[news] Tieleman on Mayencourt anti-squeegee law, Walls audit

Fri May 21 13:25:15 PDT 2004

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: West Star 
  To: West Star Communications 
  Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2004 8:18 PM
  Subject: Tieleman on Mayencourt anti-squeegee law, Walls audit

  Hi all,

  Lots of politics provincial and federal this week but I've written on Vancouver Burrard Liberal MLA Lorne Mayencourt's nasty attack on squeegee people, panhandlers and others, as put forward in two private member's bills.  I've also briefly touched on the Doug Walls audit.

  Two bankrupt Liberals, as I note.

  ALSO, lots of letters below the column, some critical of me.  I only note that Ian Gregson ran for the Green Party against Joy MacPhail in the 2001 election.

  Best regards,

  Bill Tieleman
  West Star Communications
  Read the Georgia Straight and watch CBC TV's Canada Now Thursdays for political commentary from Bill Tieleman

  Bill Tieleman's Georgia Straight Political Connections column for May 20-26, 2004

  Poor-Bashing Libs Bottom-Feeding Hypocrites 
  By  Bill Tieleman 

  We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side; one which we preach but do not practice, and another which we practice but seldom preach. 

  -- Bertrand Russell, Skeptical Essays, 1928 

  There are only a few people who should rank lower in anyone's esteem than politicians who bash the poor, the unfortunate, the needy, and the ill. Among those bottom feeders would be politicians who bash the poor after first cutting government support for those living in poverty. 

  And then even below that would be politicians who do both of the above after they themselves have been forgiven a debt of tens of thousands of dollars worth of goods and services by declaring personal bankruptcy. 

  Meet Lorne Mayencourt, B.C. Liberal MLA for Vancouver-Burrard. 

  Last week, two private member's bills introduced by Mayencourt made it to second reading in the B.C. legislature. The Safe Streets Act and the Trespass to Property Act aim to get rid of panhandlers and squeegee kids, not by helping them with safe housing, hot meals, or medical care but by fining or jailing them. 

  This would be the same Lorne Mayencourt who has sat in the Gordon Campbell government and voted to cut budgets for the ministries of human resources and children and families by hundreds of millions of dollars, slash legal aid, reduce welfare and disability benefits, make qualifying for social assistance far harder, and much more. 

  It would also be the same Lorne Mayencourt whose government recently ended funding for the Picasso Café in Vancouver, which offered street kids the chance to learn skills needed to work in the restaurant industry. 

  That same Mayencourt has not once but twice declared personal bankruptcy, in 1994 and in 1979, leaving creditors owed about $22,000 in total, according to insolvency records. 

  So, on the one hand we have young people who wash car windshields for a meagre living, earning quarters the hard way to buy food and shelter. On the other we have a politician who twice made use of goods and services without, ultimately, paying for them. 

  Mayencourt should be ashamed of himself. Despite personal knowledge of how life can go wrong, Mayencourt has chosen not to aid the less fortunate but to attack them. 

  Mayencourt's two bills have been criticized by many, including the Social Planning and Research Council, which questions how police would apply such laws against panhandlers and squeegee people. 

  "It's stupid. The real issues aren't to move them along, fine them, and put them in jail. That won't solve anything," said Michael Goldberg, SPARC's director of research, in an interview with the Georgia Straight. 

  Vancouver city councillor Tim Stevenson, who represented Vancouver-Burrard as an NDP MLA before losing the 2001 election to Mayencourt, says it's ironic that the Liberal backbencher is so uncharitable. 

  "It's kind of a mean-spirited thing from someone without compassion who himself was once in trouble and needed help," Stevenson, who is also a United Church minister, said in an interview. "He should be pressuring his government to find solutions because this government is what caused the problems in the first place. Personally, I believe he is bankrupt in ideas." 

  But Mayencourt is nothing if not brassy. His MLA disclosure statement for 2001 showed that he's been a bit of a panhandler himself, receiving "income support" from the B.C. Liberal party! 

  Fortunately, even this government appears unwilling to pass Mayencourt's vicious legislation into law, although Campbell and other MLAs supported it. 

  But as bad as Mayencourt's opportunistic poor-bashing is, another prominent Liberal bankrupt has stooped even lower, an independent audit has shown, by wasting more than a million dollars that should have gone to help people with disabilities. 

  Doug Walls may not be an MLA, but he is also no ordinary Liberal. Related to Premier Gordon Campbell by marriage, Walls is a former Liberal riding-association president and a close friend of Advanced Education Minister Shirley Bond. Campbell leased his car from Walls's dealership and stayed at Walls's Prince George home when visiting. 

  Walls is also the bankrupt car dealer who was made acting CEO of the Interim Authority for Community Living BC, with a projected $500-million budget--funded by the Ministry of Children and Families--to provide services to people with disabilities. 

  Now a PriceWaterhouseCoopers audit commissioned by the Ministry of Finance and released last week provides both damning new information about Walls and raises additional questions about the scandal. 

  Children and Families Minister Gordon Hogg resigned and deputy minister Chris Haynes was fired shortly after freelance journalist Sean Holman first uncovered that a special prosecutor was examining an RCMP report on Walls's business. 

