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Cosy Business Ties Exposed by Health Budget Turmoil
BC's Health Authorities: Who gets hired (and fired).
Purchase quit as chair of Fraser Health Authority
Unexpectedly, and unintentionally, a small window was opened last week on the tight coterie of business people who have been favoured with high-powered political appointments since 2001 when Gordon Campbell's B.C. Liberals won election to government.
On Wednesday, Jan. 24, Trevor Johnstone was fired as chair of the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority, a position he held "at pleasure" through a cabinet appointment. The surprising dismissal followed disclosure that the health authority -- one of five such regional health entities in the province, and the largest, with an operating budget this year of more than $1.7 billion -- is facing a $40 million deficit.
Two days later, the government was rocked by the resignation of Keith Purchase as chair of the Fraser Health Authority -- B.C.'s second largest, with a current-year budget of about $1.6 billion. Purchase, who also held his position "at pleasure" through an order-in-council, apparently was upset with the Campbell government's decision to rescind Johnstone's appointment.
Johnstone and Purchase are just two of the hundreds of British Columbians who have received political appointments from the Campbell government over the past five-and-a-half years. They were notable, however, not only for the powerful positions to which they had been named -- and the sizeable budgets they oversaw -- but also for their prominence in B.C.'s business community, and the close relationships they enjoyed with B.C. Liberal politicians and political insiders.
The big restructuring
In December 2001, about six months after Campbell's Liberals won a massive electoral majority, then-health minister Colin Hansen announced a major restructuring of health care delivery in the province. More than 50 health bodies were collapsed into five large regional health authorities, while a sixth authority was established to oversee such stand-alone entities as the B.C. Cancer Agency and the B.C. Centre for Disease Control.
Of the five new regional agencies, one was responsible for services on Vancouver Island, another for the province's North, and a third for the B.C. Interior (the Okanagan and Kootenays).
The province's populous Lower Mainland was divided between two new authorities, Vancouver Coastal (which covers Vancouver, Richmond, the North Shore, Whistler, the Sunshine Coast and isolated communities further north) and Fraser (which operates in Burnaby, New Westminster, Coquitlam, Surrey, Delta, Langley, Maple Ridge, Mission, Abbotsford, Chilliwack and Hope).
About the same time, the Campbell government passed an order-in-council appointing five chairs to head the new regional authorities. Keith Purchase was named chair of Vancouver Coastal's board of directors.
Purchase's resume
Purchase, a graduate of two New Zealand universities, worked in that country's forest industry, and from 1990 to 1994 was managing director of Tasman Pulp and Paper. He then moved to Canada as a result of a series of corporate acquisitions and mergers in B.C.'s forest sector.
Fletcher Challenge Ltd. of New Zealand -- the parent company of Tasman Pulp and Paper -- had acquired two well-known B.C. firms, Crown Forest Industries and B.C. Forest Products, in the 1980s. Later, both were merged to become a single concern, Fletcher Challenge Canada Ltd.
By the early 1990s, Fletcher Challenge Canada had decided to focus on its pulp and paper operations, and the company's forest division was spun-out as a new entity, TimberWest Forest Corp. Purchase was named TimberWest's first president and CEO.
Through the mid-1990s, Purchase oversaw TimberWest's transformation into one of Canada's early income trusts. The company's sawmills in the B.C. Interior were sold, and TimberWest Timber Trust concentrated on extracting value from its extensive forest assets on Vancouver Island. In 1998, his task completed, Purchase left the trust to join another forest company, the venerable MacMillan Bloedel, where he was the chief operating officer.
The next year, however, Mac-Blo was acquired by Weyerhaueser, the U.S. forestry giant. But before the sale, the B.C. company's two pulp and paper mills (at Port Alberni and Powell River) were spun-off into a new entity called Pacifica Papers. Purchase left MacMillan Blodel to join Pacifica's board of directors.
It was a short-lived appointment, for B.C.'s forestry sector continued to evolve. Fletcher Challenge was bought in 2000 by a Norwegian company, Norske Skog, and the New Zealand company's Canadian pulp and paper operations became Norske Skog Canada Ltd. The next year, the latter company acquired Pacifica Papers, and Purchase was named to Norske Skog Canada's board of directors.
A few months later, in December 2001, Gordon Campbell and Colin Hansen recruited him as chair of the newl created Vancouver Coastal Health Authority.
Familiar path
Trevor Johnstone was the chair of Pacifica Papers when Purchase sat on that company's board of directors. Johnstone was the managing director of Tricor Pacific Capital Inc., which had acquired an interest in Pacifica when it was spun-out by MacMillan Bloedel. In 2001, both Johnstone and Purchase joined Norske Skog Canada's board of directors after that company had bought Pacifica Papers.
The following year, Johnstone joined Purchase as a Campbell-government appointee on the board of directors for the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority.
Another forestry dweller
One of the first tasks faced by Purchase, Johnstone and the other Vancouver Coastal directors was to hire a CEO to manage the newly amalgamated health authority. Interestingly, they opted not to hire one of the many executives already working in the Vancouver Coastal organization (or its predecessors); nor did they select an individual with extensive public sector or health care experience. Instead, they hired someone whose background was in forestry.
In fact, the employment history of Vancouver Health's new CEO, Ida Goudreau, was nearly identical to that of Purchase. Like him, she had been a managing director of Tasman Pulp and Paper in New Zealand, and subsequently became president of TimberWest. Later, Goudreau also worked with Purchase and Johnstone at Norske Skog Canada.
