Vaughn Palmer
Sun

One year after Premier Gordon Campbell won a third term by promising to make the economy the No. 1 priority, he can point to some encouraging news on that front.

“B. C. and Ontario will lead all other provinces in economic growth this year,” the Conference Board of Canada reported Monday.

“The economic impact of the Olympics will add roughly 0.7 percentage points to the province’s bottom-line growth this year. But it is the vast improvement in the forestry, manufacturing and construction sectors that will solidify the economic recovery.”

Almost simultaneously comes news that for the first time in four years, U.S. lumber prices have recovered sufficiently to eliminate the export tax penalty on shipments from Canada.

The recovery in forestry, like other sectors, is expected to vary widely across the province, nor is it sure to last. Sporadic and iffy would be more like it. Still, the evidence to date supports the narrative that Campbell offered to voters a year ago.

“The most important election in a generation,” he called it. “On May 12 you will choose whether to build confidence in B.C. that will provide more opportunities for our citizens, or whether to choose an Opposition that will destabilize our economy and cost jobs in every region of the province.”

Campbell thus seized on the one issue that the opinion polls had consistently identified as his strongest suit in running against the New Democratic Party. Moreover, by the end of a losing campaign, NDP leader Carole James came to agree with the B.C. Liberal leader about the deciding factor.

“I think it’s clear the economy was an issue,” she told reporters as the votes were still being counted on election night. “People felt they wanted someone with experience who had been in the premier’s chair already. I think that’s very clear.”

So Campbell won an election on the question of who could best preside over the economy. A year later, B.C. is poised to lead the country in economic growth. And if that were all that counted in the intervening 12 months, the premier ought to be on top of the world, never mind the opinion polls.

Except, of course, it hasn’t worked out that way.

One year after the election, the B.C. Liberals are racking up their worst polling numbers in years, the New Democrats their best.

Most astonishing of all, the 2010 Winter Olympics, far from generating the anticipated multibillion-dollars‘ worth of good news for the premier, appears to have had zero impact on his political fortunes.

Campbell waved the flag at every opportunity, wore his mittens everywhere, shouted himself hoarse, and nevertheless emerged from the Games spotlight with some of the most wretched leadership ratings in a generation.

In the most recent Angus Reid survey, respondents branded him as arrogant (72 per cent), secretive (56 per cent), dishonest (55 per cent), and uncaring (51 per cent). ( “But other than that, how did you like the premier?” one wanted to ask the panel as a followup).

Not much doubt about what placed him on this apparent road to ruin. Scandals, program cuts, an electorate grown weary of an overbearing leadership style are among the signposts. But the turning point was the decision, announced just weeks after the election, to reverse B.C.’s long-standing opposition to harmonizing the provincial sales tax with its federal counterpart.

The surprise change of direction — a sneak attack on the electorate, no less — set in motion a taxpayer revolt that is still growing in strength.

Witness the announcement Monday from organizers of the anti-HST petition drive. After just five weeks, they are already claiming to have gathered the signatures of some 400,000 British Columbians. If all those names check out, it would be half as many people as voted Liberal in the last election.

Increasingly, the petition drive has been personalized into an attack on Campbell’s continued leadership of the province. The leader of the anti-HST campaign, Bill Vander Zalm, made that explicit when asked what would be the next step if the government doesn’t back off the HST.

Recall, he replied, but recall aimed at vacating the seat of a single member of the legislature. “The member for Vancouver-Point Grey,” meaning Campbell himself.

Intriguing. The New Democrats have talked about recalling enough Liberals to strip the governing party of its legislative majority and forcing an election that would bring the NDP to power.

Vander Zalm suggests more of a targeted approach. No need to risk opening the door to an NDP administration at this point. Rather, recall Campbell, then see if the other Liberals, once freed of the heavy hand of his leadership, would execute a change of direction on their own.

Pure mischief on the part of the former premier, to be sure.

But given the growing mood of discontent over Campbell in the governing party, I expect some Liberals might support the idea of recall, providing it were confined to a surgical strike on the premier and party leader.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Unlike other gangs, the thieves who want to rip off your debit card information prefer to keep a low profile.

Matthew Claxton, Langley Advance
Sun

They’re organized criminals, but they don’t tattoo gang names on their bodies, they don’t wear colours, and they don’t come up with snappy names.

Cst. Steven Kuan of the economic crime section of Langley’s RCMP spends his time tracking the gangs who want to steal the data from your debit card and empty your bank account.

“We’re finding very organized crime groups behind it,” Kuan said.

Langley officers recently arrested a man from Montreal who had withdrawn money at four local banks. He was carrying numerous blank cards, each one labelled with a PIN number and a serial number.

The man was on his cellphone when police caught up with him.

Within hours, all the fake debit cards had been duplicated and were being used to withdraw money from other cash machines across the country, Kuan said.

Kuan said criminals have spent the past several years improving their techniques for ripping off Interac and similar card systems.

The scam begins with a stolen or purchased PIN pad, the sort used in countless businesses. The crooks will take them apart and add their own components.

The device still works, but it also records the magnetic strips of your card, along with your personal identification number.

A member of the organization will enter a restaurant or store, usually close to closing time, and while the clerk isn’t looking, they will swap out the store’s PIN pad for their own modified version.

