Americans could learn from us on deficit

Americans could fix their big deficit/debt crisis relatively painlessly.

All they have to do is pay the same level of taxes as Canadians do.

U.S. politicians are playing brinkmanship over raising the debt limit. Posturing and ideology have replaced any hint of intelligence or common sense. The risks to the U.S. and world economies are serious.

Basically, the problem is simple

The U.S. spends much more than it takes in. The Tea Party politicians pretend that it's feasible to cut spending by 40 per cent as a solution. It's not.

But there is a solution. The U.S. collects taxes equal to 24 per cent of its GDP. If the take was increased to 31 per cent - the amount collected in Canada - the current year's deficit would fall from $1.5 trillion to $500 billion.

We manage with that level of taxation. Our economy is stronger than the U.S. economy. Our society, arguably, functions better. Creativity and entrepreneurship aren't strangled.

If the U.S. tax revenue was increased to the OECD average of 34.8 per cent of GDP, Americans have a balanced budget without cutting anything from spending.

Most of us grumble about paying taxes, especially when governments do goofy things with our money - like spending on fast ferries or stadium roofs or mismanaged convention centres.

But the current level of taxation in Canada isn't obviously punitive. We share the costs of services like schools and health care and police and get obvious value for much of the money we send off to government. OECD countries function well, for the most part, with their levels of taxation.

It's not like the money disappears. Seniors get pensions and spend the money in their communities. The navy employees a few thousand people in Victoria, and buys services from scores of companies. We drive on the roads that our tax dollars pay for, and call the police when we need them.

It irks some that the payments are compulsory. I can boycott stores I don't like or decide not to eat out, but I have to send a cheque off to Revenue Canada. People without kids pay for schools. People who oppose the war in Afghanistan pay for bigger military budgets.

But that's the price of living in a democratic society. It's pretty good value.

Taxes pay for services we need. We can and should go wild when governments waste our money. We shouldn't pretend that paying for the things we need and use is somehow a bad thing.

American politicians seem trapped in fantasyland.

Let's hope we learn from their delusion.

Province undermining missing women inquiry

It might be time to pull the plug on the public inquiry into missing and murdered women.

The Liberal government's support for the inquiry, headed by former attorney general Wally Oppal, has always been suspect. Even when police joined the widespread calls for an independent review, the government dragged its feet.

Now Premier Christy Clark and Attorney General Barry Penner are undermining the inquiry. They have overruled Oppal's decisions on what's required to make it an effective, thorough review of how Robert Pickton could prey on women for years.

Oppal heard applications from individuals and groups that wanted standing at the hearings - the right to review documents, question witnesses, provide evidence and respond to the testimony.

He narrowed the list to 13 groups, and recommended the government provide funding for their legal costs. He was only seeking funding for those groups who were needed to get answers and had "satisfied me that they would not be able to participate fully without financial support," Oppal said.

Penner said no, and Clark has supported the position despite Oppal's pleas for reconsideration. The government can't afford the legal costs, they say. The commission will have lawyers. Perhaps they can look after the interests of the groups. (The government will pay for one lawyer for the families of Pickton's victims.)

Five of the 13 groups have already pulled out of the inquiry, including the Native Women's Association of Canada and WISH, a drop-in centre for Downtown Eastside sex workers.

Penner's concerns about costs are understandable. Inquiries can become expensive.

Except his concern about costs extends only those representing the victims and other missing women. Those groups can be expected to have an interest in, and knowledge of, the factors - police and political indifference, racism, poverty, lack of social supports - that might have played a role in allowing Pickton to kill for years.

Police officers called before the inquiry will have publicly funded lawyers. Any politicians, past or present, who might be called to testify, or even mentioned in the course of the inquiry, will have taxpayer-funded lawyers. So will government employees.

But Clark isn't suggesting those people should rely on the commission's lawyers.

If the concern is costs, and Penner really believes that it's adequate to have the commission's lawyers ensure fairness and a thorough examination of the facts, then he should provide a level playing field. That means no public funding for anyone involved.

Penner won't do that. He is prepared to provide legal funding for those with power, but not for those without it. They are, like the missing women, second class.

It's not just the groups. Kim Rossmo is a former Vancouver police officer whose warnings that a serial killer was at work were ignored. He is a professor in Texas now and was to be an important witness at the inquiry.

