I am beginning to realize that nothing is sacred in BC anymore. Sell it all and turn BC into a whore. Is there anything that these liberals haven't lied about? Slimey bastards with verbal diarrea. Why do so many people want to vote these bastards back in?

ch - in response to your last question, it all boils down to credibility. Neither the left nor the right have any credibility left with BC voters. But there is nobody else stepping in to the fray either. The polarization of BC politics does all of us a diservice....

yup say one thing and do another! I won't increase gaming, I won't sell B.C. Rail, I won't sell B.C. to the highest bidder, I won' t privatise the Coq, etc etc etc...Yeh right! Tell a lie you are a liar!

Hon. Coleman should be know as the Minister of Expansion. Gambling growth is only one. Liquor outlets have increased more than threefold, electriticy that is stolen to grow your favourite weed is alledged to cost Hydro customers many millions a year. Now the police chief of Victoria tells us that hard core gangs are now in his city and are armed with automatic weapons,scary. Alcoholism and drug addiction in our high schools is now common and on and on. It is tragic that he hasn't expanded the penal,legal and rehab facilities to cope. Many of us are very dissapointed in Hon. Coleman, we seniors have lost our feeling of security..Thank you

sad isn't it Bob R, desperate people do desperate things now our elderly do not feel safe in their own homes, this in what used to be one of the safest countries in the world. I remember when friends didn't bother locking their doors in Vancouver, hell now everyone is buying security systems and dogs! That was before expo which in my opinion killed the B.C. we all loved! It was all about pimping real estate!

http://img118.exs.cx/img118/8063/colemanslotslut2ce.jpg

As someone whose community was sold down the river when Vancouver City Council approved slot machines at Hastings Park - I think the article lets COPE light off way too easy. Cleary the Liberals made some juicy deals with our arrogant bully Mayor, who doesn't have enough principle to stand up for working class Vancouverites as long as it put money into city coffers. The cities and municipalities were bought off by the crumbs from the Liberal table - their share of the revenues. What did they offered the Liberals in return?

When was the last time anyone heard from Wayne Strelioff, this province's auditor general, on any thing at any volume, never mind on the scale of Sheila Fraser?

Folks, whether it's this thread on this issue, or any other thread on any other issue, you're all complaining about being abused by the institutional power while fearing the culprits will hide behind the veil of institutional unaccountability - Kafkaesque-like. Wayne's office needs your support to increase his oversight abilities without fear of political ro financial retribution now more than ever, and this election is a perfect time to put this issue on the NDP's platform.

Despite the fact that I won't vote for them and will probably work against them, I'd be willing to bet that the Liberals, with all their shabby dealing and sellouts, will get re-elected.

The trouble with trying to control gambling in the internet age is that there is no feasible way to place any restrictions on internet gambling sites; they're completely unaccountable to any person or government. People are able to "lose the farm" from the comfort of their computer desk. So we have governments of all stripes trying to compete with these internet gaming sites instead of trying to put them out of business, on the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" basis. Pretty sad state of affairs.

"Coleman, the minister who speaks for the province on gambling issues, was not available for an interview."

"Neither Kinsella nor Schaefer returned messages left with Liberal party headquarters."

Andrew, when you write it like that you give them the benefit of the doubt, that for some good reason they couldn't accommodate an interview. I would be less generous with my doubts, instead I'd write: '...would not make himself available for an interview' or 'would not return calls.'

While I can only hope none of that is true, that they actually all had good reasons, I'd be wary of a pattern; such that, someone may have to respectfully inquire if only some media outlets have exclusive rights to them...Dear Esteemed and Democratically Selected Leadership...

I mean, it's not like they really are under an exclusive media access contract, are they?

Whoa, I just had a nasty vision: Imagine a politician, or even worse, a group of 'em, being sponsored by a big media chain. Yikes! Wouldn't that be frightening? Then imagine that these candidates won power, and the media conglomerate justifies and normalizes this corporate-sponsored hijacking of the political process by bombarding the public environment with ideas on a massive scale that only serve to reinforce unbridaled capitalism being our guide and master of public policy and practice! Such that, all "publicly" supported and driven policies effectively cement this control and influence, including keeping them fabulously comfortable while exercising it. And that its self produced media heros, like movie stars, hockey players and the like, keep their mouths shut about the scheme because the wage scale is so persuasive for this. And all the while their confidence swells, such that they publicly spat over the lion's share. And, and, so on and so forth.

