And when you ask for a raise to they tell you where to go. Ever rising taxes (a bottomless pit), wages remain the same. Got to love it. Thank you Christy.

And yet still amazingly cheap for what you receive! I can control these costs, but have little choice on supporting a ballooning public sector compensation, and services for many citizens who lack accountability. Cue the bleeding hearts!

Amazingly cheap, you must have a good paying job and not a single parent trying to raise kids on minimum paying job.

Thumbs up cougs79, unfortunately some people can’t see it and think of people who think like that as chicken little.

Just keep bleeding the working stiff, don’t look at the corporate welfare bums.If their so great why is the need to be funded by the taxpayer?

Electricity up 6% or $72 dollars for average home per year.

I imagine homes heated with electricity go up 6% which is aprox $150 per year. Most homes down south are electric.

This hurts southern BC people the most,

DO the Americans receive more of a break on electricity since we are paying the bill?

Does anyone know what we are selling our electricity for? Is this rate going up?
Also our dams are only producing a small percentage of what they can. Our electricity rates could be much lower.

And in other “unrelated” news, public service unions demand the continuation of unsustainable increases to health care funding. When the electorate makes it fairly clear they will not accept any increases to direct taxation, which is already much too high, the other option is to nickel and dime people through fees. Until ALL government spending is reigned in you can expect more of the same.

No one has bothered to mention the seniors , the working mom who holds down two jobs because of her dead beat husband , and where might I ask is our great Chrispie Clark ” It’s all about family ” Now there is a good April Fools joke for you , but then again she is a Liberal expect no more .

In 79 when I build this House , Hydro was 2.5c a KWH now it’s 10 on Tier 1 and way more on Tier 2, a kwh is kwh the first and last cost the same to produce, we are being screwd by th socalled Conservationist at Hydro! My Wages never amounted to four times the 79 level, so why the huge increase over the Years ?

Cougs79. You might be able to control your costs on Hydro (by using less) BC Ferries (by staying off the Island) and liquor (by drinking less)

So what. The fact of the matter is the management who run Hydro, BC Ferries, and the LCB, ICBC, BC Transit, etc; etc; etc; are basically incompetent and that is the reason costs keep going up. Any fool with half a brain and a butt, can run a two bit (Government owned) entity, when all they need to do is raise fee’s when they need more money.

The people of this Province need to wake up and smell the roses,. This is our money that is being pissed against the wall, by less than stellar people, who live high off the hog, and whistle all the way to the bank.

Time to raise some hell with your local MLA if you can find him or her,. They also have some cushy salaries, and you can bet your bottom dollar they don’t pay for Ferry fee’s. Mainly because they fly everywhere they go. That’s what important people do.

The hydro increases are all going to fund the financial costs for Site C. The $600 million a year the provincial government took as revenue from BC Hydro the last few years dries up in a year or two as this revenue is diverted to the financing costs for Site C… this is a subsidy of sorts for the LNG industry that the BC liberals are pushing hard for.

The BC Ferry increases all seem to go to the new administration types that have doubled in number at the same time as front line staff have been cut since making it an independent crown corporation.

And yet bc is still number 1 in child poverty in all of Canada… Way to go liberals..don’t you love crustys “family’s first”

would be nice to know where this money is going don’t you think. Hydro doesn’t cost anymore to make.

@pile-o-pu
Stop your emotional rants, put your money where your mouth is and run for Govt and “fix” what you perceive is wrong. Be a do-er instead of a sheep. Goof.

Here’s an example of real incompetence. The case management system used for social services is so bad that in 2012 Judge Turpel-Lafond, the Special Representative for Children and Families,issued a public safety alert about it. The government has spent $182 MILLION on a replacement. Its managers have nominated it for the Premier’s Award for Innovation and Excellence in Civil Service. But according to report by the Auditor General, the new system only performs 1/3 of the functions of the system it is intended to replace and fails to protect private information or monitor improper use. This is basically just a database system. There are many like it. It isn’t rocket science.

The usual socialist rants never seem to end…and yet it never ceases to amaze me how the very people that rail against any sort of tax, fee, cost increase in anything remotely connected to government will out of the other side of their heads advocate for Billions more to be spent on healthcare and education!
I mean seriously, to state that it does not cost any more to produce hydro than it did 30 years ago…perhaps the water doesn’t cost any more but the thousands of employees wages and benefits is at least double what they were 30 years ago…or did you think the dams, the substations, and the power lines maintain themselves.
As for the Ferries, it really is a simple revenue versus expense formula. They have 2 sources of revenue, passenger fares, and tax payer subsidies, so I’m on the side of letting the users pay rather than the general taxpayer increasing our subsidy. On the expense side their largest expense items are fuel and labour costs, and the only way to reduce both of those is to cut sailings. Let’s see how the population that relies on Ferries howl when that happens!
It really is pretty simple…your government regardless of party can not provide for ever increasing service demands while holding taxes and fees level, much less reduce them!

