Should revenue be lower than that projected,
government would need to re-evaluate the
spending and tax measure assumptions of the
five year plan in order to achieve a balanced
budget. However, should revenue outperform
the forecast, government will have the option of
achieving a balanced budget earlier, enhancing
services, or further reducing taxes for British
Columbians. -Budget and Fiscal Plan 2011/12 – 2013/14 - B.C. Budget May 3rd, 2011
 |
| B.C. now expects a deficit of $3.1 billion for the 2011-12 fiscal year |
On August 3 the Sixth person Craig Harley Corrigan, 49, was spotted at Oakridge Centre Tuesday afternoon by staff who recognized him from the ConAir wanted poster. - the Province
Four of the Vancouver Police Department’s Con Air fugitives were at Vancouver’s airport Thursday morning where they waited to be flown home to face justice. - the Province August 4thSeventh on the list:
Joseph Sheldon Pelletier, who is wanted by Saskatoon police for several outstanding warrants, called cops from a phone outside the VPD's building on Main Street shortly before midnight to say he knew he was on the list and he wanted to turn himself in. - the Province August 11thEight on the list:
...Arrangements are now being made to take Atkinson to Winnipeg. Vancouver Police say the extensive media coverage and overwhelming response from the public resulted in eight of the 10 Conair fugitives being arrested within the first month.Ninth on the list of VPD Top Ten
A provision in Mr. Loat's will specifies that his garden show place north of Burnaby Lake be turned over to the municipality. The rustic cottage which is on the property will be maintained in perpetuity for the use of old council colleagues whom he often entertained there. The property will be known as Loat Memorial Park.
Mr. Loat, who was one of the leading members in horticultural circles in the city, took great pride in his Burnaby place, and had often mentioned his intention of turning it over to the municipality
"It is Government policy now that basically all electric power and energy that supplies the Public should be under Public auspices" - W.A.C Bennett August 1961.
The recent breakout at Oakalla prison which went unreported for weeks is a good reason to privatize the prison system, says Michael Walker, director of the Fraser Institute, a Vancouver-based think tank.
Walker told Vancouver Rotary Club members in a speech Tuesday that prisons in Canada should be privately run as some are in the U.S.
Describing public sector services as "overcrowded and underfunded," Walker said events at Oakalla are a manifestation of a problem within the prison system . . . a problem that exists throughout the public sector."
He added: "The problem with the prison system, as we shall see, is that they (prisons) have been demonstrated to be incompetent and have been rewarded with more funding and more staff.
"It can't be claimed that the public sector does a better job providing prisons than the private sector. They (the B.C. government) should take the opportunity to privatize the prisons along with everything else."
Walker said increased privatization is a worldwide phenomenon and has nothing to do with politics or attacking unions.
He said left-wing governments such as New Zealand, where it is called corporatisation, are doing it "in a more aggressive and Draconian way than anything we can do in Canada."
He got a laugh from his audience when he suggested that if highways and bridge maintenance operations on Vancouver Island are indeed sold to an employee group, "the fact that many of them are (in) unions will cause them to decide not to be unionized.
Snip
Walker produced some statistics, which he accredited to the University of Victoria, in support of contracting out municipal services such as garbage collection.
In a survey of 100 municipalities, Walker said it was determined that those that did their own garbage collection paid an average of $42.29 per household. Where the work was done by private contractors, the cost was $28.02.
He said in Richmond, for example, which contracted out its garbage collection since March 1983, the cost has gone down from $52.71 per household to $31.72. Productivity was 65-per-cent higher under private enterprise, from 6.2 tonnes of garbage collected per-crew person-per-day to 10.25 tonnes-per-person-per-day.
"On a straight, factual level, it's cheaper to do it in the private sector."
MR. WILLIAMS: I suspect that the Minister of Energy has an interesting taste in his mouth these days; it's either that of sweet revenge or sweet irony. Let's remember that the
present Minister of Energy was one of Dal Grauer's whiz-kids at the old Electric Co. when it was a private corporation.
