Are There No more Honourable Men, Hari Kari Is In Order

Written by Grant G



Many have awaited my analysis of BC`s 2013 election, the mainstream media have weighed in, bloggers and pundits too..

No one is happy with the result, pollsters led us astray, or did they, I am of the belief that pollsters posted results with deliberate guile, had anyone known that in fact at the beginning of the writ period the two big parties were actually tied in support levels the campaign would have taken a drastically different direction, the BC Liberal record would have been front and center, the scandals and lies would have been highlighted..

The mainstream media and pollsters worked hand in hand to screw the NDP, it`s been that way since 1996, Adrian Dix announced his election strategy 18 months ago, he wasn`t going negative or personal, pundits on radio and TV challenged Adrian for months on whether he would change his early announced tactics, this was very important for the pollsters and media personalities to know, the reason is obvious, with Mr. Dix stuck in neutral the pollsters had to portray a precise picture in his mind, that picture was an illusion, that picture was of Adrian Dix cruising to victory, it was vitally important that they didn`t spook the NDP from the sanctuary of their peaceful perch..

I was 35 years old and didn`t know any better, that was the utterance that sent Adrian Dix into the dustbin of the defeated.

Angus Reid, Ipsos Reid, they had one thing in common, their employer, the people who paid for the service are the clients of corporatism, they were enemies of the NDP, enemies who wanted the status quo..

The only other things the pollsters reported correctly was....The public felt that neither Adrian Dix or Christy Clark was worthy of the office of premier and the public wanted change, unfortunately there wasn`t change on the ballot, there was a choice between the corrupt BC Liberals and a fatally flawed Adrian Dix..

My post on John Horgan and the NDP leadership written in April of 2011 spelled it out clearly..I congratulated both Adrian Dix and Bill Tieleman for winning the leadership contest, that was a mistake, thanking them was a mistake, I listened to the leadership shindig event on the internet, it was web-casted, on my computer and from actual reports from people at the event, in fact I believe it was Michael Smyth on CKNW who was reporting on the event concluded the attending crowd was clearly in John Horgan`s corner...On my computer all I could hear was "Horgan Horgan Horgan" ..

And then came the first ballot results, Adrian Dix had won the contest virtually on the first ballot, a lead to big to overcome, and all I could think of was Mable Elmore and others, with Adrian Dix walking into NDP headquarters right at the membership sign-up deadline with thousands of memberships and a sack of cash, $10 dollar bills to be exact, the money not even yet attached to the membership card..

So Adrian Dix back-dated a stupid memo in the 90`s, took severance pay, then he gamed the leadership sign-up game the same way Christy Clark did, only Adrian Dix had the help of a couple of MLAs and Bill Tieleman...

I congratulated Adrian Dix and Bill Tieleman for winning the contest, and can anyone tell me why Adrian Dix didn`t have a yearly pass for Skytrain?..After all, Adrian Dix had the ability to write-off the cost of the transit pass in its entirety...As a MLA he can write-off travel expenses and or have it come out of his constituency office expenses but no..Adrian Dix running for premier, with a memo-gate scandal in his closet and a stink-to-high-heaven membership sign-up plot, and he gets busted riding the train without a ticket..

I did tell you that I congratulated Adrian Dix and Bill Tieleman, I should have told both of them to go to hell, what geniuses in the backroom of the NDP actually thought we could win with a tainted candidate...

I gave it my all(for the sake of the party) I left bread crumbs and trails, I painted a path to victory, a path to victory even with Adrian Dix`s fatal flaws, my article on how Ezra Levant attacked Adrian Dix`s wife, that story needed to be brought up in Adrian Dix`s campaigning, Adrian needed to challenge Christy Clark to denounce Ezra Levant...Adrian Dix did nothing..

Dix was still being played by the pollsters....Adrian Dix needed to come out when the writ was dropped, as one regular commenter stated..."He needed to come out like the junkyard dog"...For those not familiar with the WWF wrestling, the junkyard dog was a big-black wrestler who when he was tagged into the ring came out like a rabid dog, swinging and hitting, kicking and scratching everything in sight...His analysis was correct, Adrian Dix needed to come out when the writ was dropped that the parties were even, because they were, the pollsters played the NDP like a fool, it was cold, it was calculated and no I can`t prove the pollsters played the game of fraud, but I assure you they did..

Adrian Dix must step down as soon as possible, like yesterday, only the hard-core NDP faithful voted for Adrian Dix, he attracted no new voters to the party, in fact he lost voters, with a mountain of scandals at his disposal, ethnic-gate, Basi/Virk, BC Rail, Burnaby hospital, deficit lies, massive BC debt, smart meters, the HST, Ken Boesenkool, kim Haakstad, Pamela Martin...John Yap, Brian Bonney, Pacif Carbon Trust, Wazuku, deferral accounts at BC Hydro, Run of river fraud, I could list scandal after scandal for hours, until my fingers bleed, until my keyboard gets saturated with tears, the list is that long..

And the next election every single one of those scandals are off limits, they`re finished, no more BC Rail, no inquiry(Sorry BC Mary)no Basi/Virk investigation, no smart meter inquiry, nothing, those smoking gun crimes are over, if Adrian Dix couldn`t win with all that ammo...Well..

Brian Topp needs to stay well clear of BC Politics, Moe Sihota needs to move along too, every adviser to Adrian Dix must not only fall on his or her sword they must vow to never ever become part of the NDP election planning, period...

The NDP leadership contest, Dana Larsen was part of that campaign, what if Dana Larsen managed to get every pot smoker in BC to purchase a NDP membership and vote for him in the leadership campaign, and Dana Larsen wins...Would the party brass accept his win or would they politely ask (in private) for Dana Larsen to move aside?...What if a multi-millionaire with a tainted past, an adulterer, tax evasion, drunk driving, outsourced thousands of jobs, violated worker`s rights, discriminated against seniors, and females and transgender, Gay, lesbian and the like but he has so much money and influence he buys or persuades tens of thousands to attain NDP membership cards and actually gets them to vote him as new leader of the party...Yet he in unelectable in society`s mainstream, at what point does the party say NO...You can`t be leader..

What I am talking about may well be considered non-democratic, however...

However, the voters of British Columbia did not vote for Christy Clark and the BC Liberals..

The voters of British Columbia said no to ...I was 35 years old and didn`t know any better, they said no to a man who didn`t buy a skytrain ticket, they said no a man who back-dated a memo in an attempt to save his boss, a boss who couldn`t be saved at any price,.....Adrian Dix can`t attract any new members to the party, he can`t inspire others to fight for the cause, he can`t light a fire under the writers in this province who care about truth, and justice..

The next election will be won with talented star, all the past issues are just that, past ....

Maybe there is someone better than John Horgan to lead, however I haven`t met that person yet, probably never will....John Horgan needs to be the voice of the party, he needs to ask the first three questions when our legislature opens up..We can`t grow as a party until the face of defeat is removed from our letterhead..

The people of British Columbia said no to a man who couldn`t call thieves thieves, call corruption corruption, we, the people rejected a man who couldn`t fight, scream, yell and even swear at the most bile, most evil, most incompetent Government in the history of Canada..

The people who cast ballots couldn`t put their support and children`s lives in the hands of a man who ran from the shadows.

 http://powellriverpersuader.blogspot.ca/2011/04/born-to-lead-honourable-john-hogan.html

The Straight Goods

Cheers Eyes Wide Open

The B.C. Election, May 14, 2013. A National Tragedy

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The B.C. Election, May 14, 2013.  A National Tragedy

Written by Robin Mathews

Begin at the beginning.  The power figures at the centre of the B.C. New Democratic Party and the major, experienced MLAs in the legislature sold out the people of British Columbia, and Canada. That is the beginning and the end of the election story.

Other commentary may provide interesting footnotes.  For instance: that the polls did it.  The Green Party did it. The outside strategists did it. The propaganda, financing and organization of the neo-liberal campaign did it.  Dix’s pipeline flip-flop in mid campaign did it. The big corporations did it. Christy Clark’s avid campaigning did it.  Her endless willingness to lie did it.  The Mainstream Press and Media’s flat-out campaigning for the Liberals did it. The morally obese voters who wouldn’t go out and vote did it.  No.

