theleftcoast.ca

Today’s post is compliments of our frequent contributor, William Perry. As always, I do NOT necessarily agree with his ideas but I post them here for your discussion.

Dear Editor: Police Union Extortion Agenda Obvious

For fans of “The Sopranos” who miss the fictional mob family’s nefarious exploits. the Police union antics fill the gap by employing similar intimidation tactics that target Esquimalt and execute self-serving agendas.

The Taxpayers have become soft targets for the Union’s political and financial ambitions. The Union seems to rationalize it’s municipal shakedown as necessary to achieve justice and public safety. Coincidentally, it also provides the Union with a lavish income.

This unusual byproduct of financial and legal threats and high-profile chest-pounding expects both the residents and Council to now roll out the red carpet and open their wallets when the Union comes calling.

Here’s an even better idea: When the union make an offer to Esquimalt they can’t refuse – tell them to forgeddaboudit.

Best overheard line at the New Westminster victory celebration, “Oh, you’re Jen? You seem much taller in your tweets.” 

I’m quite pleased to announce that the progressive candidates I endorsed in New Westminster and Burnaby were all elected. Nicely done people, nicely done.

Ewen, Janzen and Puchmayr

Saturday, November 19th is municipal election day in BC. This is a day to take a half hour out of your routine and go and vote. Seeing as it is election day this Saturday, and I have been asked repeatedly about who the best candidates are to support in New Westminster and Burnaby, I thought I would share my endorsements here and now.

To begin with,  looking at the candidates in New Westminster, I am very proud to be publicly endorsing Michael Ewen, James Janzen, David Phelan and Jonina Campbell as the four best candidates for the school board. These four candidates are progressive people who have a positive vision for the school district and who will be able to maintain and foster the collaborative relationships that have been developed through the years.

In Burnaby I believe that the Burnaby Citizens Association school trustee slate of Ron Burton, Meiling Chia, Larry Hayes, Baljinder Narang, Harman Pandher, James Wang and Gary Wong are deserving of our support. I have heard that many people in Burnaby are voting for the BCA slate just to stop the radical agenda of Parents Voice. Whatever your motivation, the BCA have the most qualified candidates to keep the Burnaby school board functioning effectively.

Dan Mangan encouraging people to vote this coming Saturday; share this. Get out to vote. Take a friend to vote. Get people to vote.

More on the wacky world of politics in New Westminster. In partnership with the Tenth to the Fraser blog (http://www.tenthtothefraser.ca), this civic election New West Environmental Partners has  sent out a list of questions for mayor and council candidates on issues of sustainability.

Candidates were given two weeks and asked to answer each question within 350 words with any answer longer being truncated at the 350th word. Answers are being published in the exact condition received, spelling, grammar errors and all, with all formatting removed so they are in the same font (no highlighting, colour, underlines, etc).

One thing that was not explained was whether the candidates should actually answer the questions themselves or whether they could just cut and paste their answers from Wikipedia.

As an example, have a look at James Crosty’s opening statement on sustainability:

Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of stewardship, the responsible management of resource use.

And then look at the Wikipedia entry on sustainability:

Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of stewardship, the responsible management of resource use.

Strikingly similar? Yes, in fact word for word the same. One can only hope that Crosty is able to find a good explanation for fiscal prudence and how to balance a budget.

Is there anything as looney as municipal politics in BC? It seems like all logic is thrown out the window when it comes to municipal politics in BC.

Take New Westminster for example. New Westminster, home to the political party that says it is not a political party, Voice. Remember that old saying; “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.” Yep, that Voice thing sure looks, sounds, and acts like a political party.

And speaking of Voice, this is the same party for which Patrick O’Connor ran for election in 2008 and failed. Not being one to take his losses graciously, he decided to turn the issue of profiting off students through the sale of bottled water into his own personal campaign.

Another progressive trustee made a motion to stop the sale of bottled water in the school district. O’Connor decided that this was simply unacceptable and the trustee had to be stopped.

Long story short, Patrick O’Connor, the failed Voice candidate claimed the trustee was in a conflict of interest because she is an employee of CUPE. He sought a legal opinion and that legal opinion confirmed O’Connor’s fears; the trustee was in a conflict of interest.

So the trustee got her own legal opinion, a legal opinion which she has proof that she paid for herself. Those findings were that she was not in a conflict of interest.

The shocking thing about the legal opinion that O’Connor got was that Nestle, the company that sells bottle water in New Westminster schools paid for that legal opinion. You can imagine that Nestle was only interested in finding the truth of the matter and had no interest in whether they could continue to sell water to kids or not. (Correction of my post here, the school district has a contract to supply bottled drinks with PepsiCo, not Nestle).

