Priorities: BC Liberal-style

BC Liberals continue to Allow ICBC Mismanagement: Ratepayers lose

ICBC drops luxury car insurance, but savings won't prevent rate hikes

Rob Shaw (November 23, 2016). Vancouver Sun. http://vancouversun.com/?s=ICBC+drops+luxury+car+insurance%2C+but+savings+won%27t+prevent+rate+hikes

VICTORIA — A plan by the B.C. government to cut off ICBC auto insurance for Lamborghinis, high-end Maseratis and similar vehicles won’t save enough to prevent massive hikes to basic insurance rates, and is only a small fraction of the savings needed to end the financial crisis at the beleaguered public auto insurer.

Transportation Minister Todd Stone admitted Wednesday that his move to end public insurance for super high-end luxury vehicles will only save $2.3 million in claims costs annually at the Insurance Corp. of B.C.

That represents a drop in the bucket of what ICBC needs to save to avoid the worst-case scenario that it reluctantly released Wednesday, showing basic rate hikes climbing by as high as 42 per cent, compounded, over the next five years.

“We are not going to allow a scenario that would provide for that level of basic rate increases to actually happen here in British Columbia,” said Stone, who promised additional reforms in coming weeks, and a push to reduce fraud, claims costs and other financial factors.

The $2.3 million in savings is dwarfed by the $472 million ICBC needed to take from its optional business this year just to cut a projected 15 per cent increase in basic insurance rates down to the 4.9 per cent cap promised by Premier Christy Clark.

ICBC has had to use $1.4 billion earned by its optional insurance business to keep basic rates artificially low for the past several years, leading to questions about what effect, if any, the small savings from stopping insuring of luxury vehicles would have on ICBC’s bottom line.

“It might provide a couple million of savings on an annual basis, but just as importantly, it’s a fairness question for motorists across the province,” said Stone, who portrayed the move as a way to protect middle-class ratepayers from subsidizing the province’s wealthiest citizens.

NDP critic Adrian Dix said the luxury vehicle announcement was just to disguise the fact that ICBC was forced to publish Wednesday a series of damaging hypothetical rate forecasts to 2020, after losing a fight with the B.C. Utilities Commission to keep the information secret.

Those scenarios (which use various assumptions around capital levels and investment returns) suggest basic rates could rise a compounded 42 per cent by 2020 if ICBC makes no progress in reducing claims costs, 25 per cent with modest progress and 16 per cent in the best case for the corporation.

Stone criticized the BCUC for forcing ICBC to release forecasts built upon “unreasonable assumptions” using “extreme projections.”

Dix noted ICBC hasn’t hit internal financial forecasts in several years, so it’s hard to take seriously the argument it could meet four years of its optimistic projections.

Analysts have said ICBC is caught in an unsustainable cycle of politically-motivated rate caps by a B.C. Liberal government facing re-election in May, rising claims costs, and a diminishing amount of reserve capital available to earn money to artificially subsidize basic rates.

Stone called the scope of ICBC’s financial challenge “significant” and the pressures it is facing from rising claims, injury and repair costs “enormous.”

He said the luxury car move would not address the challenges of ICBC but was one step toward reducing pressures on rates.

ICBC will refuse to offer basic insurance on vehicles worth more than $150,000 once the law is changed next spring, said Stone.

Luxury car owners will have to go to private companies to get basic insurance. ICBC will maintain its monopoly on basic insurance for everyone else.
Until the law is changed, high-end drivers will find their premiums doubled to cover the skyrocketing cost of repairing their vehicles, which Stone said is now being borne by ordinary ratepayers. The change doesn’t apply to limos, trucks, motorhomes or collector vehicles.



It costs up to six times as much to repair luxury cars in an accident as an ordinary vehicle, and the number of luxury vehicles on the road has risen 30 per cent to 3,000 in the past three years, said Stone.

ICBC officials illustrated the situation by pointing out repairs to the bumper on a Ferrari cost $6,000 compared to $390 for a Toyota Corolla, and yet the basic insurance premiums for drivers of both vehicles were comparably priced.

