happy

that's just silly - and you know it.

How so West

Rafe says its a conflict of interest b/c Gordo is the "honorary chair" of this IPP organization and hints at unknown rewards. An honorary chair is about as good as an honorary degree, in other words not much.

On the other hand we have the, what is supposed to be a voluntary position (as the libs do) party president of the NDP taking a paycheque (sorry I meant a "stipend, although investment is a more relevant term)) directly from BC Fed affiliates. And in secret until it was leaked.

So. Whay is that not a conflict of interest? Because the NDP is not the government you will answer. But....if the NDP forms the next government, would it be a conflict then?

Excellent Rafe!

When the liberals took over from the NDP they tried to hang a "structural deficit" on them. That was proven to be one big load of BS but some still believe it today. Now we are looking at the biggest future debt to burden future generations and the media doesn't say a blessed thing about it. Being sold down the river is not worthy of any analysis and comment to them.

As for Happy's first post, GWest, you are being much to kind. Such a comment even the explanation can only come from the brain dead.

No if Gordon or Christy had a deck built...

...the RCMP would be all over it like fleas on a hound.

happy

Moe is being paid and the money comes from the BC Fed. You think that's bad.

But why do you not think its bad that Liberal party people get their cheques from business organizations?

Frank

Do you have any examples of liberal party executives being paid by private business I could look at and answer your question?

happy

They take in millions of dollars a year.

Every 4 years or so they spend a bunch of it on ads during an election campaign yet that doesn't account for all the money.

Are you telling me no one in the Liberal party gets paid?

happy

In 2009 the BC Liberal party spent around 17 million. They had 13 million which means they incurred a debt of 4 million.

$1,500,000 on salaries
$310,000 was spent on "professional services"
$36,000 on printing and postage
$33,000 on office supplies
$261,000 on office rent
$21,000 on newsletters
$428,000 on advertising
$150,000 on interest
$13,000 on insurance
$50,000 on furniture
$226,000 on "data processing"
$94,000 on meetings, workshops
$161,000 on bank charges
$213,000 on phones
$289,000 on travel
$994,000 on "fundraising" (I love this)
$6 million on "other" (what?)

(For comparison : The NDP spent $315,000 on fundraising and only $113,000 was classified as "other".)

However you want to slice it happy the BC Liberals pay people in the BC Liberal party. Its not an all-volunteer organization.

And corporations provide most (65%) of the funds to the Liberals whereas unions provide around 25% of the funds of the NDP.

Ergo, the last people complaining about Moe's salary should be BC Liberals.

Of course they get paid Frank

They get paid by the party. Sure, business contributes to the party. But one difference.
Moe is not being paid by the party. He is being paid directly by a special interest group.
Nor is he just "anyone" in the party. He is the chief executive with great influence.
That would be like the president of the libs getting a paycheque directly from Jimmy every month.
But the liberal prez is a volunteer. So was the previous NDP prez.
There IS a difference and its name is Moe.

I'd like to second Ricky's comment. We do good work here in BC.
Just as the fastcats were a bad concept the build quality was never in question.

"Moe is not being paid by

"Moe is not being paid by the party"

That is not what the party said. The party said Moe's cheques come from the party. The money for his salary comes from the BC Fed, goes to the party and then to Moe.

So he is not being paid "directly" by a special interest group any more than all those BC Liberals getting $1.5 million in total salary are being paid directly by corporations.

By the way

Since corporations pay 2/3 of the expenses of the BC Liberal party and individuals only 20% I would suggest that that means the entire BC Liberal party is funded by a "special interest group".

Unlike the NDP where only 25% of their expenses are covered by donations from unions.

After all, your logic is that the BC Fed pays Moe's salary and he's a person with influence. Well, EVERYONE in the BC Liberal party is being paid by business. The ENTIRE party.

Frank

http://communities.canada.com/theprovince/blogs/victoriassecrets/archive/2011/01/16/moe-sihota-and-the-unions-he-who-pays-the-piper.aspx

happy

Michael Smythe is not the NDP party but even he says :

"for NDP president Moe Sihota to be paid a reported $72,000 salary through an earmarked donation from the province's big unions."

As I said, Moe's cheque says it came from the party.

EVERYONE in the BC Liberal party is being paid by business.

The ENTIRE party.

Frank

What does earmarked mean

happy

It means the donation is given for the purpose of paying Moe.

But the cheque still comes from the BC NDP.

Frank

Thank you. For paying Moe. Through the party.
Not by the party.