Actually, that does beg the question, would that be considered a conflict of interest if the company that stands to continue profiting from the sale of bottled water was paying the legal bills of the failed candidate? Honestly, why would Nestle decide to pay Patrick O’Connor’s legal bills?

Just a quick funny post today as a result of the political maneuvering that Suzanne Anton is doing around the Occupy Vancouver issue. She says that it is time for the Occupy Vancouver people to close up their camp and go back to wherever it is that they came from.

Suzanne Anton

The funny part of her comments was when she said that if she were mayor she would like to send in city staff to “help them close up the camp”. And if that was not fully successful she would send in…the ENGINEERING STAFF!! Yikes.

I would imagine that has the protestors shaking in their boots tonight worrying about the city Engineering Staff (use a very deep and ominous voice when saying Engineering Staff) coming in and “helping them close up the camp.”

Mayor Gregor Robertson is taking some heat about this Occupy protest, largely because it is an election year. However, what is the mayor of New York doing about the Occupy movement? Or the mayor of Toronto, or Victoria or Oakland?

None of the mayors of any of the cities where these Occupy movements have sprung up know how to effectively deal with them. What can a mayor do? How do you “evict” people from a public space and make them stay away? Really, what is the answer?

The following is a press release issued by the Independent Contractors and Businesses Association of BC (ICBA). Feel free to add your comments.

(September 21, 2011 – Vancouver) The Independent Contractors and Businesses Association of B.C. has released its special report into rapidly increasing municipal spending in B.C. in its latest edition of The Construction Monitor.

“Civic spending in B.C. has become unsustainable. If people want to see what unsustainable spending buys they need look no further than TV news reports on the economies in the United States, Greece, and the rest of Europe,” said ICBA President Philip Hochstein. “Municipal spending in B.C is going up twice as fast as inflation and growth rate – something cities, towns, villages, and taxpayers just can’t afford.”

ICBA combed through the contracts a number of municipalities had signed with their workers and found grossly inflated wages and benefits are burdening taxpayers with high costs. On average, a municipal worker in B.C. gets pay and benefits 35 per cent higher than a private-sector counterpart doing the same job. Gold-plated contract terms like gratuity days (time off on top of regular holidays and sick time, just for coming to work), defined benefit pensions, and extra-generous holiday provisions have ratcheted costs sky high.

“These rich municipal packages are subsidized by taxpayers who don’t get anything close to this. If non-government employers tried to offer these rich benefits, they’d be out of business,” Hochstein added. “What really adds insult to injury is the fact that civic politicians handed out pay increases as much as double the rate of inflation in the middle of the worst recession in a generation that everyone else feared would consume their jobs.” 

Municipal salaries and taxes aren’t the only things going up, the ICBA report found. Municipalities have also hiked the numerous permit and special fees charged on construction projects. Those civic charges have been going up an average of more than seven percent since 2000. Inflation during that period was less than two per cent. This makes housing, commercial construction, and ultimately retail prices higher than they need to be.

“British Columbia is reaching the point where taxpayers – be they builders, investors, or homeowners – can’t afford to meet the spiralling spending demands of municipalities,” said Hochstein. “The time has come for municipalities to find places to reduce rather than increase spending. Looking at the rich pay and benefits for workers with iron-clad job security would be the right place to start.”                                   

You can download the entire ICBA report at http://icba.ca/documents/ConstructionMonitorFall2011.pdf.

About ICBA (www.icba.ca) ICBA services and represents B.C.’s construction sector. ICBA’s 1,100 members – who include both the Industrial, Commercial and Institutional (ICI) and residential construction sectors – are involved in virtually all major capital projects in British Columbia.

I have heard enough bullshit about the Vancouver Canucks Riot to last me a lifetime or two. Today I heard the sports talk knuckleheads talking and expressing their outrage that there were ONLY 500 cops assigned to the Vancouver downtown for the night of game seven.

Question for anyone thinking that there were not enough cops downtown for game seven; how many cops do you think it would have taken to keep 100,000 rabidly disappointed (or jubilant) fans under control? How many cops would you have had available? Do you honestly believe that 1000 cops could have prevented this mess? 2000 cops? 5000 cops?

And would we accept having 5000 cops on our downtown streets? Further, are there 2000, 3000 or 5000 cops we could call up for an afternoon?

And finally, never mind the fact that this type of behaviour happened 17 years ago and people are assuming that it won’t happen for another 17 years or so, what happens if the Vancouver Canucks make a run for the Stanley Cup next year? They have a very talented team in place and it is not inconceivable that they will make another run deep into the play-offs. Do we allow the city to celebrate or do we clamp down on the city and not allow any public display of joy?

Points to ponder. Thoughts?