My God, what an awful scandal this is! Its too bad, though, that only a select small number of us Tyee readers are privy to this desperately important information. I doubt that the CanWest Monopoly would report on it, as they appear to be in cahoots, financially and philosophically, with the neoconservative "Liberal" Party.

I know a woman who needed assistance to help escape an abusive situation. She was denied because she is an artist and even though she had not made a sale in over 4 months the intake worker deemed her self employed and not eligible for that reason. That is a matter between her and the worker but it needs to be noted that she has a 12 year old daughter who has a deadbeat dad who is on welfare simply to avoid his obligations. What right did that intake worker have to deny that twelve year old assistance?

Much of what is going on with welfare is just a restacking of the deck with little benefit to anyone except business. Jobwave and other orgs are paid to place bodies and the businesses hiring these bodies get wage subsidies for "training". The goal is to keep the placee employed long enough that they can then become an EI problem. The job shop gets paid, the business gets cheap exploitable labour and the loser is the placee who in reality winds up with little to no value at the end of the process.

Some important information on the two year independence rule: people often don't get told the full information on how one can meet this. The Ministry's own policy for example states people can make a statutory declaration if they don't have records of employment, but people aren't usually told that. Also, odd jobs and even work under the table can count for the required hours or earnings. The two year independence test is the worst welfare law existing and is catching mostly older adults, not 19 or 20 year olds. I also should note that people with depedent children are eligible for hardship assistance where they don't meet basic eligibility requirements, although the case of the artist is a wrong application of the law. If you know someone who is being hurt check the PovNet website to find where the still existing advocacy services are.

Well be happy in knowing that the minster in charge got a nice big bonus, incententive for slashing the numbers.... they didn't do any follow up it seems so im not surprised when ever my self or others from my community have to go to the coast we all say the same thing so many homeless people! here as well.. homeless people are very much a growing social fabric, the budget's balanced but crime's up 5000% property crimes are up, meth labs it seems are every where o Rich Coleman is going to implement a stategy to combat drugs... think about it guys do ya think our rise in such activities are a direct result of goverment policies?,this is what citizens need to learn is the REAL cost of these cuts, my god now a days you need 2 jobs and a small grow op in the back yard just to keep up with what it costs to live in b.c now !! sometimes your only choices are welfare, drug sales or the job that pays 9 buck an hr... in some communties both parents have lost jobs good thing that child labour law was passed last year... step back to the 19th century folks

Thanks for the tip, Advocate! If I might add another...if you are trying to help someone deal with the heartless protectors of your tax money because they are too depressed to act for themselves, make sure you have a letter confirming that you can question the government on behalf of your friend because if you don't have such a letter the government agents will ridicule you and treat you worse than they would an insect. They have Gordo's blessing to treat you in such a callous manner and I have a letter signed by Gordo to back that statement up.

Trickster gets it right, for sure, when he say. "Much of what is going on with welfare is just a restacking of the deck with little benefit to anyone except business."

A good piece, Trickster. Though there is a lot of interesting info and observations in this thread.

The system is set up so that "business" always wins. Which brings up Kit's question in another thread, about what is the role of government anyway?

The assumption is, and the propagandized "ideal", that "the system" media inculcates into the collective brain is, that government/ "the state" is a "neutral" arbiter-, a "mitigating power" above the common fray of everday life. Only it is an "ideal" with little semblance to real life, except in a kind of wishful thinking "mythology" everyone clings to like religion.

Government manifest as "the state" is really an "typically" unspoken admission that "society" is irreconcilably divided into "competing classes", which are fundamentally at war with each other; in times of prosperity and plenty, more or less subdued beneath the surface, at other times open and nakedly confrontational.

Which, from the point of view of the economic and otherwise ruling elites is a state of affairs which, if it is not brought under "control" by an "apparently" third power, with army, police and courts to back it up, ever threatens descent into chaos, the collapse of markets and the jeopardizing of their privileged position in society. Government is the means, with its own history of "arbitrated" representation evolved over time, and arising out of a society's particular history of social conflict, by which the ruling class seeks to legitimize its claim to represent the interests of the whole of society, and "compel" acceptance, or at least obedience, to its economic interests, priorities and "system imperatives".

Even in so-called "western democracies", the wealthy ruling class's control of the underlying economic system of wealth creation acts to ever ensure, of course, that it is their "business" representatives and spokesmen who have the time and funds to dominate the process, to "buy" elections", the corporate media works to keep everyone's "thinking" on track, and in the worst case scenarios "within the norm", no matter who gets elected to "formal power" in any case, they must come to them for the "economic approval" of their plans, and thus subject themselves to their veto, if they want anything done at all within society.