Seriously though Frank you gotta dump him. He's toxic and just drags you down. Why give the libs such an easy target?

happy

You're still avoiding the fact that the majority of EVERY cheque issued by the BC Liberal party comes from business.

Whereas in the NDP, only Moe can say that his money comes from a union.

"Seriously though Frank you gotta dump him. He's toxic and just drags you down. Why give the libs such an easy target?"

This issue doesn't drag us down. Everyone who hates the NDP, including the media, already believes unions pay all of our expenses. This changes nothing. NDP support climbed since this issue was grabbed onto by the media.

Could you imagine Michael Smythe writing an article where he's upset that business funds the BC Liberal party? Would never happen.

happy, get a grip man!

You think the folks working on a liberal campaign don't get paid? Are you for real? They get paid by whoever they get a cheque from before they started, their business, their employer, whatever. They just spend their working day on campaign issues and the cheques (their salaries) keep on coming in. The business they front don't care because they'll get it back in spades after their folks are elected.

You are exorcised by one person who got paid from another group outside the party in the NDP. Doesn't cost the taxpayer a cent although you can't say that about benefits al the business acquired from the liberal government. ie. tax cuts and such.

NOW, BACK TO THE ISSUE OF P3s

It's silly for clearly obvious reasons

Not least of which being that BCLIBERALS and Campbellites are the people making these decisions.

Nothing moe needs to be said - the NDP aren't in power and haven't been since when?

These crazy P3 partnerships were foisted on the public by your heroes - not the NDP...

Happy

You're hilarious.

1.There was nothing wrong with the fast cats.

So you're trying to make an issue out of poor old Moe?

It' too bad your Soclib friends, and I suppose the guys that are paying you to be annoying, well,they just stink so bad.

Trying to invent yet another phony scandel out of absolutely nothing just doesn't cut it compared to railgate and sundry other scandals of the Campbell government.

Embridge pipeline, off shore drilling, selling out Hydro, giving away our water; You and your buddies are screwed.

Toxic Moe indeed...

Whatever

Bad optics then ok? Its funny that I read plenty of comments from dippers who say the same thing about Moe but when I say it everybody circles the wagons. By all means keep Moe. Nobody will be happier than the libs.

Snowrunner, the Canada line can be easily expanded. No they can't add more cars to the two car trains, but they can just add more trains. They run every six minutes now, run them every four minutes and thats a 50% increase. Run every three minutes thats a 100%increase. They don't have drivers so crew costs are not a factor by adding more trains, and each car is self propelled. Simple.

West. Has the NDP never entered into a PPP contract?

Lawrence

Your a comedian too. If there was nothing wrong with the cats how come they sat for ten years for sale as was and no one in the entire world was interested.
And why are they in a middle eastern shipyard right now being converted into super yaughts. They were built to be ferries, remember?

Don't concern yourself about who's paying me Lawrence, its not coming out of your pocket. Is there any chance as a taxpayer I might be paying into your paycheque and pension?

happy

I'm no fan o'Moe either...but he isn't relevant to this debate and only optics that are bad relative to the Campbell record on P3s are the ones that BCLiberal supporters see through their rose-coloured glasses.

Fact is, we could have had all the P3s built in the past 10 years and financed them ourselves more cheaply than Gordon did.

AND, we'd have 'real' assets on the books and not contingent liablities going forward.

That's the problem and there is no fucking way anyone can blame that on anyone other than Campbell and Ms Christina (who was as big a part of the boondoggle as any other member of the 'award winning' gang.

Ok West

Bur the article was about conflict of interest.
Bringing up Moe certainly is relevant should the NDP win the nexr election and bears a striking resemblance to what Rafe is saying is a conflict.
Thats all I was getting at.

No happy

The article is about P3 bullshit and the BC Liberals and it doesn't just talk about Premier Gordo - it also refers pointedly to Premier Christina.

Bringing up Moe Sihota is simply LAME!

It has bugger all to do with the NDP and I think you already knew that....
Cheers.

happy

Still flogging that dead horse?

"Bringing up Moe certainly is relevant should the NDP win the nexr election and bears a striking resemblance to what Rafe is saying is a conflict."

How? Even if the NDP wins the election Moe Sihota would have no power in the government. "Party President" means nothing. Its the party leader and his cabinet that make the decisions.

But if you disagree by all means tell me what policy the president of the corporate-owned BC Liberal party got passed in the last decade.

After all, EVERY BC Liberal collecting a salary from the party is getting the majority of their money from corporations. And it just so happens BC has been governed by a party that has put the interests of corporations first.

Does this count?