The number of super-high-end exotic sports cars has nearly doubled over the past six years on Metro Vancouver streets, from 1,300 vehicles in 2009 to 2,500 in 2015.

rshaw@postmedia.com
twitter.com/robshaw_vansun

 

 

BC Liberals: Poverty pushers for BC citizens with disabilities

Provincial clawbacks relegate the disabled to life of poverty

Stephen Hume(May 31, 2016 ). Vancouver Sun. http://vancouversun.com/opinion/columnists/stephen-hume-provincial-clawbacks-relegate-the-disabled-to-life-of-poverty

Amy Jane Brown, or A.J. as she prefers to be called, is an accomplished artist, once a teenage ballerina, an advocate and a poster girl for the amazing abilities of those members of the community we categorize as “people with disabilities.”

That categorization is just a self-serving way of soft-soaping discrimination by providing an identifying label — although A.J. defies labels.

A.J. was born in Vancouver 50 years ago. She lives with the consequences of a birth accident which rendered her deaf. She has cerebral palsy, a condition which has left her progressively more fatigued. She lives with the lingering after-effects of recurring surgeries to correct an idiopathic scoliosis, which is a lateral curvature of the spine.

These differences, she says, mean she’s treated differently by the very people who profess to want to treat her like every other citizen.

In spite of astonishing accomplishments, she subsists on a tiny income that’s made even smaller by provincial government clawbacks of federal benefits. The benefits are supposed to make life easier for people coping with disabilities that ensure little prospect they will ever enjoy incomes most of us take for granted. 

There’s discrimination and there’s discrimination. Acknowledging differences is one thing. Punishing people for their differences is entirely another.

Like the Wizard of Oz, politicians are all about grand mission statements, uplifting rhetoric and high-mindedness as they promise route maps down the Golden Brick Road to the Emerald City. But behind the carefully constructed curtain of tinsel and sham, what’s at work is a con job serving the grubby principles of judgmental parsimony for the already poor.

I wanted to introduce A.J. to Vancouver Sun readers because — and I admit my occasional complicity — one of the problems with writing about provincial governments, bureaucracies, policy analysis and the politicians who enable policy on the public’s behalf is how often we cloak ourselves in statistics.

Statistics are a convenient way for those of us in the mainstream to distance ourselves from the realities of the actual human beings affected and marginalized by abstract decisions.

That’s certainly the case for commentary about people with disabilities who are affected, in many cases hurt, by government policies that are clearly discriminatory — although government almost always denounces discrimination, even while those on the receiving end of discriminatory policy beg to differ.

As a person and a mind, she attended Balmoral Hall, a school for girls in Winnipeg, then Carson Graham Secondary in Vancouver. As a high school student, her favourite subjects were geography — she was fascinated by topography and how land elevations affect weather — and mathematics.

She earned a bachelor’s degree at Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C.

“I chose Gallaudet because it was, at the time, the only university that would teach deaf people. Nearly everyone used sign language. It was a whole new world for me.” And for her mother. “Mom freaked because she said it was the murder capital of the U.S.”

 A.J. majored in English literature with a minor in music. It was a struggle. Her five years at university were spent in a powered wheelchair because that’s how long recovery from the spinal surgery took.

She graduated in 1990. Then came the real test — finding a way to support herself despite her disabilities. Nobody, it seems, was much interested in accommodating A.J.’s differences. She went back to school at Capilano College and took business courses, then took more business training at Open Learning University.

“By this time it was getting harder to speak. So, being understood was becoming more hard to do. I was getting to the point where all I could do was point and grunt. I didn’t want to be a cave woman.” Technology intervened. Now she uses her iPad to write what she wants to say.

It took five years, but A.J. did find a job. She then worked for eight years, first doing data entry at the Surrey Tax Centre, later sorting mail for Canada Post, paying taxes and contributing to her Canada Pension Plan like most other working people. But fatigue and her physical condition eventually took their toll.

