Public vs. Private

Public:a of or concerning the public as a whole; not private. open to general observation or knowledge. accessable to all serving the people

Private:a secret, not public, Reserved for or belonging to, or concerning an individual only.

personal; scheduled; denoting soldier of lowest rank; not controllrd by State.

So in view of the recent candies given out to private schools, how can this be legal? This government is giving public monies to private institutions on one hand and refuses to bail out the mess created bytheir own ministry in the forest industry.

How hypocritical and self-serving can one government be?

David Schreck on Politics in BC

David Schreck at http://www.strategicthoughts.com has posted the most interesting thing about the legislature sitings. It is real scary to realize what could be happening in the legde today.

Ross k at http://pacificgazette.blogspot.com posted this in part with comments before I got permission to copy it in full

Many thanks to David Schreck for his kind permission to post this.

May 5, 2008"Not a Dime without Debate"
Many British Columbians don't know whether the BC Legislature is sitting or not, and many don't care. That doesn't stop them from becoming very angry when they learn what is happening; it is like taking for granted that your car is going to start until it doesn't. The Campbell government is on the verge of ramming 23 Bills through the Legislature with virtually no debate; that's much worse than a car breaking down, that's a fundamental failure of democracy. As of Friday, May 2nd, 23 Bills had not yet passed second reading, let alone passed the detailed committee stage that precedes third reading.Until Campbell came to power in 2001, the rules that governed the BC Legislature saw the government call the session to order and the Opposition adjourn it. In other words, debate would continue for as long as the Opposition wanted to examine the government's legislation and spending estimates. On most occasions that meant that BC's Legislature sat into June, and occasionally into July. Campbell changed the rules and implemented a fixed legislative calendar, except that in 2006 he didn't honor the calendar, not calling the House until late November. A major feature of the fixed legislative calendar, is that according to the amended rules of the Legislature all designated government business must pass by the pre-set date for adjournment in late May (or be voted on, which is the same thing, with a majority government). If the government and the opposition can't agree on how that will happen, the government introduces closure (time-allocation) to limit debate and force budgets and legislation through the Legislature with little or no debate.
Unless the Campbell government announces that a substantial portion of its 2008 spring legislative agenda will be set over to the fall, it will demonstrate an extreme abuse of power.
The pending legislation (10 of the 23 Bills were just introduced last week) includes substantial changes in how British Columbians live. The carbon tax, the cap and trade system for carbon emissions, limits on third party advertising before and during election campaigns, and a change to health legislation that puts a definition of "sustainability" on the same grounds as the concepts of universality, accessibility and comprehensiveness are but a few of the fundamental changes that the Campbell government appears willing to ram through without much debate by May 29th.
The legislature only sits for four days a week, no longer in the evenings, and it recesses for a week or more in every week in which there is a statutory holiday, hence, between May 5th and May 29th, it sits for only 12 days. It is outrageous that the Campbell government would contemplate substantial legislation with little or no opportunity for scrutiny. It is not just the Official Opposition that would be offended; during the period of legislative debate, those who know something about pending legislation engage the public through the news media and feed their concerns to the Opposition as well as lobbying the government. Limiting debate means limiting opportunities for public involvement in the democratic process.
If the government forces passage of all 23 Bills that are currently outstanding by May 29th, its abuse of power may become more of a political issue than the substance of any of its most controversial legislation.
tics in BC

CN Rail case #49026

CN Rails court case #49026-1 begins in North Vancouver Court this morning. Anyone who could attend and report her or to the Legislature Raids Blogsite (link in left column) would be greatly appreciated. The case is in Room 002 at the North Van Provincial Court House before the honorable Judge Moss at 9:30 am.

I think everyone remembers the disastrous derailment of chemical railcars that emptied into the Cheekamus River a couple of years ago.(dates forgotteen). But this spill was so disasterous that the governments (under)estimate was that 500,000 fish were wiped out. No one even talks about the bears, cougars, moose, deer, eagles, nor a miriad of other animals and water fowl that were affected.

Charges were delayed in this case until the Squamish Nation filed a lawsuit. Their patience had run out. But after the Nation filed, the environment ministry finally acted.

May of us here can't get to these courtcases in the lower mainland and would really appreciate some help.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the MSM (and I hope I'm wrong) is not going to cover this disaster which happened on Our BC Rail line.

BC Rail Basi-Virk-Basi Trial

Recent developements in the Basi-Virk-Basi trial (BC Rail Scandal) have prompted me to make some comments here.