Always, always, outside of special and rare "revolutionary circumstances" at least, they are in more or less control of the system and its processes, via this "extended system" of governance, and they more or less effectively rule. Which means that conditions for their "interests" remain safe for them, and that their "ideas" and "priorities" rule over all other "class interests" in society.

That is the real "system of governance", and how the "real system of government" actually works, more or less, beneath all the surface trappings of institutions and "formal democracy".

And more and more, from here, forward, in the times currently unfolding, it is going to be important that working people and their poor have a "real" not naive or "idealized" view and understanding of how "the system" really works and is governed, and in whose interest. Short of that, we will ourselves be party to allowing the conditions of our own lives, to continue to deteriorate.

My god, this is even worse than I imagined, and I am a disabled person, with a good knowledge of resources for, and facts about, disabled and poor people. REMEMBER, THIS VICIOUS, BLOODY ASSAULT ON THE POOR AND THE DISABLED BEGAN WHEN THE BC ECONOMY WAS REELING FROM BOTH 9-11 AND THE SOFTWOOD LUMBER CRISIS: THE BC LIARS ARE THE FIRST GOVERNMENT IN CANADA TO ASSAULT THE POOR AND THE DISABLED DURING AN ECONOMIC CRISIS EVER!!!! I heartily reccomend that as the advocate above says that ANYONE BEING DENIED WELFARE FOR ANY REASON IN THIS PROVINCE FIRST ASKS, "WHAT ARE MY OPTIONS FOR APPEAL, PLEASE DIRECT ME TO THE NEAREST ADVOCACY OFFICE, AND THAT THEY DEMAND WITHOUT BEING THREATENING WHETHER THEY ARE BEING TOLD EVERYTHING PERTINENT TO THEIR APPLICATION. IF THEY HAVE ANY SIGNIFICANT MEDICAL HISTORY WHATSOEVER THEY SHOULD INSIST THE WORKER MAKE A NOTE OF IT. IF, AND ONLY IF, THEY STILL DO NOT GET A CHECK, THEY SHOULD GET AHOLD OF AN ADVOCATE AT ONCE AND HAVE THE ADVOCATE FIRST PETITION AND IF, NECESSARY APPLY FOR A TRIBUNAL APPEAL... Please however, insist politely but firmly on your rights, and have the worker list every possible option for getting assistance as advocates in bc, thanks to gordon liar's BLOODY policies are overburdened volunteers. Lists of places where advocates can be reached should be available on such sites as pov.net, kootenay cuts, unofficial opposition etc...The social worker should also have a list of advocates, ask them, finally if you are being forced into ANY work you feel is detremental to your health, that you feel for whatever reason you will be unable to stay with, protest, demand to know the consequences if you are laid off or fired, GET IN WRITING FROM WCG, FROM YOUR WORKER AND ASK AN ADVOCATE IF POSSIBLE TO ADVISE YOU OF ALL CONSEQUENCES -FIGHT BACK!!!! AND, gordon liar, when you are thrown out after May 17, 2005, we are coming for all their censored files, which CAN'T be deleted from a computer hard drive, and we will see you in court on this and many other issues.....

"THE BC LIARS ARE THE FIRST GOVERNMENT IN CANADA TO ASSAULT THE POOR AND THE DISABLED DURING AN ECONOMIC CRISIS EVER!!!! " defames my friend Lewis. >P>

Actually, maybe just a little over the top. Certainly that generation which remembers the Great Depression of the 1930s might raise their eyebrows in surprise at this broad proclamation. And the countless dead voices of the poor and the mere "labouring" strata, down through the ages, could they but speak to us from their graves.

Actually, it is very normal that "elite controlled" societies in "contracting" economic times first press hardest on the poorest and most vulnerable, to take even less than the "negotiated gains" of the "good times" had provided for them, and then to attack the broad economic interests and assets of the greater working class as a whole. (Ever while protecting and shoring up the share of the economic elites.) And to attack the very foundations of the organizations which give them any voice and power, such as labour unions and the NGO's which seek to represent and arbitrate for the poor.

Really, if one looks at the historical record of all class societies, including capitalism, there is nothing new here. It has been the "ancient way" of the world for a very long time.

Yawwwn! It is actually quite the norm, really. "The natives" are simply restless is all.

We'll crush them if we absolutely have to. But usually, with our help, and that of our media, they are their own worst enemies-, most of the time.

