone would deliberately set out on a campaign of falsehoods to wipe out a government which they had voted into power. Nobody could imagine British Columbian leaders actually destroying a proud B.C. industry.
The truth only began to dawn when the PacifiCats were put up for sale. The barrage of insults intensified.
Who would buy a used car with the town screaming that it was a "fiasco"? Who could risk using the fast cats as public ferries if they had been denounced as terrible ships?
Even as scrap metal, the 3 ships were worth $60 million. But in the end, with no other buyers daring to show up, the 3 beautiful PacifiCats sold to the Washington Marine Group for $17 million. For an extra $3 million, WMG got all the spare parts and the shipyard too.
All three PacifiCats are still docked there in North Vancouver, where they are lovingly maintained. One unsubstantiated rumour says that they will return to service between Tsawwassen and Swartz Bay, in direct competition with B.C. Ferries.
British Columbia had one more hard lesson to learn when the Oligarchy simply stopped being subtle.
When new ships were needed for the B.C. ferries fleet, no contracts went to our own "revitalized shipbuilding industry" -- which had built the beautiful big B.C. super-ferries "Spirit" ships, the sparky little Queen of Cumberland -- in fact, 33 of the 35 ships of the B.C. Ferries fleet -- as well as the PacifiCats. Nor were B.C. shipyards invited to tender a bid. This was the final measure of what had been done to the shipbuilding industry in B.C.
The Gordon Campbell government gave the contracts to a German shipyard which ... incidentally ... wasn't capable of building our new ships. Only by making their employees take a cut in wages they were able to re-fit their shipyard.
Shakespeare would have discarded such a hopeless ending as illogical. British Columbia had committed no crime, no outrage, no genocide, to have made us deserving of such mythic punishment. All we did was to vote in two New Democratic governments. Legally. Democratically. But that was it, wasn't it? The people wanted more say, in a kinder gentler government.
A commentor on The Tyee wrote: "the FastCats were not so much a victim of objective technological or product development issues, as they were the politics of the day, and the particular atmosphere of hysteria generated by Fiberal and partisan Big Media interests. The hysteria was carried to such a level that it even over-rode the making of a prudent business decision, and the good sense and self-interest even of the public. It was a demonstration of the power of media to shape public opinion, more than it was a poor business decision by the NDP."
If only Gordon Campbell's group trusted the people and had co-operated, there would have been a very happy ending in B.C. And I wouldn't be thinking that the West Coast media's performance was almost criminal.
So I certainly don't think the fast ferries project was terribly awful ... or at all bad. In fact, I think it just barely, tragically, missed being spectacular.
copied here from http://www.pej.org and posted with permission from BC Mary
11/10/2008
Gordon Campbell and BC Liberal MLA's
Just Who The Hell Do You Think You Are
I have just heard a newscast that has upset me and made me as mad as I have ever been.
From CFJC News. Kamloops
November, 10, 2008
"AN NDP MLA IS LEVELING CRITICISM AT THE CAMPBELL GOVERNMENT FOR NOT PARTICIPATING IN A CROSS-CANADA MEMORIAL EVENT FOR WAR VETERANS. CARIBOO-SOUTH MLA CHARLIE WYSE SAYS GORDON CAMPBELL'S TOURISM MINISTER REFUSED TO PAY THE $62,000 PRICE TAG FOR BRITISH COLUMBIA TO PARTICIPATE IN THE EVENT. VIGIL 1914-1918 IS A SEVEN DAY EVENT WHICH WAS LAUNCHED BY THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND."
Tomorrow is November 11,2008. Remembrance Day in Canada. A day in which we honor members of the armed forces that have fallen or been wounded or even served in two world wars, the Korean conflict and these days in Afghanistan. Over 110,000 men and women. These members gave their lives in these conflicts so that we, the people of this country and others around the world could live free and in peace. Some of the fallen were still children under the age of 18.
My own father was injured and my mothers convoy was fired upon during the Second World War. Two incidents that could well have kept me from writing this blog, but for a few inches. I myself am a veteran of the armed forces (peacetime). I was born on November 11 during the Second World War. And growing up in this province and country I have been made well aware of the sacrifices made to keep me free.
