Which Authority?

"They accomplish amazing things."
In 2009, Mr Rushton is correct in saying that. They eliminated 3 categories of members where the public could participate in the Community Economic Development (CED).
Look at this letter below, this is what they told Incorporations Canada that it was sanctioned by the members. OOOPS! Where are the members?!?! We can't find any! That is called "Being very careless with the truth, or abuse of authority." By the way, What authority? How did Mr Rushton get in that seat of power, being the Chair of the Community Futures Development Corporation of Mount Waddington???
Doesn't the public have the right to know? They are the ones paying the bills.
Thank you.

Councillor To The Editor

Dear Editor:

You were absolutely correct in saying that Mayors were re-elected with a mandate.  Mayor Bev Parnham's community's decision to have her as their mayor speaks of vision and a forward movement to the future.  They are actively reaching out to industry to promote economic development and are focused on transforming their community.


Port McNeill also re-elected with a mandate.  Stay with the status quo.  While it is true that our mayor was elected with a 59% majority vote, there are still the 41% whose interests need to be considered.  I disagree with our mayors statement the there was no explanation of change.  They were, just to name just a few: Community infrastructure improvements, economic diversification,  empowering the voices of our community (especially listening to young families and seniors) and an open & transparent government.


I have heard it said that the town should be run like a household.  A little more coming in than going out.  Even someone who runs a household needs to have some money in the bank when that day comes and the roof needs replacing.  Drive around this little community and have a good look at the sidewalks, roads and major town assets.  I dare say a "few roofs are leaking".


Sincerely,


Gaby Wickstrom

This letter was sent to the Editor by one of our local Councillors who realised how our local Government works with the Senior Politicians manipulating the situation for the new comers who are probably scared to ask questions in fear of being ridiculed in front of others. Gaby decided that enough was enough. She put her foot down and put it on record. I was trying to recommend to our Community that they should support her actions and inform the public at large that our local Community Newspaper is not interested in doing. The perspective of our local paper is "Keep quiet, don't rock the boat, and hide everything."
"When you know everything, secrecy becomes a lie to everyone."
The following is a letter we sent to the Editor that was not published.
We await your comments.

A first in the history of the Regional District of Mount Waddington that an elected Councillor,
a person is power in our region had the guts to stand up and be counted for what she believed
and what she campaigned for. The Community Economic Development and Democracy.
The "Status Quo is not good enough" is 100% correct and I agree with that. If anyone wants
to know more, just let me know, I have the proof. Good for you Gaby Wickstrom! Tired of
being used and abused. Now the cat is out of the bag. You don't like what is going on and I don't
blame you. You cannot use your power properly if most of the work is done behind your back
and you aren't informed of what is going on. Another Councillor on you team was quote as saying
"The Council doesn't have to tell the public how they spend the money." Is this true? Or do you
not know about this? Open and transparent. Where? When? and How?

Election Time

Watch who will be on the Board of Directors of the most useless Government as possible called Regional District, appointed there through the local Municipality or area Director.
If you want to start something fresh you have to throw out the trash.
The most effective way to restrict democracy is to transfer decision making from the elected politicians to some local society with a phony "Board of Directors" where local politicians sit on those Boards as volunteers which are not accountable to the public according to the manager of the Regional District. The public is expected to accept that without asking any questions. You're a politician or you're a volunteer, you can't be both in the same mandate.
Read those Mayors comments from 10 years ago.

The Regional District is designed to make the local Municipality's problems disappear without addressing the real issue.

1) They work well together.
2) They don't work well together.
3) Bringing communities together.
4) Lots of conflicts.
5) There is some conflicts.

They don't even understand each other and they are well informed. What about the public that are misinformed by some of our local politicians. Like the example above which one should you believe?

Democratic Society???

