Here's an open letter to Premier Gordon Campbell issued today by First Call, a coalition of BC child and youth advocacy organizations, that notes the grand betrayal of British Columbians resulting from the instant tax cut Campbell used in a desperate attempt to increase his popularity. And here's a terrific Vaughn Palmer column on the same subject. 

November 9, 2010

Dear Premier Campbell,

First Call: BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition was one of the organizations that took time to respond to the call for input into next year’s budget by the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.  Many of our coalition partner organizations also participated in sharing their ideas and recommendations with the Committee.  We all participated in this exercise in good faith, trusting that the Committee’s report and recommendations, expected on November 15, would reflect our views, among others.

Your announcement on October 27, 2010 of an income tax cut costing the 2011 provincial budget $568 million was a slap in the face to the Standing Committee and everyone who made submissions to its deliberations.  The consultation document specifically asked British Columbians to share our budget priorities for 2011/12, with the figure of $650 million shown as “Available Revenues.”

Our coalition exists to mobilize British Columbians on behalf of children and youth.  We regularly encourage our coalition partners and contacts around the province to engage in the democratic process, such as participating in formal consultations by legislative committees, in order to make the case for the importance of allocating resources to properly support children, youth and families. 

Your action, preempting even the appearance of considering the Standing Committee’s recommendations, has made it harder for people to believe that their time is well spent preparing briefs and recommendations to inform government decision-making.  It has increased cynicism about our relationship as citizens with our government.  It has made it more difficult to convince young people that public consultations by government have integrity and are worthy of their interest and effort.

On behalf of our coalition partners, we would appreciate hearing from you as to why this 2011/12 budget decision was made prior to the submission of the Standing Committee’s report from its public consultations.

We look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

[original signed by]

Adrienne Montani

Provincial Coordinator

First Call: BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition

Copies to Finance Minister Colin Hansen and the members of the Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services.

See First Call's submission on the provincial budget here: http://www.firstcallbc.org/pdfs/CurrentIssues/2011%20prov%20budget.pdf

Bye, Mr. Premier. Wish I could think of something nice to say, you having been the premier for nine long years now. But I can't. 

Social conditions have worsened significantly under your leadership. You have insulated yourself from the people, choosing to surround yourself with paid cheerleaders who told you what you wanted to hear. I can’t tell you how many times the phrase, “The emperor has no clothes” has come to my mind when thinking about your governance style.

There was a moment when I glimpsed the human being that I know must be inside you. It was after you got busted for driving drunk in Maui. You came home to what must have been the most horrendous press conference you've ever had to be part of, and I saw in your eyes a man in real pain.

I wish you'd let that guy loose more often - the guy who knows what it feels like to screw up, to not always be the golden one. Your government operates like it's never known a moment like that. If I was going to describe the B.C. Liberals in a few words, I'd say: "Smug and dangerously certain."

These are complex times, Mr. Premier. I do know a little about your life, and that you've experienced complex events. So how come it never feels like you bring that personal experience to bear when making decisions for British Columbia? 

You guys feel cold as ice in so much of your decision-making. It’s like being run by a corporation. And that is not a good thing when so much of what a provincial government does is about looking after people.

Thanks to you, I do have a better understanding that the business model can be put to good application in much of what government does. But I guess I also have you to thank for showing me its striking limitations. 

 You will not be remembered well by people like me, but who knows - you still have years to go in your life, and are uniquely placed as a former premier to do some really good work out here in the world should you put your mind to it. I never say never.

But I don’t think you can be expected to be forgiven easily, and certainly not by me. I’ve actually met people who your government has pulled the rug out from under. OK, you’re just the premier, but you set the tone. And it’s way off.

I’m a media type, always looking for someone to talk to. I’ve noticed that people have become much more fearful about speaking up under your leadership. That says volumes about the climate you’ve created in government. 

In fairness, it hasn’t all been bad.

You’ve definitely made B.C. a better place to do business, and that needed to happen. You pulled off the Olympics - and I admit, I sat riveted in front of the TV for much of it despite my fervent vow that I would boycott the whole thing.

You got things going with First Nations. That’s particularly impressive given how very far back some members of your government were on that issue when you first came to power.

 And I think all-day kindergarten will turn out to be a good thing in years to come, even though it’s also a prime example of the kind of shove-it-down-your-throat style of government that has brought you to this point.

My sense of you is that you never had a clue what consultation is actually about. You seem quite certain that you know best about everything.

