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Carole Taylor's False Alarm
With scary health spending forecast, she fools news media -- again.
No crisis in view.
[Editor's note: If ever there was a Tyee story to print out it's this one, complete with a chart and three tables allowing you to follow Will McMartin's math as he demonstrates that B.C. health spending is neither out of control nor headed for crisis. To print Tyee articles, click on the printer icon just above this note, or the one at the end of the article, before the comments section begins.]
It's not easy to imagine Carole Taylor wearing a stovepipe hat, but there's no doubt that B.C.'s finance minister has taken to heart Abraham Lincoln's famous observation that "you can fool some of the people all of the time..."
Appointed to the finance portfolio a bare 15 months ago, Taylor has proved that she can fool many British Columbians, and especially members of B.C.'s pliant, credulous news media, whenever she puts her mind to it.
Last winter, Taylor bluffed the news media and public-sector unions into believing that surplus monies in the provincial treasury would automatically disappear -- gone to debt repayment, poof! -- at the end of the fiscal year because the province had adopted generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).
It wasn't true, as I explained here. Still, the fib was believed by journalists who reported it as fact, and by union leaders who feared the loss of up to $1 billion in bonuses dangled by Taylor as an inducement to the signing of new collective agreements. The unions quickly capitulated before the finance minister's make-believe deadline.
A few months later, with the release of the 2005-06 public accounts, Taylor's legerdemain was revealed as B.C. ended the fiscal year (and began the current period) with a whopping $3.9 billion in cash and short-term investments. Her assertion that GAAP required surplus cash would vanish -- going to debt-holders -- proved to be just so much hot air.
Teflon Taylor
She was at it again last week, at a news conference to release the government's first quarterly report for the current fiscal period. With a straight face, Taylor warned that exploding health expenditures will soon threaten the viability of other government outlays.
In a decade, she claimed, health spending could consume nearly three-quarters of Victoria's annual budget. With education taking up the remaining quarter, nothing would be left to fund children's services, welfare, transportation, the police, the courts, environmental protection, debt servicing or other valued programs.
"You can see what I'm trying to impress upon everyone," Taylor told the assembled scribes, referring to a chart that showed health costs rising from 41.6 per cent of last year's budget, to 71.3 percent in 2017-18. "This is an issue that we all have to get our heads around."
On top of that, so as to bring a sense of urgency to the looming catastrophe, B.C.'s finance minister also disclosed that the province's six health authorities recently requested an additional $1 billion-plus over the next three years to deal with unidentified cost "pressures."
Why, money is just flying out of the provincial treasury to pay for out-of-control health care. Action is needed, now!
Knock 'em dead
In show-business parlance, it was a boffo performance. Predictably, B.C.'s goggle-eyed news media quickly succumbed to the charms of our Gucci-favouring finance minister.
Not atypical was Gary Mason, a Vancouver columnist with The Globe and Mail, who used such terms as "ever-gathering storm," "seemingly out of control," and "shocking" to describe Taylor's dire forecast. "[T]he growing health-care crisis is real," Mason insisted breathlessly, "and people need to wake up to it in a hurry."
Golly. It's a good thing that premier Gordon Campbell, who last spring fled the legislative assembly to tour European health facilities with his brother-in-law, has decided to cancel the legislature's scheduled fall sitting to travel around B.C. and have a "conversation" about health care with British Columbians.
But there is just one, tiny problem with Taylor's bleak forecast, and the underlying premise of Campbell's desire to introduce dramatic reforms to B.C.'s public health system.
There is no fiscal crisis.
Reports published by the finance ministry -- readily available to the public, and the news media, too -- show that provincial expenditures on health have not exploded, nor are they expected to do so in the foreseeable future. Taylor's warning of a looming fiscal crisis caused by skyrocketing health spending is contradicted and refuted by her own department.
Real numbers
The Financial and Economic Review is produced annually by the finance ministry, and each edition provides a wealth of information on provincial government programs, Crown corporations, fiscal and economic topics, demographic trends, and much, much more. First published in 1940, the Review has been available online since 2002, and the latest volume (the 66th) was released last month. It can be accessed here.
The best way to verify Taylor's assertions is to examine Victoria's health expenditures as a proportion of the B.C. economy. This year's Review has a table that shows British Columbia's annual gross domestic product (GDP) at market prices over the past quarter-century (on page 27), and another entitled "Historical Expense by Function: Consolidated Revenue Fund," with the province's outlays by main categories of expenditure over the past two decades (on page 91).
It is easy to compare data from the two tables, which has been transposed to Table 1, presented at the bottom of this article, and can be seen graphically as the broken line at the bottom of the chart at the top of this column.
Two decades ago, in 1984, B.C.'s GDP stood at $49.8 billion. In the comparable fiscal period (from April 1984 to March 1985), CRF outlays on health totalled just over $3.0 billion, or 6.1 per cent of GDP.
Last year, in 2005, provincial GDP surpassed $168.0 billion, while health expenditures for the 2005-06 fiscal year hit $11.7 billion. That was slightly under 7.0 per cent of GDP.
As a proportion of B.C.'s economy over the past two decades-plus, health expenditures have ranged from a low of 5.8 per cent (in 1988-89) to a high of 7.5 per cent (in 2002-03). The annual average was 6.6 per cent.
It is obvious that the growth of health spending as a share of the provincial economy since the early 1980s has been very modest. (Most, if not all, of the increase can be attributed to our ageing population, as seniors were 10.7 per cent of the total in 1981, and is estimated by Stats BC at 14.1 per cent this year.)
No explosion
Now, consider data from Taylor's first quarterly report. On page 46 is a table that shows the finance department's projections for B.C.'s GDP at market prices until 2010. And on page 62 is another table entitled "Expenses by Function: 2006-07 - 2008-09," which provides an update on planned government expenditures. (It is important to note that the latter table is not for the CRF alone, but is a GAAP presentation, which slightly boosts health outlays.)
By comparing planned health spending with forecasted GDP we can see that the government's health expenditures are expected to represent 7.3 per cent of the provincial economy in the current fiscal year, and 7.1 per cent and 6.9 per cent in the two subsequent years. That is, while B.C.'s health spending has averaged 6.6 per cent of GDP per year since the early 1980s, the finance department estimates it will be 6.9 per cent in the fiscal year 2008-09.
So much for Taylor's assertions that health expenditures are out of control.
As the chart accompanying this column clearly shows, B.C.'s annual health expenditures as a proportion of the provincial economy have been remarkably consistent for the past quarter-century. There is no evidence of an explosion. Nor does the latest finance department forecast suggest that one is expected in the near future.
The fine print
Taylor's claim that health consumes a rising proportion of Victoria's annual budget, however, is more accurate. Looking again at page 91 of the most-recent Review, we can compare health expenditures as a proportion of annual CRF spending over the past two decades-plus. (See Table 2 below.) In 1984-85, health outlays represented 31.0 per cent of the CRF; by 2005-06, that figure had climbed to 41.6 per cent.
Again looking at the accompanying chart, the solid line at the top shows that health spending has consumed a steadily increasing portion of the provincial budget in recent years.
This presents a conundrum of sorts. How is it that health spending as a proportion of total government expenditures is rising, while at the same time it remains relatively constant as a share of the B.C. economy?
The surprising answer is revealed by the dotted line in the middle of the chart atop this column: Victoria's budgeted expenditures, as a proportion of provincial GDP, have been slowly shrinking. In 1984, for example, CRF spending was 19.7 per cent of GDP; but in the current fiscal year, the comparable figure is just 15.9 cent. (You can find all the supporting numbers in Table 3, below.)
Health spending, then, is increasing as a proportion of the government's annual budget, only because the budget itself is growing smaller in relation to the B.C. economy!
Accounting is what changed
This raises a final question: how or why have B.C.'s budgets declined in relation to the provincial economy? There are several answers.
One is that government expenditures on welfare and other social services grew significantly during the severe economic recession of the early 1980s, and remained at unusually high levels for a decade thereafter. As a result, the fiscal budget grew in comparison to the economy, but in recent years has declined as welfare rolls have shrunk.
But perhaps the most interesting reason is that more than a few of the province's finance ministers in recent decades -- we've had 12 since 1980, all of whom were bedevilled by a seemingly never-ending string of budgetary deficits -- resorted to fiscal legerdemain, chicanery and deceit in trying to "balance the books."
There were all kinds of attempts made to eradicate the deficit: raising taxes and cutting spending being just two of the most obvious. But one of the most-favoured means was the removal of spending items from the annual budget. Put another way, instead of slashing expenditures, some finance ministers simply stopped counting them.
During the 1990s, for example, the New Democratic Party government shifted highway construction costs to the B.C. Transportation Financing Authority, and transferred B.C. Transit's Lower Mainland operations to a regional authority. The Campbell Liberals continued the practice, notably by transforming the B.C. Ferry Corporation from a Crown corporation into an "off-the-books" entity.
Best of all, the Campbell Liberals adopted GAAP, which excludes nearly all capital expenditures from the fiscal budget, because construction or purchase costs are now spread over the useful life of the assets acquired. To wit: Victoria will spend nearly $5 billion for new capital assets this year, but a mere fraction of that amount will be counted as a budgetary expense in the current fiscal period.
Consider that transportation spending, which between the Second World War and the early 1980s was 10-25 per cent of B.C.'s annual budgets, now represents a mere 3 per cent of budgeted expenditures.
Not surprisingly, as certain of spending items -- welfare, capital projects, transportation -- declined or were removed from the budget, the remaining expenditures grew as a proportion of the total budget. Foremost among these, of course, was health.
No crisis
It's painfully clear. Health spending has not exploded, nor is it threatening to do so. There is no looming fiscal crisis.
Expenditures for health have grown as a proportion of Victoria's outlays simply because the fiscal budget has been slimmed down through accounting changes, the off-loading of certain items of expenditure, and a reduction in welfare caseloads.