MR. BLENCOE: That's a long time ago.
MR. WILLIAMS: A long time ago. The venerable minister is still handling things very well.
At the same time, it's fascinating that a group of very different whiz-kids is operating at B.C. Hydro these days. Those whiz-kids had a meeting at Whistler December 5 and 6 last year, and it was there that we first learned the phrase: "Let's strip B.C. Hydro down to the wires. " The brains trust that met at Whistler - the chairman of B.C. Hydro and his colleagues - December 5 and 6, discussed this whole idea of stripping down the Crown corporation.
Interjection.
MR. WILLIAMS: Mr. Larry Bell, yes.
There is no accident in the drafting of this legislation -no accident at all. It's no accident that, as my colleague from Vancouver says, it means they could sell the corporation off dam by dam.
AN HON. MEMBER: The whole damn thing.
MR. WILLIAMS: The whole damn thing, yes.
The amendment that's on the order paper doesn't seem to fully deal with the loophole in terms of the electrical division. There are significant parts of the electrical division. The earlier study carried out for the former minister in charge of privatization, the member for Vancouver South, was carried out by another former Deputy Minister of Finance, just as Mr. Larry Bell was - Mr. David Emerson. In that earlier study, they looked at some of the options for selling off chunks of the corporation. They looked at the Kootenay canal project, for example, on the Kootenay River between Nelson and Castlegar, and at what their cost was on the books and what they might get if they sold it off. They talked about selling it off to West Kootenay Power and Light in that report of April of this year.
So it's no accident that the legislation was drafted the way it is. This is a conscious program in terms of being ready to sell off, in effect, the rivers of British Columbia. That's what that represents: selling off the birthright, the rivers of British Columbia.
We know what a storm there was in the Kootenay region and in the Okanagan with the sale of West Kootenay Power and Light. The Consumers' Association that our new colleague is familiar with has thousands and thousands of members opposed to the selling off of British Columbia rivers, opposed to foreign ownership of these important natural resources. These are the rivers of British Columbia.
The minister sort of kicks Hydro. This is an administration of 30 years in this province, basically running this corporation, the B.C. Hydro and Power Authority. And you're saying, in effect, that you and your colleagues in the past have been monumental failures in terms of running a public enterprise. You are saying you're incompetent and just have to get out of the business. You're incompetent, but the people of British Columbia have to put you out of the business. This isn't the way to do it.
I remember when I first came here. W.A. C. Bennett was Premier. I was young then, like the minister was young at the electric company. I thought, "Let's listen to what this old chap has to say, " and I wondered if he really had much to deliver. He was talking about B.C. Hydro actually. I have to admit that I was impressed - I didn't come here expecting to be impressed by Mr. Bennett; that changed over times, but in many ways I was impressed by him. He talked about Hydro and said: "My friends, you never sell off the equity. You never, ever sell off the equity. " He said: "That's the birthright of all British Columbians. We can borrow. We can take out bonds and all the rest. We can do borrowings, but we never, ever sell off the assets." The assets are the rivers of British Columbia. That's really what the plan has been here: to piece by piece, in effect, loot the province of British Columbia. That's the way I see this privatization game. All too often it's a looting of the public assets of the province.
MR. LOVICK: Like vandals.
MR. WILLIAMS: That's right. The business of selling off West Kootenay Power and Light in the Kootenay canal project is the sixth- or seventh-largest operation in the province. Can you imagine selling that off to a Missouri corporation, UtiliCorp? That is seriously being looked at by the advisers to the ministry. They estimate the annual revenue out of that at something like $88 million. They suggest that they might actually have a value of $1 billion in the Kootenay canal project. I suspect that a billion dollars looked very tempting to Mr. Bell and Mr. Emerson.
Then you start thinking about the other assets of this corporation: Peace Canyon, Bennett, Seven Mile, Revelstoke, John Hart and all the others. We're talking, truly, about a great natural heritage here in the province. The potential losses to the Crown over time would be absolutely monumental.