She now subsists on combined federal and provincial disability benefits. With no clawbacks, those benefits would total $1,450 a month, $544 from CPP and $906 from B.C. But the province reduces its payment by the amount she gets from CPP and instead contributes only $342. This the province characterizes as “topping up” her CPP, although it reduces her monthly benefit to $886.

A.J. has to deduct her monthly rent — she’s lucky enough to be in subsidized housing — from her monthly disability benefits, leaving her $546 a month on which to live. This is about half the average monthly income in Botswana. It’s about 15 per cent of the average monthly wage in Canada. B.C., it seems, expects people with disabilities like A.J. to live on third world incomes in one of the more expensive cities in the first world.  

“It is really punitive being on the B.C. disability,” she observes. “I thought, as the name suggests, disability assistance, that would be income on top of what I earn. I feel lied to. I thought it was basic income. But it comes with severe limits.

“I feel like this is a bad experiment gone wrong. I have difficult choices on what to eat. I’ve heard of old women living from cat food because that’s what they can afford. I sure hope that won’t be me!”

Any fair-minded person might see this as discrimination directed specifically at people with disabilities because of their disabilities, regardless of government’s self-serving Orwellian definitions of clawbacks and discounted benefits as generous top-ups.

“Yes, you bet I’m discriminated against. I’m a woman, first off,” says A.J. “I’m deaf so that is another cubbyhole. Additional is my cerebral palsy and my back. The more things that are ‘wrong’ with a person, the more cubbyholes there are.”

“I don’t get ANY of my CPP disability,” she says. “The B.C. government helps itself to that money. It’s plain thievery. It’s disheartening to have it gone, when I should have it.”

The limited income means difficult choices. She passes on lunch with friends. She doesn’t go for the physiotherapy she would like because at $75 a visit the cost is too high. She cancelled cable TV and its closed caption programming because it cost too much — why haven’t our cheapskate politicians designated closed caption TV an essential service for the deaf since it’s the only effective universal emergency communication service they can easily access? 

Yet A.J. lives frugally so that she can save enough each month to cover tuition for one art course at Emily Carr each term. The total cost of her art courses for the year is less than Premier Christy Clark earns for one day of swanning around at photo ops.

It’s not likely A.J. will ever be invited to one of those face-to-face power dinners with the premier that prove so popular with our business elites, but if she could, here’s what she’d inform Premier Clark:

“You do know that clawing back CPP and other sources of income (for people with disabilities) is abuse, don’t you? Clawing back, or stealing, or deducting the money is wrong and should stop. Please stop deducting.”

shume@islandnet.com

BC Liberals Play Politics with Kids Education in BC

Horgan: “It’s an odd way to run a public education system”

Shane Woodford (May 31, 2016). CKNW. http://www.cknw.com/2016/05/31/horgan-its-an-odd-way-to-run-a-public-education-system/

 

The leader of the B.C. NDP says the B.C. Liberal government is blatantly trying to buy back votes with its recent education funding announcements.

“The classic example is taking with one hand and then giving it back just before the election.”

John Horgan says the 11th hour timing of today’s education announcement, giving back $25-million of the $54-million the province mandated school districts find, is a bit of a head-scratcher.

“Now all of the tough decisions have been made by school districts. They have gone through very difficult budget processes. They have declared certain schools are about to be closed and then the province comes at the 11th hour, and drops a little tiny bit of money in the bucket that won’t even come close to solving the problem. It is an odd way to run a public education system.”

 

He says the funding announcement is not about the kids, but rather politics for the Christy Clark government.

“You have got this giving back of money that just a week ago, just a week ago, the Minister of Education said was not going to happen is a true indication that the government is clearly having difficulty. They are blanketing the airwaves with feel good ads paid for by taxpayers, because their polls are telling them they are doing very very poorly.”

Horgan says it was also about bolstering the election chances for MLAs Coralee Oakes, Dan Ashton, and Linda Larson in Quesnel, Osoyoos, aand Penticton where the funding was announced simultaneously.