The New Democratic Party leadership and powerful backroom dealers sold out the people of British Columbia and Canada,  betraying (1) the principles of  declared NDP political philosophy (2) the fundamentals of political opposition (3) and simple human decency. They turned their backs on British Columbians in order to collaborate with neo-liberalism, even criminal neo-liberalism.

Two distinguished women I am acquainted with, involved in public matters, were, earlier, approached to be NDP candidates. Both said they would have had to agree to have no independent ideas and to express no matter publicly that was not approved by the backroom dealers.  As one put it - not until she had undergone a complete prefrontal lobotomy would she be considered an acceptable NDP candidate. The two women graciously declined to be stuffed replicas of Moe Sihota, of Carol James, of Jim Sinclair – president of the B.C. Federation of Labour.  That policy of ‘cookie-cutter candidates’ says much about the almost total failure of the NDP to grapple with the most important issues in British Columbia in the last 12 years.

Almost all the top and most important actors in the B.C. NDP have been (literally or figuratively) collaborating with the Campbellclark Liberals - even before the NDP lost power.  Ujjal Dosangh was rumoured to be negotiating to enter the Liberal Party even as he was the leader of the B.C. NDP. A perfect symbol ….

After the vicious, manufactured attacks on the Glen Clark NDP conducted by the RCMP, the Courts, the Media, and the Campbellclark forces, Joy MacPhail and Jenny Kwan did heroic and outstanding work as a matchless team in Opposition.

But the NDP intelligentsia and its core powerful didn’t launch a major, organized, sustained attack to expose the dirty, lawless actions of the RCMP, the Courts, the Media, and the Campbellclark Right against the Glen Clark NDP – and to assure that fraudulent behavior became history.  The NDP core powerful and intelligentsia – and many British Columbians - accepted the Reactionary smear as history.  As if it is something to have to apologize for.

Seven years passed in which B.C. was looted and shredded and divided up by means that were often (I insist) criminal. The  NDP spoke principally of wanting orderly and polite behavior in the Victoria parliament, refusing to go after the criminal Campbellclark behaviour. But the NDP did much, much worse things ... even after they changed leaders. They collaborated.

We are asked these days to think that maybe the wrong leader was chosen after Carol James, that maybe John Horgan – critic on Energy, Mines, and Petroleum Resources - should have been made leader.  A nice guy, a straight shooter, an answerer of the public’s questions … we are told.

Think Water Energy.  Think BC Hydro.  Think a BC people’s gigantic enterprise guaranteeing reasonably priced power to the population and industry for the foreseeable future … absolutely guaranteed. Think a profit-maker anchoring other development in the province and contributing funds annually  to general revenues for health, education, etcetera.

Think of it wrecked by design, its potential handed to cronies, its profitability destroyed, its structure chopped into shreds, its operation secretly divided - its debt disguised, faked, dissimulated, manufactured by the Campbellclark forces.  Think that in the May Election John Horgan said almost nothing about those facts – nor did anyone else in the NDP.

“Oh,” you say.  “But who knew of those things? ”Everyone paying attention. Besides, the Auditor General of B.C. knew of those things, reported them formally, and went so far as to say the Auditor General’s Office has not been able to approve the insane accounting done in BC Hydro FOR TEN YEARS!

The B.C. election could have been won by a determined exposure of the destruction of B.C. Hydro, its looting by the Campbellclark forces, its re-creation as a crippled, monstrous, debt-ridden political instrument in the hands of Campbell and Clark. In the election campaign the NDP almost completely avoided the subject, and so did John Horgan.  If that isn’t collaboration with the Campbellclark forces, tell me what is.

The other enterprise owned by the people of British Columbia, a profit-maker for general revenues, a golden infrastructure asset for provincial development, and a facilitator of reasonable transportation for the people was BC Rail. 

In brief – I insist BC Rail was purposefully crippled, fraudulently prevented from making profit – and destroyed in an organized way as a top level Campbellclark policy.  I believe a huge, concerted, criminal action was undertaken to rob BC Rail from the people of B.C. and to transfer it to the CNR .

The statement by the RCMP at the close of the famous search warrant “raids” on legislative offices in December 28 of 2003 that no elected person was under investigation was – to me – a statement of RCMP collusion in the corrupt transfer of BC Rail to CNR.  How could the RCMP, without full investigation, declare and hold to the claim that no elected official was involved in what was, visibly, a major, top-level, highly organized fraud, destruction and preparation for transfer of the railway?  They couldn’t.

In 2003, a Special Prosecutor was appointed to work with RCMP to shape investigations, to formulate charges, and to conduct trials that might arise out of the BC Rail Scandal. The legislation governing such appointments is rigid.  The person must not have or ever have had connection with politicians, civil servants, police figures, etcetera that might suggest a possibility of bias.  So strict is the legislation that the appointment must not even allow for the perception (by observers) of possible conflict of interest.  Simple.  Clear.

The appointee William Berardino– who conducted the trial  against Dave Basi, Bobby Virk, and Aneal Basi - had been partner and colleague of the appointing Attorney General for seven years; and he had been partner and colleague of the appointing Deputy Attorney General for eleven years!! Recently.

His illegitimacy for appointment was unquestionable.  As a result – British Columbians need to be told again and again THIS FACT: no moment of the expensive four-year pre-trial and trial of the three accused men was legitimate.

What has this to do with the May 2013 election?  The NDP knew of the illegitimate appointment.  The Chief Justice and the Associate Chief Justice of the B.C Supreme Court supported the illegitimate appointment, as did the judge on the case, Madam Justice Anne MacKenzie, by refusing to act to correct the violation. That information was fully available to the NDP.

Gary Bass, B.C.’s top Mountie refused a formal request to investigate Gordon Campbell and his associates in the corrupt transfer of BC Rail to the CNR.  The chief RCMP investigator on the BC Rail Scandal file was the brother-in-law of Kelly Reichert, Liberal Party Executive Director, who was in frequent contact with Gordon Campbell, premier. The NDP knew all that.

Sitting in the Supreme Court gallery fairly often were the NDP critic of the Attorney General and the NDP critic of the Solicitor General (who is in charge of the RCMP in B.C.).  Neither lifted a finger to question formally the major illegitimacies I have listed or to call for the removal of the illegitimate Special Prosecutor. 

The trial against Basi, Virk, and Basi could have been stopped, de-railed, blown sky high if the NDP had insisted that the trial could not continue with a tainted Special Prosecutor.  The NDP could have dropped the Gordon Campbell government by aggressively refusing to accept the trial as legitimate – being conducted by an illegitimate Special Prosecutor – appointed by a Campbellclark Attorney General’s office. 

Not only did the NDP not do that – but they collaborated actively.  How?  Things were getting so hot for the Campbell forces that in July of 2010, Michael de Jong, then Attorney General, decided to have Stephen Owen (a vice-president at UBC) do a review of the Special Prosecutor process in order, I believe, to take the heat off.  He wanted, I believe, a “smelling-like-roses” report.

Two people who were interviewed and helped provide the “information” that let Stephen Owen fantasize and produce a “smelling like roses” report were Leonard Krog, NDP critic of the Attorney General and Mike Farnworth, NDP critic of the Solicitor General.  I cannot think of another name for their participation in that whitewash than ‘collaboration’.  It is a black mark, a disgrace, and a betrayal of the people of British Columbia.

At the end of the BC Rail Scandal trial - which I devoutly believe involved a corrupt RCMP, corrupt elements of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, and a corrupt Special Prosecutor appointment – to say nothing of a shamelessly perverse Mainstream Press and Media – a final sleaze act occurred.

To protect high-level bad actors coming under intense cross-examination, the Gordon Campbell government, I am sure, turned on the heat, made deals with the accused, paid (in a highly dubious and perhaps unlawful fashion) the $6 million costs of the three accused men … and shut down the trial. Were they, in fact, bribed?

Who paid the money?  Who permitted it?  It was plainly a dirty deal to save the skins of powerful politicians and corporate actors.  The Auditor General wanted to know where the money came from – taxpayers’ money.  Christy Clark and Shirley Bond (now Premier and Attorney General) did everything they could to prevent the Auditor General from knowing.  The Auditor General took them to court to get information they were denying him.   

