Opinion

BC's Bizarre Fiscal Plan

The government seems to be jamming its feet on both the brake pedal and accelerator.

By Will McMartin, 2 Sep 2009, TheTyee.ca

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Finance Minister Hansen: One of Keynes's 'deadheads'?

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"One man's expenditure is another man's income."

So wrote John Maynard Keynes in May 1932. The world was in the depths of the Great Depression. Millions of people had lost their jobs and were unemployed, thousands of businesses had shuttered their doors, and governments in every jurisdiction were slashing expenditures, vainly attempting to balance their budgets.

Astutely, Keynes -- an English economist (who last year was named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Important People of the 20th Century) -- observed that the downturn had exposed "the disharmony of general and particular interest."

That is, while countless families and companies found it in their own "particular interest" to slash spending -- and often they had no choice in the matter -- the inevitable result of such action on the wider scale was a severe decline in overall economic activity, and considerable harm to society's "general interest."

"An individual may be forced by his private circumstances to curtail his normal expenditure, and no one can blame him," Keynes wrote. "But let no one suppose that he is performing a public duty in behaving in such a way."

It seems perverse but it is true: society as a whole may suffer when individuals and businesses make common-sense decisions regarding their own personal or company finances.

Keynes is common sense nowadays

Yet, Keynes saw a way out of the economic morass in which the world found itself in the 1930s. It required the public-sector -- governments -- to borrow and spend vast sums of money to offset the private sector's reduced outlays. After all, governments borrowed and spent freely in times of war; why not do the same in peace time to combat an economic collapse?

Largely ignored by politicians 77 years ago -- the Great Depression came to an end only with massive government borrowing to finance the Second World War -- Keynes's economic nostrums became received wisdom in the post-war period among economists, policy-makers and office-holders.

Indeed, the phrase, "We're all Keynesians now," has been attributed to both Milton Friedman (in 1965) and Richard Nixon (in 1971), neither of whom could be described as a fan of 'big government.'

And last year, as the global recession of 2008 provided an economic shock described by many as the worst since the Great Depression, the International Monetary Fund recommended that countries should provide fiscal stimulus equal to two percent of domestic GDP.

Most industrialized nations have done so, including Canada, where the federal government's most recent budget unveiled deficits of $33.7 billion and $29.8 billion in 2009/10 and 2010/11 respectively, to help the country avoid the worst effects of the global downturn.

Those budgetary shortfalls, explained Stephen Harper's Conservative government, represented "a strong consensus among Canadians that the Government must deliver a potent economic stimulus to encourage growth and restore confidence in our economy."

A lot to defend

And so, with Keynes in mind, let us turn to British Columbia, and the revised 2009/10 budget introduced today by B.C. Liberal finance minister Colin Hansen.

The lead-up to the budget saw a series of news leaks that were disquieting, to say the least. Funding for public libraries has been dramatically cut, and regional literacy coordinators terminated.

The Premier's Excellence Awards, which each year provided about $240,000 in scholarship funds to deserving high school students, have been abolished. So, too, has the Livesmart BC energy conservation program.

And B.C.'s six health authorities, facing shortfalls of about $360 million in provincial funding, have responded by slashing a variety of services. The Fraser Health Authority, for one, will eliminate as many as 9,000 elective surgeries.

How would Hansen, who just two years ago voted to give himself and other legislators a massive pay hike -- and who, personally, got a 27 percent raise of over $33,000 annually -- defend slashing government expenditures in a time of economic recession?

Killing incomes

"Cutting funding is never easy," the finance minister said today, "but... we can never afford to do everything we want."

Of course. As a consequence, discretionary grants to organizations and agencies doing a variety of work in B.C. communities, already chopped by $58 million in last February's budget, were further whacked today by another $296 million. And professional services to the government, which endured a $177 million reduction six months ago, lost a further $48 million.

All told, Hansen's September update shows that administrative and discretionary expenditures will be $650 million lower this year, compared to the preceding fiscal period.

And that's not all. Where in February Hansen sought to find a total of $1.87 billion in 'savings' over a three-year period (between the current fiscal year and 2011/12), he now wants to slash an additional $1.5 billion in the same areas over the same time-frame.

