Bill Barisoff - BC Liberal

[Castanet News]

This thread is for the discussion of the candidacy of Bill Barisoff - BC Liberal.

[madmudder]

Silence,thats whats its been like for the past 8 years.Will it be the same for the next four?

[lawman]

If by silence you mean millions for a highway four-laning between Summerland and Peachland, millions for the South Okanagan Events Centre, $40 million for a new school in Penticton, a new school in Oliver, $30 million for Okanagan College for a new Green Technology Centre and billions in tax cuts, then I guess madmudder and I have a different opinion of what the word "silence" means.

You want to go back to the 1990s, when unemployment ran into the double-digits, taxes increased and our take-home pay was reduced? I know I don't. Think about it -- the NDP ran B.C.'s economy into the ground despite the fact the world economy was growing. Imagine the kind of damage they will do now, when the world economy is shrinking!

[madmudder]

BLAH Blah Blah

[lawman]

Silence,thats whats its been like for the past 8 years.Will it be the same for the next four?

And that is why you changed your reply to Madmutter to boast of the infrastructure spending in BC. It sure must be nice to be spending all that money so close to an election which has come from slashing health care and education funding, selling off BC's resources and breaking contracts all these years. I don't think seniors, families and others reliant on our code purple health care and education systems will be so niave and forgiving this time around.

Well, SpotTheDeal, the answer given to madmudder was not "changed". Once posted, there it is. Though I notice madmudder's next reaction, "Blah, blah, blah" was an attempt to lower the level of political debate. And I had such high hopes . . .

As to your assertion the money was spent "so close to an election" as if it was simply a bribe for our votes, sorry to correct you, but one of the examples I gave, the $40 million for the new Penticton Secondary School, was a project committed years prior to the 2005 election.
If you knew anything about long-term building projects, you'd know it takes several years to plan and build infrastructure projects -- even longer when you factor in another level of decision-making like the local school board. The school itself was opened to the students at the beginning of the school year. It took several years to build and I have watched with interest the new school taking shape.
No, this was not a case of the money being spent in preparation of an election, but a case of government actually making sure tax dollars are returned to the public through services and facilities (which is, of course, the whole reason we pay taxes in the first place). Other projects abound up and down the valley. A second four-lane section of Highway 97, improving safety and congestion on a much-needed trade corridor; nearly $10 million to help Penticton build the event centre; millions for sewer and water projects throughout the riding; millions more for seniors housing with a variety of care options; and the list could go on of projects that are responses to actual needs and not electioneering. Or perhaps you'd like to tell Penticton high school students they didn't deserve a new school?
As for slashing health care, wait times for needed health procedures in our hospitals have actually dropped. Check out the numbers -- from up to a year in 2001 to 90 days now. Those are the stats from the Ministry of Health, but anecdotally I can tell you my daughter's back operation is this year going to be done within four weeks of the doctor's requisition right in the valley, whereas in 1999, the same procedure for my wife meant a six-month wait or a trip to the coast because not all regions of the province had the same access to health care. To me, that's progress.
Education, too, has increased every year under the Liberals on a per student basis -- and let's face it, that's how we should be funding education. Education is not a make-work project for teachers, it's a service for students. Fewer students means fewer teachers are needed, unless you want to have teachers teaching to empty classrooms -- that would simply be wasteful spending (though the NDP's buddies in the BCTF might approve of that).
Finally, I don't see your point about selling resources. That's what a resource-dependent province does. We log the trees, mill them into lumber and sell the two-by-fours. We dig a well, pump out the oil, and sell it. We find the fish, dip in a net, and sell the salmon worldwide. If your comment was an attempt to pick up on the NDP claim the government is selling B.C. Ferries and B.C. Hydro, well that's simply not true and I challenge anyone making that claim to back it up with some facts.
. . . Until your next post . . .

[lawman]

Thank you for your reply, Hon. Barisoff.

Just a quick response, Mr. SpotTheDeal -- my name is not Bill Barisoff. Yes, I support Bill's candidacy, but I am not him. Call me "lawman". That will suffice. Thank you. As for the rest of your post, have no fear, I will reply in good time. But I want to fully consider the points you've made, since you took the time to respond at length with considerable effort, rather than simply post "Blah, blah, blah."

[Nebula]

As opposed to NDP mutton?

[nugget]

Lawman, lawman, lawman...I figured this was about the best place to reach you and point our your unethical disregard for ad placement.

The Letters page of today's Herald includes a large letter from Bill Barisoff to a constituent, but it is marked as advertisement in type that is smaller than the regular text of the letter.

--other candidates were specifically told by the Herald that no candidate letters would be published, but it is okay to publish letters by friends,m volunteers or hired consultants (kinda like your's today) So, the Herald has allowed Barisoff’s camp to buy a space on the Letters page and print a favourable letter signed by Bill. The only markings that it is an ad are the financial agent statement and the little Advertisment title way off to the left where no one reads it. It is legally an ad, but far from ethical for the Herald to allow this.

--When I have inquired about ad placement weeks ago, my rep at the Herald had said that the editorial page is not reservable, it is luck of the draw, depending on layout.

[Nebula]

The only markings that it is an ad are the financial agent statement and the little Advertisment title way off to the left where no one reads it.

Ah, apparently you read it.

[lawman]

Reply to STD – SpotTheDeal

Sorry for the delay in my response, SpotTheDeal. Yes, like you point out, I do have replies to your comments, but I fear if I said nothing, you might suggest I was avoiding replying – making me feel like I’m damned if I do, damned if I don’t. So here I go anyway with a couple of posts:

I’m glad you point out the school upgrades were slated during the NDP reign, who then shelved the plans. By mismanaging the economy and putting the province into record deficits, the NDP had less money for infrastructure. The B.C. Liberal plan is the precise opposite. Manage the economy well so there is more revenue and more money for programs. To me, that’s an attractive option.

