Friday, February 4, 2011

HST Results are in..... Another 12,000 Full Time Jobs Lost

Another Friday trash day....It never fails, there are several stories worthy of a post and rather than go exclusive to one item we`ll try and cover them all here, in one post...

First up is Christy Cluck Cluck Clark, Justine Hunter of the Globe and Mail had the story, a key member of Christy Clark`s campaign team, a woman who runs a BC Liberal constituency office was caught with a new BC Liberal membership for her cat...That`s right folks a cat, Christy Clark and the woman are trying to downplay the story but...But this was no new person to politics, the head of a Liberal constituency office who has engaged in membership fraud, how many dogs, cats, trees, email addresses are now BC Liberal party members....20,000 memberships from 3 ridings alone, as predicted there will be a BC Liberal bloodbath over memberships before all is said and done.

CKNW and the cutting ledge, what can I say but wow, Vaughn Palmer and the stooges, Vaughn Palmer started out talking about his interview he did with David Hahn on the VOICE of BC show, David Hahn told Palmer that ferry rates are going to have to rise by 25% on the major routes and 50% to 100% on the minor routes and or the Province will have to increase its yearly subsidy to BC Ferries.....The million dollar man David Hahn, but.....

But what Vaughn Palmer didn`t do was cut away the fluff and distractions, in other words, did Vaughn Palmer ask David Hahn or did Vaughn tell the public on CKNW today why BC Ferries needs to increase ferry rates?

No he didn`t, there are two reasons rates need to be raised, number 1)...BC Ferries didn`t make enough money to cover their expenses,....#2).BC Ferries have a huge interest payment on their $1.6 billion dollar debt.

Think about it, last year, 2010 ...The great Olympic bounce, where are the tourists, where are the ridership increases, BC`s population is growing but ridership is down, BC Ferries are in the position of only paying interest on their debt, a debt that will never get paid off because principle isn`t being paid, merely minimum interest on a huge debt, if ferry rates are increased again ridership will fall  more, it`s called pricing to the point of diminishing returns......New fuel guzzling German built ferries that sit parked, a massive debt, ....But what really blows me away is......

Is I caught Christy Clark lying about BC Ferries on CKNW...I filed a complaint to the CBSC and won, Christy Clark claimed under David Hahn that BC Ferries was making $500 million dollars in profits, I forced Christy to retract on air, Christy retracted without proper explanation, you can read the details on why BC Ferries are broke and on the Christy Clark BC Ferry lie here and here

What Vaughn Palmer did was talk about David Hahn and BC Ferry increases without telling the public a damn thing as to why, was it ridership, was it debt, was it maintenance, was it shareholders, was it BC Ferries deciding it needed more money or......

Or was it because Gordon Campbell saddled BC Ferries with an extra $600 million dollars in debt ...For that is the extra amount borrowed over and above the price of new ferries that BC Ferries borrowed from German banks to give to BC Liberal Government for the debenture(The money was put into general revenue and used to prop up the 2005 election year budget!)

BC Ferries debt load is so large, the interest rate paid by BC Ferries is much higher than the rate the Province would pay if the debt was on the Provincial books, Gordon Campbell used BC Ferries like a credit card, now BC Ferries can only afford to make the minimum payment, that also means the BC Ferries debt will never get paid off...Everything surrounding BC Ferries is a fraud....

The BC Ferry story also proves that the Powell River Persuader was right again! And more importantly, it double confirms that Christy Clark lied her face of about the fiscal shape of BC Ferries and even when confronted with her BC Ferry lie Christy Clark defended the indefensible.....I was right, Christy Clark will lie her face off and hold a grudge when caught, ......Toobad Christy...Your chances for a Premiership just died, go whine to your volunteers and your four legged Christy Fans!

But what I really wanted to talk about was job losses, back to today`s cutting ledge show, after Palmer grazed on the BC Ferry rate increases, Baldrey, Good and Vaughn went on the Recall can`t succeed cheerleading, the HST is good bandwagon, the people aren`t angry, Zalm is an egotistical maniac, the HST referendum is binding...Blab blab blab.....But did any of the stooges mention today`s or last month`s job report?

I wrote about it last month, 22,500 full time jobs vanished last month in B.C....At a time of the year when traditional hiring takes place BC is shedding jobs like crazy, I also wrote that the next job report will show even more job losses, again we were right, BC in the last month lost another 9200 jobs, that brings the total amount of lost jobs over the last 2 months to almost 33,000 full time jobs gone!

