Those Friday Night Procurement "bids" by the BC Liberal Government

"which can be as confusing as finding one's way around the BC Liberal Government web site....."  

 Its difficult to find what an Open and Transparent BC Liberal Government is up to these days in the Procurement (BC Bid) business of handing out contracts without a bid, sort of reminds me of parts of the BC Rail sale.

How does one find what BC Bid is up to?  First, you have to have a lot of time on your hands.  Secondly, you may want to focus on a specific field?  Third, maybe focus on the BC Liberal leader candidates Ministry before he/she resigned to become Premier?  Fourth, look at everything because Christy Clark hasn't been in Government since she bailed out to look after the family.

Step ONE: Search with Google for bc government procurement website.  If you think you can go to Gordon Campbell's government and just type in Procurement, it isn't going to happen.

Step TWO: First hit up is:

Logistics & Business Services - British Columbia

Serving BC Government ministries, the broader public sector and publicly-funded ... Procurement. Corporate Supply Arrangements - DCV · Corporate Supply ...
Purchasing Services - Asset Investment Recovery - Product Distribution Centre
www.pss.gov.bc.ca/ - Cached - Similar

==========================================

 Step THREE:  ALWAYS WORKING FOR YOU!   Yeah. right

"Logistics & Business Services is comprised of closely related programs that together offer procurement and supply solutions, using a combination of internal and private sector resources. Best of all, services can be customized to suit your organization’s needs."

Customized, (<------Thanks to Public Eye Online) to suit the BC Liberal party needs, like not properly advertising the contracts to all bidders

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Step FOUR:  A click on BC Bid ,  (left hand side of the column in the photo....)  gives you this result

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Step FIVE:

Now you have to click on the word Browse (in real time), above photo, which gives you this result:

 ==============================================

 Step SIX:
Browse Opportunities by Organization is the category you want to go for, at least that's what I did here.

There's 130 "Organizations", not all provincial, eg. District of North Vancouver (2), Coast Mountain Bus Company Ltd. (2), District of Elkford (2), etc.   oh and of course   Ministry of Attorney General (5)

 =================================================

Step SEVEN: Five hits:

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Step EIGHT:   Item four above:   The devil is in the details:

"Summary Details: Notice is hereby given by the Ministry of Attorney General (Justice Services Branch) of its intent to contract with Queenswood Consulting Group Ltd. to develop a business plan to support the delivery of virtual Justice Access Centre services."

Open Mike de Jong is no longer the Attorney General, so he shouldn't be questioned on this, but may the public assume here that it was the DEPUTY Attorney General who made this decision, to go without an OPEN bid to all parties?  Sounds a lot like a repeat decision of the Six Million dollars that was paid to settle the BC Rail deal by two Deputies when the "Sheriffs/Marshalls/Ministers/Cabinet" were out of town.


Lastly,   there's this:         "Browsing All Open Categories", but you can't go directly from here, you have to double back to the web page that covers: "Browse Opportunities"

"Tricks, Tips, Work Arounds, Hints, Secrets and Ideas" that the BBC uses

Christmas Eve, the presents are under the tree, family is coming over for dinner, time to relax, and going for a nice long hike today requires me to take a refresher course on how not to get lost.... no.... not on the internet.... not to get lost, on our North Shore mountains of Greater Vancouver, which can be as confusing as finding one's way around the BC Liberal Government web site.

I've spent a long time looking for a website full of information pertaining to the Global Positioning System, and for me, this is THE Best.

Tricks, Tips, Work Arounds, Hints, Secrets and Ideas

for the Garmin nüvi GPS (and others)

================================

".......you have probably already discovered, the Garmin Quick Start Manual and the on-line Operations Manual for your unit are not quite enough. Some procedures are not covered in adequate depth and many procedures are not covered at all.

You will be surprised at the many extra operations that you can accomplish with your nüvi of which the general population is not aware. You have come to the right place."

"participatory democracy" - a process emphasizing the broad participation of constituents in the direction and operation of political systems.

"From the introduction of a set election date, free votes, a Provincial Congress, the First Citizens' Forum, and open cabinet meetings, to the referendum on treaty principles, and the Citizens' Assembly, we have been Canada's leading edge of participatory democracy."  

  Premier Gordon Campbell Swearing-In Ceremony for new BC Cabinet June 16 2005

We have "set election dates", but one BC Liberal candidate who wants to be Leader, has called for a Snap Election so that she can be Premier even though Elections BC can barely get the Harmonized Sales Tax Initiative off the ground in 85 Electoral Ridings.

"Free votes", on what, by whom, never happened.

"Provincial Congress", now this one is interesting because the MLA who started the ball rolling on this was summarily kicked out of the BC Liberal caucus last month. A Provincial Congress has been mentioned in the BC Liberal Party Bio for Premier Gordon Campbell; mentioned in the BC Young Liberals website; been mentioned in the BC Liberal Government website for the Premier's Bio; its been mentioned in the Speech from the Throne, and lastly, its been mentioned in regards to the cities of the Philippines.  That's all!