You know what scares me, besides the incompetent, criminal,lying Liberal scumbags? Carole James seems to think that the folks at JobWave are just great! Oh, and those health care workers who lost their jobs? "You can't turn back the clock", says she. I'm sorry to say that it looks like Carole is more than willing to let the Liberals do the dirty work. What a disappointment she's been so far.

Hey relayer... Carol James is not doing you in right now. She is not in control of the bus. Gordo is running the show. What you fail to see is that, while Ms James might not give you the ammo you need to assasinate her, we can alway progress towards employment equity using other methods than the legislative hammer.

Yes, coyote, I should have said since the great depression, that I know of at any rate. However, the SUBSTANCE of what I said remains, the bc liberals attacked the poor and the disabled in bc to pay for taxcuts, "That would stimulate the economy, thereby leaving lots of revenue for social programs, in other words, a canard so base, and so diametrically opposite from their actions once elected, as to induce projectile vomiting in a maggot....and I know all about the elite, I 've met them, and a lot of them turn my stomach, although there are of course always exceptions...as to carole james, relayer, remember she is caught between a rock and a hard place....canwest media is itchin' to portray her as being only slightly to the right of chairman mao, the first chance they get, that's why they keep fishing for her agenda, they want to demonize it, relayer; and I am well aware of poor bashing under the ndp, from both harcourt and macphail: harcourt referred to welfare recipients, as "varmints," which I personally found about as clever as building a deck in a wet coastal climate, and then not putting a rail around it...but at least he didn't have whathisname build the deck, -what IS it about the ndp and decks? -macphail was also often somewhat insensitive towards the poor in her stint as human resources minister, highly ironic in that she now owes her seat in the leg, partly to the fact it's in a poor and working class neighbourhood...WHAT Carole James and the ndp need to do is to find a policy that appeals to both the poor, and the middle class in regards to the poor, to INCLUDE, where campbell EXCLUDES, all she needs to do to do this, and I hope you read the tyee, carole, is to get rid of parasites like wcg, and cdi, and to set up REAL TRAINING PROGRAMS FOR THE POOR AND THE DISABLED FOR THOSE THAT WANT THEM, in this way she will include where campbell excludes, the entire strategy of rightwing polarizers, like gordon **********.....I always find your explications insightful and entertaining coyote but we need explanations, and slogans that the poor, tired over worked middle class can grasp, like "Carole Jame's NDP's B.C. -a B.C. for EVERYONE, the more she includes the bigger her base, the more she excludes, the more canwest will demonize her as nothing but the political arm of bc unions...remember carole, the poor helped elect larry campbell, who whatever his faults, is not the sycophantic jennifer clark, BUILD BY INCLUDING NOT EXCLUDING AND YOU WILL KICK GORDON CAMPBELL'S BUTT OUT FOREVER, thanks for your other comments, coyote, I try not to drag too many people into my rantings and ravings....

Relayer: True, Carol is not driving the bus, like Eddy says. But folks, like yourself, can't be blamed for wondering, based on her performance, just how she might do at it. Thus far, especially around the events of the hospital strike and that whole, "You can't turn back the clock." defeatist, compromising political line that seems to "want" to come out of the NDP backrooms, is leaving me singularly unimpressed as well. And worried.

I'm worried about the absence of "credible" alternatives as well, which The Greens don't fill for me, unfortunately, which "may" just encourage that "latte-liberal/social democratic" tendency to move "right" approaching power, which the NDP has historically had-, especially bad post-Tommy Douglas.

Anyway, I suggest, "the left" needs to keep a close eye on Ms James. For sure, I am. I hope some of her performance thus far has been just a "one off" example of her "insecurity" in "the big shoes". But-, I know the worries of which Relayer speaks.

We'll see as events draw closer. (Meanwhile, maybe some of us around this Tyee blog might want to start thinking about getting together somewhere, sometime, for a face-on, full frontal conflab, if not before the election, maybe sometime thereafter. To assess the evolving "political situation". :-) I'm leery of "premature" attempts to "force feed" political developments, but the times are a-changing, I think/hope.

Though, I think we are mostly still in the earrly "gestation" period of any "New Politics". And such matters of possible "pregnacies" do have to be allowed to run their "natural" course though, and be not "artificially" hurried along-, most of the time. ;-)

Keep your eye on the bouncing ball.

