August 26, 2011

A defeat for Christy Clark, Kevin Falcon and the “politics of fear”

Vancouver, BC – “A victory for common sense and working families,” Jim Sinclair, President of the BC Federation of Labour, said today in response to Elections BC’s announcement that the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) had been rejected by British Columbians in a mail-in ballot referendum.

Sinclair said that the BC Federation of Labour fought against Christy Clark’s HST because it was an unfair tax shift of $2 billion annually from large corporations to BC families.

“Clark and the BC Liberals have repeatedly cut taxes for businesses and wealthy individuals over the last decade, while imposing regressive taxes and service cuts on working people. The HST was the last straw, and British Columbians rose up and said: ‘enough is enough’.”

The BC Federation of Labour launched its’ HST information campain in June 2011 with innovative, “new media” parodies of the Clark government’s “stick-man” advertisements and conclusive research that showed Clark’s HST would leave families paying billions more and getting less in government services.

Tens of thousands of pamphlets were also mailed to select ridings currently held by BC Liberal MLAs to remind voters that every BC Liberal MLA was responsible for the HST.

“We faced an uphill battle to counter both the Clark government’s $5 million-plus propaganda campaign, and the multi-million advertising initiative launched by business interests in support of the HST,” said Sinclair “in the end common sense and the desire for fair taxes prevailed.”

Two events last week illustrated the cynical style of politics as practiced by Premier Christy Clark and her decade-old BC Liberal government.

On Thursday, the government asked reporters to assemble at a news conference in Victoria. The aim was to achieve maximum publicity for a report on the province’s largest Crown Corporation, BC Hydro and Power Authority.

Written by three Deputy Ministers hand-picked by Clark, the report said that BC’s biggest Crown Corporation was in such operational and financial disarray that one-in-every-five Hydro workers — that is, as many as 1,000 employees — had to lose their jobs.

As they had hoped, the news conference garnered a slew of supportive headlines, including ―at-cat Hydro,‖―anel cites bloated staffing levels,‖and ―lark calls for job cuts to curb rising rates.‖

The second event occurred the following day, Friday, when BC Hydro quietly released its 2010/11 Annual Report. No big news conference, no reporters in attendance — and no publicity.

(Government spin-doctors describe Friday — a day when reporters and assignment editors, like many hard-working British Columbians, begin to focus on the weekend — as ―ake-out-the-trash‖day. Simply, it’s when the government puts out negative news it wants to go un-noticed.)

Yet, the news from BC Hydro was neither negative nor unwanted. In fact, it was both positive and historic.

Our publicly-owned Crown Corporation, one learns from reading the Annual Report, had just racked up its biggest-ever profit — a phenomenal, record-breaking $589 million.

That’s correct. BC Hydro last year had unprecedented earnings in excess of a half-a-billion dollars.

And Christy Clark and her BC Liberal government wanted to keep it quiet.

They were successful. BC Hydro’s record earnings generated no headlines, no posts from bloggers, and no outraged phone calls to radio-talk shows.

And so the week ended as the BC Liberal government wanted — with many British Columbians believing that BC Hydro, the ―jewel‖ of the province’s Crown Corporations, was in financial distress and that more than one thousand employees should lose their jobs – in a year in which the Company made record profits.

How is it possible that a comprehensive review of BC Hydro made not a single mention of the Crown Corporation’s record-breaking profit?

The 124-page document states that Christy’s three Deputy Ministers — John Dyble, Peter Milburn and Cheryl Wenezenki-Yolland — conducted their analysis aided by ―a multi-disciplinary team, who, with the support of expert consultants, conducted a broad scan of BC Hydro.‖

That team apparently included as many as ―20 professionals, mostly working on site at BC Hydro for seven weeks.‖

Shockingly, three senior and experienced Deputy Ministers, aided by 20 ―professionals‖ and an unknown number of ―expert consultants‖ working at BC Hydro headquarters for almost two months, somehow failed to discern that the Crown Corporation had just ended its fiscal year with unprecedented earnings.

More likely, the BC Liberal government knew about BC Hydro’s historic profit and decided to keep it quiet. Perhaps it’s hard to justify vaporizing 1,000 employees when their company is making money hand-over-fist.

But that omission is just one of many incredible aspects of the BC Hydro review.

For example, the Deputies’ report found that labour costs — including ―regular salaries, overtime costs and other pay‖ — at the Crown Corporation add up to just $500 million annually, or ―approximately 14 percent‖ of this year’s revenue requirement.

That is,for every seven dollars that BC Hydro spends each year, just one dollar goes to pay its workers (including executives and managers).

Where do the other six dollars go? According to the Annual Report, the Crown Corporation last year spent $676 million buying electricity from so-called Independent Power Producers (IPP).

That’s correct: BC Hydro spent

more money on purchases from IPPs than it did on its entire workforce.

Even worse, consider this sentence from the Deputies’ review: ―BC Hydro is required to pay for energy delivered by the IPP regardless of whether it needs the energy or not.‖

So, did Christy’s Deputies recommend cutting back on payments to IPPs? Nope.

Or did they suggest that the dumb $930 million Smart Meter Initiative ought to be cancelled? No, again.

Two different reports on two consecutive days. One said that BC Hydro had just achieved historic profitability; the other claimed that the Crown Corporation had to fire 1,000 workers.

Christy Clark wanted one report to get maximum publicity, and the other buried with little notice.

Welcome to BC politics, Christy-style.

FBA chair and HEU’s secretary-business manager Judy Darcy announced that she will be seeking the NDP nomination in the provincial constituency of New Westminster in order to run in the next provincial election.

The riding is represented by Dawn Black who has announced that she will not be seeking re-election.

HEU president Ken Robinson and financial secretary Donisa Bernardo both expressed their support for Darcy’s nomination bid citing her strong leadership qualities and commitment to social justice issues.

Please come out  in support of Judy Darcy to the nomination meeting on August 30, 2011 at 7:00pm at the CAW Hall in New West.

In solidarity.