=============================

"Presentation materials and briefing notes that are used at these meetings will be made available after the meeting is adjourned for those who would like them. "   -   Premier Gordon Campbell
  Open Cabinet Meeting Introduction   June 27, 2001

 Could someone tell me what's happening at the Government Websites because when I go to this Open Cabinet meeting document below, and roll my cursor over the phrase like  "Core Review" or "Budget", I can clearly see the link that the BC Liberal Government wrote.  Problem is, someone in the Premier's Office doesn't want the "Presentation Materials" and "Briefing notes" made available to the public in the same form that they were presented in 2001.   A click on the two links takes you right to the Premier's Office where he is in all his animated glory of December 2010.

"2001"? don't know what you're talking about.  "Core Review"?  Forget it.   "Budget"..... No, can't help you there either.

"WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2001"
The Cabinet met at 9:02 a.m.
Premier's Opening Remarks
"Hon. G. Campbell: I just want to start with a couple of opening comments on the core review (http://www.gov.bc.ca/prem/popt/corereview/). As you know, most of the ministries have now gone through their first go-round of core review. It's basically broken into two components. The first is: what are we doing? What are the strategic shifts we should be looking at? We're going to talk about some of that with four ministries today. The second is: once strategic shifts have been approved, then there is a plan brought forward which is basically an implementation plan.
Many of you have yet to get to that stage, but it is a very important part of what we're doing here. We did tell people, in the election, that we were going to make sure their tax dollars were spent on critical services in the most cost-effective way possible, and you don't do that by continuing on with the status quo. I think that the challenge we face is a huge one. I'm sure you all remember the fiscal review panel. We'd face a $3 billion structural deficit next year if we did nothing.
One of the things the panel did recommend to us is that we look at all of government. Instead of doing the regular, across-the-board sweeping things, we start by saying: what is government doing? Why is it doing it? If government, in fact, should be carrying out a service, is it doing it in the most cost-effective way possible? These are fundamental questions that too often we don't ask ourselves. Too often we forget about the results that are either promised or implied to taxpayers as we commence a program, and we don't do very much to follow it up.
Part of the core review is also, as you know, to look at targets and goals that we set for ourselves. It's a critical part of the development of your service plans, which will be part of next February's budget (http://www.gov.bc.ca/prem/popt/cabinet/legislative_calendar.htm) on February 19. What I intend to do with cabinet is have ministers come forward and outline for you the strategic shifts that they believe are critical in their ministries in the delivery of the services that their ministries have undertaken to provide." SNIP

Now if you want to talk about "participatory democracy" at the constituent level, without BC Liberals running interference on the wording, then there's the HST Initiative and The Recall campaign for MLAs.

I wonder when someone is going to start up the BC Rail Inquiry Initiative? Or is that a Criminal matter that is under review by a Special Prosecutor?

Are we paying too much of a Shadow Toll to drive the Sea to Sky Highway?

You'd think that to truly benefit from a twenty-five year agreement on the tolling of the Sea to Sky Highway Improvement Project, the Concessionaire would have to be in for the long haul, but no, Macquarie has sold out their 100% interest share for a undisclosed princely sum.   Did the BC Liberal government negotiate a deal that was not in the public's interest?   Is this one of those undisclosed side effects of having a Public Private Partnership to build our infrastructures?  The more times our PPP's are sold, the more watered down the profit margin is to the Concessionaire should be, at least that's the way its should be, or is there something built into the secret agreement that guarantees the bottom line for the Concessionaire, no matter how many times its sold off, for profit?

 

Fiera buys two road stakes from Macquarie

Fiera Axium Infrastructure, the Canada-focused infrastructure fund, has agreed to buy Macquarie Essential Asset Partnership's interests in the Sea-to-Sky Highway improvement project in British Columbia and the Anthony Henday Drive Southeast Leg Ring Road for undisclosed sums.

posted - 03 Dec 2010 21:13 GMT

updated - 03 Dec 2010 21:13 GMT

Alexandra Atiya

The Macquarie Essential Asset Partnership, Macquarie’s Canada-focused unlisted infrastructure fund, has agreed to sell stakes in two road projects to a group of investors led by Fiera Axium Infrastructure.

The investors purchased 100 percent of Macquarie Essential Asset Partnership’s (MEAP) stakes in concessions for the roads. The roads, officially called the Sea-to-Sky Highway improvement project and the Anthony Henday Drive Southeast Leg Ring Road, are both fully constructed and have concessions until 2030 and 2037 respectively.

The provinces of British Columbia and Alberta awarded the roads as public-private partnerships (PPPs) to MEAP-backed groups in 2005. The C$600 million Sea-to-Sky project (€450.4 million, $592.5 million) was completed this year.  The C$365 million Anthony Henday Drive project was completed in 2007.

SNIP

Here's a backgrounder on the new Concessionaire:

Fiera Axium Infrastructure is an independent portfolio management firm dedicated to generating attractive, long-term investment returns through investing in core infrastructure assets. The firm combines the capabilities of a group of professionals with extensive infrastructure development and management backgrounds, with the fund management expertise of one of Canada’s leading independent fund managers in Fiera Sceptre. Its management team comprises infrastructure investment specialists with decades of combined experience acquiring, developing, financing, operating and managing infrastructure assets.
Fiera Axium Infrastructure manages a Canadian-focused infrastructure investment vehicle, Fiera Axium Infrastructure Canada L.P. The investment philosophy of the firm is oriented toward the long term ownership of assets.