Whoa! That's depressing. But, then, that could never happen here in British Columbia, could it?

a few months back this hr has 22 miin did a spoof on the bc libs.. tony soprano was running the province... the skit was hilarious and unfortunately all to close to home, it does seem that the mob is at the helm in beautiful bc, i wonder what the promises made by the libs were as well? the campbell corp seems to have no problem fulfilling those promises to business associates and contributors, they just seem to have a huge acccounabilty problem with the taxpayers, bet you dollars to donughts the paper work and any such correspondance will do a big dissapearing act the libs are famous for no paper trail, my thought is in couple years we will see a scandle break out that will make the federal scandle in ottawa look tame, millions and millions wasted? hold your breath bcers we havent even seen the tip of what these corrupt bastards are doing bastards

Dear Tyee. Why did you remove my comment? be

Toronto Star - Page C2 this morning: Small headline above nice photo of David Emerson at a microphone: February: Fraud Awareness Month. Behind his head is a slogan: FRAUD: RECOGNIZE IT. REPORT IT.

The caption under the photo says: 'F' is for fraud. Federal Industry Minister David Emerson speaks at a news conference in Toronto yesterday to mark Fraud Awareness Month organized by the Competition Bureau with participation from the public and private sectors to reach out "to educate Canadians and eliminate fraud."

As a British Columbian, I saw this tiny news item as rich with meaning. Is he honestly suggesting that it's the public doing the fraud?? I guess what set me up for the laugh was another news photo showing R.C.M.P. vehicles parked right on Bay Street, outside the big brassy Bank of Nova Scotia, as forensic teams went in armed with Search Warrants ... it looks so much like the R.C.M.P. raid on the B.C. Legislature ... only these cops say they'll be inside that bank for days, maybe weeks.

A new state-of-the-art bingo hall (palace is more like it), first opened in Kamloops last year. Operators assured the public the new hall would limit itself to operating bingos for charities. The public, leary about gambling expansion, bought the assurances and the operators got the go ahead. But since then the operators have successfully applied for liquour licences and dozens of slot machines. The facility is now refered to as a casino. It would appear Mr. Coleman's ability to flip flop on promises and issues of major importance has caught on with the industry as well. So I guess the moral here is do as I do, not as I say.

Look at him there, half smiling, half grinning. BC's top cop: defender against vice, er, I mean defender of vice. The man who wants to be Premier, the top dog - and we all know who'll be on the bottom of that scenario.

It's worth repeating: are you registered to vote? Have you encouraged your friends and neighbours to register and vote? Because either we defeat these corrupt incompetent lying criminals at the polls, or there could be violence and civil disobedience on a massive scale. The rage is growing by the day, lets channel it into a massive voter turnout.

Now the BC Liberals are planning to put emphasis on that nonsense they created about an NDP structural deficit. A good article on this new set of lies at www.strategicthoughts.com

relayer: ah, I dunno. I'm feelin' kinda of apathetic... think I'll sit this one out. what's the worst that could happen, anyway? besides, I'm just an insignificant schmuck with an internet connection and too much time on my hands. besides, if the NDP wins, who will I bitch at? 'cause, as you know, there's no unemployment/environmental degradation/social injustice/christian fanatics/ conspriring capitalists/ unscrupulous politicians/surgery line-ups/media-barons/huge class sizes/Olympic rings in an NDP utopia. Is there?

sigh...think I'll line up for that free junk

Well, has anyone considered it isn't the mob that is running the show, it's the bikers? Gambling expansion (people better not be fooled by the new spin of "gaming") has been unprecedented, especially for people who promised the opposite. It's common fact that dirty money can be very well laundered in casinos. How many new ones do we have? hmmm? Under these crooks how many people have been assigned cushy government contracts, or jobs (Basi squared, Virk, Doug Walls and the entire board of VACFSS) where money has exchanged hands, or been misappropriated/ embezzled/ unaccounted for? Some have been charged, some not. Why not all? White collar crime under the Liberals is costing this province millions. The premier of this province became a convicted felon in another country while in office??? This is all madness and I think those of us who don't breathe through our mouths, or aren't led by a shepherd better do something about it. The puzzle being, what? The NDP better get on the war path, because time is tick, tick, ticking away. Where is the platform people? People want to know where you stand. There are those of us who do remember that the Welfare cuts started under your stewardship and we want to know what you what you are going to do to improve things in this province. We don't want to keep hearing filler about what the liberals haven't done. This election is the NDP's to lose and I'm getting very, very concerned that they will. Game on people. For all you NDP'ers, take these sentiments to your leaders. I've already told some of them & they don't seem to be listening. Choose good, ethical community leaders for your nomi- nation candidates. Hell, independent candidates should get in there too. We have to have new voices. Local, provincial, community, grass roots, fringe and globalization people, we need to make change in this province. I prefer not to think about the consequences if we don't.