Any one with a calculator -- even a member of the news media -- could figure it out by thumbing through readily-available finance ministry documents. Few if any have done so, or may be expected to make the attempt.
Soon, Gordon Campbell will begin a "conversation" on health care with British Columbians, and Carole Taylor will buttress the premier's call for dramatic reforms by claiming that runaway health costs have created a looming fiscal crisis.
Some people -- and many reporters -- will be fooled.
The rest of us can amuse ourselves by picturing her in a stovepipe hat.
Table 1:
Health expenditures in the Consolidated Revenue Fund as % of B.C. Gross Domestic Product (at market prices)
| Fiscal Year | Gross Domestic Product ($000,000) | CRF Health Expenditures ($000,000) | CRF Health Expenditures as % of GDP |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1984-85 | 49,840 | 3,042 | 6.1 |
| 1985-86 | 53,540 | 3,161 | 5.9 |
| 1986-87 | 56,547 | 3,446 | 6.1 |
| 1987-88 | 62,515 | 3,684 | 5.9 |
| 1988-89 | 69,408 | 4,012 | 5.8 |
| 1989-90 | 75,582 | 4,502 | 6.0 |
| 1990-91 | 79,350 | 5,028 | 6.3 |
| 1991-92 | 81,849 | 5,617 | 6.9 |
| 1992-93 | 87,242 | 6,003 | 6.9 |
| 1993-94 | 94,077 | 6,287 | 6.9 |
| 1994-95 | 100,512 | 6,584 | 6.6 |
| 1995-96 | 105,670 | 6,778 | 6.4 |
| 1996-97 | 108,865 | 7,038 | 6.5 |
| 1997-98 | 114,383 | 7,224 | 6.3 |
| 1998-99 | 115,641 | 7,478 | 6.5 |
| 1999-00 | 120,921 | 8,019 | 6.6 |
| 2000-01 | 131,333 | 8,754 | 6.7 |
| 2001-02 | 133,514 | 9,888 | 7.4 |
| 2002-03 | 138,252 | 10,410 | 7.5 |
| 2003-04 | 145,948 | 10,686 | 7.3 |
| 2004-05 | 157,241 | 10,833 | 6.9 |
| 2005-06 | 168,011 | 11,717 | 7.0 |
(SOURCE: 2006 British Columbia Financial and Economic Review, pp. 27 and 91.)
Table 2:
Health expenditures as % of the Consolidated Revenue Fund
| Fiscal Year | Total CRF Expenditures ($000,000) | CRF Health Expenditures ($000,000) | CRF Health Expenditures as % of CRF |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1984-85 | 9,801 | 3,042 | 31.0 |
| 1985-86 | 10,127 | 3,161 | 31.2 |
| 1986-87 | 10,624 | 3,446 | 32.4 |
| 1987-88 | 11,055 | 3,684 | 33.3 |
| 1988-89 | 11,834 | 4,012 | 33.9 |
| 1989-90 | 13,200 | 4,502 | 34.1 |
| 1990-91 | 15,010 | 5,028 | 33.5 |
| 1991-92 | 17,101 | 5,617 | 32.8 |
| 1992-93 | 17,858 | 6,003 | 33.6 |
| 1993-94 | 18,833 | 6,287 | 33.4 |
| 1994-95 | 19,953 | 6,584 | 33.0 |
| 1995-96 | 20,054 | 6,778 | 33.8 |
| 1996-97 | 20,241 | 7,038 | 34.8 |
| 1997-98 | 20,135 | 7,224 | 35.9 |
| 1998-99 | 20,528 | 7,478 | 36.4 |
| 1999-00 | 22,161 | 8,019 | 36.2 |
| 2000-01 | 22,444 | 8,754 | 39.0 |
| 2001-02 | 24,669 | 9,888 | 40.1 |
| 2002-03 | 24,941 | 10,410 | 41.7 |
| 2003-04 | 25,122 | 10,686 | 41.0 |
| 2004-05 | 26,061 | 10,833 | 41.6 |
| 2005-06 | 26,690* | 11,717 | 43.9 |
* does not include $710 million in wage settlement incentive payments.
(SOURCE: 2006 British Columbia Financial and Economic Review, p. 91.)
Table 3:
Consolidated Revenue Fund expenditures as % of B.C. Gross Domestic Product (at market prices)
| Fiscal Year | B.C.'s Gross Domestic Product ($000,000) | CRF Expenditures ($000,000) | CRF Expenditures as % of GDP |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1984-85 | 49,840 | 9,801 | 19.7 |
| 1985-86 | 53,540 | 10,127 | 18.9 |
| 1986-87 | 56,547 | 10,624 | 18.8 |
| 1987-88 | 62,515 | 11,055 | 17.7 |
| 1988-89 | 69,408 | 11,834 | 17.0 |
| 1989-90 | 75,582 | 13,200 | 17.5 |
| 1990-91 | 79,350 | 15,010 | 18.9 |
| 1991-92 | 81,849 | 17,101 | 20.9 |
| 1992-93 | 87,242 | 17,858 | 20.5 |
| 1993-94 | 94,077 | 18,833 | 20.0 |
| 1994-95 | 100,512 | 19,953 | 19.9 |
| 1995-96 | 105,670 | 20,054 | 19.0 |
| 1996-97 | 108,865 | 20,241 | 18.6 |
| 1997-98 | 114,383 | 20,135 | 17.6 |
| 1998-99 | 115,641 | 20,528 | 17.8 |
| 1999-00 | 120,921 | 22,161 | 18.3 |
| 2000-01 | 131,333 | 22,444 | 17.1 |
| 2001-02 | 133,514 | 24,669 | 18.5 |
| 2002-03 | 138,252 | 24,941 | 18.0 |
| 2003-04 | 145,948 | 25,122 | 17.2 |
| 2004-05 | 157,241 | 26,061 | 16.6 |
| 2005-06 | 168,011 | 26,690* | 15.9 |
* does not include $710 million in wage settlement incentive payments.
(SOURCE: 2006 British Columbia Financial and Economic Review, pp. 27 and 91.)
Veteran political consultant and analyst Will McMartin is a regular columnist for The Tyee. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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147
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The brain
5 years ago
Comments on "Carole Taylor's False Alarm"
Excellent story, Will. Nice work, as usual. :-)
gasworks
5 years ago
Yikes! Will, does it come with a Gucci calculator. Did you know that natural gas royalty's are down 3/4's of a billion?
I wonder how we will make that up.
Grumpy
5 years ago
Carole Taylor, like the other Liberals in power are confidence tricksters, carpet baggers and flim-flam artists. The trouble is, they are abbetted by the media.
Unlike Clark and the NDP, the media (Global, Asper Press, Corus & more) is giving this bunch 'crooks' the soft shoe.
- no calls to speed up a court date for Bassi and Virk.
- no call about Campbell's lie that he will not sell BC Rail.
- didn't expose the real story of the Premier's maui adventure.
- no comment of Campbell's marital downfall.
- no in deapth reporting on the RAV/Canada ponise scheme, including phoney studies, etc., where a $1.2 billion metro is now $2.5 billion and climbing!
- the utter fiasco in child care, how many more children must die before the public rise up in anger?
- Even the Olympic cost overruns are not fully explored. Why isn't the Sun screaming for Furlong's head?
There is so much more and these bunch of 'Grifters' are given a free ride! Shocking!
mwatkins
5 years ago
Financial analysts and the business press wouldn’t allow a publicly traded company to use such shocking numbers (growth in health care spending from 41.6 per cent of last year’s budget, to 71.3 percent in just 11 years is not only absurd but shockingly so) without diving deeper first.
Rhetorical question of the day: as a society we pay far more attention to quarterly reports and stock prices, and penalize, heavily, any firm that dares to try to pull the wool over investor’s eyes. Why do we scrutinize so closely quarterly company reports, but readily, meekly, accept distorted facts and misleading figures along with the latest spin being spewed by our political leaders?
Here’s a stock tip: Sell short. Carole Taylor and Gordon Campbell’s “personal stock†should be pummelled.
gasworks
5 years ago
That is a good idea mwatkins, but can you short-sell a worthless stock?
Chicken Slinger
5 years ago
This story, Grumpy's comments and mwatkins comments are more potent than the 3 shot Americano coffee I planned on picking up this fine morning; thanks for saving me a few bucks.
smeebs
5 years ago
Great reporting, I,m waiting 8 mo. for an MRI and 12 mo. for a spine doctor. The money is going somewhere but not to this voter!
Realist
5 years ago
More proof of Campbells attempts to make the health system appear unsustainable. We know that this guy is under the spell of corrupt ideology. Let's keep the pressure on his greedy anti-B.C. policies. E-mail this to the not so honourable:
. Let him know that at least some of the truth is getting out and we can see that the emporour clearly is wearing no clothes.
gasworks
5 years ago
Chickenslinger, No doubt Starbucks will disappointed. I'm surprised you can afford a "Few dollars" for a cup of coffee.
When the Olympic wrecking crew is done, our wallets will be missing and no one will.
gasworks
5 years ago
Realist - please don't make me picture Gordon Campbell with no clothes. I prefer to visualize him in stripes.
alive
5 years ago
Wouldn't it be a nice world if this story would be on the frontpages of the newspapers?
One thing is manipulating politicians, another is a media that is not reporting on what is actually going on!
freebear
5 years ago
So what Carole Taylor is spouting is propaganda; providing the rationale to open the door for private health care and profit making. No surprise; I do not like wool over my eyes, it makes them itchy!
gasworks
5 years ago
To that I disagree, Palmer, Baldrey, and Lane have been doing an excellent job as of late....
(Perhaps even Smythe, although I haven't heard him).
Grumpy
5 years ago
Smyhe has been bought off by CORUS, just another pro-Liberal hack.