It is bad enough that you ignore the poor and homeless, or that you give yourself and your MLA's obscene raises and golden pensions. It's sickening when you change legislation after losing court battles to suit your own agenda. It's outrageous when we watch you open your mouth to say one thing only to do another. It's criminal that your government interferes in court case such as the BC Rail/ Legislature Raids, claiming in the legislature that you "can't comment on matters before the courts." Yet you will comment on other things when it suits you. And tearing up legal documents just because you don't like them. Or the way(I allege) you give welfare to your business buddies.
But now you have pissed me off. There is a movement afoot to honor fallen soldiers during the Great War from this country and EVERY province in this vast country of ours is participating. EXCEPT BRITISH COLUMBIA. The Queen is involved. But not BC. Why? because you have not seen fit to advance a god damn lousy $62,000 in order to allow us to participate. And I am speaking of Vigil 1914-1918
Have you no shame sir? Have you no shame? Just who the hell do you think you are?
I have written this in my blog rather than e-mail you or your colleagues because your past practices in my experience is not to respond in a timely manner. You wait until you think the smoke clears. So I'll just wait and see if your spin doctors post here.
Since you have seen fit to turn this embarrassment on the people of this province I now deem you unfit to govern. Resign. Damn you make me sick. All of you on the government side.
I have just heard a newscast that has upset me and made me as mad as I have ever been.
From CFJC News. Kamloops
November, 10, 2008
"AN NDP MLA IS LEVELING CRITICISM AT THE CAMPBELL GOVERNMENT FOR NOT PARTICIPATING IN A CROSS-CANADA MEMORIAL EVENT FOR WAR VETERANS. CARIBOO-SOUTH MLA CHARLIE WYSE SAYS GORDON CAMPBELL'S TOURISM MINISTER REFUSED TO PAY THE $62,000 PRICE TAG FOR BRITISH COLUMBIA TO PARTICIPATE IN THE EVENT. VIGIL 1914-1918 IS A SEVEN DAY EVENT WHICH WAS LAUNCHED BY THE QUEEN OF ENGLAND."
Tomorrow is November 11,2008. Remembrance Day in Canada. A day in which we honor members of the armed forces that have fallen or been wounded or even served in two world wars, the Korean conflict and these days in Afghanistan. Over 110,000 men and women. These members gave their lives in these conflicts so that we, the people of this country and others around the world could live free and in peace. Some of the fallen were still children under the age of 18.
My own father was injured and my mothers convoy was fired upon during the Second World War. Two incidents that could well have kept me from writing this blog, but for a few inches. I myself am a veteran of the armed forces (peacetime). I was born on November 11 during the Second World War. And growing up in this province and country I have been made well aware of the sacrifices made to keep me free.
It is bad enough that you ignore the poor and homeless, or that you give yourself and your MLA's obscene raises and golden pensions. It's sickening when you change legislation after losing court battles to suit your own agenda. It's outrageous when we watch you open your mouth to say one thing only to do another. It's criminal that your government interferes in court case such as the BC Rail/ Legislature Raids, claiming in the legislature that you "can't comment on matters before the courts." Yet you will comment on other things when it suits you. And tearing up legal documents just because you don't like them. Or the way(I allege) you give welfare to your business buddies.
But now you have pissed me off. There is a movement afoot to honor fallen soldiers during the Great War from this country and EVERY province in this vast country of ours is participating. EXCEPT BRITISH COLUMBIA. The Queen is involved. But not BC. Why? because you have not seen fit to advance a god damn lousy $62,000 in order to allow us to participate. And I am speaking of Vigil 1914-1918
Have you no shame sir? Have you no shame? Just who the hell do you think you are?
I have written this in my blog rather than e-mail you or your colleagues because your past practices in my experience is not to respond in a timely manner. You wait until you think the smoke clears. So I'll just wait and see if your spin doctors post here.
Since you have seen fit to turn this embarrassment on the people of this province I now deem you unfit to govern. Resign. Damn you make me sick. All of you on the government side.
11/03/2008
On Corporate Welfare
8 hours ago
Rupert Murdoch's speech.......
Getting the public ready for microchip implants ?
Interesting that the world's governments have just bailed out, or at least are attempting to, the bankrupt "free market" system, to the tune of some 5 trillion, that would have put food on the table of all the starving for years to come, but their propagandists are still demanding less and smaller governments.
And, of course, our politicians are jumping to their demands.