Now here's my problem with the shifting sands of who owns the Concessionaire rights to our public highways tolling, the investors, in these companies, who are they, or more to the point is there any guarantee that there isn't any insiders from the government who will benefit in this sudden sell off.

Macquarie isn't a small company, here's a link to show just how large they are, and what they are involved with under various subsidiaries, starting on page 3 to 22.

The meeting of the Attendees, was on February 6th 2004. Who took the roll call? Not the Government.

Inadvertently, not of my own choosing, I've put the cart before the horse.  In the previous Post I happened to find a file with an obscure name "Attendee List", and, I joked about whether the past tense of "Attendee", was "Attendeed".  From the document Properties I discovered that the date of the Attendee List was created on 08/03/2004 (this date is noted along the bottom of the previous post)..... I'm always confused with this kind of notation because it could mean that the file was generated in the month of August, but in reality, it was written on the eighth day of March 2004, just slightly over one month from Sea to Sky Highway Improvement Project Information Meeting.

The Government participants at this meeting (the names are in the photo above) were Larry Blain, President and CEO of  Partnership BC; Richard Fyfe, Director, Partnership BC;  Peter Milburn, Executive Project Director, STS Highway Improvement Project; and Gary Webster, Procurement Director, STS Highway Improvement Project.

Registered participants also attended the session.

Preparation of  notes:
Jana Anderson, Raincoast Ventures;
R. Bruce Striegler, Kirk & Co. Consulting Ltd.

Media Relations
Kirk & Co. assists the provincial Public Affairs Bureau in providing timely and accurate information to the media on key aspects of the Sea-to-Sky Highway Improvement project.

The title of this document (found inside the Document Properties) is called "ORGANIZATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT"... not one word is mentioned in the title that it has any relation to the Sea to Sky Highway Improvement Project.  The Author?   well that's for you to find out, and NO, its not him.  Just take a look at the Document Properties.  If you click on the underlined link above, you'll discover that it opens a PDF document called "Info-Meeting_Transcript_Final.pdf", and again, no mention of Sea to Sky Highway Improvement Project.

This PDF file is from http://th.gov.bc.ca   "th"  meaning transportation?????
*******************************************************************************

4. Question & Answer Session

Peter Millburn, Executive Project Director, STS Improvement Highway Project, provided the following responses to questions (indicated in boldface text), which were presented at the meeting:

                              =================================

5. Design, Build, Finance, Opportunity

Richard Fyfe, Director, Partnerships BC, responsible for moving the project through the selection process, provided an overhead presentation and offered additional information

                             ==================================

6. Question & Answer Session

Richard Fyfe, Director, Partnerships BC, provided the following responses to questions (indicated in boldface text), which were presented at the meeting:

6.27 When will a list of restricted parties be published and finalized?

Restricted parties have been notified by letter. In the RFQ restricted parties will be identified and of course, notified. Those in the grey area will be dealt with directly.

                                              ======================

6.29 Explain what you meant by DFBO valued at $400 million versus the $600 million figure previously mentioned.

The physical work is approximately two-thirds of the overall capital improvements. Several areas of work are currently underway. Several other portions are not included - the portions included are the two-thirds. Operations and maintenance will cover the entire highway.

                                          ========================

6.32 Will a list of attendees of today’s meeting be provided to everyone?

Yes, and we include the list of the registered parties who were unable to attend, will be out within a week to ten days.

                                       ==============================

6.37 How will a list of sub-contractors be available? Will there be a list available on the
web?

A list of opportunities for subcontractors will be listed on the Partnerships BC website. A list of registered attendees from this meeting will be provided as well.

6.15 Will there be precise affordability constraints and how will this be expressed and disclosed to bidders?

The overall budget is $600 million. The budget we have for the DBFO component is approximately two-thirds of that or $400 million, within that there will be clear description of what we anticipate. But we are looking at a value-based evaluation. The O&M is on top of the anticipated capital improvement.

6.20 How will you establish the balance between low price, innovation and best value – i.e. innovation?

We will reward both. Coming back to the incentives, we clearly want to encourage bidders to do the right thing.

6.23 The DBFO is for 2/3’s of the project, where will the other one-third of the funding come from?
All funding comes from the Sea-to-Sky Highway Improvement budget, MOT and the BC Transportation Financing Authority.

                                   ==================================
                                  ==================================
Preparation of Notes?

Even though the government sent two guys from Partnership BC and another two guys from Ministry of Transportation, no one appears to have thought of using a stenographer from the government pool of employees.   Its like, money was no object
                                  ==================================
                                  ==================================

Peter Millburn, Executive Project Director, STS Improvement Highway Project, provided the following responses to questions (indicated in boldface text), which were presented at the meeting:

6.38 A fair amount of engineering work has been done. Would you characterize it as preliminary and will that information be available in a data room?

Most of the work done is preliminary design. We do have some detail design areas where required under the environmental assessment application. It would be the intention to provide all engineering information within the data room

                            ================================

6.43 Will there be any specific requirements for intelligent transportation systems solutions? Or left to the proponents relative to other goals and requirements?

