If you aren’t outraged, you haven’t been paying attention.

Posted on by Laila

In honour of BC Mary, I am marching forth and continuing the good fight, and how.

Finance Minister Kevin Falcon has stated time and time again that the billions in dollars of contractual obligations the government owes is not like debt, so it doesn’t need to be reported with the regular debt. Go figure. I’ve compared it in the past like trying to convince your banker your $500,000 mortgage isn’t really a debt, but a contractual obligation, because all those other payments don’t come due for years. Think your banker is going to fall for that? No, and you shouldn’t either.

From the 2o10/2011 public accounts, here is a breakdown of the
contractual obligations ie debt, the province really owes for various P3’s and service agreements.  The total IPP/run of the river obligations alone is in the billions. If you aren’t outraged, you aren’t paying attention, because on several of those projects, SNC is laughing all the way to the bank. 

**click on each image to see full size/ alternatively you access via this PDF file here http://www.llbc.leg.bc.ca/public/pubdocs/bcdocs/348389/2010_11/contractual_obligations.pdf

Now, if you missed it over the weekend, I urge you to scroll down and read the full exposure on SNC Lavalin’s activities worldwide… and why that should be of great concern with respect to Chairman of the board Gwyn Morgan’s relationship with Christy Clark.

16 thoughts on “If you aren’t outraged, you haven’t been paying attention.”

    1. Indeed, they have given our childrens future away in signing these deals. I know some find this hard to understand, but all you need to know is they are basically lying about the actual debt. Just because we dont pay it all right now, doesnt mean we dont owe it. The numbers are absolutely shocking.

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  2. Yes our childrens futures are bleak as is our immediate future. When one looks at the scope of debt along with the state of our assets, BC hydro, BC Rail[for mary] the selling off of publicly owned properties etc. the crystal ball doesn’t look freindly for BC. Add to this a government that realizes it’s time is up and is desperate. …. well deperate people do desperate things.
    Laila, on a side note, Have you heard from Grant G. at all? the last he wrote on his blog was Feb.26th. i don’t know if we should be concerned. Just thought I’d ask.
    Don

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    1. Hi Don, no other than his last comment here, I haven’t. I am sure he is fine and taking care of things, and likely dealing with Mary’s loss as well.I know you can post a comment on an older post of his and write not for publication and he will usually answer you! Maybe he is out fishing, enjoying the weather up there, which is really nice right now.

      A great comment Don. The state of our books is unlike anything they represent it to be. 45 BILLION for IPP energy purchase agreements? 1.2 billion for the Abbotsford Hospital P3, which has been flipped several times(to give credit where credit is due, that was an NDP P3…) I don’t need to go on,you can read them yourselves. It is very very deceptive not to include these amounts in our total debt. The public needs to understand how much has been spent of our future budgets before they have been prepared.

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  3. These tables are brilliant. To overcome difficulty one must first determine the scope of the challenge and it is truly breathtaking in BC.
    Robin was writing yesterday, advocating the “Icelandic” approach. I am certain he is correct. The time for timid half-measures is long past in BC.
    Voters looking for “safe hands” will not find a solution, only deferment.
    Laila please let folks talk you into running as an independent candidate. There is a growing passion people in BC are discovering for themselves.

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  5. HI Laila,

    this is indeed shocking, yet not surprising. I have done some basic research on a few right wing govts. Reagan, ( who the republicans are elevating to a celestial being), Thatcher, ( who isn’t being elevated to a celestial being except by some blinkered nutters with selective memory loss, certainly not most brits.) both Bushes, Mulroney AAAGGHH!!!, Vander Zalm all had similar outcomes. Massive debt left for someone else to deal with when they got ditched. However, according to themselves and their associated cheerleaders usually with their hands out, these people, and only they had the knowledge and discipline to manage their respective economies. And now we have our own crop of right wing debt ridden fiscal geniuses with their cheerleaders saying and doing the same. Rafe has a super view on Monday’s Tyee on the cheerleaders.

    I dread to think what will be uncovered when the libs. get turfed, hopefully the new govt. will give the authorization for a complete accounting of the mess we are now in.

    Thanks to you and others on the blogosphere none of this would come to light. Sadly this is also a reflection of our appalling media that choose to look the other way even when evidence is presented to them on a plate. Finding this out for themselves would be too much to ask.

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    1. Erik,I feel a strong calling to write and a strong calling to serve,and time will tell. You know I value your opinon and advice on both professional and personal matters and this covers both!
      Yes, I agree,looking at these charts and seeing how much DEBT these contractual obligations have dug the province into a hole, we are long past timid half measures and cautious approaches. Like the foresty situation and report of the AG, my belief is that we have as a province,a small window of time to turn this around and I will do my best to that end. Billions, billions beyond what Falcon has presented, it is ridiculous this man can live with himself, trying to pass this off on the people. Good god, he was the one who pushed P3’s as a great value for taxpayers all wrapped up in fancy words to confuse and deflect.

      Lynn, thank you.Hope you are well.

      Keith, shocking indeed, but this information is out there available to media, and to the opposition and to anyone else who wants to see it. Yes, it takes some work finding it, but it is there. There have been times I have presented both with items on a platter all wrapped up only to have nothing happen. Nada.
      Understanding it is another matter,unfortunately for so many but the mortgage analogy is a good one that I find helps a lot of people get it who are not very familiar with financial terms and contracts. My concern is that Dix has only stated he is opposed to P3’s in healthcare, but has said nothing to where he stands on using P3’s in other sectors like transporation and infrastructure. I have sent him a message asking what his position is, and will post that here when and if he replies. My concern is that P3’s are easy outs for governments, like buy now pay later schemes. Only problem is,shaky economic climates and all the trickle down effects of such, play havoc on a governments bottom line, making it impossible to see the future.