The NDP could have won the election solely on a full-scale review of the wrongs in the BC Rail Scandal, the gigantic waste of money, the planning to defraud British Columbians, the lies, the cover-ups, the theft of assets, the dirty RCMP, the dirty Supreme Court, the actions of Christy Clark and Shirley Bond to hide the truth of the $6 million.  

Not Leonard Krog, not Mike Farnworth, not one of the candidates for the NDP did ANYTHING of significance on the subject in the election campaign.  And when he was face to face with her in the Leaders’ Debate, Adrien Dix didn’t ask Christy Clark why she used her high office to prevent the Auditor General from gaining information B.C.’ers have a right to – and which may have led to charges against top government officers, even perhaps against Clark herself.

I can think of no other reason for the abandonment by the NDP of their primary duty to British Columbians than that they were collaborating with the Campbellclark forces ... for whatever insane reasons.  (And I have only cited two examples … among many. British Columbians don’t know what they should about B.C. Ferries corruption, Sea to Sky Highway corruption, run-of-the-rivers corruption, Public Private Partnership corruption, etc. etc. etc. Why? Because of NDP “collaboration”.)
The top actors in the B.C. NDP shaped a campaign that was a betrayal of British Columbians, refusing to address the most important crimes of the Campbellclark forces against the province and the people of the province.

The outcome of the May 14 B.C. election is a national tragedy.
The NDP top officers and senior MLA’s carry the whole responsibility for the tragedy and must answer for their betrayal. What is to be done? Suggestions are already being made.  I will add to them in the next column.




Written by Robin Mathews


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Ah fuck it...I need a dirty woman......Grant G

The Straight Goods

Cheers Eyes Wide Open

Adrian Dix, Time To Resign Is Now

Born to Lead, The Honourable John Horgan.

 May 14th/2013..This is a repost from the time of the B.C. NDP leadership campaign..
 I have no words right now, congratulations to the BC Liberals, I won`t be posting for a while, anyone needing to contact me can email...All I can say is, we couldn`t win with the honest Carole James, and I knew back when I posted this story, we couldn`t win with Adrian Dix`s baggage, not with a corrupt media...If John Horgan was elected leader at that time, we would have a NDP Government today...

Adrian Dix, I think you are a good man inside, however, you must resign, John Horgan is my pick as new leader, he was my pick 2 years ago.....I suggest all NDPers read this post below, written 2 plus years ago(April 13th/2011)...Faithful readers like Leah and CherylB knew like I did...Adrian Dix was toxic, many left my comment thread after Adrian was elected leader, because I was prepared to give Dix a chance...

They were right, I was wrong, with a corrupt media we need the best to win, Adrian Dix was not that man, and it isn`t personal, it`s logical

My condolences to the people of British Columbia.

May 14th/2013

_______________________________________________

 April 13th/2011


 Born To Lead, The Honourable John Horgan

Written by Grant G...


Well here we go, coming down to the wire in the NDP leadership contest, three men left standing, Adrian Dix, Mike Farnworth and John Horgan, three superstars in their own right, let`s break down the nuts and bolts and get into meat of things.....

Adrian Dix, a pit bull, antagonistic, aggressive and capable, however, unfortunately Adrian brings out visceral feelings in people, he`s a love em or hate em type guy and those who hate him really hate him, personally speaking if Adrian didn`t have two sets of baggage with him I might have considered voting for him, the first set is the infamous memo-gate, Dix back dated a memo to cover Glen Clark`s rear end and got caught, that wasn`t a mistake of spoken words it was planned and executed, the Liberals will key on that in election ads and it will hurt, actually it`s probably fatal, that would be hard enough to overcome by itself but when you add in the sack of cash separate from the stack of memberships Adrian dropped off at the deadline for new members, I`ve been told a few hundred of those ballots have been rejected...I suspect the BC Liberals would run an election ad like this....The caption, (A young Adrian Dix), they show a young Adrian sneaking into an office using white out on a document then return it to the file, then the next caption...(An older Adrian Dix)..They show a man with sacks of cash and stacks of memberships laughing and tee heeing, it would doom our party..But Adrian Dix would be a marvelous health minister.

 Mike Farnworth, a fine man, dedicated, friendly and boring, he calls himself the most electable, actually he`s most like Carole James, too much like Carole James for me, Farnworth talks tough but he portrays weakness and mushy policies, his policies are good on paper but verbally not, his next liability is his speaking, he`s not bad with a practiced script but on his feet he`s mister eer and umm on every other word, it comes across badly, at least in my eyes and ears it does, liability number three, he`s gay, a life long partner, I would like to stress that it doesn`t matter to me but it will matter to some, probably at least 5% percentage points will shun Farnsworth because he is gay, imagine trying to win with Christy Clark and her family values routine and favourable press with CKNW, CTV, Global, Vancouver sun and Province, you might think I am over playing that angle but you would be wrong, let me give you an example of what the media is prepared to do for Christy Clark, let`s call it a Professional set, a professional picture, her make-up is perfect, let`s say she`s wearing a hockey jersey and talks about her son Hamish and their love of the game of hockey and they splash that on the front page, the media wouldn`t run puff pieces like that would they?....Think again, take a gander at this, no need to read the story just check out the picture.

Shocking eh, look how the Province newspaper tries to connect Christy to canuck fever, what a staged picture, no bloody way was that was some media scrum photo, i`ll bet they took 50 shots from different angles and picked the best, the lighting was perfect, the story was syrupy drivel,  so that is what Farnworth is up against, Christy and family against alternative lifestyle Mike, just imagine what the likes of a Phil Hocstein could do with that, can you imagine what ads he would run, remember his tactics in Ida Chong`s riding, heck, that was a vicious attack ad on a recall campaign, just imagine in a general election and especially if it was a close contest... The BC Liberals muse about running a positive campaign, I`ll bet dollars to doughnuts that the next Provincial election will be the dirtiest campaign on record, Farnworth also has ties to bingo-gate, regular readers here know already about the Farnworth tapes Global news has in their possession, it`s video of Jas Johal running after Farnworth who ducks into a car and speeds away, it`s a pretty damning video, it can and would be spun to high heaven. We can`t afford to give any percentages away if we want to win.

Then we get to the Honourable John Horgan, the man has a way of drawing your attention, he`s a policy hawk, the best speaker of the three, he speaks in clear positive terms and his platform is solid and complete, no mushy middle, some have said he has a temper, I have never seen it, he`s answered all my requests for years now, he`s open, friendly, easy to access, he never dodges a question, Gordon Wilson recently did a hatchet job on Horgan citing his temper, if he had one 15 years ago I don`t know, I consider Horgan`s speaking and style as...Politely firm, the other advantage Horgan has is his memory, he can pull accurate stats and minute details from thin air at will, another big plus for John Horgan is no baggage, no memo gate, no bingo gate, no membership snafu, everywhere Horgan has gone he has won over the crowd and dominated the debates, I have heard from people all over this Province who never knew Horgan but after an hour or two hearing him speak he won them over, that folks is a quality that can`t be manufactured  either you are born with or not, ...... John Horgan has a pretty wife and she`s real folksy, two good sons, he`s also a bladder cancer surviver, he`s a fighter!....Horgan knows the value of public health care, his number one goal is to preserve public health....

On the economic front we have a BC Hydro problem, no one has more experience than John on electricity, he`s been energy critic for years and he was on the energy file in the 90s, only Horgan can clean up the BC Hydro disaster Gordon Campbell created, John is on the record as saying that every secret IPP power buying contract will be reviewed and if deemed not in the public interest they will be renegotiated no matter what, Horgan will peg the price to the spot market, no more power losses.

I know many of you may choose Dana Larsen, you may like Adrian, some like Farnworth, I like Horgan but for me it`s not about favorites it`s about winning the next election, we can`t afford as a Province to lose, BC is spiraling out of control under the BC liberals, I implore all NDP voters to vote with their heads and keep emotions out of the picture, whatever happens happens, we have one more chance, let`s get it right this time.

