The Insider - BC Lobbyist

How The Ides of March finally made me realize why America hates Hollywood Liberals

2012-01-22T15:59:00.000-08:00

I have been so busy with consulting work lately that blog writing and even movie watching has become a bit of a luxury for me. So it was last night that my fiance ordered up The Ides of March on Pay Per View.

As quite some time has passed since it's initial release, I feel okay including some major plot spoilers in my analysis, so feel free to stop reading if you don't want to miss out on the suspense.

The Ides of March is a movie that manages to be cynical and breathtakingly naive at the same time. Yes there is the machiavellian interplay between the political staffers played by Ryan Gosling, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti. But it is in the character of Governor Mike Morris that we get to see George Clooney's wet dream of what a Democratic presidential candidate should be.

In addition to being a Catholic turned agnostic, which I know would be a big deal in the US but not really here in Canada, Morris earnestly campaigns on a variety of jaw droppingly insane ideas like outlawing all internal combustion engines in vehicles within ten years. That is a policy that even Ralph Nader might consider to be overreaching.

Then of course he tells one interviewer don't even get me started on the gun issue, which I assume means he's going to take on the gun lobby. Good luck with that, but in the context of the movie it actually might make sense given the number of farmers and ranchers who would want to shoot Morris for trying to tell them they had to ditch their pick up trucks and start moving hay bales around their property with a plug in Prius.

But of course the big kicker comes when a young hottie intern played by Evan Rachel Wood makes the moves on Ryan Gosling's character, Stephen Meyers, who up til then has regarded candidate Mike Morris as the next coming of Jesus Christ. Meyers ends up having sex with the intern then gets his panties in a bunch when he discovers that this intern has also had sex with Governor Morris.

Up till this point Morris has been such a principled (and completely non pragmatic) politician that he won't even do a deal with another candidate Senator Thompson played by Jeffrey Wright, that would secure him the democratic nomination.

The even bigger shocker comes when the intern revels she is pregnant and that *gasp* Governor Mike Morris is the daddy. Again my eyes rolled. America's puritanical obsession with who else might be getting laid comes to the fore ground. In countries like France powerful male politicians are expected to have both wives and mistresses, only in America do they see it as such a huge deal. Given that Clooney lives most of the time in his luxury villa in Italy I am sure he is well aware of this significant cultural difference.

In any event political staffer Meyers dutifully arranges to provide the money the intern needs to get an abortion (in Canada it would be freely provided) so that's a nice shot at America's lack of public health care. But then bad timing results as instead of picking her up from the clinic he gets canned by Hoffman's character.

So now it's payback time and when word reaches the nubile intern that Meyers is bent on revenge she desperately tries to reach him and for a reason that is never explained in the movie he never answers his cell phone. I'm sorry but a political operative getting fired or not, is not simply going to blow off the one person who is the political bomb he may or may not wish to set off.

Meyers confronts Governor Mike Morris and blackmails him into taking him back, firing Hoffman's character and accepting Senator Thompson's request to make him the Vice-Presidential running mate. This then locks up the nomination for the Governor. At this point I felt almost relieved at Meyers forcing some modicum of political pragmatism onto the far too idealistic and inflexible Governor Morris.

But Meyers by then has discovered to his horror that the nubile intern, assuming the worst, has killed herself and all the feelings of angst and guilt start to well up. The movie ends on a dramatic cliff hanger where the audience is supposedly left wondering, will he do the right thing and spill his guts about the whole tawdry affair or will he do the cynical thing and simply proceed along?

Perhaps I came to this movie a little jaded having seen the money Hollywood has recently been pouring into Washington to get SOPA and PIPA passed. Those are both badly flawed pieces of legislation that would essentially break the freedom of the internet and could lead to the permanent closure of such sites as Wikipedia and Youtube. It is a reminder to all those who value personal freedom that the left is just as good as the right at passing laws that seek to curtail liberty.

But getting back to the movie which Clooney directed, starred in and wrote much of the screenplay for, the cliff hanger for me fell flat. The policies advocated by Governor Mike Morris may play well amongst the wealthy lefties living in tinsel town, but would get him laughed off stage in the real world. Such a candidate would confirm the very worst fears every Republican and Independent has about the Democrats and would ensure a Republican landslide.

Then there is Meyers. He screwed up by not being there for the intern as he had promised. He screwed up by not answering his phone, he also screwed up by taking a meeting with Giamatti's character which is what got him fired in the first place. So now after successfully blackmailing Governor Morris he is now going to do the ultimate screw up and blow up the entire situation by potentially spilling the beans and revealing all?

I am sure Clooney meant this as a morality tale and how things get complicated in politics. No it's not that complicated. From a real world perspective Governor Morris who is supposed to be a leading Democratic candidate would not be running on such an extreme left platform, Clooney's political fantasies notwithstanding.

Such a candidate would take the deal with Senator Thompson in order to secure the nomination, he would not dismiss it with righteous indignation. And yeah Meyers would get fired for being such an idiot. Or in reality an idiot like him would never get to that level in the first place on such a campaign. As for the intern the problem would get handled competently and with sufficient hush money to make damn sure no one let that particular cat out of the bag.

But even if there had been a tragic suicide due to Meyer's incompetence, is his response going to be to tell all? How does committing political suicide and taking Morris et al with him serve as any sort of restorative justice? Oh because it reveals Governor Morris to be a bit of hypocrite? So what welcome to the real world where we're all hypocrites, just ask Newt Gingrich, and yes there have always been young women who are sexually attracted to older men in positions of power, and it will always be thus.

In the end The Ides of March says more about the political world George Clooney wishes existed in America rather than the one that actually does.

Rise of BC Conservatives makes NDP win in 2013 likely

2011-09-26T14:31:00.000-07:00

I recently had the opportunity to attend the BC Conservative Annual General meeting in Nanaimo. Joining me in observing the gathering of provincial Tories were long time political columnists Les Leyne of the Victoria Times-Colonist and Vaughn Palmer of the Vancouver Sun. Their presence spoke volumes about how after decades in the political wilderness the BC Conservatives seemed poised to make a historic come back.

The party’s new leader former federal M.P. John Cummins, has noted that they “are holding steady at 20% in the polls.” With such support a win by the BC NDP becomes extremely likely in 2013. This is because the NDP are likely to have at least 40% support while the Greens and other also ran parties collecting 10%. This would leave at most only 30% for the BC Liberals.

A non united right has always resulted in a BC NDP win. In 1972 when the non-socialist vote was split between Social Credit the Liberals and the Conservatives all three parties elected MLAs but the NDP with only 38% of the vote won a landslide majority. When the right re-coalesced under Social Credit the NDP was once again reduced to opposition status for the remainder of the 1970s and 80s.

In 1991 Social Credit which had imploded under the leadership of Bill Vander Zalm saw it go from government to just 7 MLAs. The NDP won a solid majority with 40% of the vote while an upstart Liberal party led by Gordon Wilson took the party to official opposition status.

In 1996 the BC NDP edged out the BC Liberals in part because the BC Reform Party took just enough votes to ensure an NDP win. Under the leadership of Gordon Campbell the BC Liberals were able to maintain the right wing coalition. But Campbell’s mishandling of the HST and the introduction of new carbon taxes had many wondering if the governing BC Liberals were any less tax and spend than the BC NDP.

Campbell resigned over the HST debacle and the party elected a new leader Christy Clark who is a federal Liberal. The federal Conservatives made no secret of the fact they would have preferred one of their own such as Kevin Falcon to have been the leader. But sour grapes aside, there is also a genuine desire by the Harper Conservatives to see the Liberals disappear as a viable political brand name in Canada.

During the recent federal election Stephen Harper was delighted to not only secure a majority government but seeing the Liberals (Canada’s naturally governing party of the 20th century) reduced to third party status. By facing an NDP opposition the Conservatives are in an ideal position to be Canada’s naturally governing party of the 21st century.

Contrary to popular belief a win by the BC NDP would not be that upsetting to them either. Every time the NDP have won power in BC provincially, support for the NDP has fallen in the next federal election. Some Conservative strategists are quite willing to see the NDP win the next provincial election in 2013 because they are confident that would result in the NDP losing seats to the Conservatives in the next federal election.

Finally a BC Liberal loss could potentially create a situation where the right re-coalesces under the BC Conservative banner, once again relegating the BC Liberals to the political wilderness.
So don’t be surprised if you see the BC Conservatives fielding a full slate of candidates in the next provincial election and Adrian Dix emerging as the next Premier of B.C. You read it here first.

Michael Geoghegan is a government relations consultant based in Victoria, BC be sure to visit my website at www.mgcltd.ca and follow me on twitter @BCLobbyist

Tucknott slams smart meters in speech to rally at BC Legislature

2011-09-19T12:44:00.000-07:00

Tucknott slams smart meters in speech to rally at BC Legislature

September 19, 2011

For immediate release, Victoria, BC

Colwood Councillor and candidate for Mayor, Brian Tucknott, slammed BC Hydro over the imposition of smart meters. Speaking at a rally at the BC Legislature on Sunday, Tucknott stated, “In June, I introduced a motion to council recommending a letter be sent to the Provincial Government requesting a moratorium on the mandatory installation of wireless smart meters until their effects become better known and alternative solutions investigated. Colwood became the first of 16 municipalities to request a moratorium.”

Tucknott identified five areas of concern: Health, Safety, Security, Privacy, and Cost.

Worldwide, more people are becoming sensitive to electro-magnetic radiation from devices such as wireless smart meters and The World Health Organisation recently classified such radiation as a likely Class 2b carcinogen.

Many sufferers from electro-magnetic sensitivity are disabled by it and more are receiving disability benefits.

“Don’t look to Health Canada for protection, for it labours under an outdated ‘Safety Code 6’ laughable by world standards and of which our Federal Government should be ashamed,” said Tucknott.

“There are increasing reports of smart meters igniting,” noted Tucknott. “Not only are they a fire risk, they can also release mercury giving rise to another problem: hazmat contamination!”

After ‘smart meter’ installation, household appliances have been known to catch fire, or to self destruct with destruction not being limited to older appliances.

“There is also a privacy issue with ‘smart meters’ which will begin to record your personal use, time and duration of use, of everything electrical within your home. Security may be compromised as a result,” said Tucknott. “There may be a record of when you activate a security system and possibly which sensors are deactivated at any particular time. You will not benefit from any of this information, as you will not have access to it, but someone will!”

Finally, everywhere these ‘smart meters’ have been installed there have been complaints of increased charges for electrical power use.

“Please do not be fooled by the disingenuous claims of BC Hydro, and demand the Provincial Government put an end to this massive experiment using us as its guinea pigs in its $1 billion boondoggle,” concluded Tucknott.

For further information contact Brian Tucknott at (250) 474-8180 or email him at tucknott4mayor@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @tucknott4mayor

Tucknott announces no tax increases if elected Mayor of Colwood

2011-09-15T09:24:00.000-07:00

Tucknott announces no tax increases if elected Mayor of Colwood
Affordability and Accountability twin pillars of campaign

September 15, 2011

For immediate release, Victoria, BC

Colwood Councillor Brian Tucknott, a retired airline captain and union leader today announced that he is running for Mayor of Colwood with a pledge of no further municipally generated tax increases if elected.

Colwood is a community of working families and retired people that have been hit hard with over 30% in municipal tax increases in the last three years. The result has been seniors, the unemployed and those on fixed incomes struggling to make ends meet and families both renters and homeowners facing increased housing costs.

“Given the misplaced priorities that have occurred in Colwood, I have consistently voted against these tax increases but have found myself in the minority time after time. Colwood has ignored the financial turmoil facing the world and has acted as though it was immune, giving rise to claims from at least one accountant that Colwood is operationally bankrupt,” said Tucknott.

“It is my hope that as Mayor I will have a working majority of councillors who recognize that government has to live within the means of its taxpayers, many of whom have not seen any increase in their real income in years,” he added.

Tucknott, who prior to becoming an airline captain served as a British Bobby (police officer) also intends to bring much greater fiscal discipline and accountability to Colwood. “For far too many years economic development opportunities have passed our community by as our municipal government has been embroiled in lawsuits and crises of its own making. It is time to bring in a new era of affordability and accountability to Colwood,” declared Tucknott.

”I want a community where seniors and young families can afford to live and where our tax dollars go to providing infrastructure that enhances our community. I want every dollar of taxpayers` money to be properly accounted for so that voters know what it is being spent on and why,” he pledged.

“It is for that reason that I commend the provincial government for wanting to provide an Auditor General for municipal governments through B.C. I have little doubt that an Auditor General would have much to say about what has happened in Colwood,” noted Tucknott.

”A sustainable community cannot just be a green one that caters only to a select few. It must also serve the needs of working families and those seeking employment. We need to make genuine affordable housing a key component of our community and we need to encourage businesses that will broaden our tax base and provide employment opportunities,” he said.

“As Mayor I will represent the entire community not just special interest groups. Every resident deserves equal representation not just those with certain political affiliations or connections. It is for this reason that I ask all residents of Colwood for their vote on November 19th,” Tucknott concluded.

For further information contact Brian Tucknott at (250) 474-8180 or email him at tucknott4mayor@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @tucknott4mayor

Christy Clark triumphant

2011-02-27T20:16:00.000-08:00

After three dramatic rounds of vote counting Christy Clark emerged as the new Premier elect of B.C. Her swearing in by the Lieutenant Governor of B.C. is but a formality. Her immediate challenge is two-fold to get elected in a by-election to the legislature and to keep the BC Liberal coalition united.

Complicating matters still further is the fact that Premier Clark and many of her key supporters are staunch federal Liberals while the candidate she narrowly defeated Kevin Falcon is very much a federal Conservative.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office made no secret of the fact that they would have much preferred to have seen Kevin rather than Christy win. This in part is due to the fact that Christy Clark’s ex-husband, Mark Marissen was then Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin’s right hand man in British Columbia.

But Prime Minister Harper and Premier Clark need each other. A federal election this April is likely and it will be British Columbia that will determine whether or not Harper is finally able to achieve a majority government. Harper thus needs to quickly mend fences with Premier Clark in order to ensure she does not do anything implicit or otherwise that is seen as endorsing the federal Liberals.

Any such move by Premier Clark would of course cause huge dissension within the BC Liberal caucus, which despite its name is made up of a majority of federal Conservative Party supporters. Clark already has her work cut out for her as prior to winning she had only received the endorsement of one sitting MLA. The rest had been fairly evenly divided between cabinet ministers Kevin Falcon and George Abbott.

But having known Christy Clark since she was 18 years old, I can tell you that few have ever prospered by underestimating the tenacity of this life long political warrior. The political left first felt threatened by her when she was elected President of the Simon Fraser Students’ Society back in the mid 1980s. This was a campus where historically the political divisions ran between the left (the NDP) and the extreme left (various forms of Communist sympathizers). To have a Liberal elected President was all but unheard of.

But elected she was and then when the BC Liberals emerged from political obscurity under the leadership of Gordon Wilson, she went to work at the legislature as a research officer. A few years later she then ran as an MLA under the leadership of Gordon Campbell and eventually served as Education Minister and Deputy Premier.

But as many people, especially women, found working for Premier Campbell was not an easy task. If you did too well and took too much attention away from him you could incur his wrath. But if you didn’t do well enough or made a mistake that also would put you in the political doghouse. Damned if you do and damned if you don’t is not a very tenable political situation to be in and so five years ago Christy bowed out of provincial politics.

Christy Clark was soon back in the spot light seeking the nomination from the NPA to be the candidate for Mayor of Vancouver. Both Mike Harcourt and Gordon Campbell had served first as Mayor of Vancouver before becoming Premier of B.C. and as most people surmised Christy was intent on following the same path.

In that instance she came up short in terms of support and it was Sam Sullivan who would instead win the nomination and go on to be a one term Mayor of Vancouver. Christy then landed on her feet as a radio talk show host at CKNW. It was there she not only remained in the public spotlight but more importantly was able to be in an environment where she was inundated on a daily basis with the concerns of British Columbians.

And nothing concerned British Columbians more after the last provincial election than the sudden and wholly unexpected imposition of a 12 per cent HST by Gordon Campbell. Although the HST has some benefits to it, the complete lack of consultation thoroughly alienated voters. In the end Premier Campbell resigned and called for a leadership vote.

During her time at CKNW Christy had not only become much more attuned to the concerns of voters she had also earned the respect of many long serving journalists. Pamela Martin who had for years served as a nightly news anchor actively campaigned on Christy’s behalf while other scribes wrote glowingly about her.

But the biggest ace that Christy Clark had up her sleeve was that she had not been in government when the much hated HST was rammed through by Premier Gordon Campbell. Kevin Falcon, George Abbott or Mike deJong had all been in cabinet when that fateful decision was made and although it is doubtful that they had much input on Premier Campbell’s decision, they all had to answer for it.

Unless another MLA volunteers to step aside, the most likely constituency that Christy Clark will run in will be Premier Campbell’s Vancouver Point Grey riding. Assuming as is likely that she wins that by-election her triumphant return to the legislature in Victoria will be complete.

Michael Geoghegan is a government relations consultant based in Victoria, BC He has known Christy Clark since they were both 18 years old.

Reason versus Force

2010-12-26T10:44:00.000-08:00

It is ironic that in Canada many would consider me a Conservative while in the United States many would consider me a Liberal. That I believe says more about the politics of those two respective countries than it does about me. One thing I do agree on though is the right to bear arms. Sadly that is a right we do not have in Canada. In fact, despite the steady increase in gang violence, as a Canadian you are no allowed to arm or defend yourself in any way. In fact it is now illegal for you to even own Kevlar.

The only people who are legally allowed to arm themselves and wear Kevlar are the police. Do the police represent the cream of our society? The most mentally stable, the most altruistic, the most intelligent, the most honest, the least likely to abuse their authority, uh no.

Police, like our politicians, are just as good and just as bad as the rest of society. Many police and many politicians are extremely hard working honest and decent. Others are corrupt thugs who routinely abuse their authority, some are even sociopaths.

A well educated population (something the US tends to lack given their poorly funded public school system) and a well armed population (something we are legally prevented from being in Canada) is I believe the best combined defence against an abusive state government. This is where my Libertarian streak tends to come into play.

As Mao wrote all authority is derived from the end of a gun. He should know, this man slaughtered 60 million of his fellow Chinese making him the most prolific mass murderer of the 20th Century.

"The Gun Is Civilization" by Maj. L. Caudill USMC (Ret)

Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force.

Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that's it.

In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion.

Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.

When I carry a gun, you cannot deal with me by force. You have to use reason and try to persuade me, because I have a way to negate your threat or employment of force.

The gun is the only personal weapon that puts a 100-pound woman on equal footing with a 220-pound mugger, a 75-year old retiree on equal footing with a 19-year old gang banger, and a single guy on equal footing with a carload of drunk guys with baseball bats. The gun removes the disparity in physical strength, size, or numbers between a potential attacker and a defender.

There are plenty of people who consider the gun as the source of bad force equations.
These are the people who think that we'd be more civilized if all guns were removed from society, because a firearm makes it easier for a [armed] mugger to do his job.

That, of course, is only true if the mugger's potential victims are mostly disarmed either by choice or by legislative fiat--it has no validity when most of a mugger's potential marks are armed.

People who argue for the banning of arms ask for automatic rule by the young, the strong, and the many, and that's the exact opposite of a civilized society. A mugger, even an armed one, can only make a successful living in a society where the state has granted him a force monopoly.

Then there's the argument that the gun makes confrontations lethal that otherwise would only result in injury.

This argument is fallacious in several ways. Without guns involved, confrontations are won by the physically superior party inflicting overwhelming injury on the loser.

People who think that fists, bats, sticks, or stones don't constitute lethal force watch too much TV, where people take beatings and come out of it with a bloody lip at worst.

The fact that the gun makes lethal force easier works solely in favor of the weaker defender, not the stronger attacker. If both are armed, the field is level.

The gun is the only weapon that's as lethal in the hands of an octogenarian as it is in the hands of a weight lifter. It simply wouldn't work as well as a force equalizer if it wasn't both lethal and easily employable.

When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I'm looking to be left alone. The gun at my side means that I cannot be forced, only persuaded. I don't carry it because I'm afraid, but because it enables me to be unafraid. It doesn't limit the actions of those who would interact with me through reason, only the actions of those who would do so by force.

It removes force from the equation... and that's why carrying a gun is a civilized act.

Woolly Headed Academics

2010-12-17T11:36:00.000-08:00

As both an economist and an Alumni of the University of Victoria I was appalled by a recent study that suggested that already sky high taxes on alcohol here in British Columbia should be increased further. That prompted me to write a letter, not to the editor, but the academic Tim Stock who came up with this drivel. I have posted my letter below but first a timely editorial on the subject from my good friend Mike Smyth courtesy of CKNW

Hello Michael,

You often hear people complain that liquor prices are too high in British Columbia. WAY too high. Just go into any grocery store in Washington state and check their prices on beer and wine for proof.

But could it be that B.C. booze prices are actually too low? That's what University of Victoria researcher Tim Stockwell argued in a study this week. The addictions specialist says the B.C. government should raise liquor prices to stop people from drinking so much and turning into alcoholics.

To which I say: You're kidding, right? Please tell me this is a joke!

British Columbia already has some of the highest booze prices in North America, yet our rates of alcoholism are roughly the same as lower-priced jurisdictions. Consider Washington state again: Their booze is way cheaper, and you can buy their cut-rate grog in corner stores to boot. But is everyone from Seattle to Bellingham walking around in a constant drunken stupor? No, their rates of alcoholism are roughly the same as ours.

We talked about this issue on The Mike Smyth Show this week, and it sure provoked a lively discussion. I just hope this doesn't give the government any bright ideas to jack up our already sky-high liquor prices. That would be truly Grinch-like.

Merry Christmas everybody! See you on the radio.
Mike Smyth

And now for my letter sent to timstock@uvic.ca ....

Dear Tim:

Locked in your ivory tower do you have any concept of the real world? Are you aware that here in BC we pay with taxes and mark ups amongst the highest prices for wine anywhere in North America?

The long suffering middle class and working poor struggle to make ends meet in a province where substandard housing costs a fortune and you think it would be a good idea to jack taxes up even further on alcohol. God forbid a couple in Surrey might want a bottle of wine with dinner in order to soothe their nerves after a hard days work, a hellish commute and narrowly avoiding another murderous gang shoot out.

But according to your study we should all pay more money for alcohol for the sake of our kids. So instead of parents teaching their children how to drink responsibly, those kids will increasingly turn to marijuana and other illegal drugs which will be supplied to them by the aforementioned drug gangs.

Bravo for upholding the stereotype of the woolly headed academic who wastes our tax dollars on social engineering shenanigans. If you love high taxes on alcohol so much then move to Sweden. Then you can see first hand the waves of young Swedes who travel to other European countries and instead of drinking responsibly indulge in insane bouts of binge drinking before they return home puking drunk to their high tax homeland.

Michael Geoghegan
www.mgcltd.ca

Gordon Campbell Can't Leave Fast Enough

2010-11-05T06:28:00.000-07:00

Recently resigned B.C. premier Gordon Campbell should not wait for the Liberals to pick a new leader before he leaves his post. Sticking around would be a disservice to his party and his province.

On Aug. 20, 2010, I predicted the fall of Gordon Campbell. On Nov. 3, Campbell formally announced that he had asked the B.C. Liberal Party executive “to hold a leadership convention at the earliest possible date to select a new leader for [their] party.” Thus ends Campbell’s career as premier of British Columbia.

What wasn’t announced is whether Campbell intends to stick around as a lame duck or whether an interim leader will be appointed. A regular B.C. Liberal convention has been scheduled for Nov. 19 and 20, so an actual leadership convention would likely not be held until spring 2011 at the earliest.

Staying on until then would be a strategic blunder for Campbell, something he has made a habit of since his 2009 re-election. After imposing HST after the last election with no warning to the public, Campbell saw his approval rating plummet to nine per cent. He then essentially lectured British Columbians about the HST in a televised address last week. Buried within his speech was a major income tax cut – yet the lecture was not well received, and Campbell’s approval ratings stayed locked in the single digits.

More worrying still for the premier was a leadership review vote that was due to be held at the November convention. Although there has been some speculation about the growing dissension within his own caucus, others have speculated that it may have been the possibility of getting a less-than-glowing endorsement vote from the party faithful that may have finally persuaded Campbell to announce his intention to resign.

Whatever his motivation, Campbell’s decision does create an opportunity for the B.C. Liberals to rebuild their relationship with the voters of British Columbia. The fact is that the Campbell era did generally provide sound fiscal and economic management.

The other thing the B.C. Liberals have going for them is that the only opposition party they face in the legislature is the NDP. Their leader, Carole James, has lost two elections in a row against the B.C. Liberals, and her approval rating stands at only about 27 per cent.

Right now, the B.C. NDP is at 49 per cent in the polls, while the B.C. Liberals are at about half that. Campbell’s successor faces the daunting challenge of winning back their traditional supporters while at the same time attempting to convince British Columbians that the HST is good for the economic growth of the province. A referendum on the future of the HST has been set for October 2011.

Rather than an income-tax cut, it would likely have been smarter for Campbell to announce his intention to lower the HST from 12 per cent to 11 per cent the next fiscal year and to lock it in at 10 per cent the year after that. At least that way B.C. voters would be choosing between an eventual HST of 10 per cent versus a return to a GST of five per cent and a PST of seven per cent.

The B.C. NDP, which has been delighted by the HST backlash, also has a reputation as a tax-and-spend party to contend with. It also doesn’t help that the NDP government in Nova Scotia earlier this year raised their HST from 12 per cent to 15 per cent.

A new leader not only gives the B.C. Liberals a chance to successfully contend with the B.C. NDP in the 2013 provincial election, but will likely forestall the rise of any third parties that would serve to split the anti-NDP vote. The B.C. Liberals are in fact a coalition of people who are federal Liberals and federal Conservatives. Keeping that coalition intact will make the matter of succession an especially tricky one.

This article was initially published by The Mark News

Letter to Editor Vancouver Sun

2010-10-09T08:30:00.000-07:00

Opposing views on
Vancouver Sun
Sat Oct 9 2010
Page: C3
Section: Editorial
Byline: Michael Geoghegan
Source: Vancouver Sun

The Robert Picktons of the world have little to fear as long as we have columnists like Daphne Bramham trotting out the same old naive tripe about prostitution.

Sweden is arresting johns and doing undercover sting operations, and she thinks this will result in the abolition of prostitution.

News flash: Most western countries have busted johns for decades and had undercover policewomen running sting operations. All it led to is increased violence against women.

As long as any aspect of prostitution is illegal, prostitutes will be forced to operate from the shadows, pimps will profit and women will die. Full decriminalization allows for regulation, which will lead to the protection of prostitutes.

Michael Geoghegan Victoria

The Fall of Gordon Campbell

2010-08-20T12:17:00.000-07:00

Campbell was widely considered a capable leader. Then came the HST.

It has been a summer of discontent for British Columbia’s Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell. After winning his third straight provincial election against the B.C. NDP, Campbell surprised almost everyone by suddenly introducing a Harmonised Sales Tax (HST) with the rate set at 12 per cent.

Campbell’s initial spin – that this rate was less than that of Ontario’s – did nothing to lessen the shock and anger, especially amongst those who had up until then been his biggest supporters. The result was a plunge in the polls not seen since the collapse of the old BC Social Credit Party and a referendum initiative signed by over 700,000 voters demanding that the HST be rescinded. One B.C. cabinet minister, Blair Leckstrom, was so spooked by voter anger that in June he not only resigned from cabinet but quit the B.C. Liberal caucus.

The fate of the anti-HST petition will be decided by the Supreme Court of B.C. where a group of business organizations have challenged the legitimacy of the petition because they consider the HST to be under federal jurisdiction. The court case has created a no-win situation for the premier. If the challenge succeeds it means that essentially 700,000 voters who signed the referendum initiative will have in effect been told to get bent. If the challenge does not succeed it will force the premier to put the matter of the HST to either a binding referendum or a vote in the B.C. legislature as per the provisions of the province’s Recall and Initiative Act.

It is against this backdrop that many are expecting Campbell to announce his resignation no later than the B.C. Liberal convention, which is being held in mid-November of this year. Some cabinet ministers such as Mike DeJong and Kevin Falcon have already put together much of their leadership campaign teams. Others are soon expected to follow.

There is only one problem – Campbell has yet to announce his resignation and he has a habit of digging in his heels when people are pushing the hardest for him to go. Many thought Campbell would resign when he was busted for drunk driving in Hawaii in January of 2003. He didn’t. Still others thought he might resign when allegations of corruption involving the sale of B.C. Rail to CN began to surface and the RCMP staged a dramatic raid on the B.C. legislature in December of 2003. He didn’t, although a trial involving several of his government’s former political staffers and Liberal lobbyists is set to resume in September.

It has not only been through his tenacity that Campbell has been able to survive, but also because of the fact that, until the HST debacle, he was seen as having governed the province capably. But by imposing an HST without warning immediately after a provincial election, Campbell has earned the enmity of more than half the B.C. electorate. As such, if he doesn’t resign it is likely he and his minister of finance, Colin Hansen, will face a recall initiative.

Thus whether he wants to or not, this year will almost certainly be Campbell’s last year in office. If he resigns this November it is expected that Minister of Housing and Social Development Rich Coleman will be selected as the interim premier until a leadership convention can be held in 2011.

Whomever the B.C. Liberal’s select, that person will have to make a clean break with Campbell’s autocratic style of leadership and develop a far more populist approach if the party is to have any hope of being competitive in the next provincial election.

This article was first published at The Mark News

Tracking the B.C. Rail Trial

2010-07-14T14:12:00.000-07:00

Dubbed B.C.'s "political trial of the decade," the Basi/Virk trial has cast suspicion on all those involved, charged or not.

B.C. media have dubbed the B.C. Rail trial the province’s "political trial of the decade." Former ministerial assistants David Basi and Bob Virk stand accused of breach of trust, while a former low-level communications staffer named Aneal Basi (David’s cousin), is accused of money laundering.

But lobbyists Erik Bornmann and former newspaper columnist Brian Kieran – both alleged to have offered bribes in the forms of free meals and other benefits to Basi and Virk – are not on trial. In return for their testimony, they have been given immunity from prosecution.

Premier Gordon Campbell is not on trial either, but his political chief of staff Martyn Brown was the first person called to testify regarding the highly controversial sale of B.C. Rail to CN. Brown’s testimony, riddled with claims that he did not recall many key events, proved less than credible to many court observers.

Brown, who has been Campbell’s right-hand man since 1998, did however admit that Campbell was very closely involved with the sale. It was also revealed in court that prior to the sale of B.C. Rail, CN had made a political contribution in excess of $100,000 to the B.C. Liberals.

Another fact defence lawyers revealed was that the RCMP had a full surveillance operation watching then B.C. finance minister Gary Collins as he dined at the upscale Villa del Lupo restaurant in Vancouver. The operation took place on Dec. 12, 2003, which was during the bidding process for the sale of the Roberts Bank spur line in Tsawassen. The RCMP chose not to reveal they were investigating the minister of finance, apparently as that would have required the minister’s automatic resignation.

The conduct of the RCMP was also called into question when it was revealed in court that the RCMP team commander for the B.C. Rail investigation, Kevin Debruyckere, is the brother-in-law of B.C. Liberal Party executive director Kelly Reichert. Their wives are sisters.

Another person who has raised questions regarding the RCMP’s handling of the investigation is Bill Tieleman. Tieleman is a political columnist and left-wing political strategist who has written extensively about the B.C. Rail investigation ever since the RCMP conducted an unprecedented raid on the B.C. Legislature on Dec. 28, 2003.

In December 2007, in a bizarre incident reminiscent of past RCMP dirty-trick campaigns, Tieleman returned to his office to find it ransacked and materials related to B.C. Rail pulled from his filing cabinets and placed prominently on his desk. Tieleman regarded the break-in as an attempt at intimidation by persons unknown who were obviously very unhappy with his in-depth coverage of the RCMP’s investigation.

Since the trial began, there have been other unusual events. On June 16 of this year, jury members were approached by a man at a SkyTrain station who attempted to discuss the trial with them. That man turned out to be the father of special prosecutor associate Andrea Mackay.