KJ, didn't anyone every tell you that there is no such thing as free junk. Seriously, heroin addiction is a really poor life. Why not get rid of the prohibition and let these people get on with their lives instead of breaking your car window for a few coins or your home for whatever they can sell.

Even if the Liberals are reelected, they will face a much stronger opposition. Also, the NDP is not in the business of guaranteeing a utopian world. Sure they do want to make thing better in BC for people and in a different way from the BC Liberals. Bring back reference based pricing for pharacare with the use of pharmcoeconomists, rather than the brain-dead BC Liberal "fair pharmacare", etc. Save millions of dollars using intelligent analysis under the NDP rather than stupid neo-conservative cutbacks of the BC Liberals. We have to fight for this. We should not be just sitting this one out.

The BC Liberals are too stupid to be good managers. They are also too corrupt and far more corrupt thant the NDP. We have to fight against this.

schmuck: an insignificant person with an internet connection and too much time on his/her hands

actually, if you say it out loud, it's kinda funny; sounds kinda like a native word.

Stay positive, KJ. Each vote counts equally no matter how important the individual. I had no intention of insulting you.

Sue Clark says "The BC Liberals are too stupid to be good managers". What's the foundation for that statement?

And the NDP are what? Brilliant managers? Based on the present array of candidates, the NDP is woefully thin in terms of managerial talent. I wouldn't count on the union shadow management of the NDP contributing much either.

the b.c. libs according to vaughn palmer in an article written quite some time ago... had out spent the n.d.p. in the first 18 months of office that it took ten years for the n.d.p. to do and it appears they aren't very good managers as they had to contract that out to a texas firm to do... imagine the province has been doing it's own bill collecting for over 100 years and now suddenly we don't know how to do that any more!? the texas firm gets i believe (and i will stand a correction on this) but the for them is 34% yet another chunk of money and a sizable one at that will be leaving the province what is going to be left after they've ransacked and fleeced the people of this beautiful province?

The foundation of that statement was exactly what I said in my original post, philster. The BC Liberals are increasing pharmacare user fees instead of the use of pharmacoeconomists that were used under the NDP.

The BC Liberals are costing BC a lot of money with the addition of payment of profits to P3s and all of the other privatizations that have happened. Profits cost. The government does have a role in keeping costs down and the BC Liberals have increased costs for a vast array of services by contracting out services to corporations. Paying for profits costs a lot of money and if there was anything that will lead to a structural deficit, it is this vast array of privatisations carried out by Gordon Campbell and his party.

This privatizations have also reduced salaries to thousands of British Columbians and this will reduce government revenues in the long run.

The NDP does a much better job dealing with BC's labour issues. Unions are important in BC. What is your problem with giving people a decent standard of living?

Great responses from Elizabeth and Sue Clark. As you say, Sue, it is the people of this province that are now paying for profits for corporations. Where once we had both the jobs and the profits, Campbell and Co. have given it all away and to foreign companies to boot. How can you possibly call that a good business sense? "BC - Ransacked and Fleeced", never said better, Elizabeth.

Many of the contributors here seem to have a profound lack of understanding of how economics and businesses function. Some things are done more effectively by the public sector and some are done more effectively and efficiently by the private sector. Take television broadcasting as an example. The CBC competes ineffectively with the private sector for the same advertising dollar and we taxpayers make up the difference( their annual losses). The important measure here is the cost to the end consumer, as there are 30 million of us in this country.

Profits are an incentive for companies to provide goods and services, otherwise why bother? Anyone who expects to receive a pension someday will want their pension fund managers to invest in profitable companies, so many of you are likely wittingly or unwittingly shareholders in public companies that earn profits. Profits are not a bad thing.

In deciding to contract out a service you determine if it can in fact be done more cheaply and equally effectively by an outside party. If it can, you save money. If it is done by the government, taxpayer dollars are saved. That's the point! The services sector is a rapidly growing and succesful part of the economy today, and its all around you, your plumber, office cleaners, auto repair shops,and so forth. People are gainfully employed here.

Unions are good for BC? C'mon - the strike threatened by CUPE in time for the boat show this weekend will put hundreds of people out of work and result in millions of dollars in lost business for local companies. Unions are sucking the life out of BC.

I vote for privatizing the provincial government - the whole thing! The premier will be replaced by a CEO, all the way down the line. Then the feds, then cities - everything. Every child born will be a corporate citizen! Let's privatize the unions, too! Everything must go!

