Without being sarcastic, I suggest that the First Nations

desperately need auditing as to how they spend money. 'Nuff said.

This has been the Liberals MO

This has been the Liberals MO since the start. If a thorough audit was done on this government I would not be surprised if some were wearing orange jumpsuits at the end of the day....

Pirate Power and the BC Environmental movement

Note that the AG is now confirming the $65B in obligations for IPP's contracts that I've been giving out on these pages for almost two years now. There are still contracts waiting signature.

Note as well that pretty well the entire amount of power purchased could have been had with a single zero environmental footprint Candu 6E nuke worth $1.5B. $25B less than half of IPP expenditures spent on nuke power would have been sufficient to end all of BC's net GHG emissions.

Despite the 100% antinuclear Big Oil sponsored propaganda from the "green" industry, main stream, and progressive media most British Columbian's would have supported nuclear power. Almost all would if they actually were aware of the facts. For example, the Georgia Straight acting no doubt on instructions from Greenpeace insiders and contrary to stated policy actually blocked almost all of my comments correcting the junk science in their recently sponsored antinuclear series.

Junk science embracing antinuclear global warming denying environmentalists like Gwen Barlee seem to so easily ignore all the warnings about the imminence of an warming precipice from reputable science preferring their "renewable" fantasy to reality.

While acclaiming James Hansen as the world's foremost environmental scientist, founder of 350.org, arrestee at the White House tar sands protests and Greenie Superstar, they ignore his pleas to actually solve the problem with nuke power.

Gordon Campbell and his stockbroker cronies over at Private Power found all this to be most convenient in carrying out the biggest taxpayer ripoff in Canadian history.

Here's the world's foremost climatologist James Hansen speaking directly to the Georgia Straight, Gwen Barlee, Greenpeace, David Suzuki, Mark Jaccard, Pembina, and rest of the BC environmental movement.

On wind and solar:

"Wind and solar are like believing in the Easter Bunny and the Tooth fairy"

On Greenpeace's massive monetary support from Big Oil

'The insightful cynic will note: “Now I understand all the fossil fuel ads with windmills and solar panels – fossil fuel moguls know that renewables are no threat to the fossil fuel business.” The tragedy is that many environmen­talists line up on the side of the fossil fuel industry, advocating renewables as if they, plus energy efficiency­, would solve the global climate change matter.'

On the Green Koolarid Greenpeace dispenses:

http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/08/05/hansen-energy-kool-aid

I beleive.....

....that the office of the auditor General should become like that of Britain's National Audit Office, where governments at all levels and quasi government organizations Metro Vancouver, TransLink are audited on a regular basis.

Today, municipalities have become a financial sinkhole of incompetent bureaucrats, who only create more and more red tape, just to hire more bureaucrats. The current municipal organizations are unsustainable and value for money audits must become a regular routine.

Accounting practices

The accounting here is completed by myself.

Beginning today, when I complete my HST form for the October end quarter report, I am going to use esoteric accounting principles just as the government does.

And I have government to thank for setting the example for me. As this government is setting the legal precedent to do so I welcome any writ dropped on my desk.

"Conservative" governments

"Conservative" governments are propagandized as being "great fiscal managers", that's why people elect them.

When Campbell was first elected, the BC debt was $33.8 billion. His great fiscal management increased this to $53.4 billion and people applauded.

Then came the P3 racket, where the public pays the higher interests, plus the interests on the interests, plus the profits of the corporations, but these are not recorded as "debt".

We pay through the nose , but it isn't debt, but "contractual obligation", or "contingent liability" lapped up by the public as "sound fiscal management", raising the real debt of the province to over $100. billion, or over 3 times of the debt left by the NDP 10 years ago.

The same does on federally and the public has no clue, but keeps reelecting these fiscal masterminds.

Any society that goes for the P3 fraud is either stupid or is being misled by people of questionable integrity.

Ed Deak.

off topic for a minute

Seth touched upon a topic regarding the Georgia Strait publication;

As far as the Georgia Strait publication is concerned ever since the million dollar assessment debacle with the time out series, the whole flavour of that newspaper has changed.

Not sure what McLeod is smoking any longer, but I found it to be quite a humorous irony that while the Georgia Strait has not one, not two, but six pages of adult sex proprietors propping up the revenue stream to keep the publication out of the red, the local store Womyn’s Ware advertising was denied because the dildo in the advertisement was deemed to be “too phallic.”

So seth, to be censored from the Georgia Strait would be a badge I would wear with pride. Even the Georgia Strait now has a desire to compromise the truth as per many of the other print publications.

The Georgia Strait has become the “best unknown” MSM publication.

