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Posted

Do you think your taxes are paying for it? or does the money fall from the sky?

We do not have time for a meeting of the flat earth society.

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Posted
Do you think your taxes are paying for it? or does the money fall from the sky?

I don't mind paying for something if it can be justified. Do you think a no bids contract can be justified in this particular case?

Posted

Do you think your taxes are paying for it? or does the money fall from the sky?

I don't mind paying for something if it can be justified. Do you think a no bids contract can be justified in this particular case?

Lets face it folks ... no matter what their political stripe our governments are all corrupt.

Posted
Lets face it folks ... no matter what their political stripe our governments are all corrupt.

Does that mean all people are corrupt? Because it is people who elect other people to office.

Posted
I don't mind paying for something if it can be justified. Do you think a no bids contract can be justified in this particular case?
Fun question!

[CAVEAT: I do not believe any government spending can be justified, but I try to bend my morals and stay within your topic.]

Any no-bids government contract is abuse of the public purse and severe disdain of the tax-payer. The more money involved in the contract, the more disdain. I understand that it can not always be practical for a "government" to have open competition for every single thing it does. However, I would look at closed-bid-expenditures as highly suspicious before I considered them to be practical.

My thoughts on it are not very new nor are they original. I would refer to an excellent summary made earlier by a previous poster:

What we have in Canada (and the rest of the world) is Crapitalism. This is Crony Capitalism - subversion of the capitalist system to favour those that are already rich.

Fascism is crony capitalism taken to the extreme - or in the words of FDR

"The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism: ownership of the government by an individual, by a group or any controlling private power."

-- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

As incredible as it may seem - Canada is much closer to a fascist state than a democratic one. As my NAIRU post shows, economic policy in Canada is tailored to make the rich richer while making the poor poorer - to the point of destitution. The USA is teetering on the edge of outright fascism - the latest attempt to push it over being the elimination of requirements for a judge to authorize search warrents. The FBI is being given the power of search ans siezure without any judicial oversight.

So, I throw your question back to you: does this contract pass the smell test?

I will take your question a step further: what is your smell test?

What is YOUR criteria for misuse of public funds?

We do not have time for a meeting of the flat earth society.

<< Où sont mes amis ? Ils sont ici, ils sont ici... >>

Posted
Fun question!

[CAVEAT: I do not believe any government spending can be justified, but I try to bend my morals and stay within your topic.]

Any no-bids government contract is abuse of the public purse and severe disdain of the tax-payer. The more money involved in the contract, the more disdain. I understand that it can not always be practical for a "government" to have open competition for every single thing it does. However, I would look at closed-bid-expenditures as highly suspicious before I considered them to be practical.

So, I throw your question back to you: does this contract pass the smell test?

I will take your question a step further: what is your smell test?

What is YOUR criteria for misuse of public funds?

I think one of the things that damages political parties is not taking bids on contracts. It doesn't pass the smell test and opens up the contract to corrupt practices.

What is the purpose of government in your opinion? If all taxes were eliminated, could we dispense witn it?

Posted

Lets face it folks ... no matter what their political stripe our governments are all corrupt.

Does that mean all people are corrupt? Because it is people who elect other people to office.

No ... it means our parliamentary system has been corrupted to serve the ego needs of politicians instead of the governance needs of the people.

Posted
No ... it means our parliamentary system has been corrupted to serve the ego needs of politicians instead of the governance needs of the people.

I think there are a lot of hard working people in Parliament. If your own local MP is unsatisfactory, you do your bets to defeat them. I don't think my local MP is the best we can get so I will be voting against them the next election.

Posted

Lets face it folks ... no matter what their political stripe our governments are all corrupt.

Does that mean all people are corrupt? Because it is people who elect other people to office.
Excellent!
I think one of the things that damages political parties is not taking bids on contracts. It doesn't pass the smell test and opens up the contract to corrupt practices.
We agree.
What is the purpose of government in your opinion?
There are different ways of answering that question.

We do not have time for a meeting of the flat earth society.

<< Où sont mes amis ? Ils sont ici, ils sont ici... >>

Posted

I've dealt with the government and have been involved in no bid contracting. It's generally for costs under $50k (the new rules might be less, I no longer deal with it... and this was Alberta government not Fed). It's also when an established relationship exists, based on previous competive bidding. So essientially, when a bid is just going to cost the taxpayer more money or waste too much time for the little gain.

That being said, lowest price rarely gets the bid, there is alot more involved in that. Relationships mean alot to purchasers in the government because like in all business your alot more comfortable spending money (or the public money) in someone you trust.

These people have a job to do, ensure value to the taxpayer, and I say 9 times out of 10 they do it.

It's hard to say that this guy is not a good deal. If the final comes in a the low end of the contract that's not bad to pay a land claims negotiator for 8 months. The company I work for now pays much more in land negotiations and we're only Alberta based. Individual lawyers make more than this guy does. And he's covering his costs as well in that, it's not free to negotiate with people living miles from a roadway. One right of way can cost us a hundred thousand in transit costs if it's remote. And that's not NWT remote.

I'm going to say this is legit, but I can see how it would be ugly to someone not knowledgable in land negotiations or the contracting process.

These accusations are a little much for the finance minister that was in power when a major leak of critical investment information happened. Goodale has no crediblity, if that happened in the private sector, he would have been tarred and feathered.

RealRisk.ca - (Latest Post: Prosecutors have no "Skin in the Game")

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