The list of Horgans endorsements is long..Nicholas Simons, Harry Lali, Dana Larsen(who is still in the race).The Corrigans, Kathy and Derick, Burnaby city council, Dan Miller, Shane Simpson, Robin Austin,   
 Gary Coons, Maurine Karagianis,Scott Fraser, Bill Routley, Claire Trevena, former MPs Bob Skelly, Ray Skelly, Jim Manly, Construction trades council executive Tom Sigurdson, former NDP cabinet ministers Elizabeth Cull, Ann Edwards, Paul Ramsey, BCGEU general secretary John Flyer, CUPE president Paul Faoro, economist John Summerville, and this endorsement..and many many more, he`s attracted both our union brothers and a little business, he has dissidents and superstars, Horgan has a way of attracting people from both sides, in fact even the BC Liberals showed Horgan respect in the house.

Anyway, I`m not easily won over but I`ll tell you what, I was so impressed with John Horgan years ago and he has gotten stronger, better, sharper, he so impressed me I wrote this story in January 2009, a full year before the NDP cleansing, Carole was still in charge, the NDP were united, I wrote a hypothetical story about John Horgan becoming the new NDP leader and I find it a bit of a coincidence, I dated my hypothetical story (authored by Vawn Pawmer).March/15/2010...I was only out a year, I also wrote this story as well, it was called, "Born to Lead" and again that was well before any NDP infighting, that story was dated March 11/2010...A year before the squabbling.

Maybe I knew something then, like a vision, John Horgan emailed me at the time about those two stories I wrote last year, he thanked me for them, he was very gracious but he told me over and over again,

"The job is filled and Carole James is our leader"

I respected his solid support of Carole James especially since at that time I was very critical of Carole James but I remember like it was yesterday, in our email conversation, I told the Honourable John Horgan....

You were born to lead, you have a rare quality that can`t be manufactured, it`s a gift, use it, you have a unique karma, you don`t know it yet but you will be premier of British Columbia.

And the man has answered all my questions I`ve asked of him ever since, he`s not in my riding but he still answered all my requests and promptly, not just automated responses but thorough responses with clear details, Horgan does not hide, he`s a straight shooter and I fully endorse him and I hope all you fellow NDP members will support John Too!

 

http://powellriverpersuader.blogspot.ca/2011/04/born-to-lead-honourable-john-hogan.html

 

 

The Straight Goods

Cheers Eyes Wide Open

The Big Corporate Lie

Today a federal court threw out the case the unions had filed against HD Mining...

 http://www.theprovince.com/business/mining+company+justified+hiring+Chinese+miners+court+rules/8415940/story.html

Our BC election has ended, the Government of the corporate and for the corporation has prevailed, no need to carry on the mock concern over the needling details of the HD Mining fraud, deception and denial, or of the temporary foreign worker program..

Unemployment levels in Europe of 20%..In America of 15%...In Canada of 10%...Yet the big lie continues, the skilled worker shortage..

When I was a boy there was no self serve gas stations, there was no automated tellers, no online banking, even in grocery stores like Safeway, at that time you had a teller who rung up your purchases and a bag-boy(or girl) who actually placed your groceries in bags, in paper bags, fast forward to today not only are stores availing themselves of automated checkouts but those still human run checkouts both ring up your order and fill your grocery bags, two jobs turned to one.

In the logging and milling game of today, modern mills can buzz through immense volumes of trees with a fraction of the employees of the past, modern machinery like fellerbunchers can do the work of 10 employees, these machines can chop down, delimb, cut to size and stack, no longer are skidders, cutting crews, delimbing crews required, one man in one machine can blaze his way through a forest near single handed..

Up in the tar oil land, not only are the tar sand moving dump-trucks 4 times the size of those dump-trucks of the past but more and more of them are being equipped with computers that run them, meaning this, four big-truck drivers of the past are now one really big-truck driver today, and now even that one really big-truck driving job is being phased out, point A to point B automated driverless trucks will be the future wave in Alberta, and in mining operations around the world..

I can cite study after study that totally debunks the skills shortage myth, we here at The Straight Goods have offered up undeniable proof that the job numbers cited by the BC Liberals attributable to a robust up and running LNG industry are pure fiction, the largest LNG plants proposed for British Columbia even if built will require a mere fraction of the employees initially claimed by industry, and echoed by a compliant corporate controlled Government..LNG plants will require in the range of 250 full-time employees each, so even if 10 LNG plants were built we are talking about a few thousand employees needed at most...

There have been many articles written on the "alleged Skills shortage"..Articles going back decades, this corporate ruse has developed quietly and strategically for two reasons, the main reason is to keep worker wages down....

The Alleged Skilled Worker shortage and the fraudulent Temporary Worker Program...

In the USA it`s happening too, down there they call it the HB 1-visa program...

Let`s be perfectly clear, without the fraud of the skilled worker shortage the temporary worker program wouldn`t exist, the two scams work in tandem, one doesn`t exist without the other, the only way the corporate sector can justify bringing in cheaper foreign labour is to claim the skilled workers needed don`t exist....

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Lana Payne writes...

"It is a program that is rife with abuse. Its rules are regularly broken. And it was designed that way; legalized exploitation.

No one should be surprised that Canada’s temporary foreign worker program (TFWP) has been used and abused by employers to suppress the wages of Canadians. After all, the rules actually allow employers to pay migrant workers 15 per cent less than prevailing wage rates.

No one should be surprised that migrant workers are often afraid to speak out if their workplace rights are violated. Speaking out has drastic consequences for them, a return-trip home and lost wages for them and their families. This power dynamic makes them susceptible to all kinds of worker rights’ violations.

No one should be surprised that the fast-tracked, rubber-stamped application rules are now being used to kick Canadian workers out of their jobs.
And no one should be surprised that the program is seriously undermining Canada’s immigration system. The program is no longer about filling real and temporary labour shortages. The jobs are not even temporary in the vast majority of cases.

And sadly in Harper’s Canada no one is surprised. But that doesn’t make this right."

http://www.thetelegram.com/Opinion/Columns/2013-04-20/article-3223631/Foreign-workers-and-federal-priorities/1

__________

The temporary worker program is about driving wages down, companies bring in indentured employees who can`t complain, can`t quit, can`t negotiate with teeth, any loud harping by these indentured employees would result in a quick trip back in their home country, in a flash back where they came from, shoot one monkey to scare a thousand....Caterpillar did this two years ago..
___________

The bitter labour dispute at a London locomotive company has come to a sadly predictable end. The company’s owner, U.S. giant Caterpillar, closed the plant on Friday, throwing its 465 employees permanently out of work.

That’s what Ken Lewenza, president of the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW), which represented the workers, warned would happen. The union had no bargaining power against an employer that refused to negotiate.

The Ontario government was equally helpless. Caterpillar pulled the plug just three days after Premier Dalton McGuinty went to London and called on the company to “come to the table and demonstrate some flexibility.”

Caterpillar locked out workers at its London plant, Electro-Motive Canada, on New Year’s Day after they rejected its take-it-or-leave-it demand to cut their wages by 50 per cent. It was clear from the beginning that this was not a normal work stoppage. The company would not talk, wouldn’t budge, wouldn’t bargain.

The community rallied behind the workers. Caterpillar shrugged. The premier denounced the company for “not meeting Ontario’s legitimate expectations.” He might as well have scolded a stone"

 http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2012/02/06/caterpillar_gives_ontario_harsh_lesson_in_unionbusting_by_shutting_locomotive_plant.html

________


And it`s even worse than strong-arming these Canadian "skilled workers" ...Because Caterpillar bought the company in 2010 with the goal of doing exactly what they did, they bought the company, received huge tax breaks then moved the whole operation to Indiana where more "skilled workers" did the same job for $15 dollars per hour and no benefits..And Stephen Harper just watched..

___________

"That leaves only Ottawa. Prime Minister Stephen Harper could have demanded job guarantees when his government approved the sale of the London company (then known as Progress Rail) to Caterpillar in 2010. He could have stipulated that Canadian money stays in Canada when he gave the locomotive manufacturer a substantial tax break in 2008. He could have mounted a more vigorous defence to the U.S. government’s “Buy America” policy, which has the potential to suck thousands more jobs out of Canada.