      We should call them P4’s “Public Pays for Private Profits.”

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  6. Laila This doesn’t surprise me at all. The stats are staggering and it’s just another day at the office for our wouldbe leaders and corporate bed buddies. The Taxpayer ends up flipping the bill as usual and the govt and their corporate owners reap the benefits. Alot of those Corporations are Foreign investors too so that means upto 95% profit by-passes Canada Economy and we are left with a handful of temporary insecure jobs. You think those numbers are big. You should see what the Govt along with Corporations and Customs are stealing and recieving in royalties daily from precious minerals from Texada Island And Sturt BC. They call it limestone and dirtbut some of those Dore bars are upto 74% pure gold, silver, zinc, Copper etc which is worth trillions a year. I have been able to collect some graphs, charts etc from Geologist but finding a paper trail is next to impossible on this issue. We are getting scammed really bad and it’s time to expose and convict these fascist dictator type criminals for who they are. They need to be charged and convicted and punished accordingly.

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  8. Will we soon add BC to the “PIGS” list of failing states?
    The ,likely, sad outcome of this outrage is that the taxpayer will eventually suffer for these bad decisions.
    Reductions in services , lower wages, reduced pensions,the list is large.

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  9. Ed, I would sure enjoy seeing some of that info, sounds very interesting and I am familiar with a lot of the royalty credits many corporations get. I’m trying to make sure people know about the really important issues that greatly impact how this province operates so they dont just get caught on the flavour of the day issue that makes front page for a moment and is gone again. There are some things going on in this province that will impact life here for generations.

    Trailblazer,nothing new there. The taxpayer is incidental in all these corporate government decisions. What happens to us is incidental, ask our unelected premier who seems to be in hiding still..lol.

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  10. Campbell had stolen BC’s assets and resources and sold them. My belief is, China owns BC. Mills were shipped to China, along with our raw logs. They own BC mines…Worse, they are bringing their own miners to work the mines. Fadden of CSIS had warned, China was encroaching too far into Canada. Fadden specifically named BC. He was absolutely right. The people and the province own nothing.

    Our Salmon are being killed off, by the filthy diseased fish farms. Name me one politician that gives a damn. Campbell thieved and sold our rivers, causing mega-eco disasters. The next river for destruction is, the beautiful Kokish River. Salmon, Steel Head and Dolly Varden fish, all will be destroyed.

    All we have left of BC is the beauty and our wonderful sea life, and our woodland creatures. If they force the Enbridge pipeline, and the dirty tar tankers into BC, we will even lose the beauty and all the wild animals and our precious sea life.

    The site C dam, is flooding the most valuable farmland in Canada. The dam is to be used for fracking, which poisons the clean underground water for miles. We can light the gas water on fire, coming out of our faucets. The LNG tanks at Kitimat, are a bad mistake. If they blow up, Kitimat will be blown out into orbit. I have seen those tanks when they blow up, on disasters of the century. It’s not pretty.

    All the brain dead idiot politicians, think goody, goody, more money in our coffers. Their greed is, rabid, frantic and too disgusting for words, I dare not say.

    As they say…Man is the most destructive animal on earth, and the most stupid one at that. Man is now worried about space debris, that is dangerous for the space station and satellites. Man has managed to pollute everything, on earth, the sea, and even space.

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  11. I truly believe the corporate structure and activity of buying our country and it’s resources through politicians has led us to this place. We didn’t even know we were in a war.

    It appears that corporations own and control all that happens – I wonder if there is a way out anymore? It certainly seems that it would have to be at a National Level if so..

    In my view the most insulting part is the lack of transparency and accountability of Governments of all stripes to it’s people. No political party is exempt. Period.

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    1. Your lucky day I guess as I can tell you your wish might just come true, at least in the form of a better way. Several Canadians , led by Paul Hellyer, are mounting a public campaign just ahead of the Federal budget. This initiative is designed to redress the unholy control the national and international financial corporations excecise over Parliament. We intend to showcase the corrosiveness of this control and to offer solutions that are not so radical as to be considered revolusionary by the likes of the Prime Minister (joke of course).
      Paul and the rest of us know it is a bit like tilting at windmills and will attract ridicule from the establishment which invariably seeks to cripple any effort that threatens their privilaged condition.
      It is almost a guarrantee that the mainstream media will not give this effort any attention but we feel it still must be done.
      Thank goodness for people like Laila who don’t shy away from such challanges.

      Regards from Erik

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  12. Rosemary, you are absolutely right that no political parties are exempt from transparency and accountability. And that starts with electoral reform, such as being promoted by Integrity BC, whereby big corporate and union donations are banned and limits are placed on donation amounts period. This removes influence on either end, and you can’t tell me a union will not influence the direction of a party any less than a corporate entity will. Do either have the publics interest at the heart of their motives?

    Erik, just getting caught up after this break, I have quite a few emails to go through! I like the idea,and look forward to hearing more about it. It’s really quite amazing, the rise of independent and alternative media that bring great coverage of many items that the MSM won’t or can’t touch. I do not a lot of reporters who are effectively chopped at the knees by budget constraints that don’t allow for investigative coverage and of course corporate influence and bias in many outlets is blatant although we often hear such denials. The recent fall of NW down the ratings is indicative, I believe, of increasing discontent with the main portion of their content. And adding Dave Pratt, whom I remember most for being canned for plagiarism while at the Province, is really kind of funny. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2008/06/04/bc-sports-columnist-fired.html

    Always up for the challenge Erik, thank you for your ongoing support and assistance- without people like you, there would be no purpose to any of it.

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