But the government has also refused to pay for legal representation for Rossmo. Other officers will have taxpayer-paid lawyers to question him, review documents on their behalf and protect their interests. He is expected to pay for his own lawyer.

The inquiry's credibility is rapidly being eroded. On Friday, the Native Women's Association of Canada called for a federal inquiry.

"The government of B.C. has shut us out of the British Columbia Missing Women Commission of Inquiry, and now we have no confidence that it will be able to produce a fair and balanced report," president Jeannette Corbiere. "The decision of the B.C. government to restrict funding for counsel primarily to police and government agencies demonstrates how flawed and one sided this process has become."

This inquiry should be important. Scores of women disappeared; dozens were killed. The institutions that were supposed to protect all citizens failed them. Without an inquiry, we won't know what went wrong - and whether women continue to be killed.

But the government is undermining before work even starts.

Footnote: Penner also says the groups might be able to participate in less formal hearings that will be held in conjunction with the inquiry. But again, he has not explained why these groups should be denied full participation in the inquiry, as Oppal has recommended, while the legal representation to allow police and politicians to participate is fully funded.

Gap between rich and rest widening

We've become a lot more unequal society in Canada, widening the gap between the rich and the rest. The top earners have increased their share of after-tax income in the last three decades, with the gap widening since 2000.

Middle and lower-income families saw their shares shrink.

The highest income quintile - the top 20 per cent of Canadians - shared 39 per cent of all income in 2009. The bottom 20 per cent split seven per cent of the total income.

This all didn't happen as the result of some unavoidable force of nature (or economics). Governments, for example, made changes that delivered a greater share of the overall income to the rich. Which meant a smaller share for everyone else.

And despite the shift's significance, there was not much public debate.

The Conference Board of Canada has just offered a useful look at the issue (see conferenceboard.ca), and raised important questions.

A few hard-core ideologues see the issue simply. But it's complex.

If you work too hard to reduce income inequality, the theory goes, you remove the rewards that encourage people to build businesses or climb the corporate ladder. The economy is weaker as a result.

If income inequality becomes too great, a society suffers other problems. There are economic ones - when success is only rewarded for a relative handful of winners, the incentive for most people to strive is reduced.

There are also moral issues. The idea of some people enjoying huge incomes while children live a few streets away in desperate poverty should be troubling.

And the Conference Board notes another risk. "To participate fully in society, individuals need a level of resources that is not too far below the norm in that community," it noted.

When people's incomes fall too far - when the gap becomes too great - they are excluded. Which means they have much less stake in accepting the laws and rules imposed by the society that has left them out.

Especially when the rebuff is so pointed. The Conference Board report cites a Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives study that tracked the incomes of the richest one per cent of Canadians, using tax return data. That group - 246,000 people whose average income was $405,000 - claimed almost one-third of all growth in incomes during the boom years from 1998 to 2007.

Market forces have played a role. Globalization meant manufacturing moved offshore to countries with lower labour costs; that reduced demand for workers and resulted in lower wages in countries like Canada. Highly skilled people, by contrast, are in greater demand.

But government policies have widened the income gap. Traditionally, governments have redistributed income to reduce the distance between the rich and the poor. Taxes are progressive, so the rich pay more. Transfer payments - disability assistance, unemployment insurance, pensions - boost the incomes of those at the bottom of the heap. Minimum wage laws and other regulations protect those with the least economic bargaining power.

The Conference Board found that between 1976 and 1994, the tax and transfer system increasingly reduced income inequality.

But since 1994, the trend reversed. Tax and transfer policies played a role in increasing the income gap. In 1990, for example, about 83 per cent of unemployed people were eligible for EI benefits; that was chopped to 48 per cent by 2009.

It's not all gloom. The high-income earners reaped the largest share of economic growth. But the Conference Board reports the average income level of the poorest group of people rose, "marginally," from $12,400 in 1976 to $14,500 in 2009 - about 17 per cent over 33 years. (The numbers are adjusted for inflation.)

But the highest-earning quintile saw a 26 per cent increase in average income. The income gap widened from $92,300 in 1976 to $117,500 in 2009.

A widening income gap isn't inevitable. The Conference Board found Canada had among the highest income gaps among peer countries, ranking 12th out of 17. Many of the more equal countries had equally strong economies.