“Now it’s a full-fledged skimming operation,” Kuan said. If the store’s employees don’t notice the swap, they’ll continue to swipe every card through the machine.

In the past, the criminals would leave their machine in place for about a month, then steal it back to get at the PIN data.

Now, they don’t ever have to touch it again.

“They now have wireless chips installed,” Kuan said.

A crook will approach with a Bluetooth-equipped PDA or computer and simply download all the stolen numbers.

Next, the organizers of the gangs will make up new cards with the same information, and send out their low-level runners to extract cash from ATMs.

“These guys are just recruited on the street,” said Kuan.

The organizers use some unusual methods to control their runners. In some cases, the organizers co-ordinate a spree of debit fraud by giving the runners small safes packed with debit cards. At the appointed hour, the runners are sent a text message with the safe’s combination. They open it and set off to get as much cash as possible, moving from bank machine to bank machine.

The runners must keep the cash and receipts from the ATMs they hit, Kuan said.

While police haven’t had any reports of violence in these groups, it’s possible that violence is used to keep the runners from ripping off the organizers, Kuan said. A runner beaten for skimming money wouldn’t come forward to police.

Some of those arrested have police records for violence, although not linked to the skimming operations.

At least three separate groups are operating right now in Canada, with between three and 30 people involved at any one time. Many seem to be based out of Montreal, but the criminals will fly their whole gangs around the country, ripping off small towns and big cities alike.

Unlike a drug-running gang member, most of the debit scammers have a fairly high level of education and are skilled with computers and electronics.

While they could get legitimate jobs, they find crime more lucrative.

The best way to protect yourself against the PIN-thieving gangs is to change your PIN on a regular basis, Kuan noted.

For businesses, the RCMP is running programs such as Project Protect, which involves training employees to check the serial number on their PIN pads after stores close.

© Copyright (c) Lower Mainland Publishing

After nearly 40 years, the iconic band still gets a rush from fans’ energy, Don Henley says

Graeme McRanor
Sun

Where: GM Place/Pacific ColiseumWhen: Sunday, Monday at GM Place/ Friday at Pacific Coliseum

—

Few working bands can conjure up time and place quite like the Eagles. And with a back catalogue that includes hits Life in the Fast Lane, Hotel California, Witchy Women, Take It Easy, Desperado and One of These Nights, there’s little doubt that the band’s best work is behind them.

“I had hoped that we could go for two more years and reach the 40-year milestone,” singer-songwriter Don Henley told The Vancouver Sun in an exclusive interview. “But it’s looking more and more like the end of the trail is imminent.”

Henley has eaten his words in the past. He once famously quipped post-breakup in 1980 that the Eagles would reunite “when hell freezes over.” Fans will remember the band’s 1994 reunion tour and live album, fittingly called Hell Freezes Over. Still, with the key members of the group now in their early 60s (the band is collectively 247 years old), this tour will surely be the Eagles’ final flight.

It’s a ride that, starting in the early 1970s when the Eagles first became birds of a feather as a band, hasn’t always been smooth. Like Life in the Fast Lane, there was turbulence along the way, not much noticed by an increasingly hooked fan base.

“We weren’t the Stones, but we weren’t the Osmonds either,” founding member Glenn Frey told 60 Minutes in November 2007 after the release of Long Road Out of Eden, the band’s first all-original studio album since 1979. “Closer to the Stones than the Osmonds.”

Yet, save for the band’s breakup, that self-described “14-year vacation” from 1980 to 1994, internal power struggles and some well-publicized controversy with former member Don Felder — he was fired, subsequently sued Henley and Frey, they countersued, then Felder wrote a tell-all book called Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles — the band has endured.

So, too, has the music. “Every time we play a concert, we are reminded of how much these songs mean to people,” says Henley. “Some of this material has held up for almost 40 years, and obviously we feel good about that and we’re grateful.

“It’s very satisfying, I think, for any artist who has created a body of work to see that work become a part of the culture. For us, the songs have always been first and foremost; the rest of the backwash from success is a side-effect that we don’t much care for.

“We don’t actively seek publicity, and basically live quiet, low-profile lives. We’re not in the tabloids and rarely in the music magazines. It’s always been primarily about the songs — the writing, recording and performing — and our fans know that we make an effort.”

So kudos to the boys — the current lineup is Frey, Henley, Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmit -for touring on a new album. With its legendary status, the band could easily have coasted into the sunset playing best-of concerts for the sentimental set.

Fair to say, though, that this tour, which officially kicked off in 2008, still leans heavily on the hits. The lengthy, two-act set list (three hours, according to Henley) also includes Henley’s seminal solo hits Dirty Laundry, Boys of Summer and All She Wants to Do Is Dance. (Though cheesy soundtrack aficionados will be left with hanging heads, as Glenn Frey’s ’80s solo hit, The Heat Is On, from the film Beverly Hills Cop, is mercifully not on the to-do list).

“It remains important to all of us to include several of the tracks from the Long Road Out of Eden album in the show, plus a couple of other songs that we don’t normally do,” said Henley. “We put some thought into the set list and came up with what we think is a good balance of old and new stuff.”

All of which will be played with vigour by a band that Henley says is much better today than the original version. Though one thing hasn’t changed: the pleasure the group gets from playing for an audience.

“The songs move the fans, the fans give us their energy, and we give it back to them,” he said. “It’s a beautiful, symbiotic relationship.”

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun