Come now! The largesse coming to BC is a
vote buying strategy by a desperate Liberal
Party of Central Canada.
This is "OUR" tax over payments being returned.

Will,

uh, this is news ? perhaps for regular reader of PacPress, but for anyone who has been paying attention, this has been obvious for some time. But sometimes it is necessary to point out the obvious (like the boy to the emperor). Your analysis was fairly complete and as such it's a keeper for my archives.

BTW, it won't convince anyone who doesn't care for thinking or thoughtful analysis, so please, people, don't bite on the inevitable flamebait. life's too short.

So... if it's all a vote buying scheme from the feds... why didn't the feds control the spending somehow instead of simply allowing el Gordo to hand it over to the corporations in the form of another tax holiday in BC? Rocky.. have you been listening to Harper again?

Nice analysis -- I appreciated the effort to tabulate your arguments, do the math & cite the sources. I'd love it if more Tyee articles were of this caliber!

This just goes to show that Gordon Campbell isn't a dumb as he looks, or maybe it's just the people in the back room who supply the brains. Anyway, what this illustrates is that these crooks have not only figured out how to fleece most of the people in British Columbia to the advantage of their cronies:

i.e.

1. selling off publically owned assets such as BC Rail, BC Hydro (in pieces), BC Ferries and I could go on

2. Giving tax breaks that benefit all (theoretically) but making the poorer classes bear the cost by reducing services and raising user fees for the services that remain.

3. Privatizing everything in sight because, why pay somebody who does something a good wage when you can insert one of your buddies at the top of the food chain to skim off the cream and then pay the worker bees poverty wages?

And now it's obvious they've even figured how to cry "poor" in the midst of their magnificent management of BC's golden age of economic opportunity and rip off everybody else in Canada as well.

Well you can hate 'em and hate what they do, but you can't say they're dumb, or not greedy.

Are the numbers in the article based on cash analysis, or GAAP analysis? Didn't the government switch to GAAP so they could hide short term cash deficits by writing off large capital projects (ie RAV line, Port Mann expansion, etc) over the long-term?

I heard Alberta is going to further drop corporate tax lower from the 11% it is now. BC has a new rate of 12% which was reduced from 13.5%. It was 16.5% under the NDP. This is important stuff when we try to woo a corporation to reside in our Province. Jobs, jobs, jobs, taxes, taxes, taxes, self esteem, self esteem.

Unfortunately Ron (Erwin) wooing corporations to the province doesn't necessarily translate into the Eden that you Stepford people of the Fraser Institute right parrot repeatedly. Indeed what it often means is at the very least the money from our resources winds up in Toronto at best, if not New York, Switzerland or the Cayman Islands.

Ask anyone who used to work for BC Hydro (the billing and customer service side) how many jobs Accenture (the bastard offspring of Anderson Accounting who brought us Enron)has brought to BC.

Then tell me how many jobs selling the job of keeping records for our Medical Insurance system to an American corporation has brought to BC, not to mention that GWB or any of his slimeball cohorts can now find out your entire medical history under the Patriot Act, even though Canadians still enjoy doctor-patient confidentiality, unless you happen to live in BC.

American and trans-national corporations don't come to British Columbia to create jobs, they come to EXPLOIT our resources and maybe a few local workers. But the real money winds up elsewhere, most likely not even elsewhere in Canada.

You should try to read or watch something that wasn't vetted and approved by the Fraser Institute.

I meant to add Ron (as I assume you read a bit of the Tyee, or are you just a troll) and try to understand what you read while you are at it.

Excellent article.
Too bad the maintsteam press lacks the ability or will to do such "simple" arithmetic.
Keep up the good work, Tyee

Is anyone aware of the call centre in Central Saanich that employs over 1000 locals aswering calls to AT&T Singular ? The company is called West Corporation. I wonder who's job they stole and where were they ?
It's a two way street not a one way street as some would like us to believe.
I will anxiously await the stories of BRUTAL conditions and the low wages these employees endure.
Tell that to those that feel lucky to have a job there.
Nobody on this site seems to care about jobs. Are you all independantly wealthy or something ?