Gary Collins, corporate director
In December 2004, B.C. Liberal finance minister Gary Collins surprised many by quitting politics. Collins was one B.C.'s most disastrous finance ministers -- under his watch, and largely because of his policies, the province's accumulated deficit skyrocketed in just four years from a few hundred million dollars to nearly $6 billion -- and his private-sector experience consisted of working in a restaurant and being a flight instructor.
Still, Purchase, Johnstone and other directors at Norske Skog Canada evidently thought that Collins would be a valuable addition to their company. In April 2005, six months after he quit politics, Collins was appointed to Norske Skog Canada's board of directors. (The company later changed its name to Catalyst Paper Corporation.)
As a corporate director, Collins is paid a retainer of $25,000 per year, with another $1,500 for each board meeting attended. He also gets $6,000 annually as a member of two board committees, plus $1,200 for every committee meeting he attends. In total, his annual Norske Skog Canada-Catalyst Paper compensation must be in the range of $40,000-$50,000.
(Collins and other company directors may take part of their salary in the company's "Deferred Share Units" rather than cash. The value of those units has declined significantly in recent years, however, and proved a bargain for Third Avenue Management, a New York investment firm, which in recent months has acquired a sizeable equity position in Catalyst.)
More forest people
Susan Yurkovich, one of Collins's dearest political pals, was also an early government appointee to the Vancouver Coastal board alongside Purchase and Johnstone. Yurkovich worked as a staffer with Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservative government in the early 1990s before joining Canfor Corp., where she worked closely with CEO David Emerson.
Emerson and Yurkovich both left the forest company after its 2004 merger with Slocan Forest Products. Emerson won election to the House of Commons as a Liberal in Vancouver-Kingsway in 2004, and was re-elected with that party in 2006 (defecting days later to Stephen Harper's Conservative government). Yurkovich was a senior strategist with Campbell's B.C. Liberals prior to and during the 2005 general election.
According to Sean Holman's Public Eye website, Yurkovich and Mike McDonald, a former political aide to Gordon Campbell (and husband of Campbell's deputy minister, Jessica McDonald), were in the pre-election 2005-06 budget lock-up for stakeholders, registered as representatives of McDonald's firm, Rosedeer Strategies Inc. McDonald declined to answer Holman's query as to the purpose of his and Yurkovich's unusual presence in the lock-up, but others suggested that the pair's task was to ensure that stakeholders received -- and later reiterated for the news media -- the political "spin" desired by the B.C. Liberals. A few weeks later, Yurkovich was re-appointed to Vancouver Coastal's board of directors.
During the election campaign, the Vancouver Sun newspaper identified Yurkovich as a member of an inner circle of B.C. Liberal political strategists. After the election, she got another order-in-council appointment, this one extending her term on the health authority board to 2008.
More work for Yurkovich
In addition to her service on the Vancouver Coastal board, the re-elected Campbell government evidently needed Yurkovich's talents for a greater task. The B.C. Liberals were unhappy with B.C. Hydro's public-relations strategy for development of the proposed Site C dam, and decided that Yurkovich had the corporate-communication skills evidently required by the province's largest Crown corporation.
In June 2006, Yurkovich was named B.C. Hydro's senior vice-president for corporate affairs.
Promoting P3s
Yurkovich also sits on a volunteer board for the Vancouver General Hospital and UBC Hospital Foundation. Other prominent members of the foundation board include the aforementioned Ida Goudreau, and a long-time B.C. Liberal political strategist and advertising executive, Nancy Spooner.
The foundation's vice-chair is Rick Mahler, previously a senior executive with Finning International. Mahler is also the Campbell government's appointed chair of Partnerships B.C., a taxpayer-funded agency that promotes public-private partnerships (P3s).
A principle focus of Partnerships B.C. is P3s involving public health care delivery. The agency's projects include the Abbotsford Regional Hospital (now under construction), and the recently opened Gordon and Leslie Diamond Health Care Centre at Vancouver General Hospital. Last year, the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority and Partnerships B.C. issued a request for proposals for a number of "primary health care access centres" to be built throughout the region.
Cross-pollination
The cross-pollination between Gordon Campbell's B.C. Liberals and Norske Skog Canada-Catalyst Paper is not limited to Purchase, Johnstone, Goudreau and Collins.
Brian Kenning, previously managing director with Brookfield Asset Management (formerly known as Brascan Corporation), was appointed by the Campbell government to the board of directors for B.C. Rail in 2001.
He was named to Catalyst's board last year.
Another Campbell-government appointee to B.C. Rail's board is Robert Phillips, a former MacMillan Bloedel executive. (He earlier had been the Crown corporation's president and CEO.) Phillips sits on a number of corporate boards, including that of a Richmond-based income trust, Tree Island Wire Income Fund.
Keith Purchase and Trevor Johnstone, the two former health authority chairs, also sit on Tree Island's board.
John McLernon is the Campbell government's appointee as chair of B.C. Rail. He and Kenning also sit on the board of Hot House Growers Income Fund, an income trust headquartered in Delta.
Friends in 'dialogue'
In the fall of 2005, Barry Forbes decided to step down as chair of Fraser Health. The Campbell government asked Keith Purchase, then the chair of Vancouver Coastal, to shift over and take on the same role at Fraser. He accepted the new appointment.
"It is so important for the two authorities with the greatest population to work together, to learn from one another and to engage in constant dialogue," Purchase said in a statement issued by Fraser Health after his appointment.