As for inventing conspiracies, well, I’m wondering if you’re new to the province, STD. Unionized labour – CUPE, BCGEU, BCTF, HEU, etc. – all contribute millions to the NDP campaign. Their support of the NDP, from sending pro-NDP letters home to their members to their vocal criticism of the B.C. Liberals to the number of union activists working directly on the NDP campaign is legion.
Just listen to the words of Brad Zubyk, who coordinated the last provincial campaign for the NDP, during testimony given to a B.C. Supreme Court under oath: “During the 2005 election, I was one of the senior people in the communications campaign run by the provincial NDP. My official title was director of candidate support. This made me one of the core communications operatives in the NDP's campaign war room.
“During that time, the NDP ran an election campaign that was closely coordinated with the campaigns of major labour groups in the province.
“The unions’ membership and spending was used as a resource to support our overall campaign and we exploited that resource to the best effect possible.
“The degree to which the unions put their resources at our disposal varied from union to union; however, the vast majority were supportive in some fashion.
"The NDP would be advised of the advertising being run by the unions so that duplication of effort could be avoided. This process was informal but constant. Because of the heavy advertising conducted by unions in support of the NDP in 2005, we were able to devote more of the NDP’s own money to other campaign activities.”
“One of the things that some major unions would do for the NDP during this campaign was to share contact information of their members with the party.”
This quasi-merger of the lists would “permit more accurate and efficient use of voter identification resources and permit those [union] members to be targeted with messaging supportive of the NDP and designed to ensure that members supportive of the NDP vote on election day.”

All this coordinated effort – events, advertising, volunteer recruitment and voter identification – amounted to parallel campaigns, one run by the unions, the other directly by the NDP.
“The NDP expected this coordination to permit the party's own resources to be freed up for investment in other campaign activities.
“It was effectively the pooling of resources (financial and human) to serve the end of electing as many NDP candidates as possible.”
(And don’t kid yourself, the teachers’ strike was all about teacher pay, not out of any altruistic concern about the students. The teachers pay their negotiators. Any mention of the students was just to gain traction in the media and an attempt to gain the support of the public.)

[lawman]

Further to SpotTheDeal:

You question how many times we’ve watched on the news of poor treatment of seniors – I could easily point out that is the exception, not the rule. News media typically don’t run stories when things work well, only when things don’t work. Seen any stories about the 99 per cent of the seniors who get in to long-term care? Of course not. Negative stories attract the public’s attention quicker than the positive. Just ask your buddies in the NDP – why have they gone negative? To grab sound bites and the public’s attention.

About the foreign investors buying companies in B.C., I’m not sure I follow, but I’m sure you will correct me if I’ve misunderstood your point. Selling what companies to foreign investors? Are you referring to the lies about B.C. Hydro and B.C. Ferries being sold? Can anyone show me a bill of sale? Assets like that being sold off would be part of the public record and easily accessible by the general public and any MLAs.

You also suggest the B.C. Liberals draft bills and acts in support of their own policies. Yes, they do. After being elected to government by a plurality of the people, they are in a position to do just that. That’s the basic premise behind our current system of representative democracy. The party in power meets in caucus, plans out their responses to current events and issues, establishes all-party committees and drafts bills which are debated publicly ad nauseum and amended; those bills are then sent to the legislative assembly, which again debates the bills, amends them and holds them up to a vote. While some votes are held strictly along party lines, a number of others are free votes. At all times, except for the very initial stages when caucus sets the legislative agenda (having been democratically elected to do just that), it is a public process.

Finally, you suggest B.C.’s economic woes in the 1990s were a result of the same economic forces at play today. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. Leaving aside the market meltdown over the U.S.-created sub-prime mortgage fiasco, the 1990s saw growth in the U.S. under Clinton. The 1990s also saw growth in Canada in every province except B.C., where taxes went up, job creation went down, and our take-home pay over 10 years increased by a measly 0.1%. Let’s contrast that with the past eight years. The U.S. housing industry has been in a slump ever since 9/11 (which led to the creation of the sub-prime mortgage in the first place), but B.C. has led Canada in job creation, tax reductions and investment. The result has been people have felt richer because our take-home pay actually increased by 16%. So with the economy the way it is, do you really want to make things worse by electing people who are beholden to the unions and have a platform nearly identical to the 1990s when their policies failed miserably? I know I don’t.

I hope you don’t once again dismiss me as another “Liberal sheep” and dismiss my opinion as some kind of political come-backs rather than informed debate. I’d like to think we can raise the level of political debate in this province beyond name-calling and socialis-type fervour.

[lawman]

Dear nugget . . . I have nothing to do with ad placement or the Penticton Herald, but I did enjoy reading Bill Barisoff's letter today. I suggest you direct your comments about ad placement to the Penticton Herald. You should know the email address from the letters you’ve submitted to the paper over the years. But are you talking about the ad on the letters page by Bill Barisoff or the ad from Chris Delaney that has run on the same page for the past week?
While you are pointing out unethical advertising, perhaps you can tell me why the NDP have chosen to withdraw their logo from the attack ads? Unless you’ve got a big screen TV and a TiVo to pause the ad, you can’t read the fine print saying who authorized the ad.

[AlanH]

I felt a sense of optimism with Premier Campbell's acceptance speech and how he seemed humbled by the whole experience. Perhaps with the Liberals not getting that landslide vote as in the last election, Campbell realizes that he "needs" to be a man of the people rather than acting robotic and unapproachable.

Do you know what the results of the last election were, or am I misreading what you said about a landslide victory?