I hope the Tyee will follow the story on Cheryl Hutchinson the 34-year-old woman with severe cerebral palsy who earlier this month won a landmark decision by the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal that would allow disabled patients to hire members of their families as caregivers. Her father has taken care of her for most of her life. She waited five long years for this decision; was awarded $100,000, and now the BCLiberal government in yet one more attempt to lower the bar of human decency wants to take it all away from her by appealing the decision. Like the bloodhounds they are, they must have sniffed the overpowering scent of money mixed with a human rights issue, and went in for the kill.

new "ERA" = Eradicate moral Responsibility and Abandon people in need.

Hey everyone check this link http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040715.wdisa0715/BN Story/National/ The BC Fiberals lose another court case and of course they are going fight it!

Appeaing the decision to pay care givers is just welfare for the lawyers. Wait a minute! The Legislature is filled with lawyers pretending to be politicians. So are lawyers a "special interest" group or are the MLAs guilty of "conflict of interest". I say it is both.

"BUILD BY INCLUDING NOT EXCLUDING AND YOU WILL KICK GORDON CAMPBELL'S BUTT OUT FOREVER" said Lewis Swift.

I understand, of course, in the prevailing "limited" electoral possibilities, the desire of the NDP to bring as many diverse elements into the tent as possible. That is only sensible. But beware of driving "labour", even just the formal "union" part of it, out of the tent, or "under-valueing" it in the process.

And I understand fully, some of the leadership, democracy and direction problems and limitations that currently exist within the trade union movement itself. The "official" leadership of Labour and the NDP are basically "soul mates", even one and the same very much, and as such, share much of the same societal view and political style, and are suffering much the same fate as a result. Indeed, in my humble view, Labour and the NDP are both drawing dangerously close to doing a self-destruct number on themselves, frankly.

Nonetheless, you turn on your own, or those closest and "best organized" allies nearest to you, as "the poor" working class, in their bitterness, tend often to do, you are cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Likewise, doing backbends to try and please those the furthest out to the right from you, as the NDP very often tends to do, is mostly only likely going to undermine the strength and vitality of your backbone. Sometimes, if you stick to the values of your core principles and core constituency, very often, you draw more people towards yourself over time, than if you become perceived as simply "the nice guy" trying to please everyone-, which is never possible, and people know it, and you lose all "principled" credibility in the process. (There is a risk to being perceived as just another "nice guy". Presuming you know what they say about "nice guys" behind their back.)

In short, it is not possible to please EVERYONE. Certainly the NDP is not going to please the ruling class, or those latte "professional/managerial" elements that serve or seek to serve them as CEOs and such-, at least not without, as they may be already, becoming something especially "the poor" would not be pleased with. It really is time to shed the scales of delusion and wishful thinking from our eyes.

Now, that "view" of mine may drive people away from me right now, but I'm confident enough to gamble my credibility that, over the long haul going out in "the new times", really a return to old times for capitalism, that "enough" folks will come to see its "essential" correctness, at least.

There is a school of political thought, not to be too quickly written off as entirely wacko, that says, most folks only really "marginally participate" in the risks of the process of change, "safely" from the sidelines in any case, and that it is mostly the "activist" numbers you really want anyway. Now that's a little overly simplistic in the electoral process itself, of course, but there's still an important element of truth there, I think.

Beware the man/woman, or political party who tries to be all things to all people. They are not to be trusted. IMHO. Look at the Greens.:-)

What a bunch of Loser Leftie whiners. Every time I need a good chuckle i click onto this site and see the same, tired old names mouthing the same old platitudes. The fact is that the best way to combat the woes of welfare is to provide jobs, and that is what the present BC Liberal government is doing. And, these are not government make work programs, but real jobs for real people. As well, under the inspired leadership of the Honourable Stan Hagen, this government is rationalizing the use of taxpayers dollars in getting the snivelling bums off of the dole and into the workforce. The sad sack NDPers that hog this site have nothing to offer in return, other that throwing more hard earned dollars into the sink hole of welfare. You have no policies, no ideas and nothing to offer the voters of this province. So, get used to the fact that your chosen party is dead, dead, dead.

It will be interesting to watch this appeal on the Cheryl Hutchinson decision - it goes to the B.C. Supreme Court which so far has ruled quite predictably in favour of the Campbell crew.

"What a bunch of Loser Leftie whiners" says Ordinary Voter. :-) Yeah right.

