(Response: Merci beaucoup. Vous avez raison! I particularly was interested in your remark about your wife being from France. I was at a really fine French Restaurant in London in May and spoke French: the maitre d’ complimented on my use of the language..and was shocked when I said I was from Canada, born in Quebec. She..and others I have met in France itself look at the French spoken in Quebec as “paysan” ..or peasant grade. And I have also found ordinary Quebecois to be quite xenophobic … unwelcoming to “outsiders” including people from France, as invading their “closed shop” society. C’est domage! h.o)

ok. did you have to let the cat out like that? frankly! were you the one who brought to the attention of Expo supervisors what was going on with the tickets scam?

Also where we live there is no culture native to here… people from here have no culture so you will not find a “BC” system like you have a “Quebec” system.

that,s not to say that there is no strong culture that exists here… not at all. Chinese, indian, korean culture are triving more and more etc… not forgeting the gangster culture the neo “BC” culture.

here does not have a “quebec” system… but how about the chinese system, the indian system, the korean system… etc… all child systems to the gordo system

hey dont think that what you mentioned is not going on here because people like you and me are NOT organized, but others sure are and we are not in on those deals we are just the player or the victim…

(Response: J’ambition jamais! No I didn’t expose the ticket scam; a driver did it! Of course, there are “favours” done here …but never so widespread and franklly, so openly. Too bad my blog on it went on so long ..I didn’t even have a chance to get into all those paving jobs that went on with provincial highways crews working on private church driveways, roads and properties … in return for a thanks from the pulpit at election time! LOL!! h.o.)

(Response: I tried MANY times to get statistics on the growth of “bilingualism required” jobs in Ottawa, which really places Westerners at a disadvantage. Met a brick wall everywhere … public service commission, national capital commission even languages commission said they didn’t have those stats. Bull! The civil service in the national capital is becoming the almost exclusive enclave of bilingual ..ie mostly francophones … workers from the Ottawa/Gatineau/Montreal area. h.o)

Heres a list of items that seem a bit dodgy.

1) Pirate Power the scope of this alone makes your Quebec stories look like peanuts. $55 billion dollars in 40 year contracts to buy a little over 1 gigawatt baseload equiv of power, BC Hydro doesn’t need and must sell for a 80% loss on the springtime spot market. For the same amount of power, nuclear would cost $3.0 billion today and $1.2 billion when mass produced reactor builds begin – 2 to 5% the cost of the 40 year contracts with party friends and insiders. These contracts have privatized and will bankrupt BCHydro. I notice no BC pundits outside of Rafe Mair will touch this issue.
2 )Rewards to retiring politicians – Carole Taylor $350 K on board of TD, Geoff Plant big power contracts, Gary Collins a presidents job and board of directors – the list is long.
3) Giveaway of $billions in BC lands by conversion of tree farm licenses.
4) Unrecorded municipal between election campaign donations
5) Taxi licenses costing a few hundred bucks but worth hundreds of thousands in the hands of big donators (don’t know how much) in Big Taxi – the only eligible licensee’s.
6) More than half the $billions in contracts BC issues are unbid. Awards always seem to go to big campaign donators. So do you have to be a donator to get a contract or do you need to donate to keep it? The latest Pirate Power guy to lose his investment donated only $700 bucks. They tried to shut down the Park and Float guy down at Twassassen after he threw Gordo’s bagman out of his office.
7) 3P’s with all details private so we can’t tell who is buying who for how much. Slick accounting practices keeping the $85 billion in debt they represent off the books.

I could go on and on so you could you Harvey.

Bottom line – NOT “Corruption” in BC is big bucks and certainly not illegal. In Quebec its small change and upfront.

(Response: Just because people with high public profiles get appointed doesn’t make it corruption. Some may actually possess knowledge and expertise that makes them well-deserving of appointment. But I agree sometimes it just looks like the establishment taking care of/favoring their own. h.o)

Ah Ha! That would explain the venal shenanigans of the 18th Prime Minister of Canada, our boy from Baie-Comeau, The Right Unctuous Martin Brian Mulroney.

After all these years of harbouring great distain for the man, and now this revelation! It really wasn’t his fault he received hundreds of thousands of dollars in plain manilla envelopes from a German arms dealer and lobbyist — he couldn’t help himself. Mulroney had been conditioned from an early age in the corrupt culture of Quebec — a product of his environment.

In the vernacular of today’s youth — my bad.

How could I have been so callow and quick to judge? One more thing to add to the ol’ bucket list: exonerate Mulroney.

Is it possible my characterization of Premier Campbell as a charlatan all these years has been unwarranted and fallacious, and in need of reconsideration also? Nahhhhh!

Possible dissertation or thesis for a phsycology student: Nature vs Nurture: Is the corruption and dishonesty prevalent in all forms of goverment throughout the world, whether it’s a Democracy, Kleptocracy, Monarchy, Plutocracy, Theocracy or other “flavourocracy of the day”, a result the genetic make up of politicians or their enviroment?;-)

Great story Harvey!
Thanks for sharing. I hope there is more to come. I would love to hear anything you have on Mr. Pierre T.
I loved his quirky character.

Anyone who builds a house or does a renovation knows that the right contractor and the right ‘grease’ can do jobs in municipalities that other contractor can’t.

A quote from a plumbing inspector to me sums it up: “Your plumber doesn’t know how to do business in……….”

Because we didn’t ‘grease the right people in my muni, my reno was a year of hell, culminating with a threat of police action over missing permits and a complaint to the human right people over racial discrimination (this scared the ‘whats-its’ out of them but involvement of the local plod was a yawn!).

Being involved with politicians and related to a Liberal Cabinet Minister, I soon knew how Canadian politics works and how the ‘lolly is spread and its not very nice – and that is in BC!

I have grown cynical in my dotage and I believe Canada is a corrupt place, a $8 billion black market drug economy in the province is testament that we are not as honest as many people think we are. Canadians just overlook corruption, unless it directly affects them.