Denying the obvious

[Urbane]

• Yeah, she quit taking the stipend when it became public knowledge. Got caught with her fingers in the cookie jar. Had that not happened she would still be getting her 50 g's and probably an expense top up from the tax payers.

Being reimbursed for expenses is far better than the stipend. It was a good change that was made.

[mr.bandaid]

Only because she was caught. She would likely be taking the graft today had it not come out.

[Gone_Fishin]

Yeah, she quit taking the stipend when it became public knowledge. Got caught with her fingers in the cookie jar. Had that not happened she would still be getting her 50 g's and probably an expense top up from the tax payers.

Why didn't Moe Sihota stop taking his $100,000 per year stipend from the labour unions when it became public? Must be that NDP arrogance.

[George+]

Who is Moe Sihota?

[hobbyguy]

Being obtuse does not disguise the facts that the NDP were both corrupt and incompetent when in government.

Anyone who knew anything about anything knew that when the NDP poured $320 million into the zombie Skeena Cellulose that it was only being done to benefit the acting premier. But no, the NDP blinders mean that a few bucks for expenses means more than $320 million? And $320 million that we are still paying for in the provincial debt?

[Hurtlander]

And $320 million that we are still paying for in the provincial debt?

I wonder if the $700,000,000.00 in today's dollar, from WAC Bennetts railroad to nowhere that Bennett junior cancelled, is still part of our provincial debt.....just curious. If anyone is interested I can show them a beautiful big bridge over the Stikine canyon built in 1977, that's never been used.

[Urbane]

Moe Sihota accepted a stipend from the NDP and an NDP'er on here pretends that Moe Sihota doesn't exist. Glen Clark was found to have breached the conflict of interest laws and we're told that he didn't. We're told that the 1990's BC economy was strong and vibrant despite glaringly obvious evidence to the contrary. We're also told that those economic problems that didn't exist were caused by the Asian Flu. LOL. How NDP'ers think that this approach, we'll call it "the obtuse strategy," will help their cause is beyond me.

[Rwede]

*removed*

[Bsuds]

*removed*

[mr.bandaid]

Why didn't Moe Sihota stop taking his $100,000 per year stipend from the labour unions when it became public? Must be that NDP arrogance.

I don't know. Why don't you write Moe and ask him. I have never met the guy. Slimey characters in politics are everywhere. Some get caught, some don't. Some get fired, some don't. I have never been a member of the NDP party so I would think that question would be better asked of them. I will send my little note to Christy and ask her.

[Merry]

I'd never heard of Moe Sihota so I did a bit of research and discovered that in 2009/2010 he was paid a salary of $100,000 when he was elected President of the NDP.

As there's nothing illegal about him being paid a salary for doing the job, and it was over half a decade ago, I don't really understand why Urbane keeps bringing his name up. I can only assume that he's trying to say that if it was OK for the NDP President to be paid a salary in 2009, that somehow equates to it being OK for the Premier of the Province to receive a stipend from the Liberal Party of $50,000 to top up the already generous 6 figure salary she gets from taxpayers for doing the job. But a salary for doing a job, and a stipend paid to a member of Government, are two different things. Because large amounts paid to someone who holds Public Office always carries with it the suggestion that the money is being used to buy political influence.

[Urbane]

• I'd never heard of Moe Sihota so I did a bit of research and discovered that in 2009/2010 he was paid a salary of $100,000 when he was elected President of the NDP.
  
  As there's nothing illegal about him being paid a salary for doing the job, and it was over half a decade ago, I don't really understand why Urbane keeps bringing his name up. I can only assume that he's trying to say that if it was OK for the NDP President to be paid a salary in 2009, that somehow equates to it being OK for the Premier of the Province to receive a stipend from the Liberal Party of $50,000 to top up the already generous 6 figure salary she gets from taxpayers for doing the job. But a salary for doing a job, and a stipend paid to a member of Government, are two different things. Because large amounts paid to someone who holds Public Office always carries with it the suggestion that the money is being used to buy political influence.

There was nothing illegal about Moe Sihota collecting that stipend and nothing illegal about Christy Clark collecting her stipend. Sihota's was from the unions and Clark's from her own party. I actually don't keep bringing up the name of Moe Sihota but I have commented on him receiving the stipend only because if it's wrong for Clark to collect a stipend why was it okay for Sihota to have done so? That's where the word "hypocrisy" fits. Time and time again things are pointed out that the NDP did and NDP supporters on here either deny or rationalize in some way. Meanwhile, Clark is called all sorts of names for doing the same thing. BOTH parties are sleazy. BOTH. Not just the Liberals.

