Topic
BC's premier talks to The Tyee about wrestling the deficit, revolving aides, anti-smoking policies and more.
Christy Clark: BC is one of only two provinces still committed to balancing budget, says premier. 'It's really, really hard.'
But can she pass on the right as polls show NDP still well ahead of BC's political traffic?
Guaranteeing a 'united' Liberal party, she eyes Gordon Campbell's riding. 'We'll beat her,' vows NDP's Dix.
French government strikes controversial varenicline off its list as Premier Clark puts it on PharmaCare's.
British Columbia Premier Christy Clark has heard the criticism that she's been in campaign mode since winning the leadership of the BC Liberal Party in early 2011, and she strongly disagrees.
For the last year and a half, she and the government have been actively governing to deliver on the economic agenda set out in the BC Jobs Plan, she said. "It's a Herculean task."
The plan included constructing three liquid natural gas plants by 2020 and building or expanding 17 mines, a goal the province is already halfway to reaching, she said. In the past year trade with China has gone up 25 per cent, she said.
"It doesn't happen by itself," said Clark. The government doesn't create jobs, but it does create the conditions that allow them to be created, she said.
Clark campaigned for the party leadership as the person best able to give the Liberals a fresh start. After winning, she bucked predictions she'd capitalize on that freshness by getting rid of the HST in a hurry and calling a snap election.
Does she have any regrets? "You don't get everything perfect," she acknowledged. "Think about the decisions you made in the last year. Did you get everything right? I don't think so."
The Tyee sat down with Clark this week to talk about topics that included the most recent round of hiring for her office, penny pinching in tough times, what she buys at the drug store and why it's harder than it looks to get everyone in the legislature to work together. The interview has been edited and condensed.
The Tyee: Last year you made a couple high-profile hires in your office from the federal Conservatives, but the most recent [Ben Chin, who worked for Liberal Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty] has strong Liberal connections. I'm wondering what people should take from the shift?
Christy Clark: "Nothing. I hired the best people that we can find to do the jobs."
Tyee: And political affiliation doesn't come into it?
Clark: "Well, we try not to hire people who are affiliated with our opponents directly, but only because they might be advocating for higher taxes."
Tyee: When you hired Ken Boessenkool and Sara MacIntyre it sent a message at a time when the Conservatives were doing well in the polls. Now that they're not doing well, you've hired Ben Chin, who has Liberal connections. Surely there's a difference there.
Clark: "No."
Tyee: It's a coincidence?
Clark: "Yes. Ben Chin also used to work for CBC. Do you see a connection there?"
Tyee: The other piece of that, people have observed the government at large is in the middle of a hiring freeze, and yet it was possible to hire three people into your office.
Clark: "Well, the office hasn't grown, we're still on a pay freeze, and I think if I didn't have a director of communications you would be complaining and I would hate that, because I like to keep you guys happy."
Tyee: In your recent speech to the Tri-Cities Chamber of Commerce you said the way out of a deficit is the same way into it, $10,000 at a time. Does that not put everything you do under scrutiny, such as the $1.5 million for family day or $64 million for government advertising?
Clark: "Well we budgeted for all those other things in the last budget, as you know, including the ads. We are looking at everything through the coming year to balance our budget and we're being really scrupulous about that, because I think people expect us to deliver a balanced budget.
"I think we are spending our money on the right things and you'll see in the budget when it comes out where we've decided to spend it for the coming year. It is difficult to balance a budget. There are only two provinces in the country that remain committed to balancing our budgets. That's us and Saskatchewan, the only two.
"You know why there are only two? Because it's hard. It's really, really hard. Anyone who's tried to balance their family budget knows that from their own personal experience. It's more money, but it's not a whole different process. You need to figure out what you're going to do and what you're not going to do."
Tyee: Recently I read something that said B.C. will soon be the last province where pharmacies are allowed to sell tobacco. You'd made anti-smoking a big thing in your leadership run as well as since becoming premier, so why haven't you stopped pharmacies from selling cigarettes?
Clark: "The smoking cessation program that we started, that I started, that our government started I should say, has been a phenomenal success. If you want I can get you some of the specific numbers on how well it has worked to get people to quit smoking. It has been great. In terms of selling cigarettes, we sell them in corner stores too."
Tyee: I think the way other provinces have looked at it is that pharmacies in some ways are part of the health business. They sell things like prescription drugs which are supposed to help people get or stay healthy, and selling cigarettes seems like a contradiction.
Clark: "When I go to my local drug store, you know what I buy? I buy bananas, toilet paper, laundry detergent, mascara. Most of the time when I go to my local drug store, I'm not buying drugs. It's a convenience store."