I pry for this poor province, first a decade by one of the most incompetent government around, now a decade of the most corrupt! Can BC survive?
jesterjogger
5 years ago
Good work Grumpy
I couldn't have said it any better!
I will repeat it though since, sleazy libs aided by traitorous canwest goebell are obviously greasing the wheels of public perception for a "new era" in BC healthcare.
That's right-phony scare tactics to allow privatization of healthcare.
All the pieces are in place: filthy federal conservative hacks/fraser institute disciples, slimy new pres. of the CMA, the jade monkey in the glove compartment.
It's going to be user-pay, like the usa,
except for the olympics-joe-sixpack STAY AWAY!! (yes you still get to pay though)
p.s.- gordo has marital problems? Well that would explain his wife jogging around town by herself all the time!
gasworks
5 years ago
right-on Jesterjogger, that's exactly the news I would like to read in my newspaper day in and day out while I sip my morning coffee...
verso
5 years ago
Smythe is awful, easily worst of the bunch. He's a condescending hot head who couldn't formulate a rational argument to save his life.
Makes for terrible radio.
Booker
5 years ago
Thank you, Will!
It's good to see that there are still some journalists around who will speak truth to power. It will be interesting to see if any of the corporate media report on this.
gasworks
5 years ago
My Gawd! Smythe is on Radio?
freebear
5 years ago
Now if only the provincial governmnet would be so alarmed at climate change and addiction to fossil fuels!
verso
5 years ago
Yes, CKNW mon-fri nights, I believe...
hunter
5 years ago
The only thing worse than Smythe on radio is BG on radio- you know the one- I'm Bill Good and the rest of you aren't.
Name
5 years ago
Thank you, Will. This was so obvious that I'm surprised it's taken so long to set the record straight.
It would be even more interesting to see the graph of health spending in relation to per capita GDP. You would expect this to be trending up modestly, with our aging demographics and the various cost implications of new life-saving/life-extending technologies.
A small point: it wasn't just reduced welfare rolls but the broader budget cuts of 2002-05 that also distorted the health/CRF ratio. We slashed everything from child protection to environmental protection to finance the 2001 tax cuts, with most Ministries cut back by about 30%.
About the only thing that went up was communications and advertising--i.e. hiring the big guns to help "fool most of the people most of the time..."
Now there's an analysis I'd like to see: total provincial advertising, public relations and communications spending as a percentage of the CRF!
Or how about tax cuts in relation to total coporate political donations--the ROI factor (Return on Investment), so to speak.
Logjam 603
5 years ago
the whole comparsion to GDP is a red herring extremis.
GDP doesn't put money in the government coffers - taxes do. SO the only table in the diatribe that counts is the % of the CRF that we spend on Health Care - and that is rising alarmingly fast - it is out of control because we have implimented a totally unsustainable Stalinist services delivery model. This model couldn't put food in stores in Moscow, caused line-ups for everything else consumers needed in the Soviet Union, so why do you think this model will produce different results with delivering medical services in Canada ?
What Taylor said is 100% true.
The article just proves that socialists still haven't a clue about what makes an economy tick - raising taxes to make a bigger CRF is an economy killer.
Go Carole go . . speak the truth loud & long.
BC Dude
5 years ago
I'd say it's time to take this B.C. liberals and all their criminal activities, and once and for all have this published maybe by the Georgia Straight, they can print this!
The CanWest global media is owned and operated by big business so all we get is spin BULL S--t.
Carol Taylor reminds me of Condolesa, Evil!
The B.C. liberals are rife through and through by organized crime!
Look at Kinder Morgan and their cut and slash through prime forests and yet the media lets the other way!
It's time to show CanWest by not purchasing/or watching any of their BS products.
"Power to the People"
"For the People By the People"
. "Corruption and hypocrisy ought not to be inevitable products of democracy, as they undoubtedly are today" : Mahatma Gandhi
gasworks
5 years ago
Logjam 603: Much of what you wrote is true, I'm not a Socialist, (for sure), nonetheless I am concerned with the "ticking".
(the Commies didn't have an economy to begin with.)
Gotta go, make way for the BC Dude.
DJT
5 years ago
I say privatize the Provincial Government. Sell it to the Americans. Oh, I guess that already happened
lynn
5 years ago
Indeed... our present media has become laughable..a bad joke at this province's expense.
How convenient! And an ever-rising Olympic debt of Olympic proportions at the same time...go figure!
This is what makes McMartin so good (the homework he does)... and reveals most of the media to be spoon-fed dolts.
But not in the legislature...since there isn't one right now. Nothing important, "like health care" to discuss, I guess.
Ain't that the sad truth.
Or how about tax cuts in relation to total coporate political donations--the ROI factor (Return on Investment), so to speak. Name
Good questions, Name...then we'd find out the real Gucci on the Campbell government...its real priorities.
Booker
5 years ago
And tax revenues are unrelated to GDP?
Our healthcare system is Stalinist?
If this is the kind of thinking that lurks in the BC Liberal mind, then we are in more trouble than I thought.
Capitalism
5 years ago
What this is telling me is that healthcare as a % of tax revenues is increasing. However, health care expenses as a % of GDP remain relatively consistent. Putting 2 and 2 together, GDP is increasing at a faster rate than health care expenses.
Interesting. My first reaction is good! Though this is implicit through economies of scale. Logistically, people are no longer scattered throughout the province. People are concentrated (in more urbanized areas). Plus is costs a lot less/per person, the more people you have.
My next reaction is Mr. McMartin has an point. However, the only solution I see in these numbers is to increase revenues. How do we do this, we increase taxes. Thankfully, Canadians have taken the position that they believe in reducing the tax burden as opposed to increasing it.
We have preferred our fiscal policy to be closer to the Americans than the Germans/French.
I say there is a crisis, because we have become the country that we are today because of opportunities. We are generally a business friendly country, and should continue in this direction as we face international pressures.
I do not want to see our taxes increased unless we research the alternatives. I would like to see another graph comparing healthcare costs to inflation (which is probably the most relevant reading). What are the real changes to the costs of providing health care?
Capitalism
5 years ago
Also - I do have a question for Mr. McMartin if he reads these posts:
How can a previous consultant to various conservative, very pro-business/economy groups suggest that we increase taxes. Have you had a change of heart, or are you merely trying to point out that there are two sides to each story. While your statistics are meaningful, you must know that these are not the most reliable way of reading the health care burden to our society.
First, the fact that more wealth is concentrated in the top 10% of people in our society. So in order to have consistent revenue growth - tax rates would have had to been modified upwards for all groups - as opposed to coming down. We've seen what happens with the tax the rich/capital tax regimes. Investment suffers, GDP growth suffers and as a result, tax revenues suffer. Case in point, the BC Liberals slashed taxes, but revenues are much higher than they were 5 years ago. The economy is the sum of several moving parts.
C'mon Will - these numbers should be qualified. They are somewhat misleading, but we all know how the socialists will run with this. They don't understand the numbers behind your little chart, but you have given them a reason to believe their arguement.
BC Dude
5 years ago
My letter Gordon Campbell as of 2 min ago.
Hon Gordon Campbell
You Sir, are a lout, which is putting it mildly, everything you say or do is just one lie after another, just as you have proven the last five years!
You are a coward, you show your real face when you canceled the fall legislature as that is the People's and the opposition's Democratic right to ask all these questions!
"One" the 2003 legislature scandal involving the ministry of transportation Judith Reid, the ministry of finance Gary Collins, Basi, Verk, Basi, Pilothouse Public Affairs Boneman, http://thetyee.ca/News/2004/12/30/Raids_How_Big_a_Scandal/
Just a legal point!
If, in a case of an "Employee of the Crown" (Bureaucrat of any sort!) trying to withhold any information, try mentioning charge # 337 of the Criminal Code of Canada (CCC 337).
Under NAFA we agreed to remove heath care as we did not have the same system as the US and we wanted to protect our system. BUT their is the clause that if we open up our system the US will have first priority, get your
head straight , it will not be the UK it will be the monster to the south. Once the gates are open its over,
Stop saying theirs no more money, we are awash in money, we have some huge welfare bums in British Columbia and Canada "in excess out 90 billion dollars"!
All you have to do is do a Googal search http://thetyee.ca/News/2005/08/11/WelfareReport/
Our public health-care system as you can see by the truth is in very good shape in fact healthier than our so-called democratic political system!
Carol Taylor and her analysis of our health-care system is a sham and quite possibly verging on possible public fraud!
http://thetyee.ca/ September 25 2006.
A Very Concerned Citizen of this once proud, magnificent province of British Columbia!
Your Party the Liberals Are Rife with Organized Crime! Why?
The real meaning of democracy equals!
"By the People For the People"
"Power to the People"
http://www.iwtnews.com/home
gasworks
5 years ago
Amen! BC Dude - Now could you please go back to sleep.
Grumpy
5 years ago
The big problem with our health system, is that it is paying for treatments that were never thought of 50 years ago!
No aids, or Hep C, or any other disease of the later 20th century. Health care was to protect the populace from huge medical bills from hospital stays etc.
Today, we keep people alive by artificial and very expensive means. We have to completely rethink how we look at health care.
Throwing more money at the system will not help, nor will privitization, but a complete rethink about life, health, and death.
gasworks
5 years ago
Bring back the Guillotine.
Dee Hon
5 years ago
[SO the only table in the diatribe that counts is the % of the CRF that we spend on Health Care - and that is rising alarmingly fast - it is out of control because we have implimented a totally unsustainable Stalinist services delivery model.]
If you cut welfare, healthcare as a proportion of the CRF automatically rises. But how does that make a health care "crisis?"
Let's say I usually spend half my food budget in restaurants and half on groceries. If I stop eating out, groceries will then make up 100% of my food budget, but that doesn't mean grocery prices are at a "crisis." It means I've learned to cook.
