Finances, Politics, Provincial, The Economy

No Surprise, Just Politics as Usual.

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The Province posed an e-street Question:

“What has surprised you most about the current provincial election campaign?”

Nothing.

Devoid of ideas, ideals and desperate to avoid addressing the important issues and their painful realities, the Liberals are employing the time tested strategy employed by politicians and parties in that position – frighten the voters. BC’s Liberals choosing to go with the 1990’s and NDP spending as the boogeyman with which to frighten voters.

If you can find no reasons for voters to vote FOR you, find frightening reasons to scare voters into voting AGAINST your opponents and for the lesser evil.

Of course they still are voting for evil, lesser or not.

Devoid of ideas, ideals and desperate to avoid addressing the important issues and their painful realities, the NDP are travelling around the province making spending promises using the imaginary extra $1.5 billion the NDP’s phantasm budget raises.

Of course, had the NDP put the welfare of citizens ahead of the welfare of the NDP there would be 1.5 billion real, not imaginary, dollars to build hospitals.

Instead political expediency and the opportunity to count coup on the Liberals had Adrian Dix and the NDP campaigning for (and convincing) voters to return the $1.5 billion HST bribe to Ottawa rather than use it to address the need for major hospital spending on St. Paul’s, Royal Inland, Haida Gwaii and other projects.

As usual the media is careful to tell British Columbians only what they want to hear; shunning the communication of any information to British Columbians they have a need to know, but don’t want to know/hear about.

‘All the news you want to hear and none of the news you need to know but don’t want to hear or think about.’  

Focusing on the street theatre aspects of the election and, as carefully as the politicians, ignoring the true issues facing BC – the painful nitty gritty reality voters do not want to hear or think about.

Politics as usual in BC.

Although……. I am hoping to be surprised on Election Day by the election of two independent MLAs to represent Abbotsford East and Abbotsford West.

Media, The Economy

To Omit Information is to Misinform

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I caught a flashy ad promoting Shaw’s 5:30 PM Global National program. The ad had clips from a story about an Ontario woman being denied medical treatment by the Ontario government, telling viewers to tune into Global National for the full story.

The ad really didn’t provide me any incentive to tune into Global National since anyone familiar with today’s media knows the probable form and content of the story. More importantly, they know what type of information the story needs to include but won’t include.

From the ad it was clear the subject of the story has a terminal illness; a terminal illness with a high probably of being among those illnesses classified as a ‘rare disease’; meaning treatment will be new (perhaps still in the experimental stage or in clinical trials) and extremely expensive.

With evident grief family and friends will speak of what a wonderful person she is, how terrible her loss would be, how sad/devastating the thought of her death is to them and how outraged they are the villains, the Ontario Government, refuses to pay for the treatment.

If there are children, there will be film of her great relationship with her children; of her looking ill and limited by the disease while the children look concerned and upset. There will be testimony of what a great and loving mother she is. She will speak of how she wants to live so she can “see her children grow-up”. The children will speak of how much they love their mother and how they do not want the villainous government people to make her die.

If the family has a dog (pet) there will be pictures of the woman and dog enjoying a wonderful relationship and testimony as to how it will devastate the dog is she dies.

The report will provide the name of the disease, how it slowly sucks away the life of the person with the disease and how there is a cure (or an on occasion successful treatment) but the government will not cover the cost – a cost the family cannot afford to pay itself.

There will be interviews with the villains, the Ontario Government officials who state that the Ontario government does not cover (pay for) experimental treatments.

The tone of the piece may evoke enough of a negative response that the Ontario Government, because it is all about politics, is forced to pay for the treatment.

Should the government be forced to pay for the non-covered experimental treatment, the tone of the report will be self congratulatory.

The information the report won’t include is who died or went without treatment because Global National caused the life of the woman in the story to be deemed more important than the lives of other Ontario citizens.

Healthcare is a zero sum game. When money is spent on something/someone not in the budget (the woman’s treatment) the money to pay for the unbudgeted spending is taken from somewhere/something/someone that money was budgeted for. The reallocation of the money to pay for the unbudgeted healthcare expense means someone does not receive the services that were originally (before reallocation) going to be received.

The same political reasons/pressures that result in money being ‘reallocated’, make the powerless, the unpopular, those unable to speak for themselves those most like to lose services.

Reallocation of resources has left the psych ward at Abbotsford Hospital overwhelmed. I knew someone who was on the waiting list to get into treatment for his substance abuse. As a result of this ongoing struggle his head was in a black and dangerous space. Recognizing how dark and dangerous his head space was we spoke of his need to go to the hospital if it worsened.

