Salaries have risen dramatically for years at BCi, the province’s public pension funds manager. Current and future pension beneficiaries are treated as rubes with pockets to be picked. The amount paid the company’s CEO increased 430% since 2007. But others have done well too…
Continue readingTag: bcIMC
In-Sights: The Gravy Train accelerates
BC Investment Management Corporation (BCI), the public pension fund manager in this province increased compensation costs by 30% per dollar of funds managed in fiscal year 2017-2018. It already paid extravagant salaries before this latest fiscal year…
Continue readingIn-Sights: Not-Net-zero, on steroids
In 2016, the BC Liberal Government boasted that its four year program of executive salary restraint “demonstrates the effectiveness of ongoing measures to increase affordability, transparency and accountability in public sector compensation.” Increases paid to senior managers in the public sector were to be “consistent with increases provided in collective
Continue readingIn-Sights: Investing our money in companies that kill us
BC Gov't pension managers invest over $125 billion without any stated plan to invest ethically. #bcpoli #climatechange — Norm Farrell (@Norm_Farrell) November 3, 2015 BC Gov't pension investment managers placed nearly $600 million in 11 of the world's dirty dozen companies. #bcpoli pic.twitter.com/MTZ6EjIPEZ — Norm Farrell (@Norm_Farrell) November 3, 2015
Continue readingIn-Sights: Wheels of justice turn slowly
The legal processes may be slow but that provides years of opportunity for people devoid of morality and ethics to speculate in stockholdings of the merchants of death. In the 1990s, the Government of British Columbia began legal action against tobacco manufacturers, seeking recovery of damages and costs arising from
Continue readingIn-Sights: Farrell with Jessop, CFAX1070 August 13, 2015
The audio file below is a recording of my time with Ian Jessop August 13. We talk about bcIMC, provincial debt and other matters. Your browser does not support this audio
Continue readingNorthern Insight / Perceptivity: Executive sweet
Thousands of BC government employees lost jobs to privatization and service cuts. Even more lost income through reductions in employment and pension benefits and, with efforts to reduce public services continuing – over 1,000 jobs gone in the last fiscal year – job security is scarce for British Columbia’s civil
Continue readingNorthern Insight / Perceptivity: The entitlement mentality
[View the story “BC Investment Management Corp.” on Storify]
Continue readingNorthern Insight / Perceptivity: Public service: a rewarding career
This is a small piece of information learned in my recent examination of business in Norway. In the article Two Oil Economies, I mentioned Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global, the sovereign wealth fund that collects the nation’s oil and gas revenues. Based on last year’s average exchange rate, the fund
Continue readingNorthern Insight: In the land of Not-Net-Zero
Teachers were advised about a year ago that their pension contributions were rising again because the plan had an unfunded liability of $855 million, up from $289 million two year before. One of the reasons was underperformance of the investment portfolio. Other pension contributors in public service — excepting senior
Continue readingNorthern Insight: The states of state affairs
Comparing remuneration of senior public officials in Washington State to BC counterparts can leave one astounded. The most obvious examples are at the publicly owned investment management agencies and the ferry operations. Despite paying substantially less to executives, both Washington State Investment Board and Washington State Ferries outperformed equivalents north
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Numbed by numbers
I’ll be talking with Ian Jessop, Monday June 9, on CFAX1070. While the BC Government lays seige to public education, it seems a good time to see if all the cupboards are bare, or just the ones that might improve learning conditions in classrooms. BC teachers claim they are paid
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Norm on CFAX1070 with Ian Jessop 3/31/14
Gadget Google – Lecteur multimédia de Google – http://www.liens-du-vin.ch/google-audio_player-script.htm
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Not a puffball comparison
A Vancouver Sun article recently offered a few outdated items about salaries paid to executives of the British Columbia Investment Management Corportion (BCimc). It was a public relations piece devoid of detail, dictated to a Postmedia stenographer. That was followed with a letter to the editor from a pension investment
Continue readingNorthern Insight: FYI
The tobacco industry is being sued by Canadian provinces that aim to recover more than $100 billion in healthcare costs associated with tobacco related illness. British Columbia is one of the plaintiffs. Despite those principled actions, the BC Investment Management Corporation is continuing to increase its holdings of tobacco companies.
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Pushing back on the pushback
Anonymous reader argued through earlier comments that comparisons between BC Investment Management Corporation and Washington State Investment Board are inappropriate “apples and oranges.” The person attempted to justify huge increases in executive compensation because “Much of the compensation is based on results over the past 4 years.” This question was
Continue readingNorthern Insight: A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon, you’re talking real money
Was the Royal Bank of Canada hurt by public consternation about exporting jobs, importing foreign workers and telling tall tales about the actions? Only slightly, and only briefly, as their stock price reflects: That does not mean that individuals cannot apply continued pressure on the Royal Bank and their CEO,
Continue readingNorthern Insight: BC`s unethical investments not smoking hot
BC Investment Management Corporation may come to regret its rush to invest in big tobacco firms. After adding shares in eight of nine tobacco stocks in fiscal 2012, bcIMC had $237 million more invested in cigarette manufacturers. I can`t determine if t…
Continue readingNorthern Insight: Pro-media: watchdogs or lapdogs?
Katie Hyslop has a worthwhile piece in The Tyee about the British Columbia Investment Management Corporation. Teacher Decries Pension Plan’s ‘Unethical’ Investments, The Tyee, Nov. 13/12
“[Paul] Hutcheson started researching the B.C. Teachers’ Pension …
Northern Insight: SNC-Lavalin & BC Liberal commonality
A reader of the piece about BC Investment Management Corporation’s holdings in unethical companies asked if the agency has a relationship with SNC-Lavalin Group Inc.
Unfortunately but not surprisingly, it does. And, it has been a costly relatio…
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