Philster, when our local health care was privatized, many local workers lost their jobs, the ones that stayed now work for a whole lot less than before. But this is the interesting part, the privatized foreign contractor charged the local health authority almost the same rate for labour that previously existed. So who made the money? Definitely, not the workers who now work for less, not even the health authority, but no surprise...it's the foreign corporate contractor who now employs workers who work for less, though this private company is charging the same rate for labour as before. Add to this that there is also now less workers due to cuts in staffing, thus more risk to patients.

So, why did local health authorities go for this deal? Good question. Why did they sell out our local workers? Perhaps, because we have a government whose ideology is privatization at any cost, even if there is nothing to gain and much to lose for the citizens of this province. Privatization is often not good business, often it's ideology aimed to control labour costs and labour itself.

As for the boat show, you blamed the dispute totally on unions but you conveniently forgot the other part of the equation which is management and it's obligation of fair wages to workers. Maybe management is sucking the life and livelihood out of workers in BC.

So it's UNIONS who are sucking the life out of BC workers! Well, I'll be darned. Here I thought it was stuff like organized crime, gambling, unemployment! Who knew it was so simple.

Lynn. In awarding the contract in a competitive public bidding process, the award goes to the lowest bidder, with few exceptions. The competitive bidding process serves to drive prices to the lowest practical level and prevents companies from making "excess profits". There is no question that workers hourly wages are now lower. When you say "almost the same rate" as before, I assume you mean a lower rate. As a taxpayer I care that health care costs and taxes are being reduced and am happy to reward whoever delivers a cost saving, which is how the free enterprise system works. We do not have an obligation as taxpayers to pay people over and above market rates to perform their job. Would you pay one plumber twice as much as another as a consumer? Most likely you would not. If you did, how would you decide, and how does our society pick those whose wages will be arbitrarily inflated? It matters not what the ownership of the company is as long as we derive the benefits - is that the sound of Tyee readers heaving their foreign made computers out the windows?

Why would the government take this deal? For the simple reason that they are elected to manage the health care system and provide sound financial management of our tax dollars. Financial management is basically about two things; maximizing revenues and reducing expenses. I agree there are a number of services that the government should provide - national defence for one.

As to the BC Place dispute, it was the union that threatened to strike, management isn't locking them out.

The Corporation of British Columbia: where every is citizen is truly a private citizen.

Philster, don't assume, the rate charged was not lower than previous, in fact I think it was a little higher. Like I said it is a myth that privatization reduces costs to the taxpayer. As Sue Clark said above "paying for profits cost a lot of money."

As to your logic in the BC Place dispute, that's like saying "it was the battered wife who threatened to leave, must be her fault, since her husband seemed perfectly fine with the situation."

Lynn, You go from "Unions are good for BC" and failing in that argument you progress to "maybe management is sucking the life etc." to some line about "the battered wife" If you can't win try another argument eh?

Well, the facts are in as of this afternoon, the union has struck, the show is shut down except for 50 slips in False Creek, and the layoffs are coming for hundreds of workers in BC's marine industry.

There are no winners here, even if they get a 2% raise it'll take the workers at BC Place years to break even from a strike as short as a few weeks. Businesses that depended on this show for 50% or more of their annual business will go under - talk to some small business owners - I have. Small business is fed up and can't wait for the election.

Philster, you attribute the quote, "Unions are good for BC" to me. Well, nowhere in my posts will you find that I said that. I do agree with Sue Clark, however, that "unions are important in BC".

As for the BC Place dispute, if you don't understand the metaphor of the battered wife, I'll explain it. It means sometimes there is no alternative left but to walk.

I agree with you on one thing though - there are lots of fed up people in BC who can't wait for the next election.

Gordon Campbell could not settle any labour disputes. Blame him, not the unions.

Here is another example of bad management by Gordon Campbell. Those HEU computer worker positions that had to accept the 15% wage reduction have become a lot of job openings with no takers. At St Pauls Hospital for example, half of the positions cannot be filled. You are such a hero, Gordon Campbell, to portray the HEU as a bunch of cleaners (long after all of the cleaning positions had been privatized).

The increased dependency on gambling for revenue has gone way out of control. What started as a trickle with the Socreds, I remember volunteering at a casino in 1990 and getting $30,000 for my non profit over 2 nights, to further expansion by the NDP and then full on dependency with the Liberals. I also live in East Van close to the PNE and I was somewhat disturbed to see a major push in COPE/NDP farm team to increase gambling at Hastings Park. On the whole I think the NDP and COPE favour increased support from gambling, even with all the research that talks cost. My question to people who support the NDP are against the expansion of gambling is, how long before you actually question your support of the NDP ? How many times do need to get kicked in the teeth before you realise you are no longer in control of the party that is kicking you ?