Lurching Ferries, Lurching Liberals

The destructive actions of the Campbell government ? too numerous to list in any one or any set of columns ? are no accident, nor are they the result of stupid experimentation in attempts to find new, efficient forms of government. The explanation is simple: the purpose of the wrecking operation is to disenfranchise British Columbians. The purpose is to destroy democracy in British Columbia. Those clear statements must be placed beside four others if all is to be seen clearly. (1) The Liberal government of B.C. has quiet support from the federal Liberal government of Paul Martin. The pretended ?animosity? between Ujjal Dosanjh and B.C. Liberals, for instance, is a sham. Dosanjh helped place the B.C. Liberals in power. The conflict-of-interest appointment of B.C. corporate baron David Emerson as the federal Minister of Industry will further B.C. Liberal intentions to rape and alienate B.C. resources and institutions. The appointment is, moreover, a general part of the subversion of democratic institutions by Martin/Campbell Liberals in Canada, involving sham party membership purchase, stacking of candidate-selection meetings, and, thereby, fraudulently ?producing? candidates for office. Both Gordon Campbell and Ujjal Dosanjh are alleged to have used the method for personal advancement. David Emerson was ?personally? imposed upon his Vancouver-Kingsway constituency by Paul Martin. When I, with about twenty others, formally asked the Chief Electoral Officer and Elections Canada to act in law against the candidate selection wrong-doing and mass membership gathering in B.C., they refused and told me that if I could, personally, get information about wrong-doing, then they might act! (2) Canwest press and media ? and all mainstream journalism that touches B.C. ? are actively devoted to support of the Campbell government, or they have been effectively gagged. While making a show of permitting genuine debate within its monopoly newspapers, Canwest uses major columnists and editorials to support the devastation wrought by the B.C. Liberal government. Moreover, it avoids serious investigative journalism and follow-ups on critically serious stories of Campbell government mismanagement and ? perhaps ? wrong-doing. In a recent Letters column the Victoria Times Colonist framed and highlighted a letter suggesting the Campbell Liberals will win the next election! Subtle, eh. (3) The B.C. and federal Liberal machines have bribed, coerced, gutted, pandered to, or permitted corruption in an increasing number of ?objective? and independent? forces related to government and its balance inside B.C and outside it, such as the ombudsman, the information and privacy commissioner, the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP, the commissioner of ferries, press, police, the courts, and the Chief Electoral Officer and Elections Canada. The B.C. Liberal government has effectively castrated its very large caucus, the members of which take no part whatever in government. In fact, according to one rare, silenced, dissident member, caucus members are rehearsed like school-children (and accept rehearsal) to ask stupidly harmless questions of cabinet members in session. One caucus member, moreover, recently touring B.C. ship-building facilities, announced she could make no comment nor have any opinion about what she had seen but would refer her visit to the cabinet minister in charge of delivering contracts to foreign shipbuilders. (4) The Gordon Campbell government is not doing something uncharacteristic of Right governments. Right governments first strip the people of their real democracy, then install a corporate, police, court-supported oligarchy, then remove all pretences of democracy and install fascist government ? unless they are stopped. The only explanation of present B.C. government actions that makes sense is an explanation that sees it as a Toxic Right government determined to destroy democracy and democratic institutions in British Columbia for the benefit of a small class of wealthy and usually foreign corporations. The B.C. Ferry situation provides much evidence of all that has been said here. First, the claim that foreign building of B.C. ferries is ?efficient? and, therefore, local bids must be ruled out, is sheer, ideological, nutcase nonsense. The employment of Canadians, the reinvestment of their wages and taxes and spin-off revenues here in Canada are ? to the madmen in B.C. government - somehow an ?inefficiency?. The so-called efficiency of foreign shipbuilders comes from huge government subsidies they receive to undercut foreign competitors. (Stephen Hume, Vanc. Sun, Aug 5 04 A9c) The B.C. government takes, moreover, the standard Toxic Right position that Canadians are by nature inferior and cannot manage and produce at high quality for their own society. What follows from that is a perpetual colonial-minded attitude. There is no point in giving Canadian workers challenges because they are too stupid to rise to them ? get a foreigner, let foreigners make profit, develop expertise, and receive