Economics, by and for lay people
George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Second Lord of the Treasury of the United Kingdom, boasted recently about his nation’s modest economic growth. If expansion continues, Britain will soon…
Norman Farrell
Ignorance occasionally has a purpose
Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Taxes, after all, are dues that we pay for the privileges of membership in an organized society.” If you’re older than 30, you remember the nineties. Hard…
On resources with Ian Jessop, Apr 17
Gadget Google – Lecteur multimédia de Google – http://www.liens-du-vin.ch/google-audio_player-script.htm
When special interests buy a government
Before BC Liberals were first elected in 2001, they promised natural resource producers to materially cut the public share of values extracted. They kept their promise and producers filled party…
Money laundering and casinos, who knew?
CTV Vancouver: Money laundering rampant in casinos, April 10, 2014 “Confidential documents are shedding light on a host of suspicious behaviour at B.C. casinos, where patrons routinely carry bags loaded…
Premier Clark ditches coal & LNG for renewables
Christy Clark announced today that the province is terminating coal exports and ending negotiations to provide free land, power, natural gas feedstock, shipping facilities and other capital and operating supports…
Norm on CFAX1070 with Ian Jessop 3/31/14
Gadget Google – Lecteur multimédia de Google – http://www.liens-du-vin.ch/google-audio_player-script.htm
Days of restraint, austerity and net-zero
There was a time in British Columbia when creative and ambitious people aimed to be involved in productive entrepreneurialism. Perhaps manufacturing, construction, resource extraction, distribution or other activities that created…
Crony capitalism, part duh…
I don’t know that I will bother writing about the detail that I’ve accumulated in examining convention centre projects in North America and abroad. Regular readers can probably guess accurately…
Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable
Finley Peter Dunne is credited with the words above. I have a feeling this direction will be in the minds of more than a few politicos a year or so…
Please standby
For much of January, I’ve not been publishing regular articles at Northern Insight but, rest assured, my eyes remained focused on news events in Canada. I’ll soon be back (according…
War on coastal communities
Christy Clark’s Liberals seem dedicated to punishing residents of BC coastal communities, probably because all ferry dependent communities failed to return Liberal candidates in the last election. A few days…
"Veritable sewer of skullduggery"
Reading through Diane Francis’ 1988 book Contrapreneurs, from which the title of this piece is taken, I noted repeated mentions of a person who was, for more than a decade,…
Blogs, bloggers and blogging
My December 9 session with Ian Jessop on CFAX 1070 covers the why and how of Northern Insight with a short end comment about BC Ferries. Gadget Google – Lecteur…
Lies, damn lies and statistics
In late 2012, BC Ferries published a 14-page self-promotion titled Fuel Strategies. It discussed alleged savings in fuel consumption achieved by BC Ferries’ brilliant managers. A centrepiece was this chart:…
RCMP mess needs sweeping – REPLAY
This is the first article I posted at Northern Insight, written in April 2009. By the time the fifth anniversary rolls around, the article count will be about 2,000. I…
CKNW Orphans’ Fund Financial Recap
Based on T3010 reports filed by the charity with Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) CKNW Orphans’ Fund 7 YRS
The BC Ferry crisis is a political one
I’ll be posting more about the changes proposed by government to BC Ferries but there are a few bits of information worth throwing out before I complete a more thorough…