Balanced budget is a bit of a bore

TheTyee.ca

Two-and-half years, countless cutbacks and all British Columbians got was a balanced budget. The booming economy promised by the provincial Liberals seems to have gone missing, although traces can be found in speeches made by government backbenchers and the occasional Statistics Canada news release. And that's one reason why most commentators and columnists have a so-what attitude to the budget's release.

But it's not the only reason.

The Liberals have been promising to get the government's fiscal house in order since the last election. And now that it's finally happened, most British Columbians are more interested in what the Liberals are going to do for an encore. After all, in the new millennium, balancing a budget isn't an achievement. It's a minimum standard for governments around the world.

Unfortunately, aside from hosting for the 2010 Winter Olympics, something that's going to happen with or without the Liberals, the provincial government doesn't seem to have a spending vision for the next three budget surpluses. And that could explain why the press shrugged its shoulders during Tuesday's budget lock-up.

Of course there have been promises to increase education and health-care spending. That's something every government does. But unless the premier is planning to retire and replace LeVar Burton as the host of Reading Rainbow, he's going to need to come with something more innovative than a commitment to raise literacy levels-one of the principle promises in the Liberals' recent Speech from the Throne.

And that may be the one thing he can't do. The provincial government has become a bit gun-shy when it comes to the "vision thing." Since the last election, the press and the Opposition have repeatedly used the Liberals' own slogans against them.

The Heartlands became the Hurtlands. And the New Era of prosperity soon became the New Era of broken promises. So the government is understandably nervous when it comes to launching another branded initiative.

But even if that weren't the case, internal party dynamics are also standing between Campbell and a future direction for the provincial Liberals.

His party has always been a cocktail of Martinites, former Socreds and federal Reformers-which means about the only thing they can agree on is balancing the provincial budget and keeping the New Democrats out of office. Put any other issue on the caucus table and you'll get a dozen opinions on what party policy should be.

Despite those differences, Campbell has succeeded in keeping the Liberals moving in a common direction, partly because he's kept his federal political leanings to himself and partly because he's the man who won the last election.

But the latest polling may threaten his position as the Liberals' resident broker-mediator. According to the Mustel Group, the New Democrats are now tied with the Liberals. And Campbell's own personal approval rating has dropped to 33 percent-which may have some Liberals questioning his electability and his authority.

At the same time, the recent RCMP raid on the legislature has politically damaged some of the party's most prominent federal Liberal types-Finance Minister Gary Collins and Deputy Premier Christy Clark. That means the provincial Liberals' conservative members may now be less inclined to accept Campbell's compromises, in effect paralyzing the party. And that's bad news for all of them.

While budgets can be frozen, public opinion numbers can't. And unless the provincial Liberals figure out what to do with their balanced books, British Columbians might just deliver a New Democrat government in the next election.

Sean Holman is the editorial director of the political magazine Public Eye.