As Will pointed out in the article, the reason healthcare is rising as a proportion of CRF is because other expenditures such as welfare, transportation, and capital costs are being reduced via spending cuts or changes in accounting practices.
The health care as a proportion of GDP shows how much we, as a society are spending on health care. And that has hardly changed.
Kam Lee
5 years ago
Gordo, Taylor, and all the rest of these bandits are showing their true colours. USA red, white & blue. Remember all the lies, the half truths, the continual misinformation from the government, the media and the righties. It will catch up to them soon. By the way, I thought there was a pre-trial for Virk & Basi, what happened? Nothing on the news, radio, papers... very interesting... gordo strikes again. Come one media people, shows some balls! Remember the head of this government is a convivted drug abuser (yes booze is a drug), maybe some of his friends, the ones you see in the shadows could help him (again). Where is the former minister of education, the former minister of finance. Hmmm, conveniently in new jobs...wow, better then a movie, sorta like nixon, deep throat, etc. Good luck BC, we need it.
gasworks
5 years ago
Thanks Dee Hon
That explains it all, "The health care as a proportion of GDP shows how much we, as a society are spending on health care. And that has hardly changed."
Therefore contrary to all the squawking in the past. There were no cuts to health care, ergo there is no problem - right?
BLONDE PITBULL
5 years ago
Uhhh, wouldn't you have to factor in the amount of people using the system, age groups and type of care received before you come to that conclusion, Gasworks?
Dee Hon
5 years ago
According to Tables 1 and 2, total expenditures on healthcare have increased every year since 1984/85.
However, there is the question of whether or not healthcare spending has kept up with costs associated with the aging population, new medical technologies, and labour agreements made by the government.
(That the Campbell gov't gave raises to doctors and other healthcare providers and did not increase funding accordingly was the source of some of the "squawking" you mention.)
By not keeping up with these costs, the amount of services received by the public has diminished. One clear example is the kinds of services (such as physiotherapy) no longer covered by MSP.
So, has BC changed how much it spends on health care over the past 20 years? Not significantly.
Should it? That, hopefully, is something to be decided by careful analysis and informed debate.
Passaglias Left Foot
5 years ago
While I almost have a warm fuzzy of the Lefties here suddenly becoming fiscally responsible and reading a government financial statement, I'll have to cry Fowl! on this Lefty circle jerk. Will McMartin has done a solid job of analysis but he stopped short of other key issues:
1. It looks like health expenditures are up about 6.3% per year for the last 20 years.
2. Population and inflation are both up far less.
3. Thus health expenditures are increasing per capita (as several people observed).
The NDP believes it is okay to simply keep taxing and taxing to fund these increases. Call it the Energizer Bunny Strategy of Fiscal Policy. Fortunately most Canadians now believe we can’t simply keep taxing more and more to cover this ever-increasing cost burden.
Now for the whammy: Per capita spending is about to explode. The baby-boomers are approaching retirement. I double-dare Mr. McMartin to review expenditure per person based upon age. You know the result: Spending spikes as people get older. As those boomers age the required health care dollars will go through the roof (unless we start using Gasworks' guillotine). This is probably a big part of Ms. Taylor’s calculations (it aint rocket science).
Thus, looking at historical numbers as used by Mr. McMartin does not give us the full picture. We need to take a look at expected future demand and the impact of boomers.
Now as for Ms. Taylor, I suspect she's taken a page from (former) Finance Minister Martin's play book. Exaggerate expected losses as a way to make some marginal cuts. It is her job. The finance minister must act responsibly and get the job done.
SharingIsGood
5 years ago
Note to Capitalism:
I think the economy is larger because the Americans and the Asians have wanted our hydro-electricity, our fossil fuels, our timber/lumber, and our minerals. Six years ago, these commodities were in a slump world-wide. Corporations would still be wanting these things, and profits have been made despite a huge American tax/tariff on softwood. The American tax did not stop these companies from producing.
SharingIsGood
5 years ago
We have all known that we have an aging population. Are we willing, as population, to take care of our old people, or are we going to give them less than what their parents and grand-parents got? If not, why not? What are our priorities? Haven't the technical advances of society allowed us to take care of our people?
DPL
5 years ago
Gordy was on CPAC late afternoon today telling anyone who would listen that the Olympics are on track and at 600 millions. Others who say differently are just plain wrong says Gordo. So not only Taylor can sling the BS, her boss is at it as well. and will used to work for right of Center party years ago, so it's even tough to call him a lefty. I feel for the earlier poster regarding MRI and spine surgery waiting. A lot of us are in similar lines, but after a year or so other things start to fall apart if for nothing else, the lack of mobility to exercise or the massive amounts of prescription drugs being shoved our way. Lowering taxes is not the be all end all to life folks.
Alcibiades
5 years ago
Passaglias foot in mouth
Again, what's with the continual slanging of the Left. They are NOT in power remember!
Are you in some kind of a bizarre time warp?
Grumpy
5 years ago
Just a thought - as a 52 year old rugby player (the older I get the better I was), I wonder how much people are being over medicated or over prescribed to? how many people are going to the doctor when there is no need.
There should be a lower level of care, such as medical type, but not a doctor who can vet the seriousness of a medical condition. In Germany, I believe they have such an institution a mid level of care, at a far cheaper cost.
Somehow we have to think differently about medicare.
Passaglias Left Foot
5 years ago
True enough Alcibiades, Gordo & Co have thrown a lot of dough at health care as well, it isn't just the left.
Frank
5 years ago
Much of the money isn't Campbell's however, its federal money that was earmarked for health. Campbell just likes to claim it as his own while giving no credit to the federal increase.
Considering how bad at management the Libs have been I'm not surprised. The lapdog media meanwhile are quiet on the subject of record levels of federal transfers and the effect on the provincial economy of federal interest rate policies.
If Campbell would like to take credit for something he's actually responsible for, he could claim that we're number one in poverty among workers as well as increased levels of homelessness. Perhaps he could tell those working poor that they will have to accept even lower wages or he will continue to hand public money to cheaper foreign workers.
BobbyPeru
5 years ago
Nice try. But, to finance health care the govt spends from revenue not GDP. McMartin's tables show that health expenditures as a percentage of consolidated revenue has risen to 43.9% - not far from Taylor's figure of 41%.
The left just loves to think there's money somewhere in treasury and that it's only being hidden by the big, bad right wing monsters. The left just loves to think money falls from the sky. Of course, it's easy to simply throw money at healthcare by spending and financing the BC economy into debt. Indeed, many on the left think govt debt is irrelevant and doesn't matter. That's what the last NDP govt did. The looney BC left even disputes that the BC economy suffered under Clark and the NDP, that business doesn't matter. They believe the govt directly creates jobs and increasing taxes is acceptable. Canadians are taxed enough and their voting is in line with this.
Demographics and technology work against lower health costs. An aging population is more expensive to care for. New technology for testing and care is more expensive than ever. Just ask any health care professional.
It's time that the left embraces private medical care because most Canadians are ready for it.
G West
5 years ago
BobbyPeru
You suffer from the same disease most right wingers on this site do. You pretend the left is in power and responsible for the spending decisions and the revenue stream in this province.
It's not! Wake up. The single biggest drain on the provincial exchequer was the tax giveaway that threw the province into a horrendous deficit as soon as Campbell got the reigns of power. Remember?
Catching up is costly - Privat medical for profit systems are disasters. Canadians are NOT ready for it - only neocon monsters are!
DO you actually know any health care professionals? I actually doubt it. I know a lot of them and they mostly agree that the huge cost expenditure growth is in the area of care during the last year or two of life - and it has nothing to do with high tech and a lot to do with the cost of intensive acute patient care. Period.
Frank
5 years ago
Bobby Peru, most Canadians want private health care? That's strange cuz if they did why aren't they all lined up at the private clinics or going to the USA instead of in the public system? Maybe not eh?
And if Taylor privatized the judicial and education systems it would mean health care costs would rise as a percentage of the provincial budget overnight. How convenient. The problem with the Right is the hoops they will jump through just so they can yell the sky is falling.
As for taxes, Campbell raised them on the poorer folk what with increased fees and premiums. Didn't see you on the lawn protesting. Must have missed the news that day.
masalaman
5 years ago
McMartin, Thanks for the refreshing unbiased perspective of the numbers. It's good to see that somebody does their homework and presents it too!
And to the Bobby Peru's and other Wannabe Lower Life Expectancy Americans (yes Americans health outcomes and other Quality of Life indicators like life exptancy are far worse than ours),
Health care costs are most likely rising, but it is blatantly obvious that they cannot rise at the ridiculous rates Carole has imagined them to be.
As G West has mentioned a lot of health care costs go to end-of-life care, but there is one other category which is on the steady rise: pharmaceutical costs. There proportion of the MoH budget is on the rise and need to be controlled. And no I'm not for 'Fair Pharmacare' co-payments but we need to truly understand what model works to contain these costs.
We should look at lobbying the big pharma's to stop making me-2 drugs and actually R&D'ing drugs that are innovative. They shouldn't be allowed to have a 20yr patent on a drug and then be allowed to evergreen it for another lengthy period. If you neocon's like competition, then please tell the gov't to allow it with these pharma's! Countries like India had stiff competition for drugs and that allows for cheap safe drugs for all. However India and other developing nations are unfortunately becoming more Americanized and therefore there will be no more free market pharma's only monopoly's like what we have here.
If health care costs are rising we must really look at what is forecasted to rise within it and handle each with targetted strategies. But by saying sweeping generalization like 'health care costs will rise to 75% of budget and taxpayers will bear the brunt' - common up wake up and smell the 3-shot Americano coffee!