He did none of these things"

  http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2012/02/06/caterpillar_gives_ontario_harsh_lesson_in_unionbusting_by_shutting_locomotive_plant.html

__________

That division made over $1 billion dollars in profit for Caterpillar, but it wasn`t enough, also to note, Caterpillar has $billions of dollars worth of machinery in the Alberta tar patch, the heavy machinery of choice in the tar sands is Caterpillar, Stephen Harper could have flexed some national muscles but he did nothing, the tar patch should have been used as leverage to save those Caterpillar jobs in London Ontario, but again, Harper did nothing, and ordinary workers in Indiana with a little bit of training could easily do the jobs that were done by "skilled workers" in London Ontario...

Stephen Harper was also missing in action when it came to saving a 1000 high-skilled jobs in the airplane maintenance, mechanics, computers experts, hydraulic experts, specialized high paid workers were cast aside when Air Canada betrayed Canada and Canadian workers, Air Canada and their maintenance division Aveos sent those good paying jobs to El Salvador, a country whose high skilled airplane and jet mechanics, hydraulic experts, computers experts work for roughly $5000 Canadian dollars per years...$60 to $80 thousand dollar a year high-skilled Canadian workers were locked out, their high skilled jobs now being performed for about 1/20th of the price in El Salvador..

What Air Canada did was the most shocking display of Canadian corporatism screwing Canadian workers I have ever seen..It was done with deliberateness, with guile, with bread crumbs leading people like me to see and document just how low-down and dirty Air Canada was...Air Canada didn`t even care about the optics of their crimes, they, Air Canada knew they had their man Stephen Harper watching their back, watching, applauding and opening the door for more illegal outsourcing..

That viral story with all the bread crumbs here...


 http://powellriverpersuader.blogspot.ca/2012/03/air-canadaaveos-corporation-scorpiation.html

We have temporary workers being brought in to work at Tim Hortons and Dennys restaurants in Vancouver, brought to work for $10 dollars per hour in a city that costs $20 dollars per hour to live a sub-standard existence..

How can people work at a job at a wage level when their expenses are double the prevailing rate.

The Big Corporate Lie, a lie that Adrian Dix perpetuated in his 2013 election platform, the big corporate lie Governments use as a crutch to blame the failing of a corporate controlled world that has failed to produce jobs and prosperity, the big 2009 Wall Street meltdown, the biggest heist in history, millions of workers thrown from their jobs, four years later a mere handful of those jobs have been replaced, and all replaced with a wage structure smaller than before the meltdown..

Blame the poor worker, tell the impoverished that only if they were better trained, more educated all their woes would vanish, ....

RBC..A bank with record profits every quarter are complicit players in the temporary worker program, a ruse to bring in indentured employees for a pittance of what high-skilled IT workers of Canada expect..Study after study has debunked the IT shortage..

The Ph.D Bust: America's Awful Market for Young Scientists—in 7 Charts

 http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/02/the-phd-bust-americas-awful-market-for-young-scientists-in-7-charts/273339/

Hey, That Famous 'Skills Shortage' You've Heard About? It's a Myth

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/hey-that-famous-skills-shortage-youve-heard-about-its-a-myth/258207/

_

______________

"You are in Dubai or any other city in the oil-rich Arabian/Persian Gulf region. It is blistering hot. The only human beings you see are on construction sites. They are the people brought in under the local version of the temporary foreign workers program, mostly from low-wage Third World nations. At the end of their shift, they go to bunk in the temporary accommodations they share with other workers. They have no families — they are not allowed to bring any. At the end of their temporary visa, they must go home. If they don’t, they are picked up in periodic crackdowns and put on planes. When they get back home, they often find that their families, especially their children, are estranged from them.

You are in a Berlin parkette. You see, besides the seniors and the moms with babies, middle-aged men and women on benches, talking, whiling away the time. They are German Turks. They had come as guest workers. They were supposed to have gone back home. Few did. This being Germany, they didn’t get deported. Now they live in the in-between world of Germany (which did not give most of them citizenship) and Turkey (which they visit but where they no longer belong). They constitute a German underclass that’s resented by Germans.

Those are two examples of the same phenomenon — temporary workers. The arrangement suits both the workers and the host society, in the short term. But it is exploitative of the former and debilitating to the latter, in that it creates a two-tier society, of varying severity and duration.

Canada limited the use of temporary workers. Seasonal farm workers come from Latin America or the Caribbean and go back home, mostly under the supervision of their sponsor. Foreign nannies come on contract but, unlike the fruit and vegetable pickers, are allowed to apply for and get landed immigrant status.

Now Canada is flooded with temporary workers — 338,189 as of December 2012. In fact, there may be more. Ottawa has no way of knowing how many stayed behind at the end of their temporary visas. Canada has no exit controls.

They were all brought in ostensibly because of extensive skilled labour shortages.

But with 1.33 million jobless, there’s no shortage of labour for the 250,000 job vacancies. That’s nearly six jobless Canadians for every available job.

As for skills shortages, there are certainly some. But look at where the temporary workers landed, as the Globe and Mail has done. 

Its sector-by-sector breakdown shows that only 9,300 of the 338,000 workers ended up in scientific and technical services. Less than 17,000 are in the manufacturing sector, and only 19,000 in construction. The highest number, 44,745, are in accommodation and food services.

That’s your foreign worker pouring coffee at Tim Hortons, baking pizzas at Boston Pizza, making beds at some motel and tending to a senior citizen somewhere.

How much skill do you need for such jobs? The real issue is that Canadians don’t want those jobs, certainly not at the wages on offer. So the skills shortages mantra is a bit of a scam.

At the high end of the skills spectrum, a different proposition is at work, as seen at RBC. High-tech jobs are shipped overseas or contracted to a Canadian company that gets the job done overseas. Costs go down, profits go up and up, as do CEO compensations (in RBC’s case, $7.5 billion last year and Gord Nixon’s package, $12.6 million).

Now we know what was meant by business “competitiveness,” “flexibility,” “nimbleness,” etc.

Nothing wrong with businesses earning higher profits — but should we be helping them do it at the expense of rattling the foundations of Canada?

There are global forces at work, no question. But what the Stephen Harper government has done is to allow the creation of a bit of a Third World in Canada."

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/commentary/2013/04/21/stop_importing_temporary_workers_into_canada_siddiqui.html

___________

Record profits at all of Canada`s major banks, companies like General Electric who haven`t paid taxes for decades, even the world`s largest company caught using every loophole they can find to avoid paying taxes..

 Senate Probe Finds Apple Used Unusual Tax Structure to Avoid Taxes

Skilled garment workers in India and Bangladesh making the world`s finest clothes, they earn 25 cents per hour, no pension plans, companies merely burn down the business when the time is right...

Yes indeed, corporate controlled Governments have systematically found a way to blame workers for Government`s own failings, the world has near 2 billion unemployed workers, wages are falling not rising, corporate thieves are getting greedier, pensions are a thing of the past, benefits being stripped one by one, and even the universities in Canada are complicit in the scam, education is not a right, not a privilege, education today is a business, the British Columbia education business brings in more revenue from student tuitions than what the BC Government collect in corporate income tax, a decade ago the ruse was a looming IT shortage, a looming teacher shortage, a looming science shortage, today we have millions of under employed highly skilled thinkers, now these same scammers are wanting to sell labour training..

LNG plants won`t employ 10,000 people each, a mere 250 employees are required for each, strong young backs are the only requirement in the tar sands, however, even that employment is limited, only with a huge increase in production of tar oil will result in some new employment, but only some as technology and corporate greed will limit employment opportunities..

Stephen Harper and every other corporate controlled Government are complicit in the big fraud, each politician carries the lie to cover their term in office, huge multi-national companies keep promising millions of jobs in the future, only they all have one proviso...That being, the JOBS WILL BE in the future, just allow us more tax breaks, just allow us not to comply with protecting the environment, just allow us huge profits for a few more years and we promise, we really really mean it..Millions of jobs are coming..

Just trust us!


Don`t believe them, just look to all those LNG jobs Christy Clark and the BC Liberals promised us, 75,000 jobs turned into a few thousand before our eyes!

http://powellriverpersuader.blogspot.ca/2013/05/british-columbias-lng-facilities-to-be.html

And while the media frenzies over a melting Duffsicle society and everything democracy built is burning to the ground.



