Killing Canadians For Private Corporate Profit. Second Part, B.C. Ferries

To hear David Hahn speaking of things about which he knows very little is not very reassuring – things like ferry operation, for instance. At the time of the 2003 Ferry Strike (largely precipitated by the so-called “Private Management”) Hahn spoke with contempt of safety-trained ship personnel. Anyone could be stuffed on board ships. What’s more the Hahndits tried to woo other Canadian union members to scab. They tried, too, to woo U.S. ferry workers to scab. “Why,” asked the U.S. ferry workers, “should we come to B.C. for less pay than we’re getting here?” Now Hahn does it again. B.C. Ferries isn’t privatized (a fact I have been repeating in columns dealing with B.C. Ferries). It is merely hidden from British Columbians. If David Hahn were sent packing today, B.C. Ferries wouldn’t notice it except that things would improve in the operation. And so he has intensified his role as a public relations officer for the politics of Gordon Campbell, David Emerson and the ugly B.C. cabinet. Apparently, that is a way to make him worth his pay. He attacks government spending on health and education – and, also, oversight of ferry operation. In a Globe and Mail story (Mar 24 06 A8) Hahn digs deep. “Governments”, he is quoted as saying, “are always going to promote health care or education, as they should, at the cost of transportation”. And as The Globe and Mail writer puts it, Hahn thinks “governments should not oversee companies like B.C. Ferries, which was privatized in 2003”. It wasn’t privatized in 2003, or ever. Remember, I said we expect David Hahn to make any number of stupid statements. Lies are truth. Notice Hahn’s role. He talks as if the B.C. government has not savagely attacked health care – showing open contempt for nurses, care attendants, and seniors in homes, just for instance. To show his own contempt for universal medicare, moreover, Gordon Campbell appointed his publicly declared, anti-medicare brother-in-law to the new national health council. Nepotism. And then Campbell took that brother-in-law with him on a recent “show” tour of Europe to provide a base for bashing universal medicare. The Campbell government has blasted B.C.’s apprenticeship and trades education, to say nothing of its letting post-secondary education costs rise to crippling levels for ordinary British Columbians. His government’s mistreatment of teachers is legendary. The Campbell group has blocked the needy from receiving necessary support so that homelessness is up, welfare is denied, B.C. has the highest child poverty rating in Canada, and NGO’s are taking those matters to the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. (see Georgia Straight Apr 6 35, 37, and Denied Assistance, CCPA, Mar 06) So Hahn spouts nonsense. He is paid to do so. He is a political spokesperson for the Campbell cabinet’s political position. But there’s more, and it gets dirtier. The NDP criticism of the Campbell government for not acting sooner, before The Queen of the North wreck occurred, is perfectly justified. The title of this column is “Killing Canadians for Private Corporate Profit”. The B.C. government gave up on safety and “overseeing” forestry operations, and forestry deaths rose by 300% in 2005. Now, for David Hahn to suggest that the taxpayer-owned B.C. Ferries should not operate under government supervision comes close to revealing he has lost connection with reality. But that is to be expected of almost anyone working at top levels for what is an insane organization, insanely constructed. The B.C. Ferries situation is a very, very strange one, and it needs explaining. It is connected to the mindless, Right Wing ideology of the Campbell government, determined to strip B.C. of anything which is owned by the people of the Province. On taking power the Campbell forces went to work to destroy a B.C. owned and operated economy and to destroy the protections guarding health and safety of British Columbians. The Campbell forces privatized all the health care services it could get away with under the Canada Health Act and threw the weak, the sick, the aged, and their care-givers to ruthless, pay-cutting foreign Private Corporations. So-called “authorities” like the B.C. Coastal Health Authority ride the system to make sure foreign Private Corporations make profit, NOT to make sure decent standards are assured for British Columbians. Unable to privatize protection for B.C. children and families, the Campbell government ravaged the ministry in charge and is, I insist, very, very likely guilty of criminal negligence in the deaths of B.C. children (the very matter that Ted Hughes just turned somersaults to avoid facing in his formal Report). B.C. Ferries couldn’t be privatized for the simple reason that there was no buyer waiting to grab it. So the Campbell government, through David Emerson, pushed it to the cliff edge, hiring David Hahn and Martin Crilly (Commissioner of Ferries) to push it over the edge. B.C. Ferries was not privatized. It was trashed. To keep nosey British Columbians (the owners of B.C. Ferries) from seeing the efforts to destroy the B.C. Ferries