Christy Clark Puts Job Numbers to Work

As she marked her anniversary of becoming premier of British Columbia, Christy Clark highlighted the number of jobs that have been created on her watch.

"When I was sworn in I talked about some very specific things that I want to accomplish that brought me back into politics, and we are getting there," Clark told reporters in her office March 14.

"This number of 39,900 jobs, net new jobs, having been created in British Columbia since I took on the premier's job is evidence that we are getting to where we want to go," she said.

Clark ran to lead the BC Liberal Party on a "families first" platform, which since her selection she has connected to a job creation agenda. As she put it today, "The best way to support families is to enable them to get private sector jobs."

A centrepiece of that jobs agenda was the B.C. Jobs Plan that Clark released in Sept. 2011. A look at employment figures for the past year, however, suggest the plan's effect may be overstated.

Plan 'delivering results': jobs ministry

Clark released the B.C. Jobs Plan through a series of announcements over five days in different parts of the province.

It began with an event in Prince Rupert to announce port improvements and proposed liquid natural gas plants, and included plans to promote particular sectors, bring in more international students, open more mines and accelerate approvals for permits to exploit natural resources.

Last week a jobs, tourism and innovation ministry press release reacting to Statistics Canada labour force data claimed success for the plan: "BC Jobs Plan Delivering Results: Nearly 40,000 Net New Jobs Added to BC Economy."

This week, Clark released a 36-page progress report on the jobs plan, again suggesting job growth in the province was connected to the plan. In a tweet she wrote, "BC Jobs Plan 6 Month Update: Permit backlogs reduced, mines open & 39,900 net new jobs added to the econ this past yr."

And the report itself highlighted that the province had gained 39,900 net new jobs in the past 12 months.

It might seem odd that a report on a six-month old plan would draw on 12 months of statistics, until one takes a closer look at those figures.

Grey Cup government?

According to Statistics Canada seasonally-adjusted labour force statistics, as compiled by BC Stats, the province did gain 39,900 jobs between Feb. 2011 and Feb. 2012.

But in the six months since Clark announced her jobs plan, B.C. gained just 2,000 jobs, using seasonally adjusted figures. In the first half of the year, before Clark's jobs push, the province had already gained 37,900.

And since employment is generally stronger in the summer, the picture becomes worse if one considers actual employment numbers. While there were 2,304,200 working in the province in Sept. 2011, that dropped to 2,270,800 in Feb. 2012.

In real numbers there were 33,400 fewer people working in the province in February than there had been when Clark launched the plan in September.

It's worth noting that there are roughly the same number of people working in the province as there were in 2008. There was a big dip in 2009 at the start of the financial crisis, and the numbers have been climbing since.

NDP Finance critic Bruce Ralston questioned Clark's manipulation of employment figures. "I think what she's trying to do is roll back a couple years from the bottom of the recession and claim at least part of those as job growth due to the plan," he said. "That just isn't true."

It doesn't make sense to claim retroactive success for the plan, he said. "When jobs go up the premier claims credit. When jobs go down it's all due to world economic pressures," he said. "It's like [Jobs Minister] Pat Bell taking credit for the [B.C.] Lions winning the Grey Cup, but not for the [Vancouver] Canucks losing on Saturday night. They take credit for the up side, but don't own the down side."

Manipulation unfair to voters: Dix

New Democratic Party Leader Adrian Dix criticized Premier Christy Clark for manipulating employment figures for her own political purposes, suggesting that kind of move leads to voter cynicism.

"This is the problem when you have a communications exercise that's dressed up as a jobs plan," Dix said. "It isn't that the premier isn't a good communicator, but that what she's communicating is not consistent with the facts."

Dix said Clark was exaggerating the effect of the jobs plan. "You take a point and try to create an illusion that doesn't exist," he said. "I would suggest to the premier: fewer photo-ops, more substance."

People have had enough of that kind of manipulation, and it's a big part of the problems the government's been having, he said.

Recent polls have given Dix and the NDP a solid lead over Clark and the Liberals. An Angus Reid public opinion poll in February, for example, found that if the election scheduled for May 2013 were held today, 42 per cent would support the NDP, 28 per cent the Liberals, 19 per cent the Conservatives and 10 per cent the Greens.

Asked today about how the BC Liberals have dropped in the polls over the past year, Clark said, "I never thought it would be easy. I always knew this was a tough challenge to take on."

Then she blamed former premier Gordon Campbell. "My predecessor didn't leave on a high note, that's for sure," she said. "This has been a tough job, no question about it."

The election is still 14 months away, Clark reminded reporters, saying she plans to stay focused on the goals she said she would accomplish. If she does that, she said, people will have her record as premier in mind when they go into the voting booths.