Tyee: But those aren't things you've had a targeted campaign against like you have against smoking.
Clark: "I think we should be focussed as a government in our smoking cessation efforts not on the symbolic things but on the things that are really going to make a difference."
Tyee: So not selling cigarettes at pharmacies is a symbolic thing?
Clark: "It is. They sell drugs at Costco. Is that a pharmacy? They sell drugs in all kinds of locations. Walmart I think has pharmacies now. I'm kind of curious what the definition of pharmacy is now ... You know what I go into London Drugs to buy? Electronics. Are they a drug store or are they an electronics store?"
Tyee: I'm sure other provinces have found a way to deal with that...
Clark: "Many other provinces that did this did it, some of them, over a decade ago now, before the line between a department store, an electronics store, a drug store became so blurred. I think there are other things we can do to encourage smokers to quit, that would make a meaningful difference for smokers to quit, but I don't think that's one of them."
Tyee: I have a detail question for you. Gordon Campbell while he was premier claimed on his conflict of interest disclosure statement a stipend from the BC Liberal Party, and you do as well. I'm wondering how much it is and what the rationale for it is?
Clark: "I don't know. Doesn't it say in the thing?"
Tyee: No, I think you probably tell the Conflict of Interest Commissioner the amount, but what gets reported publicly does not have an amount.
Clark: "It's a car allowance."
Tyee: Why? I'm wondering what the rationale is.
Clark: "I do a lot of driving. I do a lot of driving for party events and those kinds of things."
Tyee: Campbell's former chief of staff Martyn Brown in his book was talking about ways to get the different parties to co-operate more. You came in talking about doing that kind of thing, and I think of the pesticide bylaw as one where you said very explicitly the parties could co-operate and make it happen. Obviously it didn't happen. I'm wondering what lessons you drew from that, or that the public might draw from that.
Clark: "It's a harder task trying to change political culture than I think many of us hoped it would be. I think the closer you get to an election the harder it becomes even again. Should we be re-elected, and I hope we are, we'll have a chance to really redouble our efforts in that when we're farther away from an election. The best time to try and change a political culture is when the election is right behind you, as opposed to right in front of you. I think we'll have another chance. I'm still committed to that. I think there a lot of things we can do to change the way our legislature functions. I know Martyn had 10 years to work on it."
Tyee: The pesticide bylaw? It seems to me it was members of your party on the committee that recommended against it.
Clark: "Yeah, it's still something I would like to make sure sees the light of day."
Tyee: Will there be time before the election?
Clark: "Perhaps."
Tomorrow: BC NDP leader Adrian Dix, interviewed by The Tyee's Legislative Bureau Chief Andrew MacLeod. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
Read more: Politics, BC Election 2013
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G West
22 weeks ago
The thought...
The thought that Christy Clark would suggest that she has any interest in changing the political 'culture' of this province is risible.
Christy Clark has, seemingly from the moment of her political awakening, been entirely infused with a thoroughgoing one-sidedness that prevents her from ever admitting that anything the other party in this province might do or say could be anything but base and counterfeit.
She can no more admit that her political opponents might, from time to time, have a good idea or that an NDP policy might have done something positive for families while her own government has been a positive failure at addressing issues like child poverty and the well-being of children in care.
Either that, or Ms Clark is as unsure of what 'political culture' actually is as she is apparently incapable of understanding how she has utterly failed to appreciate why her party (and her own electoral fortune) is in its current state of deshabille.
daveyup
22 weeks ago
this says it all
she says "I think we are spending our money on the right things"
So she thinks spending 64 million on advertising is the right thing to spend our tax dollars on, that pretty much tells us where her priorities are!
Skywalker
22 weeks ago
Right daveyup...
...and that she cancelled the fall sitting to avoid facing up to the mess she's made has nothing to do with being in election mode.
GuyinVic
22 weeks ago
The Budget ?
Here's how a person leading a Province summarizes the budget process: " "You know why there are only two? Because it's hard. It's really, really hard. Anyone who's tried to balance their family budget knows that from their own personal experience."
And to prove her point she talks about her "personal" finances:
" Tyee: I have a detail question for you. Gordon Campbell while he was premier claimed on his conflict of interest disclosure statement a stipend from the BC Liberal Party, and you do as well. I'm wondering how much it is and what the rationale for it is?
Clark: "I don't know. Doesn't it say in the thing?"
Doesn't this scare you ?
Hakuin
22 weeks ago
Save it for the judge,
Clark.
Skywalker
22 weeks ago
Each time I read her responses...
...the scarier it gets. "You balanced the budget $10,000 at a time" but $64 million is budgeted for propaganda and it is sacred?
Fritz
22 weeks ago
Can She 'Balance' Without Knowing Expenses?
