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In response to
"Great, more spaces. Wonderful. Except that it's more and more out of reach to the average person, due to increased costs."
by
Beryllium
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to get this discussion back on track ... let me list my current outrages in BC
Posted by
Beryllium (aka grayman)
Aug 19 '09, 11:35
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1. CHEK-TV is being shut down at the end of August. I find this most disappointing, and I hope the employee plan to purchase the station from Global is successful. Of course, campbell doesn't have anything to do with this, but it's higher on my list of outrages than his stuff.
2. HST. There might be a great reason for the Liberals to harvest the 1.6 billion dollars they say that this tax would bring in - however, it was ramrodded through as a complete surprise, not mentioned one lick during the election. I haven't heard them announce the reason for it. Is the economy in dire straits, and they are hiding it from us? Or are they just doing it because they can? It surely is not part of their mandate as of the most recent election.
The 1.6 billion will be brought in on the backs of families, property developers, and the tourism industry. It seems like a really stupid idea to gut-punch those sectors when we're just barely starting the recovery process from the "economic downturn", unless there's a damn good reason - and like I said, I haven't heard one.
3. Cancellation, disbandment, dissolution, whatever, of Tourism BC. Apparently it's been suddenly made redundant and all of its responsibilities are being folded into the Ministry of Tourism. On the surface, I shouldn't have a problem with this - but I do! Not with the action itself, but with the pattern of sudden, unexplained, spontaneous, radical behaviour from the Campbell government. Politics simply shouldn't move this quickly, and if it does ... it raises bright red warning flags. Either someone is paying to grease the wheels, or the government is hiding some sort of dire economic forecast, or else they just completely lied through their entire campaign.
4. Cancellation of LiveSmart, Leaky Condo Loans, and the Scrap-It car rebate program (BC's cash-for-clunkers, in operation since 1996, apparently entirely unbeknownst to me). While I'll admit that all of these are pretty much luxuries, the suddenness of their cancellation is shocking. And two of them are what could be considered "green" programs - from what I recall, they emphasized the green component of their platform during their campaign. So the cancellation of livesmart and Scrap-It both fly in the face of their mandate.
There has got to be *some* explanation for their abrupt announcements. It could be as simple as their PR person having had a lobotomy, sure, but from the outside ... it appears like they're running amok with decisions that could jeopardize the economy.
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