If Nanaimo is anything to go by, municipalities need oversight

The most recent egregious use of public money was the severance package given to the city manager. He received two years of full pay at over $200,000 per year, just to leave the scene and get out of the way of the new administration. That put everyone's hackles up, especially since there is a new convention centre sitting empty, with no hotel accomodation to support it.

I would have put the ex-manager on special assignment to get the hotel built or forfeit his severace pay. He knows quite a bit about municipal affairs and has contracted himself to other municipalities as a consultant, so he could have promoted the city very easily. Instead, he can be heard bragging about his settlement at the local gym.

In other news, Nanaimo City departments budget on an incremental basis and they have not had an external assessment done for many years. Councillor Jim Kipp wanted an external review of services, and a zero-budget approach, but his idea was rejected. The City administration was left to do their own internal assessment, which, by Jove, proved that all is well and they are on the right track. what a surprise!

Nanaimo needs a new vision for the future and it won't come from inside the present administration. That isn't a criticism, it is just a fact.

Overall we have excellent recreational facilities and we are developing a long term vision, but we also need new ideas. I suspect that describes most BC municipalities.

By the way, asking for an audit does not imply any wrongdoing but a good audit would propose improvements and efficiencies.

When you stop getting better, you stop being good.

Right on Bill!

I said it in another post but.here it is again. Municipalities are required now to have their finances audited. These reports are available to voters. A second audit mandated by a corrupt provincial government won't do anything. If municipalities elect incompetents then the municipal voter needs a brain audit.

All the BC Liberals are doing is deflecting attention away from themselves by going after municipalities (and teachers".

Zero base budgeting...that

Zero base budgeting...that would be nice. I wondered why the city budget was the way it was...incremental. Maybe we could get rid of some of the entitlements along the way.

Who really needs an audit?

Sean Hollman's site shows the figures on the overruns on projects done by the BC Liberals. On only three projects: BC Place, Port Mann and the Vancouver Convention Center the cost overruns totaled $2.4 billion dollars. By comparison the NDP had one which we all know and hear about constantly and it was a total cost (not just the overrun) of $463 million. So who really needs an Audit?

independent audits

There is much to comment on...

I have read portions of the Auditor General's report (actually conducted by several people within the Auditor General's Office) and there is much to learn how our provincial government has been hiding debt and providing give-aways to industries who are flush with cash profits.

I don't think one can use the argument that municipalities don't need an auditor since the province is so deceitful in its own accounting.

I like what Grumpy had to say. One needs an auditor that examines all public accounts whether they be provincial or municipal.

Even if councils meet once a week it does not give the elector access to change accounting practices in their municipalities. In fact, the elector for the most part only partially scrutinizes municipal finances when they receive their property tax notice.

Also, not all municipalities are required to go to their residents if they wish to spend money on major capital projects. They are only required to go to the public in a referendum if they wish to borrow money for these projects.

If a local government raises property taxes to pay for a capital project and bypasses the banks or the Municipal Finance Authority then would it need to go to its residents for approval?

Just because we have dishonesty and a lack of transparency in our provincial government does not mean we shouldn't be demanding transparency and honesty of our local governments.

local government accountability

When a few mayors who control most of the power in the region (Prince Gregor of Vancouver and Princess Diane of Surrey) can local metro residents have access to transparency and accountability?

Now throw in a Mayor's Council, a figment of the provincial government's imagination, where all one needs to do is have Vancouver, Surrey a few of those mini-states of Anmore, Bowen Island, White Rock and Belcarra vote for something like adding more taxes so that Translink can borrow money and you have a system that is not transparent and accountable and circumvents the Local Government Act which requires local governments to hold referendums if they intend to borrow money. Phew!

Well it's technically not local governments borrowing money, its Translink or RedInk (more apt don't you think). What a beautiful accounting instrument devised by the current Finance Minister, Kevin Falcon.

Is RedInk accountable to regional residents? No. So what is the purpose of the Mayor's Council? They have no control on what the province does with its gas taxes. Fuel taxes are the domain of provincial and federal governments so why are the Mayor's (specifically Prince Gregor and Princess Diane) permitting themselves to be used?

Well it's not only gas taxes that RedInk needs to finance expensive urban rail initiatives but property taxes (which are the domain of local governments).

But what say do we local residents of the region have on whether or not our local governments can provide indirectly the money for RedInk's loans? None!

Bring on the auditor and any other body that can get rid of accounting instruments that circumvent democracy, public accountability and transparency.

No other transit agency in North America is governed by a state or provincial body (none of them have a puppet with strings like our Mayor's Council). All other transit agencies are locally controlled and accountable to those who finance the agency (us). Any new taxes in the US require a referendum. After all, its not the Mayor's paying the bills of RedInk, its all of us.

Let us have a say!!!