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Just the facts please

Everywhere you look these days it's about money and accountability. Even the Vancouver Canucks are being "advised" by their many armchair coaches to be accountable and calm as they continue their push for the Stanley Cup.

Everywhere you look these days it's about money and accountability.

Even the Vancouver Canucks are being "advised" by their many armchair coaches to be accountable and calm as they continue their push for the Stanley Cup.

Taxpayers, though excited about the Canuck celebration sites set up across the Lower Mainland and beyond - though not in Whistler - are also now facing up to the costs involved.

Media outlets are reporting that Surrey's celebrations are costing about $48,000 a game, including $12,000 a night to project the game on a giant screen outside SFU's Surrey campus at the Central City Plaza.

CBC reports that policing the plaza costs about $6,000 a night. But what seems to be ratcheting up the police costs is keeping crowd control in place at Scott Road and 72nd post games. Price tag: about $30,000 a game. All this money is to come from existing budgets.

Vancouver was hoping the province would step up to help with its celebration costs with policing alone expected to cost $650,000 if the Canucks go all the way to Game 7.

But said new Premier Christy Clark this week: "When the Canucks bring home the Stanley Cup we are certainly going to be part of the celebrations. It's not just a Vancouver win, it's a win for the entire province and the entire country."

But for now celebration sites are on their own.

Last week it was decided in Whistler at a municipal level that a giant TV screen would not be placed in Whistler Olympic Plaza for the Canuck playoffs saving townsfolk lots of money but making us feel a bit like the kid who wasn't invited to the party.

That feeling of being an outsider is apparent in many places just now in the municipality. It's almost patronizing as if citizens aren't able to reach sensible conclusions given all the facts - so only some of the facts are shared.

One might consider the recent discussions around tendering contracts in that light.

While on the face of it the municipality has the right not to tender certain contracts logic and experience would generally suggest that this process might lead to a better deal for the citizen.

There are "watchdog" approaches in place and under the "sole source" process for procurement the municipality must prepare a "sole source justification report" for any contract over $25,000. But when Pique asked to see a couple of these for paving we were told we had to submit a Freedom of Information request. Stay tuned.

I wonder if anyone else in the audience at the recent May 26 council meeting on the Alpine Paving contract was taken aback when a staff member, commenting on the recent process of getting multiple quotes on paving, said the procedure: "...clearly demonstrat(es) the benefit of the public tender process."

Isn't it generally considered sensible to get multiple quotes - I know that I was encouraged by contractors when renovating my house many years ago to go out and get other quotes - "You'll see," I was told, "This is the best deal around."

Sometimes it was and sometimes it wasn't. But I knew when I wrote that cheque and all was said and done that I got the deal I wanted.

It's not just at the municipal level either that we see this husbandry, for lack of a better word.

B.C.'s Minister of Finance Kevin Falcon addressed over 200 people at the Whistler Chamber's recent Outlook Economic Symposium encouraging everyone to vote in favour of the HST.

"Spread the word," he said. But the plea came after he admitted on behalf of his government that the communication around the issue to the people of B.C. was botched from the start.

Many argue that there are a myriad of financial reasons why a tax such as the HST is better for business. The problem was the government was so busy trying to control the message that the facts, on both sides, became obscured and B.C. residents were left struggling to find out what the heck to make of this issue, which took down a premier. And now we have stick people trying to set the record straight!

This doesn't mean that the HST should be tossed - discussion around that in another column soon - but it does show that you have to give people as much information as you can, otherwise reasonable conclusions cannot be reached.

"Sometimes in public life you are actually challenged to do the right thing not the easy thing," said Falcon, referring to the quest to keep the modified HST in place.

"This is one of these times. It is the right thing and we are going to fight for what we believe is the right thing and that is what we are doing right now. We went out and said to ourselves we are going to do it differently.

"First of all, we are going to make sure we listen to people. We are going to make sure that we try and hear what they have to say on how we can improve the HST and we are going to make sure the public is informed..."

Novel ideas indeed - and words I would argue that anyone of us, but perhaps especially those in public office, should take to heart.