Layoffs mean service cuts

January 19, 2002

Much More to Come - A Long Time to Go

Absolutely nothing will change the fact that the next election will not be held until May 17, 2005 - three years and four months from now. With 77 of 79 seats in the legislature, BC has a virtual dictatorship. The two members of the Opposition cannot delay any of the changes by more than a few hours. Government backbenchers are so numerous that each MLA is expendable. An MLA can be ignored and discarded with no effect on the government. It would take a change of 38 MLAs before the government would fall. You can bet on hell freezing over first.

It is still worthwhile to contact MLAs, write letters to editors and participate in demonstrations. It may be a long shot, but using the tools available in a democracy can influence, shape or change the odd cut here and there.

A long list of specific cuts can be found in the documents released on Black Thursday. For every specific detail there are at least a half dozen implied cuts where a lot of detailed work is yet to be done and yet to be revealed.

One of the most interesting media reports was from CBC reporter Geoff Davies who told of Finance Minister Gary Collin's statement that the cuts will proceed even if the economy recovers.

They don't have to make the cuts because of a structural deficit (which doesn't exist). They are making the cuts because that is the philosophy of the Campbell government.

On top of the drastic changes announced and suggested on January 17th, other processes are underway within government that show the blitzkrieg has just begun. The administrative justice review project captures over 50 quasi-judicial bodies from the WCB to Agricultural Marketing Boards. Then there is the constant suggestion that contracts will be re-written with the legislative pen.

The magnitude of the changes and suggested changes is overwhelming. There are hundreds of items that would normally dominate the news for days, but are now lost in the announcement barrage.

Successfully implementing the hundreds of changes announced by government will be no easy task. Apart from a miraculous discovery of backbone and ethics by the government caucus, the only hope for rational public policy might be the realization that some of the announced changes just won't work. There will be time to examine some of the specific changes as implementation efforts proceed and people make their voices heard.

January 18, 2002

Paying for Failed Tax Cuts
Meaner and Uglier

Public scrutiny is very important now. Premier Campbell is trying to turn BC into an uncaring ugly society. When they ran for election, how many of the 77 Campbell MLAs knew that they would put children at risk, slash welfare benefits and make BC safer for criminals? Go in and ask yours! While you are at it ask what else is coming with the justice review and with the breaking of contracts.

When the government took office in June BC had 1.9848 million jobs but by December the number of BC jobs had dropped 85,200 to 1.8996 million. If tax cuts pay for themselves and stimulate the economy, BC has yet to see any results. We now are left wondering whether the layoffs and service cuts are the result of a failed tax policy.

Premier Campbell is trying to defend his radical stripping of public services by saying he had no alternative because of a structural deficit. There is no structural deficit. The numbers from the panel he appointed overstated spending and understated revenue before adding $1 billion in padding. His own Minister of Energy claims that BC is in store for massive revenue windfalls due to northeast oil and gas development. His own finance minister claims that economic growth will restore lost taxes. Now his finance minister claims revenues have been lost since the panel's estimate of a deficit, but he failed to report on the $630 million windfall his government received as overdue tax revenues from Ottawa. His phony excuse of a structural deficit is apparently designed to hide the truth behind his radical changes.

Government cuts will keep the number of jobs moving down, but focusing on jobs misses the main point. When the forest industry lays people off it is because they cannot sell their product. Likewise for other industries, layoffs follow drops in demand. We know that government is cutting jobs but we don't know what services are being cut or what the consequences will be. Will fewer court houses speed up the justice system? Will fewer social workers make children safer? Will fewer conservation officers help poachers or habitat? When welfare is cut or denied will people starve or turn to crime? It's not just the jobs, it's the services that we all lose.

Government has released over a hundred pages of details on its cuts. Nowhere in any of those documents is there a discussion of the CONSEQUENCES of the cuts. The only reason given for cuts is "the service is not in the ministry's core". No program evaluation, no impact statement, nothing but "not in the core" which is equivalent to saying "tough, the government is cutting it". An open government ought to make available its assessment on the consequences of the cuts.

It is not often that one thinks of the Auditor General as some sort of super-hero, but BC's auditor general is in the best position to tell the public whether government cuts have been competently managed. What criteria were used to distinguish between programs that stay and programs that go? What evaluation was done on the consequences of eliminating programs? Are there hidden costs that will result from eliminating programs (release of criminals, abuse of children, loss of habitat)?

When appearing before the legislature's Finance Committee, Auditor General Wayne Strelioff said:

"Reducing the size of the public sector. That's going to have an impact on how government manages the change. Corporate memory is going to be lost. Alternative service delivery methods are going to be put in place. Again, the importance of making sure that you know that government is managing those risks in a strong and careful way will be particularly important in these next few years."

The Committee then recommended that the Auditor's budget be cut. We will have to wait and see whether the Auditor now has the courage to answer the hard questions on how government measured, managed and evaluated the consequences of its actions.