The new, improved three-year total of spending reductions to grants and administration: $3.367 billion.

To be sure, some of those "savings" already have been re-allocated toward unexpected cost pressures, such as forest-fire fighting and "sustaining social services." But, still, the net reduction in expenditure is expected to total over $2 billion in just three years.

As Keynes said, one man's expenditure -- in this case, Hansen's (actually, the government's) -- is another man's income. And with those expenditures dramatically slashed, how many incomes in community literacy programs, public libraries, health care or any number of areas that rely on provincial funding, have been lost?

Jobless numbers almost doubled

Interestingly, the reams of fiscal and budgetary materials released today failed to acknowledge the growing number of British Columbians who have lost their jobs in recent months. But according to B.C. Stats, from July 2008 to July 2009, the ranks of the unemployed nearly doubled, growing from 119,000 to an even 200,000.

And while the rate of job losses has slowed slightly in recent weeks, even the Campbell government expects unemployment to continue to rise, up to 8.3 percent of the total labour force in 2010.

It's somewhat surprising, therefore, that Hansen today said he intends to add to the unemployment rolls by downsizing the public service. According to his fiscal plan, where the number of FTEs (full-time equivalent employees) currently stands at 31,874, by 2011/12 it will have been trimmed by more than a thousand positions, to 30,791.

Of course, those numbers do not include the hundreds, and probably thousands, of workers across the public-sector who already have lost, or soon will lose, their jobs as a result of cuts to provincial grant programs.

Squeezing more money out of the public

And that's not all. In addition to cutting expenditures and putting people out of work, the Campbell government's revised fiscal plan for 2009/10 outlines several measures by which Victoria will squeeze ever more money out of beleaguered British Columbians.

Beginning next January, Medical Service Plan premiums will be boosted by six percent annually, so as to provide Victoria with an extra $300-400 million over the next three years.

The new Harmonized Sales Tax will have an admittedly deleterious impact on B.C. consumers, but, strangely, the government —- which boasts that businesses will 'save' at least $1.9 billion annually —- does not know (or refuses to disclose) either the annual cost to the average British Columbian, or the yearly aggregate cost to all of us.

However, today's fiscal plan (on page 98) openly admits that the HST, which comes into effect on July 1, 2010, "will likely cause a slight increase in the inflation rate in the second half of 2010 and the first half of 2011."

The HST, in other words, will spark an immediate rise in consumer prices.

Finally, B.C.'s Crown corporations are taking an ever-increasing amount of money out of provincial residents' pockets. (Remember, under GAAP —- generally accepted accounting principles -— Crown corp profits flow directly to Victoria's bottom-line and help the government to 'balance' its books.)

ICBC, which last year had a profit of $512 million, this year will have net income totalling $407 million. BC Hydro's profits are expected to climb from $366 million to $452 over the same two-year period. And the BC Lottery Corporation is expected to contribute $1.1 billion-plus annually to the provincial treasury.

Some praiseworthy policies

To be fair, Hansen's latest fiscal plan also contains praise-worthy measures to boost the provincial economy. One is an increase in the personal income tax credit (at a cost to Victoria of $173 million in a full-fiscal year), and another is a hike in the small business corporate income tax rate threshold (at a full-year cost of $20 million).

Plus, capital spending on infrastructure is booming: Victoria's expenditures in the current fiscal period, originally pegged at $6.9 billion in February, have been hiked to $7.4 billion. (Although, under GAAP, just a fraction of capital outlays are counted toward the annual budgetary surplus or deficit.)

But this only contributes to the mystifying nature of Hansen's fiscal update. The Campbell government clearly understands that fiscal and economic stimulus is a good and necessary thing during the current economic downturn. And, yet, the BC Liberals also appear to have a perverse obsession about cutting government spending -— no matter the cost to British Columbia's "general interest."

Moreover, it's not as if British Columbia's public-spending is out of control. Indeed, from 1991/92 to 2007/08, Victoria’s annual outlays as a percentage of gross domestic product have fallen from 20.9 percent to just 15.9 percent.

(And far from being a "fiscal tsunami" that threatens to overwhelm all other provincial spending, health expenditures have remained relatively constant over the past three decades.)