This should be a central political and social issue for Canadians. The gap between those at the top of the income pyramid and the rest in the middle and bottom is widening. There should be, at least, a discussion of what that means and how much disparity Canadians are prepared to accept.

Globe: Firms with B.C. Liberal ties awarded secret contracts in pro-HST campaign

The Liberals bypassed normal tendering processes and its pro-HST campaign secretly arranged deals with friendly companies and a former aide to Colin Hansen, who introduced the tax as finance minister, Sean Holman reports in The Globe and Mail today.

Campaign Research Ltd., which worked on George Abbott's leadership campaign got $167,800 to conduct those town hall telephone meetings on the tax.

Backbone Technology, which has worked for the Liberal party for 10 years, got $52,747 contract to do the HST website.

And Marc Andrew, Hansen's former aide, was paid more than $33,000 to provide "political advice" to Tom Syer, the head of the HST sales campaign, and help the independent panel that assessed the tax.

None of the contracts were tendered, the normal procedure for contracts worth more than $25,000.

Holman reports the government's response.

There is a simple test of the appropriateness of these contracts.

What would Christy Clark have said if the former NDP government had done the same thing? Would she have accepted the reasons for awarding $250,000 in contracts to friends of the government without competitive bids?

Or cried foul?

MLAs get thousands for 22 minutes work on committee

MLAs Norm Letnick and Rob Fleming got an awful lot of extra money for almost no work last year.

Letnick, a Liberal from Kelowna-Lake Country, was paid $13,353 - on top of MLAs' base pay of $101,859 - to chair a legislative committee that met once, for 22 minutes. Fleming, a New Democrat from Victoria-Swan Lake, was paid $8,903 as deputy chair.

The two led the grandly named Select Standing Commitee on Parliamentary Reform, Ethical Conduct, Standing Orders and Private Bills.

The committee met once in the last fiscal year, rubber stamping two housecleaning bills for non-profits. It took less than half an hour.

Letnick and Fleming didn't set the pay. All MLAs approved the pay rates after a 2007 report on MLAs compensation. They took the money though.

They weren't alone. New Democrat Jenny Kwan was paid $4,437 as deputy chair of the legislative initiatives committee, which met twice, for three hours, to discuss the HST petition.

The legislative committee on children and youth met four times in the fiscal year. Chair Joan McIntyre was paid $13,353 for the work; deputy chair Maurine Karagianis, $8,206.

That was a more serious committee. There was work between meetings and a five-and-a-half hour session on poverty in Vancouver. But the chair was still paid more than $3,000 per meeting.

On one hand, you can't fault the MLAs. The pay scale was put in place by the legislature. Their parties backed them for the positions.

Letnick notes he had the second lowest travel expenses among Interior and Northern MLAs and worked long and diligently. "I work really hard to make sure I can defend everything that I have control over," he said.

Still, $13,353 is a lot of money for presiding over one meeting.

The pay didn't used to be so grand. Until 2007, MLAs got $6,000 for chairing a committee and $3,000 for serving as vice-chair.

The committee set up to review MLAs' compensation and expense allowances decided that wasn't enough.

The three-member panel's recommendation of a 29-per-cent increase in base pay, from $76,100 to $98,000, got most of the attention. But it also recommended big increases in the wide range of extra pay that sees just over half the MLAs in the legislature get a salary top-up. (The actual average pay rate is over $120,000.)

Compensation for committee chairs, for example, more than doubled, from $6,000 to $14,700; vice-chairs got an even larger increase, from $3,000 to $9,800. The committee didn't explain why the compensation should be tripled.

Parliamentary secretaries - helpers for ministers - were receiving an extra $6,000 a year. Now they are paid an extra $15,000. Caucus chairs got $6,000. Now they are paid more than $20,000.

And of course the extra pay for being premier doubled, from $45,000 to more than $90,000.

The increases, including a much more generous pension plan, were all recommended by an independent panel.

But the government picked the panelists - two senior lawyers and a business professor. Their average income, I'd wager, was well over $200,000. Their perspective on compensation would inevitably be skewed by their own experiences. Unlike past compensation committees, there was no one earning the average B.C. wage of abut $40,000.

The money, in the grand scheme of things, is small. MLAs work long hours and, in my experience, mostly seek office out of a real desire to improve life in their communities.

