Castanet

Now your saying I bite...just kidding, I hear you. Thanks !!

VICTORIA -- While the B.C. Liberals plead poverty on any number of spending priorities, they’ve not exercised restraint on a government advertising budget that is poised to hit $64 million over Premier Christy Clark’s two years in office.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Va ... z2DYvWTVXJ

Seems there is no limit to how much tax money they will spend on trying to get re-elected.. SHAMEFULL !!! I hope people are smart enough to see through this propaganda attack come election time. It makes me sick to think of how much real good could have been done with 64 million $$$...

It makes me sick to think of how much real good could have been done with 64 million $$$...

That’s because you didn’t read or comprehend the entire article. You just read that $64 million had been spent on government advertising , and interpreted that to mean it was solely used as an election strategy.

Let’s have a look at some of the spending referred to in the article:

$10 million was spent on promoting BC tourism worldwide, something I would think anyone from this neck of the woods would say is money well spent.

Speaking of the Okanagan, another $1.5 million was spent on forest fire prevention and awareness, or maybe you don’t think that this is applicable to an area plagued annually by this threat.?

The Ministry of education used $3.5 million advising parents the strategies in place for those kids leaving school. This is electioneering?

$1.2 million was spent by the health ministry promoting a healthy lifestyle. An ounce of prevention is a bad thing?.

And if you read the article , and not just the headline you would find that $11 million advertising dollars of the $64 million touted haven’t even been spent.

In hindsight , I must agree that spending $5million dollars on promoting the HST appears excessive, , but I would have hardly thought promoting this extra tax was in the Government’s best interest.!

Every government that has ever been, has used tax dollars for some sort of self- promotion , that is the nature of the beast , On the other hand if they did not , we as taxpayers would be asking the question "what has the government been doing for us lately ?", if it weren’t for some self-back-slapping on the part of our elected officials.

And ask yourself this , what policies and strategies has the loyal opposition brought forth ,in the past decade?
Not much based on the evidence. In fact nothing that would fill the most tiny of advertising campaigns, no matter how much you stretch the truth.

Either way it’s time for a change, I’ve had enough of both of the major parties.
They have proven beyond a doubt that neither of them is worthy or capable for that matter of running this province.

hoot wrote:That’s because you didn’t read or comprehend the entire article. You just read that $64 million had been spent on government advertising , and interpreted that to mean it was solely used as an election strategy.

That's a real "hoot" I do believe it may be you who didn't "comprehend" the essence of the article.

hoot wrote:Let’s have a look at some of the spending referred to in the article:

Clark boosted spending to $34.5 million in her first year in office, a near doubling that coincided with her determination to rebrand the Liberals and improve public perceptions of a troubled administration.

But the premier and her colleagues have lost none of their enthusiasm for advertising spending, having budgeted a further $29.5 million for the current financial year.

The Liberals then proceeded to spend $4 million promoting the new version of a jobs strategy.

The Liberals also spent $5 million on a campaign built around the theme of Healthy Families BC, keyed to the new premier’s “families first” agenda. Yes, they spent $5 million mainly telling folks to put less salt on their food. Your government in action.

the education ministry got behind a $2.5-million campaign “designed to reach parents of school-age kids about the government plans to ensure their children are prepared for the ever-changing future.”

Another $3.5 million is ticketed for unspecified advertising campaigns run out of the government communications shop

Need I go on.?? If the government were doing their job, it would speak for itself, they wouldn't need to spend 64 million dollars trying to convince us.

And for those needing a point of comparison, that is twice what the government spends on parks in a given year, three times what it spends on arts, culture and sports, and half again as much as the annual funding for crime prevention and the victims of crime.

cutypi wrote:SHAMEFULL !!! I hope people are smart enough to see through this propaganda attack come election time

I GUESS NOT !!

they wouldn't need to spend 64 million dollars trying to convince us.

oh dear I hit a nerve didn't I?

Look, you can read the column any way you want , fact remains the Liberals are not the first political party to toot their own horn and the NDP will not be the last .

Vaughn Palmer is notorious for his slanted columns, so when you read them you have to allow for the bias inherent in the writer's prose.

Obviously it is is futile to try and convince you that this scribe is typical of political writers of the day .They take, what at face value are indeed facts, and then twist them to meet their own agenda.

It is this "poetic license" that naive dopes, who are so far up to their necks in one particular political ideology glom on to , and then spout the "facts as presented " as the gospel according to VP.

I can see by your cutting and pasting huge chunks of said column that you are in fact asking the question: "did I read this correctly or not?”