In a word, today's fiscal plan is bizarre, as the government (metaphorically speaking) seems to be jamming down its feet on both the brake-pedal and the accelerator —- simultaneously.

Hansen a 'deadhead'?

"I predict," wrote Lord Keynes in 1932, "that the only way out [of the economic depression] is for us to discover some object which is admitted even by the deadheads to be a legitimate excuse for largely increasing the expenditure of someone on something!"

He added: "The voices which -- in such a conjuncture -- tell us that the path of escape is to be found in strict economy and in refraining, wherever possible, from utilizing the world's potential production are the voices of fools and madmen."

Are the BC Liberals 'deadheads,' 'fools' or 'madmen'? Keynes' words seem harsh, but how else to explain the Campbell government's spending cuts at the depth of an economic downturn?

Sooner or later, British Columbia will exit the current recession, but who knows how much faster the recovery would have occurred had Gordon Campbell and Colin Hansen acknowledged the simple wisdom of Keynes's observation three-quarters of a century ago: One man's expenditure, indeed, is another man's income. [Tyee]

Veteran political analyst Will McMartin is a Tyee contributing editor.

51 Comments:

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  • Camero409

    2 years ago

    Bizarre Government

    From this article and from past experience with this governments legislation and tenure, they clearly have no direction, no clear idea of which way to go. They should all voluntarily resign and we should have another election so we can finally rid ourselves of this totally incompetent group of so called "LIbERalS".

    They are clearly driving the vehicle of government without hands on the wheel. Please, Gordo, Hansen and the rest of the incompetents, resign and give us another chance to right the ship.

  • crh

    2 years ago

    PAB funding?

    What has happened to the PAB rats in the basement of the leg? This is the first place to start cutting costs!

  • moodyguy

    2 years ago

    Too Kind

    Will, good job on this but in this article you are actually too kind to this gov't.

    They might be incompetent but they are consistent in that they put us into a what is likely to structural deficit eight years ago when, through the reduction in income tax, they made us reliant on resource revenue which fortunately appeared due to a worldwide commodity and housing boom. The boom has ended. Therefore, while we are in a downturn, the effects of the downturn on BC's finances are a result of terrible public policy decisions made in the past. This government seems unable to learn or to understand what they are doing.

    Unfortunately, they do not appear to understand Keynes or basic economics but rather are hell bent on shrinking government, regardless of the cost in terms of the health of this province and its residents. All of this is done while anticipating an increase in investment which has not come in eight years (except for oil, gas and resource extraction which is more dependent on resource location than anything else). But alas, they are in power and in our system they will be for the next 3 1/2 years. It took Romanow's government years to clean up after Grant Devine in Saskatchewan, Doer Years to clean up Manitoba's finances after Filmon, McGuinty, after a boom in Ontario, was left with an financial mess to deal with in Ontario after Harris (& Flaherty) as the province hit a down turn. If BC ever votes these guys out, will the mass be reparable? (assuming whoever takes over is has some competence)

  • Hermans Hermit

    2 years ago

    What a ...... Train Wreck!

    Lieberano Deficit

    $495 million

    Ooops. Sorry folks, it's really $2.8 billion!

    NDP deficit

    $2.8 billion (And then add in)
    $500 million (No budget cutbacks)
    $750 million (No federal HST transitional funding)
    $1.5 billion (More deficit spending)
    $5.5 billion

    http://thetyee.ca/News/2009/04/10/NDPPlatform/

    What a friggin train wreck.

    Viva La BC Visionistas! A new way to govern.

  • Cynic

    2 years ago

    It's not incompetence. They

    It's not incompetence. They know exactly what they're doing. Stop giving them the benefit of the doubt, and stop being in denial. Our masters have no intention whatsoever in doing what is right, only in keeping us down and consolidating their power and control. Face it.

  • Jeffrey J.

    2 years ago

    Money Used to be a Public Good

    The theoretical basis behind Canada's money supply has changed dramatically in the past 50 years. The Federal Reserve was created to supply money to each province, without interest. This makes perfect sense when a country is trying to create its own society.

    This has been dismantled as a public policy since the 1970's. Canada could still be a progressive country, operated on the principles created by our founders. But good government policy has been hijacked and virtually destroyed by corporate elites (banks aren't the sole beneficiary of this movement by any means).