But the huge increases show a disconnect between the lives of British Columbians who are also working hard, taking on extra tasks and count themselves fortunate to get any pay raises. The $13,353 Letnick got for chairing one 20-minute meeting is 23 per cent more than a disabled person on assistance gets to live on for an entire year.

MLAs deserve fair pay. But it is troubling that a sense of entitlement seems to have taken hold, one that distances them from the realities of life for most British Columbians.

Footnote: For more than 20 years, the Washington state has had a 16-person salary commission to deal with pay for elected officials. One member is selected at random from the voters' list in each of nine geographical areas. The politicians appoint five members - one each from universities, business, personnel management, the law and organized labour. The state's HR department and universities get to name one person each. Other states have taken similar approaches.

Corporate sponsors and special access to the premiers

An editorial today in the Times Colonist:

The unseemly premiers

Convention organizers often seek sponsors willing to pay to curry favour with attendees.

But the country's premiers shouldn't be asking corporations to subsidize their meetings.

When provincial and territorial premiers meet in Vancouver this week, the events will be subsidized by business donors, commentator David Schreck notes.

The Insurance Brokers Association of Canada, lobby group for that industry, is the platinum sponsor. Amgen, campaigning for public funding for an expensive cancer drug, is a gold sponsor, along with CN and the major beer companies.

Encana, a major player in Alberta and B.C. gas fields, and a beneficiary from government decisions on royalty rates, is a silver sponsor. So is the lobby group for research-based pharmaceutical companies and Borealis Infrastructure, a player in public-private partnerships.

Licia Corbella, in a column on this page on similar sponsorships for a federal-provincial energy ministers' conference in Alberta, notes the damage done.

The companies are spending money in the interests of shareholders. They must feel they will gain special access to the premiers, or favourable consideration in future. Even if they don't, the perception will exist.

Corporations who choose not to pay up will wonder if that will be held against them, by the politicians or the conference organizers.

And ordinary citizens, or businesses that can't pay, must worry that their concerns will come second to the interests of the corporations that donated.

HST a cash cow, and other news from the Public Accounts

The HST as cash cow, the incredible shrinking deficit and three other interesting things from the Public Accounts, the final report on the province's financial performance in the last fiscal year.
First, the Public Accounts reveal that, government claims to the contrary, the HST represents a significant tax increases targeted at individuals and families.
The HST was in effect for the final nine months of the last fiscal year, which ended March 31. It pulled in $4.2 billion, or about $467 million a month.
In the previous year, the PST take was about $392 million a month.
So the HST provides government with an extra 19 per cent - roughly $900 million more a year than the PST, or about $210 per man, woman and child in the province. (That's slightly overstated - about $100 million of the increase is due to economic growth, based on the government's budget assumptions.)
That's on top of the HST impact of shifting some $2 billion in taxes off corporations and businesses and onto individuals and families.
Second, the government continues to introduce budgets - except for the 2009 election budget - with huge cushions. The budget forecast a deficit of $1.7 billion. The actual deficit, according to the public accounts, was $309 million. As recently as February, the government was still forecasting a $1.3-billion deficit.
Tax revenues were $780 million higher than expected, in large part because the government underestimated HST revenues in the budget. Crown corporations revenues were $181 million over budget, mainly because the government took $180 million more from B.C. Hydro revenues than it expected.
And spending was reined in. Overall, spending increased $903 million, or 2.3 per cent over the previous year. But that largely reflects health spending, up 4.1 per cent. Education spending - K to 12 and postsecondary - was up about one per cent. Other spending was effectively frozen, despite the huge pressures in areas like Community Living B.C.'s support for people with developmental disabilities.
Prudence is a virtue, of course; better to err on the side of caution and all that. And some room for unexpected occurrences has to be built into a $30-billion-plus budget.
But consistently coming in under budget by huge amounts cheats MLAs and the public.
A more accurate budget forecast might have resulted in different choices by the legislature. Perhaps, had MLAs known the deficit was to be $309 million, not $1.7 billion, they would have voted to spend more on support for schools or additional surgeries.
Or they might have decided there would be room for substantial across-the-board income tax cuts, given the relatively small deficit.
Those options were removed because of the inaccurate budget presented to the legislature.
Third, the Public Accounts report that the B.C. economy grew by four per cent in 2010, third strongest among the province. That's obviously good news and the increased economic activity played a role in the increased government revenues. But the report warns growth is expected to slow to two per cent this year.
And it noted the recovery didn't ease the unemployment rate. Full-time employment increased 1.1 per cent, and the number of people working full-time is still below 2007 and 2008 levels. Unemployment improved slightly, to 7.6 per cent - the highest level since 2003.
Finally, the accounts reported the province's total debt, despite recent deficits and infrastructure spending, increased by $3.3 billion, to $45.2 billion. Taxpayer-supported debt equals 15.7 per cent of GDP, a manageable level.
The NDP did highlight a big jump in long-term commitments that will bind future governments - and taxpayers - well into the future. The contracts, for everything from payments to private companies building hospitals to highway maintenance, increased from $53 billion to $80 billion in one year. More than half the commitments - $45 billion - bind B.C. Hydro to buy expensive electricity from private power companies.
Footnote: The Public Accounts - available online at www.fin.gov.bc.ca - also reports on MLA pay and expense claims.
The base pay for the fiscal year was $102,000. But 44 of the 85 MLAs qualified for additional payments because they were in cabinet, chaired committees or played various other roles.
The actual average pay for an MLA was a record $120,198.