I actually quite like this one. He is the embodiment of every Brownshirt Troll I've ever come across. In one paragraph he manages to get in his licks at all their bogeymen : lefty whiners, welfare bums, taxpayer dollars (the wealthy pittance portion anyway), hard earned dollars and the dead, dead, dead NDP-, which they keep having to drive the stake through in its grave, to make sure it stays there. :-)

But therein too, you see their appeal to the politically "illiterate" mass. They hide their preening loyalty to the wealthy and corporate elites behind a "professed" concern for jobs-, (in the form of a "profit producing capitalist economy" that enriches the ruling class "investor), Joe Average's tax dollars (while giving the wealthy tax breaks), and naked hostility to the poor "welfare bums", in an effort to drive a wedge between them and the rest of the working class (divide and conquer).

Their real loyalties do come through, however, to "the economic and political status quo", its "state", its "Honourable" politicians, and a preoccupation with controlling the working class and welfare bums, and a special hostility to "unions"-, all of which speaks to their servile "militant" loyalty to the most "power-privileged" in society. (Very often, most sadly, they ARE even, those elements of the working class and the hard pressed small business strata which have conciously chosen or see no choice, but to throw in their lot with, and to seek to ingratiate themselves with corporate power. (They do buy into the notion that it really is every man for himself out there, and that only "the strong", and those who serve them, will survive.)

They are amusing, once you see through them, in a regrettable kind of way, but they also can be extremely dangerous, stoking the the furnaces of "The Final Solution", if need be.

I'm convinced they actually see what the radical left sees, only they've drawn a quite different conclusion, and made exactly the opposite choices. They've chose to "serve" instead of "rebel".

So how does denying welfare and respect for people translate into jobs? And how does denying people money help Campbell increase government coffers with his "consumption taxes", the underlying theme behind the tax cut payback? Forcing people who are asking for help away from you only makes them poorer. It does not help them get a job and it does not help the economy in any manner except that a few rednecks might feel better while sipping their martinis while they enjoy their tax cut on the beach in Maui.

Yes Janie - I'm not surprised at your active response given your obviously close connection to the booby hatch. - found a man yet?

You are right on the money Trickster. Although the comapny I work for has never dealt with Jobwave specifically, we have hired dozens or "supported staff" over the last couple of years and it is definitely a game if you know the rules. The employment company brings us a warm body that we can get for $4 an hour net for 6 months providing we have a training plan. After the 6 month period is up, we hum and haw about whether or not we really want to hire the person so we get extended for another 6 months (remember the warm body has to stay off welfare for 19 months). At the end of the year the person has acquired enough hours to qualify for EI so everyone is happy. Warm body gets dumped and the cycle starts again. The sad fact is that many of the people collecting welfare are unemployable for a variety of reasons and 6 months or even a year of subsidized work isn't going to change that. The warm body winds up paying for child card, transportation, clothing, expenses and meals while they are working and probably net out with less than they would have received on welfare when you consider all of the impact. They also have a resume with a series of short term nothing jobs that raises a big red flag for any "real" e,ployer as well.

I've read this four part article and it is accurate in terms of the changes...I'm a welfare worker on stress leave right now...staff are very affected by all of these changes as well...do you know what it feels like to deny a person income assistance, especially in the DTES. So lets hear some compassion as well for the workers who have had to implement all these changes. We are not happy, but we love working with people and we try our hardest to get them off income assistance, or ensure they don't get cut off.

Ordinary reationary simpleton, oh yes, the gordon thug economic miracle, a provincial economy that has come in deadlast or second last three years running, a massive destruction of well paying jobs in exchange for mcjobs sometimes lasting less than a month, a giveaway of money that once sustained not only the poor and the disabled, but that also went into the pockets of landlords and small businesses in our communities, a massive export of raw logs for a minimum of jobs, are you a bc liberal mla by any chance, you certainly sound stupid and heartless enough to be one.....the gordon campbell economic miracle: a blood soaked tragedy that province will take a decade to recover from, how do you manage to look your grandchildren in the eye or do you just avert your gaze as you have obviously done from the TRAGIC CONSEQUENCES of a new low in canadian political history, we'll be seeing you and your owners in court!

I haven't really noticed anyone disrespecting social workers on this thread, burned out, but you COULD try speaking up more, you could have union leaders who can't be fired write letters to the sun detailing the tragic consequences you see daily and so forth. Good comments coyote, but I was not advocating that James abandon union members which is highly unlikely to happen anyway, just that she should broaden the base of support, there is not nearly as much dislike of unions in my opinion anyway, despite the monosyllabic ravings of canwest and various spiritually challenged reactionaries, as was shown, I believe, by the public sympathy expressed for both heu and ferry workers, unions are part of a strong and exclusive economy, the only economy that gordon liar cares about is that of the rich, who as george bush and campbell have proved so successfully can be making out like bandits while the middle class shrinks, like the bc econonomy under the bc liberals, I repeat james needs to INCLUDE where campbell excludes, and that means including unions as well....carole james scored some points today when she spoke in front of the bc business council seeking rapport, phil hochstein made a total ass of himself as usual....

