Unsolved crimes, a cold case file
BC residents who read comments here and like places in social media will be familiar with the very articulate Lew Edwardson (@valtamtech on Twitter). Lew has had a particular interest…
Norman Farrell
Dear John letter
A letter republished with permission of the BC Hydro Ratepayers Association. Dear Premier Horgan…
Plug pulled on PowerBC
Before John Horgan was sworn in as Premier, BC NDP promoted a wise alternative to construction of Site C, a dam that would cost many billions of dollars and had…
Private power – BC’s unmitigated financial disaster
The Horgan Government indicated it will conduct a review of private power purchases but lifting contract secrecy is the one thing that could be done immediately. It is inconceivable that…
Real news reshaped, redefined and side tracked
Independent Voter Network declares: A free press is the watchdog of the people. The media holds the sacred responsibility of alerting the citizenry of actions by governments, elected politicians, corporations…
Taxpayer dollars at work
Here is a video of an interview conducted in England with a consultant who worked for British Columbia when the Campbell and Clark governments were awarding information technology contracts. His…
Questions
With which group will Justin Trudeau identify? This one? Or, this one? It was sponsored by subsidized fossil fuel and extractive industries and held on the edge of Vancouver’s inner…
Shilling for dollars
Updated from June 2016. In an earlier article, I made reference to BC Legislative Press Gallery members producing commissioned articles. These are public relations pieces intended to serve particular needs…
Republican’s genius strategy
History Professor Alfred McCoy produced The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia in 1972. The CIA interfered with the book’s publication but its condemnation of American complicity in the drug…
What Hydro, Government and corporate media hates reporting
BC Hydro’s sales of electricity to residents and businesses have been flat since 2005, despite population growth of 15% in BC and minimal effort by the provincial utility to reduce…
CBC offered “pure propaganda”
After a CBC radio offering that made little effort to provide a complete story, economist Erik Andersen sent a message to CBC Early Edition. Erik keeps a close eye on…
Misappropriation of public wealth
This article was first published in April 2016 and is repeated because is explains how BC Hydro got into the private power mess that continues to cost ratepayers hundreds of…
Governmental pandering and corporate fiction peddling
Following is an item contributed by an In-Sights reader who chooses to be known as “Anonymous.” Most people are unlikely to remember the following… from J. Wellington Wimpy “I’ll gladly…
Taxing and subsidizing carbon
While BC consumers of carbon pay an ever increasing tax — $10 billion since 2009 — carbon producers are enjoying billions of dollars in subsidies. In the fiscal years 2007…
One man’s struggle against boredom
In the article More Energy Ministry duplicity, I wrote: Deputy Minister Dave Nikolejsin’s employment cost taxpayers almost $350,000 in the last fiscal year, including $90,255 in expenses, an amount that…
The fix was in
In a November 2017 post at his blog, York University Professor Mark Winfield, notes the failures of politicians when tasked with making energy decisions: The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador…
Fossil fuel pollution we forget
After Canada’s federal government and its energy regulator chose to examine broader environmental effects of Trans Mountain’s Energy East pipelines, including upstream and downstream emissions, the American owned company abandoned…
BC’s failing grade in climate change
In a report issued today, Auditor General Carol Bellringer says the BC government is not adequately managing risks posed by climate change. She finds: Government has work underway to adapt…
BC Log export numbers raise questions
BC Stats, an agency of the provincial government, reports regularly on raw log exports. The most recent detail shows the quantity of logs shipped out of British Columbia has grown…
Site C, a Kodak moment
For many years, I worked in the motion picture film laboratory business. One of our profit centres was processing TV News film footage. We had machines in or near TV…