Tyee: wondering how much is the stipend...
Clark: I don't know....It's a car allowance...I do a lot of driving. I do a lot of driving for party events and those KINDS OF THINGS."
The Premiere had bigger fish to fry:
Premier Clark's staff changes cost $2.4 million in severance and this is for "STAFF" http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/BC-Politics/2011/04/28/ClarkSever/
Records from the Office of the Comptroller General show the Clark's office charged $475,000 in expenses to credit cards during the 2011/12 fiscal year.
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/08/02/christy-clark-credit-card-bill_n_1733237.html
The charges also include a large number of travel expenses with airlines, hotels, plus office supplies, and more than $100,000 from communications companies Rogers and Telus.
What 'Kinds of Things'
Charges under Clark's tenure include several tabs for thousands of dollars at various top restaurants, such as $3,267.66 at Ferris Oyster Bar in Victoria and $2,279 at Bishops in Vancouver.
The $64 million Ad Balanced over time:
Clark: "You balanced the budget $10,000 at a time":
$64 Million ÷ $10,000 = 64 thousand times.
Sine Nomine
22 weeks ago
I'm really NOT paranoid
Our leadership is truly incompetent. I can't believe she said that about balancing a budget. I balance mine, and I balance other companies' for a living. It's not hard at all for well run companies, but that's the difference...
Fritz
22 weeks ago
Can She 'Balance' Correction
Should read: 6,400 times
igbymac
22 weeks ago
And these are the public thoughts of the top office
...and Dix's will be marginally, but not substantively better, tomorrow.
At least we have a choice though, right, folks. hahahahahaha
Van Isle
22 weeks ago
Yer right igbymac; we've got
Yer right igbymac; we've got a choice between twiddly-dee and twiddly-dumb. And she's the Premier? I'm not religious, but; 'God give me strength'.
Bob Watts
22 weeks ago
I balance the Budget.
I am Disabled and I balance the budget by starving.
Clarks tips alone are more than I get for a month.
We need to charge taxes at a pre-Campbell level to get out of debt.
Imagine a Chinese company only making $10 billion rather than $11 billion poor babies may run away. Get real Clark, dipstick!
fleming65
22 weeks ago
What we missed in Fall session
By simply cancelling the fall sitting British Columbians never got a chance to ask or question our ruling party the following
If its jobs you are creating why the foreign workers
if its jobs you want why no real money for job training
What is your opinion on FLIPP
Why do you let the federal government over rule our constitutional rights without a court challenge.
where do you really stand on Northern Gateway
Where will the electricity come from to power your LNG plants
probably twenty more questions to ask but that would be too hard for you to actually sit in the legislature and answer with any amount of intelligence.
Good luck in your new job???
Bleupaon
22 weeks ago
" It's a Herculean task.
" It's a Herculean task. "
Who wrote her answers; Christy doesn't know any big words.
igbymac
22 weeks ago
Bob Watts
There is no getting out of debt under our economic model. It is impossible. The debt is the an accounting of the money stock, and there is also interest accruing on top of that.
Our currency is issued as debt immediately, and created on command at the whims of the state and its collusive partners, the banks. It is all imaginary. It 'works' only because people have faith in it, but when the faith dies, so does the ruse.
The 'faith based' monetary wave is about to break, but until such time the state 'enterprise' will keep stealing as much as it can from the people.
And anyone familiar with the Iran-Contra affair will appreciate why I quote/unquote the word enterprise. :)
Cheers
Aim Higher
22 weeks ago
Huge Task
The Herculean task for for the Not premier is to haul around her bloated sense of self importance,that rock filled head and that massive arse.
Graham Elder.
freewilly
22 weeks ago
suitable employment
"Good luck in your new job???"
Im hoping she's back on CKNW after the next election. She seemed comfortable in that position, and while I could never agree with her politics, I genuinely like her.
Its a good fit!
There is something sad about this upcoming election. SHe was never 'really' elected, neither was Rita Johnson or Ujal Dosangh and those Premiers never won the subsequent elections. DO they ever?
She trys hard, just not politician material. Just an extreme wannabe with an amazing amount drive and ambition, but not much else.
wcullen
22 weeks ago
Poor Christy
Christy Clarke "...it's hard. It's really, really hard..."
Lewis Black: "You know why we don’t have [a balanced budget]?...If you ask your [premier] why, [s]he’ll say “Because it’s hard. It’s really hard. Makes me want to go poopie."
Okay, not exactly...but, y'know...
