Why Do Liberals and Their Insiders Think they Are Above the Law?

Most of us walk around every day obeying and living under the laws of our province and country. Why is it that BC Liberals and their friends and insiders think they are above the law, that the laws don't apply to them, or that they don't have to be accountable for their decisions and those they make as elected officials.

If you've ever held any kind of elected position you know that you are held accountable to those who voted for you, to those who are members of the organization and you are expected to adhere to both formal and informal process, rules and fairness.

Apparently, the BC Liberals and those they carry along in their wake don't think any of those things apply to them and that they can do anything they want and get out of any kind of accountability for the harm their decisions have on us peons. I say BULLSHIT. And I hope that a whole bunch of BC citizens feel the same way on May 12th.

This is now far beyond a partisan issue. I get that we like to be polarized in BC, but it's time for people to just start having some commonsense at the ballot box. How much do we allow and tolerate to happen by these elected clowns? How much is enough? How many "special investigations" into BC Liberal MLA's, into privatization schemes, into insiders and why they've been handed vast sums to do nothing other than pave the way for corporations to earn what used to be kept within government coffers and used to actually help fund government services.

Parliamentary privilege is a joke in BC. It is highly offensive and contemptuous of the mockery of democracy the BC Liberals are making of our parliamentary system. If the Canada Line was such a great thing, why is Falcon, or Campbell for that matter, afraid to testify about this in the civil case? What have they got to hide? Why should they be above testifying in this important case in which many, many small business people have received the shaft?

Whose side are the BC Liberals and their friends on, anyways?
After 8 years with these vultures I think that answer is plain to see and it ain't the citizens of BC. Don't we and our kids and their kids and their kids.... deserve so much better. I think we do. On May 12th Vote ABC: Anything But Campbell's Liberals.

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Cabinet minister not required to testify in Vancouver retailer's lawsuit

CBC News. Tuesday, March 17, 2009.

B.C. Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon will not be required to appear at a civil trial involving a Cambie Street merchant who claims she was forced to close her shop due to construction of the rapid-transit Canada Line.

Susan Heyes, owner of maternity wear retailer Hazel and Co., is suing the city and the provincial and federal governments after she said she lost nearly $1 million in sales because construction halted traffic to her store.

A B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled Tuesday that Falcon can be excused from testifying because parliamentary privilege gives him immunity from involvement in civil court cases.

Falcon contended that shop and restaurant owners would enjoy an economic boost once the rapid transit line is complete, later this year.

[What about those that went out of business during this cluster !^%* of a BC Liberal scheme. Who were the lobbyists on this one?]

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Questions unanswered about BC Rail payments to Liberal insider

Paul Willcocks, Paying Attention. March 16, 2009.

Excerpts:

The New Democrats has been asking a lot of questions about why B.C. Rail paid almost $300,000 to the consulting companies of Patrick Kinsella between 2002 and 2005. They haven't been getting answers. Kinsella is as well-connected as they come.

... Progressive Group, one of Kinsella's firms, was seeking a contract. The company identified successes in winning government decisions worth more than $2 billion to its clients.

Progressive helped Accenture "promote and educate the B.C. government of the value of outsourcing a number of the government services," the firm said. That resulted in a 10-year, $1.45-billion deal to take over most of B.C. Hydro's administrative functions.

B.C. Rail. The difference in this case is that the Crown corporation was paying Kinsella's company with taxpayers' money.

The NDP raised the issue repeatedly in the legislature last week.
What did the companies do for the money? Was there an open tender process? Were the Kinsella companies' ties to the Liberals a factor in the decision?

Premier Gordon Campbell and Attorney General Wally Oppal refused to answer.

Why would a Crown corporation need to pay a consultant to help it understand the government of the day?

Footnote: Kinsella embarrassed the government last fall when Information Commissioner David Loukidelis launched an investigation into allegations he had acted as a lobbyist without registering, as required by the lobbying laws. Kinsella's lawyers told Loukidelis the law didn't give him authority to investigate and their client wouldn't co-operate voluntarily.