    Until Canadians actually understand how much control we COULD have in our society, we will continue to be boondoggled by the acrobatics of neocon budgets and incompetence.

    Money as Debt, Canadian film producer Paul Grignon:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVkFb26u9g8&feature=fvst

    Canadian Federal Reserve explained:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUjBLLzYPGg

    Bill Abram (retired high school teacher)
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8Zl1Wax8MI

  • KWD

    2 years ago

    insanity

    Collectively, mankind has the knowledge and computing power to send people to the moon … and back … yet, when attempting to ‘improve’ the basics of the human condition, seems obsessed with following plans that have been proven to have no legitimate basis in reality.

    As Ed Deak has pointed out. ad nauseum, we are governed … in all aspects of human endeavour … by the physical laws of nature. Any plan, whether it be Hansen’s tax off-loading, from rich to poor, or a Keynesian plan to spend borrowed money … that steals from the future … will have un-welcomed, harmful impacts on future generations.

    We are the future. And we are being harmed, and we are suffering from decisions made in the past by non-thinkers like Hansen and Keynes.

    Resource scarcities, deteriorating human and physical environments and escalating human conflict are not events that occur in isolation. They are the product of being told that we need to focus on building, fine-tuning and detailing vehicles doomed to failure, to carry us into the future.

    Horse and buggy thinking guarantees we’re in for more than a bumpy ride.

  • used to live in...

    2 years ago

    When do we agree that it is time to simply raise taxes?

    So this government reneges on promises to arts and culture groups, cut scholarships for deserving students, increases health care premiums (simply another tax), uses the carbon tax monies for general revenue rather than projects that are actually green, cuts the energy conserving program LiveSmart and now taxes bicycles, solar panels and geothermal energy solutions. Why? Could it because, after years of tax cuts to individuals and especially business, the revenue stream falls well short of the expenditures. Such backward thinking is hard to comprehend. The solution is simple. Instead of these "stealth" tax schemes and added user fees, just increases taxes on those who still have jobs to 2001 levels. And why is it in B.C. that a couple with no employment income can earn $136,000 in dividends and pay no tax whatsoever? How is that a fair and equitable manner in which to treat those who own the means of production as opposed to those who must earn a wage? As a former owner of small businesses, I too can simply dividend investment earnings out of my holding company to perform this financial miracle. (Yes, I realize that the corporation pays tax first.) Our society is hell bent on taxing high worth individuals at lower and lower rates on the excuse that these kings of capitalism will then invest those extra monies to create jobs and greater wealth for all. That trickle down nonsense taught to me at university in economics and business was a joke. Taxes were the last thing on my mind when I owned my businesses and when tax rates were dropped you simply put more money in your own bank account. Our real problem is the widening gap between the haves and the have-nots. And as someone who moved to BC five years ago, it is re-assuring to know that the land transfer tax grab for purchasing a reasonable home in Victoria will more than cover the moving expenses to go back to my home province.

  • bruther

    2 years ago

    Not incompetence

    This is not incompetence. This is intent. The Campbell Liberals mean to permanently cripple the ability of the provincial government to operate. That's why they combine spending cuts with tax breaks. Why they mean to do this is a question of ideology, which, frankly, I don't understand. But whatever their ideology, this is what they intend.

  • seth

    2 years ago

    Gordonomics

    If you listened to Gordo's chief economic adviser Michael Campbell reciting Russ Limbaugh talking points every Saturday morning all through the election campaign, you'd understand how these nincompoops generate policy.

    If El Gordo would ever release the names of this panel of economic advisers he's always quoting, perhaps we could understand the origins of Gordonomics. I expect they would all be "experts" from the Fraser Institute. This is the BC branch of Milton Friedman's Chicago School - the bunch that caused this depression in the first place.

    I understand that the elevator music in all government offices will shortly be replaced with podcasts of the Russ Limbaugh program.

    Good work Will. I'm looking forward to your upcoming analysis of the Independent Power Producer scam.

  • seth

    2 years ago

    Predictable

    None of this was any surprise to us unwashed pundits commenting here at the Tyee.

    Seems it was a huge surprise though to the our favourite MSM counterparts who loyally supplement their meager salaries with big business speaking tour stipends.