We have not identified any ITS type of infrastructure required. There may be some that comes up between now and the RFP stage but it would probably be around driver information rather than say GPS or incident response issues, that's not contemplated as part of the project.

                              ==================================

6.48 Please clarify if the $600 million includes the three existing contracts?

It does not include the Culliton to Cheakamus contract that is separate because it was exempt from the environmental assessment process and not part of this project.

EXEMPT from the environmental assessment?????

                              ===========================
                             ============================ 

7. Closing Remarks & Next Steps

Larry Blain, President & CEO, Partnerships BC, thanked participants and interested parties for their attendance, and reviewed potential growth opportunities offered by the Corridor including redevelopment in the Britannia Beach, Furry Creek, and Squamish areas, and future opportunities in the Whistler area.
The Sea-to-Sky Highway Improvement Project Information meeting held February 6, 2004 concluded at 10:38 a.m.

 An hour and thirty-eight minutes after opening the floor to questions, the Attendees left.


For more information:

World's P3 Kings Bid in B.C.

Over 30 huge but little known global firms are behind bids for a single B.C. highway contract. Despite conflict concerns, some also advise government on its P3 strategy.

By: By Claudia Cornwall, 20 September 2004, TheTyee.ca

How many consultants did the Government need to start building the Sea to Sky Highway Improvement project on February 6 2004?

Update  January 25, 2011  When I first wrote this Post, the search criteria of  "macquarie sea to sky xls" yielded ten hits on the first page of Google.  The phrase "Attendee List" sat at the #4 position, then moved down to #6, down again to #7, and now, today, its sitting in #1 position.   I can understand why it was going down on the list initially, that's because my Blog post was inserting itself above the #4 position.  Today, however ... ATTENDEE LIST is #1, front and centre, and the reason is pure as driven snow.  Partnerships BC has finally given the public what's ours to see.   Partnerships BC data has always been there, its just that Google wasn't interested in the data until their search program started to be swamped via search requests from you dear readers (Ottawa RCMP too), with just a little bit of help from this blog.

===================================

When searching the internet for information, one needs to know a few keywords, those words that have been prominently used by the BC Liberal government, or the Press, or Bloggers, for the past nine years.  Take for example:  macquarie sea to sky highway xls            xls because there are spreadsheet data files out there;   sea to sky highway because, oh I don't know, maybe because I'm looking for a possible connection that happened just after the sale of BC Rail to CN Rail, like follow the money of $166 million that ended up bankrolling the test section on the Sea to Sky Highway Improvement Project,    macquarie because that name was involved in financing the sea to sky highway improvement project, and for the next twenty-five years via Shadow Tolls.

The result is this:      macquarie sea to sky xls   and copied into Google, has ten hits on the first page.

Fourth, then Sixth, now Seventh item down on the Google list is the only one that has Sea to Sky AND Macquarie, but the title is kind of wierd.   Attendee List as a PDF file

Attendee List is dated February 6, 2004 and to give readers here an understanding of just where on the Timeline of BC Rail and Sea to Sky Highway that date is, you have to leave here and go to another blog.

I'm Laila Yuile, and This Is How I See It

Glad you're back, and you're about to say that the Sea to Sky Highway isn't on Laila's Timeline list, but you have to admit her list is very thorough.

"Attendee" is defined as  "A person who attends a conference or other gathering".   I don't know if there's a word called Attendeed, as in past tense of Attendee, but the important thing here is that it doesn't matter whether or not the names on THIS Attendee List  attended the conference on February 6 2004.

Its the fact that the Government of British Columbia put the names on the list, a short list, covering nine pages, of those companies/individual that they wanted to work on the Sea to Sky Highway Improvement Project.

Now here's the thing, if you copy from the PDF file, as I've been copying, (not the photo above) the names of the company into Google, in conjunction with    sea to sky   , there's a hit every time, except for ONE.   I wonder why.



The date of creation on this document properties is 08/03/2004, the Author is kkennedy

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=4&ved=0CCQQFjAD&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.th.gov.bc.ca%2Fseatosky%2Fdocuments%2F2004%2FFeb6-2004_Mtg_Attendee_List.pdf&rct=j&q=macquarie%20sea%20to%20sky%20xls&ei=iHMOTYbaNoOusAOqjtypCg&usg=AFQjCNFvEPQG1F9Wv4qIaJHtpLZcyldqyw&sig2=73lriy-De_m3eWJ1cX699Q&cad=rja

Buzz phrase "Not on their Radar" for license plates

The latest news from the Vancouver Police Department is that they will be implementing license plate reader technology so that they'll know where the bad guys are, however, in that sweeping scan they'll also be picking up the good guys plates, and hanging on to all the information, indefinitely.

If the powers to be in Victoria can imbed counters in our highway pavements without our knowing it (so they'll know how much money needs to be paid in Shadow Toll taxes to Concessionaires), why aren't they taking  the next step and place license plate readers in the same locations and use those bottle-neck areas (bridges, tunnels, Sea to Sky Highway) of the province to keep tabs on where the bad guys are coming from, and going to, to do their congregating at funerals and "points of sale"?

