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BC's NDP Exhales, Ready Now to Argue the Economy

Leadership candidates say their party has strong case to make, was too timid on economic issues last election.

By Andrew MacLeod, 5 Apr 2011, TheTyee.ca

Dump truck

NDP dumped economic talk from past campaign, but not next one.

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In the 2009 provincial election, even though British Columbians told pollsters that the economy was by far their top concern, the Carole James-led NDP largely avoided the issue.

The three frontrunners to replace James now each say that was a major mistake and they are determined to make sure it doesn't happen again. NDP members will pick a new leader April 17.

"I think we should have talked more about the economy," said Adrian Dix, Vancouver-Kingsway MLA. "But I take responsibility for that as much as anyone else... The Liberals, as it turned out, were staggeringly vulnerable on the economy. Their performance was terrible."

John Horgan, who represents the Juan de Fuca constituency on southern Vancouver Island, said he "absolutely" agrees that the NDP gave the economy "short shrift" in the last election. "We were in uncharted waters. Everyone, all citizens, all political parties."

At the time it seemed the global financial system appeared to be collapsing and the government had access to updates that the opposition did not, he said.

"With all the uncertainty that was surrounding the economy in B.C., the Canadian economy, the international economy, we were ill-equipped to respond to it and I think the public ended up voting Liberal because they thought better the devil we know then the devil we don't."

"I think that's been a problem for New Democrats in elections, this reluctance to talk about the economy," said Port Coquitlam MLA Mike Farnworth, who has promised his door will always be open to ideas that create jobs and wealth. "The people who run the campaigns insist we shouldn't talk about the economy... I think we need to talk about all the issues that are important to people."

Crocodile vs. water buffalo

The political strategy, as explained to The Tyee in 2009 by commentator and former NDP MLA David Schreck, is to avoid talking about issues that are seen as your opponent's strengths.

He compared the dynamic to a drinking hole fight between a water buffalo and a crocodile. The crocodile tries to pull the buffalo into the water where it can drown it, and the buffalo tries to get the crocodile out on land where it can stomp it to death.

You go into your opponent's area only when you absolutely have to, Schreck said, then you get out as fast as possible.

But what happens if the water buffalo is too scared of the crocodile to get close enough to the water to drink? Or if the crocodile's overestimated the water buffalo's strength?

There was plenty of room to criticize the Liberals on economic issues, said Farnworth. As the global recession reached B.C., Campbell's "slap dash" response included popular but unsubstantial things like dropping ferry fares for two months, he said. "It was devoid of any sense of reality."

And on his way out the door Premier Gordon Campbell announced a 15 per cent income tax cut, only to have has cabinet reverse it two weeks later when it didn't give the government the bounce in the polls they hoped for, Farnworth said. It was the kind of move that showed there was no comprehensive plan, he said.

After the 2009 election, Campbell surprised the province by bringing in the HST, which has created a lot of uncertainty, Dix said.

2009 polls said economy was top issue

Even if you only look at overall economic growth, the Liberals have done poorly, said Dix. "The government has dramatically underperformed on the economy on its own terms," he said. "Economic growth is two per cent, compared to three per cent under the NDP, which is 50 per cent less."

(Doubters should review Tyee contributing editor Will McMartin's analysis here.)

An Angus Reid Strategies poll released on April 29, 2009, two weeks before the election, shows the NDP strategists did have some reason to worry about addressing the economy. 

When asked what they thought was the most important issue facing the province, 34 per cent of respondents named the economy. That put it well ahead of the next choice, crime and public safety at 13 per cent. Health care (10 per cent), the environment (10 per cent) and poverty (six per cent) followed. The poll surveyed 822 randomly selected B.C. adults online and was considered accurate to plus or minus 3.4 per cent, 19 times out of 20.



And when the question was which leader was best suited to deal with the economy, 48 per cent picked Gordon Campbell, three times as many as the 16 per cent who picked Carole James. There was some solace for the NDP on the question in that 36 per cent weren't sure who would be best. But rather than be seen talking about the issue, perhaps even demonstrating some competence on it, the NDP ceded the issue to the Liberals.

'Next campaign about economy': Dix

When the NDP talk about the economy from here on, they'll likely place more emphasis than the Liberals on how the fruits of the economy have been shared in the province. The Liberals cut income and corporate taxes, but raised medical services premiums and hydro rates, Dix said. "They're for raising taxes on middle income people."

