…was on a plane that just crashed in Îles-de-la-Madeleine, on the way to a family funeral. Jean and I worked closely together on the Hill in 1984, and I can’t say enough about how much he knows about politics. Hope he and his family are okay.
Continue readingMonth: March 2016
Politics and its Discontents: Is Donald trump An Idiot Savant?
If he is, I have yet to discover the one area he is good at, other than mendacious self-promotion. Witness his egregious and profound ignorance of everything beyond the very narrow domain of Trumpworld in the following:Recommend this Post
Continue readingkirbycairo: Look At Me, I Disagree with the Establishment, I must be Hysterical. . .
Below you will find the quote from Mound of Sound on Marie Snyder’s Blog A Puff of Absurdity attacking her and myself. Another typical attack that lacks any actual argument or logic. Typical of Mound, he insists that anyone who disagrees with him is “s…
Continue readingkirbycairo: Look At Me, I Disagree with the Establishment, I must be Hysterical. . .
Below you will find the quote from Mound of Sound on Marie Snyder’s Blog A Puff of Absurdity attacking her and myself. Another typical attack that lacks any actual argument or logic. Typical of Mound, he insists that anyone who disagrees with him is “s…
Continue readingThe Common Sense Canadian: Rafe: Weaver, BC Greens should quit backing private river power sham
Rafe Mair has praised the Green Party on many fronts, but its BC leader, Dr. Andrew Weaver makes a fatal mistake with his continued support of the Liberals’ private power sham, which is bankrupting BC Hydro while destroying our rivers.
The post Rafe: Weaver, BC Greens should quit backing private river power sham appeared first on The Common Sense Canadian.
Continue readingIn-Sights: Guest post: Paying for Information and Influence
I invited Chris Alemany, a councillor for the City of Port Alberni, to write of his effort to gain information about a subject of broad public interest. It is unfortunate the BC Liberal Government demands that concerned citizens pay exorbitant amounts …
Continue readingIn-Sights: Guest post: Paying for Information and Influence
I am no philosopher, nor am I even a scholar in democracy or politics, but I do like to know the numbers… and as a politician, I like to see transparency. So I like to submit freedom of information requests when I see a need.
Pay for Information
I submitted a somewhat detailed FOI Request to the BC Government for information on Wildfire contracts. You can see it further down this post. I did expected a modest handling charge, maybe $100 or so. However, when I received a response back from the (very helpful) FOI officer handling my file I was given this bombshell:
As it stands the fee estimation is at $1,210, but inclusion of all contracts would multiply that amount by seven in terms of hours required.
Obviously there is no way I, as an individual concerned citizen and elected representative with a family and no budget for this kind of thing, can pay $1210-$8500 for some binders of paper or trove of PDFs.
I question even whether a media organization, local newspaper or opposition party would be able to swing that kind of money.
Is this a way to block information? Why are contracts signed with public entities not readily available for the public to scrutinize? Why would this cause so much extra work for an individual in a ministry if we have an expectation for transparency and access to information by default in our public institutions? Or do we actually have that expectation?
Rather than abandon my request, I decided to try something different. A GOFUNDME donation drive to raise the required $1200. It is at:
gofund.me/bcwildfireinfo
Thanks to the surprise and common interest of dozens of other citizens I have managed to raise the minimum $1200 needed to pursue the request. Many donations were given ‘under protest’ at the very notion of having to pay for public information to be released. I hope to raise enough to cover up to the $8500 that was suggesting by the FOI office. If I raise more than needed, the surplus will go to the BC Burn Fund.
Please donate. And please ask your MLA why public information is subject to exorbitant fees in order for it to be seen by the public.
Aerial Firefighting and Political Donations
So what was the information request and why did I put it in? Well, say what you will about one plane or another (I’ve said enough), one fire or another or one company or another, when you see a Minister stand in an Airplane hanger (used by ConAir Aviation) and award a contract (and post it on his MLA webpage) you would expect that that is being done on the basis of its merits alone.
What are the merits of this plane? What are the merits of the company? What basis was this decision made and what is the history of aerial firefighting and the historic cost and performance of aerial firefighting groups working for the BC Wildfire Service?
In a time of increasing fire activity and increasing fire budgets, these seem to be critical questions. However, it seems they are questions largely without public answers aside from very broad numbers about the total cost of wildfire firefighting in any given year.
So with that front of mind after the awarding of the ConAir contract for the new jet plane, I submitted this information request to the Province of BC:
Records indicating the number of firefighting aircraft the province had on contract since the 2010 forest firefighting season, broken down annually by company and model and whether it was signed in advance, on call or on a master standing offer basis; The costs associated with each of those aircraft, including the initial contracts, costs to run and fuel the planes, crew costs and any additional costs; A copy of the contract(s) that Conair has signed with the province for the 2016 firefighting season.
