Coughing up the gold plated pension

Front Page of today’s Vancouver Province is an interesting but depressing article about retiring MLA pensions. The headline reads: B.C.’s retiring MLAs to hit pension jackpot thanks to taxpayers’ generosity.

The article reads: “This Tuesday not only marks the official start of the election campaign, it’s also the day when retiring MLAs hit a pension jackpot of nearly a million bucks apiece. The potential lifetime pension payout for 21 retiring MLAs is a whopping $20.8 million, according to new calculations from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. That number will only grow on May 14, when several incumbent MLAs (mainly Liberals) are expected to be defeated.”

There are two points I have to make. First, that’s a lot of tax dollars. Second, do we remember the history behind the gold plated pension? When Gordon Campbell was first campaigning to be elected he promised to oppose the gold plated pension. Then in his second term he implemented it. To me that’s breach of contract and there should be some kind of legal recourse.

More importantly was the obscene things that happened right before they all did the dirty deed and gave themselves two fat pay raises and the coveted gold plated pension. Gordon went on a ruthless campaign of cuts to social programs targeting the elderly and the mentally ill. They closed Riverview and put the mentally ill on the street to justify their raise and extravagant pension. In my mind that was obscene.

Let’s set aside the left and right name calling and stereotypes. Set aside the pot smoking hippie commies and the right wing corporate fascists for one minute and let’s just look at what happened. They took advantage of the elderly and mentally ill to satisfy their own greed and self indulgence. That was wrong. I don’t care if you’re left or right, what they did was wrong and we let them do it so that act has stained us. Obviously now we are paying for it with our tax dollars yet that act of inhumanity diminished us as human beings.

Cutting back funds for pensioners and cutting back their medical was like stealing a purse from a little old lady done a thousand times over. When we see Gordon Campbell’s dry heaving smile, remember what put that simile on his face. Ripping off taxpayers, seniors and the mentally ill. Getting chauffeured around London to represent Canada during their Olympics was a huge slap in the face of the general public.

I’m not saying Riverview was club med and didn’t need some soul searching of it’s own, but putting the mentally ill on the street was wrong. The numbers of mentally ill that are homeless in East Vancouver has skyrocketed since Gordon Campbell did his dirty deed when he was in office. That put all these immensely vulnerable people right into the hands of the drug dealing predators who gave them crack for free then beat the life out of them for payment. That’s what we did.

We even paid for workers from Vancouver coast “Health” to go around and hand lout free needles and mouthpieces. What’s this for they ask. Well the needles are for shooting heroin. It’s so you don’t share needles which is bad because you could get aids. Oh, thank you. What’s the mouth piece for? That’s for smoking a crack pipe. Sharing crack pipes is bad. You could catch a cold or get some other virus. We care about your health you know. I see, well thank you very much. Now Insite hands out free crack pipes instead of mouthpieces.

To the mentally ill, these workers look like nurses but they’re not. They are little demons doing the devils work at the taxpayers expense. Handing out free needles and crack pipes gives the misconception that shooting heroin or smoking crack is OK but sharing needles isn’t. So as long as you’re not sharing needles, everything is OK. But it’s not. Heroin and crack is like rat poison. It destroys the human mind and body. We are giving these vulnerable people the wrong message and we are feeding the drug dealers profits. That is what we are doing right now and the epidemic in East Vancouver is completely out of control. That is what the gold plated pension has done.



Sadly, the NDP voted in favor of the pay raise and gold plated pension. Carol James had some less than scrupulous MLAs who insisted on supporting it. She should have opposed it and given the caucus a free vote. The rest of us just bowed our heads in shame. Sadly, the BC NDP also strongly support Insite and the abandonment of the Four Pillars.

The number of needles being exchanged at provincially-run centres on P.E.I. has doubled in the last two years. Same with Halifax. That means the program is not working. It is creating more addicts instead of helping them get treatment. John Cummings gets my vote. Maybe Christy Clark should debate him instead. I can’t support Insite and I can’t support the BC Liberals corruption.