So nytehawk. Hydro has increased %36 in the last 4 years. Guessing that’s just wages. Lol. No it’s because bc hydro had to pay huge fines for gouging California and also the provincial gov has continually taken money from hydro for public coffers. That’s why hydro niw owes 15.6 billion. Guess that’s wages too. Lol

P Val, I don’t have the report or the numbers handy, but there was report released a while ago that showed that Hydro wages and benefits were extremely exorbitant.

It wasn’t just the executives that were receiving ridiculous salaries. This high level of excess permeated down through the entire company!

If I get a chance, I’ll try locate the numbers and will post the link!

Found it! Didn’t take long at all! Here’s a small excerpt followed by the link:

“More than 2,600 employees at BC Hydro are raking in more than $100,000 a year.

They also make up more than 45 per cent of the company’s total work force.

That while the company is considering increasing B.C. rates by 26 per cent over the next three years.

Global News Legislative bureau chief Keith Baldrey said on Unfiltered with Jill Krop Thursday night it’s surprising to see positions like “power line technician” making over $120,000 and a “driver/helper” – close to $100,000.

“In this case what is interesting is — you’ve got the executives making a lot of money, but also a lot of unionized positions being paid far higher rates than unionized positions in any other Crown corporation,” says Baldrey”.

http://globalnews.ca/news/867037/watch-are-bc-hydro-salaries-justified/

Hey PVal, good come back on Zimmer yesterday on funding wars and not Canadians.

As for Hydro – and ICBC, government has been stripping out dividends – NDP, Socred, Librerals alike. So, it’s indirect taxation, because if they didn’t get it from there, they’d raise taxes, and because even the most gullible of people can understand a tax increase, they go this route to avoid a backlash.

Child poverty – that I don’t get. I don’t know any poor kids, I know poor parents, who chose to have kids. And I think if you throw more money in that direction, you’ll have even more poor kids, as people see that you can get cash, with kids. We’ve all heard about single Moms getting pregnant just to avoid leaving welfare. Economics says the more you financially reward a behavior, the more of that behavior you’ll see.

In fact, if you cut all subsidy related to children, people would think long and hard before having one. At the end of the day, you are asking people to transfer some of their income, to people who chose to have children, when they really couldn’t afford to. For sure there are unavoidable circumstances, but in our society, all too often people make bad choices, and look to the government to make it all better.

The Liberals in this province won’t be happy until they force the middle class worker into poverty so they can have complete control. Take a look at all the screw ups they have created and some people still think they can do no wrong. It’s mind boggling.

‘Take a look at all the screw ups they have created and some people still think they can do no wrong. It’s mind boggling.’

Nobody thinks the current government (or any government) ‘can do no wrong’. The government is us, by way of duly elected representatives, and nobody in their right mind thinks they’re infallible.

Leadership isn’t about pleasing all the people all of the time – that’s unrealistic and idiotic…

Leadership is about making decisions in the best interests of society as a whole…

White people, aboriginals, rich, poor, urban, rural, interior, coastal, young, old, etc.…

Like ImFrank said, instead of complaining about ‘the government’, run for office and effect change within the system.

Ski51, you actually touched on one of the reasons there are so many children living in poverty. It’s because when a woman is on IA as long as she continues to have children she does not have to attempt to find work. In short having young children is their way of guaranteeing that their monthly IA cheque will continue to arrive.
In essence IA is an incentive for these women to have children, and it actually perpetuates the cycle of poverty and IA as the children in these families don’t ever know anything different!
As you said, there are no poor children, there are poor parents bringing children into the world when they know they can’t afford to raise them!

Actually I think the reason more and more are below the poverty line is with each increase the fiberals do to fees and or taxes the poverty line rises to include more families.

Crusty Clark increased child poverty by %35 in her first two years as premier. Not much of a feather in her family first cap if I do say so myself.

I went to the BC Liquor store today to check out the higher prices. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The prices were actually lower, much lower. Is this an April Fools joke? I asked an employee. “No”, she said, “the prices do not include the taxes anymore. To get the new price you have to add on 15% taxes.” I activated the calculator on my cell and multiplied the displayed product price times 1.15. Yup, the liquor prices went up.

PVal, that’s a good one….you stick to that story so that you and your dipper friends have more to whine about!
The vast majority of those that are below the poverty line are on welfare and don’t pay any of those fees…so again it comes down to choosing to bring children into a poor home that is increasing the level of child poverty!

Lol..funny nytehawk.. Fyi..I didn’t say they paid the fees did I. No I didnt.. How about you learn to read then come on back.. You must have taken a hit from the liberals cuts to edumacation. Lol

PvAL, yeah real funny….perhaps you should actually re-read your own post rather than attempting to play silly word games. I guess the argument like most positions that you take on anything didn’t hold water so you have to resort to obfuscation. Well if it makes you feel better you go right ahead……drink your own koolaid