Vancouver Sun education columnist Janet Steffenhagen writes: Is the premier playing favourites?

Four more Vancouver schools have been promised benefits from the Neighbourhoods of Learning project, but other districts are still waiting to hear what's in it for them.

Last month, a ministry official wrote to the Vancouver board of education offering to include Douglas, Kitchener, Sexsmith and Secord elementary schools in the NoL program. It's not clear what that means since these four will not be part of the pilot project, but they have submitted wishlists, as requested, for ministry consideration.

For the record our school, Sir James Douglas Elementary - in Vancouver, not the identically named school in Victoria - submitted a detailed requirements gap analysis, not a "wishlist".

The analysis determined where the Ministry of Education's Ministry Area Standards (attached) fail to recognize and meet the needs of a large, middle-school like, elementary school. The school community came together to analyse what was additionally required on top of the MAS to deliver all the programming Douglas currently provides. Completely devoid of any wishlist items, the factual and unemotional document ran on some 13 pages.

Its telling of the existing B.C. Seismic Mitigation Program and school capital funding process that at no time does anyone connected with MEd or the Vancouver School Board even pretend to undertake the analysis the school community ultimately had to do themselves. Yet, unbelievably, MEd funds school replacement projects without ever having contemplated actual on the ground requirements. Local boards of education are instead forced by MEd to use a simplistic cookie-cutter approach where quite literally what defines a school project is looked up in a table based on headcount alone.

Indeed the capital funding formula and processes have been broken for many years. Notwithstanding the past, given the recent communication from MEd to the Vancouver School Board I remain hopeful that we are witnessing something of a sea change in Victoria's attitude towards funding school seismic safety upgrade and replacement projects. Yet as optimistic as I'd like to be, its impossible not to note the sudden shift in attitudes towards funding school capital projects has arrived just as a civic election is about to conclude, and a provincial election is about to start.

National News Watch has obtained a draft policy resolution document which I've attached to this post for posterity. Many proposed amendments are of a Milquetoast nature, although some will raise a few eyebrows:

• Ottawa Centre decides its ok to do away with support for whistleblower legislation in policy 3, Public Service Excellence
• Change "all votes free" to "most votes free" (policy 7, Free Votes); given their record on making everything a confidence motion, its clear Harper has never followed the spirit of the party's policy anyway
• Policy 39, International Trade, has a new section proposed by Caucus Committee which is destined to give sovereigntists carte blanche to worry about continentalist plans for a North American Union, as "impediments to the efficient flow of goods, services, and people at border crossing points" can mean anything.
• Policy 44, Alternative Energy and Transitional Fuels, contains amendments proposed by National Policy Committee which take the decidedly un-conservative approach of selecting market winners (picking hydrogen). Most "conservatives" believe government has no business picking winners. Given that a similar rewording proposed by the Charlottetown EDA also explicitly notes adding hydrogen as a fuel, one wonders if there's a hydrogen lobby at work here. Kings-Hants at least is brave enough to propose that Canadians need to be encouraged to reduce their energy consumption. Crowfoot appeases the agri-lobby by suggesting targets for bio-fuel blends with petroleum products be set.
• Of particular note to B.C. and Atlantic provinces are amendments to proposal 46, Offshore Oil and Gas Development, which strikes environmental assessment as a goal. Presumably the oil and gas lobby doesn't believe consultations and assessments are important, perhaps because prior consultations in B.C. have produced overwhelming opposition to oil and gas exploration in our coastal and off-shore waters.
• Under policy 72, Aboriginal Affairs Principles, Ottawa West-Nepean would like to see a Conservative government refuse to negotiate aboriginal "land claims where the rule of law is not respected". Quite probably these EDA folks are oblivious to the fact that Harper broke his own electoral law in calling the last election. Where's the motion on that?
• No group proposed actually strengthening policy 81, Firearms. They could have, for example, removed the section which calls for the repeal of Canada's gun registry. In doing so they'd be agreeing with a majority of senior law enforcement officials across the country.

Of course there's far more meat for chewing on if you look at the policies in total rather than just at the amendment proposals.

FFF - Flaherty's Fiscal Fumbles - destined to become a regular feature. Today's instalment: Flaherty's moves have only enabled more corporate tax avoidance.

Recently a $13 billion dollar deal concluded, allowing Teck to buy the remaining shares of Fording Canadian Coal Trust. Despite all the talk of the on-going credit crunch, the overly generous moves by the Bank of Canada and Flaherty's Ministry of Finance have made it possible for banks to work with Teck to obtain the necessary financing and conclude the deal.

No new jobs will be created through this transaction. There is no net benefit to Canada.

Yet Canadian taxpayers are footing a big chunk of the bill, by providing a taxpayer-backed credit backstop, and through being shafted as Teck avoids paying a $4 billion dollar tax bill as a result of this transaction.

While this exercise in tax avoidance plays out under our very noses, lets think back to the last time tax avoidance was a subject in vogue in Conservative politics in Canada.

On October 31st, 2006 Jim Flaherty, then and now the Conservative Minister of Finance, announced that Income Trusts would in the future be subjected to new taxation. The move was particularly controversial as the Conservatives had campaigned only months earlier in part on a promise to leave the income trust sector alone.

The aftermath, dubbed the Halloween Massacre, saw the income trust market plummeting on the news, erasing billions in market value in the weeks to follow. Small and large investors alike, including many of Canada's pension plans, were significantly impacted by the on-going turmoil. Now more than two years later, many still feel betrayed.

Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty's volte-face on trusts was defended as a sign their government was serious about fairness in taxation. Flaherty said trust conversion was "a growing trend to corporate tax avoidance". From a CBC News article:

By some estimates, the federal and provincial governments stand to lose as much as $1 billion annually in tax revenue to trusts. There are now more than 250 income trusts in Canada.

Trust conversions are increasing in popularity because trusts do not pay corporate tax. Instead, they pay out most of their income in distributions to unitholders, who then pay tax on those distributions.

Flaherty said that situation could not be allowed to continue. "This trend has caused me growing concern," he said. "It's not right and it's not fair."

Bringing both pieces of the puzzle together:

• In October 2006 Conservative Finance Minister Jim Flaherty closed what he called a "loophole" that companies could exploit to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, a loss to taxpayers controversially estimated at the time at $1 billion a year.
• In fall 2008 that same finance minister, backed by Stephen Harper appointed Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of Canada, enabled Teck Cominco to avoid paying $4 billion in corporate taxes.

Flaherty's Fiscal Fumble has cost Canadian taxpayers at least $4 billion in avoided corporate taxes plus we are even footing part of the bill which makes this deal possible in the first place.

The deal smells so bad that even those in financial circles are fuming about it.