BobbyPeru
5 years ago
Sure, it's "the man" who is to blame. The BC left rails against evil corporations, evil govt and evil rich people as the litany of evil. GWest, the BC deficit, like many deficits, had to get worse before it got better. It takes awhile to turn back years of NDP incompetence. The tax cuts were necessary to stimulate investment and business and consumer confidence. When will you left wingers learn to cut taxes and live within your means? The cost of healthcare is rising across the board and as the population ages it becomes more expensive to care for- whether they are living or dieing.
I don't know what dreamworld you guys have been living in but even Canadian medical associations support the introduction of private medical care. And polls support it, too. Indeed, it alread exists in Canada for those privileged enough to access them- unions, govt officials...all those people who tell you otherwise. So drop the hypocrisy.
Masalaman, why should pharma companies make any drugs if there's no profit motive? Who's gonna pay? The govt? Again, you leftists think there's a free ride somewhere out there. India had to stop copyright and intellectual property infringement if it wanted to join the world economy and be a player in the high tech business. Ripping off patents and making copycat drugs may mean cheap drugs for you, but only temporarily.
Time for you guys on the left to come up with genuine solutions rather than blaming and vilifying big business and neocons. It's getting tiring hearing those same rants over and over again and applied to 911, Iraq, blah, blah.
Capitalism
5 years ago
I want McMartin's next column to be about the fact that debt levels have not been rising in BC.
Hey guys, look at GDP it is way up, debt is up slightly in BC since the Liberals took power in 2001. Debt as a % of GDP is way down!!!!
This too makes some sense, but is as foolish of an arguement as this one.
Grumpy
5 years ago
Hey, I want McMartin to write about the entire corrupt process of RAV/Canada Line planning; it ain't going to happen.
Cappy, even though I dislike the NDP for Harcourt on greatly, one cannot entirely blame the poor ecconomy on them. Commodity prices were in the tank, not so with the Liberals, the $$billion$$ dollar BC Rail givaway and massive rises in user fees, mainly to the poor and an exploding international market for natural gas copper etc., has greatly increased provincial revenues.
Campbell & Co., the Grifters they are, are not looking 3 minutes into the future and after the upcoming multi billion Olympic debacle (my god, Campbell still insists its only $600 million and trying to convince the public not to believe the Auditor General)Campbell will ride off into the sunset with his bimbette at his side (why is his wife working in Squamish?), laughing all the way! His next incarnation will be on the Boards of CN Rail and every other corporation that donated to the liberal Party!
He doesn't give a **** about BC, healthcare, or the people!
DNA
5 years ago
Great work, Will.
It's a darn shame that this sort of analysis isn't in the "major" media - which may explain why they're becoming less major.
Will
5 years ago
Capitalism:
This being the autumn, think about Lucy and Charlie Brown, and how she will promise him that this time it will be different, she won't yank the ball away just as he's about to kick it, and thhis time he won't end up flat on his back. And he'll believe her, and she'll do it again, and poor Charlie will be supine, staring at the sky and wondering how he could ever have been so foolish.
Now, think of Lucy as every finance minister we've had over the past many decades. We (the public) are Charlie Brown (and the news media are the football). Why would we believe Lucy this time? Anytime?
It doesn't seem to matter which political party these rascals belong to, they all try to decieve, mislead, and bamboozle us. So why don't we (and the news media) question every single thing they say, regardless of their party affiliation?
Will
switek
5 years ago
So forget the fact that health costs are rising out of control with no end on the horizon, as long as our GDP is rising, everything is fine Will McMartin tells us. What happens when all that dead Pine Beetle wood starts to effect our economy? What happens when those commodity prices come back down to reality? Our GDP will also be affected. Of course we all know that our health care costs and demands will also decrease accordingly right? They will right? Right Will ?????
G West
5 years ago
Baloney Bobby Peru - Like everything else you post you don't know what you're talking about. Go back to 2001 and check your figures. You're as big a prevaricator as the other neocons who think it's just a question of throwing brickbats. You might want to actually check the policy of the Canadian Medical Association as regards single-payer health. Campbell and his government haven’t managed anything but the system for the advantage of their friends – when the next commodities turn-around happens watch out. It’s easy to run an economy when the engines of export trade are running flat out – just look at what the ‘geniuses’ in Alberta have done.
All the left has is solutions - the problem is they haven't got the power because there are too many blind people who will only realize they've sold out their own best interests for a pile of US crap. Sensible Americans – not just liberal ones – realize their health care system is a disaster – emulating them is the LAST thing we need to do.
Big Pharma is nobody's friend - except the people who hold their shares. Wake up!
Capitalism
5 years ago
Will,
I appreciate your response, and agree to some extent. I have said repeatedly that politicians all lie, cheat and steal. Except for this Harper fellow - not yet anyway.
I don't believe any of them. In this case, I think the context has changed. Clearly, we have enough wealth in this country to put together a good health care system. You have demonstrated this in your analysis.
However, based on the numbers you have provided, the only possible scenario to accomplish this is to increase taxes!
What happens when we increase taxes, the economy suffers and so does our GDP growth. People have fewer jobs, fewer opportunities and social programs become strapped.
It is not as clear cut as this analysis - and I know you know that!
Thank you for taking the time to respond....
Capitalism
5 years ago
Grumpy:
Harcourt was probably the most pragmatic one of that bunch - thats a discussion for a different day.
Grumpy - I don't blame the NDP exclusively. What they did to was destroy business confidence. They created an environment where businesses felt that the government was trying to take more, and more - while, they feel as if though the Liberals are finding ways to help them keep more. Confidence is huge! It is like the stock market - when people are confident it will go up - money is thrown in its direction - when then don't - watch out!!
Further, the NDP was known for red-tape and interference. Everytime some special interest group started screaming, the NDP had their face in there. Again, back to confidence. The Liberals never step in, unless necessary. There are two entirely different philosophies in Victoria.
Finally - the big test is ahead of us. The worldwide economy is slowing, natural gas prices are at 3 year lows (we have very little crude in this province) - and commodity prices at large are falling. Timber/lumber prices are rock bottom, and actually trading at recession levels.
The commodity boom as BC knows it has come to an end. On the flip-side, interest rates are up, the housing boom has slowed, while it is crashing in the US. Our exports will likely be impacted.
The next 3 years will be very telling. We capitalists can't look at the economy and say "thank you liberals" as they've turned it - you lefties can't point to interest rates and commodity prices anymore - those days are over.
We are into leg 2 (of 4) of the economic cycle. In order to keep moving forward, the province has to work with business to extend Asian ties, and embrace the next technology/pharma boom. Tourism has to increase - which will be aided by the olympics....
Very interesting stuff - but the real test has started.
SharingIsGood
5 years ago
capitalism
I think you are getting closer to the truth. Actually, business had a perception that the government was trying to take more. In fact, the NDP was downsizing government at many levels, but they were doing it the humane way - through implementing integration of service delivery and through attrition. They recognized that implementation of changes in service delivery for people is different than for widgets. Widgets have no feelings and they don't have hunger and housing and hospitalization needs. The Liberals have done little if anything to protect the needs of the people who actually do the physical work that drives the economy. Think about when the beetle-wood runs out; there is nothing being created to replace that segment of the economy. Those workers, whose dollars are funding the Olympics and the flat spending of health-care system are going to be S.O.L. when the Interior economy grinds to a halt. The lumber barons will not be interested in reinvesting in BC. They will move on to other parts of the world.
Nationally, a billion dollars worth of softwood "tax" is staying in the USA. We could have taxed that timber and had that money here, and the companies would have still wanted the trees. We could have used that money to train more doctors or to build the infrastructure our aging population would require. We could have used it to develop an economic future for the Interior communties that will have nothing when the last marketable tree falls. We could have used it to employ our own people to build the new ferries instead of sending the money to Europe and letting our ship-building workforce deteriorate.
The US economy has dropped from 1st to 6th place in the last two years (in terms of competitiveness) Canada has slipped from 12th to 13th. The Europeans are on the rise, and the main reason for that is that they know to remain competitive, they must take care of their people and they must not go around the world making new enemies. The fall of the Soviet block and the war in the Southeastern Europe was a huge cost to absorb through the 80s and 90s, and they have struggled to take care of their people - but they have done so, and they are, once again, on the rise. I do not want to more fully integrate our economic engine with the US. I do not want to cut health care for those who need it. I want to properly budget a health care system that looks at all factors for health/wellness and that plans 10, 20, and 50 years ahead - not just 4 or 5. I don't want to leave my children with less than what people have now. We have the money and resources to care for our people and to plan for the future - we need only do it. This province is incredibly blessed with huge resources per capita and we must stop giving them away to wealthy people.
G West
5 years ago
SharingisGood
Send me an email sometime if you have a moment. I have some ideas you might be interested in
verso
5 years ago
Paul Wilcocks weighs in with a similar take:
http://willcocks.blogspot.com/
BC Dude
5 years ago
gasworks 22hr ago if you have a problem with my blog then instead of putting my blog down the idea of this open blog is a cross section of ideas to get rid of these Liberal/dictator criminal/vermin who have in a short five years given away the People's future which means our children's, our grandchildren futures means the B.C. Hydro(the cheapest rates and Canada), B.C. rail scandal (1 billion profit per year)what used to BC electric changes name to Terasen which will be final in the first two weeks of October and that is just criminal we should be on the streets against this evil that has taken over our Beautiful British Columbia!
Why has our democracy been regulated to the back rooms of Victoria?
Please gasworks make a decent post about this, my blog, instead of telling me to go back to sleep lol
I'm just trying to do my part as we still live in, I hope a Democratic society?
http://www.iwtnews.com/home
Grumpy
5 years ago
Cappy, the problem with business in BC, is that they are piss poor businessmen. For years profits came easily, not today. If BC businessmen lost confidence in the government, they only have themselves to blame!
RAV is a good example, poorly planned & designed, the Board of Trade loved RAV, why?
RAV was hugely expensive and would funnel billions in their member's businesses. it didn't matter to them that for about oe third the cost, we could have a much larger and much cheaper LRT network!
