B.C. Legal Aid for the 'Chosen Few'

In response to the crisis in the B. C. Legal Aid system due to underfunding and the government's decision to pay the $6 million legal expenses of two confessed criminal government workers, I wrote and submitted the following letter to the Nanaimo Daily News (now part of the Postmedia group).

Dear Editor,

RE: Underfunded legal aid system is in 'crisis', says new report, Nov. 10/10

It must be painfully obvious to anyone who has been paying even a little bit of attention to the actions of the Liberal government in Victoria that, after slashing the Legal Aid budget by 1/3 since coming to power in 2001, they still managed to come up with $6 million dollars from we taxpayers to pay the exorbitant legal fees of two confessed criminals, David Basi and Bob Virk, who accepted bribes while working for the government in jobs that enabled those crimes. One could perhaps understand the logic if what they did had been considered part of their jobs, i.e., if they were told to do something by their superiors which then put them in trouble with the law, but that isn't what happened here - is it?!?
That $6 million (of which $1 - 2 million was reportedly for 'document management'), for the benefit of only two individuals with some assets, is equal to 9% of the entire current annual government contribution to the B. C. Legal Services Society of $66.9 million, which we are told was to cover 6,207 cases (down from 15,526 when this government first came to office). The paying of their legal bills with taxpayer monies and the leaving of their assets intact was totally contrary to two agreements they had previously signed with the government. We really must demand an answer as to WHY?!?

Sincerely,
Hans J. Larsen

Canada Can't Afford Another SRTC Fiasco!

Since I well remember the disastrous Scientific Research Tax Credit program of the mid-80's and the billions that it cost the taxpayers of Canada with very little actual research being conducted and I have noticed troubling similarities developing with the government's Infrastructure Stimulus Fund, I submitted the following 'Letter to the Editor' to 21 'major' regional newspapers across Canada, almost all of them in the Canwest/Global fold (which shows just how much concentration of media there is in Canada!). Much to my dismay, as far as I can tell, only 1 newspaper, the Winnipeg Sun (which is NOT a Canwest/Global property), published this short piece. What possible reason could the others have for not wanting to help see that taxpayers' hard-earned money is spent in an efficient, effective and transparent manner?

Dear Editor,
Seems like everyone nowadays is in an 'all-fired' hurry to spend billions of dollars on infrastructure funding, which of course, is just taxpayers' money (minus a 15-20% 'handling' fee) being returned to the chosen few. In our rush to 'stimulate' the economy, we need to remember the example of the Scientific Research Tax Credit program of the mid 1980's, a federal government program which cost the taxpayers of Canada almost $8 billion (in 2009 dollars), with it being widely reported that almost $4 billion of that resulted in no actual scientific research being done (i.e., it was obtained under false pretences).
I personally know of 3 infrastructure grants which were awarded to applicants who did not meet the requirements. In our haste, let's be sure that this latest program amounts to substantially more than 'shovelling money off the back of a truck'. Canada cannot afford another expensive, failed program - strict controls must be in place, beginning with the selection, without political influence, of projects that best meet the program's criteria right through to the spending of the money and, if the government can't satisfy taxpayers that they can do that, then our money must stay in the bank.