BC Liberal Bafflegab: 90 Scientists & policy experts vs 1 unqualified Minister of Environment

B.C. environment minister says climate scientists' letter 'doesn't meet with reality'

Mary Polak defends B.C. Liberals' committment to LNG, the 'cleanest burning' fossil fuel
Matt Meuse (May 30, 2016). CBC News. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/polak-lng-letter-1.3608162

International climate change experts have decried plans for a liquified natural gas industry in B.C., but Environment Minister Mary Polak says LNG has a key role to play as a transition fuel — and that those experts haven't taken a wide enough view of the industry.

In a letter addressed to federal environment minister Catherine McKenna, 90 scientists and policy experts said the proposed Pacific NorthWest LNG plant near Prince Rupert would make it "virtually impossible" for B.C. to meet its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction targets.

But Polak said the letter's authors have taken a myopic view of the situation and that the provincial government would be announcing a number of GHG reduction measures later this month.

"By their own admission in the letter, they say that they have based their estimates on no new actions in terms of climate," Polak told On the Coast host Stephen Quinn.

"Their assumption from the beginning doesn't meet with reality."

LNG as a "transition" fuel

The letter's authors say the new facility would increase B.C.'s GHG emissions by as much as 22.5 per cent. But Polak said the LNG from the plant would be used in place of GHG-rich fuels like coal and diesel and would therefore mean a net reduction in emissions.

"You would likely only see about 3.7 megatons annually as a result of [the Pacific NorthWest facility], which is far, far below what the scientists are estimating in their letter," Polak said.

Polak said that, while a complete transition to clean energy is a desirable goal, it won't happen overnight, especially in less developed countries like China. She said LNG has an important role to play as a "transition" fuel that burns cleaner than current energy staples like coal that can fill the gap until clean energy technology is more viable.

"In cases where you are replacing products that would've been dirtier, you are reducing emissions," she said.

In the letter, the authors say there is no evidence that LNG will replace coal in overseas markets and may actually replace non-GHG-emitting forms of energy like nuclear.

McKenna, the federal environment minister, has yet to approve the Pacific NorthWest project. She was expected to make a decision earlier this year, but postponed the decision after officials requested further information about it.

With files from CBC's On the Coast.

More Multi-million dollar Failed IT Projects

Nanaimo doctors say electronic health record system unsafe, should be shut down

Cindy E. Harnett | Times Colonist

- See more at: http://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/nanaimo-doctors-say-electronic-health-record-system-unsafe-should-be-shut-down-1.2264497#sthash.oOsV5jMQ.dpuf

Nanaimo doctors say electronic health record system unsafe, should be shut down

Cindy E. Harnett | Times Colonist

- See more at: http://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/nanaimo-doctors-say-electronic-health-record-system-unsafe-should-be-shut-down-1.2264497#sthash.oOsV5jMQ.dpuf

Nanaimo doctors say electronic health record system unsafe, should be shut down - See more at: http://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/nanaimo-doctors-say-electronic-health-record-system-unsafe-should-be-shut-down-1.2264497#sthash.oOsV5jMQ.dpuf