The Straight Goods

Cheers Eyes Wide Open

British Columbia`s LNG Facilities To Be Built In South Korea, Each One To Employ A Mere 250 Full-Time Workers(What Happened To Your Promise Of 75,000 Full-Time LNG Jobs Christy Clark?)

Isn`t this what our 2013 election was all about....Streets paved with gold, prosperity fund for the children, 100,000`s of jobs, BC Hydro, BC Ferries debt eliminated, Port Mann bridge tolls wiped out, British Columbia`s debt retired and sales tax removed..

Those were the promises Christy and the BC Liberals made to all voters, I like to dream too, powerball lottery wins, fountain of youth, finding new earth-like ready to inhabit planets we can shuttle off to..

It`s time the BC Government and or the energy companies give us the straight goods, me personally, I already have the answers, however the joe-stupid public does not, clues were released just weeks before our election, I attempted to inform the public about a glaring contradiction with what the BC Liberals were promising us and what one of the largest world energy giant players was actually telling us...

In Australia, $185 billion dollars has been spent developing an LNG industry, several facilities are coming on line in 2014 through 2016, many different companies with different size LNG plants ranging from standard to behemoth, no two plants are alike but they all have one thing in common, that being massive cost overruns, Chevron`s Gorgon plant ballooned from an estimated $20 billion dollar build cost to $60 billion dollars, the same story is being echoed throughout Australia..

 http://powellriverpersuader.blogspot.ca/2013/05/christy-clarks-lng-fantasy-reality-check.html

Several reasons are being bandied around as to why all these projects are way over budget, logistics in accessing remote areas, high-priced labour, skilled tradesmen shortages, and they are all correct, there is also corporate manipulation at play, these capital projects can claw all the money back from the Australian Government itself, this too has driven up the price..

The BC Liberal party in their 2013 election platform promised 75,000 jobs after our BC LNG plants are in operation, 75,000 jobs to operate and run 5..6...7....8 LNG plants, the exact number is unknown, maybe there will be only 1 LNG plant that gets built...But even if you take the number 8, as in 8 LNG plants...Mathematics tell us that....If as the BC Liberals promised, 75,000 jobs after these plants are in operation, each plant must employ 10,000 persons, or if you like, 4 LNG plants in operation they must employ 20,000 persons...

I was already initially skeptical, and I`m not talking about temporary construction jobs, we are talking about the facilities get built, they are in operation, how many workers will they employ?..Because the BC Liberal 2013 election platform is quite specific... And I quote..

____________
 
"LNG facilities are currently proposed by business groups that include some of the world`s biggest energy companies-Shell, Imperial, Chevron, British Gas, Petronas, SK & and ES of South Korea, Inpex and the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation, to name some of the major players, it`s no fantasy.
The projects mean 39,000 jobs to British Columbia during construction with another 75,000 full time jobs created once in operation. We can create 1 $trillion dollars in economic activity and create the BC Prosperity fund with $100 billion over 30 years.

An opportunity this good faces lots of global competition. Premier Christy Clark and Today`s BC Liberals have worked diligently to enable LNG as an economic generator for decades to come."

(BC Liberal platform at below link)

http://files.flipsnack.com/iframe/embed.html?hash=fhcjsxtd&wmode=window&bgcolor=EEEEEE&t=13660594461366059618

________

There is the smoking gun evidence, from the BC Liberal platform...39,000 construction jobs and 75,00 full-time jobs once in operation..

That whole number thing seems backwards from the git-go, normally there are more during construction jobs than the full time after everything is built job numbers....

Do you see those job numbers in the BC Liberal election platform...

"39,000 jobs to British Columbia during construction with another 75,000 full time jobs created once in operation"

How many LNG plants are being proposed, we have heard these Liberals say 4 LNG plants, 6 LNG plants, 8 LNG plants...

Well, there is an article tonight in the Vancouver Sun, the BG Group(British Gas) have announced they are going to the planning stage, then if that goes well they will apply for an environmental assessment, no they haven`t made any firm commitments, it`s still very early in the process, they mention something about, if everything goes well they will start assembly of their LNG plant in 2016..

But what is absolutely startling is the honesty in the article, honesty from a major world class energy company..

What British Gas has stated in the article is this...

________

"The BG Group has filed plans for a liquefied natural gas plant at Prince Rupert that would consume the equivalent to all of the province’s current production of natural gas and almost all the energy generated by BC Hydro’s proposed Site C dam to produce it."

_____

Do you see that? This one LNG plant will consume all the present natural gas production in British Columbia, that`s not the scary part, what is stated in the article puts "Christy Clark and Today`s BC Liberal`s" jobs number to shame, this article makes a complete mockery of what the Liberals are stating in their 2013 election platform..

___________

"BG intends to build a facility on Ridley Island capable of producing 21 million tonnes of LNG a year. Called Prince Rupert LNG, it would be built overseas in modules and shipped to Prince Rupert for assembly.

 Even so, the plant would create 3,500 jobs during construction,

 250 permanent direct jobs and another 250 spinoff jobs.

 BG says it is planning to build it in two phases, beginning in 2016.
The first phase — two seven-million-tonne-a-year processing units, or trains — is to be completed by 2021" 
________

Do you see that?....3500 temporary construction jobs, 250 full-time jobs with 250 full-time spinoff jobs...

Well well well, let`s take the 6 LNG export plants scenario,  first off, the plants are built in Asia, shipped here and assembled, that`s a problem, but the bigger problem is the job numbers..This British Gas project is a biggy, so big it will not only take all our present natural gas production it will also require all the power generated by the proposed $12 billion dollar public taxpayer project known as Site C Dam..

______

"The scope of the project is huge: All three trains would consume about 3.3 billion cubic feet of gas a day, which is the equivalent of B.C.’s current natural gas production. The plant will require 800 megawatts of energy to run refrigeration compressors and to run the facility. By comparison, the Site C dam would produce 900 megawatts"

________

 Let`s go with the 6 LNG export plants scenario...If we extrapolate the job numbers from this one super big LNG plant...

"the plant would create 3,500 jobs during construction,

 250 permanent direct jobs and another 250 spinoff jobs."

We are talking about 21,000 temporary construction jobs if all 6 LNG export plants were built at the same time with a total of 1500 full-time jobs and another 1500 hundred full-time spinoff jobs, that is if all 6 plants were built..Someone is zooming us British Columbians..

Let me remind you what is stated in the BC Liberal election platform on the subject of LNG..
____

" The projects mean 39,000 jobs to British Columbia during construction with another 75,000 full time jobs created once in operation. We can create 1 $trillion dollars in economic activity and create the BC Prosperity fund with $100 billion over 30 years."


 http://files.flipsnack.com/iframe/embed.html?hash=fhcjsxtd&wmode=window&bgcolor=EEEEEE&t=13660594461366059618

__________

So the BC Liberals have doubled the amount of construction jobs, however, where according to British Gas, a mere 250 full-time jobs plus another 250 full-time spinoff jobs will be created by this one super large LNG export plant....If you times that number by 6(as in 6 LNG export plants)...That totals 3000 full-time jobs while the BC Liberals are claiming in their 2013 election platform that these LNG plants will create..

"with another 75,000 full time jobs created once in operation"

Where are those jobs, who`s zooming who, yes there will be increased natural gas drilling but that process is..Drill a well and cap it, move on and repeat...I can assure you there will not be 10,000 natural gas drillers required for each LNG plant..

6 LNG export plants, 3000 full-time workers, to come up with a 75,000 full-time job number they would have you believe that each LNG plant needs 12,000 natural gas drillers, the numbers are absurd..

And there is another problem, we can`t build 6 Site C dams, that would cost $70 billion dollars, $70 billion taxpayer dollars, and so that means these LNG export plants would have to burn natural gas to produce electricity..And that would create this problem..

__________

"The B.C. government anticipates this province’s abundant gas reserves will be sufficient to meet that demand and has forecast that natural gas production will increase to eight to nine billion cubic feet a day by 2020.
But questions remain about the amount of water required to produce that much gas. Further, the province does not have the hydro capacity nor the transmission line infrastructure to meet the industry’s massive appetite for power.
In its project description, BG states that it intends to burn natural gas to produce the 800 megawatts its facility will require. Natural gas is preferred over electric-powered refrigeration compressors because LNG plants require a highly reliable power source."

