Gas tax rakes in $1 billion in Metro Vancouver

Speaking of the outrageous price of gas, it's even higher in Metro Vancouver to help pay for Skytrain. Wouldn't it be cheaper to install turnstiles? The Surrey Leader is reporting Metro Vancouver drivers are now paying more than $1 billion a year in combined gas and carbon taxes, according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

The lobby group said the latest two-cent-per-litre increase in TransLink's fuel tax on April 1 and the next 1.1-cent bump in B.C.'s carbon tax on July 1 puts the region over that threshold. Drivers in Metro Vancouver now pay nearly 50 cents per litre in combined fuel taxes.

"This is highway robbery," said Jordan Bateman, the CTF's B.C. director. "Drivers are tired of seeing their hard-earned money evaporate into government’s coffers.” The federal and provincial governments and TransLink took in a total of $958 million from Metro drivers last year through taxes at the pumps, and the CTF calculated that will rise to $1.02 billion this year.

TransLink's portion will account for more than $350 million – the biggest chunk – while the federal government's 10-cent tax pulls in $208 million from Metro, provincial gas tax of 8.5 per is worth $177 million, the carbon tax of 6.67 cents as of July will be nearly $140 million and the five-per-cent federal HST generates another $145.6 million.

Let me get this straight. The NDP oppose consumer taxes like the gas tax and the HST. Harper claims the NDP will tax and spend indiscriminately. Yet that’s exactly what he’s doing at record levels. In all fairness, John Cummings opposes the gas tax and the HST as well. That’s because he’s a conservative and Stephen Harper is not.

The Red Patch

Another concern I have with the striking university students in Montreal is their red patch logo. Surely with such a longstanding history of the biker war in Quebec, everyone there knows what a red patch means in the biker community. If you don’t know, you’re gonna have to find out for yourself.

For the rest of us, the red patch or the red square represents Stalin’s death camps, red square in China and the wrong side of the Berlin wall. This is what I mean by mindless blind sheep. Every time there’s a protest, extremists from the Marxist Leninist party show up with a Communist flag. No one really pays them much attention but everyone has a right to their say. Yet we need to be clear what that flag is really saying.

There is no charter of rights within the Communist Manifesto. Everyone talks about how bad totalitarian states are. Indeed we should. Let’s take Poland for example. They were screwed first by Hitler’s Nazi’s then by Stalin’s Communists. You ask anyone from Eastern Europe before the fall of the Berlin Wall and you ask them how they feel about that red patch. In East Berlin they had barbed wire and machine guns pointed inwards. So no one could escape.

Lenin wasn’t the leader of the workers revolution in Russia. Shiplov was. When the trade unions had a complaint and went on strike, Lenin sent in the machine guns with live ammunition. The families were too afraid to even collect their dead. That is not a free republic.

In Ireland the term republican has a very different meaning than it does in the US. In Ireland a republican is anyone who believes in a free republic as opposed to a dictatorship. James Connolly was a communist. Yet he supported a free republic where individual rights are protected. That is not what we saw in Russia, China or Eastern Europe.

Free education is a wonderful goal. Australia has it and I’d hardly call them a Communist dictatorship. Yet it’s a goal we have to work towards. Alberta is what people see as right wing. They don’t have sales tax and as a result business prospers. Since they are doing so well financially, the provincial government pays the premiums on everyone’s medical insurance. That is a great idea.

Yet there are some serious problems we need to fix first. Harpers bank bail out is one. The BC Hydro fraud is another. If we want free university education we have to talk about where the money is going to come from. Do we raise taxes? Do we close homeless shelters and old folks homes? Or do we nationalize crown corporations and use those profits to add to the tax revenue? That is my preference.

Yet nationalizing the oil industry in Canada will meet huge opposition from the wealthy oil companies who are consumed in their greed. In the mean time, I will not wear a red patch. To me that is no different than wearing a Nazi Swastika. It is offensive. It represents just another totalitarian society created by lies and false promises. From one extreme to the other.

Free university education is a worthy goal but it is not a right. Buyer Beware.