The media are chickens, cowards, the fear reeks among them to remain silent. Man, in a supposed free country also called a Democratic society, I never saw such a sad, pitiful, disgraceful, disgusting behavior by media reporters that are too damn scared of their shadow to print the truth and inform the public of what is going on. Like this reporter, Jay Latkoczky that lost his job because he had the courage and the conscience to come to my house and look at both sides of the story and said, "This is too big for us" It ended up either too big or too small. To what ever excuse you want to use
For:
1) North Island Gazette
2) Go public
3) 5th Estate
4) The Province
5) The Vancouver Sun
6) CBC Radio
and all the other ones that I forgot becuase it's been so long.
Our local newspaper should be made out of really smooth paper so that it can be used in public washrooms to save money because that's all it's good for.
When Mr Shank, the guy who started that paper, died this paper's credibilty was burried with him.
What a sad end for such a good start.

Andrea Lavgine was invited to a function in Port Mc Neill, after checking all the dates the function ended up to be in the Community Futures office, read for yourself.

Letters To The Editor

One more time to show you what a good job Mr Mike D'amour, the Editor our local newspaper does at informing the locals with their letters to the Editor. Not one local letter made his requirements this week. He published 4 letters, #1 from Burnaby, #2 from Abbotsford, #3 from California, #4 from Port Moody.
Is this not insulting, calling this paper a "Local Community Newspaper"? It seems to me like the local people have no room for participation. I don't care what happens in California, but I really care about what happens at the Regional District of Mount Waddington with our self-serving politicians all spread as volunteers on those Societies that are not accountable to anyone except the court if you are willing to pay the costs. Our Editor is supposed to be an Investigating Reporter. Why not inform the local people about what happened here and let other countries look after their own news? Are we not the ones who feed you by buying the paper and buying advertisements? Don't we deserve the free Letters to the Editor?

Different Perspective

Manager’s Perspective

By David Mitchell, General Manager

Community Futures Mount Waddington

The HST Referendum question reminds me of that old Calypso song “yes we have no bananas, we have no bananas today.” It’s vote “yes” if you want to “extinguish” the HST and vote “no” if you want to keep the HST. How you vote on this question will likely depend on what you have read or heard in the media. Though there are some hard numbers that indicate that a 12% HST will cost British Columbians more there is also significant anger about how the HST was launched in BC. From the website “saynotohstinbc.ca:”

The Liberal Government in British Columbia implemented a new tax without public consultation on July 1, 2010. HST which stands for Harmonized Sales Tax, is the combination of Provincial Sales Tax (PST) of 7%, and Government Sales Tax

(GST) of 5%, into one new tax, HST of 12% (reduced to 10% by 2014). The HST disproportionately impacts lower income earners because far more of their limited income will be spent paying the now extra 7% tax than higher income earners.

No public consultation? Does government normally consult us on the work it does? I thought that consultation took place every four years in the form of an election.

Bill Vander Zalm’s website “fighthst.com” suggests that the number one reason to vote yes is that the “HST threatens democracy.”

And that “a defeat of the HST in the Referendum will change the way governments operate in BC forever.”

Wow I wish it were that simple!

From Report on Small Business Magazine on June 30, 2011, Tony Wilson wrote:

If the HST survives the mail-in vote, the rate will go down to 11% on July 1, 2012, and down again to 10% on July 1, 2014, at which time BC and Saskatchewan will have the lowest combined sales-tax rates in Canada – leaving aside Alberta, which doesn’t have a provincial sales tax. Additionally, families in BC will receive a one-time payment of $175 a child to deal with the extra expenses they have incurred since the switchover to HST. BC seniors will also receive $175 if their net family income is $40,000 or less – if their income is more than $40,000 but less than $50,000, they will receive a partial rebate.

The independent panel that reviewed the HST and the PST plus GST tax systems recently estimated that families now pay an average of $350 more in sales tax under the HST than they paid with the PST plus GST system. With a 10 % HST rate, instead of paying $350 more tax, BC families will on average pay $120 less tax than under the PST.