That dialogue was to be made easier when the Campbell government decided to promote Trevor Johnstone -- Purchase's friend, and colleague on the boards of Catalyst Paper, Tree Island Industries, and Vancouver Coastal -- as his successor at the health authority.
Look who's replacing Purchase
Last week, after Johnstone's dismissal and Purchase's resignation, the Campbell quickly named Gordon Barefoot to succeed Purchase as chair of the Fraser Health Authority.
Barefoot is well known to political watchers in British Columbia. In the summer of 2001, immediately after Gordon Campbell's B.C. Liberals won election to government, Barefoot -- then a senior executive with B.C. Gas, later renamed Terasen Gas -- was asked to head up a fiscal review panel to conduct "an independent review of the province's fiscal situation."
The appointment was puzzling insofar as the province's auditor general was then wrapping up the books for the just-completed 2000-01 fiscal year; would not Barefoot merely be duplicating his work?
Well, no. Whereas the independent auditor general reported a then-record Consolidated Revenue Fund surplus of $1.6 billion, the Barefoot commission devised a set of numbers that showed a humongous deficit of more than $5 billion would be magically appearing a few years after the defeated New Democrats left office.
And so, instead of admitting that they had inherited a giant surplus from the previous NDP government, Gordon Campbell and his B.C. Liberals were able to claim -- thanks to the Barefoot report -- that their predecessors had left a gargantuan shortfall.
A couple of years later, the Campbell government quietly removed a statutory provision that required the head office of B.C. Gas-Terasen to be located in the province. The company soon was bought by Texas-based Kinder Morgan, and B.C. Gas-Terasen shareholders -- including board members and company officers -- were handsomely rewarded.
After completing his fiscal review for the B.C. Liberals, Barefoot was appointed to the board of Vancouver Community College. Later, following Terasen's sale to Kinder Morgan, he was named to the Fraser Health Authority's board of directors.
Juice and gas
There are many connections -- too many to mention them all -- between Gordon Campbell's B.C. Liberals and B.C. Gas-Terasen. For example, Larry Bell sat on the utility's board at the same time he was appointed chair and CEO of B.C. Hydro. Stephen Bellringer, a former B.C. Gas president, now sits on B.C. Hydro's board.
Ida Goudreau, the forestry executive with close ties to Purchase and Johnstone and their choice as Vancouver Coastal's CEO, somehow found time to sit on Terasen's board before it was sold to Kinder Morgan.
Thomas Chambers had a seat on the Terasen board alongside Goudreau; he now sits on the Catalyst Paper board with Purchase, Johnstone, Collins and Kenning.
And by the way...
In addition to serving as chair of the Fraser Health Authority, Barefoot also sits on the board of directors for Nventa Biopharmaceuticals Corporation, formerly Stressgen Biotechnologies. The company has developed a therapeutic vaccine for HPV, a sexually transmitted virus.
One of his fellow directors at Nventa-Stressgen is Margot Northey, who also has a Campbell government appointment to the board of B.C. Transmission Corp. Another political appointee on the Transmission board is Bev Park, CFO at TimberWest, where she used to work with Purchase, Johnstone and Goudreau.
How big a rift?
The foregoing is far from an exhaustive review of the close ties that bind Gordon Campbell's B.C. Liberal government and the province's business community; suffice to say that those ties are broad and deep.
And so one has to wonder about the lingering damage to that relationship as a consequence of the government's sudden decision to fire Johnstone, and Purchase's precipitous resignation in support of his colleague. Is the injury going to be quickly healed, or will it fester long into the future? Stay tuned.
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zalm
5 years ago
An old problem - older than the CEOs
Interesting read, Will.
What does shock me about these businessmen who are running the health authorities is how they don't seem to be able to understand that in medical care, bigger is not better.
Over and over I've said this for 8-9 years til I'm blue in the face, but patients are not pulp, and you can't get more throughput by installing bigger machines in bigger factories. All you get is more waste.
80% of our medical care is routine and easily handled at the clinic level, the urgent care centre, or at primary/secondary care facilities anywhere in the province and closer to home.
Big facilities require resources all out of proportion to their results to keep them running, despite the promise of big savings from economies of scale.
Unfortunately, there are no longer figures to back me up. The last year I had figures for was 1998-9, and small facilites, (most of which have been closed) had average operating costs of $400 per patient per day. Tertiary-care facilities including trauma centres had costs exceeding $1100 per patient per day. Due to Health-Authority rationalisation, separate figures are not available for each facility any more, and even if collected, would make no sense.
So when the smaller facilities were shut down (and in a few cases, deservedly so - the facilities could be abominably old and inefficient) your cost to remove a gall bladder effectively doubled from $1900 including 3-days stay and all fees to more than $3800.
Is this an effective use of your tax dollars?
This is not to say that there isn't a use for big facilities - there is, in research (of which we have spent entirely too much money trying to attract in the past five years), in the variety of services availabl for those obscure and complicated cases that always arise among the remaining 20% of cases.
But the they are the tail of the dog, and should be left as such - batting cleanup on whatever can't be handled "closer to home". Remember that one, "closer to home"?
Private medical care tends to follow this model as well. Clinics specializing in all sorts of treatments are already operating in Canada but specializing in just a few types of cases such as hernias, and improving the outcomes and efficiencies while remaining small to remain controllable and able to shift direction quickly.
Any time you have to employ 45 people solely to tell patients and visitors where to go to get treatment, find a cafeteria or a loved one, or even just to find an exit, as is done at Provincial, you have too big a facility, and it's all waste.