Motive for nude protests cloaked in mystery

The Mismanagement of BC Hydro

Michael Smyth hit the nail on the head in today’s column. He claims the BC Liberals are just postponing BC Hydro rate hikes until after the election. No doubt. At first is sounded like they were promising us BC Hydro rates would drop some time in the future. Yeah right. Now it seems they simply ordered BC Hydro to cut it’s proposed rate increases by half. So the increases are still here. There’s just not as big as they were going to be until after the election. Shysters.

Last year when BC Hydro proposed the 30-per-cent increases, the government ordered a review of the corporation. Sounds like cheap haggling to me. Isn’t that kind of like wanting a 10% increase, then getting BC Hydro to ask for a 30% increase only to have the government step in and save the day by cutting that in half and making it a 15% increase? It’s still a 15% increase. The Liberal government’s mismanagement has created a serious problem and we are being conned.

The union representing hydro workers said the government is hiding its own mismanagement at BC Hydro, while holding back rate increases until after next May's provincial election. I think that’s the key hear. Campbell Clark disastrous mismanagement of BC Hydro. Keeping p[art of BC Hydro public while privatizing the brokers that sell power to BC Hydro at an inflated price. That is the ultimate scam.

So here we have this massive artificially created debt that BC Hydro keeps hiding by deferring it which we will one day have to bail out. Then they spend a huge amount of money on flawed Smart Meters that over charge consumers as well as monitor them over a wireless network for thieves to intercept. Those flawed meters are a huge extra cost. Further debt and further expense to the taxpayer. They are doing this to create a manufactured emergency to rationalize privatizing BC Hydro completely like BC Rail. How about disband the privatize power brokers ripping off BC Hydro so it can return to a profit making dividend paying tax revenue creating entity. Imagine that.

We need to address this because upgrading to electric cars is important but we need the chargers in our homes and condos for charging over night.

The Hells Angels and the Surrey House of Horrors connected to the Pickton Farm

Last month the Vancouver Observer reported on a retired nurse named Bonnie Fournier who worked in the Downtown Eastside since 1968 but hasn't been allowed to testify at the Missing Women Inquiry. No wonder.

Fournier said she saw a black shape being dragged out the passenger side of a large vehicle on Cordova Street late one night in 2000 which turned out to be a person. If the truck Fournier saw was his, it meant Pickton had an accomplice. She asked the woman if it was him. “'I can't say, because I'd be dead,'” she told Fournier. “'They'll kill me.'”

They'll kill me. That implies more than one person. Willy may have been deranged but he certainly wasn't threatening. People wouldn't be afraid to testify against him. People would be afraid to testify against the bikers at the parties on his farm. In the CTV documentary the Pig Farm one resident of the farm claimed a couple of Willy's "friends" accused him of stealing something and beat him up right after Willy mentioned killing prostitutes. He took that as a warning to keep his mouth shut.

In another chilling incident – forever burned into her memory – a young woman Fournier calls “Sharon” told her that in 1999 or 2000: “'Bonnie, I escaped from the farm.'”

“Sharon” said she was in Surrey, shoplifting at a mall -- she supported her drug addiction by stealing, not prostitution, Fournier said -- when two women who knew her from the Downtown Eastside approached and invited her to a party, “with free booze and drugs.” The women went to a “well-known Hells Angels spot” located on the King George Highway, just before it enters Surrey: a rental house they called the “House of Pain.” (We know it as the Surrey House of Horrors. that would have been on 108 Ave just off king George around the corner from Gus' shop)

“They went there, and then were moved by station wagon or van – 'We're going to a party with good music,'” Fournier was told. “They were taken to the (Pickton) farm from this house in Surrey. “After they got to the farm, Sharon said everyone was into the drugs – lots of drugs. When they pulled in there, she got a gut feeling that this was scary. . . she got a gut feeling and bolted from the car and ran to Lougheed Highway. She was picked up by a bus on Lougheed and given a ride in to Vancouver by a sympathetic driver.”

We have heard testimony claiming the House of Horrors were supplied with crack cocaine from the Hells Angels. One witness claimed a Hells Angel or at least a Hells Angels truck was parked at a house on the same street as the Surrey house of Horrors. The house of horrors was at 13832 108 Ave. The Hells Angels truck was parked between 13710 and 13734 108 Ave. Yvonne Marie Boen's DNA was found there as well as on Pickton's Pig Farm. To hear new testimony of a van taking people from the House of Horrors in Surrey to a Hells Angels party at the Pickton farm is disturbing indeed.