It did, he went to the overtaxed, overwhelmed hospital and was turned away. Upon leaving the hospital he killed himself.

Cutting healthcare does not require (or mean) cutting the dollars spent on healthcare. Healthcare costs continue to rise and unless the percentage increase in the budget matches the percentage increase in the cost to buy the same healthcare services as last year – you cannot buy the same health services as last year. Meaning health services have been cut.

As a consequence any ‘NEW’ services come at the expense of existing services – cutbacks or eliminations of those existing services providing the $$$$ to pay for the ‘NEW’ services.

I am not sure whether it is a result of ‘burying your head in the sand’ or ‘wilful denial’ or ‘refusing to think’ but people act as though they can have unlimited healthcare – without paying for it. Using “The government can find the money – if they want to” mantra. Ignoring that common sense and basic mathematics require  the government have an orchard of money trees behind the legislature or Rumpelstiltskin in the basement of the legislature (parliament) spinning straw into gold to pay for all the healthcare people want but refuse to pay for.

Politicians – the government – are not villains for imposing limits on health care that have negative consequences, up to and including death, for citizens. Their villainy lies in protecting their jobs (re-election) and gold-plated retirement benefits at the expense of citizen’s healthcare and standard of living by refusing to tell voters something voters do not want to hear.

Refusing to address the issues voters don’t want to hear about does not mean the issues won’t be addressed at some point. It merely postpones the very painful consequences until government and citizens are forced, in the same manner as was Greece, to deal with the issues arising from economic and financial realities.

Telling ourselves that ‘Canada is not Greece’ will not stop the consequences of our spend, spend, spend, pay only a portion, borrow, borrow, sell the future of Canadian children – from coming home to roost or change how painful the correction of personal, corporate and government financial mismanagement will be

In running around broadcasting reports about the need for new hospitals, more healthcare, more education, more of this more, more of that……… without asking how we pay for those items; fostering the impression that the financial and economic issues looming over the future of citizens are the fault of government and have nothing to do with unreasonable demands from the public for services they refuse to pay for; not asking either Mr. Vander Zalm or Mr. Dix why they thought sending $1.5 billion back to Ottawa was a better idea than spending at least a billion dollars of that amount on hospital infrastructure; completely ignoring the financial and economic challenges facing governments………

……media has become villains in this drama, a significant part of the problem, a major impediment to addressing the issues and a threat to Canadians standard of living.

The motto of the media has changed from “all the news you need to know” to today’s “only the news you want to hear, and nothing you don’t want to hear.”

Media is all about selling the sizzle and ignoring the fact the meat is full of salmonella and/or e-coli.

Caveat emptor, Finances, Life, Provincial

Motivation: an Evaluation Tool

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There is nothing we can do about the majority of British Columbians having voted to repeal the HST and return to a PST, except suffer the pain and pay the price.

That Bill Vander Zalm, Adrian Dix, the NDP, the media and the majority of BC residents decided it was a good idea to send $1.5 billion back to Ottawa, instead of using it to construct hospitals and other needed infrastructure, is a triumph of motive over rational, thoughtful decision making.

Leaving us to decide “how important is it” that we start construction to replace/renew St. Paul’s Hospital, Royal Inland Hospital, Haida Gwaii Hospital and any other capital projects before the five years (at $300 million a year) of repayment to Ottawa are up.

If it is decided that we cannot wait the remaining 4 years of repayments to begin construction of hospitals or other capital projects, then taxpayers are going to have to suffer the pain of paying the hundreds of millions of dollars of additional taxes needed to offset the $1.5 billion returned to Ottawa.

As stated there is nothing we can do about the return of the PST on April Fool’s Day but endure the consequences.

But with Election Day on May 14, 2013 only weeks away, it behoves us to seek to understand why the majority of British Columbians decided removing $1.5 billion from the BC budget and returning all those dollars to Ottawa was a good idea.

Because with the challenges facing healthcare, education, the economy, indeed the future of British Columbian’s standard of living – we cannot afford such large scale misinformation or foolishness.

Voters must set aside wilful denial, face the need to set priorities, make tough choices and recognize we cannot have unlimited healthcare or other government services UNLESS WE ARE WILLING TO PAY FOR UNILIMTED LEVELS OF SERVICE.

The complexity, lack of easy answers and the importance of beginning to address the issues demanding BC voters set priorities, make it imperative that voters are informed about and understand the actual state of BC’s finances and the ability of those finances to purchase and deliver services (i.e. healthcare) to citizens.

Wise decision making requires the facts, not rhetoric or spin or false ‘knowing’.