I think "coyote" is right--his "brown shirts" see what "the radical left" see's, and it scares them so shitless that they will say and do anything to appear to be "serving." But to take another swipe at Carole James and her "can't turn back the clock" position--I recall being quite dissapointed whenm during the Bill 37 debates,she suggested bringing in the HEU wage roll-backs slowly so as to allow the workers time to get accustomed to the change--I'm guessing she meant moving to a smaller house--cancelling phone and cable--moving back with the parents--and other easy stuff--but there did'nt seem to be any of the typical hell-raising that I have grown accustomed to from the NDP over the years, and they [she] is still pretty quiet--maybe she-they have the stategy that gordo and his gang will self- destruct before the next election and all will be well--I don't know,,but I would like to see more proof of life from the NDP sooner than later.

I agree somewhat with you john s. though perhaps james was just trying to make the best of a bad situation...It is my hope that the ndp are just keeping their powder dry until the fall or perhaps the spring depending on their campaign chest, although I have my concerns as well. remember there's lots of bad news still coming for the bc liars, the leg raid, bc rail giveaways not yet exposed and more I bet...in the meantime pointed letters to canwest editor and then phone calls of complaint if they're not printed from those not directly vulnerable to campbell can do lots of good...the phone number is generally featured on the masthead on page two....

lewis...I certainly did not mean to infer there were any derogatory comments made about social workers...by the way, we are now called employment and assistance workers...we were never social workers. We have fought hard...but did our union? No one knows what goes on......we just have to follow legislation and policy....

Thanks burned out, appreciate it, perhaps there will be some union shakeups this fall......

Despite all the name calling and general nastiness, a simple fact comes through loud and clear from all the Loser Lefties on this site: they have no idea what to do about the welfare fraud artistes and the social worker bureaucracy that feeds off of them. The BC Liberals under the fearless leadership of the Honourable Gordon Campbell does have a solution. Simply put, encourage a vibrant economy that will provide employment for all. Those of us who are not taken in by the non-program of Carol James and the rest of the brain dead NDP await the pronouncement of their usual solution , which is throw more money at the bureaucracy and more at the welfare bums, all at the expense of hard working, tax paying British Columbians. Be honest, Lefties. You have no idea as to what to do .

"encourage a vibrant economy that will provide employment for all"......huh? Privatising entire spectra of health care is encouraging...what? It puts $$ in the pockets of all-too-often US owned companies instead of the pockets of workers who then put it into the local economy..."be honest, Lefties. You have no idea as to what to do." Oh yeah? Hey, Goof, we even sing about it..."when the fire of indignation in the workers blood shall rise there will be no power greater anywhere beneath the skies, for what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one, by UNION we're made strong"............

Burned Out says, " We have fought hard...but did our union? No one knows what goes on......we just have to follow legislation and policy...."

Been there Burned Out, which makes me appreciate your "nom de plume". :-) Heal, brother/sister.

As you hint at with a deft stroke here, there are clearly signs of big problems with a goodly number of unions, and many are coming up short, no doubt, when their membership is in need of them the most. And for those within unions, who might want to effect changes in direction, leadership and policy, there are likewise problems with structure, and especially flowing out of that, "democracy", in some particular union "instances". (I have memories from my own HEU days, of years ago now.)

All that said, there are serious signs of decline in numbers, ageing demographics, and a virtual standstill in organizing new groups of workers into unions. If that says to you, what it says to me, when and if the day comes that we are without any significant union presence in the economy at all, the slippery downhill slope will have suddenly become a tangle of arms and legs free falling into the pit. And those already in the black hole, will suddenly feel the weight of our numbers as well.

And sometimes, in class war, like any war, when the battle is suddenly going badly, and there appear to be no good choices, Generals will be the first to leave the field-, or like Napoleon, in his retreat from Russia, not want to look their own troops in the eye.

Like I say, people don't need unions to negotiate rollbacks in wages and conditions. They can do that all by themselves. It's hanging onto the gains of the past and moving forward in bad times that workers really need unions for. And there is the rub.

Again, "HEAL!", my friend, I say with a laying on of hands. :-)

".."when the fire of indignation in the workers blood shall rise there will be no power greater anywhere beneath the skies, for what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one, by UNION we're made strong"............" sings Anne Cameron "robustly".