Ed Deak.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24590176-662,00.html
======================================
To: sunrise
Subject: Goldman Sachs at work
Forwarded without comment,
Ed,
===============================================================
Goldman Sachs is on course to pay its top City bankers multimillion-pound bonuses - despite asking the U.S. government for an emergency bail-out.
The struggling Wall Street bank has set aside £7billion [approximately $14 billion] for salaries and 2008 year-end bonuses, it emerged yesterday.
Each of the firm's 443 partners is on course to pocket an average Christmas bonus of more than £3million [$6 million].
The size of that pay pool comfortably dwarfs the £6.1billion [$12 billion] lifeline which the U.S. government is throwing to Goldman as part of its £430 billion bail-out.
As Washington pours money into the bank, that cash will immediately be channelled to Goldman's already well-heeled employees.
END EXCERPT
Yes, you read that right. Four hundred and forty three top executives in a firm that is receiving 6.1 billion dollars in emergency aid from American taxpayers are EACH being rewarded with THREE MILLION DOLLAR Christmas bonuses!
Another commentor writes that this could be why 300 million Americans don't get one Million dollars each. It will be very interesting to see what Barrack Obama does when he is elected the next President of the U.S.A.
the url for the herald sun is screwed up but you should be able to copy and paste it. Sorry for any inconvenience.
11/02/2008
Two Rons get it Right
Following are two comments I thought were rather poignant on Campbells' Use of the Media and his hype to the party convention at Whistler. I pulled them from comments on an article in the mainstream media 3 weeks ago
Ron R # 1
Sat, Nov 1, 08 at 05:45 PM
Campbell gives with one hand, then taxes in another area!!! We are homeowners in Port Coquitlam and used Premier Gordon Campbell's and BC Hydro's pleas to help reduce greenhouse emissions. We have used this plea in our (and I'm sure many other households') decision to go green by installing a high efficiency gas furnace, instant electric water heater and heat pump in our residence. This has been a considerable expense on our part, using the premier's and industries' comments that we would enjoy 50 percent or more savings on our expenses for heating our home and water. These savings have now vanished! This has helped with our BC Gas bill, but BC Hydro has taken those savings away by charging a higher, Step 2 rate for most or all of the heat pump and instant water heater's usage, as our electric bill has now at least tripled due to these new appliances. We believe that BC Hydro has figured this out and is now capitalizing on this fact to now charge this Step 2 rate. We believe this unfairly penalizes consumers who have taken the step to go green not knowing that BC Hydro has changed the rates.
There is no possible way to stay under their Step 2 plan when our heat pump and instant water heater has used up the Step 1 rate alone in the September and October monthly billing times. This will only escalate as the weather gets colder, the heat pump's usage greatly increases, and we find that most or all of that usage will be at the greater, Step 2 rate.
This will help with greenhouse gases, but how does that help us, one of us a senior on a fixed disability pension budget? There will be no savings there, even with our now greater expense of paying for the heat pump, instant water heater and furnace installation.
We understand that BC Hydro has to upgrade its infrastructure (not at the expense of Private Power and an Alcan payout, along with his big business tax cuts!!!), but believe there is a better way to recoup their costs than to unfairly penalize consumers who have taken steps to address the Premier's and BC Hydro's pleas to go green.
We wish you would look at BC Hydro's plan to capitalize on consumers' green plans and seriously consider Campbell's green plan. It Will Cost You More!!!!.
I would also like to know why, in his speech on television, he forgot to mention how much of a hand out to big business was going to cost us taxpayers, even though he mentioned all the other program costs?
Another note: We have still not received the BC Government's rebates that were promised when we originally installed our furnace, instant water heater and heat pump 6 months ago, even though the Federal Government has sent their rebate.
Nice green plan, Gordon Campbell.
And then Ron#2 writes
Ron R # 1
Sat, Nov 1, 08 at 05:45 PM
Campbell gives with one hand, then taxes in another area!!! We are homeowners in Port Coquitlam and used Premier Gordon Campbell's and BC Hydro's pleas to help reduce greenhouse emissions. We have used this plea in our (and I'm sure many other households') decision to go green by installing a high efficiency gas furnace, instant electric water heater and heat pump in our residence. This has been a considerable expense on our part, using the premier's and industries' comments that we would enjoy 50 percent or more savings on our expenses for heating our home and water. These savings have now vanished! This has helped with our BC Gas bill, but BC Hydro has taken those savings away by charging a higher, Step 2 rate for most or all of the heat pump and instant water heater's usage, as our electric bill has now at least tripled due to these new appliances. We believe that BC Hydro has figured this out and is now capitalizing on this fact to now charge this Step 2 rate. We believe this unfairly penalizes consumers who have taken the step to go green not knowing that BC Hydro has changed the rates.