When the NDP 'shoveled' out the lolly, BC business whined and moaned, when the Liberals 'shovel' the lolly, BC businees cheers!
A pox on BC business!
gasworks
5 years ago
Well BC Dude it's because your "blog" is mostly rhetoric, which in my view is more or less useless. If you are wanting to fight City Hall you should know that the louder you Yell, the less they listen.
You also need to state facts that can be proven, not fictionalized public opinion.
For example, I have not the slightest idea what on earth you are on about with respect to BC electric changing it's name to Terasen this coming October.
If Carole James were wise she would attack the Liberals along those same lines. Look for the illegal things that are going on behind closed doors, present the proof, then ask (demand) our Attorney General intervene and order the parties to cease and desist.
Thus in 3 easy steps Carole will gotten excellent use out of the top legal advisor in the Province of British Columbia and directly "flushed" some vermin out of the system (rhetorically speaking of course)
Bernie Evers began serving his 25 years today, to that I sing hallelujah
Hope this helps lol.
(There is no Democracy and there never will be. Get used to it)
Passaglias Left Foot
5 years ago
Mr. McMartin's analysis looks more and more like a smoke screen using GDP instead of forecasting future expenditures based upon per capita numbers and the demographic profile of our population (capturing this idea that expenditures increase as the population ages). Does anyone here deny we are facing a massive healthcare and fiscal problem as the baby-boomers become retirees and healthcare consumers?
So Ms. Taylor is exaggerating expenses to get the point across. This is the tried and true way of actually cutting a program in Canada and being fiscally responsible. It is better than the NDP's infamous Fudgit Budget approach where they exaggerated surpluses to justify spending on ridiculous mega projects and lied their way through an election in the mid-90s. I'll take the exaggerated expenses any day.
Calm Down
5 years ago
The article makes it clear that Health Care spending has risen wrt Revenues partly because the provincial gov't (both the LIberals and the NDP before them) have offloaded some services (transportation seems to be a favourite)so that neither the revenues or expenditures are recorded on the provincial gov't's books. Had revenues and expenditures from the offloaded sources been included, Health Care spending would not have increased wrt Revenues to such an extent.
Some of the commentators seem to have their knickers in such a knot over the possibility of tax increases, that I reread the article twice and nowhere does the author state that raising taxes is the solution. This seems to be an assumption on the part of these readers, rather than a suggestion on the part of the author. Also: taxes aren't the only thing that takes money out of our pockets - user fees can do this, as well, and I don'think that being nickle and dimed constantly (e.g. parking fees in provincial parks) is more preferrable to paying taxes.
It is quite possible that Health Care can be delivered more efficiently, which would limit the need to rely on tax revenue - but this does not mean it needs to be privatized. Large hospitals have large overhead because they have to provide a broad range of services and support for those services. A clinic devoted to a specific purpose might therefore be more efficient, but there is no reason why the clinic can't be a publicly funded non-profit clinic rather than private. Similarly, if there is time on an expensive piece of diagnositic equipment going to waste, why not staff it and make it available to the people on the waiting list in the public system rather than "selling" time to the private sector? Sure, you have to pay to staff it, but that's what people who "line up" for private sector health services are doing - paying for staff. And staff have to be trained and located somewhere - if the private sector diverts staff from public health care, that's not a winning solution for anyone but the shareholders. Certainly not the patients.
Capitalism
5 years ago
I talked about the taxes - it was a complete assumption - you are correct Mr. McMartin never suggested we do so. I was reading between the lines. I knew A and C, and was therefore able to infer B.
As for user fees - this is a solution. A friend of mine is a Dr. - he says that he received countless numbers of visits from paranoid old people, paranoid mothers and paranoid people in general. Most of his visits are a complete waste of time.
So - why don't we charge for this?
verso
5 years ago
I'll take the straight goods, please.
Taylor has tarnished her own reputation by exaggerating projections, and to what end? She doesn't need to exaggerate to make a point... this is deception. Instead of giving her the benefit of the doubt, anything that comes out of her mouth, as Finance Minister, is suspect. I'm not sure what a politician has to gain by losing credibility.
It's kind of thing that set conservatives hair on fire when it's done practiced by Federal Liberals. Typical hypocritical BS.
gasworks
5 years ago
Obviously if your Dr. friend had an ounce of sense,rather than capitalizing on the public purse himself, he would try telling them to stop abusing the system and go home
Better still, have the known abusers wait until closing time (assuming they are not red in the face)....
G West
5 years ago
gasworks.
Actually, most of the paranoia is a characteristic of the neocon right wing - would you deny them the solace of a sympathetic ear? Even at public expense?
gasworks
5 years ago
Not out of my wallet (left or right) - Let them eat somebody else's cake
DPL
5 years ago
When the money problems of other countries was blamed on the provincial NDP the folks got right into line to agree, the NDP were just awful. government. Things picked up i other countries and by God, the folks started calling Gordo a financial wizard.He managed to produce the largest deficit in BC history but who noticed? Well now the indicators are showing decline, will the same folks start to blame the province again? seems natural gas revenue is way down for starters in BC.
Dee Hon
5 years ago
Good article in the NYTimes about the health "crisis" in the US:
http://tinyurl.com/rupwt
In the States, health insurance costs for the average family have doubled in the past 7 years to $11,500 - far exceeding inflation. Companies and individuals alike are struggling with the costs.
But the point of the article was that you can't expect 2006 health care at 1950s prices. Real costs may be far greater than in the past, but a baby born today can expect to live 10 years longer than a child born in 1950. Medical progress over the past few decades have been nothing short of astounding.
There is no free lunch. If we are to demand the best in healthcare, we have to be prepared to pay for it.
In the States, the choice is pay the going rate or don't get insured. Here we can chose, through our governments, to constrain costs but that will certainly mean inferior care.
As the author says, "Would you prefer spending an extra $5,500 on health care every year — or losing 10 years off your lifespan?"
Clearly, there's a balance to be found. The question is where?
gasworks
5 years ago
"Financial Wizard" - Hardly, I doubt he could balance his wife's checkbook.
As far as natural gas prices are concerned, it's much worse than you imagine. Have a look at what Terasen is still charging you for "no mark-up" cost of gas while prices are in the basement.
This coming October you will be paying more than double the amount you would pay for the exact same product right next door in Calgary.
anne cameron
5 years ago
Ah , yes, of course, the Dr. friend who thinks his 'paranoid' patients are a waste of his time. Excellent reference source.
Could I introduce you to my cousin, Big John. He's a mechanic. He had thousands, maybe tens of thousands of dollars of tools and the feds said we were going metric. Big John had to fork out for a whole other set of tools.
Then there's Dr. Friendly. He can go to work in a hospital WE built. He can be assisted by nurses WE trained and WE pay. He can use operating rooms WE bought and WE fund. He can use scalpels, drills, and other hardware WE supply, his work is lit by electricity WE supply and pay for. He even gets free parking on lots WE provided. Then he gets to bill US for the work he did using OUR building, material, and tools.
Big John gets none of those percs. WE haven't given Big John dick-all. And he pays his taxes, supports the system which supports Dr. Friendly, and he doesn't even complain.
I'd far sooner have Big John for a neighbour than this Dr. friend who is so dim he doesn't realize that the disease his patients present to his uncaring unseeing eye is depression and fear. He's too hubristic to realize he gets paid even when he admits he did nothing at all to help them.
gasworks
5 years ago
It took years to "go Metric" and I doubt Big John works in the dark.
However, He probably would make a better neighbor, unless of course he's into Midnight AutoWrecking.
G West
5 years ago
Dee Hon
Are you suggesting that US care is better than that in Canada?
I think you need to check your data - because it's wrong. Just the opposite is the case. Life expectancy and morbitity rates are significantly better in Canada than in the US.
Look it up>
Frank
5 years ago
I don't think he was saying that G :-) I thought he was just using the article as a point of reference to back his contention that whether you have a public system or a private system, we have to pay more than we did 50 years ago.
I could be wrong though
thomas49
5 years ago
like my brother said long ago on this site...
Carole Taylors turds are smarter than most who deal with her and that really shows why Herr Kampbell brought her into the fold.
thomas49
5 years ago
G West, Harry is in rehab,seems he got the beer to bratwurst ratio mixed up with the tacos to tequila...so he is in really bad shape.
We had a great summer in Machu Pichu otherwise...15 people in one trailer was a little KRAZY .
Dee Hon
5 years ago
Thanks, Frank. You're right.
G, I'm not suggesting US care is better than Canadian. In either system the choice is your money or your life.
People on both sides of the border want the best in care, but the reality is cutting edge medicine isn't cheap no matter how you pay.
Jack's
5 years ago
The Province newspaper editor is demanding a full-blown audit to examine the financial pressures health authority officials claim they're facing. Taylor says she will appoint a special investigator to examine them.
My big bitch with "our" health-care system is having to resort to 1950s X-ray technology when MRI's are sitting unused - because of lack of staff funding.
The one-year waiting lists for surgery also remain.
Whether we're in financial crisis or not, the bottom line is that we still have damn poor healthcare. Maybe a full-blown audit would produce answers.
gasworks
5 years ago
Hey Thomas49
I can't remember will this be her second or Turd budget?
Marysue
5 years ago
A shortage of healthcare professionalls--including MRI staffing--is merely one of Public stupidity--that be you and me--not having the political will to ensure we have universal and free post secondary education. We'd have plenty of doctors, like Cuba has. Now, only rich men's sons and daughters can afford to become doctors and these all try to be millionaires before they're fifty. If education were free, most doctors would be female, like they were in Russia, before they were "freed" by capitalism to become prostitutes all over the world. Train our own doctors, instead of importing them from South Africa. What a concept! WoooOOOoooo! Make Big Oil pay its taxes instead of deferring them for eternity.