  Later it was found that Haynes had written off $400,000 owed to government by CareNet, a society for which Walls was project manager, against government rules. 

  But investigative auditor Ron Parks found that, in fact, the ministry wrote off $1.128 million owed to it by CareNet, almost three times more than was first thought. In total, the government lost more than $2.3 million on the project. 

  The report is an indictment of the Liberal government, citing: "a complete lack of due diligence" regarding Walls; that Walls was repeatedly awarded untendered contracts with no competition; that he was paid more than the contractual limit; that one of Walls's contracts was backdated by three months; and that Walls had insinuated himself into an influential position in the ministry through his relationship with Haynes. 

  Despite this, the Liberals gave Haynes a severance package of $288,867, plus another $233,000 in unused vacation pay. More on this outrageous story in a future column. 

  Bill Tieleman is a political commentator Thursdays on CBC TV's Canada Now and regularly on CBC Radio's Early Edition. E-mail him at weststar at telus.net 

  Letters

  May 20-26-04

  Where Can Unionists Find a Good Party? (I) 

  By Bill Engleson 

  Charlie Smith's exposé of Concert Properties Ltd.'s donations to the well-loved, labour-supporting B.C. Liberal party, coupled with Bill Tieleman's examination of the self-aggrandizing shenanigans of wannabe big-L Liberal Dave Haggard, just about floored me ["Union Leaders' Firm Backed B.C. Liberals"; "A Few Questions for IWA Turncoat Haggard", May 13-20]. Both articles set me to wondering what other cozy partnerships are out there. 

  I was a union trooper for most of my working life. Now, a somewhat youngish retiree, I lament the unrelenting assault on unionist principles both inside and outside the labour movement. I have no difficulty understanding the urge to be flexible and to compromise. The provincial Liberal government has been merciless in its contract-smashing, claw-back-gouging, poor-bashing machinations, and it has left unions precious little room to manoeuvre. 

  But to donate funds to them? To encourage them? To strive to achieve No. 35 on their hit list? 

  And for the life of me, I can't understand this attraction to the federal Liberal party and Paul Martin. The federal Liberal consortium has exhibited an indefatigable penchant for ugly power displays and ethical failure. 

  I'll just sit back and continue to observe the scurrying routes of the valueless rodent population and wonder where the next Vichy-like behaviour will turn up. And by referencing the Vichy government, I am not raising any comparisons about National Socialism other than to demonstrate that this capacity to seek political comfort from one's oppressors is universal and, sadly, appears to be endemic in B.C. 

  Bill Engleson 
  Denman Island 

  Where Can Unionists Find a Good Party? (II) 
  By Ian Gregson 

  Why is it a challenge for people like Bill Tieleman to conceive of trade-union activists not being card-carrying members of the NDP? 

  Tradition has it that union leaders are indistinguishable from decision makers of the NDP, but things have begun to change. As the NDP has swung over to the political centre, it has become easier for right-leaning NDPers to jump ship to the Liberals and, likewise, left-leaning Liberals to belch out NDP doctrine (Sheila Copps). 

  Although I do not agree with Dave Haggard in the political sense, I recognize the ability for some trade unionists to be affiliated with political parties other than the NDP. For the past few years, the political-action committee of the B.C. Federation of Labour has been stating the need for more political diversity and new partnerships--well, here they are. 

  As a trade unionist and Green party member who stood on the line with HEU members and marched in the May Day parade, I can tell you that the NDP is frantic over losing its traditional voting base yet is at a loss on how to do anything about it. The reality is that 70,000 members of CUPE have a political diversity similar to the general public, even though CUPE BC's leaders will never vote for any party other than the NDP. 

  For people like Tieleman who have a hard time dealing with the concept of political diversity, I suggest moving to a country with a government that fits his idea of what political diversity is about: for example, India. 

  Ian Gregson 
  Former vice-president 
  CUPE Local 3338 
  Vancouver 

  May 13-19-04

  HEU Member Claims Leaders Screwed Up 

  By Jim Kelly 

  Bill Tieleman writes that "union bargaining...was successful in limiting some of the most onerous aspects of Bill 37, particularly in winning a cap on the number (600) of health-care workers' jobs that would be privatized in the next two years" ["Liberals Strike Out in HEU Dispute", May 6-13]. 

  Wrong, wrong, wrong. Has Tieleman actually read the agreement instead of just the news releases issued from the union's spin doctors? Look at 2(b): the agreement excludes "employees who may be displaced as a result of agreements entered into under the Health Sector Partnership Agreements Act". Read that Act and you'll quickly discover that the 600 jobs is not a cap, it's a floor! 

  What's worse is that the HEU and the B.C. Fed have now tacitly endorsed American-style health care by agreeing to the Liberals' P3 plans while consequently failing to provide any protection to their rank-and-file members. More odious is the fact that the HEU membership rejected a very similar agreement about one year ago with a 60-percent no vote, but the membership wasn't even consulted this time. 

  The government got everything it wanted in this so-called agreement while the HEU union membership just got screwed by its own provincial executive and Jim Sinclair. Tieleman got it wrong; the unions struck out! 

  Jim Kelly, HEU member, VGH local 
  Vancouver 

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