The lead special prosecutor, Bill Berardino, has come under media scrutiny for making a political donation to the B.C. Liberals in May 2005, well over a year after he had been appointed a special prosecutor, and thus having decision-making power regarding whether any elected politician would face criminal charges.

Two other lawyers with the prosecution team, Mackay and Janet Winteringham, recently leased office space at a building called The Landing in downtown Vancouver. That building is owned by David McLean, the chair of CN. Despite the fact that CP Rail pulled out of the bidding process for B.C. Rail, stating that the process was tainted and issuing a public letter saying so, the relationship between McLean and Premier Campbell is a matter that apparently neither the RCMP have seen fit to investigate nor the prosecution fit to pursue.

The B.C. Rail trial has now recessed for the summer. At present, far more in the way of questions than answers have been provided, but a pall of suspicion has been cast over all those involved.

This article was first published at The Mark News

Put the "New" in New Democratic Party

2010-06-09T13:02:00.000-07:00

The NDP should shift its stale policies and election platform to compete for votes at the centre of the political spectrum.

The problem with the New Democratic Party is that its ideas aren’t that new anymore. In fact, most of them look like they were lifted out of a time capsule from the 1970s.

Most problematic of all for the federal NDP is its image as a tax-and-spend political party, a party that is quite happy to tax the private sector in order to keep public-sector programs and their employees well funded.

The irony of this approach is that those working in the public sector have become the “haves” in Canadian society, with relatively good job security and generous pensions, while those working in the private sector have had to cope with layoffs and little or no pensions or retirement savings. Thus, traditional NDP tax-and-spend policies in effect take from the “have-nots,” struggling small-business owners and their employees, and give to the haves, those with secure public-sector jobs.

Where the NDP have made gains in recent years, most notably forming the government in Nova Scotia last year, it has been because of a willingness of the provincial leader to move their party to the political centre and compete directly for moderate voters with both the Liberals and the Conservatives.

When the NDP was elected government in 1991 in my home province of British Columbia, it was under the leadership of self-confessed political moderate Mike Harcourt. When the NDP was narrowly re-elected in 1996 under the brash leadership of Glen Clark, he promised to govern for all British Columbians. He didn’t, and the result was an unprecedented pummeling at the polls in 2001, which saw the party reduced to only two seats.

At the federal level, the NDP has squandered significant political opportunity. Canadians have shown a consistent reticence to entrust the Conservatives with a majority, and many remain resentful of the attitude of entitlement from the Liberals, who governed Canada for most of the 20th century.

There still exists an opportunity for the NDP to compete for votes at the centre of Canada’s political spectrum. That would entail, however, jettisoning much of their left-wing ideology and following a much more populist and pragmatic approach to politics.

To date, the federal NDP has shown little interest in trying to do this, despite the fact that Canada’s federal political parties now get public funding based on the number of votes they received in the previous election.

The obvious winning strategy is for the NDP to shift its policies and election platform so as to gain as many votes as possible. But that would require a federal NDP leader who is cable of convincing the NDP’s often ideological membership to let the New Democratic Party actually do something new.

This article was first published by The Mark News

The Basi-Virk Trail: Political Theatre

2010-05-26T14:53:00.000-07:00

We might never get justice in the prosecution of B.C. political aides David Basi and Bob Virk, but we will get plenty of intrigue.

Six-and-a-half years after the RCMP raided the British Columbia Legislature as part of an investigation into drugs and money laundering dubbed “Everywhichway,” a very different case has finally been brought to trial at the Vancouver courthouse.

There are no drugs, and the most minor of money-laundering charges have been laid against a low-level political staffer named Aneal Basi. But there are also serious allegations of breach of trust in the trial of former ministerial assistants (political chiefs of staff) David Basi and Bob Virk – a trial that has been dubbed “the political trial of the decade.”

A veritable “who’s who” of senior political staff, cabinet ministers, industry CEOs, and lobbyists have been called to testify as witnesses. First up is Martyn Brown, Premier Gordon Campbell’s political chief of staff and his right-hand man since Gordon Campbell became premier of B.C. back in 2001.

The case centers on the controversial privatization of B.C. Rail and its subsequent sale to CN. The sale of B.C. Rail was controversial for several reasons. The first is that, like the HST, Campbell sprang it right after an election. The second is that in the course of the bidding process, Canadian Pacific Railway pulled out and complained in a letter that later became public that essentially the fix was in for CN to be the successful bidder. CN certainly wasn’t shy about letting its confidence be known to the other bidders.

But neither Campbell nor the chair of CN is on trial. Instead Basi and Virk stand accused of having accepted benefits from Pilothouse Communications, a now defunct lobbying firm run by former Vancouver Province columnist Brian Kieran and federal Liberal operative Erik Bornman(n).

To say that Erik Bornman(n) is a controversial character would be an understatement. The reason for the bracketed “n” is that he chooses to vary the spelling of his last name from time to time. In fact, he earned the nickname “Spiderman” after an infamous incident in which he allegedly broke into a federal Liberal office by climbing through the ceiling tiles in order to obtain the party membership lists on behalf of the Paul Martin leadership campaign.

More recently, Bornman(n), who articled with the prestigious law firm McCarthy Tertrault, attempted to become admitted to the Law Society of Upper Canada. What he failed to disclose to them was that in return for immunity from prosecution, he has allegedly agreed to state that he had committed fraud with regard to his clients and offered benefits to government officials. It was only the last-minute intervention of lawyers in B.C. that kept Bornman(n) from being a fully practising lawyer in Ontario.

More interesting still is the relationship between Crown Prosecutor Bill Berardino and Bornman(n). In another twist to the immunity deal, Berardino taught Bornman(n) at UBC law school. Did this have any bearing on Berardino’s decision to spare Bornman(n) and make him the prosecution’s star witness? We will likely never know.

Also of great media interest was the recent revelation that in 2005, almost two years after he was appointed special prosecutor, Berardino made a political donation of $600 to the B.C. Liberals. Again, it raises serious questions about the impartiality of the special prosecutor.

It has certainly not escaped my attention or that of many others who have been following this trial that all of the accused are Indo-Canadian, while all those who have been offered immunity from prosecution in return for their testimony are Caucasian.

This colour distinction was further reinforced when, during jury selection – which I myself observed – the prosecution objected to all jury candidates who were Indo-Canadian. The result is a jury that includes no Indo-Canadians and, with one exception, is made up entirely of Caucasians.

The result is a trial about political intrigue that is itself muddied with intrigue. At the end of the day, there seems little likelihood of truth or justice emerging from this process. What there will be, however, is great political theatre, and that, at the end of the day, is what we British Columbians relish most.

This column was first published at The Mark News

BC primed for economic upswing

2010-04-14T21:23:00.000-07:00

We indeed live in interesting economic times. The Canadian dollar is now at parity with the US greenback and running at around $1.50 with the British Pound. Despite, or perhaps because of mortgage rates that are set to increase and a Harmonised Sales Tax (HST) that is to take effect on July 1st consumers are stampeding into the housing market driving market prices even higher.

Whether those prices remain sustainable is an increasing source of contention, with even National Realtor Royal LePage describing the housing market in British Columbia as “irrational.” However, what does seem clear is that BC’s economy is set to enjoy a significant post Olympic boom buoyed not only by the rising housing market, but increased construction activity and manufacturing output.

The Conference Board of Canada is predicting economic growth of 4.0 per cent in Vancouver and 3.2 per cent in Victoria. However aside from a still recovering domestic market, i.e. consumer demand, the other constraint on BC Business growth is a shortage of skilled labour. The shortage of skilled labour is especially troubling in the construction sector where the average age of a fully certified skilled tradesperson is now in their early to mid 50s.

Recognizing this demographic problem, about half a dozen years ago, the Mechanical Contractors Association of BC in conjunction with the Electrical Contractors spearheaded the effort to secure a provincial Apprenticeship Training Tax Credit (ATTC). This tax credit is designed to help offset some of the costs of fully training and certifying a new tradesperson.

The alternative to training is a bidding war when too many companies chasing too few skilled apprentices. Clearly it is to the construction sector’s benefit and to the consumers to make sure there are enough skilled tradespersons to do the work required.

Even China with its one child policy is now starting to run out of skilled and unskilled labour. Shanghai and other major east coast cities are now scrambling to find workers thanks to an economy that in the midst of a US led global recession grew by 8.7 per cent in 2009.

Thus looking to somehow outsource, deskill or bring in cheap labour is not in any way a viable long term option. Ensuring that our own young citizens have the skills and training to build and maintain our 21st Century cities is what will help ensure not only the sustained growth of BC’s construction industry but the economic growth of our province as well.

Thus it is vitally important that the Province of BC put a renewed focus and significantly increased funding into apprenticeship training. As a province we have put a great deal of tax dollars into academic training, but relatively little into the training of people who construct and maintain the buildings we live, work and study in.

As we move to newer “greener” technologies infrastructure is going to become more sophisticated; whether it is with regards to heating and cooling of buildings to waste management of both buildings and communities.

Greater provincial investment is not only required to make sure we have enough skilled tradespersons to repair and upgrade existing infrastructure, but to ensure that our current and next generation of skilled tradespersons are able to keep up with new technologies and new materials as they are developed and implemented for the 21st Century.

Apprenticeship Training has for too long taken a back seat to academic education. If our economy is to fully prosper and our young people have well paying jobs this situation needs to change. In the coming months the Mechanical Contractors Association of BC will be increasing its efforts to make apprenticeship training a greater funding priority for government and to better promote the advantages of becoming a skilled tradesperson to young British Columbians.

Mike Geoghegan is an economist, political commentator and a government relations and media relations consultant based in Victoria, BC. He can be reached via his website at www.mgcltd.ca and you can follow him on twitter @BCLobbyist

The Okanagan Water War

2010-03-05T17:01:00.000-08:00

If you go out in the woods near Vernon, BC you’re in for a big surprise. The Okanagan Indian Band has blockaded a major logging road. Why? It’s not just the usual battle over Aboriginal Title and Rights, although that is certainly part of it. It’s because Tolko intends to commence logging of the watershed that supplies the majority of the 1,800 residents of the Okanagan Indian Band with their drinking water.

You would think that in this day and age that protection of your drinking water was established. Up until 1962 it was. But it was back in the early 1960s that the then Social credit government of WAC Bennett decided to open up many of these protected watersheds to commercial logging.

Of course most municipalities quickly moved to protect their drinking water supplies. It would be a cold day in hell before any forest company was allowed to go log near the watersheds that supply Metro Vancouver or Greater Victoria with their drinking water. But for many rural areas and nearly everyone living on reserve no such protection exists.

Also despite its fiduciary obligation to those citizens it placed on reserves, Canada did absolutely nothing to protect the drinking water supplies for indigenous communities while the hills above these reserves were parceled out by the Province of British Columbia to various forestry companies.

Of course having created this problem what have the decision makers in Ottawa and Victoria done about this mess? So far they have done absolutely nothing. They have been content to see the situation escalate because of much of this was happening when our and their attention was focused on the 2010 Olympics.

The courts haven’t been much help either. Despite the fact that title to the area is a matter that is in dispute and before the courts, the Wilson case, the courts have refused to grant an injunction against the logging so that a proper archeological assessment of the area can be done.

With all legal avenues having been exhausted, and continued indifference from the politicians in Victoria and Ottawa, the Okanagan Indian Band has set up an information picket on Westside Road, a paved road which runs through their reserve. High up in the hills they have established a camp and full blockade of a logging road near Bouleau Lake.

The Okanagan Nation Alliance, the Union of BC Indian Chiefs and the AFN have all spoken out in support of the Okanagan Indian Band. The Western Canada Wilderness Committee and the BC Tap Water Alliance have even sent representatives to the blockade.

The Colville Tribes, the other half of the Okanagan Nation that ended up on the US side of the 49th parallel has also sent a strongly written statement to Prime Minister Harper in support of the Okanagan Indian Band. Many other First Nations and Environmental organizations are stepping forward to lend their support as well.

The one federal agency that has been watching this all very closely has been the RCMP. Essentially without some political leadership from Ottawa and Victoria this conflict could all too easily escalate into violence.

The solution to me is an obvious one. Tolko should go log elsewhere and the 1,800 residents of the Okanagan Indian Band should have the watershed that supplies their drinking water fully protected. Obviously Tolko should be paid some compensation by Ottawa and/or BC for their loss, which amounts to about a three day supply of fiber for their mill in Armstrong.

This being the 21st century the Okanagan Indian Band has set up a facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=318070971723&ref=ts

If you believe that their watershed should be protected there is even an online petition you can sign at http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/brownscreek

Tolko is not the enemy in this situation, government mismanagement and indifference is. The only thing that will change that is if the politicians in Ottawa and Victoria see that there are actually enough people who care about the issue of safe drinking water to make them resolve this conflict.

This blog has also been published at Vancouverite.com

2010 Olympics shone a welcome spotlight on a new generation of “kick-ass” Canadians

2010-03-04T18:23:00.000-08:00

Being 44 years old, I grew up in the ennui days of Canada. Tedious times marked by interminable constitutional wrangling, separatist referenda and a national inferiority complex that was at times nothing short of nauseating.

Long gone (or at least soon to be) were the Canadian heroes who took Vimy Ridge, or ferociously stormed the beaches of Normandy a generation later. Then there were the upstart engineers who built a fighter jet, the Avro Arrow, that would take the Americans 20 years to surpass in performance. But Diefenbaker killed that project and with it seemed to die the idea that Canada could be best at anything in the world.

Then came the FLQ and then the separatists, a long string of deficit budgets, Meech Lake and over time Canada seemed so much less than it had ever been before.

Sure there were flashes of inspiration such as the epic hockey series between Canada and the Soviet Union, where we beat the best players the red army had to offer. But all too often there was a sense of discord and even of pettiness.

There was jealousy between the regions, a West that wanted in and a Quebec that wanted out. There was jealousy between generations, such as the bitterness of Gen Xers watching the best jobs being occupied by complacent baby boomers and Gen Yers who wonder how they might ever realize the dream of home ownership.

But then came the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. Here we were a country that had hosted the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal and the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary who had yet to win a single gold medal on home soil.

Sure the government and even some corporations had deigned to actually invest some millions of dollars in our athletes so that Canada might “own the podium.” Hardly had the games begun when the derision in the media began. Own the podium? How utterly ridiculous we’re Canadian, that’s absurd!

Fortunately there was a group that wasn’t listening and that was our athletes and all the fans who flocked to see them. Soon the unthinkable happened. Our athletes started winning, not just silver and bronze but gold. And what started as a trickle became a flood when Jon Montgomery, who won gold in the Skeleton, took a victory march in Whistler. He was handed a full pitcher of beer and in triumph downed a third of it before he got to the stands to greet the cheering crowds.

The Kick Ass Canadians had arrived on the world stage. Gone was the hand wringing and self doubt of an older generation, replaced by a new generation that wasn’t afraid to win and be the best in the world, not despite but because they are Canadian.

And win they did 14 Gold medals the most of any nation competing in this year’s winter Olympics. Suddenly it didn’t matter whether an athlete was from Quebec or Manitoba or Nova Scotia, what mattered was that they were Canadian. At every event in the audience was a sea of people waving Canadian flags and wearing Canada jackets, red and white was everywhere.

We cheered on our own but we also cheered on others such as Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong, the self styled Snow Leopard skier from Ghana. We also mourned the shocking death of Georgian Luger Nodar Kumaritashvili and celebrated the bravery and determination of Canada’s Joannie Rochette who won bronze just days after her mother passed away.

As Canadians we went delirious with joy and patriotism as first our women and then our men’s hockey teams beat the Americans to win gold. While at the same time we laughed and cheered as Stephen Colbert gently mocked us while discretely singing the praises of Vancouver and our country.

The truth is that there have always been many Canadians who felt we were the best, but we held our views in check because of all the self-doubters. We felt that we were somehow being un-Canadian when we showed our patriotism. That time I hope has now finally passed.

These athletes who came from all regions of our country and all different ethnic backgrounds showed us that is okay to love our country and to be the best and to let the world know we feel that way as well. It is not gauche it is not unseemly it is in fact exhilarating.

And to the politicians in Ottawa who seemed so embarrassed that they had spent taxpayers money to help our athletes own the podium I simply say thank you. The success of our athletes has done far more to unite Canada than anything else you could have spent that money on.

Let us continue to support our athletes, not just those that may win Olympic gold but those who compete in our neighborhoods. Let us make sure that any girl or boy who wants to dance or play a competitive sport has the opportunity to do so.

As individuals and as a nation, let us no longer find refuge in mediocrity, let us instead be the kick ass Canadians we actually all are.

This blog was also published by Vancouverite.com

Now is not the time to cut public infrastructure spending!

2010-01-31T15:15:00.000-08:00

As anyone who has travelled any significant portion of the Trans Canada Highway knows, we have a significant infrastructure deficit in this country. Our national highway is a national disgrace. But Canada’s infrastructure is not just roads and bridges; it is buildings, sewer systems, waterlines and electrical transmission grids.

It is also our military which we call upon in times of crises, such as the recent massive quake in Haiti, to ensure the sovereignty of Canada, which is second only to Russia in size, and to meet our international obligations such as in Afghanistan.

The 2010 Winter Olympics has provided the impetus for the spending of provincial and federal tax dollars on new housing, including some for the homeless and low income, recreational facilities and transportation upgrades such as the RAV line and long needed improvements to the treacherous Sea to Sky highway.

But what happens when the 2010 Olympics are over? There are signs that both the provincial and federal levels of government are now prepared to significantly reduce the amount of money they spend annually on infrastructure.

That would be a mistake for many reasons. The first is that here in the province of British Columbia the average age of a skilled tradesperson is 55. If we are going to retain a skilled workforce then we need to ensure the apprentices that were hired during the last construction boom are still able to complete their apprenticeships.

A second reason is that the best time for governments to spend money on infrastructure is when the economy is in recession. If they do it during boom times they only serve to exaggerate rather than even out the boom and bust cycle of the construction industry. It also means taxpayers and private companies end up paying more for materials and labour if they are both doing the bulk of their construction during boom times. If government spends more during a recession, costs are lower and it means we as taxpayers get more built for our buck.

If government spends its infrastructure money strategically it can also serve as a great impetus for future economic growth. In 2009 the Government of Canada announced a $40 billion procurement for the construction of new naval and coastguard vessels. Such construction is long overdue as the last of our navy ships were built in the 1980s.
The problem is that because of this long naval famine British Columbia no longer has the kind of shipbuilding infrastructure we had in the 1970s. The last minute cancellation of the Polar 8 in the early 1990s led directly to the closure of a major shipyard in North Vancouver. Add to that the political games that have been played by both BC NDP and BC Liberal governments with regards to the construction of BC Ferries and it is a wonder that we still have a significant shipbuilding industry here in BC.

But the fact is that we do and in the 21st century the key ocean trading routes will not be between North America and Europe and they were for the last two hundred years, they will instead be between North America and Asia.

That means that as Canada’s gateway to the Pacific, British Columbia needs to have the ability to repair large merchant and naval vessels. That capability will only exist if BC gets the go ahead to build a significant portion of Canada’s new navy and coastguard fleet. The federal government, because of their historic capriciousness, should also be willing to put a significant investment into expanding the capabilities of the Esquimalt graving dock, which is the only publicly owned dry dock on the west coast of the Americas.

With an equitable portion of federal ship construction, private companies would then be in a position to also improve their own facilities. This in turn would enable them to get back to the business of building and repairing the BC Ferry fleet right here in British Columbia.

By once again having a thriving shipbuilding and repair industry it will also increase the pool of skilled tradespeople who are living on Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland. This then becomes of critical importance when inevitably we hit the next construction boom.

It also means that Canada will not face the farcical situation of by the mid 21st century having the majority of its fleet stationed in the Pacific while most of the construction and repair facilities are located in eastern Canada.

The final reason for spending money on infrastructure is environmental. The better our national highway system the more efficiently goods can be shipped and the less fuel that is wasted. Similarly an electrical transmission grid that went across Canada rather than just south into the United States would allow utilities to shift power as electrical demand rises and falls during the course of the day across Canada’s five time zones.

An east west transmission grid would also make it much more viable for wind power and other green energy projects to make a significant contribution to meeting our nation’s energy needs. And when it comes to conservation, the upgrading or replacement of old public buildings so that they are now properly insulated ventilated and energy efficient would also result in tremendous energy savings.

So too of course does the upgrading of water and sewer systems so that less water is wasted to leakage and less energy is used and energy even generated from new sewage treatment facilities.

All this and more are reasons why Canada needs to keep spending money on infrastructure now when our economy is still struggling to recover and not when the next private sector construction boom hits.

Mike Geoghegan is a federally and provincially registered lobbyist who lives in Victoria BC. He can be reached via his website at www.bclobbyist.com

This column was also published at Vancouverite.com

Shooting down gun registry long overdue

2009-11-26T13:39:00.000-08:00

Canada’s long gun registry is a $2 billion debacle that has done nothing to make you safer and much to criminalize hunters, farmers and other legitimate users.

If you take a drive by (or witness one) in the Lower Mainland there is no shortage of gang members packing hand guns and fully automatic weapons.

This despite the fact we have required the registration of hand guns in Canada since 1934 and fully automatic weapons have been banned for decades.

The shocking thing, at least amongst the urbane naïve, is that criminals tend by definition to break the law.

But the long gun registry was so onerous and so ineptly implemented that it became widely flouted by many peaceful citizens particularly those living in rural Canada.

There have been many city police Chiefs who have spoken out against the impending demise of the long gun registry, but let’s face it the police like having as much data as possible on you and they like the idea that they are the only ones with guns.

Unfortunately so do criminals.

That is why in countries such as Britain that have banned firearms violent crime rates have sky rocketed, whereas in countries like Switzerland where every household is required to have a rifle, home invasions and other such gun violence are virtually unheard of.

Despite Canada having a higher rate of per capita gun ownership than the United States our murder rate is much lower and most murders in Canada are committed with knives not guns.

Perhaps it’s time we made every household register their flatware.

In July of this year three cougars were killed within a two week period near Princeton, BC.

All three had been killed after being seen stalking humans. The first was shot by a conservation officer and the third by an RCMP officer.

But the second one was shot by a Princeton area resident as he saw stalking two girls who were tubing down a river.

If that rural resident had not had a rifle both of those girls would likely have been either horribly maimed or died an absolutely horrific death by being mauled to death and then eaten.

Those with criminal intent will always have access to guns, knives, or even baseball bats.

Should we be forced to cut our steak with a plastic butter knife or shut down the baseball leagues our children play in? Of course not.

Nor should we continue to harass farmers and hunters with a long gun registry that has served only to spur on criminals while deterring legitimate users.

So kudos to the Harper Conservatives and kudos to those brave Liberal and NDP MPs who have finally listened to the views of Canada’s rural constituents, by voting to kill the long gun registry.

Its demise was long overdue.

Mike Geoghegan is a government relations consultant based in Victoria, BC. He can be reached via his website at www.mgcltd.ca or on twitter @bclobbyist

This column was published on Page 5 of the Thursday November 26, 2009 edition of 24hours Vancouver, available at finer skytrain stations and those nifty orange newspaper boxes.

Song Dedication

2009-11-18T00:16:00.000-08:00

Here's a song I dedicate to my birth parents in Australia Suzanne Blake (nee Chapple) and Dr. Patrick Manning

Demographics driving BC tax hikes

2009-09-28T11:25:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the surprisingly poor PR job done by the Campbell government, there is a common misconception that the global recession alone was behind the provincial government’s recent budget cuts and tax hikes.

In fact there is another subtle contributor that has slowly wormed its way into the economy – it is demographics.

To be sure the global recession that was brought on by the poorly regulated U.S. financial system likely brought matters to a head a few years sooner, but this demographic day of reckoning has long been coming.

After the Second World War there was a huge post war baby boom. No country experienced a larger post war baby boom than did Canada. Hence was born the boomer generation who came of age in the 1960s and 1970s. What also came of age in the 1960s was the women’s rights movement, the sexual revolution and the birth control pill. There followed a precipitous decline in birth rates.

Women, especially in Canada, have been having fewer and fewer children at a later and later age. In 1960 the average woman was married and had finished having her four children by the time she was 24. Today’s average 24 year old woman is wondering how the hell she is ever going to pay off her massive post secondary student loan and keep paying the rent on her one bedroom condo.

Unlike other wealthy nations, Canada’s birth rate has continued to decline. I believe that is because we have made family housing so unaffordable in this country that many middle class couples simply feel they can’t afford to start one.

So the net result is that we have fewer children and more seniors. That’s where the rub comes in. Ten years ago a senior BC health official mentioned to me that the average 18 year old cost the health care system $800 per year while the average 80 year old cost the BC health care system $21,000 per year.

So the more seniors the more health care costs sky rocket. Also because there is a relative shortage of young workers that means the provincial government is not collecting enough money from income taxes in order to cover these health care costs. So to solve this problem the provincial government will be imposing a 12% Harmonised Sales Tax (HST) and will be raising the Medical Service Plan (MSP) premiums we pay every month.

Both taxes are regressive in that they will affect the working poor and middle class much more than the wealthy. They will also act as a further impediment to middle class couples being able to afford a new home and raise a family; thus will continue Canada’s demographic death spiral.

Ah but what about immigration? Just to maintain our current population, we need to allow 500,000 people per year to move to Canada. Moreover we would have to make sure these were 500,000 young people. Canada both in terms of logistics and legalities is simply unable to undertake such a massive change to our immigration system.

But there are two groups in Canada that are having children above the replacement rate, those whose income qualifies them for subsidized housing and the wealthy. Those couples that are in the fortunate position of having made their money the old fashioned way – by inheriting it from Mummy and Daddy – are now having more kids as it has become recognized as a status symbol.

Squeezed out of the equation are the long suffering middle class who now require two incomes just to afford to purchase a glorified walk in closet known in Vancouver as a condominium. Some of these condos are so small you need to go out in the hallway just to change your mind. There certainly isn’t enough room to raise a child or two in.

In short unless or until we figure out a way to make family housing affordable enough for young people we’re not going to have young families and you can continue to expect further tax hikes, program service cuts and longer health care waiting lists.

Of Pride and Prejudice

2009-07-14T09:28:00.000-07:00

There are some advantages to living in this brave new digital world. For instance, it is no longer such a safe world for thugs. David Samuel White, Adam David Huber and Robert William Rodgers learned this lesson the hard way when on July 3rd they were caught on digital camera assaulting Jay Philips while hurling racist taunts at him.

Jay Philips, whose mother is white and father was black, is familiar with being singled out for discrimination. But his father also taught him to stand up to bullies and that is exactly what he did despite being outnumbered three to one.

The three young hooligans eventually sped off in a truck and later that same evening attacked a young Caucasian man showing that their hatred and need for violence knows no racial bounds.

The video of their attack on Jay Philips, which was posted on YouTube, was certainly an eye opener for Courtenay BC’s predominantly white community.

The community responded admirably and residents organized a rally in support of Jay Philips and to speak out against hatred and violence.

A thousand people attended the July 9th event and speakers included Mayor Greg Phelps, Comox Pastor Maggie Enright, Wendledi Speck of the Native Friendship Centre as well as Jay Philips.

Jay Philips father, who passed away in December of 2008, had taught his son to not be racist, stand up for himself and “not to take shit from anyone.”

That is a lesson we as parents should instill in all our children. I certainly have in both my son and my daughter.

As a government relations consultants I have worked with quite a number of First Nations and Indian Bands. In 2000, I did some work with then Okanagan Indian Band Chief Dan Wilson.

I remember being horrified as he told me of how as a young man his father had been beaten to death on the streets of Vernon. It seems some of the local white lads had taken an exception to the fact that Dan’s father was a gifted athlete and had routinely bettered them in local baseball tournaments.

The one witness to the attack was a mildly retarded man whose testimony was dismissed by the judge. This was small town BC in the 1960s.

We’ve certainly come a long way since then but of course racism and discrimination still exist in many forms within Canada. I remember meeting a couple who had moved to Canada from Bulgaria. They had lived for a couple of years in Vancouver and then relocated to Victoria when the wife landed a job with the BC government.

They had invited me over for a beer and I asked them how they liked Victoria compared to Vancouver. I was expecting an answer along the lines of, it rains less here, or life is more slowly paced than Vancouver. Instead the jaw dropping comment the husband made was, “it’s really nice there’s a lot less Asians living here than in Vancouver.”

So even as we welcome people from around the world to live in Canada, the challenge will be for both long term residents and newcomers to learn to live in peaceful co-existence with one another.

Nowhere is that going to be more challenging than with regards to religion. At the school my son attends a couple of his friends were starting to fight over religion. One kid had parents who are devout Christians and the other devout Muslims. My son deftly solved the problem by explaining to both of them that all organized religion is equally ridiculous and full of arbitrary rules and mythology and the only thing more ridiculous was getting into a fight about it.

Thus my son was able to get the two of them to stop fighting and be friends again. Perhaps this is also an area where Canada has something to offer the world; by demonstrating that a healthy dose of skepticism towards all religious zealotry allows for much greater tolerance and peaceful co-existence amongst those of disparate faiths.

Iran, twitter and the retweet seen round the world

2009-06-23T12:11:00.000-07:00

In the past few weeks there have been two revolutions going on, both with profound implications for the future of our global society. The first has been the large and sustained democratic protests in Iran in response to the sham election results that had the unpopular incumbent president scoring an extremely improbable 2 to 1 victory over a rival that had been surging ahead in election polls in the final days of the campaign.

The second revolution has been that of social media sites such as Facebook, Youtube and Twitter that have been able to keep the increasingly tragic news events in Iran reaching the outside world. Thanks to these sites, as well as the now ubiquitous cell phone camera, the outside world is able to bear witness as the Iranian autocrats shed any pretense of decency and assault and murder their own citizens.

In what has been dubbed the retweet (RT) seen around the world the shocking murder of Neda Agha-Soltan, has generated worldwide anger and contempt for the theocratic thugs who are in charge of Iran. Neda who was a young philosophy student at the University of Tehran was shot in the back. The shocking images of her death posted on Youtube and linked to on twitter have galvanized and united the civilized world in a way not seen since September 11, 2001.

In a speech given on June 23rd, US President Barack Obama called the video of Neda’s murder “heartbreaking” and said it made clear the violence against the protesters was “fundamentally unjust.”

President Obama then went on to state that, “In 2009, no iron fist is strong enough to shut off the world from bearing witness to the peaceful pursuit of justice.” In this regard Obama was not referring to the mainstream media outlets whose reporters in Iran have been arrested, intimidated, or ordered to leave the country. The President was instead referring to those brave Iranian citizens who were continuing to video with their cell phone cameras the brutal crackdown by Iranian police on peaceful protestors, Twitter the location of upcoming rallies and get their videos and comments posted onto the worldwide web through a variety of proxy sites.

The brave efforts of these democratic protestors are all the more impressive given the increasingly desperate measures the Iranian government is enacting to try and prevent the world from seeing these images. Thus the sudden importance of Twitter – which cancelled a scheduled shut down of its site for routine maintenance in response to an urgent request from the U.S State Department.

Technology, once the feared ally of despotic communist and fascist regimes, has now advanced to the point where it is now the ally of democratic citizenry the world over. Whether it is four RCMP officers Tasering a man to death in a Vancouver airport or a young women shot to death by police in the streets of Tehran, the age old police policy of lie and deny is no longer working because people around the world will be watching, tweeting and posting.

Mike Geoghegan is a government relations consultant who can be reached via his website at www.bclobbyist.com or on twitter at bclobbyist.

This story has also been posted at Vancouverite and on the Western Standard's Shotgun blog.

If you don't want your politicians to act like sheep stop condemning them for being human

2009-06-12T16:43:00.000-07:00

I am old school enough to still subscribe to my local daily newspaper. Sure much of the news in it I have already picked up on twitter or by reading various blogs, but it still provides me with a good overview of the day’s (or yesterday’s) events and sometimes the layout itself reveals the dichotomies within our society.

For instance on June 11th I could not help but notice the juxtaposition of an editorial cartoon showing cabinet ministers being turned into sheep above that of a thoroughly unreasonable article calling for federal minister Lisa Raitt's resignation.