Implementation of a $174-million Island-wide electronic health record system in Nanaimo Regional General Hospital — set to expand to Victoria by late 2017 — is a huge failure, say senior physicians.
After a year of testing, the new paperless iHealth system rolled out in Nanaimo on March 19. Island Health heralds the system as the first in the province to connect all acute-care and diagnostic services through one electronic patient medical record, the first fully integrated electronic chart in the province.
But nine weeks after startup, physicians in the Nanaimo hospital’s intensive-care and emergency departments reverted to pen and paper on Wednesday “out of concern for patient safety.”
Doctors said the system is flawed — generating wrong dosages for the most dangerous of drugs, diminishing time for patient consultation and losing critical information and orders.
“The whole thing is a mess,” said a senior physician. “What you type into the computer is not what comes out the other end.
“It’s unusable and it’s unsafe. I’m surprised they haven’t pulled it. I’ve never seen errors of the kind we are now seeing.”
Doctors are so concerned, they want Island Health to suspend the implementation.
“Take it away and fix it and test it before you bring it back — stop testing it on our people,” said one doctor. “Why wasn’t this introduced in Victoria first? If they went live in Victoria first, they would have a riot.”
The doctors, who fear reprisals, spoke to the Times Colonist on condition of anonymity.
The $174-million system started with a 10-year $50-million deal for software and professional services signed in 2013 with Cerner Corporation, a health information technology company headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. Thus far, the company has been paid close to $12 million. The remaining $124 million is to be spent by Island Health for hardware, training and operating the system.
The system is being used in Nanaimo’s hospital, Dufferin Place residential care centre — also in Nanaimo — and Oceanside Health Centre in Parksville.
Since March 19, mobile touch-screen computer console carts have been rolling around hospital hallways. Voice-recognition dictation software immediately transcribes a doctor’s verbal notes into a patient’s electronic record, and scanners track each bar-coded patient bracelet around the hospital.
But doctors complain the new technology is slow, overly complicated and inefficient.
“The iHealth computer interface for ordering medications and tests is so poorly designed that not only does it take doctors more than twice as long to enter orders, even with that extra effort, serious errors are occurring on multiple patients every single day,” wrote one physician at the Nanaimo hospital.
“Tests are being delayed. Medications are being missed or accidentally discontinued.”
Doctors can’t easily find information entered by nurses, the physician wrote.
There are also complaints about the pharmacy module of Cerner’s integrated system — the only joint build between Island Health and Cerner.
iHealth implementation staff brought in to input orders for physicians this week entered eight drug mistakes on one day and 10 on another, while there were no mistakes in the paper orders, doctors said. “If the experts can’t enter it correctly, what is the average Joe going to do?” one doctor said.
Another problem, they said, is patients’ drug orders disappearing from the system.
But Island Health spokeswoman Antoniette O’Keeffe said the system is safe and doing what it’s intended to do.
“We are not going back to paper,” she said.
“We can’t go back to paper. We don’t have the mechanics to go back to paper.”
Island Health acknowledges that documentation for staff doing emergency-department patient intake was a challenge, noting Nanaimo is the busiest emergency department on the Island.
Nanaimo has some of the top physicians in the country and “we respect the feedback they are giving us, and so we are listening to them and we are tweaking and modifying the system,” O’Keeffe said.
Challenges include getting medication orders into the system, getting clinical staff trained, work flow and documentation, O’Keeffe said.
More staff have been added to speed up admissions and others are working around the clock in the intensive-care and emergency departments to input handwritten physician orders into the system, O’Keeffe said.
Cerner is working with Island Health staff, “and they’ll be here until we get this fully implemented,” O’Keeffe said.
Island Health credits the system’s electronic warnings for catching about 400 human-caused medication errors and conflicts at three sites, saying it’s a sign that the system is working. It will produce a warning, for example, if the dosage is too high for a patient’s weight, if the drug is not appropriate for a particular disease or if there’s a drug conflict.
Across the country, thousands of medication mistakes are made daily due to human error, “and this system is designed to catch them,” O’Keeffe said.
Doctors respond that so many irrelevant flags pop up, it creates confusion, while the computer loses or duplicates drug orders.
The system was a decade in the making for Island Health. Twenty-three clinical teams were involved in developing various components and there was user-group testing, modifications and feedback, O’Keeffe said. Training has gone on for the last year, she said. “You can only bring a system so far and then you have to put it in a real environment to test it.”
By the end of the implementation, it’s expected family doctors will also be able to access patient files started in acute-care settings. Island Health is working on that component now, O’Keeffe said.
Once the system is working smoothly in Nanaimo, it will be installed in the north Island and then Victoria hospitals in 12 to 18 months, O’Keeffe said.
ceharnett@timescolonist.com
> Comment: New computer system detriment to health care
- See more at: http://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/nanaimo-doctors-say-electronic-health-record-system-unsafe-should-be-shut-down-1.2264497#sthash.oOsV5jMQ.dpuf

Nanaimo doctors say electronic health record system unsafe, should be shut down

Cindy E. Harnett (May 27, 2016). Times Colonist. http://www.timescolonist.com/news/local/nanaimo-doctors-say-electronic-health-record-system-unsafe-should-be-shut-down-1.2264497

Implementation of a $174-million Island-wide electronic health record system in Nanaimo Regional General Hospital — set to expand to Victoria by late 2017 — is a huge failure, say senior physicians.

