Thoughts on BC Politics and More

  What a weird world we are living in now and it just keeps on getting stranger and stranger. This weekend there is a full moon on Saturday, which of course is Oct. 31 and thus also Halloween, the one night of the year on which spookiness is celebrated, but it also will be the second full moon in the month which makes it also a so-called blue moon, i.e. a rarity, plus it's also the smallest full moon of the year, it will be fully illuminated by the sun and when it rises in the early evening it will be accompanied by the reddish-looking planet Mars in an unusually close proximity to Earth, and it will be the last full moon on Halloween until 2039. So astronomically this is arguably a quite unusual weekend, and culturally it will be phenomenal too, such as it also being the end of Daylight Saving Time in B.C. (meaning everyone gets an extra hour of sleep), and politically there are many major shifts pending too, notably in B.C.'s case the still-unknown final outcome of the ...

  Living in a democracy is a wonderful thing, but it comes with responsibilities such as voting and being involved. When the dust settled on Saturdays (October 24 th ) BC election, less than two thirds of the eligible voters * took the time to vote - but the loudest bitchers will probably be among the more than one third of voters who sat on their asses and complained about how all politicians are crooks, etc. How many of you constant whiners have ever done anything close to becoming involved; or do you just like sniveling to hear your own voice? Are you one the arseholes who likes to take advantage of everything our democracy has to offer, without ever contributing anything? And I don't want to listen to your crap about paying taxes, blah, blah, blah. There's more to making democracy work than simply voting and then sitting back and let others carry the ball for you. Too many people seem unwilling to get involved - and follow-up - to make sure elected po...

  British Columbia’s Attorney General has described the state of the government-owned Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC) as a “dumpster fire” and was justified in doing so. The Corporation lost $1.3 billion in 2018 and a further $1.2 billion in the following year. These losses had totally exhausted ICBC’s capital and regulators would have shut down a private insurer in the same condition a long time ago. The sad state of ICBC’s finances results from government interference. It has been saddled with financial responsibilities uncommon for other auto insurers: the BC government drained off $1,050 million from ICBC into general revenue between 2010 and 2015 and has limited its ability to raise its premiums. The cap on rates has caused ICBC’s revenue to rise more slowly than its costs. In 2018, the cap alone caused a revenue shortfall of $415 million. ICBC’s insurance costs are generally the highest in Canada and are even higher when its losses are taken into accoun...