Money Money

Is there anything of ours that this bunch wouldn't sell for money?

That's the question The Gazetteer asks on his blog after news the BC Liberal Government sold off used computer data tapes for $300.00. Now that might be okay to do... if the content has been erased prior to sale. It wasn't. Just maybe the government should consider safely disposing such data rather than trying to grab a few extra bucks at our expense.

Personal data of BC citizens the government collects has to stay in Government hands. It appears the only data this Liberal government won't sell off or make public is that of public private partnerships it enters into on our behalf in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Think I am making it up, try to get the details on the William R Bennett Bridge in Kelowna where we are forking over close to 200 million tax dollars or the Abbotsford Hospital project expected to be over 100 milion. It doesn't stop with these partnerships, look at the BC rail sale to CN Rail based out of Chicago. We are still waiting for the Government to tell us what the deal is and what about BC Ferries, once a crown corporation now a private company? We know very little about their operations, yet we are on the hook for this company.

It gets worse when you hear what has been going on with the contracted MSP services with Accenture. The company has repeatedly failed to deliver and we know nothing of the contract details. That is just plain wrong.

This may sound like a broken record to some of you, certainly the main stream media thinks so, Gordon Campbell and the BC Liberals promised the most open and accountable government in Canada. They have not only failed, they have reversed the trend to open and accountable government begun under the NDP in 1990's.

Say what you will about the NDP, it was them that brought in Hansard in BC in 1972, question period, and Freedom of Information to name a few initiatives protecting our privacy and opened government up to scrutiny.

Now clearly the Cabinet Minister's did not say hey here is some data we can a few bucks for. What they are guilty of however is placing a low priority on privacy, your privacy, note that they have been protecting their own, its just yours and mine they have no trouble sharing.