Vancouver Province
for September 27, 2001

In politics, all it takes to change cheers to jeers is the passage of a little time. And so it will be with the Gordon Campbell Liberals.

In the beginning, after ten years of the incompetent and often corrupt NDP. anybody was bound to look good. And many early Liberal initiatives were long overdue.. But they are making a hash of the economic picture and it’s going to get worse.

What you never do in politics is anchor your promises to an unchangeable timetable. For the Liberals to have legislated the necessity to balance the budget by 2004 was silly showing off. It wasn’t critical to electoral success - the NDP were dead in the water even if the Liberals made no campaign promises but simply read passages from Chairman Mao’s – or their pal Jean’s for that matter – Little Red Book instead.

When the Liberals took power last June, they knew that the province was in trouble fiscally thanks to the truth in budgeting legislation the NDP had brought in, at the constant urging of the then Liberal Opposition. They knew that there would be another US countervail on softwood lumber. They also knew that the healthcare system was fiscally, out of control and that very large necessary capital expenditures in the education field were scheduled. In the face of all that they implemented a tax cut.

No one could possibly have predicted the terrible events of September 11. But political leaders have to take into account that there will be bad news. The Liberals refused to give any leeway to the NDP when they claimed, with some justification, that the so-called Asian ‘flu which caused much of our economic difficulty in the nineties, came as a surprise.

Now we’re told by Finance Minister Collins that next February’s budget will be at least $2 billion in the red. In fact it will be worse. Tourism is down by 50% and there is no reason to think that people will be flocking to our mountain resorts this winter. The softwood lumber situation will only get worse. Unemployment is increasing dramatically and the United States is on the brink of a recession which they were entering before the September 11 tragedy.

The worst indictment of this government and its finance minister is it’s refusal to face up to the fact that little cuts here and there won’ get the job done. The only place the government can go to work on and make serious savings - serious enough to have an impact on the overall financial picture, that is – is in healthcare. I don’t care how many left wing health economists scream or how many interest groups holler foul -–the truth is that health costs must not only be contained, they must be dramatically reduced. And there is only one way that can happen – offloading costs onto taxpayers who can afford it.

Our surgical lineups are utterly unacceptable. People with broken limbs are waiting days … people with growing cancers are waiting weeks. To make matters worse, some segments of society, such as professional athletes and WCB cases don’t wait at all.

Unpopular though it may be to say, the Campbell government, having taken power on the NDP’s inability to handle the Province’s finances, are sowing the seeds of their own political destruction by being similarly unable or unwilling to make tough decisions.

I would love to have the state pay all my medical costs with my only involvement being the taxes I pay plus the current premium. But that’s just not on – unless, of course, the government is prepared to continue with high cost deficit financing.

No one can blame Mr Collins for the state of affairs that existed when he took office. But the truth is, the cut taxes have not increased spending, the highly predictable duty on softwood has arrived and the American recession is about to hit us. Mr Collins response is to cut the program for autistic children.

If Premier Campbell were to be straight up with British Columbians he would admit that the government cannot under the circumstances meet its self imposed budget restraints, that the balanced budget law will be repealed and that the public had better brace itself for serious changes in the health care system.

They may well be damned if they do – but you can bet the ranch they’ll be damned if they don’t.