The Hydro Rail idea, as the member for Kootenay says.... How much sense does it really make to sell off Hydro Rail - even to Mr. Emerson, an ideologue of your ilk? It didn't make any sense to him. It made some sense to look at merging it with B.C. Rail, but it didn't make any sense to him to sell it on a standalone basis.
The minister has since privately and publicly said: "We're not going to sell off the right-of-way." I'm not entirely sure what that means, but we don't have any protection in this legislation against selling off the right-of-way, Mr. Minister. That right-of-way proved incredibly beneficial when building SkyTrain through Burnaby and the east side of the city to New Westminster. That right-of-way was provided free for a commuter system. In the same sense, Hydro Rail can provide a commuter system from Surrey to Chilliwack, south of the river - the fastest-growing area in British Columbia. It makes all the sense in the world to use that rail line as an extension - surface commuter rail that's not expensive for the growing south side of the river.
The question of whether that's going to be available or not is a neat question. We obviously have to have access to the tracks and have use of the tracks in terms of a timetable for rush hour and all the rest. The people at Hydro Rail all say that it's workable, that they tested it during Expo and it was successful. That they can do that in the fastest-growing area of the province makes absolutely no sense. As the member for Kootenay (Ms. Edwards) said, they have strategic control with respect to the right-of-way out of Roberts Bank and Annacis Island, important industrial areas in the heartland of our economic bread-basket in British Columbia - exclusive rights-of-way to those places.
The communities served are North Surrey, North Delta, Kennedy, Newton, Cloverdale, Langley, Fort Langley, Abbotsford and Chilliwack, and it simply doesn't make any sense. The assets on the books are $47 million, and just in terms of commuter rail values it far exceeds that figure.
Think about the R and D division in terms of separating this group: 90 percent of their work is for B.C. Hydro. The logic of privatizing is clearly not there. Mr. Emerson makes it abundantly clear as well. He said that it had a weak potential for privatization. That's Mr. Emerson, the former Deputy Minister of Finance, speaking in April of this year, saying it has a weak potential for privatization, but you're proceeding regardless.
The gas division, Mr. Minister: about 9, 000 kilometres of pipe in the lower mainland. You have a contract, as I understand it, with Westcoast Transmission to last until 1991. It's not a good contract. As soon as you're out of that contract, the opportunities. . . . You talk about freezing prices for three years in terms of customers of the gas division. In 1991 they are out of unsatisfactory contractual relationships with Westcoast Transmission, and presumably the opportunities then of cheaper gas from the fields will be available on a throughput basis to the system in the lower mainland. That should leave a very healthy margin for the new corporation, a very healthy margin that either would have gone to the consumers or to B.C. Hydro, the Crown corporation, but will flow through to this company during this time period. That's the sleeper in the deal for the gas division.
The current arrangements, which are unsatisfactory based on older gas prices compared to the potential of new gas prices in the field. . . . The whole exercise gives one an uneasy feeling around the area of privatization in this province. There's a kind of looting mentality that pervades the government ranks. It was there in the sale of the public assets of the Expo lands. When you reflect on the kind of deal that was made, where two-thirds of the price of the lands will be paid in the last three years of the deal, some 15 or 20 years later, then you realize the kind of looting that represents in terms of decent pricing of public assets.
The other test operations in the Okanagan and elsewhere sold for a pittance, justified by the Premier in his recent to trip to Alberni. On the CBC, he said to the workers at the mill in Alberni:
"You want to maintain your present level of wages; you want to have the present level of services we have in British Columbia. If you want that, then you've got to accept the privatization of all of these other activities, because we can't maintain services in British Columbia at their present levels unless we privatize and we can't maintain wage levels in British Columbia unless we privatize. "What kind of voodoo economics is that, Mr. Speaker? What kind of phony scare tactic is that to try and peddle to the public of British Columbia' We are a wealthy province with great natural resources. If we don't squander them the way you want to squander them currently under these various programs, we can see to it that in the future all British Columbians will have a better economic chance than they have today. None of this poor-mouthing of British Columbia. We have a gross national product that increases annually; we have a gross provincial product that increases annually. We are a wealthy people here. We do not have to sell off our birthright to pay the bills and to pay decent wages.
