Sunday, November 1, 2009

To Have and Have Not


The local government has no shame.

And no sense of sweet reason or equity or simple good judgement.

By now, you all know about The Deal.

The B.C. government is under fire for giving out an untendered $500,000 contract to Vancouver's elite Terminal City Club to host private soirees during the 2010 Olympics.

This is the same august body that is cutting mental health, addictions and senior's services in every sector.

Iain Black, minister of small business, technology and economic development, repeatedly stated the contract is about doing business.

"Our job is to host this $4-billion revenue-generating spectacular event, and that means we will host international dignitaries," Black told the house.

"It means we will host community and national leaders," he went on to say. "It means we will host international investors and leading academics from around the world. This is our opportunity. We have a job to do."

But Mr. Black knows not whereof he speaks.

Does he naively believe that these freeloaders will jump about and immediately bring business to Pender and Hornby?

No.

These guests are career leeches. They make a life of travel and expense accounts.

And most of them have no power. They are merely the advanced guard for people who are too busy to bother with such bosch.

The division in the sovereign state between the rich and poor, the touched and the untouchables has never been clearer.

Or more repugnant.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

David, only an idiot or an olympic supporter will buy into the notion that the "games" will bring all sorts of new buisness to BC.

What brings new buisness to BC is soft labor laws. Unchecked imigration which inturn provides cheap labor.

This is just another perk for the olympdick organizers to entertain their out of town cronies to at tax payers expense.

I wonder how many of these olymdick supporters and organizers will step up to the plate when its all said and done. Maybe the headline will read:

HUGE OLYMPIC LOSSES TO BE PAID BY TAXING RICH AND FAMOUS

Not likely

Anonymous said...

David, maybe I'm being paranoid, but I posted a tweet that said I thought the Olympics were ageist for refusing former Olympians tickets to the events and the next day my Twitter account was deleted. Try as I might, i could not get it to work and entering my e-mail address to reactivate it didn't work. I find this quite distressing.

BILLBORING said...

Well David, according to Bill Boring this is perfectly acceptable..."it's part of hosting the games" don't you know? I wonder if gordo has Billy boy on his payroll. Lifetime achievement award..HA what a joke!!

Jeff Taylor said...

I remember when the NDP had the Fast Cat Ferries to deal with. EVERY SINGLE DAY OF THE WEEK, the Giant '98 and it's daytime radio personal, beat that story until it bleed, and then beat it again. Day after day, week after week, month after month. Now, fast track to current time. The cost over-runs of the Trade & Convention Centre - and Gordo's interview(s) stating that the costs were under control - I can count the days on my two hands the times the Giant '98 has covered that. Now, with the Olympic costs skyrocketing, nothing but feel good (Hmmm, where do I know that name ?) news stories and interviews brimming with softball questions. I went from listening to that station all week, to a few times a week, to almost never. The problem is that in the vancouver market there isn't really an alternative. I guess market size is to blame, or maybe stupid listeners not demanding something balanced and better in general.

Anonymous said...

David, I just want to give Jeff a two thumbs up. NW has become the place to go to worship at the olympic altar. Bill Good is the high priest. The reporting is so one sided that it is laughable. Good continues to deny. He says the station just reports the news. One caller accused him of trying to sell real estate and he denied it. Yet NW ran an in house ad to buy now for months. Maybe Bill doesn't have time to listen to the station with ferry travel and the TV news.

Right on Jeff