Bob Broughton's Blog about British Columbia politics
How to reduce the BC budget deficit III
Written by Administrator
Friday, 07 August 2009 16:11
Warren Buckley, the CEO of the BC Pavilion Corp., is paid $597,438 per year. The BC Pavilion Corp. manages BC Place Stadium (the one with the white inflated roof, and looks like a big mushroom), and the Vancouver Convention Centre.
Unlike David Hahn, Kevin Mahoney, and the Public Affairs Bureau, I am not suggesting that Buckley be fired, as I have no reason to believe that he is doing anything other than a good job. And, unlike the Public Affairs Bureau, he's performing a function that has to be done by somebody.
However, I suspect that Buckley would be capable of doing just as good a job for us hard-working taxpayers for $200,000 a year. At that level, he would still be making more money than 98% of British Columbians, and we would be $397,438 closer to balancing the next provincial budget.
The Liberal government of BC has come up with a classic example of rewarding failure: David Hahn, president of BC Ferries, made over a million dollars last year. Read about it here: Shock as B.C. Ferries boss Hahn's $1-million salary revealed
It shouldn't be very difficult to find someone who could do a better job than Hahn is doing for only $200,000 or so.
An extra $2 billion in sales taxes so that the provincial government can continue to pay the salaries of Hahn, BC Rail CEO Kevin Mahoney, and the Public Affairs Bureau? Can you say "tax revolt"?
Two months after the last provincial election, we're hearing from Canwest Global that the half-billion dollar deficit we were told about before the election was fiction, and now we're going to get cuts in health care, education, and social services to "solve this problem".
The same Canwest Global never misses an opportunity to tell us that it's the Liberal Party of BC that we should trust to manage the provincial finances. Why? Because it's the Liberal Party of BC that we should trust to manage the provincial finances.
So, armed with the knowledge that we can expect Gordon Campbell, Kevin Falcon and Co. to do the right thing, I'm offering a couple of suggestions on how they can cut expenses.
1. Fire Kevin Mahoney: Mahoney was paid $494,182 last year to run the part of BC Rail that wasn't given away to CN. That leaves 40 km. of track, no rolling stock, and 24 employees.
Premier Campbell, if you're going to start talking about welfare extravagance, start at the top. Set an example by telling BC's biggest welfare recipient to get a real job. And don't pull this "severance package" stunt again; Mahoney's salary is already a severance package.
2. Shut down the Public Affairs Bureau: This is a bureaucracy with 223 employees, and costs us hard-working taxpayers $28 million a year.
Not a one of these 223 employees is responsible for paving streets, collecting garbage, educating students, or putting criminals in jail. Instead, they "manage" the information that we get from the provincial government.
To give you some perspective on what a boondoggle this is, there isn't a newspaper or television station in Canada that has 223 employees.
Not a single teacher or nurse should be laid off by the provincial government until every single one of these people has been fired. Show us what your priorities are, Gordon. And, when you do this, be as vindictive about it as you're capable of, so that the NDP won't be tempted to reinstate this abomination after winning some future election.
Canadian Border Services Agency wants to hold up Amtrak for a LONG time
Written by Administrator
Saturday, 18 April 2009 15:49
President Barack Obama announced a plan on April 17 for high-speed rail in many areas of the United States, and the plan includes the Vancouver to Eugene, OR corridor.
However, unless there's a house-cleaning of the paper-shufflers at the Canadian Border Services Agency very soon, these trains will only get as far as Bellingham.
Amtrak put in a request about this to CBSA about this two years ago, and they just ignored it.
Here's a story from Ted Field of Global TV about their intention to hold up any increase in Seattle-Vancouver passenger train service for the forseeable future.
You're going to hear a lot about Liberal insider Patrick Kinsella during the next few weeks. It will be mostly in the blogosphere, not the mass media, but this hard-hitting article by Sean Holman and Mark Hume managed to slip through: Kinsella(d): How to persuade and influence people. The main point here is, the $300,000 "fee" that Kinsella was paid by BC Rail is just the tip of the iceberg. Holman has been putting up stuff about Kinsella for months.
Another really good piece was put up by former CKNW talk show host David Berner: Triangulation. This story identifies the connections between Kinsella, Campbell, Martyn Brown, and CN CEO David McLean. Here's a choice quote: "Can you get any cozier than this and still be on the good side of jail bars?"
P.S. If you live in or near New Westminster, the Green Party candidate for New Westminster, Matthew Laird, is having a fund-raiser/election kickoff at the Heritage Grill on April 14. Click here for details. There isn't a connection (yet) between Laird, Holman, and Berner, but I wanted to give Matthew a shout-out.
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