Vancouver (pop. 526,000) is but one community in Metro Vancouver, Palm Beach County (pop. 1.2 million) from where the rave reviews on license plate reader hails from, had a reported 3,000 hits at the bad guy funeral.  Crime knows no boundaries and spending $20,000 per mobile unit for the police to check out the latest funeral procession sounds great, but in the instance of what happened last weekend, with the shoot out on Oak Street at a ritzy ditzy restaurant in the wee hours of the morning, the police would still be in the dark because it wasn't a funeral, it WAS PLANNED to be a funeral, its just the police didn't receive an invitation till after the bullets had flown.

As it is, the turnout for a typical gangster Vancouver funeral is what, 500?   The VPD could have a Constable on Patrol stroll around and write the license plates into his notebook for a fraction of the cost of a license plate reader.  Besides, the license plate reader is somewhat secretive, what the public expects of our police is to show that they exist as a force against gangsters, whether the bad guys are dead or alive.

Why take half measures with a local license plate reader, especially when one Want-to-be Premier  has already suggested that he needs ONE police force for Metro Vancouver.

If you believe the former BC AG's hogwash on "mandate", and a Snap Election......

 I really don't know where governing politicians, current or former, get their hare brain ideas on how to cling to power at any costs.   Snap election is the old stand by answer.

Out of the current crop of want-to-be a Premier for just over two years, its only Christy Clark who doesn't hold a seat as a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA).   And, the current Premier has already announced his resignation, so if Christy wants to be the Leader of the BC Liberal Party that will be decided in late February AND if she wants to be Premier then there will be a vacated seat available for that purpose.   But, to suggest that British Columbian should foot the bill for a full blown election just so the MLAs can stand proud, and look their fellow MLAs in the eye and say "I have a mandate", forget it, especially when the the mandate will only last till May 12, 2013, not a full four years.


It was the governing party's leader that saw that he "lost the confidence", not of British Columbians via an election, but by his handlers, his spin doctors, his Chief of Staff, his pick-of-day polling company, his weak kneed caucus members and supporters of the BC Liberals who cried out that the sky is falling the sky is falling...... you have to go Gordo all because of polling numbers.

“The people of British Columbia, in 2009, did not elect any of the five candidates to be premier,” Mr. Plant noted in an interview. The BC Liberal Party will choose its new leader – and B.C.’s next premier – on Feb. 26, and the next scheduled election would be held 27 months later.

“So there is a gap in democratic accountability that sometimes has to exist, that’s just the way the process unfolds,” Mr. Plant said. But, he added, the law does offer the flexibility should the new premier decide to seek a mandate from voters.

“People can debate the politics of it, the reality is none of the five leadership candidates will be able to go into the legislature and look at the assembled members and say that they have a mandate directly given to them by the people of British Columbia to lead the government.”   -   Justine Hunter  -  Globe and Mail  December 16, 2010

 Sorry Mr. Plant, but there is no gap in democratic accountability, the BC Liberal term is for four years, whether there are by-elections called or not; whether there's a change in leadership from either or all sides; whether its caused by a real death, or a political one; whether its because of a birth of a child, or a birth of an idea that is calling out for change in one's personal life.



British Columbians, not based on an Off-the-Radar Harmonized Sales Tax, elected the BC Liberals to a four year term.  If those running to be leader of the BC Liberals don't understand that they already have a mandate via May 12, 2009, except Christy Clark of course, then they should resign their seats now.

At the very least, Christy Clark, should have checked in with Elections BC officials where she would have learned that the minimum amount of time that they could get ready for the HST is four to six months away at the very least..  

Geoff Plant, Christy Clark, you want a Snap election, how about May 12, 2013

ICBA can hide their membership list from potential customers but here's their phone number 604-298-7795

Take one ICBA phone number  604-298-7795 and paste it into Google, and here's one hit result:

"Personal information will be stored in strict confidence and accessed only by authorized ICBA employees and agents or consultants retained by ICBA."

  http://www.icba.bc.ca/employee_health_plans/construction/documents/PrivacyPolicyforthebenefitplan2007.pdf

I've heard the above quote paraphrased someplace else.  ....http://fighthst.com/

“The people I sent the documents to were friends,”

Now you might think that its only the "Best Place on Earth", British Columbia, where people in politics share document amongst their few chosen friends to gain favours in exchange for information that no one else has seen.  Nope.  Not only Victoria, but Ottawa, as well.

"A Conservative staffer who leaked confidential finance committee documents to five lobbyists had approached all of them previously in an attempt to land a job."

Conservative aide leaked budget files to ‘friends’ he’d tapped for jobs

"Russell Ullyatt's testimony provides glimpse into close ties with lobbyists"

search criteria    globe and mail lobbyist leak  
http://www.google.com/search?q=globe+and+mail+lobbyist+leak&btnG=+Search+

As it turns out Dave Basi and Erik Bornman(n), (who still wants to be is a lawyer), considered they were "friends" as well and chose to ignore the fact that Dave, being an employee of the BC Liberal Government  was not permitted to accept monies in exchange for information he had, to pass on to a third, and fourth party.

Dave, if you can recall from way back in 2003, saw himself as working for the BC  Federal Liberals, with a little help from his friend, Erik Bornman(n).