Inequality has grown dramatically, and the minimum wage has dropped to the lowest in Canada, he said. They've allowed 190 schools to be closed in the province, he added, closures that have hurt rural B.C. in particular.

The majority of British Columbians already agree with the NDP on health care and education issues, Dix said.

"On the economy, if we lay out the record and lay out our approach compared to their approach, we'll have a majority there too," he said. "The next campaign will be about the economy. It will be about their failed record and our alternatives on issues that are largely economic issues."

"To me a healthy economy is where there aren't so many children who are so poor and there aren't seniors that have to pay so much to be cared for in long term care," said Powell River MLA Nicholas Simons.

Despite going through an economic boom, the province has little to show for it, he said. When the recession hit, the government cut services that had already been cut during the core review after 2001.

'Ecological and economic marriage': Horgan

Taking the Liberals on over the economy doesn't have to mean doing so on the governing party's own terms, said Horgan.

"I believe we have to ensure we are prepared in the coming campaign, whenever it may start, to talk about the economy in a meaningful way and give people confidence that we are going to be able to protect their jobs and grow the economy," he said.

There's a need to invest in education and skills training to make sure the province has a work force that is skilled, flexible and ready to compete, he said.

"We should be making the case for an ecological and economic marriage," Horgan added, where resources are used to create wealth and opportunities in communities throughout the province.

"Communities need to have some benefit from the resources that are extracted from them," he said. "Rural communities are being depopulated because people are not able to sustain their families, but yet the activity on the land base is quite significant."

Despite lots of mineral exploration and intensive forestry, communities are left poor, he said. "The Liberal approach is to just create the wealth and the assumption is that shareholders will redistribute that wealth through their buying power from profits. It doesn't happen."

Nor is the government making the best of existing opportunities, Farnworth said. "I think there's a real reluctance by this government to acknowledge the role communities can play in economic development, that co-operatives can play in economic development."

Building confidence necessary

While endorsing Horgan, Paul Summerville, an economist who has worked for RBC Dominion Securities and other financial institutions, gave another indication of how the NDP can talk about the economy in a way that plays to the party's strengths.

A prosperous economy is needed if the province is going to have the best outcomes possible for health and for communities, Summerville said. "John speaks very eloquently about how a strong economy and social justice are two sides of the same coin."

Summerville said he's a supporter of carbon taxes and consumption taxes like the HST, though he argues the Liberals created uncertainty by delivering it the way they did.

Addressing the economy is important for a larger reason for a party that hopes to form a government.

"I think people want to hear from us on a whole range of issues," said Dix. That includes topics like the economy that are seen as weaknesses for the party, he said. "In a sense, in presenting on those questions, you're building a broader sense of confidence."

"At the end of the day we have to talk about the things that are important to British Columbians," said Farnworth. "That means jobs. We have to be talking about jobs and we have to be talking about the economy."

In other words, the party doesn't necessarily need to rule the watering hole, but it does have to show it's comfortable there. [Tyee]

Andrew MacLeod is The Tyee's legislative bureau chief in Victoria. Reach him here.

28 Comments:

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  • zalm

    1 year ago

    The other thing that's changed

    ...besides the atrocious memory of a useless Fourth Estate that had a long memory for NDP mistakes but none at all for Fiberal malfeasance, is that China and India came shopping.

    Oil and minerals are flying out of the country now, no less from BC than any other place with iron ore, coal, oil, REEs, potash or even gold and diamonds. All the low-hanging fruit in SE Asia has been picked, and now they're banging on our doors demanding to play by our rules and buy our companies if only to lock up constant supplies of the materials they need to support their burgeoning populations and economies.

    That's why we didn't have to sell our earthly inheritance for a mess of Fiberal pottage like low royalties and tax-cutting incentives. Instead of giving it away like we did five and ten years ago, we can now charge a decent price for it, and one that respects both the difficulty of extracting these resources in an environmentally responsible manner, and one that reflects the loss to future generations of Canadians the opportunity that these resources would have provided.

    It's easy to see who cares about the future. Just look who's interested in preserving what we've got for it. Apart from a few Greens, nobody, really.