Call centres provide McJobs, never a wage anyone can live on. This is typical of the few jobs the Province has gained in the last few years under either administration.

kent, I predicted your statement, it's not difficult to predict what neo-libs think.

I agree that the NDP has not been very good at getting the message to the public about the real cash flows.

I also agree that lots of people have been aware of this, but many others have not. I e-mailed a suggetion to the NDP prior to the campaign that this should be something raised in the campaign. I think the suggestion was that a "federal welfare bum" slant might be effective.

Frankly I think this story is a little too late. The economy is set to provide surpluses until the next election, and it is important that Campbell doesn't get credit. It is the people of BC that are the economy. And BC's wonderfully creative human capital - coupled with resources and tourism - will continue to provide for a decent economy.

The role of the opposition should be to make sure the fools stop with the cheap and ridiculous (and unnecessary) way they've been selling out. And Ron, there is no need to grovel for investment. BC will always be a good place to invest. Let's leave it to home-grown talent to attract investment as needed to finance their own creative projects. No need to shift even more of the profits elsewhere.

After years of Chretien/Martin tax grabs it is abouit time they returned money to the provinces,

Let us not forget that the Federal government budget is built on the back of the Provinces.

Let us not forget that our problems with support of both education and healthcare can be traced directly to the Federal Liberal Martin policies.

Ever since then, most Provinces have been screaming for a return to previous times. Once cannot blame either the previous NDP or current Liberal regimes given the federal tax policies and equalization payments.

McMartin is out to lunch on this one!

Actually, the spokesperson for NRO (the call centre company that Surreys' McCallum was so proud of moving in) also said as much. Least he was honest with his statements about the jobs his company provided.

This article should rightly be entitled 'Thank You NDP' for turning us into a 'have not' province with their reckless and imcompetent policies. Since we're about to be a 'have' again under the Liberals, perhaps we should give the NDP power again for a few more years so we can become a 'have not' again and receive these transfer payments.

nemesis = ron erwin

Only some will be 'have' again under the Liberals.

stan; Wrong again buddy. But please feel free to continue to show your narrow-minded ignorance.

Big business always operates in accordance with simple math principles in mind,except when it comes to tax cuts.Many times in the past it has been proven that tax cuts DO NOT pay for themselves.The drop in revenues is not made up somewhere else.[Somebody does pay for them though].If you repeat the lie often enough people will think it is true.Kind of like the BC Liberals claiming they inherited the books swimming in a sea of red ink.The surplus they took over looks remarkable similar to the most recent neocon created miracle.Oh yeah,Ron,the quality of the job DOES matter.

Dunngy, the phrase McJobs is often used bt neo-lib left wing bloggers. I find this phrase very condescending. I find people that use this term to be snobs. I find it remarkable that you seem to expect that upon graduation from school that you feel entitlement to $18.00 oer hour CUPE job.
The poor need a job and the neo-libs are killing them. They only care about their own.

Dunngy, you are getting into a debate with a troll.

Stan, I think you are right in your calculations. A troll by any name, (whether it's ron or nemesis), is still but a troll.

...and Allan by any other name is still a moronic windbag.

...speaking of which, whatever happened to deep forbidden lake?

Ron may not be Nemesis but they both are equally confused with the english language. Either way debating them is pointless. The idea is lost on them. See the continued sniping:

Pathetic.

...and again:

Club, what idea, I haven't seen any ideas, only moronic insults.

...still more:

Nemesis = Ignorance

Sorry Ron,
I refuse to debate you as a condition of C.I.R.E.

Sad to see that the usual name-calling has, once again, risen to the surface.

Ron, Nemesis and others are correct in the general sense that tax policies have an effect on investment. However, I suspect (and economists generally argue) that the effects of tax changes - positive or negative - are not felt for many years. As such, any effects of the Liberals' tax cuts to high income earners and corporations have yet to be felt.