The independent panel also noted that while consumers are paying more, businesses are saving money. Furthermore, the Province remains committed to balancing the budget in 2013/2014 while reducing the HST burden on families and modest income seniors. To help meet this commitment, government will increase the general corporate income tax rate to 12% from the current 10% on January 1, 2012, and postpone the reduction in the small business tax rate planned for April 1, 2012.

This an interesting point because many of the anti-HST spokespersons say that rather than benefitting the average British Columbian, it is corporate BC that stands to benefit from the HST.

Frank McKenna, (you remember, the successful Ex-Premier of New Brunswick?) recently weighed in to the BC discussion in an article in the Vancouver Sun. Mr. McKenna is now the Deputy Chair, TD Bank Financial Group and he wrote:

Many of the arguments being used today were made in New Brunswick, when my government introduced the tax back in 1997. In hindsight, the evidence is clear. The benefits far outweigh the costs. The HST has created a positive climate for economic prosperity. And it has done so without imposing a significant tax burden on consumers.

In case you think this is just a fat cat bank executive spouting off, Mr. McKenna qualifies his position stating:

Of course, not all firms have benefited equally well under the HST. Financial Services like TD cannot claim back tens of millions of dollars they spend annually on a wide range of goods and services… However the bank remains a proponent of harmonizing tax regimes, given the net benefit to Canadians.

One of McKenna’s favourite sayings is: “the best social program we have is a job.” His article goes on to say:

Lowering the tax burden on business ultimately reduce the price tag of goods and services we consume. It also encourages investment that boosts productivity and in turn generates greater prosperity. – The Vancouver Sun, July 2, 2011

Who do you believe?

Thanks to the postal lockout you now have two more weeks to get your mail in vote completed and back to elections BC. The date was extended to August 5 from July 22.

We are nearing the end of the government process parade: the federal election, Census 2011, the HST Referendum…. Can a provincial election be far behind???

My Perspective

I wish the manager of the Community Futures, Mr David Mitchell, would take this Community at heart and learn as much about Community Futures that he did about the HST Tax. He should spend his time that he's getting paid for by the public dollars to learn how the Board of Directors should be elected,

like Nominating Commitee, like having and Annual General Meeting (AGM), like having an election as described in the By Laws #1 or so called "Constitution", responsibility, accountability, all that sort of thing to make this Community Futures work for all of us, not just a few people. He can click on this link to learn about it. If he wants to learn a little bit more he can click here

You're right David, "You have no bananas today and you didn't have any yesterday either."

Democracy At Home

Look at the amazing amount of information that we collected from people over the years.  The majority of these people would like to stay Anonymous because they are scared for their job or they are scared of being bullied by our local politicians. I feel ashamed to be a Canadian when I hear this from our local tax payers when our Federal Government goes out of their way to promote our democracy to other parts of the world when we can't even put it into practice at home. An I have the proof that democracy just doesn't work on North Vancouver Island and if you're interested in finding out why I'm saying this click here
We would like to hear your point of view and what you've been experiencing in your own little world. Everything can be expressed here anonymously and at the same time take a load off your chest. Bye bye for now.

Community Newpaper

Now that Mr Mike D'amour, our new editor for the North Island Gazzette, our so called "Community Paper" will not print any letters to the editor for us because he's scared to get sued.
I see in this week's Gazette COMMENTARY The True N. I. Advantage.
"The pace is relaxed and no one really sweats the small stuff"
Why is that? Because no one is informed of any stuff, small or big. Our local paper doesn't seem to care.
We've been trying for many years to get the message to the owner of the paper with no results.
They just move the editor of the publisher to another paper they own down island (last count 36 of them).
"PROBLEM SOLVED"
The North Island needs more Democracy and less Hypocracy. We'd like to know what you think about your local Community Paper and you can do it Anonymously right here! Then, we will find out if this can smarten them up and print the news the way it is not babysat. Good or Bad, we want to know them all!
Don't forget, you're not a mushroom, you should not me kept in the dark and fed manure and be expected to make a rational decision on the election day with no information.
"At this time we don't seem to have ANY Democracy on the North Island."