Realist
5 years ago
Today, instead of receiving my normal notice of my meager $856 disability cheque (to cover myself and my seven year old son for a month!!!)I got a notice that "If I wanted to continue with disability benifits i needed to go to the disablitiy office". When i got there the line up was out the door. When I finally got inside I was told I would need to see a worker and that they would not be back until one P.M.(it was 11:30 A.M. at the time. I explained that I am a University student who is trying to get educated so I can get off the system and this harassment had cause me to miss class, miss giving my portion of a group project in class and leaving my fellow students without my input. Despite this reasoning I had to wait until one P.M.When I finally got into the office i was told that my cheque had been held because I had received a $200 grant for books and that I had not brought them the receipts for the books. i explained that the book and supplies were out of stock and thus i had no receipts yet. After they tried to make me feel like a criminal, they gave me my cheque. Because of the stress of this Bull$hit, I ended up in emergency where I received a shot of pain killer to deal with the damage inflicted upon me by MEIA. I missed school, i cost the taxpayer over a thousand dollars in emergency room attention and I increased the strain on the system. This government does not have a clue about real economic policy not to mention the inhumane way I was treated in the MEIA office. So thanks taxpayers for paying my emeregency room bill today as caused by the good old B.C.Liberals.
gasworks
5 years ago
Assuming your storey is "real" realist, that is no way to treat anyone. What's troubling is you say you only get $856 per month for your disability allowance to cover both you and your seven year-old.
That's the measly amount my sister-in-law who is single gets for her disability allowance, which in my view is at least a couple of hundred bucks a month short.
Did you leave anything out?
alive
5 years ago
anne cameron
You make some good points, many tradespeople invest heavily in tools as well as in extra training.
Somehow we are still treating doctors as if they are doing us a favour by doing their job!
The trend nowadays is for doctors to incorporate themselves, set up walk-in clinics and close their former regular offices!
In many cases they move to more central locations where the walk-in trade is brisk, and the area they left is now without any facilities.
Those people now must travel that extra distance and find that the walk-in clinic is already overcrowded, as well as having to serve the clients abandoned from where the offices used to be.
It is not a good feeling to no longer have a “family doctor†but instead face whoever happens to be “on shiftâ€.
I am sure it makes economical sense for the doctors, maybe that is what it is all about?
Realist
5 years ago
No I left nothing out. And that's the exact type of treatment disabled people receive every day in this so called wealthy province.
gasworks
5 years ago
It would have been helpful if you had explained why you get nothing for your seven year old son.
G West
5 years ago
THanks Dee Hon, & Frank, for the clarification - no question we have to pay one way or the other - just wanted to clarify that actual results in the public system are much superior to results in the US mixed/private system.
Thomas 49 - glad to hear you all had a good summer - despite the overcrowding.
Tell Harald to get his meds straightened out - I have a message for both of you. Send me an email at
when you've got a moment.
asher
5 years ago
Taylor is fooling the corporate media? Huh?
They are in on it.
Elliot
5 years ago
speaking of fooling; did any of you lefties see your governor general interviewed on the communist broadcasting corporation tonight? what a bloody phoney woman. tell me, is there a reason why you people always whisper and act so affected when you need to show how sincere you are. could it be that you are just pretending to be sincere b/c you know that's how all the other pretentious pseudo-intelligentsia lefties want you to sound? how hilarious.
G West
5 years ago
Elliot,
She's your governor-general too, dude.
What do you mean by 'you' people? I think she's kinda cute actually. You don't like pretty women?
Passaglias Left Foot
5 years ago
LOL, nice response GWest.
Now that you mention it, maybe being easy on the eyes should be part of the criteria for the GG. Anyway, no matter what she isn't Adrian Clarkson.
DJT
5 years ago
I do not understand how the folks running this province cant figure out how to reduce costs in the health care system when a grade three kid with half a brain could tell ya'. They cannot be that stupid so obviously there is an advantage to maintaining the status quo. Too bad no one in this government has the #@%lls or political will to do what needs to be done instead of fear mongering to open the door for privatization. Then again, I guess that wouldnt make money for their Party contributors and/ or the clients of the lobbyists who are probably salivating as we speak.
gasworks
5 years ago
Half a Brain would certainly answer a question or two. - However, I think there may be a more realistic turd explanation.
SharingIsGood
5 years ago
LOL, gasworks
Elliot
5 years ago
gwest; you mean pretty phoney? she's 'your' gg as in appointed by the lefty liberal intelligentsia. an adrienne clarkson clone: ethnic, female, cbc, supporter of separatists. what a bloody joke! and as far as being easy on the eyes; i hope you're only pretending to be that shallow.
suburb_guy
5 years ago
I not sure if my first post made it, the site seemed to have timed out. If it did, sorry for repeating myself...
I am not a overly political person, but I have to agree with Carole Taylor's assesment. The comparison of health spending to GDP makes no sense. Neither, I might add does Carole Taylor's assertion about the debt to GDP ratio. While the budget is related to GDP in terms of the amount of revenue available for tax, we don't spend the GDP on programs and services. I think the point is that health spending is increasing faster than that the total budget.
The NDP struggled with this too and so will any other goverment regardless of their political stripe.
Frank
5 years ago
If GDP doesn't affect the budget then what does? Is GDP not a major factor in determing available tax revenue? of course it is.
If health spending is taking up a bigger percentage of the budget than someone is comfortable with then isn't the answer new spending somewhere else to make the health part look smaller?
Because really the size of the health budget within the overall budget is immaterial and Carole taylor knows it. We have to spend what we have to spend to have a good health care system.
What she's doing is fear-mongering, framing a debate for Campbell to declare we can't afford to get sick or injured any more.
gasworks
5 years ago
I hate to have to say it Frank, but your fear-mongering argument does make her turds look smarter.
(as per thomas49's earlier post with respect to his brother's own subjective observations)
Frank
5 years ago
A turd by any other name would still smell as bad
Innocent Bystander
5 years ago
I doubt that Carole Taylor would even know how to read an income statement let alone comment intelligently on its finer points.
Her purpose as Finance Minister is no different then it was for Gary Collins which is to put a well spoken talking head out front to run interference for Gordo and his buddies.
I am suprised that they even gave us until 2017 before the Health care system collapsed. I would have thought that 2010 would have been a much better date so that Vanoc could have included a few private hospitals in along with the Olympic budget.
Frank
5 years ago
Of course, if CJ was an NDP'er everyone would be saying that she is claiming health care spending is out of control so that she can increase taxes.
Nope, her and Campbell have decided that the best way to grandfather medicare is declare its already unaffordable.
Since regular stats don't back up that assertion, she has had to create some new ones. Unfortunately for her, math is still being taught in school by those commie BCTF'ers.
gasworks
5 years ago
Of course, if "CJ" was an NDP'er
You're losing it Frank - CJ is an NDP'r.
Cheers lol
SharingIsGood
5 years ago
Were you taught math in a public school in BC, Frank?
Frank
5 years ago
Thanks for your unpaid proofreading expertise!
Frank
5 years ago
Well, partly in BC
SharingIsGood
5 years ago
British Columbia public schools are among the highest rated in the world for the quality of its math instruction. BC's public school students do extremely well in math.
gasworks
5 years ago
That is most likely true, and the same is probably true about health care.
BC Dude
5 years ago
BC schools kids Used to be the best taught, we were taught the basic 3Rs in grade 1-6, now you've got kids in 3 grades at one time? Say what?
We got new Real schools not some old trailer.
Why are we the working poor paying for a highway to some richguys playground/house? We use it for 2 weeks for 2010 Winter Olyimpics and pay for to long------------!
DPL
5 years ago
well up pops Gordo today to talk about the Tsunami heading our way. My God, the guy should have stayed shilling for Marathon realty he is so full of it.
yes sir folks , shortly the whole budget will be going into health care so lets spend a few millions asking folks what is wrong with the system. Don't want to hear from those pesky folks that work in the system, the opposition or someone who has been on waiting lists for a year or so. No just real live folks who agree we need hospitals half way between two present ones, on Vancouver Island is about to get a 300 million place. Old ones, Hey they just don't cut it. besides the friendly PPP guys wouldn't make enough money that way. Staff? Don't worry, Gordy's got a plan. Here is the plan. Don't get sick unless you have money, and lots of it. No mention of his failed BCMed system farmed out to some company that simply got fined a lot for non performance.
SharingIsGood
5 years ago
Yes, the quality of education has suffered under the liberals, but the BCTF teachers are still (over-all) the best trained teachers in the world.
I think the same is probably true for BC nurses - but they can only do so much when the physical plant and the support structures around them are allowed to deteriorate.
Elliot
5 years ago
'Yes, the quality of education has suffered under the liberals,'.
another pile of bloated rubbish from socialismisgood. the liberals have pumped more money into the system than your anemic ndp ever intended to, and you know it. you bctf'ers are ultimate believers in telling a lie until you believe it yourself. nice job 'negotiating' your latest 2.5% raise, by the way. the gov't took you guys to the cleaners on that one.
Frank
5 years ago
And even though there's less kids in the system, class sizes get bigger, busing distance gets longer and parents are asked to donate directly more often. Obviously the Liberals are just not very good at managing those dollars.
SharingIsGood
5 years ago
Well-said, Frank. ...and the list goes on. While there has been school closures and fewer teachers, the number of administrators has risen. Much of that increase in administrators has been because of the increased paperwork that the government requires. Also, they have created many useless systems (school planning councils) that must be attended to - but steal effort from where it is really needed - at the client level - with the kids! The same thing is happening in hospitals and with this useless dog and pony show the Premier is going to take around the province to find out about what needs to be done about health-care. I am sure admission to the show will be by invitation only and it will be attended by privatization zealots within the Liberal Party. In this way the premier won't have to face any questions tougher than, "How are we gonna divy it up, boys?"