Merrit Staff Sergeant charged with stealing and using cocaine

OK here's the new one involving an RCMP Staff Sargent from Merrit. It's even more absurd than the last one. We first heard about it last January. Two more charges have been added to the case against the former top-ranked Mountie in Merritt, B.C., who is accused of stealing and then using cocaine from evidence lockers. Staff Sgt. Stuart Seib was arrested in January and charged with one count of theft under $5,000 after he allegedly told a fellow officer about what he had done.

He made his first appearance in provincial court Wednesday, when additional charges of theft and breach of trust by a public officer were read. The charges date back to June 2010 and relate to offences allegedly committed in Merritt. Seib was transferred to the detachment in November 2011 after years in Clearwater. An RCMP spokesman told ctvbc.ca that Seib has officially resigned from the force and therefore will face no internal discipline.

I'll tell ya why this case is disturbing. He was caught because he told another police officer about it. He likely told the other police officer about it thinking he might gain some assistance from the old boys club. The scary thing is, how many police officers in his previous jurisdictions knew about what he was doing and were in on it? He had previously worked in Prince George where the Hells Angels control the drug trade and Judge Ramsey was convicted of sexual assault of under age native girls. Keeping an unlawful secret is unlawful. It makes one an accessory to the crime.

That's not even including Keith Wiens, the former RCMP officer from Okanagan who has been charged with the murder of his wife.

Disgraced Alberta Staff Sergeant coming to BC

Why us? Everyone is talking about the disgraced Alberta RCMP officer who is being transferred to BC. There is another similar case breaking as we speak but first I will address Staff Sergeant Don Ray. Here we have another nut bar who somehow rises within the RCMP ranks to a management position. He was the officer in charge of the polygraph unit at Alberta's RCMP headquarters in Edmonton. Which kind explains how he can be RCMP and from Edmonton when Edmonton has it's own police force.

In that management position he was hosting after-hours parties in his office and kept a bar fridge stocked with Budweiser and Appleton Jamaica Rum. Well there's the problem right there- Budweiser. He's drink a fruit of the Loom label. Perhaps he just had that on hand for the ladies. I think they would have preferred Smirnoff Twist. The investigation found Ray would encourage female subordinates to drink and make sexual advances when alone with them.

In 2006, Ray offered beer to a public servant employed by the RCMP who was a subordinate in rank/position to him, but not under his command. Over drinks, the pair engaged in conversation that led to sex in the polygraph suite. Ray had a sexual relationship with the woman for approximately a year. During this time, he used the polygraph suite for drinking booze and having sex with the woman during lunch breaks and after business hours. He also used an unmarked RCMP vehicle assigned to him to travel to places where sexual relations occurred with the woman.

In April 2009, close to the end of one work day, Sgt. Ray invited his staff to a private office party at which he invited them to sit down and have a drink. One of his female subordinates consumed four beers over two hours, and once the others left, Sgt. Ray unzipped his pants, exposed himself and told her to touch his penis, according to RCMP files. She refused.

"S/Sgt. Ray then wanted to have sexual intercourse with Ms. A, which she refused. S/ Sgt. Ray insisted but Ms. A. maintained her refusal. They then both left the building without further sexual contact," a senior disciplinary officer wrote in his findings in February. The investigation said Sgt. Ray exhibited a "serial" pattern of "disgraceful" conduct.

A serial pattern of disgraceful conduct. This wasn't just one offence. The guy gets a 10 day suspension, demoted one rank and a transfer to BC. That is insane. Any other industry he would be fired. RCMP leaders defending their decision not to fire a him for disgraceful conduct makes then legally liable for it. The police hold a position of trust. That's what makes his ridiculous conduct all the more serious than in other industries. Kash Heed is trying to cash in on the exposure once again and I'm just going to set Kash Heed aside and address the issue. Kash Heed and his political party have enough of their own scandals to deal with. Banning the media from reporting on the location of outbreaks of agriculture-related disease like the bird flu is but one example. We'll let Kah Heed address that before he addresses anything about the RCMP.

