January 10, 2003

Taxpayer Paid Political Propaganda

Why can't Gordon Campbell's party use its own money to write and publish political pamphlets? A new button titled "New Era Review" has appeared on the government website. It is coloured a suitably depressing grey. Clicking on it produces a 14 page pamphlet that looks like it belongs on the BC Liberal website.

The Campbell folk seem to have the same problem in government that they suffered in opposition. The Auditor General confirmed that the Liberals used public funds in 1997 for a mailing costing almost a million dollars that should have been paid for by their party. Now they have access to all of the resources of government and have yet to develop a sense of what is appropriate behaviour.

If the BC Liberal party wants to put out a spin on whether they have kept their election promises or not, that's their business. The government should not use tax dollars to provide a point by point run down on the Liberal party's campaign document.

Year end opinion polls show that the Campbell Liberals have lost about a third of the support they enjoyed immediately after the election. Those disillusioned voters didn't need a government produced propaganda piece to let them know that what we have is not what was promised. Many of those who hoped for a moderate, competent, populist government now know that incompetent ideologues of the right can be just as bad as incompetents on the left. Instead of misusing government funds and blaming their problems on communications, government needs to show some compassion and prove that it cares for what is happening to people.

It is particularly disappointing to see the lies and distortions that appear throughout the review that was produced at taxpayer expense. The pamphlet refers to the promise to "Maintain and increase education funding levels by increasing revenues through economic growth," and proclaims "Done. The education budget has been increased by $20 million in 2002-03." The truth is that school boards were compensated $20 million to pay for their share of the 50% increase in MSP premiums. There has been no increase in funding for education.

The original New Era tax promise was to "Cut the base personal income tax rate to the lowest rate of any province in Canada for the bottom two tax brackets, on the first $60,000 of income, within our first term." Nothing was said about cutting the top three tax brackets by 25% but that is what happened, followed by $800 million in sales tax and MSP premium increases. The "government" pamphlet simply refers to an agenda item to "Introduce a dramatic cut in personal income taxes, within 90 days" and proclaims it "done". The original promise said that would be done without cutting health and education. Everyone in BC knows that health care and education have suffered in the hands of the Campbell government.

Click on the websites for any of the other provinces at http://www.gov.bc.ca/bcgov/popt/orgs/outside_links.htm, and compare them to what you find at http://www.gov.bc.ca/.