We are the only Province in Canada losing jobs, the Jack Mintz predictions of major job losses in British Columbia that he made for the CD Howe institute are coming true, Jack Mintz wrote in the CD Howe publication that the HST would cost jobs and would lower wages for years, Jack Mintz went on to say that jobs and wages may ultimately rise but it will take a decade to see any positive results...LOL...

The HST is a scam friends, if you read the last link to this month`s job losses, if you read the stats at the end of the article we in BC have the highest unemployment levels in Canada with the exception of.....You guessed it, Atlantic Canada, .....Atlantic Canada has had the HST since 1996 and year after year the highest unemployment levels in all of Canada through good and bad times are always the HST Provinces in Atlantic Canada, and now we in BC have joined Atlantic Canada with the highest levels of unemployment...

Todays story about the job gains throughout Canada, even the Provinces that gained jobs were mainly part time jobs or Government jobs, even manufacturing in Ontario never created even 1 job....

Friday trash day, BC shed another 9300 jobs after losing 22,500 jobs and the media stays silent on the HST, not one word about connecting the job losses to the HST yet.

Yet if BC had a new movie that started shooting or if a company was hiring employees the headlines in the big dailies, radio, and Global would be glowing, praising the HST wouldn`t stop....If B.C. like the rest of Canada added thousands of jobs the HST would be plastered on the headlines and be regarded as the godsend to our Province.

And now that the job losses have come true, BC in an economic funk, consumers pulling back, cross border shopping, internet shopping and the underground economy, now that the truth has arrived the silence from the media on the negative HST results is....

"Deafening"

The Straight Goods

Cheers-Eyes Wide Open


29 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's confusing that BC Ferries is apparently in a financial mess, yet it was able to come up with some 25 million dollars to buy into the new building they recently moved in. At first it was announced that BC Ferries was moving because it needed more space and they apparently got a great lease on this new building in Victoria. After the economy started going further downhill and other developers were pulling the plug on other local projects, David Hahn announces the Ferry Corporation just made a great deal to buy into this elaborate new building. I must admit, when I first read about it, my first reaction was, that BC Ferries was bailing out a Liberal supporter so that the Liberals can keep talking about the so-called boom in development. I still believe that today. Is in BC Ferries mission statement to be in the real estate business ?
If the NDP was in charge, the media would be all over this story as well as those new German ships sitting idle, as well as Christy Clark's campaign workers signing up cats as supporters.
Go figure.

Guy in Victoria

Anonymous said...

Yes, what about those German boats? How much intrest are we paying to German banks? Do we owne them or are they on some sort of a lease? One word comes to mind 'fiasco' .S.

Anonymous said...

The Liberals shouldn't have permitted all those dogs to be slaughtered - Christy could have registered them as Liberals and had them vote in the leadership contest.

Don F. said...

David Hahn, one of the biggest jokes and insults ever played on the people of this province.
When asked if he deserves his million dollar salary smugly replies "that is for people to decide". No it's not, as the people of BC have absolutely nothing to say about what he is paid, as a matter of fact 'no one' at all seems to. This is a man in the unique position of setting his own salary at the taxpayers expense and he gives a smug reply like that!Shameful and arrogant.
What do we get for our million, a ferry service so poorly run it can't cope with maintenance costs, fuel costs, inflationary costs. He has to hold the gun to taxpayers heads again or double rates for the ferries, does that sound like someone worth a million a year? To me it says this guy should have been gone yesterday.
Of course not one word from anyone about the German ferries or the added loan to the tune of 460 million.
If this ferry company can't show a profit and the same goes for translink then they should be put into new hands, someone from the planet earth,honestly this is a slam dunk, you know how many people use these things, you know what the income of that is, you know what it costs to run the ferries, three variables to work and at a million a year this guy can't figure those three thing out! Disgusting!
Don

Anonymous said...

Thanks for doing the analysis of BC Ferry debt and unemployment/employment statistics. Important information. Thanks.

Crankypants said...

Rumor has it that all of the candidates that are trying to replace Gordon Campbell will be carrying a supply of cat and dog treats in their pockets so that they may coerce the non-human members of the BC Liberal Party to vote for them.

The job losses that BC has incurred over the last couple of months only tell part of the story.