The Powell River Per(p)suader notes that Keith Baldrey's wife works for the BC Fiberals and Sean Leslie's wife works for PAB. I think that counts very well as purchasing the services of the Fourth Estate for the equivalent of "grocery money". I never did listen to Sean Leslie, but Keith I paid attention to once in a while. Some time ago. For some reason. When he made sense.

Which wasn't often.

Happy

From before 7:00 am to just after 7:00 pm, the RAV line runs every four minutes past my door. You won't get any 100% increase to 3 minute intervals, and especially not without a serious upgrade in computer controls, life safety and anti-collision mechanisms and station expansion to handle people entering and leaving the platforms. The fire marshal was already nervous about Broadway and Vancouver Centre stations' capacity at design, and another 20,000 riders per day would about plug them right up.

Not that the argument matters a whit anyway. Skytrain wasn't built to move people - it carries 80% of people that used to come in on the bus, so transit ridership on the line only increased by about 25% (or about 0.8% region-wide to 12.9%), and many of them are people who are driving in from the 'burbs to park in neighbourhoods like my own and avoid high parking fees downtown, at the airport, or at the hospitals district. Traffic on the major routes and bridges is higher than it ever was.

Skytrain is only intended to be an engine of economic development - read: real estate development - and was intended as a sales tool to encourage people to demand with their dollars condos and shops in the area along the route. If it was intended to move people - like, really - they would have made it move people and picked a real metro that moves four times the number of people at the same cost.

for the record

Moe should go, especially when a new leader is picked.

Now, do shut up, Happy. There are other things to be arguing about.

with respect, Grumpy

...that was GWest's comment, not mine.

your a class act zalm

It does run at six minute intervals at non peak hours, that was the number I was using as a simple EXAMPLE to show how capacity could be increased.
As for the 80% you claim rode the buses anyway before the Canada Line was built, tell you what. Stand in front of a station and ask how many of them think it cost too much, was a rigged political payoff and would rather have the bus ride back. Dare ya.
A payoff for rich real estate developers, yeah. So I guess the only way to stop that is simple. No more rapid transit lines.
Did no development happen around the Mellinium Line?
As least you can see why the Moe show is wrong so I shall shut up now and leave for far more productive things to do.

@Happy - Canada line follies

Remember Happy or is is Crusty Clark PAB, all the express buses, except for one, that used to provide a direct, no-transfer service, to downtown Vancouver, now force transit customers to transfer to the Canada Line.

Sure the stations are crowded, there are a lot of buses feeding very few stations.

Also remember that TransLink gives ridership numbers in boardings, thus 110,000 boardings may translate into fewer than 50,000 actual customers.

About 35,000 former bus riders now are forced to take the Canada Line and about 10,000 employees at YVR also use the Canada Line (free on Sea Island) for one or two stations. Then there are the multiple trips being made with U-Pass students, with some making up to 8 boardings a day!

The fact is, the Canada Line has not taken cars off the road or attracted many new customers, in fact TransLink reduced bus service by over 30% to South Delta and South Surrey, because the expected increase in bus ridership did not materialize.

The 200,000 car trips a day, touted by Falcon or Campbell, to be eliminated by the Canada Line, never happened.

For over $2.5 billion and scores of ruined businesses along Cambie St., the transit customer has got a more inconvenient and slower trip.

SkyTrain is built to inflate property values along its line, creating windfall profits for land developers, mostly friends of the government.

The density debate is a SkyTrain debate only.

Should be called P'4's

P'3's should be called P'4's. This stands for "private profits, public pays." This reflects more of the reality of the process.

Sorry Grumpy

I shouldn't profess to read your mind.

Math wasn't your class, happy

It's obvious to everyone else that decreasing the interval of trains at 6:30 am when I take the tube, as I occasionally do, isn't going to move any more people if the train is only 1/4 full. You can bring one along every 30 seconds if you want - no more people are going to get on, and no more people are going to be moved.

Surely you could have figured that out without someone having to point the obvious out to you.

Or did you plan on running trains at 3:00 am just so you could move some imaginary people around and improve the statistics? Everyone else is home in bed.

The rest of your missive is a rhetorical waste of space and unworthy of comment. You've been in attendance on the various transit discussions on this site - to act the retard now is not like you. Grow up and talk about substantive things, not fallacious fleabites.

OOP!

Quote:

"source at TransLink told me that some students board the Canada Line trains up to 4 times a day, which may equal up to 8 boardings!"

Should read " a source told me that some students USE the Canada Line 4 times a day......"

Using the Canada Line for there and back four times = 8 boardings.

Memo to ones self - better proof reading.