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Kevin Falcon, BC’s soon to be unemployed Finance Minister tabled his “Prudent and Responsible” Budget today. Which would be fine, if it were true, but it’s not.
The reason his budget is complete and utter bullshit is his plan to privatize one of BCs few remaining moneymaking corporations, the Liquor Distribution Branch. According to Bob Mackin, of Business in Vancouver.
According to its Tuesday-released service plan, the B.C. Liquor Distribution Branch is forecasting $2.9 billion in sales in 2012-13 and $906.1 million in net income.
Why would any self respecting Minister of Finance do such a bone-headed thing? Think of it as a sort of Scorched Earth Policy. Falcon and Clark know perfectly well that this is the last term for the BCLiberals. Therefore, they are going to make damn sure that the incoming NDP Government has no revenue with which to turn our economy around, thus (in pea-brained NeoLiberal minds) increasing the odds of the NDP being another one term government. Once the incredibly biased right-wing BC ProMedia gets ahold of them (the future NDP Government, that is) they will do everything in their power to re-hypnotise the electorate.
The fact that they get to trample all over the BCGEU in the process is just icing on the cake. But there is one other little thing that Mr Mackin was lightnening quick to uncover today and that is the fact that Mr. Patrick Kinsella (Yes, of BC Rail and BC Hydro privatisation fame) was the headhunter in the deal.
According to the B.C. Lobbyist Registry, Progressive Strategies (the Progressive Group) registered from April 1, 2010 to April 9, 2013 to lobby the B.C. government on behalf of Exel Logistics “to develop a new liquor distribution system for the Province of B.C.”……Progressive’s chairman is Patrick Kinsella, the political strategist behind Premier Christy Clark’s successful, 2011 Liberal leadership campaign. Kinsella was involved in two of the biggest privatizations of former Premier Gordon Campbell’s administration.
Progressive client Accenture made a 10-year, $1.45 billion outsourcing deal with BC Hydro in 2003.
B.C. Supreme Court evidence indicates Kinsella was working for both CN Rail and BC Rail before and during negotiations for the 2003 BC Rail privatization.
This explains why the Liquor portfolio was bounced back to Rich Coleman earlier this month. Gordon Campbell’s personal bouncer and axeman in caucus since day one. The man who was also put in charge of money laundering/gambling recently, which goes perfectly with his existing portfolio of Energy and Mines. Somehow.
This regime has been robbing BC blind for over a decade now. Progressive people in tis province have been painfully aware of this fact the entire time, but fortunately for us, the rest of the Province started to awaken after the last election. The HST woke them up enough to pull off an extraordinary Recall initiative to stop that regressive tax and the campaign to Stop The Smart Meters is picking up steam. While we managed to run the Creep in Command out of town based on the HST scandal, his puppets continue to fleece the public for as long as they can hold onto power by stalling an election. If they manage to stall until May 2013, there will probably be nothing left.
I really wish there was a way to force an election with a vote of Non-Confidence in the budget. Or criminal charges. Sadly, the police in this Province are in bed with this corrupt regime.
Good stuff Kim…Sad, very very scary sad..
Good Day
Thank you for the information about Kinsella and Exel Logistics.
In the mid-90s a company called Tibbett And Britten supposedly bought the warehousing business of Safeway. We went home on a Friday working for MacDonalds Consolidated on a Friday only to return on the Monday to be told we were now employed by Summit Logistics, a subsidiary of Tibbett And Britten. A few years later we were notified that Tibbett And Britten had been absorbed by Exel Logistics. The reason I say that the warehousing was supposedly sold is the fact that Safeway still dictated pretty much everything that the warehousing complex did from how food products would be handled, to maintenance of the facility, etc. Safeway also still owned the property upon which the warehousing complex resided.
Fast forward to late August 9,2010 when all the employees at the now named Summit Logistics were informed that the warehousing complex in Burnaby would be closed down, which occured on February 28,2011. Safeway supposedly did not renew their contract with Summit Logistics and instead signed on with a company called Cold Logic Corp. I was not able to find out whether this company has any ties with Exel or Safeway, but can tell you that 391 employees and management lost good paying jobs with this maneuver. Although I had retired the year before this closure was announced, I heard from some of my former co-workers that Cold Logic had offered them jobs at about one-half the rate they were making and minimal benefits.
My advice to the current employees, and union representing them, at the LDB is to watch their backs. Our union fought as hard as they could trying to prove that Safeway never really sold the business through the Labour Relations Board, but just couldn’t convince them of such. Will history repeat itself?
Union busting is the new black for movers and shakers in BC. I am sad to hear your tale of woe from Safeway Crankypants, I know many people put up with the high prices there with the idea that they are suppoorting good local jobs.
This Exel Logistics bears watching and maybe some more digging into. It seems when you get to the corporate offices of these robber barons, the same old faces keep showing up. Maybe we should be calling Patrick Kinsella Premier, since he seems to be behind the whole corrupt regime.