First let me appologize to some other bloggers here. I have yet to figure out how to link my posts to multiple bloggers (if that's at all possible) . But there is a general concensus among us that BC Mary at The Legislature raids is in the forefront on this subject and that's the reason for linking to her sight. Although Kootcoot at The House of Infamy I think was the first. Others include, The Gazetteer, Somena Media, Bill Tieleman, Public Eye Online, and a host of others that could be linked from any one of the foregoing. Or just google them.

I first attended this case (#23299) in the BC Supreme Court at 800 Smyth st. in Vancouver in April of 2007. My reasons were many but suffice it to say I was disturbed at the developements in this case and was not getting enough information from the mainstream media (MSM). Ninety percent of the information we received was from two people. Bill Tieleman and Robin Mathews.

There were developements that were very disturbing to me so I started to read up on our Rights and the Crown Council Act. And wound up getting headaches because I had to read the constitution and the court act and on and on.

This case began over a drug related investigation, which caused investigators to tap the phones of some very high up officials in ministries of the Gordon Campbell Liberal Government.

As a result of these taps warrants were issued to sieze documents from The Legislature in BC on December 28,2003. Almost 4-1/2 years ago. Unprecedented in this country. The hearings are beginning to show that the BC Rail deal may have been corrupt. Three officials have been hung out to dry. (scapegoats for their political masters). And two government ministers as well as the Premier may be involved in a government cover-up. There is definately a lot of legal wrangling and delays in this case.

It must be noted here that I have only attended this court twice in the last year. April 2007 and again on April 14,2008. Pretty much a year apart.

On my second trip, last month, I heard some very interesting and highly disturbing news.

Previously the defence had wanted to call some people to trial to give evidence under oath. That was nixed by the government lawyer and the Special Prosecutor so Kevin McCullough arranged to send a letter to four people he needed to answer some questions. One of these people was none other than the premier himself. From conversations I heard in court I gathered that Mr. McCullough wanted these questions answered openly and honestly with no advice from lawyers or spin doctors or anyone else. Just the people to whom he posed the questions. It seemed like black and white to me, but he was having trouble convincing the judge. In requesting the conditions for answering questions he got a response from the government lawyer. "NO". that was it. No reasons, no discussion, Just NO. All I could do was shake my head.

The result of this conversation was that the Prosecution and defence were to try an resolve the impass outside court. Mr McCullough managed to get a tentative court date set May, 2, 2008 to put, I guess arguements, to the Judge if this impass could not be broken. They were to return to court to settle the matter if they couldn't resolve it on their own. I heard no other reasons for returning to court on this date.

We, as in other bloggers and myself managed to get an Anon-Y-Mouse down to the court on May second. That person took the trouble to get to the courthouse only to find that the already set date had been changed at the request of the special prosecutor to the previous day. May 1,2008.

This person in attempting to find out what happened apparently asked a sheriff and was told the Prosecutor didn't want to deal with the public.

There is a section in one of the acts that says "the public interest is Paramount" and Madam Justice Elizabeth Bennett had even mentioned these words in her courtroom in case #23299.

Now, I'm a fairly straightforward person and when I have a question I ask it. Sometimes my attitude needs adjusting and sometimes I need to calm down. So in this case I have e-mailed the special prosecutor and asked a couple of questions. I am awaiting his answer.

The only other way to get access to these questions other than that is to read the transcripts and I don't live anywhere near the court.

Legislation is being changed every day to facilitate cover-ups in this country. I don't know myself how to challenge the changes put forth. But if there is anyone with suggestions, I would welcome them. I know I am not the only one who is frustrated with these actions, and I don't want to sit on my hands and do nothing or just ask the question "What can I do?"

There will be no displacement of poor people from their homes

Betty Krawczyk over at http://bettysearlyedition.blogspot.com/ has a very interesting column on the displacement of poor people by VANOC, the Gordon Campbell government and Mayor Sam.

And I think mayor Sam, she is correct in suggesting that you were duped. Why don't you do something about it?

Whistleblower Threats

There is a very interesting developement on BC Marys' blogsite The Legislature Raids about how whistleblowers from some quarters in the ICBC Scandal have been threatened. A person who calls themself Express Collision Shop has reported the threats. He goes on to say that the police have been made aware of these threats.

Now I don't know about the rest of you folks, but I know that threats to anyone for any reason is a criminal offense. And if the RCMP are aware of this, and it is true, it should be reported to the public. I personally have no doubt that what this person says is true. They have been reporting on this case from the get-go and have been quite accurate in what they are reporting. Get the mainstream media on it NOW. This is outrageous.

There is a link to the Legislature Raids in the left column of this page.