The intent here was clearly a carte blanche to allow the new prodigies over there in B. C. Hydro under this Minister of Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources to sell off the outfit piece by piece-, indeed, "to take it down to the wires" -that's their quote, Mr. Speaker, not ours. Those are the top people in B.C. Hydro talking about taking Hydro down to the wires. That's their quote, that's their view of the operation and that's their measure of the failure of this administration in managing a public enterprise and Crown corporation.
I have to reflect again on Mr. Bennett and those early days in this chamber. He had profound and simple advice for us. He said that we should never. ever sell off this birthright; we should never, ever sell off the equity. That's why we're opposed to this bill. It's very clear what the strategy of government is, and it flies in the face of administrations in this province for decades.
We urge the minister to reconsider the amendment that he's got. It clearly needs tightening. Then we might have some assurance that the pieces of the electrical division will not be lost. We are not assured at this stage by the decisions made to date or by the statements of the Premier.
| =================================== Here's Two out of 32 in desperate need of being filled | |||||||||||||||||||||
 |
British Columbia Utilities Commission 2001 Annual Report |
The BC government also needs to hire many more field officers to stringently, conscientiously police and effectively monitor the oil and gas industry in BC’s northeast energy sector. Such provisions, in addition to new legislations, will help stimulate and initiate the highest international standards applied to protect the earth’s surface and aquifer sources. Will Koop, coordinator of the B.C. Tap Water Alliance
In Other Business, council decided to spend $3,500 to buy up five private mineral claims on 160 acres of Crown land within the city's watershed at the headwaters of the Lynn Creek.The claims, owned by the Boston, Mass based Lynn Valley Copper Co., date from before the First World War and have not been worked for many years, if ever.
Another 11 claims, totaling about 500 acres, are thought to remain within the watershed. Council has adopted a policy of buying up claims as they become available and has previously purchased a total of 92 acres.
The city watershed, which is separate from the adjoining Greater Vancouver Regional District watershed, cover about 1,000 wooded acres.
"It's time for a new person to lead. I am asking the party to move as quickly as possible to organize a leadership convention. I intend to ensure a smooth and orderly transition. My goal is to return public attention to what is important to British Columbians - their jobs, their families and how government can best support them.
"That is what the decision on the HST was all about. I hope that my announcement today will allow British Columbians to move forward and fully consider the HST and the alternative on their merits between now and September 2011. - Premier Gordon Campbell
Where I'm different is having brought families to the centre of the agenda," she said. "We're talking about how important families are and the valuable role that they play in communities."
Two: "We've been talking a lot about jobs and enabling the creation of jobs across the province - which is a different economic focus than my predecessor had." ????????
Three: "I think we have made some big strides in open government."
ORCS e-Reference Library
Office of the Premier and Executive Council
This ORCS establishes a classification system and retention and disposition schedule for the operational records created by Executive Council and its president, the Premier. The Executive Council consists of the Premier and all Cabinet Ministers. The Executive Council determines government policy and is held responsible by the Legislative Assembly for the operation of the provincial government. The Office of the Premier, and Executive Council with its committees and their secretariats, spans parts of several ministries and is under the charge of several different deputy ministers.