For those of you who may have missed the latest Ottawa tempest in a teapot Ms. Raitt had the exceedingly bad luck to have a young staffer who was prone to leaving briefing papers and tape recordings of her minister where the media could find them. Worse yet, this same staffer also inadvertently taped a private conversation issue where Minister Raitt was discussing the shortage of medical isotopes as being a politically “sexy” issue.

Of course once this conversation was released by the media, it took only moments for a great wail of indignation and outrage to be vented over Raitt’s brazenly human remarks by the media, opposition politicians and anyone and everyone who has ever had cancer.

Such was the hysteria that Raitt’s remarks were even presented as meaning somehow the Minister thought cancer was sexy. This is of course a gross distortion of the truth. A politically sexy issue (for those of you who did not take politics 101) is of course something that is politically salient and that the media is paying attention to. Thus the challenge and opportunity of solving a real problem that had national media attention was what Ms. Raitt found sexy.

I personally found that refreshing as the inclination of an increasing number of politicians is to run away from real problem or try and delegate them to someone else. Raitt even took to task in a relatively mild manner in this same private conversation a colleague who was pursuing exactly that strategy.

As a former BC political chief of staff, I am appalled at the sheer incompetence of Ms. Raitt’s former political staff person. She has been fired and justly so. As a former staffer I can tell you that cabinet ministers can and do vent in private their frustrations about other people and situations just like every other human being I have ever met. And just like every other human being politicians also say very concerned and caring things about other people in private as well.

What I found most troubling of all was that when Raitt received her public flogging, with the notable and commendable exception of Christie Blatchford in the Globe and Mail, not one other member of the media bothered to note the fact that Raitt's own brother died of cancer when he was only 37. Such is the heights of ignorance and hypocrisy our national sense of outrage towards any and all politicians has become.

The bottom line is this if we do not allow our politicians to be human, then they will have no choice but to act like sheep. They will be mild mannered sheep that will never cause offense while real leaders with their all too human foibles will either stay hidden in the backrooms or more likely far far away from politics all together.

Mike Geoghegan is a government relations consultant who can be reached via his website at www.bclobbyist.com or on twitter at bclobbyist.

Please note that this blog has also been posted at Vancouverite and on the Western Standard's Shotgun blog.

An ambitious politician? The horror!

2009-06-12T08:50:00.000-07:00

An ambitious politician? The horror!

Shared via AddThis

By John Robson, The Ottawa Citizen June 12, 2009

Oh, here's a sexy story. A cabinet minister was caught privately calling a difficult problem "sexy" and an opportunity for career advancement. We journalists would never do that.

Get caught, I mean. We certainly have blunt private conversations about our colleagues' failings and the way certain tragic events make for great copy. And we could not do our work at all if every editorial discussion made it into print.

People in public life are equally unable to function without space for frank private conversation. Especially about the things they must be most smoothly hypocritical about in public.

Would it not be terrifying if politicians' private talk presented the same appalling mix of fake outrage and smothering vacuity as their public utterances?

Defending embattled Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt in question period, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said "This minister has been working around the clock to make sure we get a greater supply of isotopes. That's what this minister is doing, that's what this government is doing, not playing cheap politics." But we do not think members of cabinet work around the clock and never sleep, nor do we want them to. Surely the PM doesn't either.

Even if politicians often are as vacant as their more polished utterances suggest, it is no excuse for the rest of us to turn into bellowing buffoons just because a politician has been detected smelling opportunity in a crisis. There are far worse ways to advance a public career than solving problems; watch question period and you'll see what I mean.

It took a ridiculous comedy of errors for Ms. Raitt's infamous remarks to become public.

But honestly, if she does solve the medical isotope crisis, wouldn't you be willing to promote her even if you knew that's why she'd done it?

Just as you'd pay a mechanic to fix your car even if you knew he'd done it for the money.

In perhaps his most famous passage, Adam Smith said: "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages."

And the same is true of politicians, if we are smart.

Some people honestly think politics is less grubby than private enterprise. Stephen Leacock satirized one utopian socialist for depicting office-holders as "sagacious and paternal ... free from the interest of self and the play of the baser passions" who "work ... as work the angels". But, Leacock snapped, "let me ask in the name of sanity where are such officials to be found?"

Not, clearly, in our Parliament.

In a classic piece of standardized outrage over the Raitt affair, Michael Ignatieff snarled, "The cheapest politics here is to call a crisis a career opportunity." As if he did not treat every Conservative misdeed, real or imagined, as both a massive crisis and a stepping stone toward 24 Sussex. I certainly hope he and his inner circle are aware of what they are doing, and honest about it in private. Cluelessness is not a desirable quality in a politician. Or in a citizen.

In the name of sanity, then, let us take James Madison's advice, in Federalist #51, that to secure liberty and check the appetite of the authorities for power, "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition."

Ambition is part of human nature, especially among those drawn to public life. As Madison also said, "If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary."

Politicians might have us believe they are so exceptionally public-spirited and virtuous that we may dispense with checks and balances in our political arrangements. But to borrow another phrase from Adam Smith, those who make such claims are by no means such fools as those who believe them.

It is the beginning of wisdom in public affairs to reward politicians who solve problems and punish those who do not. That way we harness their mighty ambition to our well-being, instead of prompting it to work for our undoing.

In this case, I grant, Ms. Raitt's instinct for advancement seems to have come unhitched from any functioning instinct for self-preservation. But that's just one more thing I hope, and trust, her colleagues are discussing privately in salty language.

Politicians alert to career opportunities!

Partisans exploit crises!

Ministers backbite!

It's as sexy as rutabaga. So stop the presses .... and don't start them again until we get a grip on human nature, political ambition and the fundamentals of political economy.

John Robson's column appears weekly.

© Copyright (c) The Ottawa Citizen

Close results prove that in BC politics every vote counts!

2009-05-26T11:55:00.000-07:00

At a time of steadily declining voter participation where now even the most innocuous comments by politicians and their staff gets vilified by reporters, (public eye online) is it any wonder that the majority of British Columbians are now completely disengaged from the political process?

But as fewer and fewer people vote , those that do are finding their vote counts more than ever. Just take the recent election here in British Columbia. Not one but two results have been overturned by careful recounts by Elections BC. And it is even more significant that the margins of victory were very, very small indeed.

The most high profile result is that Independent Vicki Huntington has defeated Liberal and BC’s current Attorney General by 32 votes. On election night he was leading by only three votes. The matter could very well go to a judicial recount but it looks like for now that Vicki Huntington is the first Independent to be elected an MLA here in BC since the 1940s.

As I referenced in my previous column, (Check here) Huntington’s election is a clear demonstration that voters want MLAs who are able to represent the concerns of their constituents rather than just that of the Premier’s Office. Most interesting of all, for me at least, is the fact that both the Green and even most of the NDP vote collapsed in Delta South and went over to Huntington. This shows me that many Green and NDP voters are not actually that enamoured with either party but are looking for something that allows them to voice their concerns to Victoria.

In the recounts there was also a bit of good news for Premier Gordon Campbell. In its official recount Elections BC stated that BC Liberal Donna Barnett had defeated incumbent BC NDP MLA Charlie Wyse in Cariboo-Chilcotin by 88 votes. Wyse had just squeeked in the previous election and had led on election night. He has now graciously conceded defeat to Barnett who will now be joining her Liberal colleagues for a swearing in ceremony on June 8th.

Even in cases where elections weren’t overturned there were many ridings where candidates won or lost by only about 500 votes. Here in Victoria, where I live, Liberal cabinet ministers Murray Coell (Saanich North) and Ida Chong (Oak Bay Gordon Head) hung with only about 500 votes. I had met with Ida Chong during the election campaign and she was extremely worried that supporters in her constituency were taking her re-election for granted. It turns out she was right.

I think the close results were both a bit of a shock and a wakeup call to Murray Coell. He is no longer the MLA of a safe riding but a swing riding and thus will have to put considerably more efforts into securing the support of his constituents if he wants to be re-elected in 2013.

On the other hand was the result in Saanich South where former television and radio personality Robin Adair came within 500 votes of taking Saanich South for the Liberals. It was a tough loss for Mr. Adair but he did reduce the NDP’s margin of victory in half from the previous provincial election.

Both on a provincial basis and on a constituency basis the challenge is clear to somehow reengage the voters. To do that MLAs have to be allowed to do their jobs. For that to be accomplished the Premier’s Office is going to have to relinquish some power and control. The media is also going to have to stop reporting on minutiae and politicians themselves and are going to have to learn to say enough is enough when it comes to the petty condemnation that comes with every minor indiscretion and miscue.

This column has also been posted on Vancouverite and the Western Standard's Shotgun blog.

Mike Geoghegan is a government relations consultant who can be reached via his website at www.bclobbyist.com or on twitter at bclobbyist

Seinfeld election hands threepeat to Campbell

2009-05-15T11:13:00.000-07:00

It was in the end a Seinfeld election, an election about nothing. The campaign started off with some high profile environmentalists slagging the NDP for its promise to end the carbon tax and ended with a plea from Campbell to re-elect his government to help see BC through the worst global economic calamity since the Great Depression.

Along the way we had Ray Lam resigning as an NDP candidate because of a few inappropriate pictures on Facebook and John van Dongen resigning as Solicitor General because of too many speeding tickets. But in the end less than half of British Columbians could be bothered to vote in an election where they felt the choice was between cream of wheat and porridge.

The fact is that democracy is slowly dying in BC - from terminal boredom. Thanks to the internet and various social media any politician who has ever said or done anything inappropriate or perhaps even interesting is finding themselves weeded out of the political process either before or during a provincial election campaign.

Well known 24 Hours columnist and blogger Bill Tieleman has suggested that voting be made mandatory in BC. As someone who has voted in every election I strongly object to that idea. If you give people bland campaigns and politicians that aren’t allowed to say or do anything interesting then why should we be surprised when more than half the electorate doesn’t bother to vote?

The people who aren’t voting are sending a very strong message to the politicians; the problem is they aren’t listening. The public want MLAs who are actually allowed to do the job of representing their constituents

In Delta South Attorney General Wally Oppal is only at present two votes ahead of Independent candidate Vicki Huntington. In that riding both the NDP and Green vote collapsed, not because Huntington is left wing but because the people that generally vote for these left wing protest parties saw a chance to send someone to Victoria who would actually represent their interests rather than the interests of the Premier or the leader of the Official Opposition.

We need to revitalize parliamentary democracy in Canada and get more power back to the hands of voters and MLAs. First of all every party leader should have to face a recorded vote of confidence once a year from their caucus. That would make the Premier and the Leader of the Opposition far more mindful of the concerns of their fellow MLAs.

Secondly all cabinet appointments should be approved by caucus. Thus if a cabinet minister runs roughshod over backbench MLAs they may find themselves vetoed out of cabinet the next time a cabinet shuffle goes up for approval.

Independent votes should be made the norm not the exception. Imagine a Premier and cabinet that actually had to make sure the legislation they were proposing had the support of a majority of MLAs in the legislature rather than it just being a foregone conclusion. Also the parliamentary rules need to be changed so that unless it is the final vote on the provincial budget or a specific non confidence motion a defeat would not result in the government having to call an election.

Private members bills which are at present token statements of intent should be referred to legislative council that can rework them into proper legislation and time set aside for votes on these bills when they are brought back to the legislature. This might in turn lead to more bi-partisan support of legislation.

All of the aforementioned would greatly increase the functionality of the legislature and once again enable MLAs to do a much better job of representing their constituents and the collective interests of our province.

One thing the Premier could also do is pass legislating stating that whenever a vacancy occurs in the Federal Senate that a province wide election will be held to fill that position. I am sure that is a move that Prime Minister Stephen Harper would support and once firmly established as a precedent would eventually result in other provinces following suit and us actually having a democratically elected Senate in Canada.

Finally we need to make it much easier for referenda to happen here in BC. According to a recent Vancouver Sun poll 65% of British Columbians support the decriminalization of marijuana. So let’s have a vote on it. I am sure there are many other issues people might also want to see put forward in a province wide referendum.

The fact is that unless or until we flow some democratic power out of the Premier’s Office and back into cabinet, our MLAs and ultimately ourselves as citizens, voter turnout will continue to decline and deservedly so.

Mike Geoghegan is a government relations consultant who can be reached via his website at www.bclobbyist.com or on twitter at bclobbyist

Bill Tieleman is a columnist and blogger for 24 Hours. Read it HERE Also here is a linkback to this column by Tieleman located here.

This story has also been posted on Vancouverite and at the Western Standard's Shotgun Blog.

What the hell is STV and is it contagious?

2009-05-05T17:55:00.000-07:00

The STV or single transferrable vote is an issue that British Columbians will be asked to vote to approve or reject on May 12th. It is an issue that has received relatively little coverage in an election campaign that seems to have garnered little interest from voters. But STV holds the potential to radically alter the way in which we elect our politicians here in British Columbia.

In order to pass it needs 60% of voters to approve it. Current polls suggest that the public is evenly divided on the issue. Instead of the present first past the post system where we have 85 ridings each electing one MLA, STV would instead have only 20 ridings each electing 5 to 7 MLAs.

Obviously in rural areas these ridings would be huge and would include about 350,000 people each. Instead of voting for your favourite candidate, you would have the option to vote for up to seven candidates you like much like you do when you vote in a municipal election. As is the case in a municipal election you do not have to vote for all seven positions. You can instead plump your ballot by only voting for one or two or three candidates the choice is yours.

The theory is that by having this municipal style voting at the provincial level it would result in more representative government. It would certainly help the Green Party which routinely gets around 12% of the vote but has yet to ever elect an MLA.
Under STV it is likely that instead of being shut out, the Greens would finally get some MLAs elected. That is why people who support the Green Party of BC have been speaking out in favour of STV. STV also has other more conservative supporters such as former Socred MLA Nick Loenen.

These supporters, I presume, believe that under STV it would allow Liberals to run as Liberals and Conservatives as Conservatives without causing a vote split that would allow the NDP to win as would be the case under our present first past the post system.

But STV has its critics, most notably Bill Tielman of the BC NDP who feels that STV would make politicians even less accountable to the voters and even more beholding to their political party. He notes that Malta which has an STV system has not elected an independent politician since the 1950s or a third party candidate since the 1960s.

Ireland, which also uses the STV system, seems to be an example of where party discipline takes precedence over all other matters. However is our first past the post system that much different?

Perhaps the most troubling fact about STV is the complicated system used to figure out who has actually won an election. According to the Citizen’s Assembly which recommended adoption of this system, “The BC-STV system recommended by the Citizen’s Assembly uses the Weighted Inclusive Gregory method under which all votes are counted and assigned to other candidates still in the count according to the voters’ preferences, but the ballots are given separate transfer values depending on their origin (that is, whether they are first preferences, or transfers from one or more other candidates).”

With both the BC Liberals and BC NDP opposing this change it is my prediction that STV will fall short of the 60% required to be approved in this election.

However this is such a sleeper election that who knows what could happen. On May 13th we may have woken up to Carole James as the Premier and STV being the way we are going to elect BC politicians for at least the next three elections. That is why it is best you to take the time to inform yourself and vote on May 12th.

Please note that this story has also been posted on The Western Standard's Shotgun Blog as well as in Vancouverite.

Mike Geoghegan is a government relations consultant who can be reached via his website at www.bclobbyist.com or on twitter at bclobbyist

Candidates struggle to connect with voters

2009-04-27T19:48:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday May 12 BC voters go to the polls at a time when we are facing the worst economic calamity in 70 years and politicians are struggling to find voters who care. What is up with British Columbia’s political state of ennui?

In the old days politicians would try and connect with voters by holding big rallies and attending all candidate forums. Now they post candidate pages on facebook, send innocuous messages on twitter, wave signs at you as your drive on the highway and knock on your door and hope that you are home and interested enough to spend a minute or two chatting with them.

The question that worries all of them is will you actually go out to vote on May 12th? Recently I had the opportunity to attend a dinner where Small Business Minister Ida Chong was the guest speaker. Even in her relatively safe riding of Oak Bay Gordon Head she is worried that not enough of her supporters will come out to vote on May 12th.

I had a chance to speak at length with Ida and she told me, “This is not an election we can take for granted, I am door knocking every day and when constituents tell me I have their support, I let them know what I really need is their vote because that is what counts on election day.”

Another candidate for the BC Liberals is Robin Adair who is hoping to win back the riding of Saanich South. Adair is a familiar face to many people having served for years as a news anchor, radio host and more recently as Chair of the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce.

In addition to door knocking at least several times a week Adair and his campaign team our out on the pedestrian overpasses waving signs at the commuters as they drive to work. Adair is also on Twitter and sends out messages such as “Did u know? BC housing budget this year is $469 M – the highest level ever & four times more than under the last full year of the NDP.”

John Horgan, the NDP MLA for Malahat Juan de Fuca, is in a tough race with former Colwood Mayor Jody Twa of the BC LIberals. At a breakfast event I attended on the weekend, he took pains to portray himself as a political moderate, a message that was received with some relief by the construction industry contractors he was talking to.

Horgan, if he is re-elected, will no doubt be a serious contender for the position of leader of the BC NDP. But to get re-elected he like many other candidates is out burning up the shoe leather knocking door to door, hoping that you are home and encouraging you to actually go out on vote on May 12th.

This election is going to be a nail biter for all candidates. Technology has not only affected the way we interact with politicians, it has even affected the reliability of political polls. If polling companies are only phoning landline numbers, what about the increasing number of people who only have cell phones?

Thus at the end of the day this election will not be determined by who people intended to vote for, but those who actually took the time on May 12th to get to a polling station and actually vote. There are lots of politicians who have lost by only a handful of votes who were told after the election by supporters, “I meant to go vote for you but I thought you were going to win anyways so I didn’t bother.”

The bottom line lesson here is, if you expect someone else to do your voting for you don’t be surprised if the results turn out differently than the way you wanted them to.

This blog has also been posted at vancouverite.com and on the Western Standard's Shotgun blog

Mike Geoghegan is a government relations consultant who can be reached via his website at www.bclobbyist.com or on twitter at bclobbyist

It’s decision time in British Columbia!

2009-04-26T17:14:00.000-07:00

On May 12th voters will have elected a new government in British Columbia. Who it will be is anyone’s guess as at least one poll suggests the BC NDP are only three percentage points behind the BC Liberals.

It was with this fact in mind that on April 25th at its annual conference the Mechanical Contractors Association of BC invited a representative from each of these political parties to speak to delegates. The first was John Horgan, MLA for Malahat Juan de Fuca, the riding which encompasses the location of this year’s conference which was held at the Westin at Bear Mountain near Victoria, BC.

First elected in 2005, John Horgan also worked as a political staffer in both the Mike Harcourt and Glen Clark NDP governments of the 1990s. Thus he brings far more [political experience to the table than his one term as an MLA would initially suggest. John spoke to delegates at the breakfast and focused on training issues and the critical role of public infrastructure spending to help the construction industry through the current global economic recession.

At our President’s Dinner held later that evening, was the Hon. Ida Chong, Minister of Small Business, Technology and Economic Development. Ida was first elected as an MLA back in 1996. Thus she knows what it is like to have been an opposition MLA, a backbencher and to be a front line cabinet minister.

Ida is also seeking re-election as the MLA for Oak Bay Gordon Head. This has traditionally been one of the few safe ridings for the BC Liberals in the Greater Victoria area. But when she meets people on the door steps she has made a point of telling supporters that she needs not only their encouragement but their vote as the election has become far too volatile for anyone to assume their (re)election is a given.

In speaking to delegates at the President’s Dinner, Ida spoke about the fact her father had been a boilermaker, who had helped build a number of BC Ferries and the pride she felt when her father showed her some of the work he had done when she was a little girl. She also spoke about the need to make sure the bidding process on all public infrastructure projects is fair and open.

Both the BC Liberals recognize we are facing the most serious global economic recession since the Great Depression. Both recognize the importance of public infrastructure projects to help stimulate the general economy and keep trades people and contractors working.

These are not just trying economic times, but demographically challenging ones as well. Many skilled trades people and contractors are reaching the age where they wish to retire. At the same time there are many apprentices who have been or face the threat of layoffs as a result of the global recession. It is vitally important that those apprentices and the companies who employ them are able to keep working.

If these apprentices are simply let go en masse, many will never return and when the next economic recovery happens (as it surely will) the construction industry will be in even more of a fix to try and find qualified trades people than we were during the last construction boom.

That is why now, more so than ever, construction industry organizations like MCABC are going to be critical to the success of our member companies. Through our collective lobbying efforts we can ensure that the public procurement process is done in a timely open and fair manner and that programs such as the Apprenticeship Training Tax Credit and other initiatives which MCABC has successfully lobbied for continue to be there and are built upon in order to ensure that we have the companies, the contractors and the skilled trades people here in BC to meet the next upturn in the economy.

Mike Geoghegan is a government relations consultant who lives in Victoria, B.C. He can be reached via his website at www.mgcltd.ca or on Twitter under “bclobbyist”

If Ray Lam had read my blog three months ago he wouldn't be in this mess today

2009-04-20T16:12:00.000-07:00

As most people know by now the BC NDP candidate for Vancouver-False Creek Ray Lam has quit the provincial election race after he foolishly posted a picture on his Facebook page showing his hand on a female friend's breast while he grins at the camera. Another picture is even more risque - showing a man and a woman grabbing at his underwear and taking a peek inside.

Lam has not only resigned as a candidate for the BC NDP but now many are calling for him to resign his position as planning commissioner for the City of Vancouver.

If Lam had read my article The Crotch Shot Hypothesis and the Politics of Hypocrisy, which I posted back on Janaury 7th of this year, he wouldn't be in this mess today.

In that prescient column I wrote the following:

"The paradox of the Internet is that with various social networking sites and Wikipedia it is a great way to keep in touch with distant friends and to quickly gather information. The problem is that none of this information ever goes away. Thus any ill thought out statement or embarrassing photo that is posted to the internet will always be there.

A colleague of mine has come up with a hypothesis. She gives it a much ruder title but for her sake and yours, I will refer to it as “the crotch shot hypothesis.” Her hypothesis is that by the year 2040 everyone in the world under the age of 65 will have an incriminating photo of themselves posted somewhere on the internet.

That brings us to an interesting democratic dilemma. In a democracy we elect people that represent us. They are not saints but people with the same foibles, miscues and embarrassing moments as the rest of us. Having worked as a political consultant for the better part of twenty years I can certainly tell you that candidates at both the provincial and federal level face a much higher level of scrutiny than they did when I first started out.

As we have seen here in Canada, this trend towards bland colourless politicians is creating increased public disenchantment with politics and declining voter turnout. The real problem is not just the Internet but our own hypocrisy as voters. Perhaps in the future when everyone has dirt on everyone else then politics will lose its all too tiresome hypocritical and moralistic tone."

Evidently we are not there yet. Lam acknowledged that the pictures he posted had been a distraction to his campaign and an embarrassment to his leader Carole James, and presumably at least a few of his friends.

So the lesson here is folks do not run for political office without first deleting all tawdry photos and inappropriate comments from the internet. And voters get used to seeing an ever more bland, uncontroversial and uninspiring breed of political candidate to vote for in the future. That is unless or until we get over our collective hypocrisy.

Please note this story is also posted at Vancouverite.com under the catchy title "Don't run for office in your underwear"

For more on this story click here.

It’s election time in British Columbia!

2009-04-14T11:59:00.000-07:00

As I write this the provincial election campaign has commenced with the BC Liberals enjoying a 17 point lead over the BC NDP. The economy has emerged as the number one campaign issue as well it should.

Over the last six months 357,000 jobs have been lost in Canada and over 80% of those losing their jobs were men. This is because the job cuts have generally happened in traditionally male-dominated industries such as trades, including construction, transport, manufacturing and natural resources.

The losses in the construction sector are especially troubling. This is a time when we desperately need young people to enter the workforce and become skilled tradespersons to replace a graying workforce that is nearing retirement age. Instead thanks to the financial market meltdown in the US that triggered a worldwide recession, we are instead seeing apprentices being laid off and contractors scrambling to find work to bid on.

There is a timely solution and that is public infrastructure spending. But for that to work federal, provincial and local government agencies are going to have to do a much better job of coordinating their efforts and flowing those dollars. It also needs to be done in a much more timely and consistent manner.

Prior to the provincial election being called, I met with Housing Minister Rich Coleman at his office at the BC Legislature. One of the issues I raised was the lack of a clear, consistent and transparent bidding process for public infrastructure projects. Minister Coleman told me that his government (if re-elected) will be taking to steps to centralize and make consistent the bidding process.

Regardless of who wins the next election, this is something that the Mechanical Contractors Association of BC (MCABC) must be involved in. It is in everyone’s interests, you as a contractor, and your neighbor as a taxpayer, to ensure that the bidding process is open to all qualified contractors. There have been troubling incidents with some school boards directly awarding contracts with no public bidding process and there even being an incident where the project manager for a public project was also having the general contractor do some renovation work on his house.

In this particular instance a complaint was filed that resulted in a lengthy and expensive audit by KPMG on the project. Investigating after the fact simply isn’t good enough. The bidding process needs to be fair and consistent up front in order to avoid these sorts of shenanigans.

In Victoria there has been much talk about the Capital Region’s aging infrastructure, everything from Victoria’s 80 year old blue bridge that needs to be replaced to Saanich’s rotted out storm water pipes. The CRD’s $2 billion sewage project is also under increasing fire as being too expensive while financing of the project has also become of increasing concern.

Because of all the aforementioned issues, MCABC has invited two incumbent candidates to come speak on April 25th to the MCABC Annual Conference and AGM which is being held at the Westin Bear Mountain Resort near Victoria, BC. Ida Chong who is the Minister of Small Business and Economic Development, and seeking re-election in the riding of Oak Bay-Gordon Head will be our featured dinner speaker. Meanwhile opposition MLA, John Horgan, who is seeking re-election as the MLA for Malahat Juan de Fuca, will be our featured breakfast speaker on April 25th.

Both of these candidates have years of experience in government. Ida Chong was first elected an MLA in 1996, and prior to that she served as a councilor for the Municipality of Saanich. John Horgan was first elected as an MLA in 2005 but in the 1990s served as a Ministerial Assistant and then a senior political advisor throughout the NDP’s two terms of government in the 1990s.

This is your opportunity to not only listen to them speak, but ask question as well. As we are in the midst of an election I think it is very timely for you to bring forward your concerns as well as your suggestions to these candidates. If Ida Chong and the BC Liberals are re-elected then she will almost certainly remain in cabinet. If the BC NDP are elected then John Horgan will likely be appointed to a senior cabinet position.

Thus by attending the 2009 conference in Victoria and by making a point of going to the breakfast and the dinner on April 25th you have an opportunity to directly dialogue with these politicians and have your voice heard. I look forward to seeing you there!

Mike Geoghegan is a government relations consultant who lives in Victoria, B.C. He can be reached via his website at www.mgcltd.ca or on Twitter under “bclobbyist”

Libertarianism in a nutshell

2009-04-07T18:33:00.000-07:00

by Karen Selick

Libertarianism in a nutshell
National Post
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Page: A15
Section: Issues & Ideas
Byline: Karen Selick
Source: National Post

Perhaps the best way to explain libertarianism is to show you the graph developed in 1969 by an American named David Nolan. Nolan observed that the traditional political spectrum of "left versus right" is spectacularly unilluminating. There are simply too many nuances in political ideology to map the differences on a single dimension.

So Nolan said, "Let's add a second dimension -- a vertical axis perpendicular to the traditional left-right spectrum." His political map looked like an L-shaped graph.

On the horizontal axis, we plot economic freedom. The more economic liberty you support, the further along this axis you are. If you believe in capitalism (minimal taxes and unregulated markets), you are out at the right. The more government control you support, the closer to the origin you are. So if you believe in socialism (high taxes, the welfare state and extensive regulation of the marketplace), you are all the way to the left.

On the vertical axis, we plot "social" freedoms. The more social liberty you support, the further up you are. So if you believe (for instance) that we should legalize gun ownership, marijuana ownership, raw milk, surrogate pregnancy, prostitution, pornography, gambling, polygamy and so on, you are up at the top. The more government control you support, the further down you are. If you believe that the government should criminalize all those things, you are down at the bottom.

Libertarianism is the political philosophy occupying the top right-hand corner of the graph. We believe in maximizing individual freedom in both the economic and the social spheres. We believe in minimizing state interference in both spheres.

Down at the origin is totalitarianism or "statism" -- the belief that the state should control virtually everything. Conservatives tend to cluster in the lower right-hand quadrant, although there are so many variants of conservatism that you can't really generalize.

Now, I want to stress that libertarianism is strictly a political philosophy. Philosophy has five main branches: metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics and politics. Politics is the branch that deals with the relationship between the individual and the state. Libertarianism is a political philosophy only. It's not a package deal. It says nothing whatsoever about any of the other branches of philosophy. So, for instance, there are some libertarians who are atheists, and others who are religious. The two groups have radically different views on metaphysics and epistemology, but they agree on politics. They agree on what the state should or shouldn't do to its citizens and for its citizens.

I feel compelled to address the erroneous notion that conservatives often have that libertarians are also libertines. A moment ago, I said that as a libertarian, I would legalize drugs, prostitution and so on. But in my own personal life, I neither engage in nor advocate that others engage in such activities. In fact, I personally behave pretty much like a social conservative. But I don't do it because that's what the state decrees. I do it because of the branch of philosophy called ethics. According to my ethics, self-destructive activities are evil, and people shouldn't engage in them. But that's entirely different from saying, "The state should outlaw them."

The libertarian view is that the state exists to protect individuals from harm inflicted on them by others, but not from harm that they inflict upon themselves. The sole justification for the state is to prevent the use of physical force or fraud by one person or group against another. It does not exist to protect people from their own self-inflicted, voluntarily chosen idiocy.

In fact, I would argue that when the state assumes the role of moral guardian over the social sphere, we get the same unintended consequences as when the state intervenes in the economy. In an economic welfare state, people become lazy and incapable of providing for themselves financially. In a "moral welfare state," they become morally lazy and incapable of determining for themselves what actions are virtuous, or even why they should behave virtuously in the first place.

That's libertarianism in a nutshell.

kas@karenselick.com

Kudos to Nanaimo

2009-03-20T14:09:00.000-07:00

You know it's not every day I get the red carpet rolled out for me. But that is what happened when a couple of days ago I was invited by Bruce Williams of CTV to meet with some of the people who have done so much to improve Nanaimo's downtown area over the last six years.

I was treated to a delicious lunch at one of the recently refurbished eating establishments in the downtown core. Present at the lunch was Bruce, myself, economic development officer Marilyn Hutchinson, media relations Chelsea Barr, Matt Hussmann managing director of Downtown Nanaimo and Cathy Dyck of Tourism Nanaimo.

The meal and the company were both fabulous as was the decor which very much reminded me of Yaletown except with more elbow room and much easier parking! We then travelled next door where I met with George Leschuk who owns a gallery and framing shop. It was while touring the gallery that I also had the chance to chat with Mayor John Ruttan who has done so much to help spearhead the revitilisation of downtown Nanaimo.

Then it was off to meet with Denise Tacon, general manager of Nanaimo's Vancouver Island Conference Centre. This building is truly impressive as was Nanaimo's brand new museum which includes many interesting artifacts from Nanaimo's colourful history.

The final treat was being given a box of Nanaimo bars from a local bakery that put to shame the kind they sell on BC Ferries. These things were beyond scrumptious! So on this morning's radio show did I make a point of working in a plug for Nanaimo? You betcha!

Speech to MCABC - Vancouver Island

2009-03-18T19:00:00.000-07:00

Thank you for that kind introduction. I am excited to be here tonight. Why? Because it’s not every day that I get to be in a room full of people who have been charged with helping to save the world.

If you think I’m kidding I’m not.

Not just our local, and not just our provincial and federal governments, but governments around the world have latched onto infrastructure spending as a key way to help drive our global economy out of this recession.

As an economist, I think they’re right. Infrastructure spending is a much needed solution to our economic crises. In fact at present, infrastructure spending will probably do more than even tax cuts would to bring about economic recovery.

That is because for decades now, infrastructure spending has not kept pace with demand, nor even the ravages of time. In Canada alone our infrastructure deficit is estimated to be on the order of $150 billion dollars.