After a year of testing, the new paperless iHealth system rolled out in Nanaimo on March 19. Island Health heralds the system as the first in the province to connect all acute-care and diagnostic services through one electronic patient medical record, the first fully integrated electronic chart in the province.

But nine weeks after startup, physicians in the Nanaimo hospital’s intensive-care and emergency departments reverted to pen and paper on Wednesday “out of concern for patient safety.”

Doctors said the system is flawed — generating wrong dosages for the most dangerous of drugs, diminishing time for patient consultation and losing critical information and orders.

“The whole thing is a mess,” said a senior physician. “What you type into the computer is not what comes out the other end.

“It’s unusable and it’s unsafe. I’m surprised they haven’t pulled it. I’ve never seen errors of the kind we are now seeing.”

Doctors are so concerned, they want Island Health to suspend the implementation.

“Take it away and fix it and test it before you bring it back — stop testing it on our people,” said one doctor. “Why wasn’t this introduced in Victoria first? If they went live in Victoria first, they would have a riot.”

The doctors, who fear reprisals, spoke to the Times Colonist on condition of anonymity.

The $174-million system started with a 10-year $50-million deal for software and professional services signed in 2013 with Cerner Corporation, a health information technology company headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri. Thus far, the company has been paid close to $12 million. The remaining $124 million is to be spent by Island Health for hardware, training and operating the system.

The system is being used in Nanaimo’s hospital, Dufferin Place residential care centre — also in Nanaimo — and Oceanside Health Centre in Parksville.

Since March 19, mobile touch-screen computer console carts have been rolling around hospital hallways. Voice-recognition dictation software immediately transcribes a doctor’s verbal notes into a patient’s electronic record, and scanners track each bar-coded patient bracelet around the hospital.

But doctors complain the new technology is slow, overly complicated and inefficient.

“The iHealth computer interface for ordering medications and tests is so poorly designed that not only does it take doctors more than twice as long to enter orders, even with that extra effort, serious errors are occurring on multiple patients every single day,” wrote one physician at the Nanaimo hospital.

“Tests are being delayed. Medications are being missed or accidentally discontinued.”

Doctors can’t easily find information entered by nurses, the physician wrote.

There are also complaints about the pharmacy module of Cerner’s integrated system — the only joint build between Island Health and Cerner.

iHealth implementation staff brought in to input orders for physicians this week entered eight drug mistakes on one day and 10 on another, while there were no mistakes in the paper orders, doctors said. “If the experts can’t enter it correctly, what is the average Joe going to do?” one doctor said.

Another problem, they said, is patients’ drug orders disappearing from the system.

But Island Health spokeswoman Antoniette O’Keeffe said the system is safe and doing what it’s intended to do.

“We are not going back to paper,” she said.

“We can’t go back to paper. We don’t have the mechanics to go back to paper.”

Island Health acknowledges that documentation for staff doing emergency-department patient intake was a challenge, noting Nanaimo is the busiest emergency department on the Island.

Nanaimo has some of the top physicians in the country and “we respect the feedback they are giving us, and so we are listening to them and we are tweaking and modifying the system,” O’Keeffe said.

Challenges include getting medication orders into the system, getting clinical staff trained, work flow and documentation, O’Keeffe said.

More staff have been added to speed up admissions and others are working around the clock in the intensive-care and emergency departments to input handwritten physician orders into the system, O’Keeffe said.

Cerner is working with Island Health staff, “and they’ll be here until we get this fully implemented,” O’Keeffe said.

Island Health credits the system’s electronic warnings for catching about 400 human-caused medication errors and conflicts at three sites, saying it’s a sign that the system is working. It will produce a warning, for example, if the dosage is too high for a patient’s weight, if the drug is not appropriate for a particular disease or if there’s a drug conflict.