That being said, I must argue that the Libs did not give a tax cut to at least 90% of us. My overall income was six figures last year, and my taxes went up! Remember, Gordo raised medical premiums (just another tax, really), service charges, and sales taxes (now back down to their original 7%). Furthermore, the Libs did not shift the brackets on the Property Purchase Tax, a tax that nailed me pretty good. My buddy earns roughly $350, 000 per year, and by my calculation, he has benefitted from these tax shifts, but how many income earners fall into his category?

Nemesis, Ron et al should at the very least acknowledge that these so-called tax cuts are a myth. Perhaps more importantly, we need to recognize that if the neo-cons are right about the long term effects of tax cuts (and I believe they are), then the effects of Gordo's tax policies will be negative in the long run.

I did not vote for Gordo's Gang when he was first elected, giving my support to the Greens in that election, but I felt that his proposed tax cuts for lower and middle income earners were a good idea. Sadly, those folks - and some of us upper-middle folks - got shafted.

It bugs me a little to hear Gordo and other neo-cons claim that they brought us all tax cuts. It bugs me more when they argue that these largely non-existant cuts have brought us economic salvation. But what irks me most is the fact that the Asper-controlled-family-compact media continues to misrepresent and under-report the facts regarding Liberal tax policies.

There. That feels better.

Davey boy writes:

That's a real useful statement for getting away with things - By the time the "feeling" is to be tested, most will have forgotten what the question was.

The great proponents of tax cuts for the rich in the US were Reagan and both Bushes. The first two left large deficits and the third will for sure leave a near-crippling one.

nemesis:

You are doing a fairly good job of this yourself, what with your erronous posting above.

Most people however, will look upon the BC surplus the same way they look upon an income tax refund -- "free money". It doesn't matter that it was theirs to start with.......

We don’t have to look outside of the country to see where Gordon Campbell is taking BC. Ontario’s Mike Harris promised a “Common Sense Revolution” a decade ago, and in spite of tax cuts, cuts to the public service, privatization of crown corporations, etc., Ontario is mired in debt. The majority of tax payers in Ontario didn’t benefit...some of them even died (Walkerton) because of government cutbacks.

One doesn’t have to look too hard to see the parallels between Harris and Campbell. Indeed, if it wasn’t for Federal/Provincial transfer payments and a booming resource industry, we would barely even have a surplus in BC. And to think, an independent auditor proved that in it’s final year, the NDP government had a fairly big surplus.

By the way Nemesis, I think dfl is burning in cyber-hell for his sins...

Finally something we can agree on. DFL will be thrilled to know he united right and left.

R.E. is having double the fun being Nemisis too.

Eddy Haskel wrote:

Because Eddy, the federal and provincial Liberals are essentially one and the same as far as goals and objectives are concerned. They even share staff (Mark Marrissen, Christy Clark's husband for one). The Martin Liberals have supported the Campbell Liberals all down the line, and vice versa. Their goals are very similar, big business rules, and the Americans are "family." Oh, sure occasionally they "fret" about softwood lumber and such, but that's just for public consumption. [And the provincial Liberals are also sympatico with the hapless Harper gang too, again ideology is similar. No contradiction there, just pragmatism, but that's another story.]

So, it's a great strategy for the feds to divert this largesse to the provinces -- makes them look good, allows their provincial clones to claim they're the architects of prosperity, and hey, a couple billion or so is a drop in the bucket to the feds. So, it's no mystery to me that the feds would do this to help their BC pals.

I wanna run with Davey-boy's crowd! Hell, I'd vote for him if he can make that kind of dough-ray-me and not turn into a neo-con mindlessly parroting the party line.

The term "Mcjobs" first hit the popular imagination with the publication of "Generation X" by local boy Douglas Coupland. It's not necessarily conjoined to any particular ideology, but rather is simply a descriptor of a low-paying position with little chance of advancement. It's hardly condescending unless you're burdened with the belief that you are your job.

"The poor need a job." There's lots of 'em. I guess they'll have to share!