The answer of course is you did not.
PS read the column again, $11 million has not yet been spent.

hoot wrote:I can see by your cutting and pasting huge chunks of said column that you are in fact asking the question: "did I read this correctly or not?”
The answer of course is you did not.
PS read the column again, $11 million has not yet been spent.

And I can see by your condescending script that you think yours is the only "opinion" that matters. The author of the article is stating the "facts" the way he sees them and I am interpreting them the way I see them.

You my friend condone the frivolous spending for the sake of argument while criticizing those who disagree with your own air of superiority. (you'd make a good Liberal, if your not already) Unless, of course, you are one of those, and I quote, naive dopes, who are so far up to their necks in one particular political ideology that they "actually" do agree with the wasteful spending.

As for myself, I sat through another 8 or 10 of those commercials last night and they make me want to "puke". IN MY OPINION, it is a colossal waste of taxpayer dollars no matter how YOU want to try and justify it. I wonder if some of the patients sitting at home watching these commercials about how "amazing" our government is doing, to the tune of 15 million dollars, while waiting in line for cancer treatment, would buy into your theory that ITS OK - ALL POLITICAL PARTIES DO IT..

Ms. Clark said Tuesday that Finance Minister Mike de Jong will deliver a second-quarter economic update that outlines B.C.’s current economic status, and the numbers aren’t positive.

“You’ll see a clearer picture of what exactly we are facing, but I do want to give you a heads up: it won’t be pretty,” said Ms. Clark.

Better brace yourself cutypi, I can feel a new round of advertising coming. Perhaps this is what that other 11 mil that hoot pointed out "has not yet been spent" will be going toward.?? .

hoot wrote:Every government that has ever been, has used tax dollars for some sort of self- promotion , that is the nature of the beast

Hummmm... Guess that makes it OK

hoot wrote:On the other hand if they did not , we as taxpayers would be asking the question "what has the government been doing for us lately ?"

Yea, because we're all to dumb to figure it out any other way. Hummmm....

cutypi wrote:You my friend condone the frivolous spending for the sake of argument while criticizing those who disagree with your own air of superiority

I second that emotion..!!

If the government were doing their job, it would speak for itself, they wouldn't need to spend 64 million dollars trying to convince us.

Silly statement, "it would speak for itself" what on earth does that mean exactly?

Howe does the government 'speak if not through the medium of advertising ? Maybe you have some other method no one else knows about.

For example, how does the government do its job of promoting BC tourism without spending large amounts of dough on advertising ? ( $10 million according to Vaughn palmer ). But wait a minute that’s government self -promotion according to you and your buddies , we can't have any of that !. So how should the government promote tourism. Word of mouth , jungle drums, posters on lamp posts?.

How about fire prevention?. Another $1.2 million bucks wasted according to Palmer. Clearly written by someone who lives in an urban environment. And you, living in one of the areas most threatened by forest fires ,agree with him ? That's daft.

For the record, I do not in anyway condone any government for spending tax payer dollars on self-promotion . However you and your ilk are lumping informative advertising with what you perceive to be advertising for their own self-aggrandizement. none of which is evident in Vaughn palmer’s column.

According to your ridiculous statement , the government shouldn’t be in the business of informing the public of its programs and services because, according to you, they will speak for themselves. Huh?
So tell me how will that work ?. I’m keen to know.

Oh dear I think I might have hit a nerve, didn't I ??

hoot wrote:Silly statement, "it would speak for itself" what on earth does that mean exactly?

Let me spell it out for you because it would appear you need the help. It means actions speak louder than words. It means we would see the highest child poverty rate in Canada being reduced. It means we would SEE less wait times in our hospitals. It means we wouldn't be subjected to commercial after commercial about the BC jobs plan when the unemployment rate is actually increasing. Are you starting to get the picture, because I can go on..!!

I wondered why they would waste our money even trying this nonsense, I mean nobody will buy it, right. Wrong, they have you and your "ilk" (woooo). I'm not even sure what you are rebutting here. Read the title of this topic. I never stated that all 64 million was spent on this latest campaigning blitz. What I did say was:

cutypi wrote:Seems there is no limit to how much tax money they will spend on trying to get re-elected.. SHAMEFULL !!! I hope people are smart enough to see through this propaganda attack come election time. It makes me sick to think of how much real good could have been done with 64 million $$$...

And I meant it. I'll give you the 10 mil for tourism (just because I'm sooo nice) although I haven't seen "any" of those ads so we'll just have to take the Liberals word for it. (cough-cough). The rest of the money is being wasted on self serving, try to get re-elected nonsense, plain and simple no matter how they try to disguise it. Its money that could be better spent on almost anything else instead of making Christie's friends in the media richer. Interesting how their need to "enlighten" us gets worse the closer we are to an election. It boarders on fraud.