So who's managing the government's HST sales job? It's a secret

Sean Holman filed an FOI to find out who was working in the government's HST sales office and managing the multimillion ad campaign to convince people to vote to keep the tax.
But the government wouldn't reveal the names of anyone, including a "special adviser" from outside government.
See his piece here.

Clark�s stumbles raise political questions

So how�s Christy Clark doing, after four months as premier? That�s a big question for the Liberals. If Clark is doing well, they can afford to delay an election. If not, a fall election is in the cards.
Only a few people know how effective Clark has been in getting the right things done in government - MLAs, deputy ministers, and those affected by government decisions.
Most of us form opinions on what we read about her performance, or see on the news, or our vague sense of what she�s done.
And the media narrative seems to be turning a bit negative.
Clark started well, but that was easy. She just had to not be Gordon Campbell.
So Clark raised the minimum wage - a good and overdue step. She fired both the minister and the top manager in the children and families ministry. She ordered a review of B.C. Hydro�s politically ordered, expensive plans. And she floated a proposal to save the HST, acknowledging the Liberals had been planning to gouge families and benefit corporations.
And she was likable, donning a Canucks� jersey and just being darn enthusiastic. Clark is a an excellent politician. She sounds good, if you don�t listen too hard.
But the tide seemed to shift last month.
First, Clark sent an unclear message after the Stanley Cup riots. She was hardline initially. �If you are responsible, we will hold you responsible. Your family, friends and employers will know," she said. "We will ensure we have the resources to do this. You will not be able to hide behind your hoodie or your bandana." Get ready for a jail cell, Clark said.
Then she backtracked. The target was a �core� group of instigators, not young people who just got caught �when they were most likely to make a colossal, irreparable mistake.�
Then Clark floated weird ideas for Senate reform in her first official Ottawa visit.
B.C. is shortchanged in the Senate. The province, with 4.5 million people, is represented by six senators. New Brunswick, with 750,000 people, has 10. But fixing the imbalance requires a change to the constitution, virtually impossible given the amending formula and the opposition of provinces that would lose seats.
In Ottawa, Clark said her first choice is abolition. But she had lawyers looking at whether senators could be added for B.C. without changing the constitution, she said.
That�s a nonstarter, experts agree. Adding senators is clearly a constitutional change.
Later, Clark said she had floated a different idea with Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He should leave Senate seats vacant in Atlantic Canada and Quebec so B.C. and other under-represented provinces would have more clout.
The ideas was widely derided as goofy and legally dubious. What prime minister would rile voters in five provinces by deliberately failing to appoint the senators they were entitled to under the constitution?
This week, Clark stumbled on a plan to use a gas tax increase to help pay for a new transit line in the Lower Mainland. Mayors had negotiated the plan and Transportation Minister Blair Lekstrom said the province backed it.
But in a press conference Monday, Clark suggested she might veto the gas tax.
�When British Columbians say that they�re not really excited about paying more gas taxes, I get that,� Clark said. �Because my focus as premier is about how do we make life more affordable for people rather than less affordable.�
By Wednesday, Lekstrom was smoothing the waters and assuring the mayors it was all a misunderstanding.
On one hand, it�s welcome to have a politician willing to stray from carefully crafted and often meaningless talking points. Voters might find some candour, even thinking out loud, welcome.
But the risk is that Clark will be seen as a policy lightweight given to speaking and acting without sufficient thought, and at risk of making big mistakes.
In politics, unfortunately, it�s tough to shake that kind of image once it takes hold.
Footnote: The HST referendum remains the big election factor. If the HST is dumped, the next question will be how many of the former PST exemptions will be cancelled as the government looks to increase revenue. Those decisions could rekindle all the original anti-HST anger and more.

