Premier Gordon Campbell doesn't regularly attend the legislature; speeches by Campbell in the legislature are such a rare event that the government caucus sent the following email to its entire mailing list declaring:

Premier Gordon Campbell to Speak on BC Rail

Premier Gordon Campbell will address the Legislative Assembly today on the BC Rail Investment Partnership announced earlier this week.
The speech will take place after Question Period, at approximately 2:30 to 2:45 p.m.
The legislative proceedings are televised live throughout the province on the Legislative Assembly channel. Check your local listings. Alternately, you may view a webcast of the proceedings online from the Legislative Assembly's Web site at http://www.legis.gov.bc.ca/

It was clear that Campbell put as much time into the speech as would normally go into one of his major fund raising speeches. He spent much of his speech recognizing the new NDP Leader, Carole James. She can take that as the highest form of flattery; "they don't shoot at dead ducks". Campbell is justified in being concerned over the impact James is already making to the political debate.

Earlier on November 27th Campbell appeared on CFAX's Joe Easingwood show. The focus of the initial questioning was on how Campbell could have promised not to sell or privatize BC Rail, only to do exactly that. Easingwood repeatedly asked him if he would simply say the few words "I changed my mind." Campbell replied "We didn't change our mind." In other words, when they made the promise in 2001, they knew that they were going to sell BC Rail - and the CN website makes it clear that CN purchased shares in BC Rail Ltd., the operating company, and that it acquired the locomotives, the railcars, the buildings and the staff. Later in the interview, when speaking about ICBC, Campbell said "There is a difference between what you may have expected and what I said." He can say that again! It will be difficult for many to believe anything that Campbell has to say in the future since they have seen how he has redefined words in a way that would make Clinton blush.

Defenders of the sale of BC Rail turn to blind ideology and say "what business does a government have running a railway?" The government has run BC Rail and its predecessor, Pacific Great Eastern, since 1918. It has used it as a tool of economic development. The Campbell government is saying that they are the first BC government in the past 85 years that is incapable of running a railroad. Just as they claimed, based on blind ideology that tax cuts would pay for themselves they are saying that the privatization of BC Rail will result in untold economic miracles. Which private sector company is their model - WorldCom, Enron, BreX Resources, Nortel, Telus or Air Canada?

CN's website declares that 35% of BC Rail's jobs will be eliminated and that 25% of the locomotives and 15% of the railcars will be "reduced", i.e. eliminated. Claims by the Campbell government that the deal will expand resources are hard to believe. As usual promises of economic wonders have no timelines and defy measurement; it will be long after the next election before any hard information is available on the results of the latest Campbell gamble.