much higher wages than Canadians receive. Foreigners ARE better, aren?t they, just naturally? The government pretends, in addition, that buying outside Canada is a guaranteed good, that there is no possibility of British Columbians buying a pig-in-a-poke. Stephen Hume shows that is a very foolish supposition. The simple fact is that expertise is gained by hands-on involvement with construction and engineering. We can impoverish Canadians, and we can hand away all major technological tasks to foreign corporations forever. That is the design of the Gordon Campbell Liberals with B.C. ferries. But it also their design generally, as shown in their handing of care facilities in B.C. to foreign, exploitative, private profit makers. Unfortunately, that, too, is, apparently, the design of the federal Paul Martin Liberals. Their policy now is to ?internationalize? productive activity involving Canada. That means they will do nothing to stop the Campbell foreign ferry building plans. In fact, the federal cabinet (and David Emerson) will doubtless support Campbell. (The importance of the David Emerson imposition as Vancouver-Kingsway candidate begins to be seen.) Some of the commentators on the new foreign ferry fantasy provide a kind of gallows humour. Men chosen to help wreck democracy and democratic institutions in B.C., they are hailed by Canwest press as sober, objective observers. One such commentator is a man who had no experience whatever of ferry operation, was hired from a bankrupt, dubious U.S. corporation, and is paid $325,000 a year to ?privatize? and deconstruct the perfectly viable B.C. Ferry Corporation. David Hahn, U.S. citizen on special visa, surprises no one by backing the foreign ferries policy ? which is why he was hired. Martin Crilly is consulted, too ? the Martin Crilly, Commissioner of Ferries, who just finished a report claiming B.C. Ferries are not privatizing fast enough. Who is Martin Crilly? Nobody. What did he know about ferries when appointed? Almost nothing. I studied the new Ferries Act closely to learn Crilly?s role. He claimed on his website to have a mandate to assure such things as quality of service and customer satisfaction. The Act says no such thing. So I wrote to the B.C ombudsman, asking that he demand Crilly remove false and misleading statements from the Commission website. The ombudsman informed me the new Ferry Act excludes his right to ask B.C. ferries for honest publication about its activities ? or to ask it anything. I contacted Martin Crilly with questions. He e-mailed me that he would like to chat with me. Would I give him my phone number and a convenient time to call? I e-mailed in return to say I didn?t object to chatting, but would he, first, answer my questions in writing. I never again heard from Martin Crilly. Then I turned to the B.C. Ferries new shape and its weird, sleight-of-hand financing. Incidentally, very recently (Craig McInnes, Vanc. Sun, May 27 04 A10), with no ombudsman watching and no access to information privacy commissioner watching, the new B.C. Ferry monster refinanced its mortgage with a $250 million bond issue at the startlingly high rate of 5.74 per cent interest. Might we inquire how many of Campbell?s friends hold the bonds? I wanted to have the mad, fantasy-act financing of the new ferry monster explained simply and honestly. I wrote Attorney General Plant. He wrote to me that the access to information (?Information and Privacy Commissioner?) commissioner could no longer oversee B.C. Ferries (because he was purposefully excluded by the new Act). Plant suggested I contact a highly placed officer of the B.C. Ferries. I did. She ignored my letters. And so I wrote to premier Gordon Campbell and asked for information. What ensued is almost impossible to believe. He wrote to me and recommended that I consult the Information and Privacy Commissioner whom, Campbell stated in his letter ? ?an independent officer of the legislature? ? ?is legally empowered? under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act to deal with such complaints. Gordon Campbell, premier of the Province, parent of the new Ferry Act which excludes the Information and Privacy Commissioner from oversight of the newly fantasized B.C. Ferries, recommended I consult the Information and Privacy Commissioner about my inquiries and my failure to get a response about B.C. Ferries! Struck by the chaotic Insane Asylum I had entered when I entered discussion with B.C. Liberal cabinet ministers, I began writing to David Loukedelis, Information and Privacy Commissioner, to ask if he has power to oversee matters at B.C. Ferries (despite the new Ferries Act specifically excluding him). I wrote to David Loukedelis, and I wrote to him, and wrote to him. I did so because premier Gordon Campbell gave me false information and, perhaps, did so deliberately. Finally, David Loukedelis replied, or rather Judy Durrance Intake Manager replied. She spent most of her letter telling me that the Act gives the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner certain powers, but not powers to ask that my