  • zalm

    1 year ago

    The Fourth Estate

    I predict that the germination of the recovery of the Fourth Estate's memory will be traced to the time that the City of Vancouver came up with a bigger financial bust than the provincial NDP ever pulled off, all by its idiot lonesome when it thundered down to False Creek in the dead of night and threw a whopping $700 million into drink - all for a party.

    As Bugs Bunny used to say, "Oh, the shame!"

  • jim1966

    1 year ago

    A New Direction

    The NDP are making changes and this is just the first of many. The economy is one of the issues that face British Columbians as well as many others. I think that the NDP are the peoples choice for the next government and it's already beginning to show. The truly one amazing thing about this entire process is that people are paying attention to the issues concerning our province and that in my view is a very good thing indeed.

  • Fiat lux

    1 year ago

    One of these days

    One of these days politicians and their so called "economists" may just wake up to the fact that so called "foreign investment" brings nothing to a country. It is the inflation of another country's money supply, a permanent debt and its purpose is to take, everything they can.

    Anybody with the slightest business knowledge should know that when you have resources, you have capital, because monetary capital is only a temporary licence that can become worthless at any time.

    If the economists had known real economics from holes in the ground, they would have warned the politicians of the coming and inevitable monetary mess, and would warn them now that the world's present fraudulent economic system is on the verge of collapse, that will bring on the biggest depression in history.

    The crash of '29 was caused by the collapse of the US stockmarkets that pulled down the whole world. Now the USA is up to $70 trillion in debt, and when they collapse they'll take the whole world with them into destitution, permanent violence and wars.

    Thanks to "conservative" economic theories.

    So, what are the plans of either party to save lives and build real, not monetary economies, now based on a few gamblers and their automatic computers playing games with the lives of billions, to steal more from more?

    The only thing "growing" is the present crime wave, based on a fraudulent theory, in the name of "economics", destroying humanity and the environment.

    Ed Deak

  • seth

    1 year ago

    Bullshoot

    Horgan and Dix are just spinning here.

    Will had an entire series of articles pointing out the NDP's advantage on economic issues. How hard could it have been with 3P contracts tripling BC debt over the NDP's and buying IPP power at 13 cents and giving it away on the Columbia grid for free at night in a crazy buy high sell low scheme powered by GRAFT?

    Horgan and Dix were well aware of this cus I told them myself on numerous callin's and they agreed every time. Don't tell me they didn't read the numerous articles and commentary in the Tyee.

    Nope, the problem was that Carole Jame was incapable of doing even basic arithmetic having no head for numbers (or anything else) so she was too cowardly to face down the likes of Vaughn Palmer and Bill Good on this issue.

    She collected Horgan's and Dix' balls and kept them in a safe in her office, so she could be sure her be nice to Gordo campaign stayed just the way she liked it.

  • grapeman

    1 year ago

    About time... if they're serious!

    Making the economy a central part of the NDP platform has been a long time coming. Ignoring it has, in my opinion, been disastrous. I'm happy that they're finally taking it seriously, but I wonder how long economic talk from the NDP will last once the Liberals start spewing their cliches.

    Schrek's waterhole analogy is typical of the self-imposed paralysis gripping the party. The comparison only makes sense if you think the NDP is the water buffalo. For the love of God: THE NDP IS THE CROCODILE!

    Let's start with some basics:

    1. BC continues to have high unemployment, a full percentage point above the national average. I guess that super-low minimum wage hasn't worked after all-
    http://www.statcan.gc.ca/subjects-sujets/labour-travail/lfs-epa/lfs-epa-eng.htm

    2. BC is the most unequal province in the country, thanks to a tax regime which disproportionately benefits the wealthy -
    http://www4.hrsdc.gc.ca/.3ndic.1t.4r@-eng.jsp?iid=22

    3. Despite all the blather about lowering business taxes to improve productivity, it hasn't worked that way. It's one of the best examples of the failure of trickle-down economics-
    http://www.bccheckup.com/pdfs/bccheckup_2010_provincial.pdf

    4. The results are clear. According to the report above, a lack of productivity negatively influences education and other investments in human capital: "Labour productivity rests not only on capital investment, but also the quality of the labour force itself. BC’s labour force educational attainment is still lower (63.1%) when compared to Alberta, Ontario, and Canada as a whole (64.3%, 68%, and 66.4% respectively); it also grew slowly during the past five years (3.8% compared to the national average growth rate of 4.7%)."