Corporation, Gordon Campbell and his cabinet cut off B.C. Ferries from the Provincial Auditor General, the B.C. Ombudsman, Access to Information, and the B.C. Labour Relations Board. They hired as CEO and chief spokesperson, David Hahn, who knew nothing about ferry operation. Now the Ferry Union, the BCMFWU, has presented a submission to the Auditor General, Wayne Strelioff, asking for a full public audit of B.C. Ferries. In a document prepared by Nelle Maxey of Powell River – who has worked carefully (and heroically) through the intended labyrinth set up by the Campbell cabinet – the BCMFWU submission argues, as I understand its meaning, the following absolutely important things. (1) B.C. Ferries has not been privatized. (2) The Province is so obviously deeply instrumental in ownership and operation that calling B.C. Ferries a Private Corporation is a fraud. (3)“Privatization” moves have been sham and have involved heavy, needless and, sometimes, bizarre costs. (4) The debt of B.C. Ferries has increased 400% since the Campbell government stripped it of public examination and moved it into hiding. (5) The B.C. taxpayer is (blindly) responsible for Ferry debt. (6)The Campbell government is burying all of the activities of B.C. Ferries that it can – to keep the truth from British Columbians. The answer by Wayne Strelioff, Auditor General of B.C., to the BCMFWU will tell British Columbians if Strelioff, too, is merely a political agent of the Gordon Campbell cabinet, as (“independent investigator”) Ted Hughes has just proved himself to be. Plainly, Gordon Campbell’s hatred of a reasonably priced, reasonably run, and safe ferry operation owned by British Columbians was so intense he was willing to act like a lunatic to destroy it. And so he did act like a lunatic. In the language of ordinary British Columbians, the creation of the “reconstructed” B.C. Ferries operation by Gordon Campbell and his group is a scam. That means everything that could be juggled in B.C. Ferries was juggled, all possible public access to complaint and information was cut off, monies were shunted around as if in a board game, and a series of “independent” crony positions were opened to assure the public would learn as little as possible and the operation would function as a political instrument of the Gordon Campbell group. As a result the B.C. taxpayer ends up with a huge debt – about to increase dramatically – at the same time as the B.C. taxpayer is told B.C. Ferries is “privatized” and is no business of B.C. taxpayers. Attempts to dump parts of B.C. Ferries to Private Corporations (at a loss to British Columbians, you may be sure) can be kept secret from the owner of B.C. Ferries – the British Columbia people. B.C. ferries are part of the B.C. highway system. The ferry system is an essential service which must serve B.C.’s needs. Rejecting all that, the Gordon Campbell government decided (as it did with B.C. Rail) to dump it by whatever sleazy, dishonest, secret, and manipulative means it could find. But B.C. Ferries doesn’t dump very easily. When the Campbell government was fool enough to dump a wonderful asset, B.C. Rail, for peanuts, the Texas boys were there to grab it up. When Campbell sneaked Terasen out of the legislation binding it to B.C. ownership – a Corporation guaranteed to make huge profits – the Texas boys were there to snap it up. The Texas boys will always accommodate fools. But they are not fools themselves. B.C. Ferries is an essential service, a part of B.C. highways, a dubious profit-maker. It doesn’t dump easily. In its fanaticism to dump everything owned by the B.C. people, the Campbell group was too stupid to see the difference between B.C. Ferries and Terasen, for instance. To them, B.C. Ferries had to make money, and had to make money for Private Corporations (never for the people of British Columbia). Now notice carefully. There are much larger questions that come out of all that information and, especially, the presentation to the Auditor General of B.C. from BCMFWU. Is the cabinet of Gordon Campbell acting wrongfully in its duty to British Columbians in the matter of B.C. Ferries? Can a court case be started, claiming improper and secret use of taxpayer’s money to constuct what may be described in layman’s terms as a fraudulent Corporation? Have the B.C. government and its agents and officers, acting in subterfuge (closing all the normal channels to inquiry and proper reporting and control), violated fiduciary duties to British Columbians? In the matter of B.C. Ferries, can the Gordon Campbell cabinet be accused of abuse of power as Ministers of the Crown? I believe all of those questions may well be answered in the affirmative, and I believe the NDP Opposition in the Legislature, the B.C. Federation of Labour, and concerned British Columbia citizens should work together, or separately if necessary, in whatever groups can be formed to research the matter and to take action against the Gordon Campbell cabinet in the courts. To return to The Queen of the North: was the sinking of The Queen of the North necessary? Were the deaths of Gerald Foisy and Shirley Rosette necessary? The answer is No. Who or what