Russell Ullyatt, on the other hand, at the Federal level of politics saw a step up would be to become a Lobbyist, and why is that?

More on this later, here.

On Paul Taylor's watch we had a Premier who cut our income taxes by 15%, then announced his resignation, and then cut out our 15% income tax break

Chief of Staff to the Premier

"Paul Taylor is an accomplished leader with a proven track record in the public sector, private sector and not-for-profit organizations.
His experience with the British Columbia government includes serving as Deputy Minister of Finance and Secretary to the Treasury Board as well as President and CEO of ICBC, Canada’s largest auto insurer. His involvement in the public sector has also included various roles in the Alberta Government and the Calgary Economic Development Authority.
Mr. Taylor’s private sector experience includes serving as President and CEO, NaiKun Wind Energy Group, a BC based wind energy company and Senior Vice President Corporate Development, TransAlta, Canada’s largest publicly traded generator and marketer of electricity.
His experience in the not for profit sector includes serving as President and CEO of the BC Automobile Dealers Association and Assistant General Manager of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce. Paul Taylor was also the Manager of Volunteers for the 1988 Calgary Olympic Winter Games.
Mr. Taylor has a significant involvement in the governance of organizations in a variety of sectors. These include Naikun Wind Energy Group, the founding Chair of Partnerships BC and the boards of BC Forestry Investment & Innovation, TransAlta New Zealand and TransAlta Power Ltd. Most recently he has served on the boards of The Conference Board of Canada and the World Wildlife Fund - Canada.
Paul Taylor was an Ambassador for Vancouver 2010 and a torch bearer in the Vancouver 2010 Paralympic Torch Relay. In 2003, Mr. Taylor received the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal."

Appointment Letter

I thought I would fill in the missing dates to the above resume, and so I started with this Search Criteria:

    bc Deputy Minister of Finance Paul Taylor

http://www.google.com/search?q=Burton+Water+Corporation&btnG=+Search+#sclient=psy&hl=en&q=bc+Deputy+Minister+of+Finance+Paul+Taylor&aq=&aqi=&aql=f&oq=bc+Deputy+Minister+of+Finance+Paul+Taylor&gs_rfai=&pbx=1&fp=87dedf703ab49d09

I found these results with,  #2 to my liking, simple title too of "Mlle".

About 2,580,000 results (0.17 seconds) 

Search Results

1. 
   

   PAUL TAYLOR APPOINTED CHIEF OF STAFF TO PREMIER

   
   

   25 Oct 2010 ... VICTORIA – Former British Columbia Deputy Minister of Finance Paul Taylor has been appointed Chief of Staff to Premier Gordon Campbell. ...
   www2.news.gov.bc.ca/news...2009.../2010PREM0192-001331.htm - Cached
2. [PDF] 
   

   Mlle

   
   

   File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - Quick View
   Mr. Taylor continued in the role of. Deputy Minister of Finance following ...
   www.gov.bc.ca/.../01_KPMG_Summary_Report_Paul_Taylor_Review.pdf
   Show more results from gov.bc.ca

Show more results?????? no thank you, this will be enough, but as to Mlle





Why, oh why doesn't the BC Liberal hire KPMG Forensic Inc. more often?  The BC Liberals could have saved paying the $6 million in the Basi/Virk/Basi court case aka the BC Rail Trial.  No RCMP, no Special Prosecutor, no Defense Counsel needed, no need to have a public gallery.

Private Power Watch..... you've got to see this to see Why our BC Hydro Bills are going sky high

Not my information, not my website/blog from where I found it. The gentleman who has compiled this data can be reached here: Contact

Private Power Watch   Website

"Background

In the fall of 2002, the British Columbia government released the BC Energy Plan. As part of this plan, BC Hydro, our publicly owned electric utility, is restricted from developing new generation facilities other than those in which it has already made significant investments. Furthermore, the BC Energy Plan instructs BC Hydro to acquire new supplies from the private sector. According to the Plan, 50% of new electricity needs are to come from conservation; however, much of the focus to date has been on developing new privately owned generating facilities."  SNIP

                                      --------------------------------------
and his blog:

Private Power Watch     Blog

"Water Licences & Land Use Applications"

Openness and Accountability of BC Hydro

Financial Information Act Return

• Financial Information Act Return (to March 31, 2010) [PDF, 5.2 Mb]
• Financial Information Act Return (to March 31, 2009) [PDF, 1.8 Mb]
• Financial Information Act Return (to March 31, 2008) [PDF, 752 Kb]
• Financial Information Act Return (to March 31, 2007) [PDF, 780 Kb]
• Financial Information Act Return (to March 31, 2006) [PDF, 573 Kb]
• Financial Information Act Return (to March 31, 2005) [PDF, 950 Kb]
• Financial Information Act Return (to March 31, 2004) [PDF, 548 Kb]
• Financial Information Act Return (to March 31, 2003) [PDF, 1.1 Mb]
• Financial Information Act Return (to March 31, 2002) [PDF, 1.2 Mb]

Shareholder's Letter of Expectations

• Shareholder's Letter of Expectations (February 2010) [PDF, 1.5 Mb]

 BC Hydro has paid out:

Grand Total

$951,819,870

Last Updated ( Saturday, 19 April 2008 14:56 )

Has Elections BC slipped up here by not using a random nom de plume like J Doe?