These records relate to the formulation and integration of planning and policy directions for the Province; coordination of the response made by the Government to correspondence received by the Premier from the general public, other jurisdictions, industry and corporations; issues on the development, maintenance, monitoring and inspection of various projects and programs of the ministries of the Government of British Columbia in relationship to provincial, territorial, federal and international governments and organizations; and provision of support functions to the Premier in his or her capacity as Premier.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
SECTION 1 10000 – 10999 CABINET OFFICE SECTION 2 11000 – 11999 CORRESPONDENCE SECTION 3 12000 – 12999 INTERGOVERNMENTAL RELATIONS SECTION 4 14000 – 14999 OFFICE OF THE PREMIER
APPENDICES APPENDIX A BRITISH COLUMBIA MINISTRY CODES APPENDIX B PROVINCIAL AND TERRITORIAL NUMBERS APPENDIX C FEDERAL AGENCY CODES APPENDIX G STANDARD CODING SYSTEM APPENDIX H TABLE OF PROVINCIAL STATUTES APPENDIX I SUGGESTED TOPIC HEADINGS FOR ISSUE AREAS APPENDIX J INFORMATION SYSTEM OVERVIEW: CORRESPONDENCE TRACKING SYSTEM (CLIFF) APPENDIX K INFORMATION SYSTEM OVERVIEW: CERTIFICATE PRODUCTION DATABASE INDEX
PREM ORCS Schedule 881099 Approval date: 7 July 1994
|
British Columbia Utilities Commission 2001 Annual Report |
McCullough was so effective with Brown - who continues on the stand Tuesday - that it makes you wonder if the SP will offer a favourable deal just to shut McCullough down and save the government worse attacks in the coming weeks. Worth thinking about.
Regrettably, Doyle did not name names there either. But mindful of his frustrations with the indemnity policy, it must have been tempting to name one or two of those rodent nuisances after certain foot-dragging bureaucrats or perhaps the key figures in the BC Rail case.
vpalmer@vancouversun.com
C.19.1 Christmas Cards
The Deputy Minister of Citizen's Services, by way of a memo, informs Cabinet Ministers of the procedures for ordering of Christmas cards.
The Premier and Cabinet Ministers are the only government officials entitled to the purchase of Christmas cards with government funds.
The Auditor General is an officer of the Legislature, independent from government, with authority to obtain information to carry out the mandate of the office. The Auditor General is directly entitled to access to information under section 16 of the Auditor General Act. Any concern about access to personal information by the Auditor General needs to be directed to a ministry director/manager of Information and Privacy. The disclosure of personal information that may be contained in records requested by the Auditor General is authorized under sections 33.1(1)(c) and 33.2(f) of the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
- Information requested by the Auditor General to perform the mandate of the office must be promptly provided, except information that is subject to:
- public interest immunity; or
- solicitor-client privilege.
- If a ministry in possession of information requested by the Auditor General is unsure whether or not public interest immunity or solicitor-client privilege applies to that information, the ministry should consult with the Comptroller General and obtain legal advice from Legal Services Branch, Ministry of Attorney General on the question.
- If information requested by the Auditor General is subject to public interest immunity or solicitor-client privilege, refer to specific guidance in section 18.4.2.
18.4.2 Guidance for Auditor General Information Requests
- If information requested by the Auditor General is subject to public interest immunity or solicitor-client privilege, the government's options are to:
- Disclose the information unconditionally
If the information is subject to public interest immunity, this option requires a decision not to assert the immunity. If the information is subject to solicitor-client privilege, a decision to waive the privilege is required. Part b below describes who can make those decisions.- Disclose the information conditionally
This option involves asserting the immunity or privilege and only disclosing the information to the Auditor General on the condition that the Auditor General agrees not to disclose the information outside the Office of the Auditor General without first giving enough notice to the government to take appropriate action. Part c describes how the terms for conditional disclosure are to be entered into and outlines sample language for conditional disclosure.- Refuse to disclose the information
This option may involve refusing to disclose entire documents (where the privilege or immunity applies to entire documents) or only portions of documents (where the privilege or immunity only applies to portions of documents that can be severed prior to disclosure).- For information that is subject to public interest immunity, the decision on which option in Part a to choose is to be referred to the Cabinet Office. For information that is subject to solicitor-client privilege, the ministry with possession of the information and Legal Services Branch, Ministry of Attorney General must jointly decide on which option in Part a to choose. If they cannot agree, the decision may be made by the Attorney General if litigation is involved or otherwise by the Lieutenant Governor in Council.
