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Wow! Retired Four Years … Still in the Top 10!!

September 3rd, 2010 · 1 Comment

I’m flattered! According to the newspaper 24 Hours I’m No. 10 on the list causing grief and discomfort to Vision’s rulers at City Hall. 

 And according to 24 Hours reporter Bob Mackin (who is a mere No. 12) Vision’s insiders have decided they “need to do something about” the 15 of us on what the newspaper called Vision’s media ”hit list” 

Stalin would be so proud!

But I have to confess:   I’ve been on much bigger loathed lists than Vision’s! 

Let’s see … in 35 years of reporting… there was, of course, Lucien Bouchard, who tried to slide, skate and slip away from some tough questions from this BRITISH Columbian, and finally, in exasperation,  demanded a question in French from the scrum …so I asked the same questions:  en francais.  I’m sure I made it on his list … but it wasn’t for Christmas greetings..

When I worked on the Hill in Ottawa,  I also got the last “Fuddle Duddle” from Pierre Trudeau before he left office … after a story in which I quoted him was raised in the Commons by NDP MP Ian Waddell. And Trudeau was furious. (But when we met a few years later in First Class on a flight from Asia (I was on points! :) he was friendly and we reminisced … even spending time together in an otherwise empty departure lounge away from the crowds on a refueling/passenger stop in Hong Kong).

As for the NDP, I’ve also had the affable (ha!) Jack Layton walk away from me when I apparently pressed him too hard. And I hear some of my blogs on the provincial NDP’s  election campaigning, leader, policies etc  also haven’t gone over too well. (No Order of BC for me when they get in! :)

And Mulroney used to hate it when … after he often pretended not to hear my pointed questions on why his government had so much funding so often for Quebec and so little so seldom for B.C … so I’d simply ask ”Have you got a moment for Western Canadians, Sir?” as he strolled by deafly … and I’d  use that on air… along with my own signature on camera ending:” I guess not!”  Grrrr!

“Harvey, I like you better without the microphone,”  Mulroney wrote on a PMO picture snapped of me trying to question him on the Hill.  But I was never audited by Canada Revenue … thanks Brian! 

And then there’s Gordon Campbell: known him since the early 70s, when he was assistant to Mayor Art Phillips and I covered City Hall for the Vancouver Sun … right through to my retirement in 2006.  When I called his Press Secretary Mike Morton to inform him in advance of the pending announcement, he told me the Premier would be calling me.  Still waiting!   Must have been on some list of his too!

And even amongst my media colleagues, I have asked such tough questions and written such critical articles on this blog, trying to defend the craft from deterioration, I was called “Judas” by my old Assignment Editor and am no longer invited to station retirement parties etc.

After a couple of years of blogging, I was also dropped by the Jack Webster Awards as a judge. And no Lifetime Achievement Award for me, despite all my previous winnings, and journalistic accomplishments! I guess I wasn’t corporate enough …  those who fund the thing.  But I believe Jack, who was instrumental in getting me to join BCTV,  would still really be proud of me .. and this blog, especially my media critiques.

As you can see, I was … and believe I still am …an equally motivated sh*t disturber …. asking tough questions of all those in power ….  and not just being satisfied with “a c lip” … any clip.  The readers and viewers deserve  real answers to real questions.

What too many politicians never seem to grasp is that when they are IN POWER, the  real journalist … who was so sympathetic to them in opposition or on the fringe … has a whole new role to play.

We should ask tough questions; we must expose the flaws in their plans; we do enjoy using their own old quotes against them when they,  now in power,  change positions; and it’s our job to ferret out clips where they call citizens hacks, to expose any waste of public funds, to report rewards to their friends or turn into dictators, pushing their agendas, without accommodation or care or concern for those they hurt in the process.

So Im proud to still be in the Top 10 … thanks to this little blog.

And Vision should consider themselves lucky! After all … I’m retired!  If still working, I would try even harder,  to be Number One! :)

Harv Oberfeld

→ 1 CommentTags: Media · Private Notes

HST: Where Political Tragedy and Comedy Come Together

September 2nd, 2010 · 18 Comments

It’s actually hard not to laugh!  But really, we should be crying.

Finance Minister Colin Hansen stood before the cameras and told British Columbians he had no idea his own Finance Ministry officials were holding extensive discussions with federal counterparts in Ottawa on the HST in March, 2009 … a few months before the provincial election.

“I was actually surprised when I read through this just how much back and forth there is at the officials level,” Hansen told reporters Wednesday.

“THIS” referred to the release earlier in the day ( after an $800 Freedom of Information media application)  of  reams of heavily-censored government documents that still clearly showed BC and Ottawa were talking HST … even though Premier Gordon Campbell and Hansen have said the subject wasn’t even “on the radar” before the election.

They must have had a teeny, weeny radar screen!

I personally have no plans to buy a new car in the next six months … not on my radar screen: so I’m not discussing it with any car dealers.   I’m not thinking of moving to a new home in the coming year: so I haven’t been chatting up the possibilities up with any realtors.  I ’m not even thinking of booking a trip to Antarctica: so I haven’t been looking at how much it would cost.

Get my point?

Why would provincial officials … already burdened down with loads of work and studies and research and fiscal projects   … waste their precious time going back and forth and back and forth with Ottawa on a matter not even being considered for B.C.?  And they didn’t tell the minister what they were doing or what they were finding out?

It stinks.

And adding to the smell is the fact that many parts of the released government to government exchanges are whited out … denying the public the full story.  Hmmm! That makes it all worse in my view.

If  Hansen and Campbell have any sense of decency or any concern at all for the integrity of BC’s political process in relation to the whole HST debacle, they MUST release ALL the relevant HST exchanges with Ottawa, complete with the censored portions restored.

Their failure to do so will only increase the public’s suspicions and dismay about what those deleted parts might say.

At least by seeing them all …we’ll know whether we should be laughing or crying at the current political theatre playing out in the province.

Harv Oberfeld

→ 18 CommentsTags: British Columbia