I retired at the end February, 2008 from a company called Summit Logistics. I started working at this facility in 1992, which was then owned and operated by Canada Safeway. It was a warehousing complex that provided grocery products for the Safeway stores in BC. In 1996 we went home from work one day as employees of Canada Safeway only to return the next day to find out that we were now employed by a different company. Apparently Safeway had sold the warehousing and distribution of their products to another entity. We still worked at the same site, with the same equipment and within the same complex. The only change was the name of the company that appeared on our pay stubs. Considering that we were still working in the same facility, owned by Safeway, our union took their concerns to the Labour Relations Board which ultimately ruled that everything was on the up and up. Fast forward to the end of August/early September 2010, and it was announced that Safeway would no longer be using Summit Logistics as their warehousing and distribution in BC. They had opted to move their warehousing and distribution needs to a new company that advertises comparable jobs at approximately one half the rate of pay we were working for. Safeway still owns the land the warehousing complex resided on which I am sure is worth a small fortune and destined to become high density housing.

The reason I bring this up is that in the process of all this is that there will be just under 400 workers losing good paying jobs in favour of an unknown number of workers doing the same thing for much less. Even if one assumes that the company getting Safeway's contract employs the same number of people, which is doubtful, they will be paying their employees a good amount less than Safeway/Summit did. I guess, through out all of this, I'm trying to expose the fact that not all jobs are equal, monetarily speaking. The employees of the the company that got Safeway's contract will be considered as fulltime employees as far as statistics are concerned, but they will only be earning half as much salary. Statistics only tell part of the story. The details can quite often put them in a much more useful and enlightening perspective.

Cam

Anonymous said...

Didn't Hahn's company in the states go bankrupt?

Anonymous said...

The more I find out about this government and Christy Clark the more angry I get. It will be a sad day for us if Christy Clark wins the leadership race. Having said that, the others are just Campbell clones and nothing will change.

I just hope the people of BC remember these things and remove this arrogant, deceitful, corrupt government come the next election.

What about the breaking up of BC Hydro and huge increases to the people of BC.

Thanks for doing such a great job of getting this information out. It is shame the other reporters never report any this.

Jon H said...

I was pondering last night how it is that pretty well everything that the Liberals have controlled concerning the well being of the citizens and management of the assets of this once beautiful Province, is involved with some sort of lie, deceit or corruption. The lies, deceit and corruption are so widespread that you would think that the Liberals would have created a special Ministry of Bullshit just to handle the unmitigated volume and they would have plenty of qualified MLA's to choose from to head the Ministry. I then realized, why would you need a special Minstry when all Liberal MLA's past and present have already done or still do the job and don't have to be paid extra as they do it willingly and the liberals also have the ace in the hole, the MSM mice who do the "dirty deed dirt cheap" of playing the Sgt. Schultz "I see nothing".

CMorris said...

Grant, do you have a archived copy of Christy Clark saying "BC ferries brings in 500$ million dollars per year to the province."? NW's audio vault does not go back that far.

Grant G said...

C Morris....Check the link in this post...The second highlighted HERE....

Or here is the link address...This story has Christy Clark`s actual words she spoke on that program....The transcript is cut n pasted.


http://powellriverpersuader.blogspot.com/2010/12/christy-clark-spins-and-lies-on-her.html

kootcoot said...

Jon H said:

"you would think that the Liberals would have created a special Ministry of Bullshit just to handle the unmitigated volume"

They created a "bureau" namely the Public Affairs Bureau - the largest "newsroom" in Western Canada and probably the best resourced as well. They write copy for the drones of MSM, official government releases and haunt comment boards everywhere trying to spread confusion and add a LIEberal spin to everything they can!

Ralph Klein's government in Alberta created their own PAB first, but the BC liaRs have taken it to unimagined heights of hyperbole and waste of taxpayer dollars.

Grant G said...

C Morris....I put a quick link on the home page, on the right hand side at the very top...The actual transcript is in that post!

Cheers

Gary E said...

Liberals: a bunch of pussies trying to run a province.

Koot: The PAB in Victoria (Gordon Campbells office) has more employees in it than the most powerful man on earth.

Jon H said...

Koot: I know what you mean. Once I made the mistake of commenting to an article on IPP's on the Tyee and low and behold within one minute a negative comment made by anyone about IPP's several PABsters would show up to try and shoot down the comments with bovine scathology statistics created by BC Hydro (BC Liberal PAB)to contradict everything and say how these "charitable" companies like General Electric are building these projects just to help us "poor unfortunate British Columbians" meet our energy needs and they won't make any money, they're doing it out of the kindness of their hearts. By the way how big of an army of soldiers of misinformation do you think the PAB Bureau has? It must be massive to troll all the blogs like they do.

Anonymous said...

@Jon H

try it on a Suzuki article


Propaganda is illegal. We need to enforce the law.

Anonymous said...