    5. And even the BC government admits that BC has the worst child poverty rate in the country.

    Now, who is the crocodile?

  • Francis

    1 year ago

    Yes, its the economy stupid

    And it looks like the Liberals completely get it. Announcing 6000 or so forest sector related jobs. And they are also talking about coal mining.

    Money talks and bullshit walks. If we want to fund civil society we had better be producing something.

  • de Falla

    1 year ago

    The Tyee Supporters Were Off the Mark Too

    Hold off on the indignation, oh thoughtful Tyee readers. Contributors to this important news outlet - those who guided its reporting program through the 2009 election - were equally uninterested in the economy:
    2009 Fundraising Report

    @Zalm: Flying off the shelves, and we're giving it away. Natural gas prices are forecast to be below threshold where government realizes any revenue from the new "net profit royalty" for years.

    This     article will combined with the data on natural gas prices forecast in table A6 of the 2011 budget should give you pause for thought.

  • realisticman

    1 year ago

    Ex NDPer Gary understands

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAesIW7qJew&feature=related

  • the real ODB

    1 year ago

    Francis

    Strip mining and clear cutting our environment doesn't "get it". All it "gets" is money for a few and a mess for the rest of us. And there's nothing "civil" about that type of society. Yes, the LIEberals get it: talk bullshit and the money walks.

  • Francis

    1 year ago

    the real ODB

    What is it you do for a living? How do you and your family support yourselves?

  • Fiat lux

    1 year ago

    There are hundreds of ways

    There are hundreds of ways to support ourselves without major environmental damage.

    For example small scale, energy efficient manufacturing, organic agriculture. I've been doing it all my working life, for over 60 years. So have been billions of people before the present criminal theory was invented, collectivizing the economies into the hands of corporate politbureaus

    When people finally realize that the junk imported from Asia is not "cheaper", but more expensive on the long run, we may see real economic development, instead of self destruction for imaginary monetary values.

    Once again: The sale of resources is not an income, but economic suicide.

    Ed Deak.

  • kootenay

    1 year ago

    6000 Forest Sector Jobs??

    The Liberals only need to create another 34,000 forestry jobs and we'll be right back to where we started before they screwed everything up.

    “More than 70 mills have closed across BC and over 40,000 forest sector jobs have been lost since the BC Liberal government came to office,” says Walker. “Over 1000 forest ministry jobs have been eliminated. Compliance and enforcement has been dramatically scaled back, while changes to legislation allow forest companies to effectively regulate themselves.

  • Fiat lux

    1 year ago

    Two people can make a good

    Two people can make a good living with a small mill from 50 loads of logs, per year, with relatively small energy inputs. I know some who do and buy my lumber from them.

    The large, overcapitalized, automated mills need 400 loads per worker, per year, requiring huge energy inputs, and the benefits go out of the communities to major investors and banks,because each worker's job requires 70 and more wage years of capitalization.

    And this waste and idiocy is called "economic efficiency" in warped "conservative" minds.

    This is how and why we have forced urbanization, poverty and foodbanks. But this racket increases the fraudulent GDP and "Growth" figures and that's all politicians and economists are interested in, to fool people with.

    Ed Deak.

  • Skywalker

    1 year ago

    My perception was ..

    ......that the NDP was just too timid. Period.

  • Fiat lux

    1 year ago

    How about some of those

    How about some of those great Maple Leaf mittens Made in China?

    Everybody should have a pair to show their joy over the wiping out of the borders and the fantastic economic benefits of globalization.

    I hope the pots in the Canadian soup kitchens and the containers at the food banks are also Made in China ? For the sake of utmost efficiency, of course, and may be replaced with Made in India products when the majority Harper government signs "free trade" deals with them. Also, hopefully with China, so we can enjoy the benefits of ultimate "economic efficiency" with goods and capital investment pouring in from communist/capitalist China, for the development of our new "resource based economy" and the "growth" of our real estate values.

    All for the sake, of "efficiency" of course.

    Ed Deak.

  • Lawrence

    1 year ago

    hiding debt

    The way I would present the difference between the way the NDP and the Soclibs handle the economy is to show the way the right wing governments hide their debt.