This wasn't the trend in the early 1990s. In 1992, that big tower at VGH was never going to be finished - I had CEO after CEO tell me that - the future of health care was small and nimble and able to respond quickly to different needs. Front-line workers would be empowered to make the decisions for care with the patient, not defer to far-away managers with budgetary restrictions and no clue about patient needs.
But in 1996 the focus was lost, and nothing in the NDP-led Health Ministry could give direction to the system. So when the Fiberals came in, they applied their favourite econominc theory - economies of scale, patients are widgets, etc. - and you can see the disastrous results.
Carole Taylor is partly right - we are spending more than ever for health care and getting worse and worse results. But it's not the patients who are at fault - it's the systems put in place for their care.
The forest-company CEOs have had their try at it and have failed spectacularly. Here's one case where I'm in agreement with IAMClueless and Cappy - more money will not fix the problem. But it's not the unions. More money will only make the corporate dinosaurs more corpulent and greedy. And their fall will be that much bigger.
And patients will suffer all the more when they go down.
RickW
5 years ago
Tielman
http://billtieleman.blogspot.com/
What B.C. public service job pays you $360,000 a year, lets you sit on a corporate board of directors for another $95,000 and allows you to miss your budget targets by $40 million while disrupting the lives of hundreds of taxpayers?
BTW:
There is a virtural epidemic of Norwalk-like virus occurring and re-occurring throughout BC, hardly any of which warrants media mention. There is some (hazy) indication that at least part of the reason is lack of close inspection of food handling services, much of which are "re-therm".
So what (I wonder) has Ms. Ida Goodreau, with her 1/2-million in salary/perks/whatnot done to combat this?
Grumpy
5 years ago
Forestry types
How can these forestry types run the health agencies? It's not the same.
Had to take a friend to VGH for surgery and when I walked in the entrance, I thought I was in a hotel! Certainly the service wasn't hotel like, in fact it was macabre.
The elderly person was discharged way too soon and almost died at home!
Our health care system is in a shambles, but I think, after reading this, it is not the system, rather the Campbell appointed idiots that are screwing things up.
jimtan
5 years ago
Spot on
Thanks for the expose. The Right and its cronies, is no different from the Left and its cronies.
Fiat lux
5 years ago
As I wrote under the
As I wrote under the article, bemoaning the "Left", there's no left and right.
In 1973 a German/British economist by the name of E.F. Schumacher wrote a book "Small is Beautiful" and no words were ever more true.
The controlling business sector, empowered by the neoclassical theory, are the brothers under the skin of Soviet collectivizers, forcing any and everybody into huge economic units, huge cities and huge mess, because, under their fraudulent theories, and calculations of the "economics of size", "huge is cheaper".
They're killing tens of millions of people every year, all over the world, destroying the environment, but it is all calculated as "growth of the GDP" and "productivity".
The economy could be run far more efficiently, based on local, from the ground up, small production facilities, reducing environmental and human damage, but that wouldn't give these jerks their directorships and their political slaves the hope for the same.
My wife had an accident last July and had to spend 4 days in hospital. The nursing staff was great, but worked to collapse, the wards not cleaned because of the shortage of janitors, the food, imported from God knows where, because the kithcens were closed as a "cost saving measure", warmed up with microwaves, destroying all benefits, was uneatable and ended up in the garbage from all the 4 beds in her room.
But, according to brainded economists and politicians, this is all "cost effective"
Ed Deak.
alive
5 years ago
Parasites
Parasites one and all!
As the story points out they are not particularly smart or good at what they do, but they are members of the old boys club, and therefore anything is OK!
Any person in the workforce could provide material for a long article about where they worked and how they fared, and nobody would care! Same goes here!
These parasites are what drags down our society, can we please quit treating them like some soap-opera stars?
G West
5 years ago
What slime
Some of these much-vaunted managers from the private sector aren't such good managers after all.
But then, they've never acted in the public interest before, have they?
Perhaps one shouldn't be too surprised. What Campbell and his friends are really good at is hiding the truth.
paul willcocks
5 years ago
Conflicts
Excellent piece. The issue for me isn't the fact that the people come from business; management skills are usually transferable.
The problem is the divided loyalties when directors are so closely tied to the premier and his party (and to each other). When a problem arises, do they speak for the people of the health region, or apologize for the government? When the government faces a difficult health decision, one that will damage care, does it have to consider the risk that there will be strong opposition from the boards on behalf of the health-care system, or can it count on acquiesence?
We've seen the damage to corporate governance when directors' loyalty is to the CEO, not the shareholders.
Having said all that, it's interesting to read in Vaughn Palmer's column today that the Campbell government ordered that funding plans for the coming year be kept secret from directors. Only CEOs and board chairs were consulted.
Pretty insulting - and ridiculously inefficient - to appoint people and then show that you neither value their contribution nor trust them.
murdock
5 years ago
Cutting it down
Sure it is Grumpy!
In both occupations a populace of very aged living things is being cut down. These people are just 'managing' it.
You manage things.
You lead people.
I do not see any of these persons as leaders.
murdock
5 years ago
Cutting it down
Sure it is Grumpy!
In both occupations a populace of very aged living things is being cut down. These people are just 'managing' it.
You manage things.
You lead people.
I do not see any of these persons as leaders.
Grumpy
5 years ago
It's all our fault!
According to Bill Boring and his band of whatever, it's all our fault, the baby boomers. Really?