    Here's an alternative view from SFU.
    http://www.policycentre.ca/2009/09/01/bc-forced-onto-unsustainable-path-by-poor-planning/

  • Skywalker

    2 years ago

    For the record

    From an earlier Tyee article by Bill Tielmann:

    "Campbell's comments were aimed at the budget introduced by the New Democrat government of then premier Glen Clark before the 1996 election, when a small projected surplus in the $20.6 billion budget turned into a $235 million deficit -- but their relevance 13 years later is stunning.

    On April 23, 2009 -- just weeks before the May 12 provincial election -- Campbell said: "I can tell you this: the deficit for 2009-2010 will be $495 million maximum."

    That now turns out to be $2.8 Billion and they knew during the election that they were wrong. So if one is keeping score. The NDP were off by around $250 million, but the Campbell liberals were off by about $2.4 billion and growing. The NDP's error resulted in a court case which cost them about $600,000 in party funds to defend three MLA's named in the case. I wonder how much the $2.4 billion "error" will cost the liberal party. David Stockell where are you?

  • freebear

    2 years ago

    The government seems to be

    The government seems to be jamming its feet on both the brake pedal and accelerator!

    Just like climate change policy!

    Give oil and gas royalties to industry, and collect a tax(es) that do not reduce gasoline consumption; and not use the taxes collected to fund green initiatives!

    A farce if it wasn't so hurtful!

    We live in a demockery!

  • Name

    2 years ago

    Fiscal schizophrenia?

    Yeah, why expand the kindergarten mandate now, when you're already asking the K-12 public education system to do more with less? A small targetted investment in reducing BC's shameful 20% student drop-out rate would have been a far better option for a whole host of reasons (not the least being to keep more teens from joining the ranks of the unemployed.)

    And Moodyguy is absolutely right - by steadily reducing taxes and increasing our reliance on resource revenues, "Gordonomics" has destabilized the province's financial base and made us more vulnerable than ever to budgetary crises driven by cyclical global boom/bust cycles. Just look next door to Alberta to see how well that's working for them.

    And while this shift and the latest cuts may be intentional, they are indeed based on the ideological principles of deadheads, fools and madmen.

    BC needs to rebuild an economy that is more diversified and resilient, and at the same time to diversify the province's revenue base. We need to be prepared to invest in citizens and children, who are the bedrock of a strong economy.

    That means diversifying the tax base too, as opposed to putting so much emphasis on individual local spending via the HST. I lived in a jurisdiction once with no income tax - just import duties and sales taxes. Needless to say, the local retail sector was a bust. Everyone simply waited to shop abroad and/or resorted to smuggling.

  • asp

    2 years ago

    cutting taxes not good

    I am currently reading the book "Filthy lucre, economics for people who hate capitalism" and it dedicates a whole chapter to this right-wing fallacy.

  • mary jane

    2 years ago

    no direction?

    I disagree I think they did this deliberately. They are trying suck us dry and to turn us into peasants, so desparate we will be willing to settle for any work at all. How many recallls are started accross the province??

  • monty

    2 years ago

    Oops, we forgot about signed contracts

    Noon news---sudden announcement that certain gaming grants will be restored.

    Now, what about the verbal agreements with the people of this province, the basis of which got Gordo and crew elected. PAB staff need not reply. Cheers.

  • Bob Watts

    2 years ago

    Times Up!

    Campbell should resign, but that would take honour, rolling back his raise if only for him would take honour, and would gain back trust! (I just read Campbells Bio) there is a pattern of lieing from a young age, (His father did not have a heart attack) theres nothing wrong with telling the truth even if it hurts! The average person lies some 50 times per day, but Campbell should be held to a higher standard. So whats wrong with having an equal income tax to other provinces, having the lowest tax rate in Canada is hurting everyone. Funny seems most business men have spouses that are public employees (Campbell's wife! a Teacher) who then enjoy free government benifits (welfare to the rich!!!). Having the lowest min wage means you have customers without money, and wage earners that don't pay taxes etc. Keeping people off welfare sounds great but then factor in it cost tax payers $55k per year to keep one person homeless. Will there ever be a Common Sense Party? We need to create wealth for everyone, and makeing the rich richer and the poor poorer, doesn't work.