    This is how much debt wacky Bennett said they had and this is how much they really had.

    And this is how they hid it.

    Same with Vandershovel and so on untill the present day with the P3s

  • Fiat lux

    1 year ago

    With Wacky it wasn't debt,

    With Wacky it wasn't debt, but "contingent liability". That's why he fired a flaming arrow onto the raft to burn all the debt papers, which didn't work either.

    With today's Socreds it is P3s , which only cost three times of ordinary debts.

    Ed Deak.

  • Jerry Munro

    1 year ago

    Electoral Buzzword Noiseds....

    Signs of "some" modest struggling to come to grips with the real world finally... but still way too timid and preoccupied with "short term" vote getting as its real major preoccupation.

    Where is the issue of "democracy" being extended into the economy, challenging privileged power there?

    Where is challenging the bullshit notions of the neo-liberal "unfettered free markets", absent of both democracy and social responsibility and benefit?

    The NDP simply cannot let go of its fundamental loyalty to capitalism and the class that rules there. Which means it can talk the buzzwords of "sustainability" and "ecological responsibility" until the cows come home, and nothing will change. We should finally begin to be understanding this by now. For without challenging capitalism and its underlying assumptions of "wealth creation" etc.. the NDP and society remain plugged into the planet destroying "endless growth" in goods, services, consumption, population and prices paradigm... that is inseparable from "free market" capitalism. Of which we are still living through but only the latest economic collapse consequences of. To say nothing of the growing signs of ecological crises. And it only gets worse from here, on the system's endlessly repeating cyclical merry-go-round.

    My own view being, that at this point in time, the NDP is incapable of "seriously" moving in this direction, outside making electoral noises. It is, in fact, like much of what passes for the trade union movement, now inseparably integrated into status quo capitalism, being "business friendly", and the "endless growth" view of economics and politics. Which needs to finally be faced up to by the "serious Left" that still tends to frame itself within the limitations of this faction to the One Big Party of Capitalism.

    This new "serious Left", acting on its own, on the streets, amongst the broad working class in their work places, and yes, even likely in the institutions of what passes for bourgeois democracy, where it realistically can, in a new way, needs to build a separate and challenging "bottom up" democracy and power to the status quo, which includes the NDP... at least at this point in time and place.

    My view.

  • Jerry Munro

    1 year ago

    Mittens from China...

    "How about some of those great Maple Leaf mittens Made in China?
    Everybody should have a pair to show their joy over the wiping out of the borders and the fantastic economic benefits of globalization." Fait Lux.

    Your sense of truth and irony combined is still one of the best here, Ed. For which you obviously have a good mind's eye. lol

  • alive

    1 year ago

    Gordo's Mitts

    The sad part is that some people actually bought those red mittens!
    Maybe along with souveniers from Vancouver, ---- made in China?

  • Fiat lux

    1 year ago

    Jerry....Don't forget that

    Jerry....Don't forget that Hitler's nazis have fought WW2 for "Freedom, Christianity and Western Civilization"

    While the Western powers terror bombed European cities flat, killing literally millions of civilians, because they couldn't hit military targets, for " Democracy, freedom,.....etc BS"

    After you've lived under every ideology and religion, words somehow lose their importance .

    Especially when uttered by politicians and priesthoods, like today's Monetary Priesthood of economists, spreading the same BS ruling classes have been for the past million years. Or was it 7,000 if you're among the faithful ????????

    Ed Deak.

  • John Corman

    1 year ago

    Grapeman - Did you read your link

    I'm surprised that you would be linking such an NDP unfriendly report as the BC Checkup. They're advocating low income tax rates, personal and corporate, and staying with consumption taxes.
    In the first BC Checkup in 1999 they reported on 1998 as follows:
    "It is worth noting that B.C. recorded a net loss of 21,000 people to other provinces in 1998. Indeed, with strong growth and lower taxes in other provinces, some commentators have referred to a provincial brain-drain."
    "Compared to Ontario, Alberta, and the Canadian average, B.C. is last in real GDP per capita for the period 1992-1997."

  • Cool Hand

    1 year ago

    John Corman

    Quote:
    In the first BC Checkup in 1999 they reported on 1998 as follows:
    "It is worth noting that B.C. recorded a net loss of 21,000 people to other provinces in 1998. Indeed, with strong growth and lower taxes in other provinces, some commentators have referred to a provincial brain-drain."

