I have a great idea! Let's cut medical services and have a party instead!! Sorry about your pacemaker Grandma.....

What a waste of money!

I think we should let countries who aren't in the hole host the olympics. Dubai is loaded and they have an indoor ski hill.

It would be interesting to follow the money to see where it will actually be spent.

for example - Hixon
Torch Relay welcoming party that will include
1. an ice/snow sculpture contest = some prize money or prizes + food/drink + audio equip rental
2. winter sport competition = some prize money or prizes + food/drink + audio equip rental
3. chilli cook off = food + drink + hall rental + paper plates, etc
4. local entertainment = fee for entertainers, audio equip + stage rental
5. fireworks = stuff from store in Cinema which gets product from China

I think a good portion of this will go into the community economy. Perhaps 30% or so will bleed out.

Still our tax dollars which was to be spent on such mundane things as health care, roads and the protection of the public against crimnals ect.

I wonder if Vanderhoof is jealous ... they get $8,000 and Burns Lake gets $26,144.13

12 commnities and 133084 dollars. Spread that across B.C. and I wonder what you would get.

I wish the Federal and Provincial Governments would get together and start up a web site which informs the public what the total government (federal, provincial, and municipal), corporate, and consumer debt is in Canada, and what the total unfunded liabilities are for Medicare, the Canada Pension Plan,the Old Age Security Program, and infrastructure upkeep and replacement costs for things like sewer and water systems, roads and bridges, electrical infrastructure, etc.

May I suggest the web site take the format of this debt clock web site which is in the United States.

http://www.usdebtclock.org/

I got the following statistics off the B.C. Government’s web site “B.C Conversation on Health” approximately three years ago. This kind of information would be great on this "debt and unfunded liability" clock.

“As baby boomers age, demand on the system increases "

$3,157 – amount spent by the province annually per person on health care in B.C.

$2,364 – average spent by the province annually per person aged 45 – 64

$5,224 – average spent by the province annually per person aged 65 – 74

$9,841 – average spent by the province annually per person aged 75 – 84

$20,878 – average spent by the province annually per person aged 85 or older

14% – percentage of B.C. population over the age of 65 today

24% – percentage of B.C. population expected to be over age 65 by year 2030″

The things tax dollars are spent on, blow my mind.

P.S. If I build some snowman in my yard, can I get $100 per head?

Not to worry, the carbon tax and the HST will more than cover these parties.

Charles ....

As I said at least once before on this web site, too many people are worried about people smoking and how much they cost the medical health system. Then they are worried about people who breathe in second hand smoke.

The average smoker loses 10 years of life expectancy.

Since the demand on the health care system includes the expense of taking care of a smoker as the cancer progresses towards the terminal stage, the above figures include those costs.

Thus, if the person who smokes dies at age 70 instead of 80, they save the health care system roughly

(5 x $5,224) +(5 x $9851) = $75,375

That is not even to talk about old age security, Canada Pension, old age security, private pention funds, housing space, etc.

The amount of money being saved by letting people have their deadly vices such as smoking, drinking, recreational drugs, riding snowmobiles in avalanche areas, etc. etc. is never considered.

We are far too safety and health minded. As a result, we end up with a bunch of old folks who are a drain on the system.

I think it is time we got off the health care kick and gave all the money to sports and the arts.

Just think how much an outdoor enthusiast and bit of a daredevil who has a good life insurance in place saves the system when he/she crashes in a hang gliding accident.

55 years old, just retired after 30 years in the service of the government, expected to live to 85.

a cool $162,470! plus the living space that is freed up, the reduction in energy and food demand and pollution generation. In fact, it is a small step towards maintaining a sustainable population size.

But oh no, we have to keep ourselves alive until we are once more the burden on society because "we have earned it".

Well, actually we have not. We have paid back the investment that was made in us in taking care of us in the first 20 or so years of our lives when we produced virtually nothing.

What are we really doing, whether with private money or public money? We are reducing the ratio of paid working life to non-paid life. That is happening as a result of a reduction in total working years to total years alive as well as total hours worked per week to total hours in the week.

That costs more money per person whether through tax or whether through private purchasing.

The system is being squeezed to the limit, and is thus becoming more vulnerable to many societal changes such as ratios of non-workers to workers and demographics.

Getting simple information such as mentioned will do little to address the real fundamental problem we have to address which centres on population control.

You're all assuming that the current financial system accurately 'reflects' physical reality. But what if it doesn't?

Is there an actual shortage of goods and services in the majority of things that are needed and/or desired? Or is there an actual, or potential, surplus in most of them? And the only reason anyone goes short of most of the required or desired goods or services that are already in existence or could readily be produced or provided, is because of a shortage of 'money'?

I think whether there is a shortage or not depends on one's point of view.

There is certainly an excess of pineapples if one says that one really does not need pineapples and people living here in 1909 likely did not have any.

In fact, compared to the standard of 100 years ago here or in any other Canadian city, we have an excess of just about everyting. I would say we also have an excess of just about everything when compared to 50 years ago. 30 years ago .... probably an excess of a lot, but I would not be surprised if we are getting into the 50/50 range of excesses in some, but less of others.

We may have an excessively long runway at YXS, for instance.

We have excessive land downtown.

We gnerally have excessively wide streets.

We have excessive urban sprawl.

We have excessive detached single fasmily residences.

We have excessively large transit buses.

We import food excessively.

We leave snow on the streets for excessive lengths of time.

We excessively rely on people to recycle.

and on and on and on ......

It's those damn excessive POTHOLES that get me!