Page 14 of 44 of this document from Elections BC http://www.elections.bc.ca/docs/rpt/ip2010-002-ceo-report.pdf  


Elections BC has edited Jane and/or Joe Doe out on their Canvasser identity cards and in their place the names to be on the watch for is Jane, Joe or J Bloggs.

But can you just imagine how much ribbing you would get if your last name was Newspaper, or Television or ..... Twitter.    Don't ask how much money was paid to an Elections BC employee to make this major change, and especially don't ask how much time was spent to come up with it either.

Does Highway Minister Falcon, or Bond, have some stories like this that need telling.

Christy Clark has now joined the race to become the next Premier of British Columbia under the banner of the BC Liberals, and isn't this all just one big coincidence since the BC Rail trial was shut down for $6 million.

All hell was breaking lose when it was announced that it wasn't those who are elected to look after BC treasury purse strings, but Deputy Ministers, appointed by the Premier, who made the decision.

Since that timely decision Campbell has announced his resignation as Premier, and then made a secondary announcement just this past week of resigning as an MLA.... I wonder how much that by-election is going to cost....

All we need now is to have Gary Collins to make his announcement of returning for a run for the Premier's Office.

Page 184 The Coast Connection by R.G. Harvey

British Columbia's Recall and Initiative votes, popular????! Yes Sir!

There's been much discussion on British Columbia's unique ability to Recall a Member of the Legislative Assembly, so too for Citizens, voters, having the power of an Initiative, such as striking back at those that implemented the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) without first raising it during the election of 2009.

Elections BC has a copy of the document on their website on Pages 21 and 22     Pages 23 and 24

Oak Bay - Gordon Head voted 73.08% in favour of having Recall

On the original vote for the Initiative  Oak Bay - Gordon Head cast 73.38%     

PPP3 or P3's Search keywords for Sunday December 5, 2010

First keywords:          Value for Money Cautionary Lessons P3’s British Columbia Stuart Murray


Second keywords     Value for Money Cautionary Lessons P3’s British Columbia Stuart Murray larry blain

one hit, second from the top of the Google Search is simply called 66:

http://www.durhamyorkwaste.ca/pdfs/reports/consultation_report/summary_report/Appendix6-Council-Committee-Delegations/Delegations-to-Council/Council-Delegations-Part-8.pdf

Don't let the word   durhamyorkwaste    in the http:// line throw you off from looking in the document

The fact that there are only two pages on the second set of keyword search probably means that the search criteria is right on the money, and there's plenty of contents to be read, which will lead to other, more in depth searches if the links are pdf files.


Third Keywords:     Frank's presentation in Toronto

Frank's??????    to get to Frank's, I had to include    Sea to Sky shadow tolls Kiewit S2S   and then do a lot of tweaking of  the search keywords BASED on the words in search results.   For example below:

 Frank's presentation in Toronto

[PPT]
Frank's Presentation in Toronto
File Format: Microsoft Powerpoint
Highway Maintenance & PPP. Sea-to-Sky Highway Improvement. RAV Rapid Transit. Experience Sharing Seminar on PPP Duty Visit to Canada. By : K.W. Yau ...

PPT which means powerpoint, and in this particular hit, pages 20 and 21 are two great slides to look at.

Highway Maintenance.... and every word on the line are all solid search words to include

This last line "Seminar on PPP duty visit to Canada etc.." took me in the wrong direction while searching for anything that had to do with the Sea to Sky highway Shadow tolls that Laila Yuile had already put up on her blog.

Fourth Keywords search:    off-book financing Partnership bc sea to sky highway

"off-book financing" came from the second set of keywords, which is exactly what the BC Liberals have been doing, putting British Columbian taxpayers, including our children and their children, in debt without telling us just how much debt we have because its off-the-books and doesn't have to be reported till the end of the contract in 30 or 50 or 75 years......... or in the case of CN Rail's purchase of BC Rail, 990 years.

What's interesting in this Fourth search is that Kiewit comes up first and they're not even mentioned as one of the keywords, but they were one of the contractors involved in the Sea to Sky highway.   If you go to this first hit and do a search for "toll", you'll find a piece of BC Highway history being told.    Actually use the word "Deas" and on the second hit you'll find the Deas Island Tunnel (page 27).
 ********************************************************************************
 Sea to Sky Highway presentation August 17, 2004              Slide #18

       2001           2003                         Aug 17, 2004   2010

Elections BC commissions BC Stats to manage NRG Research on HST Interviews

Elections BC  IP-Interviews.pdf

http://www.elections.bc.ca/docs/init/IP-Interviews.pdf

"HST initiative petition signature verification interviews"

"As part of its overall petition verification process, between July 5 and August 6, 2010, Elections BC will be interviewing a random sample of people whose names appear on the petition. The purpose of the interview is to verify that these people did, in fact, sign the petition.

BC Stats, the province’s statistical agency, is conducting the interviews on behalf of Elections BC. Approximately 6,000 names that appear on the petition will be selected at random from across the province’s 85 electoral districts. The verification interviews will be conducted by telephone and respondents will be asked to confirm or deny that they signed the petition. The interview will take less than 5 minutes. The information provided through the survey is protected under the Statistics Act."