You are in fine voice and form as always, good woman. I love it. :-)

"Despite all the name calling and general nastiness..." writes the so-called Ordinary Voter.

Now, you are becoming just a joke. You show up here calling us all "Leftiee Whiners", now "Leftie Losers, and "welfare bums", to select but a few of your choice epithets, and you have the temerity to whine about, "...all the name calling and general nastiness."

How are we to take you seriously?

Come on now, stand up and take it like a "man". :-)

Hey Coyote, love reading your comments....you and Ann make my morning. But I would like to ask you about your references to "brownshirts" is this a historical reference to Hitler's brownshirts? If so are you seariously comparing our present government to him?

Brownshirts:

Actually, if I was asked to make a fully serious analysis of this particular government, while I would say it has within it, just about the entire "right" spectrum and all the elements that did eventually come to support Hitler's rise, I'd have to say, "No." Though Hitler was in fact "democratically" elected to the Bundestag, or the German Parliament, which folks tend to forget or overlook, whereupon eventually being handed the Chancellorship, he wound up declaring himself Der Feuhrer, I would have to say, "We are yet one step removed from there." We are NOT there-, yet.

On the other hand, the "Brownshirts" were the, in many cases "non-communist" working class, which was the numerically strongest party in Germany at that time, the "lumpen-proletariat", or Hell's Angel kind of strata, I would say, and typically disgruntled "small business" elements, though with others as well, including some left "socialists" and intellectuals, who were taken in by the term National "Socialists", the translation of the acronym "NAZI". (Fully, The National Socialist Worker's Party.) They were the rowdy "extreme nationalist" right wing thugs of beer hall fame who attacked Jews, homosexuals, Communists and other leftists, as well as "untermenschen", being "lesser people", and through indimidation "assisted" the Nazis rise to power.

My use of the term Brownshirt refers to those right wing elements who "often" show up here, attempting to utilize many of the same attack and name calling tactics of these earlier Brownshirts, like our "Final Solution" friend of recent, and with whom many of them will in fact tend to identify-, and typically supporting extreme right wing policies against unions, "foreigners", homosexuals and"welfare bums". And typically, they here support the Campbell "Liberals", still playing loose with words and titles, as the Nazis of old did. My contention being, whether they know it or not, these people are of the "similar" mindset as these, in fact, Brownshirts of old.

Incidentally, for just a little bit of closing history on the Nazi Brownshirts: By 1933 when Hitler assumed the Chancellorship, they numbered some 2000,000, double the size of the German Army, which was hostile to them, probably because even it was afraid of them. Indeed, on June 29-30, 1934, even Hitler had become so concerned about their power and influence, that on what became known as the "Night of The Long Knives", Hitler had seventy of their leadership executed, including their leader Ernst Rohm, absorbing much of their numerical strength into the more tightly controlled SS.

So, Brownshirt, in my contemporary usage refers to a like "rightist" element still with us today, with the same essential ideas and mindset, the same "class loyalties" and, more or less, like political, economic and social policies. (Though typically here, in Canada, rather than being true "nationalists", though they would stake the claim, our Brownshirts are more likely to be ardent fans of U.S. Imperialism. They are more U.S. "wannabes" than "real" nationalists. Certainly they will think that we should stand "shoulder to shoulder" with them-, wherever and whatever. So, really, they are a pale shade of brown. :-)

Over to you Carole James. These are your constituents - congratulations!

Over to you gordon liar these are YOUR constituents: liars, backstabbers, pusillanimous little cretins who have to post under six different names, unable to ever to ever lose gracefully and too stupid to even know when they have lost a point, and campbell has all kinds of betrayals coming up for these mindless brownshirts, coyote, I guess the clawback in user fees and new taxes that took all of their "taxcut" was just too subtle for these simpletons....watchout brownshirts, gordon campbell has more betrayals coming for you....apparently the brownshirts in germany were utterly unable to handle hitler's betrayal and went to their graves or to the end of the nazi empire a confused disoriented mass, unable to understand why their masters had betrayed them, and for anyone who thinks commparisons between campbell and hitler are unfair, consider this: both began by lying or understating their agenda and then attacking labor unions, the disabled, the poor, gays, etc, etc, sound familiar?? I wonder what campbell would be doing had he got elected as prime minister of say, bulgaria, or some other third world country, the mind reels....

whatever

Another devastating retort, from john "mutt" smith

run johnny, there's a little ol' lady afer you ho, ho, ho ....your immeasurable superior, louie the swift.....