Thanks to the current economic crises, over the next decade many tens of billions of tax dollars will be doled out on new and accelerated public infrastructure spending. In terms of specifics, the federal government will boost infrastructure spending by close to $12 billion over the next two years. More specifically, the federal budget shows new spending of $6.2 billion in fiscal year 2009-10 and $5.6 billion in 2010-11

If you add in expected new provincial and municipal government funding of nearly $9 billion, the construction industry could benefit from a $21 billion boost in infrastructure projects over the next two years.

New budget initiatives related to infrastructure investments include the following:
• a $4 billion Infrastructure Stimulus Fund over two years to renew public infrastructure
• $500 million for projects in small communities and $500 million for recreational facilities
• $400 million set aside for the Green Infrastructure Fund
• $2 billion for improving infrastructure at universities and colleges
• $515 million over two years for “ready-to-go” First Nations infrastructure projects
• $700 million in federal infrastructure aimed at improving rail services, bridges and highways, refurbishing harbors and improving border crossings

This increase in federal infrastructure spending is expected to be matched by $8.9 billion in provincial contributions, bringing the total stimulus from new infrastructure spending to $20.7 billion over the next two fiscal years.

The challenge for everyone in this room is to ensure that your region and your business gets its fair share of that money and to lobby for even more. Remember there is still an infrastructure deficit in this country of $150 billion.

That means that as individual contractors and as members of the Mechanical Contractors Association of BC, you need to have greatly improved communication with your local, provincial and federal governments.

Not every municipal government is going after the infrastructure money they need. For some it’s because they lack the expertise, for others it’s because they are being politically held hostage to the environmental banana groups – you know the ones that say build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone - BANANA.

But without these infrastructure dollars being spent there will continue to be neighborhoods with leaking septic systems that should be hooked into modern sewer systems. There will still be communities where storm water lines are running into and overloading the sewer lines every time it rains, and there will also be community swimming pools and other public amenities that won’t get built.

When I was a Ministerial Assistant I was the staff facilitator for a cabinet sub-committee that handed out community grants. Was there political favoritism? Of course there was. But we also provided grants to those communities that lobbied the hardest for them.

As an association and as business owners you need to be proactive so that not just road building and bridges get all the media attention and government dollars. That’s why instead of shovel ready projects, MCABC has been promoting the idea of pipe wrench ready projects.

In January of this year CIBC issued a report estimating that over the next 20 years $25 to $30 trillion dollars will be spent worldwide on infrastructure. That’s trillion with a T. As I mentioned previously, it is estimated that Canada needs to spend at least $150 billion on infrastructure just to repair, replace and expand its infrastructure as a result of years of neglect and our growing population.

CIBC predicts that the US will start spending $150 billion per year on infrastructure, China $200 billion per year and Europe $300 billion per year. Governments around the world are in short using tax dollars to buy construction jobs while at the same time doing much needed repairs and upgrades to their public infrastructure.

Most Canadian politicians want your companies to prosper so that you retain, train and hire more workers so that when the next economic boom happens we aren’t caught as shorthanded as we were in the last one.

In dire economic times, governments and the public they serve always get more nationalistic. If tax dollars are being spent the public wants it to create jobs for Canadians not for foreign workers. Even if the local worker is being paid more, people figure the money they earn is going to stay here in Canada and benefit small business owners and the community as a whole.

Besides, as some general contractors have found out to their chagrin, once you start advocating the outsourcing of workers, government is just as willing, often through a P3 process, to outsource the general contracting to foreign companies as well.
As we all know when sewer and water lines get replaced and expanded, when roads get upgraded and new bridges built, that in turn often enables private sector growth and expansion to take place.

Infrastructure spending also means money is being spent on local goods and local labor and these projects are often highly visible which can also give a positive psychological as well as economic boost to a community.

Bridges, highways, water treatment facilities and sewer systems are all past their prime in most provinces. Also, as you are aware, there is always a time lag before spending can get underway. Allocation of funds, project specifications, and bidding on projects all take time.

That is why now is the time to be contacting your local government to make sure they have submitted a list of their most pressing infrastructure needs. If they haven’t then they won’t get funding and you will have fewer contracts to bid on.

Ten years ago I was hired by the Vancouver Island Economic Developers Association to do a report. One of the more interesting things I learned is that it can cost as much to ship goods from Vancouver Island to the mainland as it costs to ship goods from China to Canada.

Thus in terms of manufacturing it is at present virtually impossible for Vancouver Island to compete, so that means we will increasingly tend to have a service orientated economy. But we can’t all be baristas at Starbucks or bureaucrats in Victoria. Yes there are still some forestry jobs left on the Island, but in terms of well paying jobs, the construction sector is one of the few areas that offer an opportunity for people to earn a decent living up Island.

By way of illustration I also wanted to talk about another sector I have done some consulting work for and that is the energy sector. In fact I was one of the guest speakers some years ago at the first ever annual general meeting of the Independent Power Producers Association of BC.

As far as I am concerned you can’t get much cleaner and greener power that these so called run of the river projects. But they have met with a vociferous amount of opposition from the BANANA – build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone – crowd that I mentioned before.

A lack of electrical power is something that we as Vancouver Island residents need to be much more concerned about. I suspect that the problem won’t get addressed until we have rolling brownouts, but the fact is that electrical demand is far outstripping supply and as the Lower Mainland continues to develop they won’t have much power to spare either.

So we need to be more energy self reliant here on Vancouver Island. We need some of these Independent Power Projects to proceed. But there is a tendency amongst engineers to let the merit of their design speak for itself, which is all too often a recipe for failure when it comes to dealing with the public and government.

Anyone who saw that miniseries they did some years ago with Dan Ackroyd on the Avro Arrow Project saw that, despite designing and building the most advanced fighter jet in the world, a plane that was decades ahead of its time, the company had not done its homework in terms of lobbying the incoming Conservative government. Thus the project was cancelled.

That isn’t the first time that a good project was scrapped because of poor government relations. These IPP firms are in many instances not doing enough in the way of government and media relations work and the result is that government is essentially shrugging their shoulders and saying if you won’t fight for your projects why should we?

I can give you another example, some years ago the Westbank First Nation formed a partnership with the company that built the bridge over to Prince Edward Island. They had come up with a $200 million design for a new bridge linking Westbank with Kelowna.

It was a great design, and included a realignment of the highway as well. There was only one problem the provincial government had its own design and predicted it would only cost $100 million.

At Westbank’s request I phoned the President of the private sector company they were working with. I could not get him to understand what the problem was. All he kept saying was, “yes but our bridge is a really good design.”

So I tried to dumb it down as much as possible by saying that he had designed a Cadillac and the government had designed and budgeted for a Chevy. No one is saying the Cadillac isn’t better than the Chevy, we all agree on that. But the Chevy will still get them from A to B. The challenge was to try and convince the government as to why they need to spend twice as much money to upgrade from the Chevy to the Cadillac.

His only response was “but we’ve designed a really good bridge.” At which point I ended the conversation and then phoned the Westbank First Nation and told them their project was dead.

Sure enough the Government of BC proceeded with their in house $100 million bridge design which at the end of the day still ended up costing taxpayers $170 million and the President of that company in Calgary has a nice set of blueprints for a really good bridge that will now never be built.

If there is one message that I want you to remember from my speech today it is those companies and those industry associations that are the most proactive in their dealings with government that will reap the lion’s share of public infrastructure spending.

When world financial markets do stabilize, and I am predicting that is something that may take years rather than months, those companies that have done well in terms of public infrastructure spending will also have the skilled workforce in place to compete on the next wave of private sector construction that will then follow.
So if I was to reduce my message down to a bumper sticker it would be proactively prosper or reactively perish.

That also means making sure the industry associations that you belong to are doing what they can to fully engage with both government and the public.

So with that I conclude my remarks, and I welcome any questions any of you may have.

Excusing the men who ran away

2009-03-11T12:26:00.001-07:00

Bravo to Mark Steyn for having the courage in his MacLean's column excusing the men who ran away to point out the fact that our public education system has since the 1970s been churning out ever more passive students, especially amongst males.

As Mark Steyn points out in his column about the Montreal Massacre which saw 14 women gunned down, no one thought to act alone or in concert against the crazed gunman. In our schools today our children are taught not to stand up to bullies but to simply be passive and report the matter to the teacher or principal.

I have taught both my son and daughter that they not only have the right but the responsibility to stand up to bullies. The result is that they have no problems with being bullied and other children in their school have learned from their example much to the horror and disgust of the teaching establishment who peddle the mantra of be passive, be a victim, then report the incident to those in authority.

That mantra greatly helped Mark Lepine to slaughter those 14 women, it kept both the men and women docile instead of attacking him en masse. If instead those students had been taught by our public school system to defend themselves many of those 14 women would still be alive today.

Media changes coming!

2009-03-04T22:26:00.001-08:00

The recession has hit home. Due to the newspaper's declining ad revenue my column with the Thompson Okanagan edition of the Business Examiner has been put on hiatus. I will however still be making comments both on this blog and in other locations such as The Economist and various other publications that are now online.

There has also been some big changes in the Victoria area television and radio media. The result is that Capital Gang as of March 6, 2009 has now shifted to Fridays at 9:00 am from its original slot of Thursdays at 8:20 am.

For a transcript of one of my Capital Gang appearances click here. For an audio example of another Capital Gang show we did click here. To catch an example of me on video click here.

There will also be some changes coming in terms of updating and linking my website this blog, facebook, linkedin, twitter and other social media, so stay tuned!

CFAX Capital Gang transcript

2009-02-05T13:06:00.000-08:00

Every Thursday morning at 8:20 am I am on CFAX Radio (as of March 6, 2009 it has now shifted to Fridays at 9:00 am) here in beautiful Victoria, BC Canada on a political commentary show called Capital Gang. Here is a transcript of the show similar to the one the politicians at the Legislature in Victoria receive:

David Schreck and Mike Geoghegan join Joe Easingwood – CFAX – The Capital Gang – 8:23 AM February 5, 2009

Topics include:
o B.C.’s stimulus package
o Pay cuts for B.C. politicians
o Port Mann Bridge
o Opportune time for infrastructure building
o Federal and U.S. stimulus packages
o Municipal infrastructure projects
o Cost of Port Mann Bridge project
o U.S. protectionism
o B.C.'s criminal justice system
o Wally Oppal as Attorney General
o Salaries paid to B.C. politicians

Joe Easingwood: David, you came out swinging on your piece yesterday. In fact it’s been so popular, it’s been copied elsewhere. I’ll let you talk about that in a moment.

To lead off, it says: “Premier Campbell will have you believe that he is taking a bold step to stimulate the economy, accelerating $2 billion in capital spending over the next three years. Keep in mind that B.C.’s GDP is $200 billion. So over three years $2 billion represents .3 per cent of GDP.”

I’ll let you pick it up from there.

David Schreck: The stimulus package that Gordon Campbell announced this week amounts to one third of 1 per cent of GDP. Anybody who’s read the newspaper lately knows that internationally the call is for 2 per cent of GDP to be the stimulus.

Easingwood: Yeah.

Schreck: Now, we will have some federal stimulus on top of that.

But it’s just important to keep in mind that while $2 billion is certainly a lot of money, we have none of the details of what that is going to be spent on. Those will come out probably about once a day as campaign announcements. I think this has much more to do with an election than it does with stimulating the economy.

Easingwood: Right. Yeah.

Schreck: But at the same time that the Premier said that, he said us poor cabinet ministers will have to suffer a 10-per cent pay cut because we are going to run a deficit and that’s what the law requires.

Some columnists — one of my favourites is Mike Smyth; I always read Mike. Mike bought the Premier’s line hook, line, and sinker, and repeated the 10-per cent claim.

Easingwood: Yeah, it was on the front page.

Schreck: That’s right. And the truth is that the pay cut applies to the ministerial bonuses not to the base pay of $100,000. So a cabinet minister makes $100,000 base pay plus a 50-per cent bonus for being a cabinet minister. The claw-back if they run a deficit is 10 per cent of the bonus. So it’s not 10 per cent off pay; it’s 3.5 per cent off pay.

Oh, and by the way, the cabinet ministers got a 29-per cent pay increase in April of 2007. The Premier…. Well, the Premier gets a slightly bigger hit because his bonus is 90 per cent of base pay. So he gets a hit of about just under 5 per cent. But he got a 54-per cent pay increase in 2007.

So I’ll tell you what, Joe: would you be willing to take a 5 per cent pay cut if we gave you a 54-per cent pay increase first? I don’t understand why these….
And Mike Smyth, to his credit — he didn’t credit me, but he did at least repeat the line. The headline on his column in today’s Vancouver Province is: “oops, that pay cut is anything like the Premier claimed.”

Easingwood: No, of course not. Why should we expect anything else from that…?

Geoghegan: Well, first of all…

Schreck: You just can’t believe what these guys say.

Easingwood: I know.

Geoghegan: First of all in terms of spending announcements, we’ve had a number of specifics. For example, just yesterday the Premier announced there was going to be a ten-lane Port Mann Bridge constructed. You know, this is a very smart strategy. I mean, it’s fortuitous in terms of the election timing; let’s not kid ourselves. But it’s also very fortuitous because the time you want government to be spending money on infrastructure, it’s during an economic downturn because first of all you’re helping to ensure that those construction jobs continue.

That’s vitally important in this province, Joe, because we’re in the middle of trying to train more people to come into the construction industry. So by governments stepping up to the plate with these infrastructure projects, we’re ensuring that those people stay hired, continue to train, so when the next boom comes along, we’re not sitting there with not enough trained construction workers.

The other point is that the taxpayers get more bang for their buck because when you’re constructing infrastructure in a bubble market, contractors — they’re already full. They’ll through out a number that’s really high, thinking, well, I don’t really want that job, and then they say, oh god, we won the bid. Whereas now they’re sharpening their pencils, how can we trim costs, how can we be more competitive. Land costs are starting to come down again.

But, you know, the other thing I want to emphasize, though: this is sort of jumping to the affordable housing issue. Unless or until local government is willing to be less restrictive in terms of land zoning, in terms of land use, etc., we are going to continue to pay sky-high prices for housing, for commercial and industrial properties.

Easingwood: The other thing on the bridge, before we leave that. It’s rather interesting when the Pattullo Bridge was in trouble, part of it burned down, and they got it going again within a week — to build a new one was going to take ten years. This ten-lane bridge he announced yesterday: wow, it’s only going to take four. What kind of jiggery-pokery is that?

Schreck: Four or five years, Joe. It’s 2013 or 2014 that it will open.

Mike is right that we need to construct public sector construction to help stimulate the economy. The question is: are we really going to get it? How much money is going to be spent in 2009?

The point of my article is this is all smoke and mirrors. They’re announcing stuff they had already planned. They are not making significant acceleration, and we’re going to have minimal if any impact on getting us out of this recession because of it.

Easingwood: If you want to join the Capital Gang here, pick up a phone.

We were talking about fiscal things across the country before the break. You might have heard the first item in the newscast at 8:30 this morning: Parliament’s budget watchdog is questioning some of the assumptions and projections contained in last week’s fiscal plan from the Tory government.

As Canadian Press reporter Keith Leslie explained, the government may have been too optimistic in its views on the recession.

Keith Leslie: Parliamentary budget officer Kevin Paige says the recession will be deeper than forecast in the budget, which had assumed the downturn would be milder than the previous two slumps in the early 1980s and 1990s. Paige told the Commons finance committee that the current recession may already be more severe than the previous two. He said Finance Minister Jim Flaherty likely did not factor in enough downside risk in predicting Canada would be out of a recession in four years.

Easingwood: Paige also says the government’s nearly $40-billion stimulus package over two years is actually about 20 per cent smaller at $31.8 billion.

Schreck: Exactly the same thing applies to the U.S. stimulus package, and exactly the same thing applies to the rhetoric coming from Gordon Campbell. The public is being conned. The line here is for governments to try to make it look to their citizens as if they are doing something because we are in trouble and things are going to get a lot worse before they get better.

Tomorrow the unemployment numbers come out, and they are not going to be good. You can bet that B.C. will have lost 5,000 to 10,000 construction jobs alone when we see tomorrow’s numbers.

Governments want to make it look like they’re doing something, but governments really aren’t doing very much. The more cynical governments are saying, well, the economy will turn around on its own anyway; if we just make it look like we’re doing something, then we can take credit when it finally turns.

But I think they’re wrong. I think this recession could last a lot longer than they think, and that stimulus is going to be necessary, and it better be effective. There, we will be betrayed and failed is I don’t think they’re going to do enough soon enough, and that will lengthen the recession.

Geoghegan: It is a real challenge out there, and you’ve heard the expression “shovel-ready projects.” But perhaps the more accurate term is “pipe wrench–ready projects” — you know, storm drain systems, sewer systems. There was an article in the Times Colonist last week about how some of the storm water systems in Saanich date from 100 years ago and were made out of wood and they’ve rotted away. So basically you’ve got these holes in the ground that are just dirt-lined.

Clearly there’s a huge amount of infrastructure that needs to be replaced. There’s a huge amount of infrastructure that needs to be upgraded. There’s, of course, sewage treatment for Victoria, which heretofore they were quite content to try and let 13 municipalities squabble about who’s going to pick up the billions of dollars in costs. Obviously the feds and the province have to step up to the plate. In terms of these infrastructure projects, quite frankly the weakness that these different municipalities have in terms of keeping up in terms of infrastructure reflect the fact that you have all these little Barney Fiefdoms.

You have all these little tiny municipalities governing the population of Burnaby. That’s what greater Victoria is; it’s equivalent to the population of Burnaby. It would be nice if you had the province step in and sort of end the madness and say, hey, we’re going to have three municipal governments instead of 11, 12 or 13.

But we also need to have municipal governments that recognize, as Langford has, that if you say yes to development you can get significant infrastructure improvements, you can do things about affordable housing like telling developers a certain number of projects have to be set aside for actually below-market housing for the working poor and the working middle class, whereas you’ve got all these other municipalities that say no. Oh, we’d like to go to urban density and taller buildings. No. Well, we’d like to expand our industrial operation where we manufacture sheet metal products. No. Well, we’d like to do a housing development for affordable housing. No. It’s just like they say no, no, no, and then they turn around and wonder why they don’t have the tax base to put down sidewalks or repair sewer lines and water lines. It’s because they keep saying no.

Schreck: Well, to get back to the news of the day, Gordon Campbell announced the acceleration of $2 billion in capital spending. Can you identify one single dollar that’s going to be spent on Vancouver Island out of that $2?

Easingwood: You can go over it with a magnifying glass and not find it.

Schreck: That’s right. That’s because it is smoke and mirrors. It’s pre-election stuff. You might want to invest in a company that sells ribbons to be cut, because you’ll see a lot of that, but you won’t see much by way of detail.

Geoghegan: They are trying to roll out some detail. They’ve rolled out detail on the Port Mann Bridge announcement.

The other thing is that in dealing with…

Schreck: [Inaudible].

Geoghegan: David, they’re dealing with two other levels of government. You’ve got the federal government, you’ve got the province and you’ve got the municipalities, and the municipalities, particularly on Vancouver Island, have stepped up to the plate in terms of their wish list.

Schreck: You know the thing about the Port Mann. The Port Mann is just like the convention centre. The convention centre they announced at one price and it came in at twice the price. In the case of the Port Mann, they haven’t gotten one shovel in the ground yet and the cost estimate has already more than doubled. You can bet by the time that thing’s done it’ll probably be closer to $4 of $5 billion, none of which is going to help in terms of the current recession because they’re looking at a 2014 completion date.

Geoghegan: The thing is we have criticism at every turn of the government for what it is doing, but the fact is that it is doing a lot. Even the Olympic cost overruns, I say thank God that we have the Olympics coming. Those are projects, those are construction jobs that are happening right now. The convention centre….

Schreck: You have to criticize these guys because you can’t believe what they say, and you have to hold their feet to the fire.

Geoghegan: First of all, no one predicted…. When China and India’s economies took off, no one predicted that the cost of steel was going to go through the roof. No one predicted that the cost of concrete was going to go through the roof. Now, the one mistake the Campbell government made early in its term was it listened to Phil Hochstein of ICBA and gutted ITAC. But then the government learned its lesson and recreated it in a slightly different form under the Industry Training Authority. So it was exactly the wrong move at the wrong time because they got bad advice from Phil Hochstein.

Schreck: Congratulations, Mike. I’m glad to hear you say that Campbell screwed up on apprenticeship. [Inaudible].

Geoghegan: No, but hang on. Hang on.

Schreck: Three weeks ago Gordon Campbell was saying he would have a balanced budget. He was the last one in the province to believe that myth. He’s finally come clean and said: no, it’s impossible.

Geoghegan: This is why it’s so unfair, because the fact is that they could have had a balanced budget. They were undertaking cost-cutting exercises, and then they realized, look, we’re going to start cutting…we’re really going to start impacting programs on health care and education and social services. And like every other government since I’ve lived in Victoria, and I’ve lived here since 1985, every year every government, be it Socred, NDP or Liberal, has increased funding for health care. They’ve increased funding for education. They’ve never had cuts, right? And the fact is that they were saying, look, we’re facing…we could face real cuts at a time where our population is aging, etc. We don’t want to do that. So what we’re going to do is recognizing that the severity of this recession is much deeper than anyone would have predicted six months ago. We’re going to run a deficit. That is a good thing. That is a responsible thing.

Schreck: It’s good that Gordon Campbell came late to the party, even though he was the last one in the province to come.

Geoghegan: That’s right.

Easingwood: Kicking and screaming.

[Caller mentions President Obama, caps on CEO salaries, other U.S. government issues, Jack Layton and federal NDP policy].

Geoghegan: I just want to bring up this point. You know, Jack Layton is strangely silent on that issue, and I think that's because federally the NDP have been advocating protectionist measures for Canada, which is absolute economic suicide. I mean, the fastest way to turn a worldwide recession into another Great Depression is for everybody to start throwing up trade barriers. So, you know, this instinct to, like, "Oh, hey, we'll help out our local guys by throwing up trade barriers…." They don't realize that, you know, that's how the Great Depression occurred.

Caller Ron: Gordon Campbell gives new meaning to the term "shovel-ready projects." God, I've got my shovel out every time I hear him. I mean, these massive overruns, for example. Mike says, you know, they're good…. Half a billion for the convention centre, half a billion or more for security costs. They couldn't even calculate that when the last Winter Olympics cost three-quarters of a billion American dollars. At least a third of billion dollars for the Sea to Sky Highway and the Canada line. They couldn’t calculate the Vancouver Olympic Village overrun. I mean, these are massive overruns by people who claim to be good managers.

What about our criminal justice system? If you're poor, you can't get access to the system. If you're knowledgeable about the Campbell government dealings with the B.C. Rail sale, you'll be in court for at least six to seven years. They're ethically challenged.

Schreck: Wally Oppal is sitting on a report on the failure of our courts to give adequate sentences to criminals, and he's refusing to release it to the public.

Geoghegan: You know, I want to get into the issue of our criminal justice system anyway, and our criminal justice system has failed. You know, when you see these reports, "Oh, people are losing confidence in our justice system…." People have lost confidence in our justice system, because we have a justice system that…. You know, justice delayed is justice denied. It's right there in the Charter, actually.

Schreck: And Wally Oppal's an apologist for it, and he's not coming clean with the public.

Easingwood: No, he sure isn't.

Geoghegan: You know, the thing is…. We have police where they seem unwilling or unable to take on the gang-bangers, people who are busy killing each other in the streets, both in here Victoria and in Vancouver.

Schreck: And they don't care if they shoot an innocent passer-by while they're doing it.

Geoghegan: There was one idea thrown out there. Well, you know, gangsters are now wearing Kevlar. Maybe we should ban people's ability to wear Kevlar. Oh, that's just brilliant, because…. I don't know, Joe, but neither of us are wearing Kevlar. Again, it's like, well, if we prohibit it, somehow that'll make the problem go away. Like in metro Vancouver they got rid of all the gun ranges — right? Gee, that really worked well in terms of reducing the shootings. Oh, wait, they went up!

Schreck: What's disgusting about all these shootings…. I don't think most people care if the gangsters shoot each other. It's just they don't shoot innocent people in the process. The fact is, they might shoot innocent people.

But in most cases these people are out on parole. It's a revolving door with the courts. They've been up on gun offences before, yet they're caught with guns again. Wally Oppal is sitting on a report saying what's wrong with the courts in B.C. that allow this, and Wally Oppal refuses to share that with the public.

Easingwood: Why was Wally Oppal a pretty darned good judge but he's turned out to be a lousy AG?

Schreck: A good question, Joe. Maybe you can get him on and ask him if he's going to release that report before the election, or is he going to continue to apologize for the courts that he was part of all the way through May 12?

Geoghegan: I think the problem is that Wally Oppal, when he became Attorney General, was still acting like Wally Oppal the judge, and that's always been the problem. He was an excellent judge but didn't realize he was taking on a fundamentally different role as Attorney General.

Easingwood: I like the guy, but you know, it's like talking to two different people now that he's got this job.

Geoghegan: Well, and the other thing is that, you know, we keep seeing these stories in the media. I mean, I don't know how representative it is, but in any event, you know, there was an incident, I believe it was in a local jail, where a guy was drunk, handcuffed and the officer…. Oh, the guy grabbed his fingertips, so the officer felt he was being assaulted, so he had to do a controlled takedown. So the cop trips him, his head smashes into the concrete floor, permanently brain damaged. This is a guy…. He was a university student. He was a father. Now he's permanently disabled. And you're going: don't the cops have better things to do with their time? Maybe take on some of these gangsters — right? I mean, if you want to be a tough guy, prove you're a tough guy take on the gangsters. Don't be slamming drunk citizens' heads into concrete walls or Tasering them at the airport.

[Federal issues discussed].

Caller Gary: Campbell has just got to get his head out of his butt. I mean, take a 5 percent pay cut or a 3 percent pay cut. Roll back their salaries before that huge gut-wrenching feeding from the trough with the public’s money.

Easingwood: He’s doing that great job he does so well. He’s playing the fool with the people.

Schreck: They should go back to where they were in [inaudible]….

Geoghegan: No. I totally disagree with that. First of all, I was one of the people when they had a review of MLAs’ salaries, who strongly advocated there being a significant increase in MLAs’ salaries, which benefited both opposition and government MLAs, and both opposition and government MLAs got that.

It’s worth remembering that when Dave Barrett way back in the 1970s became Premier, he jacked salaries up significantly because under W.A.C. Bennett they’d…basically Wacky Bennett considered being an MLA a part-time job, which by the 1970s it certainly was not; it was more than a full-time job. Anyway, the point is he jacked his salary up so high, as well as that of MLAs and cabinet ministers, he was at one point being paid more as the Premier of B.C. than the President of the United States was. He was the highest-paid politician in North America.

Easingwood: Barrett doubled his salary.

Caller Gary: He was also one of the hardest-working. But how many times in a sitting does Campbell leave his little Vancouver fortress? He has grown the Premier’s office in Vancouver from about eight to 35 or 40.

Easingwood: Oh God, yes.

Geoghegan: Well, there’s been a tremendous centralization of power in terms of communication staff and others in the Premier’s office, but that’s a trend that’s been continuing under…that happened under the NDP under Glen Clark….

Easingwood: Under Bill Bennett.

Geoghegan: That’s a trend that continues, the reason being…and it happens with all political parties and it happens in other provinces and it happens in Ottawa, and that is because we nit-pick politicians. So what we are in effect doing as the media, as citizens who nit-pick politicians is we’re driving political power out of the hands of politicians and driving it into the hands of civil servants and driving it into the hands of political staffers, and the only sort of elected official who nominally has the power is the Premier. In fact, his new inner circle whereas years ago it would have been cabinet ministers and MLAs is now political staffers and key bureaucrats.

Easingwood: All his buddies.

Let’s get the final word here from David.

Schreck: I disagree with Mike. But wherever you stand on this pay issue, the point is that Gordon Campbell was trying to score cheap political points on it, and he was making misleading statements doing so. He may say, oh, he said what was accurate and you just didn’t understand. One way or the other Campbell is trying to play games, taking political credit, claiming he is taking a pay cut when it’s peanuts, and he’s laughing all the way to the bank with a 54 percent pay increase he gave himself in 2007.

Easingwood: There we leave it, gentlemen.

The Crotch Shot Hypothesis and the Politics of Hypocrisy

2009-01-07T15:22:00.000-08:00

Having somehow avoided the fate of being born a prude I am troubled by reports that the incoming Obama administration intends to subject its employees to a truly demented level of background checks.

Obviously some level of prudence is necessary but the Obama administration isn’t just looking for examples of corruption but such minutia as have you ever had a traffic fine more than $50.00. Let us hope none of Obama’s new team take a vacation here in BC where going a mere ten kilometers above the posted speed limit will cost them not only hundreds of dollars but apparently their job back in Washington as well.

Most interesting of all applicants must provide a history of their activities on the Internet, including copies of any emails which might embarrass President elect Obama, links to social networking pages, blogs, and the usernames under which any of them were written.

Employers are also getting in on the act, sacking anyone who is caught saying or doing anything that may be deemed embarrassing to the company. Couple that with the universal presence of cell phone cameras and it doesn’t take long before Cathy’s decision to have a few drinks one evening with friends, despite her having a bit of stomach flu, results in a “hilarious” picture of her puking being posted on facebook by one of her friends. This in turn leads to Mrs. Harrison calling Cathy into her office the next day at work and informing her that her services are no longer required.

The paradox of the Internet is that with various social networking sites and Wikipedia it is a great way to keep in touch with distant friends and to quickly gather information. The problem is that none of this information ever goes away. Thus any ill thought out statement or embarrassing photo that is posted to the internet will always be there.

A colleague of mine has come up with a hypothesis. She gives it a much ruder title but for her sake and yours, I will refer to it as “the crotch shot hypothesis.” Her hypothesis is that by the year 2040 everyone in the world under the age of 65 will have an incriminating photo of themselves posted somewhere on the internet.

That brings us to an interesting democratic dilemma. In a democracy we elect people that represent us. They are not saints but people with the same foibles, miscues and embarrassing moments as the rest of us. Having worked as a political consultant for the better part of twenty years I can certainly tell you that candidates at both the provincial and federal level face a much higher level of scrutiny than they did when I first started out.

As we have seen here in Canada, this trend towards bland colourless politicians is creating increased public disenchantment with politics and declining voter turnout. The real problem is not just the Internet but our own hypocrisy as voters. Perhaps in the future when everyone has dirt on everyone else then politics will lose its all too tiresome hypocritical and moralistic tone.

But in the meantime power will continue to devolve away from our elected officials and towards unelected bureaucrats, political staffers and even freelance political consultants like myself. As an ardent fan of democracy I lament this trend as the day is rapidly approaching where only the blandest people will be deemed fit to hold public office. We will all be much worse off for it.

Mike Geoghegan is a government relations consultant who lives in Victoria, B.C. He can be reached via his website at www.mgcltd.ca

Top Ten Political Blunders of 2008

2008-12-21T16:32:00.000-08:00

The recent political shenanigans in Ottawa caught most Canadians by surprise. Prime Minister Stephen Harper attempted to cripple the opposition parties by cutting off their supply of taxpayer funding and the opposition parties responded by forming a coalition to try and oust Harper from office.

Perhaps the only thing more horrifying to Canadians than the prospect of a coalition government that included the tax happy NDP and separatist Bloc Quebecois was it being led by Stephane Dion, the hapless leader of the Liberals.

After all the dust had settled Dion was dumped as Liberal leader and, as I predicted in a previous column, Michael Ignatieff was ushered in as the new leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.

These events signal some of the top political blunders of 2008. The following is a list in no particular order of what I consider to be the top ten political blunders of 2008:

1. The Lib/NDP/BQ/Green attempt to unseat the Harper minority government and install Dion as Prime Minister.

2. The minority Harper government’s attempt to end taxpayer funding of political parties thus giving the Liberals, the NDP, the Bloc Quebecois and even the Greens one issue they had to unite on in order to ensure their continued survival.

3. Bob Rae’s protestations against the Ignatieff’s coronation. Given his one economically disastrous turn as the NDP Premier of Ontario, the Conservatives would have had a field day with Rae leading the Liberals. Rae finally did step aside but only after most of the Liberal caucus had untied behind Ignatieff.

