Repeating falsehoods doesn't make them true, but it might make them believed if they are quoted often enough. However divisive BC politics might be, all parties should be able to agree on the basic statistics. The Campbell Liberals are constantly claiming that either the government or the economy has created around 100,000 jobs since they came to power. The only semi-credible way anyone can get numbers like that is if you think the Campbell government came to power in December, 2001. How can they forget that the election was on May 16, 2001? Of course, you can also get the 100,000 number by looking at the difference in the seasonally unadjusted data between January and September, 2003, but that is not a useful comparison unless it is for the purpose of misleading (see the graph below).

Statistics Canada's Labour Force Survey reports the following data:

On a seasonally adjusted basis, BC had 48,200 more jobs in September, 2003, than it had in May, 2001; on an unadjusted basis the increase was 50,700. On a seasonally adjusted basis, BC lost 52,900 jobs between May and December, 2001, hence the Campbell government is prone to measuring job growth relative to December so as to add those jobs back in its total. It's great that the jobs came back, but the government cannot ignore the first seven months of its mandate - that's when they made some of their worst decisions.

The graph shown below illustrates both the seasonally adjusted and unadjusted employment data from May, 2001, through September, 2003. The vertical scale shows thousands of jobs. The red lines show the 52,900 difference one gets depending on whether the starting point is May or December.

Apologists for the government may simply say that it doesn't matter since employment has grown rapidly since December, 2001, but they would be wrong. Employment recovered rapidly immediately after December, 2001, but it has leveled off since August, 2002. In the 8 months after December, 2001, employment grew 4.4%, but in the 13 months between August, 2002, and September, 2003, employment grew only 0.8% (compared to an average annual rate of 2.1% during the NDP Era).

Since the brutal welfare policies of the Campbell government are spun to the public with rhetoric about the availability of jobs, it is important that everyone know the truth about employment in BC. A job is better than a welfare cheque, but there are over 200,000 unemployed who are attempting to win those jobs ahead of the people who are pushed off welfare because they have needed help for two years. Murry Coell and his friends should come to grips with that reality, and they should show their list of 10,000 available jobs to all British Columbians. If you go to the websites for Coell's job placement contractors, you will find that they won't reveal their list of jobs unless you are in a certain category of income assistance. What are they hiding from the 200,000 people who want work? If the list of 10,000 available jobs is real, let everyone see it. How many jobs are available that match the skills of people who have been on welfare for two years, and which employers prefer those candidates to the other job applicants who are available?