Even when they cherry pick their dates and "facts" the Campbell government doesn't seem to be able to tell the truth. Statistics Canada's Labour Force Survey was released on Thursday, April 8th, just before the long weekend. It indicated that, on a seasonally adjusted basis, BC gained 5,100 jobs in March after losing 36,400 jobs in February. Minister of Skills Development and Labour rushed to put out a news release in which he broke with all previous tradition.

Graham Bruce's news release claimed "With 130,000 jobs created since December 2001, B.C.'s employment growth rate has led the country." Statistics Canada regularly revises its seasonally adjusted data so in order to get the latest revision it is necessary to pay $3 per data series to download from their CANSIM database. The Labour Force Survey series is on tables 282-0001 to 282-0042 and 282-0047 to 282-0095. They show that on a seasonally adjusted basis, Bruce overstated his claim by 6,000 jobs or; if he was using seasonally unadjusted data, he overstated his claim by 12,000 jobs. In either case, he was wrong about BC leading the country. In absolute terms, with their larger economies, Quebec gained 194,200 jobs, and Ontario gained 314,900 jobs over that period. Relative to December 2001 BC had a marginal lead in percentage terms, but when the full term of the New Era is used by comparing to May 2001, BC drops in percentage terms to 9th place. On a seasonally adjusted basis, employment in BC has grown by only 3.5% over the 34 months since the last election.

Labour Minister Bruce broke with all past tradition in his use of a government news release on April 8th to personally attack the leader of the opposition, Carole James. There was a time when that would have been over the top for a news release from a political caucus; it is still outrageous to use public resources for that sort of partisan attack. Carole James should take pride that government is breaking all the rules in order to react to her standing in the polls. Without a seat in the legislature, she is the most prominent person in the place! It is common for government MLAs to attack James during their speeches in the legislature. Sometimes they re-publish those attacks in materials distributed by their legislative caucus, although the BC Liberals did get into trouble while in opposition for misusing their caucus budget for partisan purposes (July 1997, Auditor General's report titled "Members' Office Mail: Liberal Caucus January 1997 Province-wide Mailing").

In government, the Campbell Liberals seem to have trouble distinguishing between the BC Liberal Party, the BC Liberal Caucus, and government even though they are very distinct entities. The top page of the government website, contains a link to a government paid website that claims to report on "the New Era Review". The problem is that the review is a political document that belongs on the website for the BC Liberal party, not on the government website - not to mention that it contains many distortions of the truth. The Campbell Liberals appear to be on the defensive as they draw attention to James.