4. The carbon tax. Canadians can smell a tax grab a mile away. The introduction of a carbon tax here in BC has left Premier Gordon Campbell suddenly struggling to stay ahead of the BC NDP. Dion chose to make a federal carbon tax one of his main election planks thus ensuring one of the worst electoral results ever for the federal Liberals.

5. Robert Mugabe. Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe for nearly three decades and has presided over the most dramatic economic collapse of any non-communist country since World War Two. With its current cholera epidemic, Zimbabwe is a nightmare of post-colonial mismanagement and corruption.

6. Sarah Palin. Good looks notwithstanding, Palin brought to the role of Vice-Presidential Republican candidate not only a thin resume but a profound lack of intellectual curiosity and knowledge about the world thus reminding voters of why they could no longer trust the Republicans to govern.

7. Joe the Plumber. His name isn’t Joe, he isn’t a plumber, and in his last tax return he made about $42,000 working as a general labourer. But that didn’t stop Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher from grabbing his 15 minutes of fame complaining about Barack Obama’s plan to increase taxes on Americans making more than $250,000 per year. With friends like Sarah and Joe it was no wonder Republican Presidential candidate John McCain’s straight talk express went off the rails.

8. Mumbai Bombings. After the bombings Pakistan stepped up its efforts to round up terrorist ring leaders rather than be on the losing side of a war with India.

9. George W. Bush’s Victory Tour. The shoe throwing incident was for many a fitting political end to one of the most incompetent Presidents to ever govern the United States of America.

10. Detroit Automakers. When you are begging for tens of billions of dollars in taxpayers’ money do not fly to Washington in three separate private jets.

Mike Geoghegan is a government relations consultant who lives in Victoria, B.C. He can be reached via his website at www.mgcltd.ca

Change has come to America and not a moment too soon!

2008-11-13T19:05:00.000-08:00

After $10 trillion dollars in debt, a badly botched and unnecessary war in Iraq, a poorly executed and necessary war in Afghanistan, the appalling incompetence in responding to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the gratuitous alienation of nearly every other country on the planet, and an economic collapse not seen since the days of the Great Depression, the reign of the worst President in America’s modern history is finally coming to an end.

When George W. Bush leaves office on January 20th he will do so with the lowest approval rating of any President in history. However it was not just the incompetence of the Bush administration that made it so horrifying it was also its mendacity. No one better epitomised this than Vice-President Dick Cheney.

Cheney was the man who, when charged with selecting George W’s running mate as Vice-President, selected himself - a very American coup. This despite the fact he had serious heart issues (and I am not referring to his profound lack of empathy) that made him unsuitable for serving as V.P.

As V.P. it was Cheney who filtered the information that President Bush received, who fabricated intelligence data and along with others in the Bush Administration ripped up the Geneva Convention by instructing the use of torture in the interrogation of prisoners. They also suspended habeas corpus allowing for the indefinite imprisonment of people without charges being laid or any sort of court trial. Last but not least they made a mockery of America’s cherished civil liberties by passing the thoroughly Orwellian Patriot Act.

Incoming President Barack Hussein Obama certainly has his work cut out for him. Fortunately President elect Obama is not only the first African American elected President, he is also one of the most intelligent men to ever be elected to such a high office. If anyone can get the US out of the economic, political, and military quagmire the Bush administration put it into, President Obama can.

The brilliantly executed Obama Presidential campaign was a triumph on many levels but perhaps nowhere was it more important than in showing that the politics of hope could trump the politics of fear. Change has come to America and not a moment too soon.

The size of Obama’s victory means that if they choose to Democrats can push ahead with ensuring universal health insurance coverage for all of its citizens. The neglected levees, bridges and other crumbling infrastructure in the United States can and must be addressed.

Public spending in these sorts of areas will enable the United States to more quickly recover from the current recession and help avert a slide into full scale economic depression.

Extricating the United States as quickly as possible from Iraq and providing enough of a troop surge in Afghanistan to stabilise that country prior to withdrawing in another few years would enable the residents of both the United States and the Middle East enjoy some sort of return to stability and normalcy by the end of Obama’s first term as President.

Finally, as the economy recovers and the troops come home from the Middle East, the re-imposition of some sort of fiscal responsibility should also allow the United States to begin recovering from its disastrous fiscal crises.

In terms of Canada the best thing Obama can do is resist any impulse by protectionists to increase the trade barriers between our two nations. Lastly he should recognize that he starts his Presidency with a tremendous amount of goodwill from Canadians and most other citizens around the world. It is my expectation that he will not lightly squander it.

Mike Geoghegan is a government relations consultant who lives in Victoria, B.C. He can be reached via his website at www.mgcltd.ca

Liberal leadership changes all too predictable

2008-10-20T13:13:00.000-07:00

As I write this column Liberal Leader Stephane Dion has announced he will step down as soon as the federal party chooses a new one. As I predicted in my last column, the Conservatives won an increased minority.

In fact if not for Newfoundland Premier Danny William’s political jihad against Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and some ill advised Conservative attacks on the cultural community which helped lend new relevancy to the Bloc Quebecois, the Conservatives could have won a majority government.

In any event the Liberals lost and lost badly, making the resignation of Dion all but inevitable. Almost as inevitable is who the next two leaders of the Liberal Party of Canada will be.

The two main contenders will be Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae. Both are extremely intelligent and capable individuals. Bob Rae’s problem is that prior to becoming a Liberal MP he served for one term as the NDP Premier of Ontario and much like when Glen Clark was the NDP Premier of BC, it is not a time fondly remembered by many.
As Ontario (along with Newfoundland) is one of the few strongholds the Liberal Party has left, they are not going to risk alienating moderate voters there by electing Rae as their next federal leader.

Instead they will elect Michael Ignatieff, a descendent of Russian Aristocracy, who was born in Toronto and after becoming a history professor at UBC, was a research fellow at Cambridge, Paris and then Oxford. Then most recently and famously went on to become a Professor of Human Rights Practice at Harvard University.

When Ignatieff is elected head of the Liberals he will certainly be the most academically qualified candidate to ever seek the office of Prime Minister of Canada. That doesn’t guarantee that he will be able to win but he will almost certainly prove to be a more formidable opponent to Prime Minister Harper than Dion was.

The length of Ignatieff’s tenure will depend entirely on how well he does over the next two federal elections. The federal Liberals will likely be willing to give him one electoral mulligan as long as he increases the number of seats they hold. But if he has not been able to secure at least a minority government for the Liberals by his second election then like Dion he will resign.

That will then leave the door open for Justin Trudeau, the son of our most famous Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau, to become leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. In this most recent federal election Justin Trudeau was able to get elected in Papineau, a riding in Quebec.

In addition to a slavish devotion to alternating between Anglophone and Francophone candidates, the Liberal Party of Canada is desperate to scare up some of that Trudeau mystique that captivated our nation for so many years.

Justin is far too green to handle the mantle of leadership in this go around, but after a couple of more elections and who knows perhaps even a stint in cabinet should Ignatieff secure at some point a minority government, then Justin would then be seen as having sufficient experience to be a credible federal candidate.

So far Justin Trudeau has shown that he has more charm than his father and perhaps almost as much charisma. The key challenge for Justin will be demonstrating that he also has his father’s keen intelligence and toughness. If he can then don’t be surprised if 40 years after the first wave of Trudeau mania struck another wave doesn’t start building.

Michael Geoghegan is a government relations consultant based in Victoria, B.C. He can be contacted via his website at www.mgcltd.ca

CFAX Radio

2008-10-16T09:20:00.000-07:00

I am on CFAX Radio in Victoria, BC Canada every Thursday morning at 8:20 am,(as of March 6, 2009 it has now shifted to Fridays at 9:00 am) discussing with David Schreck and host Joe Easingwood all things political.

Domestic Shipbuilding Industry Critical to Canada’s Sovereignty

2008-09-18T10:35:00.000-07:00

By the time many of you read this column the federal election will have happened, and in all likelihood the Harper government will have won either a stronger minority or even a majority government.

In the run up to the federal election, the Conservative government announced a $1.1 billion upgrade of our navy’s frigates. Five of these frigates will be modernized at Washington Marine Group’s Victoria Shipyards.

This is good news for British Columbia and for Washington Marine Group, which has seen potential contracts to build a new generation of BC Ferries go to a German shipyard and contracts for Canadian navy supply ships and coast guard vessels cancelled.

It is worth noting that the unionized workers at Washington Marine Group earn less than their counterparts at shipyards in Europe and there is real concern that without more domestic shipbuilding contracts these skills will be lost

As a sovereign nation it is vitally important that we maintain a domestic shipbuilding industry. As the Arctic sea ice melts it is opening up Canada’s fabled North West passage and with it jurisdictional disputes with countries such as Denmark, Russia and the United States. Thus it would be foolish in the extreme for Canada to be reliant on the European Union, the United States and/or Russia to build the ships that we will require to assert our nation’s sovereignty.

Thus it is vitally important that the 12 ship Canadian Coastguard contract be put back on the table and the work divided up equitably amongst Canada’s remaining west and east coast shipyards. The recently announced construction of a new icebreaker, to be named after former Prime Minister John Diefenbaker, should also be built in Canada.

There is also the issue of the multi-role ships that were meant to replace our navy’s aging supply vessels, be able to transport armed forces equipment personnel and serve as an assault vessel which could be used as an offshore base of operations. Requiring a ship to cover off such a diverse array or roles would be like trying to design an airplane that can simultaneously be a troop transport, a bomber and a fighter. Odds are it’s going to do all three jobs poorly.

Durable naval supply ships are something Canadian shipyards have built in the past and must continue to do so. Similarly vessels capable of transporting Canadian Armed Forces personnel can also be readily constructed by our domestic shipyard workers.

Failure to proceed with this work is not only undermining our nation’s sovereignty, it is also creating a significant human resources problem for Canada’s shipyards. What happens to the apprentices and journeypersons that the Victoria shipyard and unions have been training over the past five years? Without sufficient naval contract work they will likely end up leaving the industry.

Although the frigate refit program will provide $351 million in work to the Washington Marine Group, this work does not begin until 2010. If we are to retain these workers they need construction work now. The other problem is that you cannot build or maintain a first class shipyard only doing refit work.

That is why the proposed construction of 12 new ships for the Canadian Coastguard is so vitally important. As he gets back to work after a hard fought election campaign, Prime Minister Harper needs to make this issue one of his government’s top priorities.

Michael Geoghegan is a government relations consultant based in Victoria, B.C. He can be contacted via his website at www.mgcltd.ca

Carbon tax giving Liberals gas pains

2008-08-29T16:47:00.000-07:00

As I write this column, families are getting ready for the Labor Day long weekend. Worried by falling housing prices and the dramatic increase in fuel costs since last year, many will be staying close to home.

Prime Minister Harper meanwhile is getting ready to hit the road and is gearing up for a fall federal election. Several of my well placed sources in Ottawa tell me that Harper will soon be pulling the plug on his minority government. If correct then it looks like Canadians will be casting their votes on or around October 15th.

Harper’s decision to go to the polls now probably has more to do with Canada’s softening economy than any sort of political momentum. When the economy takes a turn for the worse incumbent governments tend not to do well in the polls. Thus the official opposition federal Liberals would much rather fight an election sometime next year rather than this Fall.

One weakness federal Liberal Leader Stephan Dion has is his commitment to impose a new federal carbon tax on fuel. Here in B.C. we are already paying an extra 2.5 cents per liter for gas as a result of a provincial carbon tax. Given how unpopular that tax has proven to be with consumers, the federal Conservatives have been busy running attack ads against Dion’s proposed new gas tax.

Except for those British Columbians who are lucky enough to live within walking distance to work, a direct bus route, or a Skytrain station, there simply isn’t an alternative to driving their car. It is also a tax that hits the working poor much harder than the well off.

At the provincial level, for the first time in years the BC NDP has moved ahead of the Campbell Liberal government. Much of that unpopularity has been driven by B.C’s new carbon tax. With gas hovering around at $1.50 per liter the decision to impose this new tax in order to give Premier Campbell a greener image has so far backfired disastrously.

Campbell still has time to correct things. The B.C. government, to its credit, is looking at an industrial carbon emission cap and trade scheme which is a much more effective way to deal with industrial pollution. But until a viable alternative shows up (e.g. plug in gas electric hybrids and pure electric cars) then it is simply unfair to add ever more in the way of taxes to an item which is still years away from having a viable consumer alternative.

Also as consumers we already pay a plethora of gas taxes. Some, like paying for transit infrastructure, are justified. Some, like paying for the acquisition of Petrofina by Petro Canada decades ago, are not.

Voters in British Columbia are making it clear they want a fairer tax regime when it comes to fuel. Those politicians that are listening will do well in the polls, those that do not will do poorly.

Thus at both the federal and provincial an opportunity exists for both the Campbell government in Victoria and the Harper government in Ottawa to review and reduce the amount of taxes we pay for fuel.

Even with a modest reduction in federal and provincial taxes we would still likely be paying over $1.25 per liter for gas. But imagine the boost that 25 cents per liter would give to working poor and middle class families that are struggling to make ends meet and the positive effect it would have on our sagging economy, not to mention Premier Campbell and Prime Minister Harper’s re-election chances.

Michael Geoghegan is a government relations consultant based in Victoria, B.C. He can be contacted via his website at www.mgcltd.ca

Two Paths to Prosperity

2008-07-29T15:13:00.000-07:00

Recent headlines have been bemoaning the fact that the BC Treaty Process has spent over a billion dollars with little if any in the way of tangible progress. The sad fact is that the majority of treaties here in Canada have often done little to help and often much to hinder than help the plight of many natives living here in Canada.

Here in the Okanagan Valley there are two first nations that have made remarkable progress over the past two decades. The first is the Osoyoos Indian Band (OIB) which has gone from poverty to prosperity under the inspired leadership of Chief Clarence Louie. The second is the Westbank First Nation (WFN) which has followed a notably different entrepreneurial path to prosperity under a several different Chiefs most notably its current Chief Robert Louie.

The OIB's land base consists of over 32,000 acres of land ranging from rich agricultural land to the only true desert lands in Canada. The Band manages businesses with annual budgets in excess of $l7 million dollars and administers its own health, social, educational and municipal services despite having a band membership of only 450 people.

OIB band members enjoy full employment, affordable housing and a range of services that are the envy of many living in the non-native community. Most of the funding for these services comes not from the federal government but from revenue generated by OIB’s many thriving business operations.

For its success Chief Clarence Louie has been widely and deservedly praised, but the true acid test of his legacy will come once he eventually retires from office. Will these state enterprises continue to prosper under less gifted leadership? Only time will tell.

The Westbank First Nation instead of following a model of band owned businesses has instead been able to encourage private investment from both the native and non-native community. The result has not only been low unemployment but a band membership that includes a significant number of multi-millionaires.

Thus rather than state enterprise the WFN has seen its success come more through individual and corporate enterprise. Another key to Westbank’s success was their ability to achieve self government without being shackled to the current dysfunctional BC Treaty making process. WFN’s self government agreement has allowed them to provide more efficient governance than the non native municipalities that surround them. This has meant that the market rate for leasable commercial land is now higher on reserve than off.

It is also worth noting that many native residential home owners saw the market value of their homes increase tenfold once Westbank’s self government agreement was ratified. The irony was that many of these same home owners had voted against the agreement as the ratification vote on it passed by the narrowest of margins.

Thus by taking two different paths to prosperity the Osoyoos Indian Band and Westbank First Nation have proven that remarkable progress for band members can be made outside of the BC Treaty process. One strong lesson that comes from Westbank’s success is that self-governance should be separated entirely from treaty making in order to give other First Nation’s the decision making tools they need in order to prosper.

The lesson that comes from the Osoyoos Indian Band’s success is that leadership matters. In both instances able and entrepreneurial governance is the key. That is why both Osoyoos and Westbank have prospered while the Penticton Indian Band, which is located between them, has not.

Michael Geoghegan is a government relations consultant based in Victoria, B.C. He can be contacted via his website at www.mgcltd.ca

An Inconvenient Solution

2008-06-21T17:10:00.000-07:00

Here in British Columbia we’re an eco-sensitive bunch of folks. For many years now we’ve had a moratorium on Uranium mining and a generation ago BC Hydro’s Site C dam project was shelved in the face of public opposition. Even relatively eco friendly run of the river micro hydro projects have faced stiff opposition from a plethora of environmental groups.

But the fact is that B.C. has gone from being a net exporter to a net importer of electrical power and that means we are all soon going to be paying a lot more for electricity. Worse still without additional electrical generation capacity our province will eventually face rolling blackouts brownouts which would cause massive economic disruption.

To prevent this BC Hydro has dusted off its plans for Site C and is quietly proceeding ahead. The BC Transmission Corporation is meanwhile investing billions of dollars in significantly upgrading our province’s power transmission infrastructure. BC Hydro is also hoping that with new more energy efficient technology that British Columbians will somehow be able to reduce their electrical energy consumption by a third.

With BC’s steadily increasing population a one third reduction in electrical consumption is extremely optimistic and completely out to lunch if the much heralded era of plug in electric gas hybrid vehicles comes to be. In fact one energy executive told me that if the majority of British Columbians switched to hybrid vehicles that they needed to plug in overnight so they could run on battery power most of the time then BC would need the equivalent of 17 Site C dams to meet the additional electrical demand.

The inconvenient truth that British Columbians are going to have to come to grips with sooner or later is that the only non-fossil fuel burning energy source that can possibly meet our long term energy needs is Nuclear Power. In Europe the about face on Nuclear Power is already happening: British Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently stated, "We need 1,000 more nuclear power plants to lessen our addiction to oil."

Italy which is presently the only G8 country without operating nuclear power plants pays the highest electricity rates in Europe. Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi has stated, "We are going to build more nuclear power stations" and plans on making Nuclear Power the central element of increasing Italy’s energy self-sufficiency.

Canada is also building new Nuclear Power plants. On June 17th the Government of Ontario announced that two new nuclear power stations would be built near Toronto. There has also been on-going talk of building a Nuclear Power station near the Alberta tar sands so as to eliminate the need to burn natural gas in order to generate the steam needed to extract oil.

France, which since the 1970s has derived 90% of its electricity from Nuclear Power, has not had a single accident or fatality. They also pay amongst the lowest electrical rates in Europe. The United States which turned away from Nuclear Power after the incident at Three Mile Island generates 52% of its electrical power by burning coal, the mining of which kills 200 hundred Americans a years while thousands more die of the resulting air pollution.

Here in BC "nuclear" is still a dirty word but the fact is that sooner or later we are going to have to start building them here in BC. We might have to wait until the first rolling blackouts occur, but there is simply not enough in the way of Site Cs, run of the river or even wind projects that can possibly hope to meet our future energy consumption needs.

Mike Geoghegan is an economist and government relations consultant based in Victoria, BC. He can be reached via his website at www.mgcltd.ca

When it comes to influence peddling its cronyism not lobbyists that are the problem

2008-04-02T16:55:00.000-07:00

As you likely have heard by now, Ken Dobell - a special advisor to Premier Campbell - was fined for failing to register as a lobbyist and only narrowly escaped having influence peddling charges filed against him. This scandal having resulted from Ken Dobell taking a contract from the City of Vancouver to lobby the Premier while at the same time he was being paid under contract as a Special Advisor to the Premier.

At the time Mr. Dobell did not see himself as being a lobbyist, a term he still tends to view – as do many others – as a pejorative. But he was double dipping hence his situation where, if not for the kindness of the crown, he could have been tried and in all likelihood convicted of influence peddling.

So how is it that a man of Mr. Dobell’s intelligence and influence could have exercised such shockingly poor judgment? My view is that it was simply a bad habit born from the culture of cronyism that seems at present endemic within the municipal layer of government here in British Columbia.

Unlike the provincial and federal layers of government, there is very little in the way of media scrutiny of municipal governments. Thus some of the old boy hiring practices that were done away within the provincial and federal civil service still happen to a fair extent today.

Thus instead of hiring an independent and unbiased executive search firm some municipalities decide to cheap out by simply placing an ad in various municipal publications. Some such as the Regional District of the Okanagan and Similkameen (RDOS) take the step of hiring a consulting firm which is made up of fully pensioned former municipal executives. The problem with this is that apart from a few ads, such a firm is also going to rely on their own personal network of former colleagues to find candidates.

This sort of craven cronyism creates several problems. First of all there may be a pool of talented candidates that such a consulting firm may be unaware of; secondly there may be a pool of qualified candidates that crossed swords with this consultant when he was a Chief Administrative Officer, thus they know they will be automatically excluded; and, thirdly there may be some questionable candidates who were fired from a previous municipal job who still get put forward due to their personal relationship with the consultant. This situation can create a clear perception of bias, or worse an outright conflict of interest.

Every municipality that fails to hire an independent, professional (i.e. non biased) national executive search firm is likely elevating the chances that the person they do hire may be at best mediocre and possibly may not work out and all at the expense of the taxpayer. Nowadays CAOs are paid well into the six figure range and a two year severance package is now becoming standard.

Some municipal politicians feel that taxpayers would be upset if they knew they were spending tens of thousands of dollars on finding a new CAO. To those politicians I would suggest that taxpayers will be a lot more upset when in order to cheap out at the front end, you hire the wrong person and you end up having to pay that person hundreds of thousands of dollars in severance because you failed to hire an independent and professional unbiased executive search firm.

So rather than pointing the finger at those of us, such as myself, who work as Government Relations Consultants aka lobbyists, as having somehow been the source of the malaise that led to Ken Dobell’s transgressions; the NDP and the Attorney General Wally Oppal should start paying attention to what is happening at the municipal layer of government.

Michael Geoghegan is a consultant with offices in Vancouver and Victoria BC. He can be reached via his website at www.mgcltd.ca

Eco-fascists of the world unite you have nothing to lose but your dignity!

2008-02-10T15:38:00.000-08:00

I have always had a bit of a jaundiced view of David Suzuki. He is without a doubt a man of great intelligence, but there was always something about Suzuki that suggested that no matter how impressed others were of him, he always even more impressed with himself.

I have a university buddy who once wrote a book where he ended up spending quite a bit of time interviewing Suzuki. This colleague, who shall remain nameless, started out quite a fan but over time came to see him as being “an egocentric primadonna.”

Of course this friend had been impolitic enough to mention that his Grandfather had helped set up the internment camps where Canadians of Japanese descent had been imprisoned during the Second World War.

David Suzuki spent his early years in such a camp, so this bon mot of historical trivia probably went over as well as someone mentioning at a bar mitzvah that their grandfather used to be a prison guard at Auschwitz.

These internment camps are a dark and shameful period in Canadian history. Thus it makes Dr. Suzuki’s recent comments about throwing politicians in jail for not doing enough about global warming all the more shocking.

As reported by a University of Toronto student newspaper, Suzuki stated that government leaders who aren’t acting quickly enough to save the environment “should go to jail for what they’re not doing right now … What our government is not doing is a criminal act.”

This bit of eco-fascism was no mere slip of the tongue. A few weeks later at McGill University, Suzuki again equated government inaction on the environment with a criminal act and again was reported to have told students to find a legal way to throw politicians in jail for ignoring climate-change science.

It is worth keeping in mind that Suzuki is a geneticist turned broadcaster and not an expert on climate change. He apparently is no expert on the fundamental tenants of living in a democracy either.

The fact is that many people have passionate views about many things. It can be the environment, religion, politics or who their favorite hockey team is. But when people go from being passionate to fanatical that is when our rights as citizens quickly get trampled underfoot.

And while Dr. Suzuki apparently dreams of setting up prison camps for anyone who doesn’t agree with his views on global warming there are far too many Canadians whose parents or grandparents fought and died for freedom, or who came to Canada as refugees from some oppressive totalitarian hell hole to ever meekly submit to Dr. Suzuki’s dystopian vision.

Moreover in making such fanatical statements, Suzuki has not only undermined his own credibility but all those who are advocating legitimate legislative change to help reduce global warming. Perhaps it is time the good Doctor went back to counting fruit flies at the genetics labs at UBC.

Michael Geoghegan is a consultant with offices in Vancouver and Victoria BC. He can be reached via his website at www.mgcltd.ca

Hang onto your wallets here comes the carbon tax!

2008-01-16T12:37:00.000-08:00

If you are not already wealthy, get ready for your standard of living to noticeably decline. At both the federal and provincial level governments are now readying a plethora of new carbon taxes designed to make your cost of living significantly higher.

Although we can all tut tut about global warming the fact is that we still need to heat our homes and get to and from work. CIBC recently issued a report predicting that due to market forces Canadians will soon be paying $1.50 per litre for gasoline. Anyone who has bought gas in the United States also knows that we already pay far more in taxes on gasoline than our neighbours to the south.

Which is why it makes less than perfect sense that the Government of British Columbia is now looking at slapping an additional 3 cents a litre carbon tax on every litre of gasoline you buy. Of course for those fortunate enough to live and work in downtown Vancouver or near a Skytrain station there are alternatives to driving a car to and from work. For most other British Columbians there is no alternative regardless of whether or not gas is $1.50, $2.00 or even $3.00 a litre.

If you are a single working Mom you don’t have an extra three hours a day to get your kids to and from daycare, get to work and then pick the kids up from school using public transit. You also can’t get you and your two kids in one of those so called smart cars and if you live in Prince George you need a truck or SUV to deal with winter road conditions.

Anyone using oil or natural gas already knows how expensive it is to keep your house warm and be assured it is going to get much more expensive. Now that British Columbia is a net importer of electricity, you can also expect your electricity bill to start significantly increasing as well.

Now that the move is on to use food crops to produce ethanol and bio-diesel the era of cheap food will rapidly come to an end as well. Couple all this with the already stratospheric cost of housing relative to average family incomes and it isn’t hard to foresee a future where the working poor and middle class in this province are going to experience a significant decline in their standard of living.

Service sector employers are already finding it difficult to find people who will take a job for less than $10 an hour. Unless it is a student living at home with their parents, a senior looking for supplemental pension income or a person whose spouse already makes a very good salary, no one can afford to live on such a wage in BC today.

So if people can’t afford to live on $10 an hour wages, what happens when they need $20 an hour just to get by? That is something that will significantly impact not just private sector but public sector employers as well.

Michael Geoghegan is a government relations consultant living in Victoria and Vancouver BC. He can be reached via his website at www.mgcltd.ca

Ah for the exciting days of politicians and envelopes full of cash

2007-12-26T17:31:00.000-08:00

Perhaps it is the fact that I am writing this column on Christmas Day, but I am feeling rather nostalgic when I read about politicians and envelopes stuffed full of money. Former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney recently admitted that “in the biggest mistake of his life” he had accepted three cash payments of $75,000 from German lobbyist Karlheinz Schreiber in 1999.

For those old enough to remember, about ten years earlier there was the infamous incident of former BC Premier Bill Vander Zalm taking a cash payment from a Vancouver real estate agent named Fay Leung that played a significant role in his departure from office.

Both politicians had started off their governing terms winning landslide elections. Both finished their careers by resigning in disgrace and having their governments resoundingly defeated and even the political parties they once led falling by the wayside.

But in the media’s coverage of the Mulroney – Schreiber scandal there is also something of a political nostalgia trip that the Ottawa Press gallery is also going on. It’s as if the political media in Canada are trying to relive the glory days when political scandals graced the front pages of our daily newspapers and editorials thundered and editorial cartoonists skewered those caught up in their political crosshairs.

Now as a society it seems we simply don’t care. We recognize that for the most part politicians have delegated much of their power either to faceless bureaucratsor nameless political staffers leaving not just backbenchers but in many instances cabinet ministers to be regarded and treated as political nobodies.

But even when it comes to scandals involving those at the top, there seems to be little appetite for any form of serious or sustained investigative journalism. The simple fact is that if the Watergate Scandal had happened today instead of three decades ago, Richard Nixon would never have had to resign. Such a scandal nowadays would likely have been considered too complicated and too boring to be followed up on by other than few tenacious bloggers.

If you don’t believe me then consider the fact that a bribery and corruption scandal involving the sale of BC Rail that is still making its way through the courts has now become all but ignored by the mainstream media and nowadays is only being consistently reported on by one or two bloggers.

Even the obnoxious and condescending Christmas letter sent by ICBC to almost half a million drivers received relatively media attention. For those of you that received ICBC’s sanctimonious diatribe, you may take some comfort in the fact that Paul Taylor, whose name appeared at the bottom of the letter, seems to have conducted himself in a highly questionable manner with regards to a couple of lobbyists who, in return for immunity from prosecution, have admitted to bribing various government officials.

But the fact that most of the people caught up in the BC Rail scandal are either people who were lobbyists, political staffers or bureaucrats show how much real decision making power has moved out of the hands of the people we elect and into the hands of people they appoint.

So as our governments and their various ancillary agencies get ever more technocratic and bureaucratic expect far less in the way of stories involving some lobbyist handing some politician an envelope full of cash and expect far more where some faceless bureaucrat is demanding more of your money in the way of fees levies and fines as you go about your daily struggle to simply provide for yourself and your family.

Michael Geoghegan is a government relation’s consultant (lobbyist) who can be reached via his website at www.mgcltd.ca

Killing at Vancouver Airport a wake up call to all Canadians

2007-11-17T14:28:00.000-08:00

The senseless killing of Robert Dzienkanski at Vancouver International Airport is something that has left many Canadians both afraid and ashamed.

Ashamed that bureaucratic indifference and incompetence by Canadian Border Service Agents, Vancouver Airport staff and finally the RCMP led directly to Robert Dzienkanski’s death. Afraid because what happened to him could easily happen to you or me or any one of our friends or loved ones.

The four RCMP officers who tasered Robert Dzienkanski have been assigned other duties. They should be fired. Let’s go through the litany of their mistakes. First of all they ignored several individuals who tried to explain that Mr. Dzienkanski could not speak English, secondly without provocation they tasered him twice and then they piled on top of him putting their weight onto his back and neck. Finally as he died these four RCMP officers did nothing to try and revive Mr. Dzienkanski even though they are all supposed to have CPR training.

Their breath taking incompetence and callousness deserves their termination. However the subsequent actions of the RCMP are also noteworthy, such their extreme reticence to release the video footage of Mr. Dzienkanski’s killing and the fact that this video footage, which was released only after court action was taken, showed none too surprisingly that the RCMP had in their official statements seriously misrepresented what had in fact occurred.

But it would be unfair to blame just the RCMP. There are the Customs Agents who let Mr. Dzienkanski loiter for over six hours near a baggage claim area without anyone trying to find out why. The answer was that his mother Zofia Cisowski had mistakenly told her son to wait at the baggage carousel forgetting that when flying internationally you pick up your baggage in a secure area and then have another layer of agents to go through before you can meet your loved ones.

So there was Robert Dzienkanski’s mother less than a hundred yards away from her son pleading with Customs Officers and presumably Vancouver Airport staff to let her see her son. The unwillingness for anyone to take the ten minutes it would have required to sort this matter out is what ultimately cost Mr. Dzienkanski his life.

The Canada Border Services Agency and the RCMP report to Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day. Minister Day who is also the local MP for many of the readers of this column needs understand how little confidence the public now has in the RCMP and has to take real action to restore our trust.

This must include an immediate independent review regarding the use of tasers and the enactment of much stricter police procedures concerning their use. Tasers were supposed to be used to replace the use of lethal force; they were not supposed to replace routine questioning and restraint of an unarmed individual.

We also need an independent civilian department that investigates the RCMP rather than continuing to allow the RCMP to continue to police itself. There also needs to be a full enquiry into the conduct of CBSA and Vancouver Airport staff in the area that day with an eye to overhauling procedures so that such a tragic incident cannot happen again.

Finally airport staff and customs officers have to be given the discretion to deal with unique situations as they arise. No policy or procedure manual can cover every circumstance and always going by the book without exercising any reasonable judgment or compassion will only lead to more people needlessly being killed.

Michael Geoghegan is a government relations consultant who frequently travels through the Vancouver International Airport. He can be reached via his website at www.mgcltd.ca

Dion Blinks

2007-10-19T12:06:00.000-07:00

"He who fights and runs away will live to fight another day."

Ever since Athenian orator and statesman Demosthenes uttered these words in 338 B.C. after fleeing a battle in which 3,000 other Athenians were killed by the victorious Macedonians, many a modern day politician has held them dear to his heart.