G West
5 years ago
Elliot
You should stick to sports bud! You're so obviously prejudiced when it comest to talking about schools and teachers that you provide nothing more than comic relief.
It's embarrassing!
DO you think the Canucks will win 40% of their games this year? I'm beginning to wonder.
SharingIsGood
5 years ago
Where public Private partnerships in health-care lead:
http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/llt/57/camfield.html
cupe.ca/updir/Laundryrev.pdf
freewebs.com/plawiuk/WRITINGS/Romanow-Kbro-Parkland%202004.doc
Elliot
5 years ago
hey g; perhaps you'd like me to make up the facts and figures like frank and socialismisgood?
SharingIsGood
5 years ago
To those who have already read this, my apologies for this reposting of a post I made 13 hours ago on the McLean's/universities thread.
Capitalism,
With your posts, here, I think you are truly more suited to live in the USA. I suggest that you would be much happier there, and the people, here, much happier if you were to go. The thing that I love most about Canadian society is that most people get it, "Life is not all about money." I think that rather than continually trying to change other people's opinions and being so contentious, you should really look into moving to the USA.
alive
5 years ago
Carole Taylors warnings were obviously made to set the scene for Gordo's announcement that we need a "conversation" about health care.
This is the third time we go through that routine, only this time it is a very expensive plan.
5 milllion dollar to the media alone!
But, wait: the media is owned by Gordo's friends!
They have worked hard to make him look good and now they are due for a 5 million dollar bribe.
If the government really wanted to learn anything ask any nurse, doctor or patient!
It is that simple, and it would be volunteered for free.
SharingIsGood
5 years ago
Elliot,
My above post (directed toward Capitalism) might work equally well for Elliot. If you really want it like the USA, why not move there?
Elliot
5 years ago
i'll move there if you move to france or sweden.
lynn
5 years ago
Gordo's Conversation ( The Sting )is just another version of the Round Table dodge he used in education...a distraction so that the public doesn't notice that in reality absolutely nothing is happening to improve health care in this province. This distraction will apparently last two years and cost us ten million dollars... ten million dollars that our health system is in dire need of.
This is a classic sting operation by the infamous BCLiberals...and Frank is right on, Carole Taylor is framing the debate...she's responsible for the set-up"...and Gordo (think Elmer Gantry in pin-striped suit, and a red tie, of course)with his hystericaltsunami reference will carry out the con...his job is to whip up the crowds into a religious fervour about the so-called crisis in health care.
In a sting, the con game is successful if "the mark" (that's us, the public) does not realize he has been "taken", at least not until the con men are long gone...you know firmly ensconced up to their ears in martinis in Maui... or grandly sipping Grand Marniers in the Grand Caymans...
NoLeftNutter
5 years ago
Gee Lynn - if you're so smart how come your're not rich?
Frank
5 years ago
NLN, wealth is the measure of intelligence? History doesn't back up that assertion.
Frank
5 years ago
In fact history would suggest that who your daddy is would be the best determinant of a person's financial health.
Horatio Alger is just not representative of the real world.
NoLeftNutter
5 years ago
Frank, sorry I forgot this was an altruistic site. All you smart guys are just out to save the world.......lucky for the rest of us.
Frank
5 years ago
I doubt blogging will save any world, let alone this one.
Would you prefer a website where people are graded according to what they own? Where everyone uses real names and submits last year's Revenue Canada forms before they're allowed to post? Where your bank balance is displayed at the bottom of your blogs?
And if there was such a website, would the people there come up with ideas that save the world?
BC Dude
5 years ago
We pay big bucks to Corporations, WHY?
Start making these Corporate Bums pay their share of taxes + the 25% Gordo gave them in 2001 = 5yrs Billions
2010 Winter Olympics is bull, just to keep the people in debt and make hundreds of millions for the main contractors and politicians
If Corporations paid their fair share there would be no deficits, schools would be free up to University, all health/medical would be free, there would be no homeless, etc.
NoLeftNutter
5 years ago
Frank;
It's Friday afternoon and it appears that your sense of humour has taken the rest of the week off, you should too....
Frank
5 years ago
Actally NLN, I'm leaving in an hour. Going to the game tonight at GM Place. I assume wee cheer for the same team when it comes to hockey?
As for my sense of humour, sorry, I didn't realize you were kidding.
Anyone know how to say "you suck Kipper" in Finnish?
lynn
5 years ago
oh, but I am - you poor, poor, darling, NoLeftNutter...verrry, verrrry rich...I just use a different kind of yardstick than you do. ;-)
lol, Frank. ;-)...have a great time at the game.
SharingIsGood
5 years ago
Elliot,
I already moved here. Since coming here 25 years ago, a very small percentage of the population has been working very hard to make it like the USA. When I talk to ordinary people from here to Montreal, I normally don't here any of them saying they want Canda to become more like the USA. As a matter-of-fact, most people I talk with seem to have disdain for NAFTA and for American-style service delivery of education and health-care. Further, the people hate to see this government sell off (for pennies on the dollar) and give away 1. control of its resources and 2. its ability to generate capital to pay for services that its people want. People do not want privatized health care. It is unfair to the middle class and working poor.
Elliot
5 years ago
'We pay big bucks to Corporations, WHY?' because they provide most of the jobs einstein. and without jobs we have absolutely nothing. period. quit trying to complicate things guy. it's really quite simple.
SharingIsGood
5 years ago
Thanks for the compliment, Elliot. I am glad you recognise my intelligence.
There was nothing complicated about BC being able to generate its own capital from its own companies - and the money stayed here:
*BC Rail
*BC Hydro
*Terasen/BC Gas
*BC Ferries manged from within the province and built by BC ship-builders.
*BC hospital: medical records, laundry and food services from within the province - generally within the community.
*BC Parks without user fees - last refuge of the poor and the retired.
*Public school textbooks able to be purchased from suppliers in the province rather than from a company out of Alberta.
*Agreeing to the softwood lumber deal while we have huge tracts of beetlewood that will be worthless if it is not harvested within three years. Those few companies that truly are BC-based have less money and a smaller piece of the pie that is going to disappear.
bcstats.gov.bc.ca/pubs/exp/exp9804.pdf
*overcrowding of jails which causes recidivism, mental health issues and safety isuues - all which will greater health costs on down the road http://www.nupge.ca/news_2006/n05jy06b.htm
The list of sell-offs and privatization that the Liberals have facilitated/managed under their watch goes on and on. These sell-offs generally cause money to leave the province - never to return. You need to think of yourself as a shareholder of British Columbia, Elliot. As a shareholder, you don't want your company to be continually worth less. You want to have something to leave your grand-kids, don't you? You want them to be able to have their future health-care needs met through prudent management of our resources and capital today.
BC Dude
5 years ago
elliot what you mean by complicating things?
Like Asking for a real answer to so many questions
1)
like why there's no fall legislature sitting?
2)
like why is it taking so long for the 2003 legislature scandal to be brought forward for the people of British Columbia to finally get answers of how organized crime has gotten/rotting into Our The People's bought and paid for by the taxes?
3)
The privatizations of Our Public Companies Bought and Paid for with Our Hard Earned Dollars to foreign corporations?
4) And the list goes on and on and on
BC Dude
5 years ago
Public Forum on the Cancellation of the Fall Sitting of the BC Legislature
Alice MacKay Room
Main Library
350 West Georgia Street
2 PM on Sunday, October 1
With Vancouver’s 5 Opposition MLA’s
This should prove very interesting!
You won't see this in any CanWest media because they are part of the big problem!
I and many of my friends and acquaintances have given up on a real news, so we put out the word to boycott all of CanWest's media The Vancouver Sun, The Vancouver Province, Global TV and any other holdings!
canary
5 years ago
Thank-you Will, for pulling back the green curtain(of Emerald City) so we can see inside of the spin done on the numbers.If there is no Fall sitting to challenge these "creative statistics" can Will F. not forward his analysis of the faulty forcast onto the Auditor General so that this kind of press release by Carole Taylor can be assessed in terms of its validity? Sorry, but tapping pretty shoes together does not necessarily get you where you want to go!
Does anyone know Sheila's (Ottawa A.G.) phone number???
Moosebeer
5 years ago
As we have learned from George W. Bush: If you tell a lie enough times eventually they will believe it to be the truth.
BC Dude
5 years ago
Public Forum on the "Cancellation of the Fall Sitting of OUR BC Legislature".
I went to this public forum yesterday and it was well worth the time!
I asked about the 2003 BC Legislature scandal not a word mentioned on our so-called CanWest Global News or their rags?
Also it was brought up why CanWest is the only media available in Vancouver except for the Georgia straight?
One of the many public speakers who got up asked "Why We The People Can't Legislate the Liberals Back To Work for the Fall Legislature Assembly"? Is This Law Just for the liberal/Dictators? If We Don't Force This, The criminal Campbell Liberals to Answer to All the decimation of our province that is going on now in every ministry? As a British Columbian, I am very passionate/worried about our Democratic rights!
It seems like most British Columbians would much rather just carry on as usual, but if we don't get our heads out of the sand we are going to be buried as once we have lost our democratic rights it will be too late!!!
We should be organizing in every community in British Columbia while we still have our democratic rights to do so as these rights are slowly being eroded/taken away by our supposedly democratically elected f/liberals.
Thanks to CanWest for pushing the greens,the first time they've ever really mentioned the greens in depth?
lynn
5 years ago
Exactly, BC Dude. Thanks for the above report on the meeting as well.
BC Dude
5 years ago
watch out for this one because it's coming sooner check it out!
http://www.canadianactionparty.ca/temp/articles/Say_NO_to_Bill_C-16.asp
netscaper2
5 years ago
Did Gordon get the right person for the job or what ? A pretty lady can fool anyone.
He now has BC under the influence of the finance minister.
She also manged to get big tax money for the CBC, again, public bucks.