Throughout his HST crusade Mr. Vander Zalm ducked questions as to the $1.5 billion repayment to Ottawa or suggested it would not have to be repaid, even though Ottawa had stated if the HST was repealed the money paid to BC to bring in the HST would – not surprisingly – have to be repaid.

That $1.5 billion repayment is – not surprisingly – resulting in painful negative consequences for the citizens of BC. If Mr. Vander Zalm’s crusade had been about the HST and concerned with the best interests of the citizens of BC addressing the $1.5 billion repayment would have been part of Mr. Vander Zalm’s crusade.

If Vander Zalm’s motivation was not the HST or the best interests of the citizen’s of BC, what could his motivation for his anti-HST (let’s repay Ottawa $1.5 billion) crusade have been?

Given that the existence of the BC Liberals offered an alternative for voters to the Social Credit and thus allowed Bill Vander Zalm’s actions as leader of the Social Credit to destroy the Social Credit, it is easy to see how the Liberals and Gordon Campbell became a target of Vander Zalm’s enmity.

In light of Mr. Vander Zalm’s behaviours as leader of the Social Credit there is no surprise in him putting his personal interests above the interests of the province and its citizens by ignoring the damage repaying $1.5 billion would inflict on BC and its citizens and pursuing the opportunity the HST presented to reduce the liberal Party’s popularity (electability),

For Adrian Dix and the NDP the lack of leadership, the inability to forgo the opportunity to gain public popularity at the expense of the liberals and the failure to put the interests of the citizens of BC ahead of Adrian Dix and the NDP’s quest for power disqualifies them from forming the government.

Any party leader and party who would put their personal political interests ahead of the extremely negative consequences that would result for BC and its citizens from repaying $1.5 billion to Ottawa, lacks the ethics and trustworthiness to address the growing number of issues and difficulties facing BC.

To this day Mr Dix and the NDP continue to try to have it both ways, scoring public popularity while refusing/avoiding responsibility for the negative consequences their support of the HST repeal has, and continues to, cost British Columbians.

In taking the easy way out in seeking to bolster their sagging approval ratings, rather than standing firm as was best for BC, the Liberals share in culpability for the negative consequences the repeal of the HST with its $1.5 billion dollar repayment results in.

Motivation, actions and behaviours are far more useful in evaluating stated policies, trustworthiness, character, leadership, ethics and fitness to govern than any words uttered by political parties and their leaders.

While disappointing, in this day and age it is a given that politicians and political parties are about their own interests, telling voters what voters want to hear, not telling voters what they don’t want to hear, avoiding issues etc. It is why one can predict that the NDP platform in this election will be vague to the point of meaningless.

The most important lesson voters need to take away from the HST debacle is not how venal politicians and political parties are, but that the media (print, radio and television) have no interest in and are NOT about informing the public.

When speaking to Mr. Vander Zalm after the return to the PST the media continued to fail to ask Mr. Vander Zalm why he thought returning $1.5 billion to Ottawa was a good idea; what healthcare and other services Mr. Vander Zalm favoured cutting, what hospital construction he favours forgoing, to repay the $1.5 billion to Ottawa.

As Mr. Dix and the NDP run  around the province talking about the failure of the Liberals and the need to build hospitals or spend money on this or that – has the media ever asked Mr. Dix and the NDP how the government is suppose to spend hundreds of millions of dollars when Mr. Dix and the NDP convinced voters to send $1.5 billion back to Ottawa? Did media ever demand Mr. Dix and the NDP explain why they thought sending $1.5 billion back to Ottawa was a good idea? Or ask what Mr. Dix and the NDP would cut and/or forgo to pay for sending that $1.5 billion back to Ottawa.

Of course not. Bringing up issues would have interfered with the entertainment value, the spectacle and the rhetoric.

And of course, acknowledging their culpability in the repeal of the HST and the return of $1.5 billion to Ottawa would put a damper on media running around crying the sky is falling and we need to spend, spend, spend……..money the province does not have.

Has the media ever asked the teachers what healthcare programs the teachers are calling to be cut so the money can be redirected to the education budget? Because the only budget expenditure large enough to cover the cost of the $$$$$ the teachers are calling on the government to spend is healthcare.

Unless the teachers are calling on the government to eliminate an area of spending (the courts and jails for example) to cover the cost of the large increase in education spending the teachers are calling on. Or perhaps the teachers are calling for the imposition of hundreds of millions in new taxes to be poured into education?