But you don’t. You can’t. That’s how it is for everyone, Mr. Campbell. We all need help figuring out the problems of life, even premiers.

Why have you never been able to see the tremendous potential for transformation you have right here in your own communities? Why do you always think that the people you talk to in your high circles are wiser than the people who are actually doing the work for you here in B.C.?

I’ve been a manager, too. I know the compulsion to have a finger in every pie, control over every situation.

But if you could have only let that go, you would have seen that everything you needed to lead B.C. into prosperity and stability was right there among your citizens. We were actually doing a lot of things right before you showed up.

We didn’t anoint you king, Gordon - we elected you premier, “first among equals.” I just don’t think you ever got that.

We generally picture the U.S. as a black hole of social support, but not necessarily. Here's an article out of Minnesota about a recent expansion to that state's food program to feed poor families.
A family of four earning $3000 or less a month now qualifies for food aid in Minnesota. Eight per cent of the state's population relies on food aid every month.
Compare these changes to the situation in B.C., where the best you can hope for even if you're scratching by on welfare (for a family of four, as low as $1,100 a month) is a place in line at the local food bank.
If there's a food bank in your town. If the food bank has food....

What will be left after the Liberals?

I don’t know if you lived in B.C. back when we were actually building community services instead of tearing them apart, but I did.  I was one of the taxpayers helping fund it all.

So how am I supposed to feel as that same taxpayer, watching all that investment be dismantled because we’ve got a short-sighted, self-interested political party at the helm with some very sketchy ethics?

People, what are we doing here? Please tell me we’re not actually prepared to just sit back in seething silence until the next provincial election in 2013. I think I might have to move away if that’s the case, just to stop my head from exploding.

What gets me the most is the sheer arrogance of the decision-making in the last couple of years.  A colleague recently reminded me that the same arrogance gripped the New Democrats in their final term, so maybe it’s just what happens when parties get to believing their own myths.

The government’s active role in the potential ruination of community services is ever-present on my mind at the moment. The funding levels and service structure for social care are changing so fast in B.C. right now that it really is like the Wild West out there, and I think I can say with certainty that no one has any idea where it will all lead.

Dressed up variously as “transformation” and “greater community integration and independence,” the government is flailing around for savings by dismantling, starving and squeezing services that in some cases have been in place for decades. With no social policy to guide cuts and changes, it’s essentially snipping random holes in the safety net, with no predicting where things will fall out.

But even if you don’t give a hoot about social issues, there’s a lot more to worry about when it comes to the B.C. Liberals.

The Basi-Virk stuff, for instance.

First you’ve got the high-flying guy in government who thinks it’s OK to take a $50,000 bribe from a developer wanting property taken out of the Agricultural Land Reserve. Then you’ve got the very government that bred a guy like that telling us we should just accept their word that the bribe had no effect on the decision, and never mind that the land did indeed get removed from the reserve.

Then you’ve got the $6 million payoff to cover the legal fees of Dave Basi and Bobby Virk, a decision reached by government mere days before a number of high-profile witnesses were to testify about how much the government knew.

And then to insult us with the explanation that government covered the legal bills because it was clear Basi and Virk could never afford to pay that amount back. How kind. This from the same government that will relentlessly grind people on income assistance to pay back $20.

Before Basi-Virk, there was the HST. I’m not so much bothered by the tax itself, because the work I do keeps me up close and personal to the problems that have resulted from the relentless drive to lower taxes. But the lying definitely offends me.

Finance Minister Colin Hansen - a man of integrity, I once thought - almost had us believing that government hadn’t considered introducing the HST until after the 2009 election.

When the media put the lie to that statement after finding an email from the federal government to Hansen sent two months before the election, the finance minister just kept up the Sergeant Schultz defence of knowing nothing. It was as if sheer repetition alone could make us believe.

I’m sure it must be very difficult to be government these days. People howling at the door for services, less money to go around.

But how is any of that helped by starving services that prevent much bigger, costlier problems from developing? And why should I believe anything the government says on that front or any other now that I know that bribes, lying and the paying of hush money are part of the way it does business?

It bothers me a lot that when the bill for failed social care finally comes due years from now, the B.C. Liberals of the moment will be gone and their pivotal role in the tragedy overlooked.  It bothers me more to see our province in the hands of a government that feels so little respect for the people.

I don’t know what the answer is. But it sure isn’t about waiting until 2013.

Read this story out of Indiana and weep. There would have been a time I couldn't have imagined people in B.C. and Canada ever finding themselves in a similar situation, but not anymore.