It’s the same with the Green Party. The Green Party has some wonderful core beliefs. As Preston Manning recently said, protecting the environment is being fiscally responsibly. Unfortunately I cannot support their position of legalizing all drugs. Legalizing crack and crystal meth is irresponsible. The war on drugs has failed because we never fought it.

Bastards of the Apocalypse

Well, there’s a new version of the trailer park boys in Valley Mills, Texas. They’re in the Misty Valley Mobile Home Park and they call themselves, the Bastards of the Apocalypse motorcycle club. Trailer park boys selling crystal meth in the southern States. Go figure.

Outlaws in Kelowna? Not.

This one slipped past me until a blog reader pointed it out. I had read that 16 grow ops were raided in Kelowna recently. Police seized 10,000 plants, 50 kilos of bud, 14 grams of heroin, six grams of crack cocaine, firearms and get this: paraphernalia from the Outlaw motorcycle gang. WTF? Do they mean the Outlaws or an OMG? Cause there’s a pretty big difference. That many grow ops controlled by the Outlaws MC in Kelowna would be pretty freaking significant.

Many of these grow ops had applied for medical licenses and were using that as a front for an illegal grow op. The police aren’t surprised organized crime are applying for licenses. No kidding. Local reports didn't say anything about the Outlaws. Here's a list of grows the police have busted without the recent update.

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Update: Turns out it was Hells Angels gear. The Outlaw MG must have been a typo and it should have read an Outlaw MG instead. This reaffirms the Hells Angels criminal organization status.

East coast insanity

Well this is rather bizarre. CBC is reporting that a new Hells Angels puppet club is starting up in Nova Scotia called the Gate Keepers. The police say that could start a turf war with Bacchus. Are they joking or are they just smoking crack? Bacchus is a Hells Angels puppet club. That’s why there wear 81 kiss ass pins. That’s why we call them butt kiss.

The Hells Angels frequently have more than one puppet club in the same town just to try and create plausible deniability. Case in point Prince George. The Hells Angels run the Renegades, the Crew, the Independent Soldiers and the GTS all in Prince George. They all work for the Hells Angels. The Crew mostly crossed over to the IS after all that bad press but the Hells Angels still control all of them and are still directly liable for each group’s criminal activity.

Locals seem to think the Hells Angels are unhappy with Bacchus and want to push them off to the side so to speak. Not surprising since they have made a lot of really stupid decisions lately and got a lot of bad press. Locals are concerned something is going to go down at a Hells Angels party this Friday where the Gatekeepers and Bacchus will both attend along with the Darksiders. Since everyone knows about it I doubt they’ll pull another Lennoxville massacre. The fact is they’re all attending a Hells Angel party together. That would mean they’re all celebrating their puppethood.

I don’t want to be mean but I’m really getting sick of looking at all these idiots let alone write about them. Three new stooges posing with their prized patch. Grown men still acting like kids. What is with this perpetual mid life crisis? Everyone forgot somewhere along the way they were supposed to grow up? Get married, have kids, contribute to society. They got married and had kids. They just forgot to grow up and contribute to society.

The other day I saw a guy in the mall with a Support White Rock 81 shirt that had a big 666 in the middle. Grow up people. This wasn’t a teenager wearing an Iron Maiden shirt, it was a grown man wearing a shirt that said look at me I’m a complete idiot. Supporting drug dealers who murder rival drug dealers and torture addicts for drug debts is bad enough but 666? Come on. Sure in some cases it means Filthy Few Fellowship like Otis Garret the baby killer and the freak from Haney who is his own brother killer just for the almighty dollar. Yet this was a support shirt so I doubt he had a filthy few patch.

Vincent Price and Iron Maiden knew what 666 symbolized. The father of all lies and all things corrupt - murder and mayhem. Stupid alright. Lawlessness means people can steal from and shoot you just like you do to everyone else. It’s hard to understand how someone can be so stupid and actually brag about it. It’s astounding.