Art Sterritt said First Nations are concerned about the cumulative impacts of the plants that have been proposed so far. If the three plants for Kitimat go ahead along with BG’s Prince Rupert plant and a second Prince Rupert plant proposed by Petronas, the new industry would create four times the natural gas emissions now being produced in the entire province.

“You are talking about four times the acid rain, the CO2 produced in all British Columbia from natural gas, being produced up here in the Northwest. That has got us spooked really bad.
“We don’t think British Columbians are going to buy that. We are certainly not buying it.”

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/technology/Group+takes+first+step+building+massive+Prince+Rupert+plant/8351636/story.html#ixzz2SgT5qfkm

_________________

 So let`s breakdown this fantasy LNG plan...First off the modules are built in Asia, we merely assemble, ...Second..There are temporary construction jobs but the likelihood is, no more than three LNG export plants will be built...9000 temporary constructions jobs, where do those workers go after that, we can`t build 100 plants, we haven`t got the gas, the water, or electricity..

The amount of full-time jobs created by these LNG plants is a drop in the proverbial bucket......3 LNG plants would create a total of about 1500 full-time jobs, that`s counting spinoff jobs...If 6 plants were built we would create 3000 full-time jobs, however we would would either have to dam up all our rivers or blow any CO2 targets out of the water..

But the biggest concern for me is the lies, we could bugger up our ground water and dam all our rivers for a few thousand jobs, and it won`t be sustainable, these fracked natural gas wells deplete very quickly,

_____________

Pretty shocking eh, these jobs aren`t coming, at least not very many, in fact there are rumors swirling around that there will be no land-based LNG plants built in British Columbia, they will be water-based, as on giant barges and or gasification ships, or a combination of both, the port of Kitimat, of Prince Rupert have logistic problems, we have the same skilled worker shortage and wages aren`t cheap in B.C....Christy Clark and the Liberals promised high-paying $100k plus per year family supporting wages...

And if that doesn`t raise the alarm bell, Japan has now succeeded in extracting ocean hydrates,  a 200 year supply of energy Japan can call it`s own..Japan won`t be held captive by anyone..
_______

"TOKYO — Japan said Tuesday that it had extracted gas from offshore deposits of methane hydrate — sometimes called “flammable ice” — a breakthrough that officials and experts said could be a step toward tapping a promising but still little-understood energy source. 

The gas, whose extraction from the undersea hydrate reservoir was thought to be a world first, could provide an alternative source of energy to known oil and gas reserves. That could be crucial especially for Japan, which is the world’s biggest importer of liquefied natural gas and is engaged in a public debate about whether to resume the country’s heavy reliance on nuclear power. 

Experts estimate that the carbon found in gas hydrates worldwide totals at least twice the amount of carbon in all of the earth’s other fossil fuels, 

making it a potential game-changer for energy-poor countries like Japan. Researchers had already successfully extracted gas from onshore methane hydrate reservoirs, but not from beneath the seabed, where much of the world’s deposits are thought to lie."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/13/business/global/japan-says-it-is-first-to-tap-methane-hydrate-deposit.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=offshoredrillingandexploration&adxnnlx=1368810826-qinBavfpmX719FH4mps63Q

_______________

Exactly what the energy companies didn`t want to hear....The big new deal in LNG is Korean built LNG facilities, built on barges and giant freighters, Korea has the largest ship building facilities in the world now, and they are already building floating LNG facilities, facilities that can withstand offshore weather and waves, Kitimat inner harbour is sheltered, as is Prince Rupert, and breakwaters can be built if wave action is a concern..There is no reason any BC LNG facility needs to be on land at all, the natural gas isn`t on the coast, it`s in the northeast part of British Columbia, it will be piped to Kitimat or prince Rupert, pipes can merely be extended to mobile facilities on barges, facilities that can move if need be..

___________

Exxon, BHP plan world's largest floating LNG plant off Australia

By Rebekah Kebede


PERTH, April 2 (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil and BHP Billiton are planning to build the world's largest floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) processing and export plant off the northwestern shore of Australia, despite growing concerns about the cost competitiveness of the country's LNG projects.
At around half a kilometre (0.3 miles) long, the vessel would be nearly as long as five football fields laid end-to-end and would be the largest floating facility in the world.

The plant would bump up Australia's current LNG production by nearly 30 percent, producing 6 million to 7 million tonnes per annum (mtpa), enough to fuel the LNG needs of Japan, the world's largest importer of the gas, for about a month.

Exxon and BHP's decision to develop the Scarborough field using floating LNG is another vote of confidence in the as yet untried technology, which energy companies hope will help cut down on the ballooning costs of developing gas.

Exxon, which detailed the plan in a filing with Australia's environment department on Tuesday, did not give a cost estimate for the plant.
Australia currently has $190 billion worth of LNG projects under way and is on track to replace Qatar as the world's largest LNG exporter by the end of the decade.

But the country has been plagued by cost inflation, and of seven LNG plants under construction there that are due to come online in 2014 or later, four have already announced cost blowouts ranging from 15 to 40 percent.

 http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/02/exxon-bhp-lng-idUSL3N0CP8LF20130402

__________

What I am talking about is not a one-off, British Gas has already announced that if it goes ahead and builds in British Columbia the facilities will be built in Korea and barged to Canada`s west coast where modules will be assembled, what is being proposed now is the next logical step, have complete facilities built in Korea, by Korean workers at Korean worker wages....It`s not just Exxon Mobile, it`s not just British Gas(BG)..It`s everyone, including these people..

_________


"Australia’s second-largest oil producer, said producing liquefied natural gas on a ship off the country’s coast may be the fastest way to develop its Browse project. 


Woodside reached an agreement with Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) on how to develop Browse if the partners choose to develop the project using Shell’s floating LNG technology, the Perth-based company said today in a statement. 

The selection of a development concept needs to gain approval from all the partners, including BP Plc (BP/), according to Woodside...


“FLNG had the potential to commercialize the Browse resources in the earliest possible time frame and to further build the company’s long-standing relationship with Shell,” according to the statement from Woodside. 


Woodside earlier this month scrapped a plan to build an onshore LNG project estimated to cost $45 billion in favor of studying cheaper options as costs rise.

 After starting work on $180 billion in LNG plants on land in Australia, developers are considering about $85 billion in floating projects.


Floating LNG may be almost 20 percent cheaper than building a Browse project on land, Deutsche Bank AG said this month. A new onshore Browse development would have cost about $45 billion, JPMorgan Chase & Co. said in an April 12 report. 


While Woodside said earlier this month that it would consider a floating LNG plant offshore, a pipeline to existing facilities in Western Australia or a smaller onshore plant, Shell said its floating LNG technology is the best plan."


 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-04-30/woodside-says-floating-lng-may-allow-fastest-browse-development.html

____________

LNG and natural gas was our 2013 BC election, nothing else was discussed, the Liberals claimed this industry will solve all of BC`s problem, pay off the debt, pay off deficits at BC Hydro, BC Ferries, eliminate tolls on the port mann and golden ears bridge, a prosperity fund, eliminate the sales tax and creats hundreds of thousands of jobs, it is time we see some proof, three LNG export licenses have been granted, there is nobody stopping any of these companies from building their facilities..

Christy Clark went from town to town talking about $trillions for British Columbia from our LNG industry, one would think with $trillions available for profits these energy giants wouldn`t worry about spending a few extra $billion here and there, after all, $billions are just chump change compared to $trillions..

Anyway, the BC Liberals have the reins of power for the next 4 years, it`s time for them to come clean, they need to answer some serious questions..

Question 1...Is it true the largest LNG facilities proposed for British Columbia once built have a mere 250 full-time jobs with another 250- spinoff jobs?

Question 2...Where are the facilities being built, is it true or not true that the major energy companies who proposed projects in British Columbia are now looking towards South Korean built floating facilities that can be barged to B.C. and moved if things don`t work out..And if these facilities are built in Korea, is it not true that these floating facilities will result in very few temporary construction jobs?


The Straight Goods

Cheers Eyes Wide Open

Did We Think … We Canadians?

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
 Did We Think … We Canadians?