But then I guess it's good that they have some gullible "believers" like you hoot, how else would they be able to keep putting it to us and still get re-elected.

The fiscal masquerade that is being played out is made more egregious by the current $15 million blitzkrieg of Jobs Plan advertising. If you make the mistake of turning on the evening news these days, your reward is a take-no-prisoners campaign of intense, non-stop carpet bombing.

One of the advertisements blithely claims: “In this uncertain global economy ... we’re balancing the budget by controlling spending.” In reality, the Liberals are almost certainly going to achieve an operational surplus with the help of tax increases embedded in a variety of measures from income threshold fiddles to hiked user fees.

What is most galling is the reality that while they keep us focused on the operating budget our accumulated total debt is rocketing through the $60 billion threshold and shows no signs of abatement. These spendthrift free enterprisers are mortgaging our future at the rate of at least $2 billion in long term debt every year. That is the antithesis to “controlling spending.”

Just as sneaky is the Jobs Plan claim that we have the lowest personal taxes in the country. I’ve examined the Canada Revenue Agency reports. We are in the middle of the pack.

If these scoundrels had the faintest interest in controlling spending they wouldn’t be burying us in a multi-million dollar TV/print/social media campaign that is as nauseating as it is misleading.

Humm.. Guess I'm not the only one who thinks this is a huge waste of tax dollars !!

First, it's nice to see more fresh, intelligent commentary on here! I really like the way the OP has conducted herself in dealing logically and rationally throughout the flaming she's been subjected to by a certain abrasive, idiotic and antagonistic troll. (Not mentioning any names... we all knows who he is!)

I, too, am disgusted by the monumental waste of tax dollars by this Liberal government as they try and blow smoke up our *bleep* with their cynical, patronizing barrage of adfomercials. With all the problems our society is currently facing, there is no excuse whatsoever to justify the diversion of public funds from legitimate uses so that they may engage in this sort of lavish, extra-campaign-period onanism.

I don't care what political party engages (or did engage) in this sort of narcissism, it is unforgivable! There is no honour among those occupying the seats of power! We want better! God knows we're paying for it!

Hopefully voters will send exactly that message to Victoria on Election Day.

Meanwhile, cutypi, don't get discouraged by the lemmings!

15 million is chump change considering, as just
reported in The Globe & Mail, this same government has under reported the provinces deficit by 520 million dollars due to questionable accounting practices...............Is that why so many MLA's aren't running in the next election..........Hmmmm, I wonder.

The B.C. New Democrats are taking a long, hard look eastward, at Ontario's system for curbing political partisanship in publicly funded government advertising.

Opposition leader Adrian Dix has already said that his policy, if the New Democrats win the next election, would be "not to spend public funds on partisan ads."

Vancouver Sun Dec 8.

More platitudes from the Looney left !. What they failed to mention is that most of their advertising comes from secondary sources like unions, who spend tens of millions of workers unions dues , (without their consent) electioneering on behalf of the dippers .

Tricky Dix is well named

The Liberals are in free-fall, the NDp can't be trusted to run a lemonade stand , the conservatives are imploding, that leaves an independent or the Greens...only in BC.

hoot wrote:More platitudes from the Looney left !. What they failed to mention is that most of their advertising comes from secondary sources like unions, who spend tens of millions of workers unions dues , (without their consent) electioneering on behalf of the dippers .

Tricky Dix is well named

The Liberals are in free-fall, the NDp can't be trusted to run a lemonade stand , the conservatives are imploding, that leaves an independent or the Greens...only in BC.

I think you completely missed the point. Dix has said the NDP won't use tax revenues for partisan advertisements. Who cares where they get the funds to advertise or who advertises for them as long as it doesn't come out of tax revenue that can be better spent elsewhere. Tax money has no business being spent on partisan ads.

You also have much to learn about Unions. Unions are a democracy and nothing can be done without the the approval of the membership. Either the elected officials of the union or the membership themselves must vote to donate to a political party. If the membership does not want the union to donate to a particular political party they can pass a motion stating that no money will be donated. Unfortunately not many members take an active interest in the day to day operations of their union. When they do I've seen motions to donate to the NDP defeated. I've also seen motions ammended that would allow members to choose where to donate a specified sum in their name to the party or charity of their choice. Much like provincial or municipal politics if the membership doesn't like the direction of their union they can vote for a change in leadership. To say that the elected officials of a union do something without the consent of their members is to say that the elected politicians in this country do their business without the consent of the taxpayers.