Across the country, thousands of medication mistakes are made daily due to human error, “and this system is designed to catch them,” O’Keeffe said.

Doctors respond that so many irrelevant flags pop up, it creates confusion, while the computer loses or duplicates drug orders.

The system was a decade in the making for Island Health. Twenty-three clinical teams were involved in developing various components and there was user-group testing, modifications and feedback, O’Keeffe said. Training has gone on for the last year, she said. “You can only bring a system so far and then you have to put it in a real environment to test it.”

By the end of the implementation, it’s expected family doctors will also be able to access patient files started in acute-care settings. Island Health is working on that component now, O’Keeffe said.

Once the system is working smoothly in Nanaimo, it will be installed in the north Island and then Victoria hospitals in 12 to 18 months, O’Keeffe said.

ceharnett@timescolonist.com

Comment: New computer system detriment to health care

Premier Clark: Its good to have friends, or family, in high places

Christy Clark accused of interfering in local band election to aid brother’s deal

Mark Hume. (2016). The Globe and Mail. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/christy-clark-accused-of-interfering-in-band-election-to-aid-brothers-deal/article27654979/

 

Premier Christy Clark has been accused of interfering in a local band election to help a candidate who supports a $10-million wind farm proposal involving her brother, Bruce Clark.

Ms. Clark was not available for comment, but her office denied that the Premier’s recent visit to Haida Gwaii was in any way meant to influence the campaign of Chief Ken Rea, who was narrowly re-elected Monday, or to assist Mr. Clark’s business deal with the band.

“There’s no merit to this allegation whatsoever,” said Ben Chin, executive director of communications for Ms. Clark.

During her visit to Old Massett, a small native community on the north end of Haida Gwaii, Ms. Clark announced at a public meeting that the province was making a $150,000 grant to the Old Massett Village Council (OMVC).

The money is for a feasibility study of a proposed $4-million expansion to the 40-student elementary school on the reserve.

The announcement gave a boost to the campaign of Mr. Rea, who has been a long-time supporter of Mr. Clark’s proposed wind farm.

But Mr. Chin said there was no link between Ms. Clark’s visit and Mr. Clark’s private business dealings.

“The Premier is not aware of any relationship between Mr. Clark’s company and Old Massett Village Council,” Mr. Chin said.

Mr. Chin said the Premier went to Old Massett as a “relationship building” exercise, and it appears she got caught in political crossfire.

But Kimball Davidson, a candidate who was trying to unseat Mr. Rea, said the Premier’s surprise visit and the grant she announced on Nov. 26 unfairly helped his rival.

“I would consider it political interference,” Mr. Davidson said before Monday’s vote. “It’s in Bruce Clark’s best interest if Ken Rea becomes chief councillor again.”

Mr. Davidson, who got 117 votes to Mr. Rea’s 159, is opposed to the business deal between OMVC and Mr. Clark’s company, Broadwing Renewables Inc. and instead favours OMVC working in partnership with the Council of Haida Nation (CHN) to develop a wind farm.

Mr. Davidson said the school grant is curious because Chief Matthews Elementary School is on reserve lands, and is therefore a federal responsibility, and because two expansion studies have been done in the past 10 years with federal funds.

“I was kind of shocked that Christy Clark would come up here just to say, ‘Hey, we’re going to give you some money,’” Mr. Davidson said. “I think it all has to do with her brother.”

Mr. Clark said he had nothing to do with the grant and denied doing anything to get Ms. Clark to visit Old Massett.

“I have trouble getting her to come for family dinners,” he said.

Mr. Clark said he did help Mr. Rea make connections with government education officials.

“I simply told [Mr. Rea], ‘If you have issues, here’s who you talk to,’” he said.

Mr. Clark said due to his sister’s job as premier he is very sensitive to potential conflicts of interest, and he won’t get involved in business deals unless it’s through a public bidding process.

“At the end of the day, when you go through a public process and you’ve been prescreened and qualified and you have the best price and you win, I don’t see how anybody can complain about that,” he said.