Written by Robin Mathews


Did we think, Canadians, we’d be permitted Canada without fighting for it day by day, hour by hour – as if we were unlike people all over the rest of the world?  Did we think we could live in, possess, own, develop, and share the country fairly for the good of all – without fighting against the greedy, the brutal, the corrupt day by day, hour by hour?

That was, for a very long time, the rhetoric we heard and spoke and believed here in Canada.  And now the rhetoric is being torn from us by forces more crude and destructive and devious and psychopathic and brutal than any of us could have imagined even a decade ago.  Call the forces ‘Harperism’, neo-liberalism, U.S. Imperialism, ‘Chinese expansionism’, ‘the One Per Cent’, corporate fascism – they are all correct in their ways.

They are, in short, forces that are willing to brutalize populations, to desecrate economic stability world-wide, and to (literally) destroy the environment (and the planet) in their blind and all-consuming greed. (Think, merely, of Stephen Harper and his clown clones on the subject of climate change!) 

What has changed in our time is that local oppression of the population in “advanced” countries is now globally rearranged by “outsourcing” to ‘slave economies’, by air power (and electronic surveillance) used to police populations, by ‘tax haven’ locations to hide wealth in trillions of dollars, by the destruction of unions in the “advanced” countries, by the normalization of “precarious” employment, and by the wholesale purchase of political systems – like the ownership of the increasingly lawless Stephen Harper group by ‘the one per cent’.

The “outsourced” disaster that killed more than 1100 workers in Dahka, Bangladesh, thousands of miles away, under the new imperial system, is the new normal. At the height of the last, the British empire, savaging of working people was more local … and the ‘normal’.

In the 50th year of Queen Victoria’s reign (1887) the famous “Bloody Sunday” happened in and around Trafalgar Square in London.  British workers were so brutalized by violent capitalism– to the point of widespread starvation – that a movement to change had begun. Dahka, Bangladesh was then in Leeds and Manchester and Hull and Bradford – in fact, all over England.

George Bernard Shaw (playwright) and Willliam Morris (poet, furniture designer, editor, utopian novelist, wall-paper designer, etc.) were supporters of the oppressed, present at “Bloody Sunday”. William Morris called himself a Socialist and a communist. Shaw was a parliamentary, gradualist socialist (a “Fabian”).

What is compelling about “Bloody Sunday” is its similarity to famous demonstrations in the last fifteen years, its almost rubber-stamp similarity.  Nothing has changed in 125 years! Think of the G20 (so-called) ‘riots’ in Toronto in 2010.  The ‘organized’ opposition groups (critics of capitalism) included unions, anti-poverty people, Council of Canadians, Native Rights supporters, environmental activists, Oxfam, etc.  They were met by more than 20,000 police/security personnel.  At least one officer said orders came from Ottawa. Police violence was obvious. Fake “Anarchist” provocateurs were almost certainly employed. Arrests of the innocent were wholesale.

At “Bloody Sunday” (125 years before) a surprising number of police showed up, too.  E. P. Thompson [William Morris, 1955, 1977, pp. 485-502] reports “the police were deliberately provoking [protesters] into an insurrectionary temper”.  William Morris saw the mounted police with “batons” (clubs). Other witnesses recorded lavish police brutality. Morris recorded “the complicity of almost the entire capitalist Press”.  And he saw “the treachery of the professed advocates of freedom in Parliament and public life”.

Witnesses wrote of charges laid against demonstrators backed by perjured evidence.  Fake Anarchists were said to be in the crowd, and before the gathering George Bernard Shaw wrote jokingly of “those fervid orators who preserve friendly relations with the  police” and suggest London be set on fire … and worse.

But the character of “Bloody Sunday” was no joke. Shaw fled, saying a friend “found me paralysed with terror….”

That was more than 125 years ago. Dahka, Bangladesh was local. Nothing has changed in the class forces arrayed against each other – or in the tactics used to continue the system of looting and oppression of ordinary people. What has changed is the character and size of the landscape. (The North American corporations raping Bangladesh are considering changes … until the story blows over. Then they will proceed as before … supported by their unlegislating governments who are in bed with the oppression and inhumanity).

125 years ago senior politicians didn’t take responsibility for the organized police attacks on demonstrators seeking justice in Trafalgar Square. In Toronto in 2010, police were alleged to have made the choices they received as orders from above.

Characteristically, Stephen Harper has stayed as far from the discussion of the Bangladesh deaths as possible since he supports the system of ‘outsourcing oppression’ on behalf of the one per cent. He is owned by the one per cent. His role is to keep power in order to keep serving the one per cent.  All else is secondary to winning the class war.

By the same token, his hand in the G20 violence was carefully disguised (while his present Minister of Foreign Affairs and his present Treasury Board head were draining $50 million from public moneys for pork-barreling – for which, it seems, he promoted them both.)  Lying, deceit, cover-up, election fraud, fake contracting, union harassment, active repression of democratic freedoms form the basis of Harperite policy: in order to serve the one per cent.

Stephen Harper’s hand in the 2006 election fraud – we may allege - was disguised, as it was in the 2011 Robocall election fraud. As it is in the $90,000.00 payment made by his chief of staff Nigel Wright to senator Mike Duffy (who was deep, deep in election work for the Harperites – collecting expenses, some suggest, more than once from sources illegitimately billed).

The question has to be “was Nigel Wright directed by Stephen Harper to pay Mike Duffy a ‘free gift’ of $90,000.00 so that the public could be prevented from seeing the depth of corruption involved in Conservative Party electioneering and party pay-offs?” How much is Harper’s hand present in the PMO’s refusal to make public the records it has of Duffy’s paid activities? And was Duffy  instructed by Harper to keep the records secret? He said so, didn’t he?

We know that poor Stephen Harper was ‘confused’ when he named costs for the F35 fighter plane that were proved to be ridiculously false. Every time an independent auditor reviewed F35 costs, the Harperites were proved to have given seriously incorrect figures. (To have lied?)

Harper learned from that fiasco to pass the buck as often as possible. But, then, desperate to get Peter Penashue elected in Labrador after his exposure for hugely violating spending limits in the 2011 Robocalls Election, Stephen Harper called violator Penashue “the best member of Parliament Labrador has ever had”. Consistent with his deceitful ways – Harper said he would let the people of Labrador make their own choice … as he sent in his ‘unmanned drone” Peter MacKay to tell Labradorians that if they would re-elect Peter Penashue he would be guaranteed a cabinet seat. The bribery didn’t work. Penashue lost.

That takes us to the incredible Arctic Patrol Ships fiasco right now in white heat.  Briefly (comparing it to the F35 fiasco), experts can’t believe the cost of design alone.  What should cost, one says, $10 to $15 million is set to cost $288 million. God only knows what the cost of actual construction might be. Other countries have bought or built similar vessels for around $100 million completed! 

Strangely, after the CBC/Terry Milewski coverage of the contract, Irving Shipbuilding took a full-page ad in select newspapers to counter it. The countering, I believe, is not credible, but big-push public relations.  What is going on?  I suggest it is  corporation/government interpenetration.  Or put another way, neo-liberal government paying off a neo-liberal corporation – to buy solidarity and get favours come 2015 and the next election.

The apparently inexplicable, incredible contracting is perfectly clear, I believe. The purpose of the one per cent, of the neo-liberal ideology, of the Harperite world view, of corporate fascism is to transfer the wealth belonging to the population to the dominant class and to further the interpenetration of corporations and government. As that proceeds, the population is increasingly impoverished, oppressed, and robbed on behalf of ‘the one per cent’.

When the Canadian people get that message and begin to organize protest in really meaningful ways, the ‘security forces’ riding horseback with clubs, on motorcycles with tear gas and rubber bullets, in Anarchist outfits to provoke violence, will be there to stage another “Bloody Sunday”, another G20 “riot”. At that point – if it hasn’t happened before that point – Canadians are going to have to know if they don’t fight for the country and go on fighting for it until they defeat the Harperites completely, once and for all, their democracy will be finished. Canada will become another slave economy, and Canadians will be the slaves.  We didn’t think … we Canadians … that it would come to this.  But it has.



Written by Robin Mathews


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"The chains of oppression are never far away"...Grant G..May 17th/2013


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