    A very memorable and fun time. NOT! But don't blurt it out too loud around here. NDP leadership candidates are now involved in their won revisionist history as well:

    Quote:
    "90s Legacy Should Be Selling Point For NDP".

    Too funny.

    BTW, some people here may also say that StatsCan is also part of a conspiracy - but it's still worth noting that StatsCan has it bang-on:

    Quote:
    The 1990s – BC's Lost Decade

    http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-010-x/00506/9196-eng.htm

  • Frank

    1 year ago

    Luke

    You've posted that link 13 times on the Tyee and I've shot it down 12 times.

    Shall we dance again or are you going to disappear when challenged as usual?

  • RickW

    1 year ago

    Zalm

    Quote:
    the atrocious memory of a useless Fourth Estate that had a long memory for NDP mistakes but none at all for Fiberal malfeasance

    You mean, like this:
    http://www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver_island_south/saanichnews/opinion/119283359.html

  • pwlg

    1 year ago

    Is our house in order?

    The Liberals sold future rights to drill for oil and gas in NE BC and obtained billions of dollars in the process. It was these dollars that were used to prop up a red ink government over the last two elections. The problem is these dollars should have been placed in a trust account for future generations as the money from future rights to oil and gas in BC are the monies needed to finance the social needs of future generations.

    Then there's the massive corporate tax cuts over the years without any condition placed on those cuts to increase capital spending on renewing our productive industries. Rather the Liberals allowed companies to make profit and use those profits to purchase and grow their corporations outside of BC and outside of Canada.

    In France, the socialist party has come forward with a platform to claw back all corporate tax cuts and place conditions on any new tax cuts to corporations based on their reinvestments into the French economy. So if Dix and others in the NDP have any left bone in their bodies and haven't yet graduated from the Tony Blair School of Neo-Liberalism they will look at placing conditions on any corporate tax breaks and base any tax cuts or breaks on reinvestment into BC's economy.

    Deak in a previous post here mentions "economic efficiency" and this is where the left has fallen down on not embracing this concept. Efficiency does not necessarily have to mean less social services like health and education, it could really mean more if we make the current public system more efficient. Efficiency does not mean public private partnerships where profit taking is added to the cost of providing the service or the public infrastructure.

    Shouldn't our economy serve human needs and not private profit?

    The next thing that has to be fixed is the way we spend on public projects. What if we actually required the same conditions of government that is placed on us by the lenders when we wish to borrow funds to finance our business or homes?

    It is our money governments spend. Shouldn't we have some say about how it is spent? Was putting a new roof on the provincial treasury sucking BC Place Stadium the best use of public money? Since 1986 the public has paid off the white elephant's construction costs but also subsidized heavily in its operating costs. Was a new roof our most pressing need for public funds?

    And why are we spending public funds for transportation infrastructure that benefits offshore producers of consumer goods to deliver those goods to North American markets? Why isn't a fee placed on every container entering and leaving the ports in the Vancouver region like there is for Los Angeles ports?

    In LA their new transportation infrastructure serving the ports there is financed through a $20 a container surcharge.

  • pwlg

    1 year ago

    If you think deregulation and financialization is good

    Two very distinct economic periods, one in which there were controls on capital and financialization and the other where controls were negligible or non-existent (deregulation).

    In Canada, the first period, 1955-1975, the "control" period, saw GDP on average increase by 2.86% annually.

    The second period, in Canada, from 1985-2005, the deregulated period and heavy financialization period, saw GDP on average increase by only 2.1% annually.

    So why are we being constantly told that a deregulated and phony "free" market is best when it is clear that controls on both capital and financialization seem to have been better for the overall economy.

    In the US, the same two periods indicate a similar outcome. The first period, 1955-75, saw the US GDP rise on average by 2.16% annually, whereas the second period, 1985-2005, saw GDP in the US on average rise by only 1.96%.

    This fact must mean something to the neo-cons and neo-libs and should raise concerns amongst the general population that see prices rising exponentially faster than wage increases or spending power and governments growing deeper and deeper into debt.

    Just who is benefiting from the current capital system if overall in the last 20 odd years economic growth has declined in North America during the Greenspan Friedman period.

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