A child's death, a nation's shame

The Times Colonist looked at the shooting death of a five-year-old boy on an Alberta reserve today. The statistical portrait of reserve life was striking and horrifying.


"Consider the numbers. Ethan Yellowbird was a member of the Samson nation. His grandfather is chief. According to the 2006 census, about 3,300 people lived on the reserve. The median age was 20; 37 per cent of the population was under 15.

There were 765 families on the reserve - couples, with or without children, and single parents. And 345 of them, or 45 per cent, were single-parent families. That's more than three times the rate for the rest of the province.

The median family income was $19,776, compared with the Alberta median of $73,823.

The unemployment rate was 27 per cent. Thirty-four per cent of residents over 15 had a high school education or better, compared with 76 per cent of Albertans.

The numbers offer a limited portrait of a struggling community - poor, undereducated and underemployed.

And the large numbers of young people growing up without hope of a better future suggest decades of struggle ahead."

You can read the rest here.

Gambling grant review long overdue

Governments love charities as props whenever they want to expand gambling.
They use them to legitimize what is, overall, a destructive industry. As Gordon Campbell said, before he launched the biggest gambling expansion in B.C.'s history, the only way governments make money from gambling is by creating losers. The B.C. government shouldn't be creating a province of losers, he said.
Governments - Socred, NDP, Liberal - always used the fact that charities get a share of gambling revenues to justify new ways of plucking the public's wallets.
Once the plan is in place, they begin to forget about the charities and grab more and more cash for their own revenues.
There are periodic backlashes. One of the biggest came in 2009, when the government chopped grants to non-profits around the province by 23 per cent. The pool of money went from $156 million to $120 million without warning, consultation or, apparently, a whole lot of thought.
When Christy Clark took over as premier, she added $15 million to last year's grants. But this year, it's once again cut to $120 million.
Clark announced a review of the gambling grants Tuesday, to be headed by Skip Triplett, a consultant and former college president. He's supposed to consult around the province and report by Oct. 31 on better ways of doing the grants.
He is to look at everything - the levels of funding, the criteria, the application process.
The review is overdue. Charities have been getting pushed around on gambling revenue since at least the 1970s. They originally sold lottery tickets in the province, earning commission on the sales that supported their activities. The government pushed them out to make more money.
They ran casinos and bingos, but were shoved out of those activities as well, with the promise that their revenues would be protected. That sparked a lot of fighting when the promise was broken. In 1997, the association representing non-profits that had been involved in gambling signed an agreement with government guaranteeing them 33 per cent of gambling revenues.
If the deal had been kept, charities would be getting about $400 million a year today, not $120 million.
But the Liberals said they wouldn't honour the written agreement.
This year, the government expects to make about $1.2 billion from gambling - lotteries, casinos and online betting. (Which works out to an astonishing $265 in gambling losses for every man, woman and child in the province.)
Non-profits will get $120 million from gambling grants. Communities that have casinos and gambling centres will share $82 million, an incentive to encourage them to accept businesses unpopular with many residents.
And the government will keep the rest - about $1 billion.
The grants are vital to most of the approximately 6,000 organizations that get some funding under the program. School parent advisory councils get $20 per student, for example. Ski patrols, community youth programs, patient support groups, arts organizations - the list is long. The average grant is about $20,000.
The money is never their sole source of income. They fundraise on top of the contributions. But the grants provide a critical support.
There are always grants that could be questioned, by at least some people. But a closer look generally finds the groups are doing useful work.
The review could be useful as well, though many of the needed improvements to the program are obvious. The funding is almost always year-to-year, for example. Multi-year agreements - assuming outcomes are met - would allow much better planning.
The grant criteria are subject to arbitrary changes at any time. When the government chopped grants in 2009, for example, it took particular aim at grants to arts organizations.
The review should be helpful. The grants are part of the justification for expanding gambling. They make a significant difference in communities across the province. It's past time for a proper policy.
Footnote: It's puzzling that MLAs couldn't have done much of this work. The legislature rarely sits and they are supposed to be aware of the opinions of people in their constituencies. At a minimum, they could have reduced the need for provincewide consultations.

