April 21, 2005

Mischief in Tourism Marketing

In the first day or two of the official election campaign, Gordon Campbell has demonstrated even less transparency and openness than usual. Campbell is stumping the province claiming that the NDP would cut the budget for tourism. The media, obliged to report what people say rather than the truth, repeat his fictions. Truth seekers can click on the full 2005-2006 budget document as well as the estimates for the Ministry of Small Business and Economic Development which Campbell refused to allow to be called for legislative debate.

The 2005-2006 budget documents contain one paragraph on tourism; it states:
"Budget 2005 provides $67 million over the three years for Tourism BC, building toward the objective of doubling the tourism industry by 2015. This funding, combined with revenues allocated from the provincial hotel room tax, will allow Tourism BC to double its marketing budget to $50 million. An additional $14 million is allocated in 2004/05 for tourism initiatives to be announced at a later date."

On page 30 of the budget documents, the expansion of the Vancouver Convention Centre is discussed. It says that the province will provide : "$83 million of Tourism Vancouver's $90 million funding commitment. The province is contributing these funds to the project, and will be reimbursed through Tourism Vancouver's own source revenues over time."

The Campbell government takes with one hand and gives with another. It has required Tourism Vancouver to contribute $90 million towards the Convention Centre out of revenues that would otherwise go to tourism marketing.

The estimates for the Ministry of Small Business and Economic Development have a line item for "economic development throughout British Columbia" that was $18.033 million in 2004-05 and $236.762 million in 2005-06, hence it's name as the election "slush fund". A footnote to that line item states that the sub-vote includes implementing the provincial tourism strategy. There is no other reference to tourism in the Ministry's estimates; however, page 5 of the main budget documents reveal that the budget for tourism marketing is to increase from $14 million in 2004-05 to $24 million in 2005-06 before being cut in each of the next two years. In other words, tourism marketing was hidden in the $236.762 million election slush fund, representing 10% of that fund in 2005-06.

What does that tricky non-transparent accounting have to do with the election? The NDP's platform said that $119 million would be cut from the $237 million slush fund. The Campbell Liberals spun that to claim that tourism marketing would somehow be affected. On April 17th Carole James responded saying: "Now that Premier Gordon Campbell has finally come clean on what is covered by his un-debated budget "slush fund," an analysis shows that the NDP's platform can easily accommodate funding for community sports venues and tourism." She went on to point out that: "BC Liberal attacks on the NDP platform have now been exposed as deliberate misinformation." You would be hard pressed to find anything that reports the size of the tourism budget, where it is hidden or how much it represents of the slush fund. The misinformation campaign will no doubt continue since news is about what people say, not what is true.