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Update: No word on Bacchus getting their butts kicked at the Hells Angels meeting yet. Perhaps it’s just simply another name change since Bacchus has criminal organization charges in the works. That way if the police seize Bacchus clubhouses the Hells Angels can still run Gate Keeper clubhouses. Until they get caught committing criminal acts for the Hells Angels as well. David Bishop was just sentenced for drug trafficking in Halifax prison.

New Surrey Shooting

People were talking about a targeted shooting today in Surrey near 108 and King George Boulevard that was reported on twitter. A man was shot in the leg. The Province is reporting the police already have two suspects in custody. Normally we don’t even hear about shootings here if there isn’t a fatality. Lots of people seem to subscribe to scan BC on twitter.

The Surrey Leader has a video clip of the scene.

This is the second recent shooting in Surrey where someone was shot in the legs. As one blog reader pointed out, you have to wonder where in the legs they were shot. Kneecapping was a very common form of discipline in Belfast back in the day. Shooting someone in the knee would constitute shooting them in the legs. It would be worth finding out if this is indeed the case.

Thomas Crawford Assaulted in Pretrial

The Vancouver Province reported in a headline that Thomas Crawford has been stabbed in the head while awaiting trial for gang related kidnapping charges. Yet later on in the same article it quotes B.C. Corrections spokesperson Marnie Mayhew who said that there was an altercation between two inmates at North Fraser Pretrial Centre in which an inmate fell and injured his head. “However there was no stabbing incident. The inmate was treated in hospital for some injuries. Criminal charges were not laid.”

OK so getting in a fight and getting stabbed are two very different things. We know that Thomas Crawford was with the Independent Soldiers when he was charged in a gang related kidnapping along with seven others. They have been accused of kidnapping someone who was laundering money for them in the States but part of the money went missing. They were collecting on behalf of the person he owed the money to.

Again the kidnapping victim that was laundering money for them was Sulaiman Safi who shared a car lease with full-patch Hells Angel Glen Hehn. When Crawford was first arrested someone tried to tell me he had been kicked out of the IS to try and distance themselves from the kidnapping. Yet it is clear that since Red Scorpions were also involved and since Glen Hehn was indirectly involved with the guy that owed the money, Crawford was on company business so to speak.

Him getting assaulted in jail is just another down and dirty attempt at denying he was working for them when it’s pretty obvious he was. Rats they are. They’ll stab you in the back faster than you can say where’s my money?



In Tuesday's Province they clarified that it was Crawford who said he had been stabbed. It's kinda like that old joke after someone gets beat up. What happened? Oh they fell and hit their head.

Anti-Money Laundering Specialists come to Vancouver

Front page of today’s Vancouver Province is about a former RCMP investigator coming to Vancouver to create a local chapter of the Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists. Three cheers. After Rich Coleman and the BC Liberals shut down the investigation of money laundering in BC Casinos here comes a private company to fill the gap.

When we first hear the term P3, public private partnership, we automatically think of Gordon Campbell’s corruption. Yet this could be different. Any exposure investigating money laundering is a good thing. Not only is it immoral but it’s always tied to investment fraud that crashes banks and destroys pension.

The question is, will this private company who has no interest in RCMP contracts with the Province, reopen the money laundering investigations in the BC Rail case that were swept under the carpet? Aneal Basi was accused of money laundering from Erik Bornmann. Tips from an informant suggested Basi was laundering money for Bains by purchasing real estate. I’d like to see these guy investigate that. As well as the money laundering that goes on in the banks. Or how about money laundering in stocks? That should keep them pretty busy.

Harper sinks while Trudeau rises

The Vancouver Province is reporting on the results of two very interesting and significant polls. The first one reveals two-thirds of Canadians believe Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government is too secretive and has failed to govern with high ethical standards. Although it comes as no big surprise this news doesn’t bring me great joy.