Scathing report raise environmental protection concerns

British Columbians should be shocked by a scathing auditor general's report exposing major flaws in the environmental review process for major projects.
The report is devastating and contradicts past government claims about a rigorous reviews and careful monitoring. And the failures should surely have been obvious if anyone in government had been paying attention.
The B.C. Environmental Assessment Office is responsible for reviewing and approving major developments - mines, dams, new resort communities and the like. Right now, it has more than $30 billion worth of projects under review.
It can reject proposals, in theory. But that has only happened once, while 115 projects have been approved.
But when the office issues an environmental assessment certificate, it does include commitments the developer is legally required to meet to minimize environmental damage. The office tries to ensure that the impact of projects is mitigated by these measures.
Auditor general John Doyle looked at that aspect of the office's operations. It was a dismaying exercise.
The Environmental Assessment Office doesn't know if the conditions it imposes in approving projects are "measurable and enforceable," the audit said. The wording is often weak - companies are ordered to "try" to avoid damage, for example. As a result, the developers can't be held to account for violating the legal conditions of their permits.
And anyway, the auditor general found, the office makes no real effort to check on whether the commitments are being obeyed on the ground.
There was a pilot program that saw inspectors actually visit development sites, to see if the rules were being followed and if they were achieving the desired environmental goals. But the program was cancelled.
The assessment office relies on compliance reports from the companies. But some companies don't send them in and there is no formal system for tracking the reports or specific problems.
Doyle also found the Environmental Assessment Office fails to provide enough information to the public to allow accountability.
None of this is to suggest companies or developers are setting out to do environmental damage. And other government agencies, in some cases, are also checking environmental performance.
But it's simply reality that some operators will cut corners and take shortcuts. Some measures will prove ineffective and could be adjusted - if the office was actually visiting the sites.
Without an effective assessment and monitoring process, needless, lasting damage could be done.
The report is bad news for Premier Christy Clark. Like Gordon Campbell, she has insisted the province's process is tough and effective. And both have argued that it shouldn't be necessary for major projects to go through both federal and provincial reviews.
That's a tough sell when the province's efforts are questionable at best.
The provincial assessment process was already being questioned. It approved the Prosperity mine southwest of Williams Lake, judging the environmental damage - which included turning a lake into a tailings dump - as acceptable given the economic benefits.
But a federal review came to the opposite conclusion, and the Harper government said no to the mine. (The company subsequently decided it didn't need to destroy the lake after all, but the project still has not been approved.)
Clark lobbied Stephen Harper to reverse the decision, presumably citing the B.C. environmental review. His refusal looks wise at this point.
B.C. is resource-rich and development - whether of new pipelines, mines, resort towns or run-of-river power projects - brings jobs and economic growth. There has been a significant boom, particularly in the oil and gas sector.
But governments have insisted they are doing an effective job of protecting the environment by imposing strict conditions on companies to ensure damage is minimized.
That's not happening.
The auditor general has offered a damaging critique of a cornerstone of environmental protection. It's up to Clark to respond with an effective plan and funding.
Footnote: Environment Minister Terry Lake wouldn't respond to the report; he said he wants to meet Doyle first. That's baffling. The government gets auditor's reports well in advance so its response can be included in the published version. The minister should have been ready.

Auntie Nan

Auntie Nan, the wife of my dad's brother Eric, died just short of her 96th birthday, dignity intact.
That's her on the left.