PS: CC...it appears others are 'wondering' about BC too: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/alarm-sounded-on-bc-debt/article6295037/
lynnescape
22 weeks ago
Why I Can't Support Christie Clark
Ecologically, Clark has serious shortcomings. She doesn't listen to British Columbians. She says we'll accept the pipeline 'with conditions'. One of those conditions is that Alberta share the wealth. Hello. We don't want Alberta's dirty oil money. We don't want to be the Carbon Corridor for Canada. We don't want our pristine coast destroyed by an oil spill. We don't want eight new mines, especially mines in sensitive areas like in the heart of the watershed for the people who live one the edge of Baynes Sound. We don't want gas fracking, or LNG plants. Christie fails to realize that our ecosystems are our greatest treasure, that we can learn to live without oil, but not without water. How about a seven generation plan instead of a four year plan? I recently visited Denmark. Yes they have high taxes, but what an amazing quality of life they have. Why can't we aspire to be more like them? I want to live in a truly democratic place where people take care of the ecosystems and each other. It is short sighted to do anything else.
catchingupagain
22 weeks ago
24% on smoking? What sort of rag is this?
Of the 42 'paragraphs' in this article 10 of them are in reference to smoking.
Does smoking really deserve 24% of our attention?
She signed on the Red Cross for BC disaster relief a week before Hurricane Sandy, and how abysmally little the RC did for New Yorkers in the first days and weeks(almost nada) How much does the RC cost us (while neglecting to build our own disaster relief capacity)?!
Why not talk about the loss of public phones?
In EU countries, while so many of the other public goods were dismantled by privatization 3rd Way neoliberal policies, they at least had the good sense to oblige major telecommunication providers to maintain the hardwire public telephones which service tourists, those without cell phones, and the public writ large during power failures.
So many public purpose issues of capital missalocation: why not stall investment in sewage treatment until we've seen a decade of tanker traffic without devastating spills and contamination?
The Colwood crawl vs the Blue bridge...
BCHyro subsidization (by public fees) of electric for natural gas, BCFerries CEO overpay, hospital parking fees, childcare... so many issues which affect most every citizen...and the Tyee reporter fags on about smoking?
I'm glad there were some substantive comments as consolation to the article!
puppyg
22 weeks ago
Herculean? If BC falls into
Herculean?
If BC falls into fiscal ruination, it is only because Christy Clark is not a god. She's not.
Praise her. Smite the naysayers. Smite them now.
sunshine coast girl
22 weeks ago
@ Bleupaon
Yes she does....she said "prognosticating" in the newspaper today, lol....
Hakuin
22 weeks ago
Of course it's Herculean Pup
The Socredlieberals are involved so by definition it's Augean.
mary jane
22 weeks ago
picking on the poor
\The libs have hurt kids, the poor, the disabled and seniors. Why not pick on these people they are forced to use most of their time just trying to survive.
Well Crispy why not just quit before you waste any more $$.m
You could fix the budget by taxing big business nd it wouldn't take long.
zalm
22 weeks ago
Good work, Tyee
Getting Ms. Christy to come to the table with such hilarious bon mots as:
"Clark: "Well, the office hasn't grown, we're still on a pay freeze, and I think if I didn't have a director of communications you would be complaining and I would hate that, because I like to keep you guys happy."
The media only complains when Christy doesn't say anything substantive. Which is all the time. And gum-chewing Sarah didn't help her say anything substantive either. I'm not optimistic about Ben either - his CBC days were completely forgettable.
"Clark: "I think we should be focussed as a government in our smoking cessation efforts not on the symbolic things but on the things that are really going to make a difference."
Unlike the pablum served up for "anti-bullying" programs, Northern Gateway indecision, judicial reform, RCMP contracts, local governance, native treaty settlements, and a host of other issues that she has issued only symbolic statements on without one whit of serious discussion, evaluation or compromise.
It's a wonder she can listen to herself without vomiting. I really like that word of G West's - risible. It's got that ring to it - one that leads straight through MS. Christy's nose....
"Tyee: Will there be time before the election?
Clark: "Perhaps."
Not if you don't call the Ledge back into session there won't, you half-wit!
Hadteck
21 weeks ago
People with Disabilities
Did you hear that a lot of cities are letting the liberals know that People with Disabilities are living below the poverty line.
http://www.vernonmorningstar.com/news/183428621.html#storyComments
http://www.facebook.com/pages/BC-Coalition-of-People-with-Disabilities/163970939101
cghzd
21 weeks ago
really really hard
"You know why there are only two? Because it's hard. It's really, really hard. Anyone who's tried to balance their family budget knows that from their own personal experience. It's more money, but it's not a whole different process. You need to figure out what you're going to do and what you're not going to do."
Christy Cluck is sticking the BC tax payer with something "REALLY REALLY HARD" and the hope is that the morons that voted for her will feel it the most.