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CBC(Back)Ville
…That Brung ‘Ya If They Try To Get You Drunk And Take Advantage Of You (Or Worse) Out In The Parking Lot.
Of course, I am referring to Mr. Davies appalling comments to the Cluffmaster Flash earlier today on the local CBC Radio morning show about how all the HST contracts doled out to BC Liberal party hacks is just the same old, same old ‘everybody does it, so it doesn’t really matter’ business.
Look.
These contracts were not designed to pimp shameless sycophantic promotions for Tourism BC or even penny stock-addled ‘Mining Adds Life’ type campaigns.
Thus, they were not essentially meaningless, except as pork generators for the media massaging friendlies.
Instead, they were designed to facilitate the roll out things like the information campaign to inform the public on the both the Pros and the Cons of the HST. In other words, these things were supposed to be, as we were explicitly told by the current Finance Minister, Kevin Falcon, completely non-partisan (ie. hack-free).
Which means these things do matter to the public, given how nothing I have seen since I was born in St. Joseph’s Hospital, way back in the ’50’s, has galvanized the public of this province against it’s government.
Which is all bad enough, and worthy of real media follow-up in the wake of Sean Holman’s investigative journalism that broke the story, to find out what these fine BC Liberal party-connected folks actually did for their highly secret, pork.
Yes, please remember that part about this all being totally and completely top-secret until Mr. Holman unearthed it by FOI, because that secrecy is another point that Mr. Davies, and his partner in Puffmaster Flashery, Stephen Smart (who may or may not have had a look at his life partner’s briefing notes over breakfast this morning), failed to mention when they dismissed all of this out of hand.
But that’s not even the worst of it.
Because, in addition, at least one of these contracts went to a BC Liberal Party insider to work on, as the insider himself said when caught he was caught red-handed by Mr. Holman, the ‘logistics’ (and never the ‘policy’) for Jim Dinning’s HST panel that we have been told over and over and over again was completely independent of any government of BC Liberal party intereference.
Do you have it now?
Do you understand how ridiculous and patronizing Mr. Davies use of Brian Mulroney’s (yes, Brian Mulroney!) ridiculous statement about patronage was to wave away this matter as being essentially meaningless and not worthy of further consideration by the public or investigation by folks like him
But here’s the real thing…..
One proMedia reporter, Robert Matas of The Globe, actually did do some significant follow-up digging and discovered that the Insider’s statement to Sean Holman was deflector spin at best and, in my opinion, more likely total obfuscatory bullshit designed to bury the story forever.
Why?
Because Matas discovered, by speaking to one of Jim Dinning’s panel members that the secretly-contracted BC Liberal Party insider did participate in the panel’s discussions where policy was likely one of the subjects under consideration.
Oh, and did I mention that this particular secretly-contracted BC Liberal Party insider who was only supposed to be doing ‘logistics’ for the panel (ie. scheduling meetings and arranging for the sandwiches to arrive on time) also worked for the old Finance Minister Colin Hansen at the very time when, you know, the HST was foisted on us out of nowhere?
****
OK…..
I’m almost done with this, and I apologize to regular readers who are getting tired of this, but I really do believe that this story and the way it is not being followed-up seriously, truly does matter on a whole lot of levels, some of which are the following:
1) Why, if as Mr. Davies and Mr. Smart also mentioned, this is really the slow season for proMedia stories that matter, don’t they get off their asses and do a little work?
2) Come to think of it, when was the last time exactly, that either the world weary and cynical Mr. Davies and/or Mr. Smart actually broke, or even followed up significantly on, a story that actually matters?
3) The CBC really is going down the tubes.
4) The immediate story of why this was all kept secret is a compelling one given that the non-partisan HST ‘information’ campaign and the ‘independent’ HST panel were both used early and often by both the government and the business interests to soften up the public.
5) If the public had not been softened up early and often to bring at least some of them around to the concept that Kevin Falcon et al. are now dealing squarely rather than lying to them, would they have been willing to believe, even for a fraction of a second, that the proposed future HST rate cut is not just more of the same old codswallop that enraged them in the first place?
6) Why did Mr. Holman have to wait so long to receive his FOI and then, once he got it was he unable to follow-up more himself before letting it go because of the recently introduced 72hr ‘kill the blockbuster’ release rule?
6) Are reporters like Davies and Smart, and commentators like Cluff, as part of, as Ian Reid calls it, their ‘Club’ memberships, contributing to this softening up of the public by constantly dismissing stories, by feigning world weariness, by not caring, and/or by not digging rather than swallowing press releases and/or inside information whole?
7) Are Holman and Matas not in the Club?
8) Why is no one in the proMedia demanding that Mr. Kevin Falcon himself, rather than his chief Spokesthingy, explain, specifically, what is so important and ‘privileged’ about the HST strategy that led to these contracts being doled out in super secret fashion?
Done.
.