Federal Liberal leader Stephan Dion certainly did when he blinked in what was the face of almost certain personal political annihilation if he had defeated Stephen Harper’s Conservative government over the recent throne speech.

With some polls showing the Conservatives as high as 40 per cent in public support and with the Liberals trailing the Bloc Quebecois, the Conservatives and even the NDP in Quebec, Dion knew that if he had forced an election the net result would likely have been handing Prime Minister Harper a majority government and seeing himself become one of the few federal Liberal leaders in Canadian history to never have the honour of serving as Prime Minister of Canada.

The current Liberal malaise is hardly just Mr. Dion’s fault. His predecessor Paul Martin earned through his indecisiveness the political nickname of “Mr. Dithers.” In selecting safe non-controversial leaders the Liberals have learned that these safe choices also tend to be boring choices.

Worse still Prime Minister Harper rather than imploding, as many Liberals initially expected, has instead grown more comfortable in the job of being Canada’s Prime Minister. Harper is not afraid to make a decision and whether you agree or disagree with the decision at least you know where he stands.

I for one think that whoever is advising Harper with regards to drug policy is either stuck in the 1950s or smoking crack. But his decision to appoint former Liberal cabinet minister John Manley to head up a commission looking into Canada’s mission in Afghanistan was a political masterstroke.

Rather than an election in 2007 as I previously predicted, it now seems certain that the earliest we will see a federal election is in 2008. I expect that both the Liberals and Bloc Quebecois will lose seats, while the Conservatives and to a lesser extent the NDP will gain seats. The outcome will either be a strengthened Conservative minority government, or a Conservative majority government.

In either event that would spell the end of Stephan Dion’s time as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. Waiting in the wings is Michael Ignaeteff, an individual who seems all but certain to replace Dion as leader.

But in having blinked and run away to fight another day, does Dion have a comeback strategy? At present it seems unlikely. Instead it is Prime Minister Harper that is running the table.

Harper is putting forward a number of popular measures such as lowering the GST another percentage point that are sure to win over the support of Canadians who are labouring under a punitive amount of taxes and an ever increasing personal debt load.

At this point what Dion and the Liberals have to avoid is political irrelevance. If they end up advocating a tax, regulate and spend agenda then there is already another political party, the NDP, which is doing that. If they want to focus on environmental issues, well all of the other political parties are doing that too.

In short Mr. Dion and the Liberal Party of Canada have to actually articulate a vision beyond that of “we are the naturally governing party of Canada.” If they do not then it is the Conservative Party of Canada that will end up governing Canada for much of the 21st century.

Mike Geoghegan is a government relations consultant based in Victoria BC. He can be reached via his website at www.mgcltd.ca

A Tale of Two Native Bands

2007-09-09T13:15:00.000-07:00

I first had the opportunity to meet Chief Clarence Louie over a dozen years ago when I was the Ministerial Assistant to former Okanagan Boundary MLA and Cabinet Minister Bill Barlee.

Since that time Chief Louie has become a national icon for economic progress and development on reserve lands. The facilities his community has built are not only the envy of other native communities but non-native ones as well.

I spent the labour day weekend visiting with friends and family in Penticton. While I drove her around town, my 81-year-old mother took great delight in pointing out the bits of old shed that is supposed to be some form of public art in my old hometown.

While Penticton’s art choices have provoked ridicule and vandalism, the Osoyoos Band have gone for metal sculptures by U.S. artist Virgil "Smoker" Marchand that amaze and inspire. Thus both in terms of architecture and public art the Osoyoos Band is head and shoulders above the other non-native communities in the South Okanagan.

But an even more glaring contrast emerges when one compares the progress of the Osoyoos Indian Band with that of the Penticton Indian Band. When Clarence Louie was first elected in 1984, at age 24, the Osoyoos Band was bankrupt with only marginal land and extremely high unemployment.

Two decades later, the Osoyoos Indian Band owns nine businesses, and is the largest employer in the South Okanagan. These businesses employ both native and non-natives and they also inject $40 million per year into the local economy.

Contrast that with the Penticton Indian Band where poverty unemployment and drug related crime are still rampant. As a consultant who has worked for quite a number of First Nations here in British Columbia, I have often said that having federal bureaucrats dictating every aspect of people’s lives worked about as well for natives in Canada as it did for peasants living in the Soviet Union.

But for natives to break free of the capriciousness and inefficiency of Ottawa bureaucrats they need not only greater political independence but greater economic independence as well.

Although he may have seen the light in more recent years, it certainly was not that long ago when Chief Stewart Philip of the Penticton Indian Band espoused a doctrine, which was long on talk of political autonomy but came up very short on the economic side. But self-government that is still entirely reliant on funding from Ottawa means that the bureaucrats in Ottawa are still calling the shots by controlling the purse strings.

The economic progress, or lack thereof that is happening on native reserves is of critical importance to the future of Canada. Canada’s Aboriginal population is growing seven times as fast as the non-native population. Thus the success or failure of native communities will have a steadily increasing economic and social impact on adjoining non-native communities.

Just as the economic success of the Osoyoos Indian Band has had a tremendously positive economic and social impact on the communities of Oliver and Osoyoos, the continued economic malaise of the Penticton Indian Band is having a very negative impact on the City of Penticton.

For the sake of my old home town and native and non-native residents alike, I certainly hope that the Penticton Band will soon be able to start emulating the success of the Osoyoos Indian Band by making economic development a number one priority.

Mike Geoghegan is a government relations and media relations consultant who lives in Victoria BC. He can be reached via his website at www.mgcltd.ca

Dick Cheney was right!

2007-08-15T12:07:00.000-07:00

Government policy threatens to kick sick kids off the bus

2007-07-12T09:12:00.000-07:00

Regardless of their political stripe, most people who have had dealings with Shuswap MLA George Abbott has come away feeling they were dealing with a very sensible low key person who uses humour as a way to make people feel at ease.

Abbott’s self-deprecating sense of humour and low-key approach has earned him the admiration and respect of both cabinet colleagues and his constituents. A feat that is all the more amazing when you consider that for the past two years he has served as BC’s Minister of Health.

There are a few health related charitable organizations that over the years have done very good work, in a low-key way and have also utilized humour to help make both donors and patients feel at ease.

This approach has some people, including myself, talking about George Abbott being a potential future successor to Gordon Campbell as Premier of BC. However there is one organization that has utilized a similar approach that is now languishing due to a lack of profile and awareness by both the public and the politicians over the tremendously important work they do.

I am talking about the Gizeh Shriners of British Columbia & Yukon. You may know them as the folks in the funny fez hats, or the guys who dress as clowns and ride tricycles in parades. What you don’t know is that for nearly 85 years, Shriners Hospitals for Children have provided some of the best medical care in the world, totally free of charge, to more than 835,000 children with orthopaedic conditions, burn injuries of all degrees, spinal cord injuries and cleft lip and palate.

However, for children requiring specialized treatment at medical facilities in the United States or in Vancouver, just getting to the hospitals is often a major challenge. Parents especially single mothers often do not have the money to transport themselves and/or their sick child.

In order to help deal with this growing problem here in BC; the Shriners in 2001 purchased their first Highway Motor Coach. The coach was modified to comfortably transport physically challenged children and their parents to the Shriners Hospital for Children in Portland, Oregon, for treatment.

Due to both the success and increasing need for this service today the Shrine Care Cruiser program, which is one of a kind in North America, has grown to five modern highway coaches that are travel throughout the province of British Columbia.

Most amazing of all is that any BC child and their parents (or care givers), who are receiving treatment at any Shriners Hospitals for Children, BC Children’s’ Hospital, BC Women's Hospital and Sunny Hill Hospital are provided with this transportation free of charge.
This program has helped alleviate the suffering of thousands of BC children and their parents, particularly those that are living in more remote regions of their province. In 2005 alone 3,384 children and parents from BC were transported by the Shriners to various hospitals for treatment.

But these buses in driving the length and breadth of BC need to be replaced on a regular basis. It was for that reason that the Gizeh Shriners of BC & Yukon applied last year for a capital grant to assist them in purchasing new replacement buses.

This is of course where the story takes an unhappy turn. Although the BC government provides $4 million per year in funding to Northern Health to assist them in transporting patients to hospital, the provincial government has refused to give one penny to assist with the Shriners’ Care Cruiser Program. This despite the fact that Northern Health charges a fee to the people it transports while the Shriners’ Care Cruiser program does not.

As any health care professional will tell you, the medical treatment and transportation requirements for grievously sick children is often quite different than that for adults. Children in traumatic times like this need to have those they know as the parents that love and protect them close at hand.

They do not want to be alone with strangers and the mixing of children with adult patients can be extremely psychologically traumatic. Yet because the Shriners’ Care Cruiser Program restricts their service to children only, it is under current BC government policy ineligible for funding assistance.

As much as people in the media love to harp about political interference, we do on many occasions need our elected officials to intervene in these sorts of situations where government regulations inadvertently end up hurting rather than helping those most in need in our society.

Thus for those sake of those children and their often poor and/or single parents living in rural BC, one can only hope that Minister Abbott will intervene before the Shriner buses are forced off the road due to wear and tear and a lack of capital funds to replace them.

For more information on the Care Cruiser Program visit their website at http://www.shriners.bc.ca/news/shrine_bus.shtml

Mike Geoghegan is a consultant, entrepreneur and radio personality based in Victoria BC. You can contact Mike via his website at www.mgcltd.ca check out his columns at http://mgcltd.blogspot.com/ and listen to him debate BC politics Thursdays at 8:20 AM on www.cfax1070.com/

Believe in Reason Over Religion

2007-06-05T10:56:00.000-07:00

"God gave us reason. Man gave us religion. Believe in reason over religion." Inscription I put into a family bible I purchased recently...

BC MLAs deserve pay and pension perks

2007-06-01T11:16:00.000-07:00

They say that the biggest mistake you can make in politics is to tell that truth. By that measure Yale Lillooet MLA Harry Lali has been making a lot of mistakes lately. He is the NDP politician who had the temerity to suggest that BC MLAs should actually take the pay increase and pension plan benefits recommended by an independent commission.

Before we proceed any further I should also point out that many of the recommendations made by the commission were in fact based on a submission I made to them. You can compare the two by clicking here.

I have known Harry Lali for many years now and I have always thought highly of him. Then again I have always liked politicians who have the guts to tell the truth rather than just always playing to the peanut gallery. Speaking of which a lot of peanut shells were fired at the government over suggesting, gasp, that the people elected to run our province might be worth being paid $98,000 per year.

To put that in perspective, try hiring a 22 year old to drive a dump truck full time in Fort St. John. It will cost you about $120,000 a year in wages and benefits. But what of the working poor, the unemployed and the homeless? Newsflash, as difficult as their circumstances are, they are not responsible for running a $100 billion entity known as the Province of British Columbia.

Besides if there ever was a time when our provincial MLAs deserved a pay increase it is now. The economy of BC has never been doing better. In my home town of Victoria we are enjoying the second lowest unemployment rate in Canada, only Calgary has a lower unemplyoment rate.

Yes governments at the local, provincial and federal levels need to do much more to provide affordable housing. Employers also need to get with the times and recognize that if you are offering a starting wage of less than $10.00 an hour don’t expect to have that job position filled any time soon.

As for the MLAs’ so called gold plated pension plan I believe it is comparable to other defined benefit pension plans offered in both the private and public sector here in BC. The irony being is that because of regulatory overkill, the BC government’s own pension solvency rules which only apply to private sector pension plans (public sector pension plans are exempt), has resulted in many pensioners receiving income cuts and is forcing more and more companies to give up on offering pensions and instead offer matching RSP contributions.

So if the government is feeling any contrition at voting itself such a hefty (albeit well deserved) pay increase, they can make up for it by either suspending or eliminating the so called pension solvency rules that are at present doing far more to hurt rather than protect BC pensioners.

As the former President and CEO of the BC Construction Association I can tell you that the construction sector’s multi-employer pension plans are in far better shape than that for BC government employees. So memo to Finance Minister Carole Taylor, suspend or eliminate the pension solvency rules as Alberta and several other jurisdictions have done before any more private sector pensioners face income reductions.

As for MLA Harry Lali keep speaking up for the truth rather than political expediency and kudos to the government MLAs for having the jam to accept the fact that if we want above average people seeking political office we need to pay them above average salaries.

Commission on MLA compensation listens to yours truly

2007-05-07T20:38:00.000-07:00

For any of you who may doubt my ability to affect the course of political events here in BC, take the time to compare the submission I made with the Full report by the Independent Commission to Review MLA Compensation (.pdf) regarding MLA pay and pensions. It is very gratifying indeed to know that they were listening so closely.

For those of you who listen to Capital Gang on CFAX 1070 on Thursday morning you would have heard me also correctly predict last week that Harry Lali would break ranks with NDP leader Carole James on this MLA pay raise issue.

Of course Harry was quickly bullied back into towing the party line, but it is refreshing to see a little bit of honesty surface admist all the hypocrisy.

BC Liberals Soar while NDP founders in Polls

2007-05-01T10:44:00.000-07:00

Ah to be a BC Liberal now that full employment is here. These are heady days for the Campbell government. A poll last month showed that 58 per cent of British Columbians approve of the government’s performance, while NDP approval ratings have fallen to 32 per cent.

If an election were held today the BC Liberals would get 49 per cent of the vote, the BC NDP 32 per cent and the Green Party 15 per cent.

For the most part this support is well deserved. Unemployment in British Columbia is now less than four per cent. In communities like Victoria, where I live, the unemployment rate is the lowest in the country at 3.1 per cent.

Of course not everything is perfect. We have far too many skilled immigrants driving taxis instead of being allowed to work as engineers, doctors and scientists. There are also skilled tradespeople who are under or even unemployed back east who lack the funds to move out west to where the jobs are.

But these problems, and their solutions, are by and large federal rather than provincial. Regulatory agencies need to drop their protectionist mentality and make it much easier for foreign trained doctors, nurses, scientists and engineers to be eligible to work in their profession once they move to Canada.

A small fraction of the billions of dollars in surplus funds Employment Insurance is collecting each year should go to help relocate families with skilled trades from one part of Canada to the other. The federal government would actually make a profit from doing this as these people would go from collecting Employment Insurance to paying taxes.

But again when it comes to the Campbell government here in BC they are doing most things right. Yes the NDP are correct when they say that the minimum wage should be raised to ten dollars an hour. And if polls suggest the majority of British Columbians agree they almost certainly will be. Therein lies the secret of the Campbell government’s success.

During their first term the Campbell government was not so much right wing as reactionary. If the NDP had been for it they were against it. After coming shockingly close to being defeated in the last election, Campbell and his inner circle dropped much of their hubris and started listening to the multitude of political pundits (including myself) who had been telling Campbell both publicly and behind closed doors that the path to electoral lay with the centre of the political spectrum, not the left or the right fringes.

To be fair I had once given the same advice to then Premier Glen Clark. His response was to quote Dave Barrett’s line that he believed “an ounce of loyalty was worth a pound of brains.” That should give you some insight as to why Barrett and Clark ended up being one term wonders as Premiers of British Columbia and why I used to say that Bill Vander Zalm made me (along with most other British Columbians) a supporter of Mike Harcourt and Glen Clark made me a supporter of Gordon Campbell.

But perhaps nothing convinced Premier Campbell of the wisdom of marching towards the centre of the political spectrum than seeing his government go from the largest majority ion BC history to near defeat during the last provincial election. It was a wake up call delivered by the voters and to his credit Campbell listened.

The result has been a much more moderate and popular government that if current polling trends continue will cruise to an increased majority government in the next provincial election.

Mike Geoghegan is a consultant, entrepreneur and radio personality based in Victoria BC. You can contact Mike via his website at www.mgcltd.ca check out his columns at http://mgcltd.blogspot.com/ and listen to him debate BC politics Thursdays at 8:20 AM on www.cfax1070.com/

Move British Columbia's legislative library to a new building

2007-04-29T14:54:00.000-07:00

The pending (temporary) closure of the BC legislative library has created quite a furor in the local media lately here is the quick missive I fired off to the local paper which was published today in the Times-Colonist:

Instead of simply saying no to the proposed closure of the legislative library, I think there is an opportunity here for us to have an eyesore removed from near our cherished legislature.

I am speaking about the hideously ugly "temporary" buildings erected behind the legislature in the 1950s.

The clear win/win is to tear down these 50-year-old temporary tin and clapboard structures and build a new office building that would house a larger and more publicly accessible legislative library while at the same time allow for the required expansion of office space for the politicians and their staff within the legislature.

Michael Geoghegan
Victoria, BC

Another DVD worth watching when it comes to global warming

2007-04-12T22:17:00.000-07:00

I like millions of other people watched the movie An Inconvenient Truth with alarm.

But if you are also an experienced media relations consultant (as I am) you also know that death is the number one attention getter for the media, followed closely by sex. A news editor's dream tag line: "Why going to the supermarket may kill you and turn your teenage daughter into a raging nyphomaniac, we have exclusive footage coming up on Eyewitless news at eleven."

So if you have a sceptical view of the world (as I do) you also owe it to yourself to watch another video; one that has received far much less attention than Al Gore's movie because it raises the troubling possibility that global warming may have very little to do with humans and much more to do with the sun.

Thus to paraphrase William Shakespeare, when it comes to global warming our destiny may be held in our star (the sun) not in ourselves. In any event both DVDs are very thought provoking and both are worth viewing. As the second one has got far less hype you can watch The Great Global Warming Swindle (2007) in its entirety here (click on name).

MLAs deserve a significant pay raise

2007-04-05T16:05:00.000-07:00

Dear Commissioners:

The purpose of this submission is to argue that there should be a significant increase in the salary and pension benefits currently provided to BC MLAs and moreover the salary and benefits should be assigned to corresponding management level pay grids as is currently the case with civil servants and political staff.

In preparing this presentation I was frustrated by the fact that there is no listing on either the BC government or legislative website of the current salaries, benefits and expense allowances for MLAs. Whatever you recommend with respect to MLA pay rates and pensions, I urge you to also recommend that all details of their compensation and benefits be made available on the Legislative website.

From September of 1989 until July of 1996 I worked at the BC Legislature. For most of that time I served as the Ministerial Assistant to Minister Bill Barlee. Unlike MLAs, my salary was not subject to some arbitrary and acrimonious political process but was instead tied to management level pay. At that time it was ML4 so as the pay grid shifted so too did my salary. The pension I received was the standard one for government employees.

It was during this time that I served as a Ministerial Assistant MLA salaries were initially reduced and then frozen and the so called “gold plated” pension plan was repealed - although of course not retroactively. MLA salaries were modestly increased following the adoption of the 1997 Citizen's Panel Report on MLA Compensation.

Now once again we are into yet another review process. However all of the secrecy and acrimony over MLA salaries could be eliminated if salaries were based on the existing management level (ML) pay grid. So for example an MLA could be assigned an ML 6 pay level, cabinet ministers could be assigned ML 11 and the Premier ML 12. The Speaker could also be assigned ML 11 and the Deputy Speaker 80% of ML 11. The beauty of assigning salaries based on the pre-existing ML system is that once these assignments have been made salaries will automatically increase over time as they do for the rest of the civil service including political staffers.

Presently compensation arrangements for all MLAs are handled by the Legislative Assembly Management Committee (LAMC). This committee does its work in camera and Hansard does not record it. Since 1997 the LAMC has had the legislative authority to set salaries for: the Speaker, the Deputy Speaker, the Deputy Chair, Committee of the Whole, the Leader of the Official Opposition, the Government Whip, the Deputy Government Whip, the Opposition House Leader, the Official Opposition Whip, the Government Caucus Chair, the Official Opposition Caucus Chair, and the Chair of Select Standing or Special Committees as well as the corresponding position for any other recognized party in the legislature.

The base pay for MLAs is currently at $76,000, which is only about half of what an MP in Ottawa makes. In fact a backbench MP in Ottawa receives a higher wage than does a cabinet minister here in British Columbia.

Some may argue that $76,000 is significantly higher than what an average British Columbian makes. Well we don’t need average British Columbians seeking office in this province we need the brightest and the best. If you keep political salaries too low you tend to attract two kinds of people. The first are the idle rich, people who made their money the old fashioned way – they inherited it from mommy and daddy – and are now looking to make a name for themselves. The other person is one where being an MLA is the best paying job they are ever going to have in their lives.

I can recall one former MLA who well being a nice enough person had worked as a dishwasher at a hotel. Being an MLA, even with the wage freeze that was on at the time, certainly proved to be the best paying job this individual had ever had.

Low salaries and great responsibility is also a recipe for corruption. If MLAs are well paid and have generous pension plans most will find it easy to resist the siren call of under the table money or post-election pasta consulting contracts.

The other thing we must keep in mind is that unlike most government employees, MLAs do not work Monday to Friday nine to five. They have the work they do at the legislature and the work they do at their constituency. Other than perhaps a week with the family over Christmas or a couple of weeks in the summer they often work seven days a week.

They must also maintain two households, one here in Victoria and another in their constituency. Cabinet Ministers like deputy ministers, have great responsibility. In my view they should be paid a similar wage rate. MLAs also collectively have great responsibility and are asked to exercise themselves in a manner that is beyond reproach.

We certainly expect MLAs to hold themselves up to a far higher standard of decorum than we would ask of ourselves or anyone else. The slightest misstep and they can find themselves demoted or ridiculed in the media and their reputations ruined.

MLAs take a lot of abuse and so too do their families. In fact it is because of the manner in which politics and politicians have become so denigrated that many upon leaving office find it difficult to return to work. There are a lucky few, usually Premiers or Finance Ministers of pro-business governments, who may go on to lucrative careers but they tend to be the exception. Worse still the longer a person stays an elected official the more difficult it is for them to make the transition back to making a living as a private citizen.

It is for this reason that I think MLA Pension Plans and severance packages should be generous. For example I think that if MLAs are defeated (as opposed to simply retiring from politics by not running again) they should receive one months severance for every full year they served as an MLA up to a maximum of two years salary.

I also believe that the pension plan should be based on a scale where if you have served for twenty years as an MLA you receive 100% of your MLA pay as a pension. Thus if you had served only ten years you would only receive 50% of your pay, three years 15% etc.

But the fundamental recommendation I would make is to peg MLA salaries to an ML wage level. Additional responsibilities such as being appointed to cabinet would boost you up to a higher ML level.

Finally I would also recommend that MLAs salaries need to be immediately increased to around the $100,000 per year mark. BC cabinet ministers should also make more than backbench MPs in Ottawa and cabinet ministers should also make a wage that is comparable to the Deputy Ministers that report to them.

Sincerely,

Michael Geoghegan

Time to rein in the horsemen

2007-04-02T14:01:00.000-07:00

Quis Custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will police the police? That question was first posed by Plato almost 24 centuries ago in the Republic which was his work on government and morality. It is still a question we still do not have an effective answer to two and half millenia later.

Here in Canada the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, an institution which goes back 133 years, is once again being tarnished by scandal and misconduct. The last time the Mounties were in this much trouble, back in the 1970s after a bizarre series of barn burnings and illegal break ins, they had their spy license revoked and a new agency CSIS was created.

The allegations of a major scandal involving RCMP pension funds are indicative of a police force that is poorly led, unaccountable and increasingly out of control. If he is to save the RCMP from itself, Canada’s Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day faces a monumental task in trying to rein in its horsemen.

It is not just the public, but members of the force itself who are losing confidence in the RCMP. Recent weeks have seen senior Mounties breaking down and crying when testifying before the federal public accounts committee about the untrustworthiness of the RCMP’s leadership. Retired RCMP sergeant Ron Lewis told the commons committee that in looking into pension-fund irregularities he was "met with inaction, delays, roadblocks, obstruction and lies.” Lewis also alleged that the person who orchestrated the cover-up was none other than former RCMP Commissioner Zaccardelli.

That allegation remains to be proven in a court of law. However what is already known is that under Zaccardelli, the RCMP acted atrociously in the Maher Arar case. Justice Dennis O'Connor concluded that the RCMP mislabeled Arar as an Islamic extremist with terrorist ties and that this led to his deportation from the United States to a Syrian prison cell, where he was tortured. Zaccardelli resigned in early December amidst concerns about his conflicting testimony to a parliamentary committee reviewing the Arar affair.

It is not just in Ottawa but here in BC the RCMP has been increasingly mired in scandal. In January of 2006 former Mountie Gary Stevens resigned from the Kitimat detachment after being charged with sexually assaulting two teenage girls while off duty. He is currently serving an 18-month prison sentence.

That same month former RCMP Constable Nancy Sulz won a $950,000 lawsuit for long-term harassment she was subjected to by her former detachment commander while stationed in Merritt.

Over in Houston many residents are still seething over the fact Crown Prosecutors refused to lay criminal charges regarding the shooting death of 22-year-old Ian Bush by a rookie RCMP constable. Bush had been arrested over a minor incident involving an opened beer can at the local hockey rink.

In October of 2006 a case against a Prince George RCMP officer accused of having sex with underage prostitutes was thrown out by an internal disciplinary tribunal — comprised of three RCMP officers from out of province — because the force failed to bring allegations against the constable in a timely fashion. Constable Justin Harris was one of nine officers in Prince George named in investigative reports alleging links to underage prostitutes.

In testimony before the tribunal, Constable Harris was accused of hitting a teenaged prostitute when she refused to perform oral sex on him because he didn't want to wear a condom. Another teenaged prostitute told an investigating officer Harris was “drunk and aggressive” on the two occasions she had sex with him.

Again in October of 2006 the B.C. Supreme Court was told that RCMP investigators intercepted and taped a cell phone conversation between Premier Gordon Campbell and his then-minister of finance, Gary Collins, during an investigation that included an unprecedented police raid on the British Columbia Legislature in December of 2003.

As a follow up to this matter, in February 2007, a wide-ranging application for disclosure was filed by defence lawyers which alleges that the RCMP were not forthright with a second judge when requesting permission to wiretap government phones and they also failed to tell the second judge that their application to get warrants to wiretap government phones had been denied twice by a previous judge.

In March of 2007 the witness protection program and the case of Agent E8060, a paid RCMP informant was brought to light. The informant, Richard Young, an unemployed man from Victoria was paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by the RCMP for what turned out to be fabricated information. British Columbia Supreme Court Judge Dean Wilson called Young’s evidence a “cruel charade”. Despite the exposure of his lies, Mr. Young was placed in the federal witness protection program and, under his new identity; he was convicted of killing someone.
But because it is a criminal offence under the Witness Protection Program Act to disclose anything about Mr. Young's new identity or whom he killed even the victim's family cannot be told the truth.

The House of Commons is now looking at amending the Witness Protection Program, but what is really needed is a top to bottom house cleaning of the RCMP. There clearly also needs to be the establishment of an independent agency that is completely separate from the RCMP and responsible for investigating any and all allegations of incompetence, misconduct, and/or criminal wrong doing involving the RCMP. It is only by having such an independent agency that some modicum of confidence can be restored in the RCMP.

Mr. Day you have your work cut out for you.

Mike Geoghegan is a government relations consultant based in Victoria BC. He can be reached via his website at www.mgcltd.ca

I'm back on CFAX radio

2007-03-29T10:45:00.000-07:00

Guess whos back, back again Geoghegan’s back, tell a friend....

Listen to political pundits Mike Geoghegan and David Schreck debate BC politics Thursdays at 8:20 AM on CFAX 1070.

For all of you who sent in letters of support over the past three and a half years thank you. Please note that as of March 6, 2009 Capital Gang has now shifted to Fridays at 9:00 am!

Media asleep at the switch on Basi Virk trial

2007-03-12T10:56:00.000-07:00

I have often said that if Watergate were happening today Richard Nixon would have easily got away with it. Why cover some obscure break in at the Watergate Hotel when the media could instead be reporting on why Britney Spears shaved her head?

Fortunately there are still a few reporters out there who are prepared to put in the time, effort and intelligence to really get to the bottom of issues that although they may not be as titillating as the latest Hollywood celebrity meltdown, are actually far more important.

One such reporter is Bill Tielman. For those of you who are more interested in trying to find out why the RCMP raided the BC legislature in December of 2003, than who the father of Anna Nichol Smith's baby was I would encourage you to read Tielman's latest posting at http://thetyee.ca/Views/2007/03/12/Basi-Virk/ or visit his blog at http://billtieleman.blogspot.com/

For those of you who are still fixated on who the father of Anna Nichol Smith's baby is, I will simply state for the record that it wasn't me!

Security versus Liberty

2007-03-07T11:02:00.000-08:00

Security versus liberty. This is a debate that all western societies have wrestled with in the wake of 9/11 and now here in Canada in the run up to a federal election it has emerged as a major “wedge” issue between the minority Conservative government led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and the opposition Liberals led by Stephan Dion. This is ironic given the legislation being debated by Harperwas originally implemented by a Liberal government.

In response to the horrifying terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, the majority Liberal government of Prime Minister Jean Chretein enacted Canada's first anti-terrorism legislation. This legislation defined what terrorism is and made it a punishable offence within Canada's Criminal Code.

Canada’s Security Act (Bills C-36 and C-42), was the subject of heated debate and controversy as Chretein’s government fast-tracked it through the House of Commons and the Liberal-dominated Senate. The Act became part of the Criminal Code on December 18, 2001. The changes to the code are "aimed at disabling and dismantling the activities of terrorists groups and those who support them."

However, in a nod to civil libertarians, the bill contained a five-year sunset clause on some of its more controversial elements and it was the proposal by Harper’s minority government to extend those provisions that provoked a storm of controversy and a split within the federal Liberal caucus in Parliament last month.

Of the two clauses that were at the heart of the debate, one allowed police to arrest suspects without a warrant and detain them for three days without charges if police believe a terrorist act may be committed. The other allowed a judge to compel a witness to testify in secret about past associations or perhaps pending acts under penalty of going to jail if the witness did not comply. It is worth noting that neither clause had been used by police or prosecutors in the five years these provisions had been in place.

When Bills C-36 and C-42 were passed, the legislation had three main objectives: To suppress existing terrorist groups, provide police with new investigative tools, and toughen prison sentences for terrorists. The bills also contained provisions to comply with new UN rules on combating terrorism as well as with similar laws that were being put in place in the U.S. and Britain.

In June 2006, then Conservative justice minister Vic Toews said the government had no plans to toughen Canada’s Security Act after the arrest of 17 suspected terrorists in Toronto last year. However, he said, it may consider changing the law's definition of terrorism, which is called the motive clause.

This clause defines a terrorist act as one committed "for a political, religious or ideological purpose, objective or cause." Toews said there are two problems with that definition: it could lead to profiling of people of a particular religion, Islam especially, and it could be difficult for prosecutors to provide evidence of a suspect's personal beliefs.

On February 27, 2007 a motion to extend two controversial anti-terrorist measures was defeated 159 to 124 in the House of Commons in Ottawa. After the vote, Prime Minister Stephen Harper berated the Liberals for choosing "internal caucus politics over the national security of Canadians."
A dozen Liberal MPs including former Prime Minister Paul Martin and BC MPs Keith Martin (no relation) and Ujjal Dosanjh absented themselves from the vote, while another Liberal MP Tom Wappel even broke ranks and voted with the Conservative minority government.
Since a federal election is expected to happen as soon as this spring, Prime Minister Stephen Harper wasted no time in trying to utilize the outcome of the vote for partisan purposes. "Any party that doesn't take the national security of Canadians seriously will never be chosen by Canadians to form the government of Canada," he said outside the Commons.

But to be fair to Stephan Dion, there has been growing fatigue amongst Canadians with the numerous inconveniences that have gone along with the so called war on terror. Going through airport security is now a major hassle with every passing month seeming to bring ever more tedious restrictions.

Here in Canada we have been fortunate in that our last terrorist attack was over twenty years ago. This was when Sikh militants planted a bomb in a suitcase on Air India flight 182 which blew up on June 22, 1985. The bombing killed 329 people including 82 children. Just as most of the victims of Muslim extremists are Muslims, most of the people killed by Sikh extremists on Air India were also Sikh.