Yes there are many things that Harper has done that I totally oppose. I am very disappointed with what he has done to the party. He has turned Reform full circle into Mulroneyism. The exact plague Reform set out to fix. The poll found that 63% disagreed with the statement the "Harper Conservatives are living up to the promise they made when first elected in 2006 to provide an ethical, open and transparent government." Again this is no big surprise. Harper has not been ethical or transparent. Period.

Fifty-eight per cent of Canadians disapprove of the Conservative government under Harper's leadership. This isn’t a big surprise either when you have more than one political party on the ballot. That’s how a party can get a majority government with less than 50% of the vote.

So where does this lead us? The article and the second poll points directly to Justin Trudeau. The Vancouver Province claims Canadian voters would flock back to the federal Liberals if an election occurred now with Justin Trudeau as party leader.

Trudeau is the top choice among voters to be prime minister, surpassing the Conservatives' Stephen Harper and Tom Mulcair of the NDP. Yet when you look at the numbers it’s still pretty close. Thirty-two per cent of decided voters would support the Liberals if led by Trudeau - up six points from last November and 14 points since last June. While 31 per cent would vote for the Conservatives, down three points since November 2012.

Again this is promising but I have mixed feelings. What do Trudeau’s liberals feel about Insite and using tax dollars to buy addicts heroin? That really concerns me. Harm reduction is only one of the four pillars and there is a huge amount of pressure to forget all the other pillars but one which has sent us straight down the DTES toilet.

It’s possible Justin can see the folly in that decision. I’m not sure if the NDP can. I don’t know what their stand on that issue is but for me personally, that’s a pretty important issue when we want to talk about fiscal responsibility as well as addressing the gang war.

A lot of Harper supporters revel in bitterness over Justin’s father. They say he was a Commie that destroyed the country. Yet he had class and dignity. He represented us well in the world. Harper doesn’t. He doesn’t have class or dignity and he doesn’t represent us very well in the world.

Yes Pierre liked Russian literature. No doubt he did have some socialist ideals. Yet his crowning achievement was the Charter of Rights. He was the one that protected us from the intrusive nature of big brother. Protection from arbitrary arrest and unnecessary searches and seizures as well as the right to a fair trial are founding principles in the US constitution. No one would dare call the founding fathers Commies.

Harper has done everything in his power to erode the Charter of Rights and empower big brother. The only reason Harper backed off his warrantless surveillance was because the Supreme Court ruled that cell phones and text messages are protected under the Charter and the police need a search warrant to gain access to them. We have Pierre to thank for that. Getting a search warrant isn’t that difficult. Giving up our liberty just isn’t worth it.

They say Pierre started us down the road of out of control national debt. Yet Harper was far worse with his insider trading jets and the giant bank bail out he still denies happened. Harper sells Candu reactors to China who supports North Korea. The onlything holding back that lunatic in North Korean from following through with his threat to use nuclear arms on America is the fact that his technology isn’t there yet. Harper is helping him get there.

Harper has also given Communist China our oil rights so we are now funding their military expansion. When push comes to shove, Harper has been a far worse Commie that Pierre. Pierre protected us. Harper railroaded us.

How would Justin do in choosing judges? He can’t do any worse than Harper who promoted a lawyer that represented the Hells Angels to the bench because he was the president of the conservative party. Hopefully he will do better than Paul Martin who’s dying act as Prime Minister was to give us Peter Leask. That crazy decision has plagued us for years to come.

So yes I think the news is promising but I have mixed feelings. The only thing that will stop Harper is to elect someone else. That is the only way the party will pick someone else. Will Justin destroy the country in the mean time? I don’t think so. I think he will do us proud. Time will tell. It always does.

Harper cuts soldiers pay

Harpers latest act of defiance is to cut soldiers serving in Afghanistan pay by $500 a month mid stream. During their tour of duty in violation of their agreed contract. He’s removing their danger pay because he says it isn’t as dangerous any more. Is that right? Now that American troops are protection the opium fields in Afghanistan it isn’t as dangerous any more? I find that hard to believe. What are Canadian troops still doing in Afghanistan anyways? I thought we already pulled out. Makes ya wonder how the Central Asian gas pipeline is doing there now.