Is BC degenerating into a Third World dictatorship? Canada regularly complains about dictatorships that 1) Stuff ballot boxes. 2) Hire insiders, family, business elites. 3) Control media. 4) Have paid propaganda departments for control of public issues. 5) "Transfer" public assets to its 'Friends' (backers who pay kickbacks) Etc. etc. etc. (Please feel free to add to the list.) Couldn't possibly happen in Canada or British Columbia, right?

Burgess

jaydee said...

PAB had 243 stooges down to 200 now (Grant's #'s) and probably way up again now there is so much 'work' to do. Obama has 75. The propaganda machine PABs get paid over $100,000++ each last I heard.

Great post Grant, love the heading.

Anonymous said...

Jaydee, can these numbers be backed up? S

jaydee said...

Anon. 3:04 PM

Always remember, CAMPBELL said... HE WILL DO WHATEVER IT TAKES TO MAKE SURE THERE IS NEVER ANOTHER NDP GOVERNMENT IN B.C....

Anonymous said...

What are the cats names? Let's vote one of them for premier. They would be a hell of a lot more honest than, Campbell or Clark. There is not one shred of decency, in any of Campbell's Liberals. How could there be? Decent people would have nothing to do, with such a monster as Campbell.The BC Liberal party, has been built by Campbell's lies, deceit and corruption, a stinking pile of odure, is what the Liberal candidates will have to build on. Campbell's corrupt sale of the BCR stinks. It wasn't for sale you know. An election lie. Do you think? Campbell and Hansen's HST election lie stinks. The provincial deficit lie stinks. Campbell's sea to sky highway scam stinks. The BC Ferries debacle, worse than stinks. The corrupt courts and judges stink. The corruption in the RCMP stinks. Special prosecutors stink. Elections BC stinks. Yes, lets bring on the cats, they will be preferable. I wonder if they use their cats, as an income tax deductions as well?

Anonymous said...

BC people have been, certainly living in a dictatorship. We have the dictator, the henchmen, the media propaganda machine, the police state. Our Constitution is ignored. Our Civil Rights and Liberties have been taken away from us. Democracy and Freedom, haven't been heard of since, Campbell and the BC Liberals, have been in office. Only a brain dead lunatic couldn't see, the HST has killed this province. BC is a failed province, right down at the bottom, of all the other provinces. Campbell has thieved this province to death. I sincerely doubt his sanity, normal people do not behave as he does. There is not one lick of common sense in him.

BC Mary said...

Miro Cernitag, an editor with Vancouver Sun, wrote the definitive assessment of BC's Public Affairs Bureau in a column dated April 6, 2009 titled "With Fourth Estate under siege, governments seek to manage the news".

http://www2.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=2be2a064-10ab-4a47-8399-27bc230a437c

Scroll down to the paragraph starting with "What is the Public Affairs Bureau" ...

jaydee said...

B.C. Mary also did a blog on April 18, 2009 - The Legislative Raids: About Public Affairs Bureau. She has some numbers there but would be up from then so you would probably need to research it which is difficult to do, it's a secret you know, where our money goes and how much and where.....

Anonymous said...

The friends of the bc libs lost out on building the new ferries and they lost on the Roberts Bank spur. The libs did get the financing of 600 million though to make themselves look good. Never mind building the ferries here, the bc libs needed money to hide the fact they spend like out of control crack addicts.

But you have to keep your friends happy so the bc libs let them build some sea buses, then sell off the fast cats at an astronomical profit, and throw in some waterfront property.

The BC libs say BC cannot build ships/ferries...however...the van shipyards just got short listed to help rebuild the federal gov' military fleet....anyone want to buy a bridge...oh yeah you already bought a few...

Anonymous said...

it might have been Abbott.



www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zS8wssSIwI&feature=youtu.be


Abbott is getting off light in the press - he is the supposed "liberal" BC Liberal.

I hope this clears it up for everyone... he is just another snake.

Hugh said...

Vaughn Palmer's twisted reasoning:

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Many+reasons+recall+voters+last/4229735/story.html

He says the recallers just want to re-fight the last election.

Yes, that would be the 2009 election, which the BC Liberals won by lying about the HST and the budget, and by covering up the BC Rail scandal.

Anonymous said...

It`s not all bad news,phil hockstein just got a plumb gig at port metro thanks to liberal friends in high places.

Anonymous said...

Here's a good one....Port Metro took over the Fraser Port Authority...changed the fax number that Dangerous Good's notifications are sent to by Marine Transportation company's and didn't inform anyone. The law requires notification of any Dangerous Goods movements by any form of transport. Port Metro didn't even noticed that they were not receiving notifications until one company noticed fax failures to the known notification number. There could have been a disaster in the port and responders would have no idea what they were facing. Complete Bozo's.