Is it not the fault of the politicians for not planning ahead? The blame game is easy but I think the truth lies in the fact that Medicare has been underfunded, that we practice expensive medicine. For many a nurse could take care of minor problems not G.P.'s
Everyone saw the Medicare system as a trough to feed from.
nightbloom
5 years ago
Thanks for another
Thanks for another eye-opener.
BC's corporate and political elite sound more incestuous than the feudal aristrocacy of Old Europe.
Can we expect more hemophiliac episodes of corporate blood-letting...?
maestro
5 years ago
Paint and Scapegoats
Yawn
....and the same old.
About 10 + years ago, when Canadian Airlines was the corporate patient gasping for breath, they had a new Head Honcho come in. (We knew one of the employees at the time.)
First major step to recovery??? New Logo..that stylized "goose in flight". Also new uniforms. Seem to recall it set them back about $40 + Million.
Did it help ?
Obviously not, Canadian Airlines is gone ie "expired" and now merged with Air Canada.
What was the point?
It's simply another example of the way those in charge add coats of paint and other mind -candy to cover up deeper messes and create false senses of security = false senses of hope. This same Private Sector strategy applies to the Public Sector and Gov't.
In my view , Gov't hires/appoints new Chairs' CEO's, Head Honchos etc...and simply sets them up to be fall guys. I mean, really, what's the average tenure at a top Bureaucratic position ?
I think this " paint can " laden shell game involvings 2 or more "consenting parties " is sufficiently based on a signed pre-nuptial " contract " full of nice juicy compensation clauses..."Hired to be Fired". Both parties (ie Gov't and the new Head Honcho ) know that going in.
It appears that the quickest way to get terminated is to actually TRY to do the job or improve on it ie stick one's neck out.......the next quickest is for the latest shite to hit the fan and be the token scapegoat. To last longer ?...NO hope it seems, something will eventually ooze up and out.
That's what this is all about...paint and the new colour of the same old scapegoats.
DPL
5 years ago
I know nothing about
I know nothing about hospitals beyond being a patient. With the big money and the chance of getting severance, I'm wating for the call.Heck I don't think I could screw things up much worse that what's happening now. I full expect a poster to shrtly tell us how the author is some left winger. Will most definitly is not a left wing person
MyBrainIsOnFire
5 years ago
this info needs to be widely
this info needs to be widely dissemminiated...
Isabella2
5 years ago
Cosy (Campbell) Business Ties
Thanks to Will for the article and, in particular, to "Zalm" and Paul Willcocks for their comments. This inside look at the Campbell connections is long overdue. I hope it is the first of a series. For example, an expansion of Michael Smyth's spotlight on Ken Dobell would be interesting, as would a map of the connections of all members appointed to the Board of Partnerships BC. After that, should come a flow chart of connections to the appointees in the top and under-layers of VANOC. In February, Will, you'll have a whole lot more coming down - what with all the delayed reports and business plans, etc. - and people thought Glen Clark and his boats was as bad as it could get.......
maestro
5 years ago
Re : VCHA
As a side note:
This Vancouver Coastal Health Authority is an interesting entity.
Several years ago, I was asked to volunteer to be part of a group which was actively involved in working with the City's Park Department in re-designing a portion of a Public Park.
The group consisted of Community Center members and City Staff. The main focus was in providing new equipment (as well as other re-design features), yet with an eye to also keeping some of the older and more popular outdoor equipment /items which many of the children had enjoyed over the years.
However, at one meeting,we were told that the then newly - created Vancouver Coastal Health Authority ( VCHA ) had done some sort of audit and determined some equipment "unsafe" . I asked if there were any ACTUAL reports of injuries attributed to these now condemned yet popular pieces of equipment. Apparently none existed, yet the VCHA had some newly published rule book it wished to apply in our old turf ....now their NEW jurisdictional turf. Regardless, I thought this was bizarre and who the hell were they, the VCHA, to tell us this???...there were thousands of safe and satisfied children who had used this equipment over the previous decades.
NOW, just this week, it appears that a Water Park originally budgetted for approx. $500,000 has gone up to almost $700,000 due to the VCHA being concerned about an incident re: pools and water parks that happened in New York in 2005...and now the VCHA is planning on introducing M-O-R-E stringent rules for water parks and pools in ITS jurisdiction . This will add $200,000 more to the cost of this local water park project and now we are into " rob Peter to pay Paul " yet probably get Dick in the end.
This VCHA , in essence, seems to be a mega - bureaucracy out of control...
Grumpy
5 years ago
All mega bureaucracies are out of control
The health authorities; TransLink; GVRD & all there assorted mini bureaucracies; City of Vancouver; 2010 Committee; InTransit BC; BC Ferries -all publicly financed intuitions, without any public scrutiny at all! No wonder BC is going to hell fast!
nightbloom
5 years ago
Grumpy - You can toss the
Grumpy - You can toss the universities onto that list too.
alive
5 years ago
Quote:There is a virtural
Private contractors do the cleaning these days; again a "for profit" venture!
Ask any nurse about how they cut corners: only the areas that the public is liable to see gets cleaned at all!
Anyone who has spent time in a hospital bed can testify as to how seldom anyone drags a mop across the middle of the floor.
All the authorities seem to do is to admonish everybody to wash their hands!
Maybe they are muzzled by Gordo, just like the staff was warned not to speak to the public?
maestro
5 years ago
Grumpy:
Grumpy
Your previous post " all publicly financed intuitions.."
