Arrogance of BC Liberals Could Bite Back Later, No Recent Puck Luck for Canucks: VancouverIAM

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This is a selection of recent popular blog articles from VancouverIAM where you will find the best blogs from Vancouver, BC as well as video uploads, social networking, rumors, and blog authoring

Canucks Not Getting any Puck Luck

From the Canucks’ Hockey Blog a post game missive about the Canucks’ loss to the Minnesota Wild last night (4-2), their fourth consecutive loss, and the sixth loss in seven games. “There's no doubt that most Canucks fans will be calling for changes,” but our blogger is “willing to ride out this slide,” pointing out that every team goes through bouts such as this, “especially a team as decimated as the Canucks.” They played without Willie Mitchell again, and “had problems containing the Wild in front of the net.” Vancouver also didn't get any players in front of our own net. They “took a lot of shots from the outside and Backstrom gave up a lot of rebounds, but unfortunately, there was usually no one there to tap them in.”

Focusing on the positives, “the Canucks outshot the Wild 40-26, the second straight game they've put up 40 shots on goal.” In addition, they “held the territorial advantage and generated more than a few scoring opportunities.” They really simply suffered from “not having any puck luck and a blown call that led to Minnesota's go-ahead goal.” They just need to keep generating scoring chances like that, and “eventually put the puck into the net more often,” our blogger states in the post.

BC Liberal Arrogance May be Party’s Downfall

A recent post on Bill Tieleman’s popular blog about BC politics, calls attention to the Liberal government’s recent arrogance around several issues. This “sizeable Achilles heel… could yet be their downfall” in an otherwise rather “secure” position. In a province that has over 10,000 homeless as well as the highest child poverty rate in Canada, “Finance Minister Carole Taylor extends the $570 annual homeowner grant to people with houses worth more than $1 million.” Taylor states that this increased threshold “will ensure the homeowner grant remains as an important support to B.C. families.” The homeless “need not apply.”

 

In addition to this move, “former deputy minister Ken Dobell is now lobbying the provincial government despite being investigated by a special prosecutor for possible Lobbyists Registration Act violations.” Dobell has been helping the transit turnstile company Cubic Transportation get a multi-million dollar government contract. And despite the investigation, Dobell can lobby any official he chooses and has already contacted Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon and the government's public-private-partnerships agency.” Tieleman points out in his post that “no one would lobby provincial politicians if the B.C. Liberals had not taken over TransLink…from elected municipal governments.” The final blow is, of course, that the “unelected TransLink board of directors announced that all meetings will now be held in secret without the public or media in attendance.”



BC Government May Ask Businesses to Fund Cleanup of their Own Messes

Blogging for Public Eye Online, Sean Holman reports that the BC government may be “asking businesses for some extra money to help clean up their own environmental messes.” Documents posted on BC Bid state that the environment ministry would like a consultant “to prepare a report on the creation of a sustainable funding mechanism to support the province's ability to prevent, prepare for, respond to, recover from, and remediate spills of petroleum hydrocarbons, hazardous materials or other products” that would cause pollution if released to the environment. The documents “specifically state that funding mechanism must be something ‘other than government general revenue sources’ - such as fines and levies/taxes.”

Holman writes in his post that examples listed in the document include the US EPA Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, “which imposes a ‘five-cents per barrel fee on imported and domestic oil,’” and the Alaska Prevention Account, which is financed with a “four cent per barrel surcharge tax ‘imposed on all oil produced from each lease or property in the state.’” They will also be looking at Oregon's Senate Bill 105, which is “expected to raise $750,000 for the state's oil spill program during the 2007-2009 biennium by increasing fees for vessels.”

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VancouverIAM is part of a groundbreaking network of city-focused blog aggregation, user generated media and social networking websites currently rolling out across North America. Each IAM website filters and organizes blog content as well as offering video upload capabilities, social networking, blog authoring, favourites lists and rumours. The IAM Network is a division of SoMedia Networks Inc which also operates Inveslogic.com, Greenedia.com, Healthedia.com and Blabaloo.com. For more information or to register an account, visit VancouverIAM.com.