The heated exchanges in BC's legislature over how many people will be kicked off welfare when the maximum two year eligibility rule takes effect in April, has prompted Province Columnist Mike Smyth to write that Campbell probably enjoys getting heat on the issue. Rhetoric reminiscent of Vander Zalm's "pick up a shovel" from the 1970s appears to be coming from Campbell and Coell.

Smyth argues, based on an Ipsos-Reid poll from "a few years ago" which showed support for welfare to work schemes, that an election held on welfare reform would play into Campbell's hands. The Ipsos-Reid poll done between November 18th and November 26th, 1999, among a representative cross-section of 1,515 Canadian adults is available at http://www.ipsos-reid.com/search/pdf/media/pr991220.pdf. The top item in that Angus Reid Group/ Globe and Mail / CTV poll released December 17, 1999, said "that seven in ten (68%) Canadians say Canada's governments are "not doing enough to help the poor in this country". Indeed, the majority (60%) believes that poverty is worse in Canada than it was five years ago." It went on to say "Some provinces have instituted programs such as Ontario's 'Workfare' program and most (84%) Canadians support these types of initiatives."

There is an enormous difference between generalized poor bashing, restricting eligibility for welfare to no more than two out of five years and welfare to work programs. The NDP reformed welfare when it introduced the BC Benefits program. Some New Democrats thought that BC Benefits was onerous and to this day blame Joy MacPhail for putting more emphasis on assisting recipients of income assistance to get work rather than welfare. The leadership candidates seeking to replace MacPhail are critical of Campbell's cuts but you won't hear them criticize the reforms introduced by MacPhail. New Democrats know that a job is better than a welfare cheque, and no amount of misrepresentation by BC Liberals or anyone else will change that.

The debate in BC is not about helping those on welfare become job ready and find work. It is about denying any form of assistance to those who have depended on welfare for two years. Campbell thinks that massive tax cuts averaging over $26,000 per year for the top 8,000 income earners are necessary to encourage them to be more productive, but he applies a reverse logic to those whose entire annual income is less than the amount of the high income tax cuts! Who are the people who will be cut off, and what will they do? Are they former mill workers who are over 50 with little education; are they people with chronic illness not quite sick enough to be classified "disabled", or are they former foster children who no longer receive support from the government as they try to become independent? Some police are already predicting an increase in crime, and many are saying that municipal social services funded through property taxes will have to fill the gap. No one expects those who are kicked off to simply starve without doing anything to survive although both suicide and crime statistics may become an indicator of New Era "progress".

The first part of the 1999 Ipsos-Reid poll which said that 68% of Canadians think governments are not doing enough to help the poor should not be ignored. In May 2002 another Ipsos-Reid poll showed that 63% of those surveyed considered the Campbell government to be uncaring. The political fight is not over "welfare reform"; it is over an arbitrary eligibility rule that will deny help to those who have proven that they are least able to help themselves. It is about an uncaring government that is out of touch with the majority who feel that government is not doing enough to help the poor.