" intuitions ??? "
I Love it !!!!
no sense..no feeling ...et al
frank2
5 years ago
What solution for an "old" problem
Super article. Excellent comments.
Running big organisations delivering a complex mix of outputs, each of whose "values" is unmeasured, requires special management talents. Such talents would be needed even in a more decentralised health system, although the risk of catastrophe might be less.
It is difficult to see how the required talents can be developed in forest companies, which have a single bottom line, generated by a very narrow set of priced outputs.
In addition, many of the greatest corporate "successes" consist of "simplifying" outputs by spinning out "non-core" activities to other firms, with the managers involved in securing major windfalls with each such "success."
Of course, these folks' appointments were less related to the suitability of their experience for the task at hand than to their membership in the corporate coterie which promises the B.C.Libs short-term political support, and long-term personal financial support (viz. Collins.)
What's to be done? For a start, we we need to nurture and vote for politicians whose range of acquaintance and aspiration extends beyond feeding at the corporate trough.
clubofrome
5 years ago
Pretend I'm new here.
Pretend I'm new here. Someone please explain to me how anything Harcourt, Campbell, Vanderzalm etc. ever did, could be anything like what "Mr sell us down the river" Campbell is doing now? Please explain this too me, how we have bingo gate, Glen Clarks deck and whatever other POS story that should even compare to the present crime wave? Please explain this to me.
clubofrome
5 years ago
Harcourt, Clark.... etc.
Sorry....
lynn
5 years ago
Thanks, Will
Another extremely good, well-researched and detailed article by Will McMartin.
And clubofrome asks an excellent question about the sheer scale of Campbell and Co.'s devious reach being incomparable to any other in BC history. The linkages and interconnections between all the players here is truly mind-boggling....how they parachute in and out of boards and directorships.
And how Campbell has re-framed our province into American terminology...how easily the word "health authority" has taken hold...and yet is there any actual authorities on health care on board? Or is the word "authority" the important part, as in "don't question us"...a chairman is a chairman is a chairman...and apparently forestry and health are interchangeable areas of expertise. What insanity.
And this paragraph by Will McMartin bears repeating because the ever-fawning mainstream press, good little drooling BC Liberal groupies that they are sure as heck would never report this..too busy turning cartwheels for the most corrupt gang in BC history :
"In December 2004, B.C. Liberal finance minister Gary Collins surprised many by quitting politics. Collins was one B.C.'s most disastrous finance ministers -- under his watch, and largely because of his policies, the province's accumulated deficit skyrocketed in just four years from a few hundred million dollars to nearly $6 billion -- and his private-sector experience consisted of working in a restaurant and being a flight instructor."
So maybe someone should make a detailed list of the wide swath and extensive depth of the betrayals that have taken place in our fair province under the current regime...and hand this extremely lengthy list out to the public during those so-called forums on health care...what's their clever litle slogan this time... "Conversations on Health Care." Yeah, right...
What a sham...these so-called conversations. Meanwhile doctors are referring to our emergency care and bed shortage as Third World, adding that nurses are breaking down, crying on wards from the stress... that patients are now placed in closets, hallways and even in the nurses' lounge because of lack of beds. And who can forget the woman being interviewed lying on the floor waiting in emergency?...and she had been like that, waiting on the floor, for hours on end.
If you read Will McMartin's previous Tyee article: "Carole Taylor's False Alarm", you will understand the truly shameful nature of this subterfuge.
Will, you need to collect all these articles and publish them in a book. The public needs to understand the massive scope of the damage done to this province..what has already been lost... and what is about to be lost.
doggone
5 years ago
Interesting
The same group of buddies who sold most of our forests (which were virtually granted to the companies listed above) are leaving the CEO positions in the recently renamed various "Health Authorities".
Could it be that the time just was not right to start selling hospitals? Surely the spin/think tanks warned them.
"I was in the Right Place
Must have been the Wrong Time"
Fiat lux
5 years ago
Remember when, I believe 3
Remember when, I believe 3 lawsuits were launched against the NDP's, what's still referred to as the "fudgit budget", all thrown out of the Courts.
The power of mindbending PR. I heard one guy swearing at the BCNDP for bringing in the GST. Tried to tell him that it was federal and brought in by Mulroney, but "no bloody way would Brian do such a thing"!
Ed Deak.
bud carlos
5 years ago
Mulroney did it?
Those are the kind of revelations that hurt, Ed. Have G West and I been wrong all along? Will could straighten this out for us in 2,000 words or less, for sure.
Lefty
5 years ago
jimtan you said blah blah
jimtan you said blah blah ... "The Right and its cronies, is no different from the Left and its cronies." buddy you are so full of crap.
the independent auditor general reported a then-record Consolidated Revenue Fund surplus of $1.6 billion left by the NDP compliments of Mike Harcourt, Glan Clark and Ujal Dosange. THIS WAS GOOD.
Gordoccio & the Barefoot commission devised a set of numbers that showed a humongous deficit of more than $5 billion. THIS IS BAD. (it's called lying)
jimtan what you wrote is a prime example of the low brow nature of right wingers, bigots, etc.
to whit: when confronted with the evidence of the damage they have caused, the right wing will insist on befouling the debate and smearing everyone in the area before squirting off like a squid on the other side of its clouded ejection.
Grumpy
5 years ago
The End
The End........we are facing elimination, governmental liquidation.......and nothing.......nothing can be done.
Big Brother Rules!
Kevin Potvin
5 years ago
Meaning what?