Mr. Rea agreed Mr. Clark’s only role was that he helped make connections with the government.

“I don’t know anybody at the province, so Bruce gave me a number to call,” he said.

Mr. Rea said he dealt with officials in the Ministry of Education, not the Premier’s office, and Ms. Clark’s visit had nothing to do with the election.

“I don’t need her to come up to win or lose this election,” he said Monday, before the vote. “The real value for me to bring the Premier to help our community here is to give [the federal government] a kick.”

Mr. Rea said he was told by officials in Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (formerly Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada) that if he secured provincial funds, he could use it to leverage $2-million out of Ottawa and $2-million out of Victoria.

John Disney, economic development officer for OMVC, said the council has been working with Mr. Clark for several years, hoping to develop a wind farm to replace the diesel generation that now provides electricity on northern Haida Gwaii.

“That project is ready to go. It has been since 2007. The only thing that is stopping it is our own Nation, the Council of Haida Nation [CHN], won’t give us a letter of support for it. So it’s sort of internal politics,” Mr. Disney said.

Peter Lantin, president of the CHN, didn’t return calls.

Mr. Disney said the wind farm would cost about $10-million to develop and Broadwing Renewables Inc. would arrange the financing, bring in a firm to build the project, and then, after about five years, OMVC would buy full control.

The project could not go ahead without an electricity purchasing agreement with BC Hydro. In 2012, the power corporation made a request for expressions of interest on Haida Gwaii and received 26 submissions, including one from Broadwing Renewables. BC Hydro did not pursue any of those renewable power deals at that time for cost reasons.

Mora Scott, a BC Hydro spokesperson, said in an e-mail the corporation has asked the Haida Nation for a proposal, but “no project has been brought forward or selected at this time.”

Housing: Rich Coleman, Housing Minister, calls people who need housing 'whining' people'

Housing minister's comments about 'whining' people are insulting: critic

Sonia Aslam (May 26, 2016). News1130. http://www.news1130.com/2016/05/26/housing-minister-whining-critic/

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – There is strong reaction today following controversial comments made by BC’s housing minister.

In case you missed it, Rich Coleman had a questionable response when asked about criticism suggesting the provincial government isn’t doing enough about affordable housing.

“I guess some people just have to get up and whine every day. You just have to look at the glass as half-full, not half-empty right? We’re getting there. There are over 2,000 units being built in the City [of Vancouver] in the last five or seven years,” he said yesterday.

What he said isn’t sitting well with everyone, from potential homeowners to the Official Opposition.

NDP Housing Critic David Eby feels Coleman’s comments are simply out of touch and show the Liberals don’t understand how difficult it is to buy a home here.

“Keep in mind, this is the same housing minister who just last year said that house prices in Vancouver were ‘actually pretty affordable.’ And that was just days after a report finding Vancouver to be the least affordable city in entire world,” says Eby.

“[Coleman’s] response that he believes that people who are concerned about affordability are whiners is entirely in character and actually totally explains why this government has refused to take action on the issue.”

Eby is promising to make this a sticking point as we gear up for the next provincial election less than a year from now.

“The disconnect in this government when I’m talking to the finance minister, the housing minister or the premier about housing issues and time and time again… They say there’s no issue and they’re not concerned about it. And if they are concerned they just want to study it for another year before taking any action. At its root, they simply believe people trying to get into the housing market in Metro Vancouver are whiners.”

He admits the disconnect applies to most politicians in Victoria — including himself — who earn a wage above the average in Metro Vancouver.

“We have a guaranteed pension. In addition, there are housing allowances in Victoria. And when you look at the property holdings of the Cabinet, for example, they are fairly significant — including the housing minister.”

Eby believes the unaffordable housing market is going to be one of, if not the biggest issue in next May’s election.

Some people didn’t like Coleman’s comments on social media either, filling our Twitter and Facebook pages with comments like:

“It’s one thing not to sympathize with the people you’re supposed to serve, but to blatantly spit in our faces” and “what a condescending ignorant comment from a paid public servant.”