.... and to think that Fraser Valley farmers are forced to import workers because they can't get workers in BC! Employables ought to be deployed to these jobs so that we do not have to import workers.

sdgreen asks why not deploy employable welfare recipients to work local jobs? fair comment, but one wonders why these jobs are understaffed? Could it be because they would be underpaid ? Is that why this government undermined the farm labor rules? Undermined the minimum wage act? Undermined the legal work age? It is not just in the farm fields that this government has unashamedly handed out temporary work visas. Social assistance should be a hand up and not a hand out. Somehow it could work hand in hand with employing the underpaid by propping up the income level until you get on your feet.

And altered the child employment standards to allow children as young as 12 to work at....what, farm jobs? For less than minimum wage because after all they're kids, entry level, trainee type...work in jobs with no health standards or protection, no compensation board protection..ah, and could it be an accident? I think not...we are being stuffed back into "the good old days" where industry burned coal and sent kids on ropes down chimneys to clean them..oh and if the kid suffocated , well, don't worry, there are four more at home just like it... at the rate Gordo Hiccup is going we're about ten years away from a return to the good old poorhouse...debtor's prison...child slavery... may their arstles move to their ears so their shit fall and stick upon their shoulders and send the stench of their own filth to pollute their noses and lungs!!

"...may their arstles move to their ears so their shit fall and stick upon their shoulders and send the stench of their own filth to pollute their noses and lungs!!" said Anne.

ROFLMAO!(Rolling On Floor Laughing My Ass Off.) The visuals are a beauty! And I agree with your assessment of where they are trying to stuff us too-, 100%.

If the pesticides used to keep dandilions off people's lawns are harmful to children, imagine what industrial strength pesticides in fields and orchards will do to them, last I heard, a top blueberry picker can make about $50 for a 14 hour day and that's with a bumper crop -some crops are sparse and thin, this disadvantage being passed directly to even the best pickers, -people who can go all out all day, I think sd green already fully meets your criteria, anne....I know of about 75 bc liberal mlas who could REALLY use a character building stint in the blueberry fields, perhaps they could donate their wages to the food banks....the only growth industry they've created...

If the pesticides used to keep dandilions off people's lawns are harmful to children, imagine what industrial strength pesticides in fields and orchards will do to them, last I heard, a top blueberry picker can make about $50 for a 14 hour day and that's with a bumper crop -some crops are sparse and thin, this disadvantage being passed directly to even the best pickers, -people who can go all out all day, I think sd green already fully meets your criteria, anne....I know of about 75 bc liberal mlas who could REALLY use a character building stint in the blueberry fields, perhaps they could donate their wages to the food banks....the only growth industry they've created...

I just wanted to thank Andrew (and other people who contributed to the articles) for this excellent series. I have worked as an advocate for many years and this is the first time I have seen all aspects of this ghastly welfare scenario pulled together so well. I will make sure that many people who voted Liberal last time get to see this series. It really captures what's going on among the thousands of people our organziation deal with.

I am self employed. Due to a chronic disease that is aggravated by hot weather, I have been unable to work since the middle of July. This happens every year. I am usually very ill all through the summer and can't work. THere is usually an additional recovery period of a couple of months where I am able to only work part time. This year I had planned for this eventuality and had put away enough money to last me through the summer. As well I had arranged to begin a project at the end of August, that allowed me to work from home. The project start date has been delayed until Novemebr and may not happen at all. On August 30 2004, I applied for Social Assistance citing the fact that I was doing so because of illness. I completed the preliminary paper work and the web orientation and was told to call on Sept 13 2004 to set an appointment for intake. When I did so I was informed that I my intake interview would take place on Oct 7, 2004. Therefore the self-directed job search as mandated by law has been extended by 3 weeks. The government is not abiding by their own laws. This is catastrophic for me and I am forced to leave the province. This I find particualrly galling. My work is project orented. Most of the projects I initiate are not 1 man gigs. I usually employ one or more people on these projects. My work usually involves some form of community development or capacity building. I am not a layabout, during a period of protracted bad health back in the 90's I volunteered my time and created a sustainable community computer literacy programme in the DTES. I was offered permanet disability status back in 96, but by that point in time I had been able to get off the system. When I am unable to work because of health issues, I do volunteer work to keep myself busy. I don't deserve to be treated in this manner. And neither does anyone else. This whole policy is the result of a political whore pandering to vilest of bigotries among a small minority of voters in this province.