Nice primary research, Mr McMartin. But it reads a bit like the "josephus begat thomas, thomas begat Peter" part of the bible. I am lost on the meaning, or purpose, to draw from this.
There isn't anything atypical about ceo's serving as directors on boards overseeing ceos who sit on the first ceo's board, nor, like Paul Wilcocks, do I see anything alarming about forest executives in health roles.
Nor also is it unusual, surprising, or avoidable that executives are close to political leaders.
I got through it all, only because I was expecting a pay off for keeping track all the way, like a second half that would show why any of this detail matters.
But alas, no second half.
Can you say why this really matters?
zalm
5 years ago
Kevin
I don't think Will needs to draw the conclusion for everybody. We all remember how Nick Geer was going to clean up ICBC and clear the decks for private auto insurance. Same (in)difference here. We, the public, are paying for the education of the private sector. Slowly they are figuring out, one by one, that it's difficult to run public goods like private monopolies.
I don't think there's any great trick to running a corporation like Terasen or Hydro where the most difficult thing you have to do is figure out what kind of song-and-dance you have to put on for the BC Utilities Commission each year for your increase. I'm not saying I could do it (I probably couldn't) but I think there are a lot of competent managers out there who could, yet this mythos has grown up around the senior ones that they are deserving of additional opportunity and remuneration because nobody else has had the chance to do what they've done.
Of course, Gary Collins, gives lie to what I've just said, but that's politics.
If one is the least bit honest, one quickly sees that public goods need to be delivered consistently, which has been ICBC's success, and competently, which was Hydro's success years ago.
The Health regions have done neither. Most of that is due to the lack of single-minded leadership at the top, at least in operations. In a tip of the hat to Gordo, he did recognize that the old function in the Ministry of Health called Facilities Planning, which was run for years by Geoff Blackburn, did have a vision, Blackburn having had the pulse of every facility in the province for many years. Gordo then set up Sindi Hawkins to try to duplicate that work outside of the Health Authorities, but that was an impossible task, resisted fiercely by the authorities themselves.
But (notwithstanding Penny Ballem's credentials) there have been no leaders with vision at the helm of public health care in BC since before I started working for it in 1988. With all the money we're paying for private CEOs to come in and run things, you'd think we'd get some who know what leadership means.
Otherwise, what happened to Maestro's park above will continue to happen. And I've got lots of stories just like that - like one that I'm in the middle of right now that has ended up costing $2 million in redesign, and $18 million in added costs due to delays, just to satisfy VCHA.
The Health Authorities are out of control. And all the CEOs we've had aren't much help.
Will
5 years ago
Kevin
No smoking gun, no grand conclusion. Just thought it might be interesting for readers to know the players (and part of their backgrounds) as we watch a political drama unfold.
Sorry you had to struggle through it.
don quixote
5 years ago
Family Affair
Actually, Will, I found the piece quite fascinating, not just from the point of view of the players involved, but for the quick glimpse it provides through the ever-revolving door that links corporate and political interests. Surely, the more we are aware of the incestuous relationships that are maintained behind the tightly closed doors of both corporate and political boardrooms, the better our ability to understand how these relationships affect our daily lives. That not everyone has the stomach to wade through the laundry list does not mean the list itself is without value.
Apropos this article, I suppose the news about the removal of a large tract Vancouver Island forest lands from tree farm license restrictions, which opens the way for larger clearcuts and non-forestry land development, without public notice or consultation, should come as no surprise.
skeptikool
5 years ago
It's a stinking club...
It's a stinking club that taxpayers nourish with their blood.
off-the-radar
5 years ago
very solid article
another very good article Will--thank you. (I still laugh about your election one spoofing Beers although my sister assures me it was no spoof, all true).
Thank God for the Tyee in the sea of corporate capitalism and canwest propaganda.
eight
5 years ago
Good Job Will
MyBrainIsOnFire;
Right on. Problem is that the dolts currently posing as reporters and working for previously-reliable disseminators like 'NW or the local rags can't even spell disseminate these days, let alone get on a story and shine some light where we can't go.
nightbloom;
You are also right on the mark. Especially with regard to "research" paid for by entities desiring a pre-determined outcome. (UBC and fish-farming as an example?
Will;
Not yet, but without people of your calibre, where would we be? Keep putting it out, please!
Me3
5 years ago
Fascist cronyism
Gordo's reign looks more like Bush's every day.
I'm sure glad he can't call a war.
Frank
5 years ago
Always nice
To see a column from Will McMartin. Always a lot of facts and/or stats to chew on.
BC Dude
5 years ago
TILMA is a war against the
TILMA is a war against the people of BC and we must stop it now as we only have a month!
Have you noticed that TILMA comes into effect 1 day before the Basi trial?
Damn I smell another rat.
Will this kill the Legislature etal trial and the investigation?
So many questions and no answers?
BC Dude
5 years ago
TILMA is a war against the
TILMA is a war against the people of BC and we must stop it now as we only have a month!
Have you noticed that TILMA comes into effect 1 day before the Basi trial?
Damn I smell another rat.
Will this kill the Legislature etal trial and the investigation?
So many questions and no answers?
BC Dude
5 years ago
TILMA is a war against the
TILMA is a war against the people of BC and we must stop it now as we only have a month and a bit!
Have you noticed that TILMA comes into effect 1 day before the Basi trial?
Damn I smell another rat.
Will this kill the Legislature trial and the investigation?
So many questions and no answers?