  • obvious

    2 years ago

    How to prove they lie

    Ask any federal GST employee/ union member when was the first time they heard about the HST. Chances are pretty good they'll tell you that it was sometime in late winter when the BC gov entered negotiations with that union to transfer the BC gov Tax employees over to the Feds.It was pretty clear then that BC was doing away with the provincial sales tax and introducing the HST.

    I wonder why no journalist have even bothered to investigate?

  • nechakogal

    2 years ago

    great article, but the real story here is...

    A good summing up of the budget and their seemingly insane denial of the global fiscal reality, and yes, we need infrastructure and services. But, I think the real story is what the heck will we have left if they are allowed to continue? What will it be like when many of BCs natural resources are sold (oops indefinitely leased) to corporations; we don't have the ability to maintain infrastructure for schools, hospitals; we have to cut vital services from operations to child protection and legal aid, and; people without homes are living in our parks and on our streets. Oh wait a minute, I think we are already there - then perhaps we need someone to envision a future that could be - one where we invested in the things that are most important - our children, our communities, and we took care of our resources. Just how bad will it have to get before people realize this group is not a government for the people of BC? What would a sustainable future look like? I certainly don't see it here.

  • VERILY.G

    2 years ago

    Lowering my income tax.

    My lowered tax refund pittance will be frittered away by me alone. Same tax combined with all the other pittances could do some social good perhaps. This giving with one hand and taking with the other is insanity.

  • Dr Alexander

    2 years ago

    Well, you can still do something (don't need a referendum)

    I hear (and read) a lot of people moaning how we are stuck with Gordon Campbell as premier and Colin Hansen as finance minister. No, we are not. If you have a Liberal MLA, write, phone or see them in person and tell them to remove Gordon Campbell as leader of the party (and premier of BC) and boot Colin Hansen out of the finance portfolio. Gordon may not care where he is at four years from now, but chances are your Liberal MLA just might.

    Shift the focus to your MLA if he/she is a Liberal. Put the heat on them. It's about time they listened to you instead of taking their marching orders from Gordo.

  • North of Hope

    2 years ago

    Title misleading

    The title of this article, "BC's Bizarre Fiscal Plan" is misleading. They have no fiscal plan. There are only two motivations for their actions, 1 is to get elected or re-elected and 2 is to reduce and/or remove the government from providing services to the people. They would like to privatize them and let their friends gouge us.

  • offended

    2 years ago

    What do you expect

    when the Finance Minister's main qualification in private industry is running his mother in law's flag shop? Then consider that the only job Gordon Campbell had in private industry was as a "lobbyist" for Marathon Realty. I am just dumbstruck by the enormity of their curriculum vitae.

  • nutsnbolts

    2 years ago

    mary jane

    Recall doesn't work. Remember when Kevin Falcon tried it on the NDP?? There are so many loopholes in the recall process it cannot work. Falcon was not mentally capable of realizing this and continued on his useless endeavour for months. He also professed over and over that he was ""not interested in politics""!! Campbell ran, and hired Falcon and the rest is history. The Campbelloids have never re-written the recall process so it still remains as it was when Falcon 'tried' it, UNWORKABLE, and they know it.

  • Dr Alexander

    2 years ago

    nutsnbolts... we don't need recall

    Just contact your MLA and, if he or she is a Liberal, tell them to get together with other Liberal MLAs and give Campbell the word that he is retired as of right now. Hansen gets told that he is out of any portfolio.

    Make it clear to your Liberal MLA, if they don't do this, they will be out of a job in four years time.

    It is part of our provincial parliamentary system. We don't actually vote for premiers, we vote for who represents us in our constituency.

  • monty

    2 years ago

    Chaos theory rules

    Even going way back to the days of WAC Bennett when I taught in New Denver and went home to visit my parents in Nelson and spent much time complaining about the lack of books for the classrooms, I have never seen so much anger, confusion, despair and hostility in this province.
    It appears it is being created deliberately. Pandemonium rules.
    Who is the biggest Reagonite in this province?
    Hmmmm. Something to think about. Have a good day.

  • Jeffrey J.

