The Campbell government seems to have trouble with numbers. After inflicting overwhelming cuts on almost all services in government, on the eve of the election it is restoring a fraction of the cuts and hoping that partial restoration of funding is welcomed by voters. One of the latest examples is funding for Special Education.

On February 11th, 2005, a news release from the Ministry of Education was headlined: "Province to do More for Students with Special Needs". It went on to say "The Province will provide an additional $3.7 million as part of a plan to increase support for students with special needs." According to the release, government's commitment in the throne speech was to increase funding for special education students by a projected $28 million next year to a total of nearly $260 million. There is one very big problem with the $260 million figure. On March 22, 1999, a Special Education Review Team was established. Its report is on the Ministry of Education's website. According to that report: "In 1999/2000 the Ministry of Education allocated $422,790,218 to special education. A preliminary review of the 1999/2000 school board preliminary budgets shows that $54,000,000 above the Ministry of Education target minimum has been budgeted for special education." In other words, after the recent government funding announcements are implemented, the amount of funding for Special Needs will have been cut by $162.79 million (38%). That makes the $3.7 million look rather small. Giving a few crumbs back after stealing the loaf may backfire on the Campbell government because it reminds voters of what was taken away.

Another example of the government's apparent belief that the public has short memories is found in the story they are using to cover their broken promise to deliver 5,000 new long term care beds. Their claim is that their efforts went into replacing existing beds that were 30 or more years old and inadequate. The problem with that claim is that it is contradicted by what Katherine Whittred said at a staged cabinet meeting. On April 22, 2002, Whittred announced the government's plan for residential care beds. At that meeting, she described the "home and community services program" and said: "the residential care portion of the program consumes 72 percent of the resources but serves 30 percent of the clients, while the home care portion uses 28 percent of the resources but serves 70 percent of the clients." She added: "every dollar we spend on one client inappropriately placed in a facility could support up to two clients in the community." She revealed government's plan to reduce the number of residential care beds and break the election promise when she said: "Lack of funding is often cited as the reason why we cannot create the options that are desired. However, when we look at how we currently use our resources, it's clear we could do things differently and get a better result. This will mean shifting some of our investment in facility care to create more appropriate services that support clients to remain independent in their own homes. My goal is to have a home and community care system that will provide services to a greater number of people, be more responsive and appropriate in meeting the needs of the people it serves and, at the same time, be more cost-effective and accountable."

In case anyone missed the point, Whittred provided a graphic and observed: "The diagram on the screen shows you how a health authority could reinvest funding from an existing facility to create an array of innovative contemporary care options that support independence while maintaining complex care clients in residential care. You see on the screen that you could move from this facility which previously served 205 people to one that will serve 247 people, which is a net increase of 20 percent. You will note that a much wider variety of programs are offered." In other words, in April 2002 the government's plan was to close residential care beds and use the funding to pay for rent supplements and assisted living. At that time, the media, and rightly so, questioned whether that was a violation of the promise to provide 5,000 new long term care beds by 2006. When government used the Throne Speech to announce that it wasn't keeping its promise, it appeared to be hoping that memories of Whittred's April 2002 presentation had long faded. Residential care beds were not closed, as now claimed, because they couldn't handle wheelchairs; they were closed in order to "shift resources".

Special needs education and residential care beds are examples of services where government cuts have hurt both the young and old. They wonder why the opinion polls show that they have a gender gap. Women remain the primary care givers for both, and they are unlikely to be fooled by pre-election rhetoric.