A few odd things happened the first week in June, and all on odd numbered days. On June 1st the Vancouver Sun ran a front page headline that claimed the BC economy is "sizzling". That was based on week old data on retail trade growth in March. On June 3rd Gordon Campbell held his annual fundraising dinner where Jim Pattison encouraged him to remain optimistic. On June 5th the Vancouver Sun again ran a front page headline on the economy claiming it is "red hot" based on a seasonally adjusted gain of 15,000 jobs in May, even though the BC unemployment rate increased from 7.7 to 7.8 percent, a fact omitted from the "story". Some might suspect that the Vancouver Sun was helping Campbell with his messaging by bracketing his fund raising event with a few exaggerations.

An optimistic projection is 3.0% for economic growth in BC in 2004. It exceeded 3.0% in 1993, 1997, 1999, and again in 2000 when it reached a truly hot 4.8% growth. We won't know the preliminary estimates from Statistics Canada for 2004 until late April 2005, and the final estimates until November 2005, so during the run up to the next provincial election most of the economic news will be based on untested forecasts. Since January 1991, there have been 20 times when seasonally adjusted job growth exceeded last month's gain. No one rushed to characterize the economy as "red hot" because of one month's fluctuation in employment. As of May 2004, on a seasonally adjusted basis, BC employment is 19,300 less than it was in January!