CKNW Editorial
for March 16, 2001

A couple of thoughts today.

Yesterday’s record budget of over $24 billion is notable in several respects. It made me pause and remember that in 1973 Dave Barrett shocked the province with his $1 billion dollar budget … for everything … and it was the first time we had gone over a billion. Admittedly that was a very long time ago and was before the oil crisis and the inflation that ensued. But things haven’t gone up 28 times. In fact it was either in 1980 when I was health minister or perhaps the last year Bob McLelland was. In 1979, that the health budget exceeded a billion. Now it’s in excess of $9 billion and I can assure you that the cost of living hasn’t gone up nine times in the last 20 years.

Of course what has gone up are the expectations of the public, especially in social services. Many things that weren’t being done in former times ought to have been and now we do them as a matter of course.

Yet I can’t help wondering if there isn’t a lot of fat in the system. Fat in a system is not easy to spot … for one thing, the people paid to do the spotting are themselves in the system.

I think this budget has another side to it. I believe that it will, along with knowledge of the true state of affairs coming to the new government, militate against a tax cut of any size by the Liberals.

Let’s just look first at BC Hydro. For the past several years, last year being no exception, the government has snagged several hundred million from BC Hydro as a dividend. As former Finance Minister Hugh Curtis so correctly pointed out yesterday, this hasn’t been a percentage of profits but a lump sum, the only apparent criterion being how much has Hydro got in the till when the grab is done. Now, to top this off, some $50 million plus is being returned to users at $200 per bill. What the Liberals will face is this – in all likelihood reservoirs will be dry in 01 and 02 and perhaps further, meaning that Hydro will not be able to produce the power we need so it will have to get that electricity at market prices from outside BC. Not only will the Liberals not be able to grab the dividend the NDP have budgeted for, but they will have to make money available to Hydro in order to keep BC from going the way of California.

There’s more – who’s to say that gas revenues will remain up. Remember the government got a ½ billion dollar windfall this year. With much more gas coming on stream and California getting its house in order, gas revenues will likely be well under government predictions.

In fact, you can bet the ranch that the NDP has understated expenses and overstated income … why should this year be any different? We don’t know what the wage settlements with doctors, nurses, health employees, will be. I suspect when the Liberals take over in May that they will see that far from having balanced financial affairs it will be 1996 all over again.

On another matter … is it possible that we will see 1991 all over again except this time it will be the Green Party that is the beneficiary of the collapse of the governing party?

In 1991 the Liberals had no seats and no prospects until then Liberal Leader Gordon Wilson got off his famous one liner in the leaders debate and took the Liberals to official opposition status. Some of the ingredients are there. The Greens, in Adrian Carr, have an attractive, articulate leader. The Green Party, as the Liberals did, have declared themselves to be independent of outside forces – in the Liberals case it was the federal party and with the Greens it’s the loony environmental fringe. Mr Wilson had a hell of a time breaking into the leaders debate – such a fight might be shaping up for the Greens. It was the attention Wilson’s fight to get into the debate got that attracted valuable attention to the Liberals. And Mr Wilson took full advantage of it. As with the Liberals in 1991, the Greens are the only viable candidate to fill the vacuum left by a vanishing governing party. (The Unity Party, if it does anything, which I doubt, will take almost all its support from the Liberals.)

I don’t think that Ms Carr can do as well as Wilson did. The Greens still look too much like a one issue party even though they loudly claim they are not. But to some areas of the province where voting Liberal is a repulsive thought, replacing the NDP with the Greens may not look all that bad.

It depends on how the campaign plays out. If, at the end of the campaign it is obvious, as it was in 1991, that the governing party is going under, voters may feel they have the luxury of voting other than Liberal. If not, the Greens will not get off the ground … because unless I entirely miss the point, the public of BC wants to see the backs of the NDP and they aren’t going to let another 1996 happen.

Still … anything can happen in an election and often does. Especially in our province where politics is a blood sport.

Adrian Carr Leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition?

A long shot – but so was Gordon Wilson in 1991.