Media does not ask the important question of where the money will come from, it quietly takes its 30 pieces of silver for running the teachers ads calling on voters to vote for their children by voting for any party that will dramatically increase spending on education as though the $$$$$ to pay for spending can be found in a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

“We cannot talk about that, people don’t want to hear it”; “Talking about that would reduce ratings, have people turning off or (shudder) turning to the competition”; If it bleeds it leads; the slick, entertaining programming called news is a profit center where the bottom line – not the quality or value of information presented (or not presented) – is the focus and the motivator.

The owners of the media have every right to focus on making money rather than delivering informative, well rounded, balanced reports that increase, not decrease (as it currently does), the public’s ability to make informed decisions.

If you watch Mike Holmes, there is a viewer advisory displayed at the start of the program and every time the program returns from a commercial break.

To protect voters and citizens from being mislead or influenced by the misinformation inherent in today’s broadcast media programming, programming that passes itself off as providing viewers with news and information, should carry a warning that the underlying operational imperatives of the program are based on ratings and financial considerations – not about the public’s need to know.

Media has become about selling the sizzle and ignoring the fact the meat is badly contaminated with Salmonella, E coli, Listeria or Campylobacter.

A lot of people in the media, and some everyday people, really aren’t in search of the truth. They’re in search of something worse than that. Money, yeah. I think the media’s the kind of a thing where the truth doesn’t win, because it’s no fun. The truth’s no fun.      Jack White

Finances, Provincial

BC Hospital Capital Investment

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When you heard/watched/read the medical staff at Royal inland Hospital stating the hospital has been running at over 100% every day since 2013 began, what thoughts were triggered in your mind?

My thoughts went back to Monday April 1st as I was standing at the cash register in a thrift store digging for the extra 21 cents imposed on my $3 purchase by the return of the PST.

As I dumped the change out in search of that 21 cents, I thought about just how appropriate it was that the PST came back on April Fool’s Day.

April Fool’s Day being appropriate only because there is no Stupid’s Day.

Because no matter how you spin it, switching back to the PST from the HST was so financially irresponsible, it blew past the line of colossally irresponsible behaviour into ‘did everybody eat several extra bowls of stupid’ territory.

Forget the petty stuff everyone seemed intent on being bogged down in. Yes many will be happy they do not have to pay 7% provincial tax when they eat out – at least until the eateries put prices up by more than 7% to cover the cost savings lost with the return to the PST.

Because all the ‘the government lied’, ‘they promised’, ‘7%! – the government is going to destroy the food services business’ etc is meaningless when contrasted with the consequences for British Columbia and its citizens of repaying $1.5 billion  to Ottawa.

Want to replace or renew Royal Inland Hospital, Haida Gwaii Hospital or St. Paul’s Hospital? That will require an investment approaching $1 billion and, well Sorry, but that $1 billion is being repaid to Ottawa.

Have other important major capital projects that need investment, renewal or replacement? Sorry, but that 1/2 billion dollars is being repaid to Ottawa as well.

Because the majority of the citizens of BC (those who voted to repeal the HST plus those who did not vote against the repeal of the HST) chose to repay Ottawa the $1.5 billion, rather than using the $1.5 billion dollar bribe Ottawa used to ‘encourage’ BC (and Quebec) to adopt the HST in construction of/at St. Paul’s Hospital, Royal Inland Hospital, Haida Gwaii Hospital or other projects.

So as the media and the opposition joyfully (and unhelpfully) run around pointing out the government has not committed funding to hospital construction, we need to remember that the reason government does not have money to fund hospital construction is that Bill Vander Zalm, Adrian Dix, the NDP and the media convinced the majority of BC residents that sending the $1.5 billion back to Ottawa was a good idea.

 

One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain’t nothin’ can beat teamwork.  Edward Abbey

Consider, Finances, Life, Mental Health

Car Trouble – It Came to Pass that…

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My friend Tom came by this Sunday morning to take a look at the beast aka my car and decided the pictures I sent of the leak and the part it was leaking out of was accurate and my water pump was shot.

We filled the radiator with all the water it would hold and I hopped in the car and….. noticed that I had left the glove compartment open when I retrieved something from it the previous evening.

Being an old hand at dealing with the Universe’s efforts to get me, I keep a set of jumper cables in the trunk to discourage the Universe from trying to get me with a dead battery. A quick jump and I was racing off to Tom’s although it turned out not to require to much haste as the coolness of the weather allowed me to drive to Tom’s place without the engine getting more than barely warm .

For a while it looked like the Universe was going to be successful in getting me. Everything came apart with relative ease until the pulley that was the last barrier to removing and replacing the water pump, refused to be removed. Even after being blasted by butane torch.

Plan B required removing the alternator to get at and remove the plate blocking access to the last two bolts holding the water pump in place. Two of the three bolts that needed to be removed to remove the plate were awkward, the third was damn awkward.