There is no possible way to stay under their Step 2 plan when our heat pump and instant water heater has used up the Step 1 rate alone in the September and October monthly billing times. This will only escalate as the weather gets colder, the heat pump's usage greatly increases, and we find that most or all of that usage will be at the greater, Step 2 rate.
This will help with greenhouse gases, but how does that help us, one of us a senior on a fixed disability pension budget? There will be no savings there, even with our now greater expense of paying for the heat pump, instant water heater and furnace installation.
We understand that BC Hydro has to upgrade its infrastructure (not at the expense of Private Power and an Alcan payout, along with his big business tax cuts!!!), but believe there is a better way to recoup their costs than to unfairly penalize consumers who have taken steps to address the Premier's and BC Hydro's pleas to go green.
We wish you would look at BC Hydro's plan to capitalize on consumers' green plans and seriously consider Campbell's green plan. It Will Cost You More!!!!.
I would also like to know why, in his speech on television, he forgot to mention how much of a hand out to big business was going to cost us taxpayers, even though he mentioned all the other program costs?
Another note: We have still not received the BC Government's rebates that were promised when we originally installed our furnace, instant water heater and heat pump 6 months ago, even though the Federal Government has sent their rebate.
Nice green plan, Gordon Campbell.
And then Ron#2 writes
Ron #2
Sat, Nov 1, 08 at 10:30 PM
The tax assessment relief is all blather. It won't do anything. Another smoke screen by this joke we call the Premier of our province. And to bring attacks on the NDP into his speech is blatant US politics that any Canadian worth his salt will see right through (the NDP's no better, instead of facing the facts and taking responsibility).
We'll see how the stock market helps him in his run up to the election. If the BC economy is in the dumps at election time along with the rest of North America like the predictions are, we will know he is worthless and it's just economics and nothing he did changed anything.
The man's made himself a bundle off the working man's backs and nothing but scams have followed him right from the start (raises, no answer on BC Rail, how much is this costing the taxpayer for his lawyers?) and oh yeah, how much property does he and/or his wife or buddies have on the new Sea to Sky Highway, the previously stated BC Hydro-LiveSmart scam).
The only thing that would ever change my mind about Campbell is if he pushed back his and his ministers' wages to the public sector hikes he illegally forced upon the working people that run this province and take care of our sick, instead of the 70 percent hikes they gave themselves in the last 8 years.
That, and releasing the amount of tax break money he has given to his big business buddies that he so sneakily omitted from his television speech. Those monies are surely to be 10 times more than the 20 million here, 40 million there that he was spouting in that speech...We taxpayers paid for the TV time also (Electioneering on the public purse).
Disgraceful !!!! To quote a Led Zeppelin song: "Lying, Cheatin', Hurtin', that's all you seem to do"........Yeah, Your Time Is Gonna Come, Mr. Premier......Enough said.......
We'll see how the stock market helps him in his run up to the election. If the BC economy is in the dumps at election time along with the rest of North America like the predictions are, we will know he is worthless and it's just economics and nothing he did changed anything.
The man's made himself a bundle off the working man's backs and nothing but scams have followed him right from the start (raises, no answer on BC Rail, how much is this costing the taxpayer for his lawyers?) and oh yeah, how much property does he and/or his wife or buddies have on the new Sea to Sky Highway, the previously stated BC Hydro-LiveSmart scam).
The only thing that would ever change my mind about Campbell is if he pushed back his and his ministers' wages to the public sector hikes he illegally forced upon the working people that run this province and take care of our sick, instead of the 70 percent hikes they gave themselves in the last 8 years.
That, and releasing the amount of tax break money he has given to his big business buddies that he so sneakily omitted from his television speech. Those monies are surely to be 10 times more than the 20 million here, 40 million there that he was spouting in that speech...We taxpayers paid for the TV time also (Electioneering on the public purse).
Disgraceful !!!! To quote a Led Zeppelin song: "Lying, Cheatin', Hurtin', that's all you seem to do"........Yeah, Your Time Is Gonna Come, Mr. Premier......Enough said.......
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