Wednesday April 21st

Four topics were covered in yesterday's QP: Acute care beds being used for seniors in the north island, education funding, civilian oversight in the police complaint process, and youth mental health. Save for the brief question on civilian oversight, yesterday's QP was essentially a repeat of Tuesday. The Ministers involved were: Kevin, Margaret, Mike de Jong standing in for Kash Heed, who as we know has temporarily stepped down, and Mary Polak finished things off with another new hair cut.

Health Care Questions
Carole began as usual. She was trying to talk about how acute care beds were being used for seniors care beds and was wanting to evince a promise from Kevin that such a makeshift process was not going to continue. However, as always, she wasn't as clear as she could have been. Her first question "Will he agree today to protect the services and make a commitment that there will be no reduction in acute care at St. Joseph's hospital?" went entirely unanswered. But interestingly enough, Kevin jumped right on the unmentioned subtext of her question and explained why the acute care beds were being cut. A very prescient individual he is.

Carole's next question"Will he commit today to working with Comox Valley residents and health care professionals who have ideas to resolve the challenges and keep the acute care beds at St. Joseph's?" totally ignoring Kevin's previous response. She really should not accuse someone of not listening when she herself can often have a hard time hearing what others say. Her refusal to listen allowed Kevin to kindly repeat himself and also throw in a jab at the NDP for their inability to manage change. A big part of the Liberal platform is that they claim to do things differently.

For her final question, Carole asked "Why does he refuse to consider the proposals that are being put forward by health care professionals and the community in the Comox Valley?" This really is a poor question b/c again, it doesn't provide Kevin with any expected parameters for a desirable response. Granted, prior to her question, Carole spoke briefly of the available residential beds, ones primarily in old folks homes that have been closed down, but she did not specify that reopening such beds was actually one of the available proposals. Without any concrete question to respond to, it was not unexpected that Kevin leapt on his opportunity to again expound upon previous NDP flaws, flaws which of course occurred before Carole even joined the NDP, but whatever. Kevin proudly related that while the number of acute care beds at this given hospital declined from 125 to 109 during the NDP's time in power, all throughout the Liberals reign, this number of 109 has remained constant.

Winner of this exchange? Carole and Kevin = Tied for stupidity.

If we look back on the transcript, Carole actually begins by asking why the number of acute care beds is decreasing to the tune of 18 acute care beds and she labels this a 22% cut. Hmmm... looks like we need to do some math. 22% of 109 = 24. Hmm... This isn't right, it isn't consistent with what either Kevin or Carole are talking about. For Carole's figures to work out, there needed to have been 82 acute care beds at St. Joseph's hospital, and not the 109 that Kevin mentioned. Such differences lead us to some questions that should have been asked:

1) How have the usage/staffing trends changed at the St. Joseph's hospital over the past 20 years? (Both of these factors affect bed availability)
2) What sort of demographic trends have their been in the north island over the past 20 years? (This would affect the number of seniors needing long term residential care)
3) How many residential care beds have been created/closed over the past 20 years?
4) What have the waiting lists been for the beds over these past 20 years?
5) Does St. Joseph's actually need a large number of acute care beds? Regardless of whether this number is 82, or 109?

Questions Carole should have asked:
1) Has the Minister documented conversations with officials at St. Joseph's stating an inability to meet acute care beds due to the number of beds being redirected to the Liberal's eldercare pathways system?
2) What does the Minister propose to meet this need if such need does indeed exist?
3) Can the Minister provide details of a cost benefits analysis on the difference in expenditures required to either A) keep seniors residential care homes open B) use acute care beds as temporary seniors beds?

Exchange # 2

Heath critic Adrian Dix stepped up to continue Carole's questioning. Interestingly enough, Adrian jumped right in and provided some contextualization on the need for such a cost benefit analysis by speaking on how these redirected beds will increase wait times and such. For his first question Adrian asked " Will the minister put on hold this damaging effort to cut 22 % of the acute care beds at St. Joseph's Hospital and talk to the community about better options?" Unfortunately, such a questions allowed Kevin to jump right on the NDP record of "listening to the community" when they notoriously cut health care spending during their time in power.

For his second question, Adrian became more inflammatory "Will the minister put this cockeyed idea of cutting acute care beds and transforming them into long-term care beds when there are other long term care beds available? Will he put it on hold and meeting with the community this week?" Hmmm.. first, lets look up the definition of cockeyed, from my Oxford dictionary we have: crooked or askew, not level, absurd, impractical, and or having a squint. I'm guessing Adrian was going for the "absurd/impractical" usage. However, without the information on questions I proposed above, none of us can meaningfully discuss how "absurd/impractical" this whole issue is now can we? Anyhoo, what Kevin manages to do, is totally negate the NDP's initial question, concerning the 22% cut to amount of acute care beds, and go on a bit about how the Liberal government does things differently. In my books, they sure don't do things differently because doing things differently would mean that they actually answer questions.

School District Costs and Funding
Robin Austin, critic for Fisheries and Rural issues began again yesterday with questions about education funding. He was talking about budgetary shortfalls faced across the province, his question kinda missed the mark though when he asked "Are trustees making up these budget numbers, or is the minister misleading parents and communities in an attempt to lay the blame for education cuts on local school boards?" This is a classic example of what I called an accusatory question in my research, not to mention the mismatch between Robin's premise and the eventual question that he asked. Such a failure of a question allowed smarmy old Margaret to jump right on her statistics which clearly demonstrate how regardless of the shortfalls beings experienced by the various school boards, education funding in fact continues to go up. I always love it when the Liberal government attempts to fool us with lump sum numbers. Margie's use of the statistics that the school districts are expecting 60,000 fewer students this fall was a sneaky move as she failed to fully contextualize how this is 60, 000 fewer students in the fully public system since 2000, a 10 year and not a 1 year trend.