- The terms for conditional disclosure must be entered into through Legal Services Branch, Ministry of Attorney General. Sample language for a letter setting such terms is a follows:
This letter is to confirm that it is the government's position that the documents you have requested are confidential and subject to [public interest immunity/solicitor-client privilege]. This letter is also to confirm the terms on which the government is providing the documents to your office and which reflect the usual arrangements for the provision of such documents to take into account your office's policy of circulating for comment draft versions of reports to interested parties.
These terms are as follows:
- Your office will notify us if it plans to disclose to anyone outside your office (including as part of your office's policy of circulating for comment draft versions of your reports to interested parties) any information in or about the documents not already in the public domain so that the government may consider whether it has any objection in the circumstances to the planned disclosure.
- Such notification will be provided sufficiently in advance of any planned disclosure of the information so that there will be time for meaningful consultation between your office and the government or for other actions as may be necessary in the circumstance.
 |
| Premier Christy Clark |
Between May of 1987 and December of 1992, Paul Bernardo raped or sexually assaulted at least eighteen women in Scarborough, Peel, and St. Catharines and killed three women in St. Catharines and Burlington.
Paul Bernardo is a unique type of criminal, a determined, organized, mobile, sadistic serial rapist and killer who demonstrates the ability of such predators to strike in any Ontario community. The tragic history of this case, and similar cases from other countries, shows that these predators pose a unique challenge to the systemic investigative capacity of local law enforcement agencies throughout North America and Europe. The Bernardo case proves that Ontario is no exception.
This is a review of the work done by local and provincial law enforcement and forensic agencies during the Bernardo investigations.
The Bernardo case, like every similar investigation, had its share of human error. But this is not a story of human error or lack of dedication or investigative skill. It is a story of systemic failure.
It is easy, knowing now that Bernardo was the rapist and the killer, to ask why he was not identified earlier for what he was. But the same question and the same problems have arisen in so many other similar tragedies in other countries.
Virtually every interjurisdictional serial killer case including Sutcliffe (the Yorkshire Ripper) and Black (the cross-border child killer) in England, Ted Bundy and the Green River Killer in the United States and Clifford Olsen in Canada, demonstrate the same problems and raise the same questions. And always the answer turns out to be the same - systemic failure. Always the problems turn out to be the same, the mistakes the same, and the systemic failures the same.
What is needed is a system of case management for major and interjurisdictional serial predator investigations, a system that corrects the defects demonstrated by this and so many similar cases. A case management system is needed that is based on cooperation, rather than rivalry, among law enforcement agencies. A case management system is needed that depends on specialized training, early recognition of linked offences, co-ordination of interdiscip linary and forensic resources, and some simple mechanisms to ensure unified management, accountability and co-ordination when serial predators cross police borders.
There were times during the separate investigations of the Scarborough rapes and the St. Catharines rapes and murders that the different police forces might as well have been operating in different countries. As one Metro investigator said about the way the Scarborough rapist looked in 1992, before Bernardo was identified:
“This boy is better than we might give him credit for, or he's fallen through the cracks.”
Because of the systemic weaknesses and the inability of the different law enforcement agencies to pool their information and co-operate effectively, Bernardo fell through the cracks.
The Bernardo case shows that motivation, investigative skill, and dedication are not enough. The work of the most dedicated, skilful, and highly motivated investigators and supervisors and forensic scientists can be defeated by the lack of effective case management systems and the lack of systems to ensure communication and cooperation among law enforcement agencies.
Some of the systemic weaknesses have been identified and corrected in Ontario through changes in investigative procedures and advances in the application of forensic science. Other systemic weaknesses urgently require correction in order to guard against a tragic repetition of the problems that arose in the Bernardo investigations. SNIP