For those who don't know the story:

Moe Sihota solicited donations for a stipend to compensate him for his work as the provincial New Democratic Party's president, says the head of the British Columbia Federation of Labour.

The NDP says it is paying Mr. Sihota, a former cabinet minister, a stipend using a "generous, earmarked gift from the labour movement."

British Columbia Federation of Labour president Jim Sinclair said his own group contributed $4,000 - after Mr. Sihota asked for a donation.

Mr. Sinclair said other unions also donated, although he didn't know which ones, or how much they had contributed.

"Moe approached the labour movement and said 'I'd like to get some help to do this job' " some time after he was elected president, Mr. Sinclair said. " 'I want to do it but it's a big job.' He approached a number of unions and some said yes and some said no."
Full article: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/bri ... le1215277/

[BeingHuman]

Yes lots of sleaze to go around. Apparently having criminal charges laid against you is a BC Liberal job prerequisite. B.C. Liberal Party rehires executive director despite criminal charges related to deleted emails. Then of course an NDP Access to Information Act requested for Highway of Tears emails, and documents, gets triple deleted here in BC... what a coincidence!!!

http://www.straight.com/news/661391/bc- ... ed-deleted

[Merry]

There is a big difference Urbane in an elected official of a non-governing Party being paid for doing the job, and a sitting Premier receiving a top-up to her already generous taxpayer funded salary. Because the former is not in a position to influence legislation the way a sitting Premier is.

Large monetary gifts to elected officials, and/or political parties, always give rise to the suggestion that such gifts are being used to "buy" political influence. Consequently, in most jurisdictions, Governments have taken steps to limit the amount of money individuals and groups can give to politicians and political Parties. But not here in BC, which is fast becoming known as the "wild west" of political donations.

It appears to be "denying the obvious" to say that money doesn't buy influence. Yet the Liberals don't seem to be prepared to do much to change the situation.

Mcleans published an excellent article pointing out how the current system has benefited the governing Liberals

Last year, the British Columbia Liberal Party raised more money than any ruling party in any other province in the country. It pulled in 13 times more than the Quebec Liberal Party, six times more than the Alberta NDP, twice what the Liberals did in Ontario. That’s a province with three times B.C.’s population, an economy triple the size, and a head-office count quadruple that of the Western province. And all this was before Ontario brought in sweeping reforms ending corporate and union donations, dropping the ceiling on annual individual donations and banning cash-for-access fundraisers.

Bananas, right? Now consider that in the three years since Christy Clark’s majority win, the Liberals have added some $32.5 million to their war chest. In the first 12 days of January alone, they took in almost half a million dollars in contributions, approaching what Manitoba’s ruling NDP did in all of 2015 in the run-up to that province’s last election. And consider that in the 10 years leading up to 2015, the B.C. Liberal Party took in $3.1 million from Alberta oil and gas firms, almost twice as much money as that province’s governing party at the time, the Progressive Conservatives.

British Columbians’ faith in democracy is being undermined by the vast sums flooding the system, and there’s a growing concern that their government is essentially being bought and paid for by a wealthy clique. And with figures like those above, it’s getting hard to argue against the idea that democracy in B.C. has devolved to which party can amass the biggest pile of dough.

B.C. political fundraising is a free-for-all. Parties can accept any amount of money, property or services from any corporation, union or person living anywhere in the world.

This puts B.C. in a unique position. Most of the developed world, and some of the planet’s most corrupt nations, including Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kenya and Russia, set ceilings on party donations, according to data compiled by the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, based in Stockholm, Sweden. All of North America, all of Eastern Europe and the entire Arab world except Lebanon and Iraq bar donations like the $30,000-to-$50,000 ones the B.C. Liberal party has received in recent years from foreign donors.

It’s so bad that the New York Times last month went to B.C. to write a scathing piece on the Clark government’s “unabashedly cozy relationship between private interests and government officials.”

http://www.macleans.ca/politics/in-brit ... -problems/

The very idea that foreign Governments may be buying influence over our elected BC Government should be of concern to everybody, regardless of political stripe. And it's time we ALL leaned on our respective political Parties to put an end to this practise.

[Urbane]

There's another big difference between the two stipends: Moe Sihota's came directly from the labour movement and was solicited by him. Christy Clark's was money that came from the Liberal Party. Yes, the Liberals receive a lot of money from corporate donations. I get that I'd like to see corporate and union donations banned. But until that happens it's legal. And that's the excuse we keep hearing about Horgan's pay for play events i.e. they're legal. When Christy Clark does it it's bribery but when Horgan does it it's okay because they're legal. Ditto for the large corporate donations that the NDP happily accepted in 2013 when it looked like they'd win. There's plenty of sleaze to go around but some people only see it in the Liberal Party.