It was another incident, a terrorist attack which failed, which also suggests that perhaps the best defence against terrorism is not giving more power to government but more power to ourselves. In December 2001 British born Muslim Richard Reid was on American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami when he was spotted attempting to light a fuse protruding from his shoe. Passengers and crew immediately attacked and restrained him and Reid was subsequently arrested for attempted murder and was sentencted to life in prison.

Having a Security Act in these troubled times is a prudent thing. But as Louis D. Brandeis once wrote, “the greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”

Thus investing too much power in the state is tantamount to signing away the very freedoms that Canadians fought for and died fighting fascism in Europe and communism in Korea. Those freedoms were signed with the blood of our fathers and grandfathers and we must never let fear coerce us into signing away those freedoms.

I would much rather have my children live in fear of terrorism than live in fear of their own government. To quote Thomas Jefferson, “When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.” And to paraphrase another founding father of the United States, Bejamin Franklin, “Those who would sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither and will lose both.”

Thus even though the circumstances may have had much more to do with partisan politics and a pending federal election I believe parliament made the right choice when they let those two controversial sections of Canada’s Security Act expire.

Now if only we could get our MPs to show some real initiative and do something about the ridiculously long lineups at the passport office.

Michael Geoghegan is an entrepreneur and consultant who lives in Victoria, BC. He can be contacted via his website at www.mgcltd.ca

An Unequivocal Truth

2007-02-05T22:58:00.000-08:00

Okay I admit it. When the issue of global warming first came up I thought, what a load of hot air (pun intended). Keep in mind when I was a kid back in the 1970s scientists were still talking about the next coming ice age.

But there has been a growing body of scientific data that makes clear that global warming has gone from being an inconvenient truth to an unequivocal one. So much so that as a resident of Victoria I am starting to eye up which hillside properties may end up as ocean front lots in another generation or two.

But as Canadians it is also worth keeping in mind that if not for the development of agriculture 6,000 years ago much of what we call Canada would currently be sitting under a mile thick sheet of ice. This is because based on the normal 22,000-year cycle of rising and falling CO2 (carbon dioxide) levels in the Earth’s atmosphere we should have slipped back into an ice age a thousand years ago.

Instead the rate at which CO2 was declining in the Earth’s atmosphere was slowed over the past 6,000 years by the slash burning of forests to make way for agriculture. Then about 200 years ago, with the coming of the industrial revolution and the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil, CO2 levels stopped slowly declining and began to rise at an accelerating rate.

The impact of global warming on our planet will be dramatic. The Arctic Ocean will be ice free in the summer time within the next 50 years. If much of the ice sheet covering Greenland and Antarctica slides into the ocean, the majority of the world’s population and cities will be displaced by rapidly rising sea levels. Here in British Columbia much of the Lower Mainland would be under water as would of course much of Greater Victoria.

But as consumers and as voters we still have an opportunity to slow and even reverse the rate at which we are loading CO2 and other greenhouse gases into the Earth’s atmosphere. For example if all the cars, trucks and sport utility vehicles we drove here in Canada and the United States were all gas electric or diesel electric hybrids that alone would allow both countries to not only meet but exceed the C02 reduction targets set out in the Kyoto agreement.

I recently had the opportunity to drive with a business colleague in a Toyota Prius from Delta to Merritt and back again. We drove this distance on less than 30 dollars worth of gas. The Prius has more interior room than my Ford Mustang and burns much less gas. Now imagine a slightly re-engineered Prius where you could charge up the battery from your house the night before so the first 60 or 80 km you drove was almost all on battery power. Then have a roof, which has a photovoltaic film over it that also recharges the battery while you have your car parked or driving in the sun. Then last but not least imagine the fun of driving for days or even weeks without having to stop at a gas station.

But our dependence on big oil is not the only issue we must grapple with. British Columbia has gone from being a net exporter to a net importer of electrical power. We need to generate more electricity. Wind, tidal, solar and micro hydro are all projects we are going to have to support if we want to keep running our computers and plasma screen televisions. But we will also have to look at undertaking major hydroelectric projects such as Site C and even nuclear power.

But as my friend in the Prius pointed out, there are many other things we can do as consumers to reduce our electrical consumption. For example given how hot and sunny it gets in the Okanagan in the summer time, how insane is it that nearly everyone reading this column still uses a dryer during the summer to dry their clothes?

I was in Merritt last summer camping by Nicola Lake. The wind blew one of my towels into the lake. I didn’t even both to wring it out but just dumped the soaking wet towel on a picnic table. I came back from swimming 15 minutes later and was shocked to discover the towel was now bone dry.

In Mexico where I vacationed for a month last year, no one has an electric hot water tank. Instead they have a metal tank on their roof that is painted black. These tanks get so hot from the sun they actually have to have pressure relief valves to vent the steam that builds up in them. So would it not make sense for our houses here in Canada to have the same feature? Sure in the wintertime we would need to drain these tanks and use electric hot water tanks but again imagine the electrical savings in the summer which would help offset the electricity used in running air conditioners and fans.

Here in Victoria we have a morning traffic jam called the Colwood crawl. A $300 million investment would establish a light rail line that would allow most of these commuters to park their vehicles and ride the train to work each morning. A relatively modest investment when compared to the billions of dollars in residential and condominium tower construction set to occur in the Greater Victoria area.

So again both as consumers and as voters we have the ability to make choices that will either accelerate or slow global warming. We owe it to ourselves and future generations to make sure the decisions we make now are wise ones.

Mike Geoghegan is a government relations and media relations consultant who lives in Victoria BC. He can be reached via his website at http://www.mgcltd.ca/

Surprise election of Stephan Dion as Liberal leader sets the stage for battle of the policy wonks

2007-01-01T13:36:00.000-08:00

Surprise election of Stephan Dion as Liberal leader sets the stage for “Battle of the Policy Wonks”

As those of you who are unfortunate enough to be addicted to politics already know, in a stunning upset that shocked pundits and politicos alike, Stephan Dion went from fourth place to winner at December´s Liberal leadership convention.

Such up the middle scenarios, although always discussed in leadership races – particularly amongst those backing non leading contenders - rarely occur. Sometimes it can re-invigorate a party, as Pierre Trudeau´s Liberal leadership victory did in 1969 and sometimes it can lead to electoral disaster as was the case in the mid 1980s when the bumbling Bob Skelly ended up as leader of the BC NDP.

Stephan Dion´s biggest challenge will be to gain fluency in English. Although there are over 7 million Canadians that list French as their first language there are almost 22 million Canadians where English is their primary and often only language they converse in.

What Dion brings to the table is a passionate concern about the environment and support for the Kyoto Accord. Although this will make it difficult for the Liberals to win any seats in Alberta it should help them win seats in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. In fact Dion´s green agenda may eat significantly into NDP support and will certainly ensure that the federal Green Party remains irrelevant.

In electing Dion as their new leader, the Liberals have also upheld a very old tradition of alternating between French and English leaders. Although Paul Martin was an MP from Quebec he was seen as being an Anglophone, albeit a thoroughly bilingual one.

The question is, after such a short hiatus, are Canadians ready to elect yet another Prime Minister from Quebec? That is certainly what we have primarily been governed by throughout most Canadians lifetimes. It seems to be what Quebecers want and what people, especially those living in Ontario, are willing to support in return for keeping Quebec within Canada.

But there is another dynamic that has been set up by Dion´s election as leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. We now have the top two political parties in Canada both being led by policy wonks. For all of you out there who have long decried the fact that elections tend to be more about style than substance, we may actually end up having an election that is about issues rather than photo ops.

Conservative Party Leader and current Prime Minister Stephen Harper is an economist who has never shied away from getting into the substance of an issue. Stephan Dion is a professor who has a similar fondness for policy detail. Will this engage the Canadian electorate or bore them to tears? It remains to be seen. But with Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper leading only a minority government, we likely won´t have long to wait. If Dion´s election gives the Liberals any momentum in the polls, or if conversely he falters, you can bet that we will be into another federal election in 2007.

Mike Geoghegan is a government relations consultant based in Victoria BC. He can be reached via his website at http://www.mgcltd.ca/

BC Pensioners face 15 percent pay cut

2006-12-01T13:30:00.000-08:00

It’s going to be a miserable new year for many BC pensioners, particularily those who are retired workers in the BC construction industry. Many of them face the prospect of having their pension income cut by 15% all because of a pension solvency rule that ironically enough was designed to help them and is instead hurting them.

In 1996 pension solvency rules were re-interpreted to not only cover the usual ups and downs in the business cycle but to also cover the prospect of a pension plan being wound up. This makes sense if your pension plan is linked to only one company, say Air Canada. It makes much less sense when your pension is a multi-eployer plan linked to an entire industry like the BC construction sector.

The impact of this re-interpretation was immediate, many retired contruction workers have not received any increase in their pension income over the last ten years. Now with continued government inaction, they now face the prospect of having their pension incomes cut by an average of 15 per cent.

Some pensioners have already had this happen to them. Rod Crowe is a retired ironworker from the Lower Mainland. His pension was reduced 15% in 2005. If not for these solvency rules he would have instead received an increase in his pension income.

Now for the ironworkers’ pension plan to come to an end would pretty much require the collapse of the entire BC economy. The ironworkers have been around for one hundred years and unless BC ends up going the way of Afghanistan it will be around for centuries more to come.

But come the New Year there will be many more pensioners like Rod Crowe because BC unlike many other jurisdictions in Canada has refused to take a serious look at the issue. The Minister of Finance, Carole Taylor, is taking direction from her officials on this file. Her ministry officials have offered to review the situation on a case-by-case basis, which is a completely inadequate response.

On November 9, 2006 the government of Ontario announced it was launching a comprehensive review of its pension fund legislation. On November 7, 2006 the federal government released its Solvency Funding Relief Regulations. After Alberta, New Brunswick and Québec, the federal government is the latest jurisdiction to respond to the serious funding challenges faced by sponsors of defined benefit pension plans.

As usual the government that was the most pro-active on this issue was Alberta. On August 10, 2006, the Employment Pension Plans Act and Regulation was amended to permit specified multi-employer pension plans to temporarily suspend solvency special payments for a three year period.

Pension fund consultants, Harvey Mason of D.A. Townley and Associates, and Harry Satanove, an actuary at Satanove & Flood Consulting, have called on the government here in British Columbia to do exactly the same thing. They then want this three-year period to be used to consult with pensioners, employers and workers.

I myself have spoken directly with Finance Minister Carole Taylor on this issue. She and her ministry officials seem unwilling to follow the example set by the federal government and four other provinces until there is a hue and cry from those affected.

This is a completely bizarre response given the fact that BC has more than its fair share of pensioners and given the fact we have perhaps more in the way of multi-employer pension plans than any other province in Canada.

So if you are a pensioner and you do find yourself facing a 15% cut in your pension benefits, don’t suffer in silence. Let your MLA know, let your local media know and above all let Carole Taylor’s office know. Maybe then they will finally realize this is a matter worthy of their attention.

Mike Geoghegan is a government and media relations consultant living in Victoria, BC. He can be reached via his website at www.mgcltd.ca

BC Pension Rule Slashes Pensions of Retired Construction Workers

2006-11-09T11:00:00.000-08:00

BC Pension Rule Slashes Pensions of Retired Construction Workers

For immediate release
November 9, 2006

VANCOUVER, BC: Pension fund advisors, a pension fund trustee and a former representative of BC’s construction industry today gathered at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue to warn the public about a BC Pension fund regulation that is causing huge rollbacks to the pensions of retired BC construction workers.

“Current BC pension rules require pension plan trustees to set aside enough funds to cover these plans should they terminate at any moment,“ explained pension fund consultant Harvey Mason of D.A. Townley and Associates. “With the multi-employer plans that we advise on, the entire construction industry would have to collapse for these funds to fail – an extremely unlikely event given the $100 billion currently slated for construction here in BC.”

“We conservatively estimate that the cost of this one bureaucratic rule (referred to as the solvency rule) could add $1.00 to $2.00 an hour to our pension costs,” over the next two to three years said Harry Satanove, an actuary at Satanove & Flood Consulting. “As the contracts have already been negotiated, and the pension plans along with them, the only way to fund these entirely hypothetical costs is to reduce benefits - both future pensions for current workers, and in some cases pensions in pay for retired workers. The solvency rules do not benefit anyone – they do not benefit the employers and they do not benefit the workers, as they likely won’t ever see one cent of this money.”

“Worse yet, these rules that were supposed to protect pensioners have instead resulted in payments to our pensioners being reduced by up to 15%,” said Pension Fund Trustee Dave Beatty. “This is causing real hardship for some of our senior citizens and we think that the government needs to take action immediately by following the example set by the Government of Alberta.”

“We have met with government regulators but all they are willing to do is review the issue on a case-by-case basis and without offering much relief,” said Satanove. “In Alberta the government responded by suspending this regulation for three years,” noted Satanove, “and we are asking the government of BC to do exactly the same thing and use the time to engage in some proper consultation with both industry and pension groups.”
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For further information please contact:

Harry Satanove Harvey Mason Mike Geoghegan Dave Beatty
(604) 323-9363 (604) 299-7482 (250) 881-0969 (604) 709-3008

Pension Legislation backgrounder for the media

2006-11-09T10:45:00.000-08:00

Backgrounder for Media

November 9, 2006

The Issue
Current pension legislation requires that every pension plan be prepared to terminate at any moment (referred to as the “solvency rules.”) This means that many pension plans are required to set aside a portion of the employer contribution to fund the extra costs incurred on a plan termination that no one expects to happen.

In theory pension plans can terminate at any time. However, especially with multi-employer plans, it is very improbable. For the pension funds associated with the construction industry to fail, the entire construction industry would have to be in a state of collapse, which would mean essentially that the province itself had come to a complete grinding halt.

Because many pension plans are in industries that can reasonably be expected to continue long into the future, extra contributions to fund their wind-up serve no purpose except to reduce the value of the negotiated wage and benefit package.

The provincial government recently announced it has over $100 billion worth of construction projects slated for the next few years. Labour wages represent approximately half of this cost. It is conservatively estimated that the current pension fund rules will increase pension costs by $1.00 to $2.00 per hour over the next two to three years for many people working in the construction industry. We conservatively estimate that the cost of this pension fund regulation will be at least $1 billion.

Because the wage and benefit costs, including the pension funding, have already been fixed in contracts, the additional costs imposed by the solvency rules can only be funded by reducing benefits – both future pensions for current workers and in some cases pensions in pay for retired workers. Thus rules that are meant to protect workers and pensioners are actually damaging them, to the benefit of no one. To the extent that members have wage and benefit expectations, pension solvency contributions only add to the cost pressures in the wage and benefit package.

In response to similar concerns the government of Alberta recently allowed a three-year suspension on solvency funding. Given that Alberta and BC’s legislation in this area is almost identical, a three-year suspension can and should be enacted here in BC with the added caveat that this time be used to consult with the affected industry and pensioner groups.

It should be clearly stated that at-risk pension plans do need this protection, and benefit from the current rules, as was the clear intention when these rules were implemented. Rules exist to protect all pension plans.

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Plans that are not at risk do not need this protection, and should not be required to set aside these contributions. This requirement puts excess costs and pressure onto these well funded and stable plans. This forces business to divert much needed capital away from more productive use of their resources, depriving the economy of much needed reinvestment.

Harry Satanove has met with BC government regulators who have said they are willing to review each pension plan on a case-by-case basis. However the relief that the regulator might offer under current guidelines will not be sufficient in most cases. In the meantime these funds will still be obligated to collect these additional funds.

A three-year suspension, as Alberta has enacted would take significant cost pressures off BC employers and help protect pensioners, some of whom have already had their pensions rolled back by 10% to 25%. In some cases, the pensions were reduced solely because of the solvency rules. By other funding standards to which pension plans must comply, the pension plans were adequately funded.

A three-year suspension of the solvency rules poses no negative or adverse effects from either a political point of view or from the perspective of good public policy. Indeed, there are solid economic reasons for proceeding with a three-year suspension - as Alberta has done - while pension fund solvency regulations are reviewed as the current regulations are artificially driving up construction costs and acting as a drag on economic growth.

Further government inaction will hurt the BC economy and lead to more pension reductions for retired workers.

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Vindication

2006-11-03T09:05:00.000-08:00

It happened about three years too late, but I did finally receive some much appreciated vindication from Columnist Jody Patterson. In today's edition of the Victoria Times-Colonist, Patterson was writing about Norm's now infamous use of the word "bitch" to describe Belinda Stronach.

Jody made an excellent point about keeping "inside voices inside." But later on in the column she went on to write the following about me:

"When one-time politico Mike Geoghegan mused in 2003 about B.C. MLA Jenny Kwan's race and looks as factors in her getting elected, those who knew Geoghegan understood that he didn't really mean it to come out that way."

Thank you Jody and for the record even though I do disagree with Spector's comment about Stronach I do defend on the grounds of free speech his right to say it.

The revenge of God and the end of the age of reason

2006-11-01T08:28:00.000-08:00

Reason versus religion. It’s a debate that has been going on ever since people tried to look beyond theology to try and figure out what was going on in the world around them.

The Age of Reason, or Enlightenment started in Europe in the 17th century and really took off in the 18th century. It helped give rise to scientific invention, a flourishing of the arts and commerce, and modern democracy itself. But as our world has rapidly advanced, it has grown ever more complicated and in so doing it has caused more and more people to turn back to religion to help make sense of our increasingly complex modern world.

Whether it be under the guise of reason or religion, fanatics will often try and exploit our desire for simple solutions to complicated problems. In the 20th century communism was responsible for the deaths of over 100 million people, mostly through starvation. Fascism probably killed another 50 million people before both were consigned to the trash bin of history.

But religious fanaticism has always been a force to be reckoned with. Whether it was Catholics and Protestants killing each other in Northern Ireland, or Shias and Sunnis killing each other in Iraq, sectarian violence has been an all too common occurrence in modern world events.

However it was in the 18th century, during full flower of the enlightenment, that the United States of America came into being. Far from wanting a theocracy, the founding fathers of our neighbour to the south were well aware of the harm that comes from not separating church and state. Thomas Jefferson spoke of the need to build “a wall of separation between church and state.”

Ben Franklin wrote, “A man compounded of law and gospel is able to cheat a whole country with his religion and then destroy them under color of law.” While James Madison said, “Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise.”

Yet increasingly people who not that many decades ago would have been dismissed as religious crackpots now hold great sway over the American political landscape. In Richard Nixon’s time foreign policy based on trying to set in motion the conditions for the apocalypse and the second coming of Jesus Christ would have been regarded as sheer madness.

Though to be fair to the current George W. Bush administration, it should be kept in mind that there have been other world leaders who put great faith (pun intended) in the Old Testament in terms of setting foreign policy. In fact it was Protestant British Prime Minister Lloyd George, along with key members of his cabinet, who set about after the end of the First World War to (re) establish the state of Israel.

As both Lloyd George and George W. Bush believed based on the writings of the Old Testament, without a state of Israel there could be no Armageddon and hence no second coming of Jesus. Hence the need to create and maintain the State of Israel and the inevitable backlash this helped create against the West in much of the predominantly Muslim Middle East.

But it was not just the creation of the State of Israel that got most Muslim leaders up in arms. After the overthrow of the Shah of Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile in France in 1979, to impose strict sharia law on an Iran he felt had been corrupted by contact with the West.

As religious issues have come to hold increasing sway over recent world events, some have started to see this as the end of the age of reason. Some have even taken to naming this new era of religious conflict as “The Revenge of God.” I prefer to see things in less apocalyptic terms.

Notwithstanding their more religious leanings a majority of Americans now seem to understand that American foreign policy under the Bush administration has been nothing short of disastrous. Secondly if one looks at a nation like Iran you will find a people that are perhaps the most pro-western of any people in the Middle East living outside of Israel. There is nothing like living under a repressive religious theocracy to make people truly appreciate the freedom that comes with living in a democratic secular state.

Yes world events will continue to remain complicated messy affairs, as all human endeavours inevitably are, but I still think the overall trajectory of human events is on the upswing. In other words these are not the worst of times human society is living in, these are still the best of times and I expect the future will be for the most part, even better.

(For a truly inspiring example of one woman’s courage in speaking out to help make our world a better place click here).

However for those desiring an even simpler philosophy to help get them through these troubled times let me quote Ricky’s Dad Ray from the Canadian Television series Trailer Park Boys:
“Boys, sometimes that’s the way she goes. Sometimes she goes, sometimes she doesn’t cause that’s the way she goes.”

Mike Geoghegan is a consultant and business executive living in Victoria, BC. Although he has now been happily married for over a decade, he has been in relationships with women who were Agnostic, Buddhist, Christian (both Protestant and Catholic), Jewish, Muslim and Sikh.

My condolences to Norm

2006-10-30T13:33:00.000-08:00

This morning Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's former chief of staff Norman Spector called Tory turned Liberal MP Belinda Stronach a "bitch." Speaking with CKNW's Bill Good this morning about Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay's refusal to apologize for allegedly suggesting Ms. Stronach is a dog, Mr. Spector said, "I think she's a bitch. It's as simple as that. And I think that 90 percent of men would probably say she's a bitch for the way she's broken up (retired hockey player) Tie Domi's home and the way she dumped Peter MacKay. She is a bitch."

Now after dumping him and publicly humiliating him, I am sure Peter McKay called her a lot worse names than that. Predictably enough though Norm has been castigated in the media although so far not to the same extent that I was when back in November of 2003 I called Jenny Kwan an airhead on the radio.

People were so pissed off at me, despite the fact that I issued a full and public apology to Ms. Kwan later the same day, that I even made it into an editorial cartoon a month later. It was during this time that one of my many good friends who happens to be of a different gender and ethnicity than me explained to me the victimisation scale and the degree to which those of us at the bottom of the scale are not allowed to comment in any negative way about those who have a higher ranking on the victimisation scale.

So while I mourn the on-going strangling of free speech by both those on the political left in Canada and on those on the political right in the United States, I thought I would take time to e-mail Norm a quick letter of condolence.

From: Michael Geoghegan
To: Norman Spector
Sent: October 30, 2006 1:33 PM
Subject: my condolences

Hi Norm:

Belinda Stronach may be a bitch (I am sure Peter McKay thinks she is) and Jenny Kwan may be an airhead (certainly behind closed doors many an NDPer referred to her as being that), but remember that unfortunately here in Canada white males are not allowed to make those kind of comments, we are only allowed to belittle people of the same gender and ethnicity.

The irony being the extent to which you will be publicly condemned by the forces of political correctness will be based on a victimisation scale that is made up of entirely racist and sexist criteria. For example, you and Belinda are both white (that puts you both at the bottom of the victimisation scale) you are male (that puts you one notch down) she is female (that puts her one notch up), you are Jewish (that puts you one notch up) and she's a billionaire (that puts her one notch down) so you should be fine.

To put it another way if Rona Ambrose had called Belinda a bitch that would be okay. Or if Olivia Chow had called Jenny Kwan an airhead that would have been fine as well (although it might have caused an internal fuss amongst NDPers).

Isn't great living in such a free thinking non-racist and non-sexist society where your gender and ethnicity determine what comments you are publicly allowed to say...

Mike Geoghegan
http://www.mgcltd.ca/

Conversation on Health

2006-10-03T16:58:00.000-07:00

ConversationOnHealth@victoria1.gov.bc.ca

I am writing in response to your forum on health. I applaud the government for taking this initiative, which I think is long overdue. The fact is that our current health care system simply isn’t sustainable and the reason is one of demographics.

I am a 40 year old who has lived most of his life in British Columbia. I have an 80-year-old mother, a wife who is about to turn 41 years old, a ten-year-old son and a five-year-old daughter. I have watched the accessibility of our health care system steadily decline over the last twenty years despite the fact that every government be it Socred, NDP or Liberal has increased Health care budgets year after year.

I remember looking at some statistics a few years ago that said the average 18 year old costs the BC Health Care system $800 per year while the average 80 year old costs the BC Health Care system $21,000 per year. The fastest growing demographic in BC are those aged 80 and above.

Thanks to our relatively mild climate, British Columbia is the retirement destination for many people right across Canada. But now the front end of the baby boom has just turned 60 and as they retire they are flooding into BC.

The problem is that as retirees the amount they pay in taxes will be far less than what they paid when they were working. Conversely the amount of public health care services they will consume will steadily increase up to the point that they die.

Recommendation # 1 So every retiree who moves to BC is in effect helping relieve the health care burden of the province they have moved from while adding to our own. Canada’s system of transfer payments needs to take this situation into account.

Many of the people who move to BC are relatively wealthy. They need to be in order to be able to afford our ever-increasing real estate prices. Yet the Canada Health Act acts to try and restrict people from obtaining private health care in BC. These people then seek private health care treatment in the United States or even abroad in countries like India.

The antipathy towards private health care stems not from any logical reasoning, but from a knee jerk reaction against “US style health care.” Unfortunately given Canada’s proximity and insecurity regarding our neighbour to the south it has been virtually impossible to have any sort of intelligent or realistic discussion about reforming Canada’s health care system.

The fact is that if we could tear our myopic gaze away from the United States we would see that virtually every other nation in the Western World has some form of mixed private and public health care system that provides health care to all its citizens and often far more efficiently than does Canada’s.

Recommendation # 2 We need to look at Australia and Western Europe and their models of mixed private and public health care in order to come up with a health care system in BC that is both accessible and affordable.

There is a joke that the best place in Canada to have a heart attack is in a taxicab because odds are the person driving the taxi is a doctor from some other country. As Shakespeare wrote centuries ago, “much said in jest said in truth.”

The fact is that Canada’s current health care associations and regulatory agencies act as a huge impediment to health care professionals being able to actually practice medicine here. Time after time I have come across instances of people who either gave up on Canada and returned to the United States, Europe or wherever, or who ended up switching careers and who became accountants, lawyers and yes taxicab drivers because they gave up trying to get licensed to continue working as doctors or nurses.

Recommendation #3 The protectionist policies of both national and provincial health care professions and regulatory agencies have to come to an end. Health care professionals who move here from other countries should have the process of being certified expedited rather than face an insurmountable wall of red tape and delay.

It has been said that freedom begins with choice. As self-employed person if I am injured I am expected to remain and suffer on a public surgical waiting list even though this may mean the loss of everything I own. However if I am an employee, and the Workers Compensation Board covers my injury, then I am whisked into a private medical facility so that I can be treated right away.

This is because if I am waiting for surgery as a worker WCB has to pay me for my lost wages, but as a self-employed person I receive no such coverage. This is both discriminatory and hypocritical.

Moreover it is no more moral to let a person die because they were on a lengthy medical waiting list than it is to let them die because they could not afford private health care. The best health care systems are those that allow the wealthy to access private health care while freeing up space and resources for the rest of us less well off citizens.

In fact in smaller communities a robust system of private and public health care dollars would allow for greater synergies and economies of scale. Thus a community that could at present support only one orthopedic surgeon on the public rolls may find sufficient work two support two if those people were also allowed to practice private medicine as well.

Recommendation #4 Canada needs to amend the Canada Health Act to allow for the full development of private health care facilities and services here in Canada.

This last recommendation of course will have certain people ranting about US style health care, but in fact what I am advocating is European style health care.

In closing I hope that not only the Government of British Columbia, but the Government of Canada will listen to these recommendations. Far from being a threat I see the recommendations as saving our health care system.

Without such change then our public health care system will surely collapse under the weight of our aging boomer population base. As it collapses, a lot of people will die and not all of them will be Octogenarians. Some, as we have seen already, will be young people in the prime of their life who needed urgent medical care but were unable to receive it in time because of overflowing emergency wards.

Thank you for providing me with the opportunity to share some of my thoughts regarding our beleaguered public health care system.

It’s time we looked south to solve our labour shortage woes

2006-10-01T07:43:00.000-07:00

Thanks to our low birth rate and booming economy in Alberta and BC, there have been quite a few news stories regarding our growing labour shortage problem. Such a situation creates a pleasant situation for today’s young people and stands in stark contrast to the job market of 20 years ago when baby boomers filled every available job niche and when Generation Xers like myself had to really scramble to try and find work.

But now the front of the baby boom has turned 60 and as they start to retire there are a steadily increasing number of jobs available. One recent newspaper story encouraged Canadians to start having more babies. But that is unlikely to happen. Canada’s high tax rates and daycare costs make it prohibitively expensive for most couples to consider having more than two children.

Our only solution is immigration. However our current system is geared towards accepting wealthy investors (who tend to be older), relatives and refugees. What we need are healthy hard working young couples who are looking for good paying jobs and want to provide a better life for their children.

Unlike Canada, Mexico is full of young people. Thanks to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) there is much less poverty in Mexico and a burgeoning middle class. They speak Spanish but many middle class children are also taught English and even French.

I was recently on a business trip to Mexico and I found no shortage of people who were bright, well educated and who could speak English better than many Canadians I know. The Canadian government has made it easier for farmers to hire Mexicans on a seasonal basis to help pick crops. But to me this smacks of US style exploitation.

Instead we should look to the European Union model where as new nations are admitted it allows for the free flow of people across borders. Certainly given the US history of exploiting illegal Mexican immigrants that will never happen under NAFTA. However what we in Canada could do is award extra points to immigrants from countries that have free trade agreements with Canada.

This means that Mexicans and Americans for that matter would have an easier time moving to Canada. An influx of bright young Mexican people would also serve to greatly increase the amount of trade that occurs between Canada and Mexico and, I suspect, by extension the rest of Latin America as well.

Because these people would be legal immigrants, they would be paid the same wage rates and pay the same high taxes as every other working Canadian. There would also be little in the way of security concerns as there is no clash of culture or religion between Canada and Mexico.

In fact given the way we have, especially in recent decades, welcomed people from Europe and Asia as immigrants to Canada it has always been somewhat of a mystery to me why we have not done more to welcome immigrants from Mexico and other Latin American countries. Maybe they think Canada is simply too cold.

Well thanks to global warming Canada certainly isn’t as cold as it used to be. But as a nation we are much older and unless our policy makers in Ottawa get serious about opening up our immigration system so that it will attract more young couples with children then we face the prospect of having way too many retired folks and not enough young healthy working people around to pay for the disproportionately large share of public health care services our seniors consume.

Bon Cop Bad Cop

2006-09-01T12:55:00.000-07:00

Recently I went and saw a Canadian movie. I think the last Canadian movie I actually saw at the theatres was about twenty years ago. It was a Quebec movie called “The Decline of the American Empire” which was a movie about failed relationships and not, as the title would imply, about the present US Administration.

Unlike most of the politically correct drivel put out by Canada’s indigenous film industry, the movie I saw this summer was actually entertaining. The movie was called Bon Cop Bad Cop and was in the classic Hollywood style of a mismatched buddy cop movie, which is part comedy and part drama. In this particular case the mismatched pair is a screw the rules Quebecois cop, David Boucher, (played by Patrick Huard) and an anally retentive by the book Ontario cop Martin Ward (played by Colm Feore).

What made this movie entertaining is it actually dared to portray some of the warts of Canadian society. Sure it played them for laughs Quebecois were referred to as “frogs” and les Anglais as “squareheads.” One of the most memorable lines of the movie was when Quebec cop Boucher says to a coroner en francais that “I know this guy (referring to Ontario cop Ward) looks like a gay accountant, but I can assure you, he’s no accountant.”

Ward, who can speak perfect Parisian French grimaces at this shot. I remember once attending an awards show in Montreal. The guest of honour was none other than world famous singer Peter Gabriel, who has a working class British accent. But when he started speaking flawless Parisian French you could visibly see the largely Quebecois audience squirm in much the same way most English Canadians or Americans do when someone starts talking like the Queen of England.

It was this same reaction that was amongst the many dichotomies between Quebec and Ontario that was played for laughs in the movie. As I left the movie theatre I thought that Canadian movies would do better if Canadian filmmakers could actually have the courage to present our society warts and all. Or even play up some of those warts for dramatic and/or comedic effect.

Certainly the hit television series Trailer Park Boys is an example of how Canadian Society’s attitude towards dope smoking is radically different than that of the United States. There is even a Trailer Park Boys movie coming out which I certainly intend to go see.

On the dramatic side there is in fact quite a bit of material to work with; especially once you peel away the faux “nice Canadian” veneer you start to see the bared teeth behind the passive aggressive grins on all too many Canadian faces.

The race war between white and black America is well known to Canadians. The best way to get a black person in the United States to stop glaring at you (if you happen to be white) is to let them know you are Canadian.

