Like A Well-Run Corporation?

 

BC Ferries is quoted this morning, in the Times-Colonist, as having said that he’d love to build the billion-dollar-plus fleet expansion locally, but that it would force a 25%  rise in fares. In his chat with the Victoria Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Collins used the appropriate corporate language to detail how it is much more expensive to build in BC without ever mentioning what it is that forces the extra expenditure. Take a guess: might it be labour costs? Do Polish shipyard workers have the same benefits as those in Canada?

This puts Collins and BC Ferries squarely in the camp of those willing to shop away and live on benefits locally, altogether typical of our current globalized business system, and with Collins’ way of doing business, anyone who uses the ferries, anyone who pays taxes in BC, becomes complicit in this scheme where costs are reduced on the backs of others and benefits accrue to the few, including Mr. Collins himself, who feasts at the public trough. There is a cost to run a just and equitable society, and the globalist routine glosses over that cost, inciting citizens to consume ever larger quantities of shoddy imported goods whose primary purpose is to generate profit margins on externalized costs rather than providing goods and services of proven and durable utility.

 

BC Ferries is a utility, despite whatever the “corporation” might do to mold itself into a cruise line and vacation package provider. Its core business is transport of people and vehicles across stretches of local waters as an extension of the highway system, a definition that seems to apply to ferries in the Interior of the province, but that seems to have been forgotten when it gets to the Coast.

It’s interesting to note that there is a company working partly out of Richmond, BC, that is helping to produce battery-operated vessels for cruise outfits in Norway (they also have an office in Oslo, it seems): Corvus. In addition, we also have considerable shipbuilding and maintenance facilities and the skills to run them in both Vancouver and Victoria areas, although the principals in question declined to comment on Collins’ remarks, per the Times-Colonist piece. It would be interesting to see a triple-bottom-line audit on BC Ferries’ projects with both the costs and benefits of building locally in a chart side-by-side with the globalist procurement chain, and please, let’s include the federal taxes that the previous government forgot to include in some of their overseas purchases.

How Many AAAs does it take? (Corvus Website)

Help! I Can’t Keep Up!

Snowed Under Photo by Medena Rosa on Unsplash

I’m feeling snowed under. Aside from some recreational reading (C.J. Sansom at the moment), some long-time head-scratching (Les oeuvres complètes de Camus, Éditions de la Pléïade) and the usual daily read-around on the Net, there are particular bits of interest that keep popping up and fighting for time in the midst of family considerations, gardening (indoors, thus far, mostly) and playing a little music on the side.

An e-mail from the Post Carbon Institute sent me off to this (you’ll need to leave a name and valid e-mail address) on an emerging aspect of the transformation that will be necessary for humanity to progress and thrive. Bring it on!

A regular read-around site is the Blog Borg Collective who posted a piece  by Robin Matthews, a veteran of the Bas, Bas and Virk BC Rail slog. And now I see they’ve added a bit about Andrew Wilkinson and his wacky period of renting. OK, I can do that.

Then Facebook, I think via the South Africa Food Tank group, coughs up something like this, a likely way to kill off another hour or so, at least. Hmmm.

Let’s add this to the pile, via a friend and further to a discussion relating to Transitions Health Check.

I get notes from Corey Robin about interesting discussions around and about intellectuals in places somewhat more steeped in intellectual activity than my present abode. So this appeared this morning. I’m not sure I want to spend the morning with Friedrich Hayek, but the perspective is important.

There were a couple of articles on The Tyee this morning more than worthy of reading in depth (my call).

And then there are volumes of Youtube video discussions along these lines to add to the heap.

Have you ever felt like a gum-chewing teen standing on the threshold of an outlet mall?

Is a pattern emerging? The bad news is that there is so much commentary because there is such a litany of misdeeds and malfeasance in all levels of society and in almost all areas of endeavour. The good news is that there are so many people concerned enough for the welfare of other people and that of society in general to run down the stories and to put them in front of those who will listen.

Sadly, there just isn’t time to do it all. Please consider taking up the task and supporting those already hard at work correcting what ails us.

Now I had better get after all this good stuff.

 

 

 

 

Medena Rosa