questions be answered. She waited until three quarters of the way through her letter to tell me that ?BC Ferries is now a private organization and does not come under the Act?. In effect, she is telling me that Gordon Campbell should not have referred me to the Information and Privacy Commisioner because he himself had robbed the Commissioner of any relation to B.C. Ferries, and Gordon Campbell had to know that. David Loukedelis and all others like him in B.C. and Canada are in a tough position. The federal Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP is a hollow sham agency, disabled by legislation before it can even begin to be effective. The Chief Electoral Officer and Elections Canada are hollow shams, disabled before they can even begin serious investigation of wrong-doing. The ombudsman and the Information and Privacy Commissioner in B.C. have had their budgets slashed in order to guarantee their ineffectiveness. Thus are democratic institutions and processes attacked, undermined and erased. Thus are quasi-criminal activities protected by the very people who should stand against them, investigate them, and prevent them. But David Loukedelis and others like him should take on the governments slashing their budgets and attempting coercion of other kinds. They should fight publicly. They should force dictatorial governments like Gordon Campbell?s to fire them ? alerting the public to the problems. Instead the David Loukedelis types in Canada bow their heads, silently continue, and ? in fact ? support the Toxic Right governments they are supposed to check and rein in. A tiny note, for instance, appeared in the August 5 Vancouver Georgia Straight news and entertainment weekly. David Loukedelis, it reported, supported the B.C. government in refusing the Georgia Straight access to a small portion of Gordon Campbell?s telephone records. In 1994 NDP premier Mike Harcourt released his phone records as a result of a freedom-of-information request. And Harcourt was then attacked for some of his phoning. The Georgia Straight asked in 2002 for access to Campbell?s telephone and fax records covering only a two-month period. Two years later a decision came from David Loukedelis. And he refused the request. It is sad to observe that reasonable and prudent Canadians might very well judge that Campbell is being supported in his suppression of democratic surveillance by ?independent? David Loukedelis, Information and Privacy Commissioner of B.C. The fact that Mike Harcourt opened his records, that Gordon Campbell refuses to do so, and that Campbell is supported by David Loukedelis is all the comment that is needed. Democracy and democratic institutions in British Columbia are under real and consistent attack. The B.C. Liberal government lurches from mismanaged corruption scandals to lunatic appointments, from botched legislation to barely disguised thefts of public assets, from vicious attacks on working British Columbians to sadistic moves that strip adequate shelter from the aged, the weak, and others unable to cope with contemporary society. The B.C. government does all those things in a move to destroy democracy and to replace it with government by unelected profit-makers, a few chosen, wealthy, foreign, corporate, fascistic actors. The drama of the B.C. Ferry Corporation is a case study of the destruction of democracy in B.C. Transformed and gutted by insane legislation, it has been placed in the hands of a CEO - a former vice-president of a dubious and bankrupt U.S. corporation who knows nothing about British Columbia and who backs every Toxic Right move of the government. The ferry operation is now tied up in a fantasy network of wonderland financing which breeds the kind of bond issue referred to above, benefitting what wealthy group? The new operation is dedicatedly anti-employee and determined to turn its workers into serfs. It has ?created? a Commissioner of ferries described as ?independent and objective?. He was selected and set up to be an ideological shark, determined to shred the operation into a number of private profit cores, each one exploiting the travelling public. The ferry system has leaped to foreign suppliers ? showing open contempt for expertise in B.C. and for the B.C. population, in order to satisfy a Toxic Right definition of ?efficiency?. The operation has been removed from the overview of both the ombudsman and the Information and Privacy Commissioner - and as much as possible from scrutiny by British Columbians (so, it would seem, that ?privatizing? administrators can engage in dirty business without being found out). Finally, when asked directly for information about ferry financing, the premier, Gordon Campbell simply lied to me. The drama of the B.C. Ferry Corporation reveals what it means when a Toxic Right government sets out to destroy democracy and democratic institutions. -------- Robin Mathews publishes on culture, politics, the arts, and Canadian Intellectual history. He lives in Vancouver with his wife, a potter. His column appears regularly on Vive le Canada. Comments: rmathews@sfu.ca Edit