    2 years ago

    Chaos Theory: The Wrecking Crew by Thomas Frank

    Monty hits the nail on the head. And Prof. Thomas Frank explains in systematic, colourful detail how this process is spreading around the world like a cancer.
    http://tcfrank.com/books/the-wrecking-crew/

  • Katatak

    2 years ago

    Removed from reality

    A lot of people seem to think that Campbell and his government are doing this to us deliberately. That seems so malicious to me. Malicious and soul-crippling. I think it far more likely that our premiere is so far removed from the reality of the majority or British Columbians that he honestly just doesn't get it.

    About four years ago a friend and I spotted Campbell on a BC Ferry. My friend called Gord over, and after saying hi she proceeded to chastise him for cutting student grants. Poor Gord. When confronted with someone directly affected by decisions he OK'd, he didn't know what to do other than back away slowly and seek friendlier faces. If he wasn't so busy destroying this province, I'd probably pity the fool.

  • sunshine coast girl

    2 years ago

    You mean, when he's on his way to his $900,000 waterfront

    summer house? Now he doesn't even leave his car when he's on the boat.

  • monty

    2 years ago

    And the biggest Reaganite is????

    This is your challenge all your sleuths.

  • freebear

    2 years ago

    The government seems to be jamming its feet on both the brake pe

    "The government seems to be jamming its feet on both the brake pedal and accelerator"

    And that is a hard thing to do when wearing clown shoes!

  • Chris Keam

    2 years ago

    Don't get out of the car!

    "Now he doesn't even leave his car when he's on the boat."

    Isn't that against BC Ferries rules?

  • alive

    2 years ago

    scared of his own shadow?

    Isn't that against BC Ferries rules?

    Are there any rules that apply to Gordo?

  • Skywalker

    2 years ago

    Gordon in hiding.

    Gordon has long ago made sure that whenever and wherever he meets the publisc it is always orchestrated with his handlers and the RCMP. It is rare that people ever get close because the exchange can not be controlled. So he goes into a kind of bunker. If every time he showed his face somewhere he was told or subtly shown just how unpopular he is, he might get the message and take a walk in the snow. You think?

  • circle A

    2 years ago

    another lie!

    from our pencil neck weasel finance minister,he tol d mr. palmer on voice of bc tv show that all through the supply chain of wood products that forest companies pay pst. early on in this governments mandate the forest industry was exempted from paying pst, myself and a purchasing agent for canfor had a good laugh when this individual told me not to charge canfor pst on machinery i supply them, i asked the purchasing agent who was going to pay for our social services to which this person chuckled and said i have three guesses and the first two don`t count.

  • LOL

    2 years ago

    HST and LOL

    If you buy a hamburger when the HST kicks in you pay HST. If you buy a hamburger and beer you pay NO HST. Gordo the DUI boy want us all drunk. This way he can balance the budget faster in the head of the sea lion that attacked the 5 year old girl! LOL
    Way to go LOL

  • Katatak

    2 years ago

    Re: Gordon in hiding.

    Isn't that the path George W. took? Too bad these kinds of guys don't understand that their "leadership" is a Failure when they find themselves in that kind of position.

  • Skywalker

    2 years ago

    Here's a rich one from Hansard.

    It's July 1996. Gordon Campbell is puffing himself up in righteous indignation and says: "The only thing that is consistent about this Premier is that he says one thing before an election and the exact opposite after an election. The Premier said time and time and time again, in this House and out of this House, that we would have a balanced budget for the 1995 fiscal year. Since then, what have we seen? A promise of $400 million in cuts turns into an $11 million surplus; a promise of a balanced budget turns into a $235 million deficit; a promise of a debt management plan is totally abandoned, so we can borrow more and more and more money on the backs of British Columbians. Why should any voter or bond-rating agency believe this Premier or this government, when they purposely go out of their way to mislead British Columbians and to break their word time after time after time? "

    Yes Gordon, why should anone believe you?

  • realisticman

    2 years ago

    Hansard

    Thank you for the reminder, Skywalker.

    So, from what you tell us, the NDP were just as bad and that was at a time when the rest of the world was just humming along, as opposed to recent events that have the rest of the world collapsing?

  • OilbertaRedTory

    2 years ago

    realistically, global commodity prices ...

