January 22, 2003

Compassion or Not on Budget Day

Budget day in BC is February 18, four weeks from now. A lot of information that the government hasn't shared with the public can be deduced from budget background papers. For example, Health Minister Colin Hansen said that major changes are coming for Pharmacare, but he has not shared his list of options with the public. His "service plan" tabled together with last year's budget showed that budget for Pharmacare would be cut from $718 million for 2002-03 to $630 million for 2003-04. That cut of $88 million is on top of the loss that results from not covering population growth and rising drug costs. Checking that line in the documents that are released on February 18th will provide some idea of whether government is going to stay the course with its plan to offload on sick seniors.

This year's "service plan" for the Ministry of Children and Family Development shows government's intent to cut services for some of BC's most needy citizens from $1.6 billion in 2002-03 to $1.2 billion in 2004-05. What is called "community living services" supports dependent adults, people with low IQs who cannot care for themselves. Government's intent as of February 2002 was to cut services for dependent adults by $80 million next year. The Ministry is also responsible for children who need protection. Reducing the number of children in care does not reduce the number of children that must be monitored for fear of another tragedy. Alberta has reported that child protection caseloads have been increasing. BC stopped reporting those numbers but a freedom of information request is likely to confirm the growth in protection cases. Nevertheless, the Ministry signaled in its current plan that the budget for child protection will be reduced by $60 million next year and by $100 million in the following year.

Will a new compassionate Gordon Campbell halt the cuts to the Ministry of Children and Family Development, or will it take deaths before the government soberly assesses the error of its ways? The word hypocrite has frequently been applied to the Campbell government over the past week. Nowhere is the hypocrisy of that government more evident than in its treatment of the Ministry of Children and Family Development. It said one thing in opposition and is doing the opposite in government.

Speaking in the Legislature on April 2, 1997, Gordon Campbell said "we believe that children in our care, children that are known to the ministry, should be supervised and should be watched carefully. The question I have to ask the minister is: when will the government start providing the resources that are necessary to make sure that tragedies never take place again in this province?" The name of the child used by Mr. Campbell in this quote has been edited out, but the question can now be put to his government which is slashing $400 million from the Ministry of Children and Family Development over the next two years. It is time for Mr. Campbell to stop being a hypocrite.