Ontario voters get better democracy than we do

Premier Christy Clark is supposedly looking at a fall election. If this were Ontario, voters would be casting much more informed ballots.
And B.C. governments would be much less likely to present bogus pre-election budgets.
An Ontario election is already scheduled for Oct. 6; the province has fixed election dates. The parties are in the long unofficial campaign; the public is trying to sort out their claims and promises.
Voters just got big help with this task, thanks to an Ontario accountability law introduced eight years ago.
The Ontario government is required to present a report on the state of the province's finances and its plans for the next three years before the election. That includes economic assumptions and spending and revenue plans.
The auditor general must review the plans and report publicly on whether they are sound, highlighting any potential problem areas. (The review found the Liberal government's cost-cutting plans weren't realistic.)
If a similar law had been in place in B.C., the outcome might well have been different in two of the last four elections.
The Liberals, not the NDP, might have won the closely fought 1996 election. The New Democrats launched their campaign that year after tabling a pre-election budget projecting an $87 million surplus for the current year and a $16 million surplus for the year that had just ended.
After the election, the real numbers showed deficits of more than $350 million in each year. A subsequent auditor general's report damned the government's budget preparation and said it had unreasonably inflated revenue projections.
And the NDP might well have won the 2009 election. The Liberals' pre-election budget projected a $495 million deficit, a number Gordon Campbell insisted was accurate right through the campaign. The real deficit turned out to be $2.8 billion. Voters might have been much less keen on a government that had sunk the province so deeply into red ink.
The sad part is that B.C. should have just such a law. The 1996 budget scandal triggered a report by the auditor general and an independent review of the budget process. Neither went far enough to head off the wildly inaccurate - and politically advantageous - 2009 pre-election budget.
Which leaves voters in a bad spot.
Clark will decide on when to call an election based on political advantage. The fixed election date law was supposed to end that practice, but it's reasonable for a new premier, facing a two-year wait until the next election, to seek a mandate earlier.
So if Clark thinks the Liberals have greater chances of winning this fall than they would next year, then she'll call an an election. That assessment will be based on polling and the results of the HST referendum - if the tax is hammered, a vote would be less likely.
And the Clark strategists are watching to see if NDP leader Adrian Dix is gaining ground and if Conservative leader John Cummins is attracting enough support to split the traditional Liberal vote.
An election this fall would be fought on the basis of this year's February budget. But it's not credible, particularly in years two and three of the plan. Most ministries had their budgets cut this year; those impacts are just being felt. And the budgets, under the plan, are frozen for the next two years, despite growing population and increased demand. Without deep service cuts, the budget won't be balanced by 2013/14 as planned.
And a spring election, following another pre-election budget, would offer voters no greater certainty about budget credibility.
The best choice for voters? A commitment to match Ontario's commitment to openness and accountability by ensuring an indendent report on the credibility of pre-election budgets.
And a vote in the fall of 2012, when voters have had chance to see the performance of Dix and Clark in dealing with the issues.
Footnote: The federal government provides a similar, even broader independent review. The parliamentary budget officer reports to MPs - and the public - on the credibility of budget plans and the assumptions underlying major projects, like the purchase of fighter jets. The office has expressed concerns about the government's ability to meet its targets for spending cuts based on its current plans.

America�s Apple economy widens the winner-loser gap

That's the headline on an interesting piece in the Globe today.
The column by Chrystia Freeland looks at a study on the economic impact of the iPod. The study found that, in 2006, the dandy device produced 41,000 jobs.
But, despite Apple's California roots, 27,000 of them were outside the U.S. and 14,000 were inside.
The foreign jobs making the iPod paid an average $12,000 a year; the American jobs an average $53,000.
That's one issue. Though it's worth noting that $12,000 is pretty good pay in most of the countries where these people worked, and that if they were paid $53,000 � or if the jobs stayed in the states � an iPod would cost $950 and no one would buy them.
More striking was the winner and loser gap in America.
The study found about 6,100 of the jobs in the U.S. went to 'engineers and professionals,' paid an average $90,000.
The remaining 7,800 jobs were in retail, support services, shipping and the like � and the average wage was $28,000.
Thus the winner-loser gap.
This is a big change. A generation ago, engineers might have been earning the equivalent of $90,000. But non-engineers were working in auto plants, mines, the forest industry or officers, and making the equivalent of $40,000 to $60,000.
Those jobs have gone, or been devalued. A smaller group of workers has commanded much more of the wage pool.
There has been little discussion of whether this is desirable, or right, and what long-term effects it will have.
And an odd assumption that it represents some force of nature, rather than a series of policy choices.