The request is roughly in two parts. The first portion is to determine the actual costs of aerial firefighting in BC so that there is some hard data on what each type of aircraft can do, and perhaps how the current strategy and operational mentality helps or hinders the budget and the effectiveness of firefighting.
The 2nd portion has more to do with the relationship between ConAir and the Provincial government based on persistent conversations and concerns brought to me, particularly after someone passed me this link to the BC Elections Campaign Donation website that shows political donations from ConAir and Coulson.
And then a further link to provincial ministry of finance payment records that, when compiled together look like this:
The discrepancy in payment from the government could come down to a number of things that do not have anything to do with favouritism but it does seem something worth investigating. That is why I put in the freedom of information request.
We’ll see if the information I receive answers any of the questions, but at the very least the request has already proven that given a topic of enough public interest, a pay wall, as unjust as it may be, will not prevent the public in the age of the internet and social media, from attempting to gain access to that information. Whether it should be forced to through things like a GoFundme drive should be a matter of debate.
In-Sights: Guest post: Paying for Information and Influence
I invited Chris Alemany, a councillor for the City of Port Alberni, to write of his effort to gain information about a subject of broad public interest. It is unfortunate the BC Liberal Government demands that concerned citizens pay exorbitant amounts for information that should be routinely available. What’s even
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: An Australian Asks "Are We Witnessing the Death of Neoliberalism?"
From the Australian Business Review. ABR’s Steve Keen writes that the “parallel universe of politics has changed immeasurably in the past two years.”Established parties that have dominated their country’s political agendas for decades have been…
Continue readingWarren Kinsella: Open letter to media
To summarize: Donald Trump forces you into pens Donald Trump bans you when you ask questions Donald Trump calls you disgusting names Donald Trump defends his staff when they assault you Donald Trump gets hundreds of millions in free coverage from you every month, but none of his opponents do Here’s a suggestion: stop covering […]
Continue readingStudy: Fracking, Not Just Fracking Wastewater Injection, Causing Earthquakes in Western Canada
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Hydraulic Fracturing and Seismicity in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin.pdf734.48 KB
A groundbreaking study published today in Seismological Research Letters has demonstrated a link, for the first time, between hydraulic fra…
Continue readingThe Decarie Report: March 19: The Irrational Norbert Cunningham
I use the word irrational as a sort of kindness – though that makes me something of a hypocrite because I don’t feel any kindness. &nb…
Continue reading‘It’s No Longer About Saying No’: How B.C.’s First Nations Are Taking Charge With Tribal Parks
As the crow flies, the territory of the Tsilhqot’in Nation lies just 300 kilometres north of Vancouver— but, cut off by the coastal mountains, it feels like a world away.
By car it takes about nine hours to arrive from Vancouver, including an …
Warren Kinsella: On fundraising, and politics: the definition of hypocrisy
A columnist at the Toronto Star is in high dudgeon, this morning, swinging his metaphorical sword about the supposedly grimy, grubby business of political fundraising. You can read it here, if you like. My response is in the form of a question and answer. Q: Mr. Columnist, who is the principal beneficiary of all the […]
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading.- Martin Regg Cohn exposes the Ontario Libs’ pay-to-play governing strategy, as cabinet ministers have been instructed to use their roles and access to meet fund-raising targets of up to half a million dollars per…
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Hillary Has a Point
It could be Hillary Clinton’s best ever one-liner, her advice to troubled Republicans:”Once you make the extreme normal, you open the door to even worse.” Well played, Hillary.“Donald Trump didn’t come out of nowhere,” Clinton said in a speech at…
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Seeds of Revolt
Has America become a giant criminal enterprise where the political and financial elite have launched a recurring Ponzi scheme that continues to impoverish the working blue and white collar classes?James K. Galbraith, economist son of legendary Canadian…
Continue readingWise Law Blog: LawFact of the Day: Wills and Estates
Here is your daily LawFact from Wise Law for Tuesday March 29, 2016. Today we are talking about Wills and Estates.A video posted by @wiselaw on Mar 29, 2016 at 6:35am PDTWhere a person dies without a will, an intestacyarises. Ontario’s Successi…
Continue readingWarren Kinsella: Who is Justin Trudeau?
Damned if I know. Lawrence Martin takes a stab at answering the question, here. It’s a really good piece, but I found the very last sentence bewildering. It’s like he didn’t know how to end it, and just tacked it on. Anyway. When my Dad died, twelve years ago this Spring, Justin Trudeau – who […]
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