The first two were removed and the third, obviously one of the Universe’s minions, refused to budge. With the difficulty in getting at the bolt it appeared it was going to be successful in thwarting replacement of the water pump.

However, the bolt and the Universe had vastly underestimated Tom. With the refusal to budge they had challenged Tom, not defeated him. So, girding his loins for battle Tom plunged back into the fray with single minded determination and………emerged victorious.

The bolt was removed and the old water pump freed.

Tom commented that he had never seen a water pump in as bad shape as this one was, with the pulley shaft flopping around through a wide range of motion. Apparently I had been driving on borrowed time for some time, with the cool weather serving to allow the engine to avoid overheating. When the bearings finally shifted enough to uncover the weep hole the water escaped, informing me I needed a new water pump.

Fate had been kind, having the weep hole open up as I was on Highway 1 nearing Clearbrook rather than in Surrey.

Tom called and spoke to someone he knew working at an auto parts store, arranging for me to pick up a new water pump.

On my way back with the pump I made a quick stop at the library to pick up the items waiting for me on the ‘hold’ shelf, including the DVD of the new Bond movie. Aaahhhhhhh, relief. After 5 consecutive days of being unable to visit the library or retrieve my holds I had feared I was slipping into withdrawal.

It only took a few minutes but added to the time being polite and observing good line etiquette at the store required the elapsed time had my phone ringing while I was still a few blocks from Tom’s. After pulling up and parking I checked my phone and it had indeed been Tom, wondering if I had been lost as he had applied the gasket cement and was anxious to have the gasket to put in place as soon as possible.

I didn’t check the phone until the vehicle was stopped because I strongly support paying attention to your driving. Not only with regard to handheld electronic devices but eating, applying makeup, doing paperwork and all the other myriad of ways humans find to distract themselves from their driving. If you think about it, the statistics on the use of handheld devices are frightening in light of the implications those statistics hold about the number of distracted drivers, their victims and accidents causing serious injury and death.

This plague of ‘I HAVE to take this’ is another aspect of the narcissism, the ‘it is all about me’, the ‘screw others’ that has infected Canada and Canadians. I would support adding confiscation of the device to the fines, since the fines don’t seem to have gotten people’s attention, although I think the confiscation should be permanent, not temporary.

Following that word from our sponsors common sense, courtesy and consideration for others, we return to our tale of Universe intrigue.

Opening the box containing the new water pump (the correct pump, human expertise defeating any machinations by the Universe to deliver the wrong pump into my hands) the gasket was removed and placed in position. The pump was removed from its sealed bag, lined up and the last bolts removed to remove the old pump became the first bolts put in place to begin installation of the replacement pump.

And so it went, installing the new pump by replacing the bolts and assorted parts (such as the alternator) in the reverse order in which they were originally removed.

Not surprisingly the installation reassembly proceeded much smoother than the disassembly removal had. Although reinstalling the belt was trickier that removing the belt had been, mainly as a result of the difficulty in getting enough slack from the belt tension mechanism to get the belt over the alternator pulley.

Until the last bolt, that had been there moments before when the reinstallation of the fan housing and the fan blades had begun, pulled a disappearing act. We sought it here, we sought it there, we looked high, we looked low But nowhere was it to be found.

The last piece of the reassembly was missing! It looked as though the Universe was going to get its last laugh and that I would need to visit an auto wrecker to find a replacement bolt and return to Tom’s later in the week to complete the final item of the installation of the replacement pump.

So we abandoned the search for the last bolt and proceeded to fill the cooling system with coolant and start up the engine. After letting the engine run for several minutes it was turned off and the radiator was topped off.

As he was topping off the radiator what should Tom’s eye spot but the last bolt hiding down among the engine parts. Grabbing his telescoping magnet tipped doohickey for retrieving bolts etc Tom plucked the bolt from its hiding place and quickly installed it.

Mission accomplished! Water pump replacement procured and secured in place.

But before i could leave Tom disappeared back to his collection of nuts, bolts, screws etc; returning with what appeared to be two wood screws. “Grab your front plate” he instructed, having noticed that I had lost the front licence plate holder but still had the front plate which was sitting in the front window. That’s the good thing about plastic bumpers he informed me as he proceeded to screw the front plate into position with the wood screws.

I was ready to hit the road………..after borrowing Tom’s battery charger to fully charge up the battery. Lest the Universe be tempted to use a dead battery on the morrow to leave me scrambling to get to my appointment at mental health and to the shelter to do intake.

After all, you’re not paranoid is the Universe really is out to get you.