The last thing we need is another fruit loop in BC managing the RCMP. We need to remember that these allegations from Krista Carle, a former RCMP constable, who spoke out about sexual harassment on the job came after Catherine Galliford, a former spokeswoman for B.C. RCMP, told the media she suffered sexual harassment from senior officers for years. Catherine Galliford was the RCMP spokesperson during the Pickton arrest. At that time she testified to a ridiculously unprofessional practice of ongoing sexual harassment during that investigation.

Which certainly opens pandora's box with regards to allegations from sex trade workers that during the Pickton case police officers blackmailed them into having sex with them. If they didn't have sex with the police officers, the police officers would arrest them for prostitution. I kid you not. I will remind you that this isn't just testimony from two former RCMP members who experienced ongoing sexual harassment at the work place. This is a class action law suit from many witnesses which clearly establishes a long standing tradition of tolerance of illegal sexual harrassment within the RCMP management for years.

These shocking revelations show a pattern unprofessionalism. Any other industry and these guys would be fired. The cover ups are not acceptable. Keeping an unlawful secret is unlawful. It makes one an accessory to the crime. Just like when IHIT literally screwed up by allowing and covering up for an RCMP investigator in the Surrey Six murder to have an affair on his wife by sleeping with a witness in that case. That was absurd.

The key thing here is that this absurd conduct isn't just unprofessional. It's illegal. That's why there is a class action law suit. Any other industry will tell you the employer has a legal duty to protect employees from sexual harassment. They are legally liable to do so. If they have shown to be negligent in tolerating sexual harassment, they become legally liable and subject to court awards of damages. That is why the police have lawyered up so much at the Pickton inquiry. If they were found negligent in obtaining a search warrant for the Pickton farm, the families of the victims including their children could feasibly be awarded court settlements. That is what everyone wants to avoid and is the reason for the absurd cover up with heavily censored documents. I'm not saying I want the police to be sued over their handling of the Pickton case. Most of us just want the truth. If there was corruption involved, then address it. Keeping an unlawful secret is unlawful. The only way inappropriate conduct is corrected is if it is confronted.

Pickton invited a sex trade worker to a biker party

A former sex worker testified at the Pickton inquiry last Thursday. She said sometime in the fall of 2000, she was working the street in Vancouver's Mount Pleasant neighbourhood, several kilometres south of the notorious Downtown Eastside. A grey cube van approached her and she got inside, where she encountered a man who propositioned her to come to a biker party at his farm in Port Coquitlam, B.C., the woman testified. She told the inquiry she declined the offer because she had heard a warning at the Downtown Eastside Women's Centre not to get into a vehicle with a man offering to bring women to Port Coquitlam.

A "biker party." That's interesting. Sure isn't surprising since we know the Hells Angels frequented parties at Piggy's Palace in colours. In fact the inquiry was told the Hells angels had a grow op on site and ran an illegal booze can there. My understanding is that there was only one illegal booze can on site and that would have been Piggy's Palace. The non-profit society registered in Dave and Willy Pickton's name. That's the one the inquiry was told was run by the Hells Angels. That would explain why Willy referred to it as a bikers party.

Yet we know the Hells Angels weren't the only people who attended those parties. Lots of other people did. I'm told it was an after hours club for when roosters closed down. We were told that the inquiry will hear evidence that off duty police officers also attended parties at Piggy's Palace. Last Tuesday the inquiry heard a civilian RCMP worker saw Robert Pickton at a New Years Eve party on his farm with a woman she later recognized as one of the missing sex workers from Vancouver's Downtown Eastside.

The inquiry is hearing the police had many tips about the farm before they finally got a search warrant. One could argue that the credibility of the witnesses were in question which made getting a search warrant difficult. Let's hope that's the only reason for the delay. Yet one would think a tip from a civilian RCMP worker would have been credible enough to get a warrant. We're still waiting to hear testimony about off duty police officers attending parties there. We're also still waiting for the public inquiry to become public.

Montreal Madness: Little Bo Peep and her mindless lost sheep

It’s really sad to see such a wonderful city being held hostage by such a bunch of spoilt brats. I do not support the striking university students in Montreal. Not at all. This action has destroyed the post secondary education in that wonderful city for generations to come.