For his next question, Robin tried to match the sneakiness but failed miserably when he asked "Will the education minister show some respect for parents by stepping outside of the message box and committing today to ensure that schools have the resources they needs to give our children the education they deserve?" The number of presumptions in this question gave Margie an easy jumping in point to easily begin critiquing the NDP record on education but she managed to restrain herself, working instead to question the reasons for why school districts are facing such shortfalls, especially since they have fewer students to contend with.

Lana Popham, the agricultural critic then took a swing by asking "Will the minister step outside the message box, show some respect to parents and explain why this government is underfunding education?" Granted, Lana did establish her question within a background of funding cuts occurring in her local district, but just like Robin, she failed to provide any basis for the "message box" comment. Anyways, what politicians would willfully admit that they are only capable of repeating what they are told to say regardless of how true such an accusation might be....... Margie attempted to save herself by pulling out some numbers and restating her commitment to doing things differently. Details on what she believes to constitute doing things differently however are always a tad sparse.

This was a big hint that Diane Thorne, a grumpy old lady who is the critic for Housing and consumer affairs, missed entirely. Her question was "I am also wondering if this minister can step outside of her message box, get off her spin, and explain to us why growing districts are facing budget shortfalls and having to lay off staff?" I had myself a little chuckling fit by the time doddy Diane reached her question due to the intensity of this little old ladies hypocrisy. Margie was ready though and quick to jump on this one, thoroughly trouncing doddy Diane by correcting her use of facts concerning enrollment in Richmond. Margie however proceeded to misuse her facts by claiming there to be 550,000 students in BC when according to the Ministry's own service plan there are approximately 580,000, not including the 69,000 in independent schools or the 2500 being home schooled.

Doug Routely, opposition critic for citizen's services then attempted to pick up the opposition torch by asking "If she's willing to step outside of that message box long enough to answer to trustees, students, and parents in the Cowichan district, what is she going to do to rescue our districts from her underfunding?" This in my opinion is a very difficult question. I'm sure good old Doug has to be aware that Margie herself probably has very limited power, by the way in which she speaks she doesn't seem to have much knowledge or original thought. How can he honestly expect her to single-handedly rescue all of the school districts? Naturally, to minimize the expectations for her actions, Margie began by speaking to the caliber of our school districts, and scolding Doug for undermining public, parents, and teacher's confidence. Sorry Margie, confidence is already low, check here.

Long serving member Harry finished off the education issue by asking "Why is it that the minister across the way won't get out of her public affairs bureau induced message box and answer the question?" Seems Lali was also referring to budget cuts, but his approach was different in that he attempted to paint the problems faced by the Kamloops-Thompson school district, represented by the Honourable Kevin Krueger, as unique. All Lali served to do however, was demonstrate that all school district in BC, regardless of political affiliation, are being given the same short stick. Margie finished off with a little jab about the NDP poor math skills and also called out Robin for being on record as supporting the closure of schools when student #s are dwindling.

End result: No answer on why education funding is inadequate for school districts.

What questions should have been asked?

For context to these questions, I look to the Ministry's service plan, which I already referenced above. Within their section on contextual factors, a lot is said on how the classroom must now embrace technology, and that more members of the classroom than ever are now dealing with an array of learning disorders and other physical and mental difficulties. I'm no accountant, at least not yet, but I can bet that these three factor could easily account for the majority of increase in student costs. And here is another thing, why doesn't the opposition require the government to provide numbers that account for inflation? 1 billion 2001 dollars was capable of buying more than 1 billion 2010 dollars can. I'm sure even a grade 4 or grade 7 student could tell you that one. I'm too fed up with politicians to even bother writing what questions they should have asked.

Civilian Oversight
Mike Farnsworth, the finance critic and overall good guy spoke about how Linda Bush was dropping her lawsuit against the RCMP. I saw that article in the paper yesterday, but never actually read it to find out why she dropped it. For his question Mike asked, "How long does Linda Bush have to wait and the people of BC have to wait until we have a true civilian oversight regarding police investigations in this province?" Even though no information was given on what the lawsuit had been, or why her son had been killed, Mike de Jong as the fill in for the Solicitor General appeared well briefed on the issue and covered it respectfully. He spoke of civilian oversight procedures already in place, and also of changes to the legislation involving police complaint commissioner which the Liberals have enacted. I'm not sure what to say, perhaps Miss Bush dropped her case because it was found that her case had no basis?

Youth Suicide Awareness Program
In regards to a recent cut by the Ministry of Children and Families to a suicide awareness program for youth, Maurine Karagianis, the child and families critic, had this to say "What kind of backward thinking is she using to cut suicide and prevention education from greater victoria schools?" Mary Polack's response was "We're changing to meet the needs of a changing group of people who live in southern Vancouver Island, and we're very proud of the investment that we continue to make in doubling the amount for children and youth with metal health needs in BC." Mary's response made Maurine look like the one guilty of backwards thinking.

Not to be outdone, Maurine followed up with "Can she explain what in the world she is thinking by cutting a service like this to vulnerable teens and their families? What in the world could she be thinking?" In response to Maurine, Mary clarified Maurine's intentions to portray the whole issue as a budget reduction issue. Mary spoke more of the "service realignment" and how the Liberals have not only doubled the amount of financial support they provide, but have also doubled the amount the of youth they are seeing. Her statement saw the end of yesterday's QP.

Questions that should have been asked by Maurine
1) What is the Minister prepared to do to serve the x# of youth who utilized the suicide awareness for youth line that has recently been cut?
2) Why have the number of youth requiring mental health services doubled in the past 10 years?

General Note

People will never tell you why they're stupid. This makes sense, they're stupid. B/c they're stupid, the chances they know why they are stupid are slim.