Off Shore Tax-haven data leak

Evidently there has been some kind of massive leak about off shore financial information revealing how the rich evade taxes through off shore investment. The concept is no secret. It’s been going on for years. I guess the details of who’s doing what has actually been released.

Canadian Senator Pana Merchant has been named in the release. CBC is covering the data leak. They have an interactive map on the topic. They posted a list of countries affected as well as a list of 5 big leaks of offshore financial data. However, they aren't releasing all the data about Canadians yet. They're going to sort through it first.

Nobody likes taxes. Michael Moore talked about the historic shift in tax rates for the wealthy. Previously the more money you made the higher tax bracket you were in and the more taxes you paid. At one point the extremely rich were paying up to 80% of their earnings in tax. I do think that was extreme.

Yet Michael Moore pointed out how we have gone to the other extreme where the very wealthy pay next to no income tax through off shore investments. That is wrong. It doesn’t help build the local economy and forces the middle class to pay all the tax revenue.

As I’ve said before, no one wants to be over taxed yet the fact that Warren Buffet pays less tax than his secretary shows there is something wrong with the system. His secretary pays income tax at a rate of 35.8 percent of income, while Buffett pays a rate at 17.4 percent. Over taxing the rich or the large corporations isn’t the answer but letting them pay no or very little tax isn’t the answer either.

The other example is the fraudster Donald Trump. In two of his recent tax returns he paid no income tax at all. That just isn’t right. I don’t think anyone no matter how much money they make should ever have to pay more than 50% of their income in tax. Yet having the wealthy pay little or no tax is just plain wrong. It is tax evasion and these off shore accounts help them do it.

The solution is simple. We should stop rewarding people for investing off shore.

Following the money in the Pharmaceutical Services Division

The Vancouver Sun recently ran an article about a Pharmaceutical scam called Six fired, two lawsuits, one dead - but still no answers. The Tyee has recently reported there’s now three lawsuits. It all stems from the abrupt termination of a research group that has benefited the large drug companies just like the termination of the RCMP squad investigating money laundering in BC casinos has benefited organized crime.

Rod MacIsaac was days away from completing his PHD and was terminated from the research project. Shortly thereafter he was found dead. The Common Ground wrote about it as well and asked Rod’s sister what she though were possible theories. She said follow the money.

“With BC’s PharmaCare program spending more than $1.2 billion of our money on drugs every year, there is a lot of cash to follow. Many people wonder if the drug safety evaluations done by employees like Roderick and other evaluators were finding things the pharmaceutical manufacturers didn’t like. Would that be enough to lead to an anaphylactic reaction in the bureaucracy and a carpet-bombing of the Ministry of Health?”

It all started on March 28, 2012, when a complaint was filed with the BC’s Auditor General about the way contracts were being awarded and how research was being conducted within the Pharmaceutical Services Division (PSD). PSD oversees annual spending of $1.2 billion on pharmaceuticals, the fastest growing of all areas of health spending. This growth is fueled by unrelenting pressure from pharmaceutical companies that strive to ensure their products are generously covered by the public purse.

Alan Cassals is co-author, with Australian journalist Ray Moynihan of the book, Selling Sickness, about the role of the pharmaceutical industry in helping to create and market illness. We know that the methadone program is a huge money maker and any rehab centre that doesn’t teach it doesn’t get government referrals. Keeping people on the program forever and refusing to ever decrease the dosages is a huge scam all in itself. However, me thinks this one goes far beyond that.

I would however, like to find out how much of that $1.2 billion a year is spent on methadone and how much the pharmacists make for dispensing it and the doctors make for prescribing it. In fact a complete break down of how that $1.2 billion a year is spent is really crucial to our not so democratic system. How contracts are awarded and what not. You get the picture.