BC Dude
5 years ago
TILMA is a war against the
TILMA is a war against the people of BC and we must stop it now as we only have a month and a bit!
Have you noticed that TILMA comes into effect 1 day before the Basi trial?
Damn I smell another rat.
Will this kill the Legislature trial and the investigation?
So many questions and no answers?
BC Dude
5 years ago
TILMA is Gordo's war against
TILMA is Gordo's war against the people of BC and we must stop it now as we only have a month and a bit!
Have you noticed that TILMA comes into effect 1 day before the Basi trial?
Damn I smell another rat.
Will this kill the Legislature trial and the investigation?
So many questions and no answers?
BC Dude
5 years ago
TILMA is Gordo's war against
TILMA is Gordo's war against the people of BC and we must stop it now as we only have a month and a bit!
Have you noticed that TILMA comes into effect 1 day before the Basi trial?
Damn I smell another rat.
Will this kill the Legislature trial and the investigation?
So many questions and no answers?
BC Dude
5 years ago
TILMA is Gordo's war against
TILMA is Gordo's war against the people of BC and we must stop it now as we only have a month and a bit!
Have you noticed that TILMA comes into effect 1 day before the Basi trial?
Damn I smell another rat.
Will this kill the Legislature trial and the investigation?
So many questions and no answers?
BC Dude
5 years ago
TILMA is Gordo's war against
TILMA is Gordo's war against the people of BC and we must stop it now as we only have a month and a bit!
Have you noticed that TILMA comes into effect 1 day before the Basi trial?
Damn I smell another rat.
Will this kill the Legislature trial and the investigation?
So many questions and no answers?
BC Dude
5 years ago
Damn this Tyee is going
Damn this Tyee is going crazy with my posts?
BC Dude
5 years ago
I'm outa here
I'm outa here
BC Mary
5 years ago
How will the BC Rail trial be affected, BC Dude??
BC Dude: Please talk some more about the effect of TILMA on the BCRail trial ...
I'd like to understand that better, if you can say more about it.
Thanks.
BC Mary
5 years ago
How will the BC Rail trial be affected, BC Dude??
BC Dude: Please talk some more about the effect of TILMA on the BCRail trial ...
I'd like to understand that better, if you can say more about it.
Thanks.
[PAGE NOT FOUND ... it says ... when I try to post this comment. Hmmmmm.]
BC Dude
5 years ago
Well from the way I see or
Well from the way I see or feel TILMA is a treacherous I'd even say evil give away (by gordo and ralphy) of all our Democratic Rights over to Corporations. If they deem that their profits are being impeded they can sue any federal, provincial or reginal government including any public outcry against them.
http://www.canadians.org/DI/issues/TILMA/index.html
BC Dude
5 years ago
Well from the way I see or
Well from the way I see or feel TILMA is a treacherous I'd even say evil give away (by gordo and ralphy) of all our Democratic Rights over to Corporations. If they deem that their profits are being impeded they can sue any federal, provincial or reginal government including any public outcry against them.
So April 1 2007 is a day before BC Rail Basi trial on April 2nd 2007
http://www.canadians.org/DI/issues/TILMA/index.html
BC Dude
5 years ago
damn
damn
BC Dude
5 years ago
Well from the way I
Well from the way I understand or feel TILMA is a treacherous I'd even say evil give away (by gordo and ralphy) of all our Democratic Rights over to Corporations.
If they deem that their profits are being impeded they can sue any federal, provincial or reginal government including any public outcry against them.
So April 1 2007 is a day before BC Rail Basi trial on April 2nd 2007 maybe they think they can kill the case.
http://www.canadians.org/DI/issues/TILMA/index.html
BC Dude
5 years ago
x
x
Tsolum
5 years ago
TILMA
Tilma is nothing more but a way to make an equal playing field between us and the states. It in effect will remove the Canadian Social safety net, (what is left of it) and allow deep intergration with the USA.
There seems to be a set of rich elite people in Canada that wish us to be parts of the USA or just like them, if they are reading this I would like one question answered. Why the hell don't you move there?
BC Dude
5 years ago
The reason I have so many
The reason I have so many identical blogs is when I go to upload my blog it says "page not found" so figuing it didn't go through I of course uploaded again.
Yesterday I tried to upload again same "pnf" so I put an X and uploaded and then logged out then read the blogs and there was my X?
BC Dude
5 years ago
The reason I have so many
The reason I have so many identical blogs is when I go to upload my blog it says "page not found" so figuing it didn't go through I of course uploaded again.
Yesterday I tried to upload again same "pnf" so I put an X and uploaded and then logged out then read the blogs and there was my X?
BC Dude
5 years ago
Tsolum, read this and then
Tsolum, read this and then see if you still think so.
http://www.canadians.org/DI/issues/TILMA/factsheet.html
TILMA is Gordo's treasonous war against the people of BC and WE must stop it now as WE only have a month and a bit!
Have you noticed that TILMA comes into effect 1 day before the Basi trial?
Damn I smell another rat.
Will TILMA kill the Legislature trial and the investigation?
So many questions and no answers?
G West
5 years ago
page not found
I think, BC dude, that there are still software glitches in some of these threads.
When post comment leads to 'page not found' default it doesn't mean your post hasn't been captured and displayed - just go back to home and reload the page - I think you'll find everything is copasetic.
They'll eventually get it right.
Bailey
5 years ago
Just push the back button
refresh works too. When you find your self on pagenotfound, hit back. You'll return to your place with your post showing.