Except Elections BC left out not one small detail, but TWO details on page 1 which leaves the reader believing that BC Stats was conducting the interviews... like  "Hi, I work for BC Stats and I have a few questions to ask.   However, here on Page 2, there's a sequel to who's asking the question.
 

"Who is phoning?"

"Elections BC has commissioned BC Stats to manage the
HST petition signature verification interviews. NRG
Research has been hired by BC Stats to conduct the
phone interviews."

search criteria:   NRG Research   Elections BC

or use this search criteria:   NRG Research BC Liberals
 which result in some very disturbing headlines.   One hit is Bill Tieleman's blog:

"According to one alert reader the company involved is NRG Research, a company formerly known as Nordic Research which merged with Western Opinion Research.

Western Opinion Research was the pollster of record for Gordon Campbell's BC Liberal Party.


 But, getting back to Elections BC  and BC Stats where the latter is covered here "Surveys and Analysis: Confidentiality"    "......The most important is the ability to protect the confidentiality of survey returns.".....


Now if Elections BC was  conducting the interview, you'd know that if you didn't give the right answers, the Acting Chief would call in the RCMP.

If  you didn't give the right answers to BC Stats, respondents are assured of complete protection since the Statistics Act operates notwithstanding most provisions of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, . This is a guarantee that can not be offered by other government ministries or agencies.

If you are being interviewed by a third party..........  telemarketer comes to mind..... and what would I say to them?

CIBC Historical Effective Prime Rate, another nail in the coffin of the BC Rail trial

During what is known as the Basi, Virk, Basi trial, a question was posed by Kevin McCullough, the lawyer for Bobby Virk, to Crown Witness Brian G. Kenning, on what was the going interest rate on an indemnity ($255 million), to which the reply came back that he had no idea, besides, the Board of Directors for BC Rail didn't put that into the agreement when it came to clinching the deal on the sale of BC Rail to CN Rail.   Who did?   The government of Gordon Campbell, of course.

For a layperson to go looking for the going prime rate, whether it be on the internet or even going so far as to ask a bank for such historical data, the first method is FREE, the second..... well I'm quite sure there would be a price tag attached, especially during the trial.


Election BC to the rescue, not that I was looking for that particular data last night, a month and a half after the $6 million payoff, I just found it at their wonderful website while doing some Dry reading where every once in awhile something makes you go WOW!!!!.   The reason I was looking for this particular information was because I wanted to know how Elections BC counted political donations.  I've kindly highlighted in Bold below, "Prime Interest Rates".

http://www.elections.bc.ca/docs/fin/407.pdf    Prime Interest Rates

"Prime Interest Rates

If a loan to a political party, constituency association, candidate, leadership contestant or a nomination contestant is made at an interest rate less than the prime rate of the principal banker to the Province of British Columbia at the time the interest rate is fixed, the benefit derived is a political contribution. The interest rates that should be used when completing the Loans and Guarantees Received (S-L1) form to calculate the amount of interest payable at the prime rate are located at the following sites:

Historical interest rates – http://www.fin.gov.bc.ca/PT/bcm/histrates.shtml
Current interest rate – http://cibc.com/ca/rates/index.html

If you have any questions, please contact the Electoral Finance program area at
Elections BC."

 I clicked on the Historical interest rates without realizing there was "fin" in the link which took me to this page's contents:

"The Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) is considered to be the Province’s principal banker for interest rate reference purposes. As the need to determine the prime rate of the Province’s banker arises under various enactments and instruments across government, the historical record of CIBC’s prime lending rate can be referenced below. The rates are listed from 1974 and will be updated on a periodic basis. Please refer to CIBC's Web site for the most recent rate.
View the Historical Effective Prime Rate table."

I went Hmmmmmm.   Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) and wondered aloud as to whether CIBC World Markets was related to CIBC.   Would you make the same observation?   Would you be tempted to take the next step in the link to View the Historical Effective Prime Rate Table that goes back to 1974 and is updated on a periodic basis.   I did.

On page 2 of the document, top right corner... April 14, 2004, the going interest rate was 3.75%!!!!!

The indemnity that the Executive Council (Cabinet) signed off on the sale of BC Rail to CN Rail was a whopping 9%, and the really interesting thing is that the numbers show that the Prime Rate peaked on July 11, 2007 at 6.25%, and went into a steady decline, all through 2008, till September 9, 2010 at 3.00%.

So could you tell me this again, Premier Gordon Campbell, and Finance Minister Colin Hansen, and all those who are currently in the running to be the next Premier, via the BC Liberal Party, just when did you decide to implement the Harmonized Sales Tax?   Just when did the Deputy Minister of Finance become alerted to the need to Harmonize with the rest of Canada?

The government has plenty of graphs, plenty of GDP to compare to various streams of information, but just looking at the Prime Rate is good enough for me.

For more information on the background  on how the public was hosed:

http://pacificgazette.blogspot.com/2010/06/how-legitimate-exactly-is-railgate.html  The Gazetteer

http://therealstory.ca/2010-09-21/bc-liberals/bc-rail-how-badly-were-we-hosed  The Real Story