Got interviewed last month for a piece by Public Affairs BC, for the Jobs, the Economy and You website. It's a nice and short piece, although it has the corniest title around:


One man and the Port Mann (full piece)

How do you get a recent graduate from Queen’s University to move to British Columbia? Just ask Glen Arthur.

“At the time I was evaluating my options, two things drew me to British Columbia—its beauty and its economy. There’s a lot of building and growth in B.C., which equates to a lot of opportunities.”

Arthur moved to B.C. in September 2008 to work on the $2.46-billion Port Mann/Highway 1 Improvement Project. He puts his skills to use as a contract administrator and estimator for the various elements of the province’s largest infrastructure investment ever. The project is also creating over 8,000 jobs!

Like many others, Arthur sees the B.C. economy moving and offering a lot of long-term career benefits.

“By hosting the 2010 Olympics and continued investment in infrastructure, B.C. has positioned itself well in terms of attracting young professionals.”

Thanks to Georgia for getting me the interview. I posted the article on my LinkedIn page, and subsequently got three emails from recruiting/head hunting firms. Who would have thought?

Politics and the General Public: Policy, Promises and the Unintelligible

Wow, am I about to make a non-partisan post? We'll see...

After watching CBCs "Your Turn 2008" campaign programme today, I think I understand the problem with government (Note: I said government, NOT politics) in North America, and especially in Canada. This may be an oversimplification of the sources of the problem, but bear with me.

It all starts with Voter Apathy.

Voters stop caring because they see all of the politics. That's all of the posturing, the partisan hackery and mockery. They see all of the broken promises made.
New voters dont start caring because they see the above. But more importantly, they do not understand the underlying principals behind the promises made (then broken).

Why are the promises made in the first place?
Because the political parties do not have policy that is easily interpreted by the general public. The possible reasons are many: the policy is too difficult to understand, the policy is deliberately convoluted, it might even be that the general public is too stupid to understand the policy. But the bottom line is this, that the political parties cannot let their policy documents stand on their own as living, breathing documents.

So the political parties make "policy decisions" which are expressed as (mostly) spending promises and tax cuts (or increases). The details of these expressions are based on the current realities, or the anticipated reality of the (hopefully) foreseeable future. But it's all fiction and conjecture really. And once you get into power (or opposition), the reality is usually different. So your policy gets expressed in terms of a different revenue stream or expenditure.

Ok... all that to just say this: Party policy is just too friggin complicated to understand. That's it.