One of the New Era promises was to hold monthly open cabinet meetings. Monthly hasn't included the summer months and there has been the other odd lapse, but the real farce is the production effort that goes into what are nothing but staged public relations sessions.

The May 31st meeting listed four items on the agenda, all "for information" only. They didn't even pretend to make a decision in front of British Columbians as they cautioned people to be careful with the upcoming fire season and ended with a review of the avian flu.

Each of the meetings results in production fees being paid to a Liberal friendly ad firm, and the renting of satellite time to broadcast the proceedings live throughout the province. The cost of one staged meeting would probably cover the salary of a nurse for six months.

The idea of a truly open cabinet meeting is fascinating. It's too bad that the performances the Campbell government offers come no where close to a real meeting, or if they do, we should really be concerned. The government that secretly suspends members from its caucus is not about to show the public how cabinet ministers split over public policy, or how they worry about the political impact of their decisions.

During a discussion on 2004 drought preparation, Minister of Water, Land and Air Protection, Bill Barisoff, had a stack of more than 700 bottles of water behind him. One of his astute colleagues pointed out that even though Barisoff said that BC consumes more water than the Canadian average, the stack was bigger than the average daily consumption. No said Barisoff, the bottles are only 750 ml, not a full liter. That was probably the most profound moment in 90 minutes of expensive time that could have been covered by a couple of short background papers. No one at the cabinet table questioned what impact water shortages will have on growth. BC Stats predicts that the province's population will reach 5,691,437 by 2031. That is an increase of 37%, but it is unlikely that BC will have 37% more water resources in the next 27 years as global warming proceeds.