Affordable education is a good thing, but not that way. Creating violence because the government plans on raising tuitions after they have been frozen for so many years and are the lowest tuitions in the country - that’s not solidarity, that’s selfishness.

Let’s think what this protest has done to the Quebec economy. Look at what it’s done to tourism. You think anyone wants to visit there now? Not a chance. Let’s think about what this has done to the quality of education at the university. You think anyone is going to want to send their kids there now? Not a chance. Learn how to become a spoilt brat? Not on my dime.

These spoilt brats don’t give a rats ass about the professors and everyone who works at the university to feed their family. Are they supposed to work for free? Even if the Quebec government gave in to all the spoilt brat demands, that means everyone who works at the University is going to have to take a pay cut. That is not fair.

Money builds universities. Money buys equipment. These spoilt brats don’t care about that. They think money grows on trees. The solution is simple. Reopen the University. Anyone who prevents another student from going to class gets a permanent eviction from University and a restraining order preventing them from entering campus.

They can have all the protests they want. They just can’t prevent other students who want to go to class from going to class. The police aren’t helping. Don’t kick the cat. Don’t pepper spray anyone for protesting. Pepper spray people who are throwing rocks, setting fires and breaking windows. It really is that simple.

One spokesperson for the police said it’s very hard to determine who is just protesting and who is causing violence. No it’s not. If you see someone break a window or throw stones then pepper spray or use the truncheon on them. If you don’t see them commit an act of violence, don’t use force against them. It’s that simple.

The bottom line is these idiots are destroying the standard of education in Montreal. This protest has nothing to do with Occupy or corporate greed. It is about the greed of spoilt brats who don’t care that people who work at the university have to get paid to feed their families.

In the words of the Beatles:

You say you want a revolution Well, you know We all want to change the world You tell me that it's evolution Well, you know We all want to change the world But when you talk about destruction Don't you know that you can count me out?

You say you've got a real solution Well, you know We'd all love to see the plan You ask me for a contribution Well, you know We are doing what we can But if you want money for people with minds that hate All I can tell is, brother, you'll have to wait

You say you'll change the constitution Well, you know We all want to change your head You tell me it's the institution Well, you know You'd better free your mind instead But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao You ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow

Motive for nude protests cloaked in mystery

Leslie Greenwood faces two new murder charges

Leslie Greenwood, who received a life sentence for the double NS murder contracted by the Hells Angels, now has two more murder charges to face. The Montreal Police Service laid first-degree murder charges Tuesday against Leslie Douglas Greenwood, 42, in the deaths of Kirk Murray, 47, and Antonio Onesi, 51, who were shot in the parking lot of a Montreal McDonald’s in January 2010.

Brian Patrick McGuire was arrested Feb. 21 and was charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of Antonio Onesi, 51, and Kirk Murray, 47. The man who shot the pair, Robert William Simpson, 49, became a witness for the prosecution after his arrest. During a preliminary inquiry last year, Simpson testified he carried out the killings for Jeffrey Albert Lynds, a member of the Hells Angels' Nomads chapter in Ontario. Just as his preliminary inquiry was about to resume, Lynds took his own life at the Rivière des Prairies Detention Centre in January.

Lynds, according to Simpson's testimony, was afraid Murray would turn informant if he were ever arrested - so Lynds offered Simpson $20,000 to kill him. The question is, what information did Murray have that the Hells Angels didn't want to be made public? $20,000.00 to have him killed? That's not just about trafficking drugs in prison.

Cheif Justice Joseph Kennedy, the judge in Greenwood's sentencing discussed what a horrible life organized crime figures lead. He said they live in fear - fear of the people they associate with. They are afraid of one another. They do terrible things to one another. It is an awful life.

Hollyburn Ridge

I love the view from Hollyburn Ridge. Last night I hiked up in time to watch the sunset. The very last stretch of the last peak really takes your breath away. Not because of its difficulty, but because of the view you spontaneously see when you’ve reached the top. Not only can you see the city from the mountain top but you get a great view of the Lions as well as all the back country between the Lions and the windmill on Grouse Mountain. You can even see Howe Sound and Vancouver Island.













This sunset is for Chad Karylchuk‏ and Aaron Derbyshire. Two very different people.

Yet neither of them deserved to die.