    ... are the most significant drivers of economic prosperity in western Canada
    http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/survey/so/2008/res032008a.htm

    - regardless of political affiliation.

    The test of any government is their skill at husbanding the public treasury and citizen's needs.

    Neo-liberal economics is an abject failure on every count.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/magazine/06Economic-t.html?pagewanted=1&em

  • Skywalker

    2 years ago

    Yeah R/man.

    The NDP had the Asian meltdown and the budget was off by 250 million. The Liberals are off by $2.4 billion Yeah R/man they were just as bad. Keep telling yourself that. Campbell's self-righteous comments then and his lame excuses now they really fit your brand of politics don't they. Now after the Liberals have been taken to court for election fraud, as the NDP was, and have been found not guilty, as the NDP was, you may actually have something to gloat about. You conveniently forget all the other details. So typical.

  • realisticman

    2 years ago

    Of Course, Skywalker

    There were other things, like bingogate. Can you imagine? Stealing from a charity! The mind wonders how anyone could possibly do a thing like that. I didn't mention it but, as you say, perhaps I shouldn't forget all the other details. I don't know about you but I find dishonesty quite distasteful and extremely hard to tolerate or excuse, as well as pathetic and sad.

  • ME2

    2 years ago

    RMan

    Crocodile tears, RMan. Only you True Believers would attempt to sell such deceitful nonsense.

  • Skywalker

    2 years ago

    R/man

    You must have missed the item on the Hook about shortchanging charities on lottery funds. You find dishonesty distasteful is a real hoot. So an NDP $235 million equal a liberal $2.8 billion in your world. Then there is a old worn out bingo issue which never found anyone in the NDP government at the time guilty of anything and you think you have a comparison. You find it distasteful only if it is alleged to have been perpetrated by the other side. Campbell can lie, Hanson can lie and it is tasteful to you. What a hoot!

  • G West

    2 years ago

    Absolutely ME2

    The propensity for a certain category of 'critic' to ignore the forest for a few trees is quite profound.

    Perhaps the phrase should be 'the mind wanders'.

  • sunshine coast girl

    2 years ago

    We're definitely NOT stuck with Campbell, Hansen, et al...

    First, we start with the HST. Then, we move on to recall. Fighthst.com and read the strategy outlined there. I'm doing something concrete about these crooks and I wish all of you would jump in and help too.

  • Skywalker

    2 years ago

    Who said that?

    "What do working people want? They want the truth. They want to know that anyone they elect will tell them the truth, and what they know from this Premier is that he does not know the truth, he's never met the truth, and he'll never tell the truth. This Premier believes in what others have called "the big lie" technique: you say it over and over again and someone might believe it. "

    and, then said

    "People in British Columbia expected the truth from this government. They expected them to lay out the facts and recognize that we can have a good political debate based on the facts. This government has done everything they can to hide the facts, to cover up the facts; and when the facts were not comfortable, they would distort the facts to try to mislead the people of British Columbia, and that is wrong."

    All this said in the same speech.

  • matelo

    2 years ago

    Who cares about the NDP?

    Why do people continue to talk about the NDP and the 90's as if they have relevance to today?

    There is a whole generation of twenty year old voters who cannot remember a time when Gordon Campbell and the BC Liberals have not been running this province. Gordo and the boys are going to pay royally in the long-term for their incompetence. Unfortunately, so will we all.

    Campbell has succeeded in his master plan- shift the tax burden from the corporations and business to the low and middle class. His job is done. He will retire and not run again, despite what he says. He has fulfilled his "dream".

  • zalm

    2 years ago

    Oilberta Red Tory

    That was absolutely the BEST link to Krugman on the NYTimes. In words that those of us who struggle with syllables can easily read, he lays out the vacuous threadbare nonsense of old and modern neoclassical economics and wipes his feet on it, all without making Keynes the "saviour of the left" as the Chicago School idiots were so fond of blathering, regardless of how untrue it was.

    Required reading, R'man.... required reading before you utter another word on the subject of business or political economy as it applies to British Columbia.

  • Skywalker

    2 years ago

    matelo

    I guess the universe began the day Gordon arrived on the scene and it will begin again when he departs. Oh the flightiness of youth!

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