is responsible for the shipwreck? Superficially, investigators may say equipment failure, or sleepy crewmen, or a rock that shouldn’t have been there caused the wreck. You can be sure investigators (mimicking Ted Hughes in his examination of the child protection system in B.C.) will do everything in their power to avoid pointing a finger at the Gordon Campbell cabinet and David Hahn. It is, however, very probably fair to suggest that the whole, deep hatred of public service quality on the part of the Gordon Campbell cabinet was a significant cause of the shipwreck of The Queen of the North. When the Campbell government should have left B.C. Ferries in the competent hands of marine-experienced operators, it made David Hahn CEO. When it should have replaced (from B.C. shipyards ) the three known vessels-at-risk, it gave one billion dollars in tax gifts to its greedy Private Corporate friends. Be assured of one thing. The handing of huge ferry-building contracts abroad – especially to the over-subsidized German builders - was not (obviously) done to affirm B.C. manufacturing capacity. Nor was it done because British Columbians can’t build ships. It was to done as a part of the Campbell project of secrecy – to hide debt from British Columbians. If the debt for new ships were reckoned up front, now, the great ‘Golden Decade’ would lose most of its shine. Lie where you can; otherwise, hide the truth. Consider Nelle Maxey’s document, “B.C. Ferry Services Inc. and B.C. Liabilities” and you will smell the determination on the part of the Gordon Campbell cabinet to wreck B.C. Ferries at all costs. I maintain that two of the costs are the wreck of The Queen of the North and the lives of Gerald Foisy and Shirley Rosette. May we confidently, finally, lay the responsibility for that shipwreck and those deaths at the feet of Gordon Campbell, David Hahn, Kevin Falcon, David Emerson, and the ministers overseeing Bill 18 - the Ferry-trashing (not the Ferry privatization) legislation? The answer will be crystal clear to a large number of Canadians. With his almost astonishing tendency to say anything that seeps into his mind, Kevin Falcon blamed (in the legislature) the failure to replace the vessels-at-risk on Glen Clark and his government. Falcon was lunging for some way of turning the responsibility for the shipwreck away from himself and his cabinet colleagues. Anyone who wishes to witness Falcon’s shadow-boxing, misuse of reports, and constant twisting of the truth need only read the Hansard entries about ferries from March 22 06 to April 5 06. Just for instance, he keeps repeating that Martin Crilly is a fully independent ferry Commissioner: “independent of the government and independent of the Board”. That is sheer, unadulterated nonsense. Lies are truth. Anyone who reads the Act creating the Commissioner position sees plainly that the officer filling the position is lashed tightly to Campbell cabinet politics – to destroy B.C. ferries and to diminish safety and service on the fleet. When I wrote Martin Crilly questions about his website on which he claimed powers that he didn’t have to represent users, he e-mailed me asking me to let him call and chat with me on the telephone. I wrote back that I would be happy to chat with him but that I wanted my questions answered first in writing or in print. I never heard from Martin Crilly again. The almost fanatic insistence by Kevin Falcon upon keeping secrecy (which in Orwellian fashion he calls openness and availability of information. Lies are truth.) suggests he knows he is operating a sham enterprise and cannot let it be scrutinized by British Columbians. And so his use of the reports that followed the failure of the fast ferries is careful, select, and ultimately grossly misleading – another obvious attempt to keep the facts about B.C. Ferries from the people of B.C. Using a nervous, babbling energy we often associate with those high on drugs or out of control, Kevin Falcon repeatedly insists the Ferry Corporation was destroyed to end any politics in its operation. That is the worst kind of Orwellian double-speak. The Board of the Ferries is a political instrument of the Gordon Campbell cabinet; the Commissioner of Ferries is an outright, intended political position created as a continuing instrument of Gordon Campbell cabinet politics. The CEO, David Hahn is a walking expositor of cabinet propaganda. The B.C. Ferries operation has never been as political as it is today, and its chief administrators are, for the most part, political hacks who will repeat after Gordon Campbell as The Queen of the North sinks to the bottom: “B.C. ferries are safe”. Lies are truth. The state of ferry operation in B.C. is becoming so loaded with questionable management, falsehoods, disguised manipulations, secrecy, political propaganda, almost inexplicable mortgages and share juggling, masking and mock-postponement of debt – and now a major shipwreck - that the issue has to split open before long. It might just split open before judges in the courts of British Columbia and, eventually, in the Supreme Court of Canada. [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on April 17, 2006]