Paying $185,000 for each job
BC’s fossil fuel industry benefited from credits worth $902 million in fiscal year 2018 and $4.2 billion in the past five years. Each of the jobs in oil and gas…
Norman Farrell
Malfeasance and mismanagement
BC Hydro and the energy ministry employ many people paid salaries of hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. But, these people don’t work to save ratepayers’ money but to…
NDP hides financial information and misleads the Legislature
Tax expenditures are subsidies delivered through the taxation system. These promote policy goals of government but are subject to far less scrutiny and disclosure than direct spending. The primary beneficiaries…
Economic illiteracy in Canadian media
The Fraser Institute declares Tax Freedom Day each year. It is an inaccurate trick to further interests of the millionaires and billionaires for whom the “charity” works. Many of those…
A Theatre Near You
We felt outrage over this and other indignities experienced by persons of colour in the USA. For some reason though, we paid no attention to segregation in our own community.…
Die große Lüge
My writings in the past have decried BC Hydro directors and executives surrendering to corporate inertia. Inappropriate rigidity has led to failure in many badly run corporations and it now…
We are the cause, we are the solution
BC Government webpages pay little or no attention to climate change as a driver of wildfire. Public servants have sound advice for homeowners and recreationalists but government provides few comments…
Forget what they say, watch what they do
Pal explained that I had wasted time reading platforms and promises. He said the only method of judging real intentions is to scrutinize a politician’s finances. Give me a list…
Bitter old man
A person shilling for the pension funds management business complained about my recent article revealing extravagant salaries at the BC Investment Management Corporation (BMI). He wrote that I was a…
The Gravy Train accelerates
BC Investment Management Corporation (BCI), the public pension fund manager in this province increased compensation costs by 30% per dollar of funds managed in fiscal year 2017-2018. It already paid…
Site C provides work of questionable quality to a mostly transient workforce
The NDP promoted its PowerBC program in the 2017 election. Had they been sincere, government would be keeping a promise to voters and they would now be preserving Peace River…
Canadian natural resources almost given away to mostly foreign owned producers
In Norway, with 5.3 million people, upstream petroleum companies are subject to a 27% petro tax plus a special tax of 51%. Alberta petroleum tax is less than 4%. BC’s…
BC subsidies to gas producers: $8.6 billion, 2007-2017
Citizens of British Columbia are facilitating and subsidizing production of bitumen from Alberta tar sands. How’s that for an example of hypocrisy by a Government that claims it object to…
My new initiative
Today I announced my candidacy in the District of North Vancouver for election to SD44. The website normfarrell.ca provides details. Thanks to the many people who’ve already expressed support.
Bright and breezy days go dark
The province now won’t admit that solar power potential is huge and economical. If they did, voters would wonder why BC Hydro is borrowing $11 billion, destroying valuable farmlands and…
Climate change: money today vs survival tomorrow
Even if evidence of global warming was not overwhelming, the precautionary principle dictates a radical change in the way we conduct ourselves. Yet, our governments, banks that fear stranded assets,…
Punishment does not fit the crime
When Justice Kenneth Affleck jailed a senior who was honestly motivated to improve the world, the judge was following a long-established Canadian legal tradition. It dictates: Punishment need not fit…
A BC family’s 15-year struggle for justice
Despite the Moore case, the parent was forced to move their their son to a private school offering specialized instruction and supervision. The family is financially crippled by the $2,400…
No free lunch
The proliferation of plug-in stations breeds a mindset that electric vehicles are completely “green” …and they aren’t using “horsepower”. Though the overall impact of all electric vehicles is calculated to…