Less well known is the fact that black people in Ontario are 10 times more likely to become victims of a police shooting than whites. Aboriginals, similarly, are four times more likely in Ontario to be shot by a police officer than whites. These figures are based on data provided by Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit, which probes incidents involving police and civilians resulting in serious injury or death.

Again the last thing we need is another earnest politically correct piece of tripe from the National Film Board but it would be nice to see some Canadian films, be they comedies or dramas that dealt with the way Canada actually is, warts and all, rather than the nice façade we all too often try and kid ourselves into believing is the real Canada.

The World Hates Change

2006-08-01T10:52:00.000-07:00

"The world hates change, yet it is the only thing that has brought progress." - Charles Kettering

For the past four months I have had the privilege of working with the Upper Nicola Band near Merritt as Acting CEO of their Economic Development Corporation. Whether it is the Chief and Council, or the staff, all are anxious to help bring about a better way of life for their band membership as well as their region.

Upper Nicola Band’s new Chief Tim Manuel is very much pro-business development. Yet he retains a deep and spiritual connection to the land. In early August, just prior to my contract coming to an end, I had the honour of participating in a native sweat lodge ceremony with him.

It was an intense and profoundly moving experience on both a physical and spiritual level. I slept that night like a baby and a week later my skin still felt better than it had in many years because of all the toxins that had been sweated out of my body.

It is that balance, of embracing positive change while retaining values that bring out the best of us in people that is so needed in the world right now.

When it comes to religion, far too many fundamentalists reject the here and now and instead look to an afterlife as being where they will achieve peace and happiness. Whether it is evangelical Christians who celebrate the growing turmoil in the Middle East as signs of the second coming of Christ, or radical Muslims who are willing to blow themselves up and kill innocent women and children because they think that will grant them entry into heaven along with a multitude of virgins, these are people that have come to reject life and have instead embraced death.

These death cults, regardless of their nominal religious affiliation also tend to be driven by people who fear change and who yearn for some imagined afterlife based on a past simpler and/or better time that almost certainly never really existed.

The fact is a hundred years ago people in Canada were lucky to live to be 50 years old. There were diseases like polio, smallpox and tuberculosis to worry about. Many women did not survive childbirth and diseases like mumps, measles and rubella killed many children.

Is the world today perfect? Far from it. But right now notwithstanding the on-going turmoil in the Middle East this is pretty much the best the world has ever been. Change is occurring and most of it has been for the better. I know that barring some act of biological or nuclear terrorism the life my children have will be better than the one I have and certainly better than the ones their ancestors had.

So for the most part I welcome rather than fear change because the changes I have seen in my lifetime have generally been for the better rather than for the worse. But is most important that we also value this life that we have here on Earth and treat each other with respect.

Perhaps Mad Magazine put it best years ago when they wrote, “with all of these warnings of death doom and strife, it is hard to imagine a fate worse than life.”
Well I am enjoying my life and I encourage everyone else reading this column to do likewise and I hope you all had a very enjoyable summer.

Harper puts on Presidential performance in Washington

2006-07-01T10:20:00.000-07:00

Unlike most people nowadays, I tend to get much of my news from newspapers rather than television or radio. I also from time to time check out online news sources as well. But my interest in television news has waned over the years. It has become too sensational and too emotionally manipulative, e.g. “after the break Mark Grinface will explain why your next trip to the dentist could be your last.”

But when it is actually covering an event rather than simply shamelessly manipulating us to try and grab our attention, television news gives an immediacy and a sense of “being there” that no other news medium, including the internet, can touch.

So I was glad that I caught the coverage of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s July news conference in Washington with US President George W. Bush. Bush with his faux “jus’ folks” routine was as cringe inducing as ever. To borrow a line from a bumper sticker, every time I see President Bush I can’t help but suspect that somewhere in Texas a village is missing its idiot.

So Bush piled on the corn pone routine, referring to Prime Minister Harper as “Steve” and then inviting people up to the podium on what was his 60th birthday. While Harper looked on with a horrified grin/grimace on his face.

What the television cameras conveyed was a no-nonsense Prime Minister who quite frankly was far more Presidential in his decorum than was his host George Dubbya. There was no treacley sentiment from Harper, he was all business.

It is a similar approach that Harper has taken towards governing Canada. For example, instead of just promising to do something about new equipment for Canada’s military, as successive Liberal governments have done since the Trudeau era, the Harper government is now going out and making purchasing decisions.

Although much ink has been spilled over the fact Harper has not gone out of his way to court the Ottawa Press Gallery, the fact is that Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s disdain for the media was even greater than that of Harper’s. The difference is that Trudeau was a political showman whereas Harper is anything but.

I still remember as a kid watching Jack Webster attempt to corner Trudeau on his BCTV morning talk show. Webster who spoke with a Scottish Burr wagged his finger at Trudeau and said, “How do you plead guilty or innocent!”

Trudeau gave his famous shrug and casually replied, “I plead ignorance because quite frankly Jack I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I rolled on the ground roaring with laughter and even in the studio Webster was smiling at how easily Trudeau had sidestepped the verbal trap he had attempted to lay for him.

However as much as people try to portray Harper as inflexible and authoritarian, the fact is that he has shown more flexibility and respect towards the provinces than perhaps any other Prime Minister in Canadian history. In so doing he has caused support for separatism to plummet in Quebec while sharply reducing the sense of alienation that many Western Canadians have felt since the 1970s.

In a similar vein Harper’s decision to provide funding directly to parents with children aged six and under to assist with childcare expenses is much fairer than setting up some multi-billion dollar government run daycare program. Why? Because a government run program would have only benefited working mothers who were content to let the state raise their children.

What about those mothers who decide to stay home? Generally a stay at home Mom provides the best quality of care for a young child. So why should these families not get the same benefit? Again the Harper government approach shows far more flexibility and respect for the differing needs of Canadian families than the centralized bureaucratic approach to daycare advocated by both the federal Liberals and NDP.

Harper is a hard guy to like, but he is an easy guy to respect. As long as he continues to govern pragmatically and not ideologically then his reward after the next election will be a majority government.

Western Communities set to tower over “old town” Victoria

2006-06-01T13:43:00.000-07:00

In the news of late has come word of 30 story plus condominium projects that are set to rise in communities such as Colwood and Langford.

From both an environmental and demographic standpoint such projects are arriving just in time to save the region. This is because when it comes to urban development there are only two options: building up (i.e. condo towers) or building out (i.e. sprawling sub-divisions).

Of course there are those who want neither, but short of closing the airport and selling off BC Ferries that isn’t a realistic option. As our steadily rising real estate prices attest to, lots of Canadians, particularly wealthy boomers who are now approaching their retirement years, want to live here. So do a lot of people from the United States, Asia and Europe.

These generally wealthier and older immigrants are tired of shoveling snow and swatting mosquitoes, and they don’t want to mow the lawn either. They want a high-end low maintenance residence from which to enjoy the remainder of their retired or semi-retired years. In short they want luxury condos, not single family homes.

Not wanting to destroy the old town ambience of its community Victoria has generally said no to high-rise condominium projects. The Agricultural Land Reserve hems in most municipalities on the Saanich Peninsula, so that has left communities such as Colwood, Langford and Sooke as the new centres of economic and population growth for the area.

When everyone else was busy saying no, Langford cashed in and attracted a large number of big box retailers, which has helped make Langford the envy of most other municipalities within the CRD. Colwood in the meantime has now realized that if you build up those condo towers will have million dollar views of both water and mountains.

Also, unlike single-family homes, condos actually pay more in property taxes than they consume in municipal services. Thus these new towers and the revenue they bring will allow Colwood to start providing the same level of service and public amenities that residents of Langford have now come to enjoy.

The long held dream of utilizing the south end of the E&N railroad would finally become economically viable. This is because you will finally have enough population living in the western communities to make a commuter rail line between downtown Victoria and Westshore economically viable.
Best of all by building up rather than out, it will allow for much of the green space and farm land in the region to be preserved. So hats off to Colwood and hats off to Langford for having the vision and courage to say yes to high-rise condominium towers.

Onerous rules robbing pensioners

2006-05-01T14:05:00.000-07:00

One of the inefficiencies of government is the “one size fits all” approach to government regulation. A case in point is with regards to pension fund solvency rules. Government is well aware of the fact that the front end of the baby boom is within five years of retiring.

In order to protect pension holders regulations were adopted where pension funds had to set aside funds should the pension plan come to an end. That is fine when dealing with an employer who may or may not be around in 10 or 20 years time, but when you are dealing with an entire industry sector, such as the construction industry then these rules start to get a tad ridiculous.

Currently even healthy pension plans are being forced to raise premiums and/or reduce contributions just to fund the costs of a sudden plan termination that not even government regulators themselves ever expect to have happen.

Current provincial government legislation requires that every defined benefit pension plan be prepared to terminate at any moment and meet all of its obligations to both pensioners and members who are still of working age.

Plans deemed to have a deficit, even when they can easily meet all of their obligations, are thus required to set aside extra contributions in order to be “fully funded” within five years.

The net effect is decrease the wages of employees, and the benefits of pensioners, in order to place a significant amount of money into a dead pool of capital that in many instances will never be needed.

The Harper government in Ottawa has recently acknowledged that that the rules for federally regulated pension plans are too onerous. His government has pledged a range of relief measures including extending the solvency payment schedule to 10 years.

The Campbell government has so far made no such similar promise. In fact right now the issue is being passed like a hot potato between Finance Minister Carole Taylor’s policy and regulatory branches. The policy branch is saying regulators can use their discretion while regulators are saying that current legislation does not provide any criteria for determining such matters.

Many pension fund managers in BC are recommending the development of a risk-based system so that high-risk plans continue to be required to correct solvency problems under the current rules, moderate-risk plans face less stringent rules and low-risk plans are not required to fund hypothetical solvency deficiencies.

But any such regulatory change would have to first be developed by the policy branch of the Ministry of Finance and the policy branch will not undertake such an initiative unless it is deemed to be a priority of the Minister.

That requires getting the attention of the Minister of Finance, Carole Taylor on an issue that can be daunting in terms of its complexity. But it is an issue the provincial government must come to grips with. Otherwise many British Columbians will continue seeing their pension benefits being eroded through government over-regulation and inaction.

It is expected that the Minister of Finance will find some time over the summer to meet with Pension Fund Mangers. If she does let us hope this is followed up with a signal to her Ministry policy branch to start looking at developing a pension fund risk assessment system.

Developing such a system will not be easy, but like most good government policy it is best developed with input from experts in the sector. If this approach is taken and a new risk assessment based system is adopted then this will allow for greater take home pay for workers and improved pension benefits for retirees.

It may not be politically sexy but it is good government. Providing good governance is something Finance Minister Taylor has shown herself to be quite adept at providing when it comes to issues such as labour relations. Let’s hope she can do the same when it comes to workers’ pension funds.

Wafa Sultan Speaks Up

2006-04-23T14:32:00.000-07:00

For Muslim Who Says Violence Destroys Islam, Violent Threats
By JOHN M. BRODER The New York Times
LOS ANGELES, March 10 — Three weeks ago, Dr. Wafa Sultan was a largely unknown Syrian-American psychiatrist living outside Los Angeles, nursing a deep anger and despair about her fellow Muslims.
Today, thanks to an unusually blunt and provocative interview on Al Jazeera television on Feb. 21, she is an international sensation, hailed as a fresh voice of reason by some, and by others as a heretic and infidel who deserves to die.
In the interview, which has been viewed on the Internet more than a million times and has reached the e-mail of hundreds of thousands around the world, Dr. Sultan bitterly criticized the Muslim clerics, holy warriors and political leaders who she believes have distorted the teachings of Muhammad and the Koran for 14 centuries.
She said the world's Muslims, whom she compares unfavorably with the Jews, have descended into a vortex of self-pity and violence.
Dr. Sultan said the world was not witnessing a clash of religions or cultures, but a battle between modernity and barbarism, a battle that the forces of violent, reactionary Islam are destined to lose.
In response, clerics throughout the Muslim world have condemned her, and her telephone answering machine has filled with dark threats. But Islamic reformers have praised her for saying out loud, in Arabic and on the most widely seen television network in the Arab world, what few Muslims dare to say even in private.
"I believe our people are hostages to our own beliefs and teachings," she said in an interview this week in her home in a Los Angeles suburb.
Dr. Sultan, who is 47, wears a prim sweater and skirt, with fleece-lined slippers and heavy stockings. Her eyes and hair are jet black and her modest manner belies her intense words: "Knowledge has released me from this backward thinking. Somebody has to help free the Muslim people from these wrong beliefs."
Perhaps her most provocative words on Al Jazeera were those comparing how the Jews and Muslims have reacted to adversity. Speaking of the Holocaust, she said, "The Jews have come from the tragedy and forced the world to respect them, with their knowledge, not with their terror; with their work, not with their crying and yelling."
She went on, "We have not seen a single Jew blow himself up in a German restaurant. We have not seen a single Jew destroy a church. We have not seen a single Jew protest by killing people."
She concluded, "Only the Muslims defend their beliefs by burning down churches, killing people and destroying embassies. This path will not yield any results. The Muslims must ask themselves what they can do for humankind, before they demand that humankind respect them."
Her views caught the ear of the American Jewish Congress, which has invited her to speak in May at a conference in Israel. "We have been discussing with her the importance of her message and trying to devise the right venue for her to address Jewish leaders," said Neil B. Goldstein, executive director of the organization.
She is probably more welcome in Tel Aviv than she would be in Damascus. Shortly after the broadcast, clerics in Syria denounced her as an infidel. One said she had done Islam more damage than the Danish cartoons mocking the Prophet Muhammad, a wire service reported.
DR. SULTAN is "working on a book that — if it is published — it's going to turn the Islamic world upside down."
"I have reached the point that doesn't allow any U-turn. I have no choice. I am questioning every single teaching of our holy book."
The working title is, "The Escaped Prisoner: When God Is a Monster."
Dr. Sultan grew up in a large traditional Muslim family in Banias, Syria, a small city on the Mediterranean about a two-hour drive north of Beirut. Her father was a grain trader and a devout Muslim, and she followed the faith's strictures into adulthood.
But, she said, her life changed in 1979 when she was a medical student at the University of Aleppo, in northern Syria. At that time, the radical Muslim Brotherhood was using terrorism to try to undermine the government of President Hafez al-Assad. Gunmen of the Muslim Brotherhood burst into a classroom at the university and killed her professor as she watched, she said.
"They shot hundreds of bullets into him, shouting, 'God is great!' " she said. "At that point, I lost my trust in their god and began to question all our teachings. It was the turning point of my life, and it has led me to this present point. I had to leave. I had to look for another god."
She and her husband, who now goes by the Americanized name of David, laid plans to leave for the United States. Their visas finally came in 1989, and the Sultans and their two children (they have since had a third) settled in with friends in Cerritos, Calif., a prosperous bedroom community on the edge of Los Angeles County.
After a succession of jobs and struggles with language, Dr. Sultan has completed her American medical licensing, with the exception of a hospital residency program, which she hopes to do within a year. David operates an automotive-smog-check station. They bought a home in the Los Angeles area and put their children through local public schools. All are now American citizens.
But even as she settled into a comfortable middle-class American life, Dr. Sultan's anger burned within. She took to writing, first for herself, then for an Islamic reform Web site called Annaqed (The Critic), run by a Syrian expatriate in Phoenix.
An angry essay on that site by Dr. Sultan about the Muslim Brotherhood caught the attention of Al Jazeera, which invited her to debate an Algerian cleric on the air last July.
In the debate, she questioned the religious teachings that prompt young people to commit suicide in the name of God. "Why does a young Muslim man, in the prime of life, with a full life ahead, go and blow himself up?" she asked. "In our countries, religion is the sole source of education and is the only spring from which that terrorist drank until his thirst was quenched."
Her remarks set off debates around the globe and her name began appearing in Arabic newspapers and Web sites. But her fame grew exponentially when she appeared on Al Jazeera again on Feb. 21, an appearance that was translated and widely distributed by the Middle East Media Research Institute, known as Memri.
Memri said the clip of her February appearance had been viewed more than a million times.
"The clash we are witnessing around the world is not a clash of religions or a clash of civilizations," Dr. Sultan said. "It is a clash between two opposites, between two eras. It is a clash between a mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages and another mentality that belongs to the 21st century. It is a clash between civilization and backwardness, between the civilized and the primitive, between barbarity and rationality."
She said she no longer practiced Islam. "I am a secular human being," she said.
The other guest on the program, identified as an Egyptian professor of religious studies, Dr. Ibrahim al-Khouli, asked, "Are you a heretic?" He then said there was no point in rebuking or debating her, because she had blasphemed against Islam, the Prophet Muhammad and the Koran.
Dr. Sultan said she took those words as a formal fatwa, a religious condemnation. Since then, she said, she has received numerous death threats on her answering machine and by e-mail.
One message said: "Oh, you are still alive? Wait and see." She received an e-mail message the other day, in Arabic, that said, "If someone were to kill you, it would be me."
Dr. Sultan said her mother, who still lives in Syria, is afraid to contact her directly, speaking only through a sister who lives in Qatar. She said she worried more about the safety of family members here and in Syria than she did for her own.
"I have no fear," she said. "I believe in my message. It is like a million-mile journey, and I believe I have walked the first and hardest 10 miles."

NDP Agenda Keeps BC Treaty Making on Hold

2006-04-02T16:32:00.000-07:00

In human affairs it is all too often the dead hand of history that keeps progress from being made. For instance in British Columbia, unlike most other jurisdictions in North America, few treaties were ever signed with the original native inhabitants.

Thus the crown came to occupy land that in essence it cannot show how it came to have legal title over it. This despite a Royal Proclamation issued in 1820 which made it clear that land was not to be occupied unless treaties had first been obtained.

This has left British Columbia with a legal uncertainty that it is conservatively estimated costs BC several billions of dollars per year in lost investment. After many decades of negotiation the Nisga’a were finally able to conclude a modern treaty with the governments of British Columbia and Canada.

After this success, there followed the establishment of the BC Treaty Commission and a modern treaty making process that has spent hundreds of millions of dollars but has so far failed to produce a single ratified treaty agreement.

Again the dead hand of history comes into play. It was an NDP government that established the treaty process and in setting it up they made sure that the NDP's tax and regulate agenda was front and center. So one caveat was that within eight years of signing a treaty the band members who ratified the treaty would have to start paying sales taxes to the government and within 12 years they would have to start paying income taxes.

Just to be clear here natives who earn income off reserve pay the same income taxes as everyone else regardless of whether or not they live on a reserve. I have written before in previous columns about this so called 8 and 12 formula has helped kill several potential treaty agreements including with the Sechelt who pulled out of the BC Treaty process over this issue.

But there is another part of the NDP agenda that lives on in the BC Treaty process. It is the insistence by the government of British Columbia on moving the status of reserve lands from federal ‘91(24)’ authority to provincial ‘92’ authority. The big driver behind this issue is to have provincial laws, including those governing the Agricultural Land Reserve and Forest Land Reserve apply to treaty lands.

Thus First Nations who ratified a treaty with this provision in it would face the prospect of not being able to develop their lands as they see fit but be forced to remain undeveloped areas of agricultural and forest green belt. This is clearly unacceptable to most First Nations currently within the treaty process.

Yet public and industry perception is that it is First Nations rather than the intransigence of federal and provincial negotiators that is holding up the settlement of treaties here in British Columbia.

It is this misperception that must be corrected if we are ever going to see the federal and provincial negotiators move from their current bargaining position. The message also needs to be driven home to the Campbell government in Victoria and the Harper government in Ottawa that is an NDP tax and regulate agenda that has caused the BC treaty process to stall.

The only people benefiting from these stalled treaty talks are consultants, lawyers and bureaucrats, who are all making a healthy living off of a process that is going nowhere fast. Meanwhile it is the private sector, the general public and first nations members themselves who are on the losing out because of foregone private sector investment.

In order to help bring these issues into sharper focus the Westbank First Nation is hosting a conference on May 30th at the Sensiuyusten Community Centre. The title of the conference neatly sums up its purpose, “Making or Breaking the Treaty Process: The Constitutional Status of Treaty Settlement Land.”

Senior executives from a variety of resource sector companies, key federal and provincial government officials, as well as a variety of First Nations leaders have been invited to attend. I sincerely hope this conference is a success, because if it is not we as taxpayers of British Columbia can look forward to many more years of fruitless treaty negotiations.
Mike Geoghegan is a government and media relations consultant based in Victoria, BC

Those who slam Emerson’s defection, don’t understand parliamentary democracy

2006-03-01T07:46:00.000-08:00

As breathtakingly audacious as David Emerson’s defection to the Conservatives was, it was hardly without precedent. In fact it was no less an esteemed parliamentarian than Sir Winston Churchill who in Britain crossed the floor from the Liberals to the Conservatives. It was also Churchill who once summed up the political journey many of us make when he stated, “anyone who isn’t a socialist by 20 doesn’t have a heart and anyone who isn’t a conservative by 30 doesn’t have a brain.”

The Liberal Party of Canada is certainly in no position to criticize Emerson’s defection. First of all when they recruited him as a star candidate they knew he was a small “c” conservative. The Liberals were also not shy about recruiting Tory MP Scott Brison, Reform/Alliance MP Keith Martin and former BC NDP Premier Ujjal Dosanjh. But of course the most breathtaking recruitment was that of high profile Conservative leadership candidate Belinda Stronach.

It is also worth noting that all four of these political floor crossers were re-elected in the last federal election and both Brison and Stronach have even been talked about as potential Liberal leadership contenders. Although the federal NDP has been the shrillest in attacking Emerson this is nothing more than political opportunism.

Emerson’s riding is Vancouver-Kingway a riding that for years was represented by perennial NDP politician Ian Waddell. The federal NDP know that if Emerson were to resign that the riding would almost certainly go to the NDP in a by-election.

The NDP are also the most reticent of the major political parties to accept people who cross the floor. After losing her nomination, former Liberal Sheila Copps tried to do just that but was rebuffed by the local party faithful despite the expressed wishes of NDP Leader Jack Layton who knew the political cachet having a former Deputy Prime Minister would bring to his caucus.

I would argue that the NDP’s puritanical approach has hurt rather than helped them by cultivating an image of a party made up of true believers who do not accept anyone who dared to once break bread with another political organization. It not only limits the NDP’s talent pool it also sends the message that unless you have always believed in the NDP’s tax and spend agenda you will never be truly welcome in their party.

For those who place partisan consideration above everything else, Emerson’s defection was indeed unseemly or even traumatic. But it was actually good for BC and good for Canada. It was good for Canada in that it has provided some cabinet continuity in a time of short lived minority governments, and it is good for BC in that it has helped give us a strong voice at the cabinet table.

I also want to respond to those who slammed Harper for appointing Emerson. The fact is that Harper listened to those who clucked about the fact the Conservatives had no representation in Canada’s three largest urban centers. In recruiting Emerson he received representation in Vancouver, and in appointing a Senator who is based in Montreal he has helped ensure that city is represented at the cabinet table as well. Rather than being slammed for this Harper should have been congratulated for trying to ensure all areas of Canada feel represented in his government.

Last but not least when Emerson was recruited out of the private sector, it was not to warm his seat on the opposition benches, but to bring his years of experience as a senior government official and industry CEO to the cabinet table. In the end Prime Minister Stephen Harper recruited him for exactly the same reasons former Prime Minister Paul Martin did and we as Canadians and British Columbians are the better for it.

Michael Geoghegan is a Victoria based political consultant.

Indecision 2006 a positive outcome for Canadian Unity

2006-02-01T15:05:00.000-08:00

It has often been said that governments are like diapers; they both need to be changed on a regular basis and for the same reason. Certainly after 14 years in power the federal Liberals were in need of a time out. The sponsorship scandal, the income trusts investigation by the RCMP, and the overall culture of entitlement pointed to a political establishment that was in need of some serious housecleaning.

That is why over half the people who voted Conservative in this election did so because they recognized that it was indeed time for a change. Paul Martin responded to that message by announcing his resignation as Liberal Party leader and thus setting the stage for the federal Liberal Party to have a leadership convention where there is no obvious frontrunner, something that has not happened for the Liberals since 1968.

The Conservatives although no doubt disappointed at their shut out in Canada’s three largest urban centers, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, should take real pride in winning ten seats in Quebec. In so doing they have re-established themselves as a truly national party. In fact if not for rising Tory fortunes, the Bloc Quebecois had been set to take over 50% of the popular vote. Instead they emerged with two fewer MPs than they had going into this election.

So in one fell swoop, the Harper Conservatives have deflated both the separatist aspirations of Quebec Nationalists, and the feelings of alienation felt by many Western Canadians. Harper has also taken steps to shore up Canada’s sovereignty in the north by making it clear he intends to proceed with the purchase of at least two icebreaking vessels to help patrol Canada’s North-West Passage.

This election has essentially given Harper a limited mandate. As Prime Minister he is on probation. If he does well he will no doubt return with a majority government. His most important task is slaying the scary “SOCON” (social conservative) dragon. It is worth noting that when noted SOCON Cindy Silver ran in North Vancouver she lost to the Liberals. The bottom line message is that most Canadians want government out of our wallets, but we certainly don’t want them in our bedrooms either.

While sifting the tea leaves of the federal election results, I will note for the record that on day two of the federal election campaign, while on Canada AM, I correctly predicted that the greater Victoria area would elect one Liberal, one Conservative and one NDP MP. The other thing worth noting is that all three MPs who quit Stephen Harper’s party to join the Liberals, Keith Martin, Scott Brison and Belinda Stronach were all re-elected.

Usually politicians that switch political parties fare poorly. Another interesting fact is that in the southern Interior when the Conservative candidate was knocked out of contention by cross border smuggling charges, it was the NDP candidate Alex Atamenenko that received the majority of those erstwhile Tory voters.

The clear lesson here is that, especially out here in BC, there are a large number of voters that will switch between the Conservatives and the NDP. I believe that it is because these voters are motivated to vote against the establishment. Thus in 1984 BC, along with the rest of Canada elected a large number of Conservative MPs, but in 1988, while the Mulroney government was re-elected, BC for the first time in its history sent a majority of NDP MPs to Ottawa.

Of course a change in government in Ottawa also changes things up in the consulting business, the field in which I work. Mark Marrissen of Burrard Communications was able to parley his close association with Paul Martin into a thriving consulting business called Burrard Communications where clients were charged as much as $600 per hour.

Mark will almost certainly be persona non grata with the Harper government, so who in Vancouver will move in to fill the void? My money is on Tim Crowhurst over at Sea Level Communications. His connections will become especially lucrative should the Harper government be re-elected to a majority government in a couple of years time.

In the meantime I continue to maintain connections with all the major political players in both Ottawa and Victoria so that changes of government for the most part do not affect me one way or another I am still able to get results for my clients. That is why I have been able to make a successful living as a consultant since 1996 while other more prominent “lobbyists” have come and gone.

BC will decide outcome of “battle of the blands”

2006-01-01T15:44:00.000-08:00

The early days of the federal election campaign have not so far produced the fireworks everyone was expecting. In fact about the only thing that has passed for excitement so far in this campaign is the commitment by NDP Leader Jack Layton to shave off his mustache if his wife Olivia Chow is elected an MP in Toronto.

There was certainly some consternation over Martin’s announcement of a handgun ban early in the campaign. Apparently the strategy was to create a “wedge issue” between the Liberals and the Conservatives. Harper was smart enough not to bite and instead it was left to the Liberal Premier from BC, the Conservative Premier from Alberta and the two NDP Premiers from Manitoba and Saskatchewan to shoot down the ill-conceived policy announcement. Thus Harper came across looking restrained while Martin looked like he was firing blanks.

If the Liberals want to get serious about reducing handgun violence they need to beef up security at our borders in order to reduce the amount of handguns that are being smuggled across the border. The costs associated with this can be recovered by scrapping the completely ineffective gun registry program that has gobbled up two billion dollars of taxpayers’ money and has done absolutely nothing to stem the increase in gun violence in Canada.

The Conservatives meanwhile have scored some good points on putting some money into the military to shore up Canada’s territorial claims over the arctic. Let’s be clear on this the United States and Denmark have both taken steps in recent years to encroach on our northern sovereignty. This is because as the artic ice melts the Northwest Passage is going to be an increasingly lucrative way of shipping goods and services between Europe, North America and Asia.

Prime Minister Paul Martin has dismissed Stephen Harper’s announcement by stating that much of what Harper has announced is already his government’s policy. Yes but what Paul Martin doesn’t seem to understand is that leaders aren’t judged so much on their policy but on their deeds.

But it’s hard to get action out of politicians that are increasingly being selected for their ability to be “non-controversial.” The best way to be non-controversial is to say and do as little as possible. So we have safe middle of the road suggestions emerging from all three federal party leaders while a skeptical public looks on and worries about the NDP’s tax and spend agenda, the odor of corruption still swirling around the Liberals, and a Conservative Party that is dominated by social conservatives.

With Quebec voting heavily for the “none of the above option” i.e. the Bloc Quebecois, it looks like whether we have a Liberal or Conservative Minority government elected in Ottawa will be determined right here in BC. Right now it looks like Vancouver Island is swinging towards the NDP, urban ridings in the Lower Mainland are going strongly Liberal while the rest of BC will likely stick with the Conservatives.

So BC will likely send a fair number of Liberal, Conservative and NDP MPs to Ottawa. But if the combined total of Liberal and NDP MPs is not enough to form a majority both Stephen Harper and Paul Martin may have to think the unthinkable and form a Liberal Conservative, or Conservative Liberal coalition government.

As unpalatable as such a prospect might be to either party it might be the only combination that may end up working. That’s the situation Germany faced in its recent federal election when Angela Merkel, the German conservative whose party narrowly defeated Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder socialists, ended up forming a coalition government with Schroeder’s party.

Certainly there are many areas on paper where the Liberals and Conservatives agree. They both support tax cuts, they both have talked about increased funding for the military and both have talked about having an elected Senate. The difference being is that a Liberal Conservative coalition government would actually deliver on those things rather than just talk about them.

The other great thing about such a coalition is that it would hamstring both the tax and spend left wing of the Liberal Party as well as the religious right within the Conservative Party thus leaving Canadians with pretty much the kind of balanced government that not only talks about doing things but actually does them.

We have to support Stanwick's habit

2005-12-20T09:31:00.000-08:00

Times Colonist (Victoria)
Page: A11 Section
Letters Byline: Michael Geoghegan
Source: Times Colonist
Re: "The Island's health crusader," the three full pages devoted to Dr. Richard Stanwick, Dec. 18.

It was enlightening to learn of a public official who has such high regard for his own intellect that he is willing to completely ignore public opinion.

This was certainly in evidence back in September when Stanwick attempted to push through a series of bylaw amendments without any public consultation, or even advance warning to the Capital Regional District board of directors.

There are city officials in both Toronto and Winnipeg who certainly could have further enlightened your readers on Stanwick's modus operandi, and the negative impact his controversial decisions tended to have on the local small business community.

But in the CRD Stanwick has found the ideal home. The CRD is not directly accountable to the public and thus Stanwick has virtually a free hand to come up with new rules and regulations governing every aspect of our lives.

In his worldview Stanwick knows what is best for us and we as citizens and small business owners should be grateful to cover the cost of having our freedoms curtailed.

Michael Geoghegan,
Saanich.

Illustration:• Photo: Bruce Stotesbury, Times Colonist / CRD MEDICAL HEALTH OFFICER DR. RICHARD STANWICK: Won't listen to public opinion, a writer says.

Mugging for the media

2005-12-19T09:02:00.000-08:00

It's not every day that a childhood ambition get's fulfilled. When I was a kid growing up in small town western Canada, we only got a few television stations. One of them was the CBC and the other was CTV. Thus watching Canada AM on CTV was something I did on more than a few occassions.

So I found myself thinking that one day I would like to be on Canada AM and get one of those coffee mugs. Although in previous years I have been interviewed on CBC Newsworld, when I got interviewed by Canada AM on November 28th at the beginning of the current federal election campaign I insisted on only one thing, getting sent one of their Canada AM coffee mugs.

It arrived a week before Christmas and now has a place of honour amongst all the other coffee mugs I have received from various other radio and television media over the years.