LandKeepers News Archive
Premier Campbell Intercedes to Draw Battle Lines for the Year
March 24 2010 | News Articles | Vancouver Sun
By Vaughn Palmer, Vancouver Sun
The legislature came alive briefly during question period Tuesday, via a surprise intrusion from Premier Gordon Campbell.
New Democratic Party members were challenging the B.C. Liberal government over its support of the Enbridge project, the controversial proposal to build a pipeline to transport Alberta oil through northern B.C. to the port of Kitimat.
In light of the recently expressed opposition to the project from native leaders, Aboriginal Relations Minister George Abbott was answering for the government.
Project a long way from approval. Review will be conducted by the National Energy Board with provincial participation. Extensive discussions with first nations already underway. “There is much to be played out around this issue.”
Abbott fielded one question, then another. He was preparing to get to his feet for the third time, when there was a sudden exchange of hand signals with Liberal house leader Mike de Jong.
The minister kept his seat. Instead none other than the premier, whose only speaking appearances in the house of late were lengthy dissertations on matters Olympic, would answer for the government.
“Enbridge has a proposal which is going through a process,” began Campbell, before giving assurances that the process would include full “consultations with all those first nations individually” plus scrutiny under “the most rigorous environmental regime in North America.”
If concerns could be answered, said Campbell, “it will proceed. If there is not an answer, it will not proceed.”
But his main point in re-entering the political fray was to draw a distinction with the position taken by the NDP.
“There is no question the Opposition will say no to anything — any opportunity for investment, any opportunity for jobs, any opportunity for economic development … Unlike the Opposition, I can guarantee we will work with first nations, we will work with community leaders, and we will generate investment in jobs that meet our environmental objectives in B.C.”
There’s his drawing of the battle line for the year. I expect the province will be hearing much more along those lines, never mind opinion polls suggesting that the public may have heard enough from him on any and all subjects.
Following the premier’s attempt to turn the page, New Democrat Bruce Ralston served up a reminder of a lingering controversy from the last election campaign, namely the premier’s insistence that the deficit would be $495 million “maximum.”
The NDP had obtained a copy of a finance ministry briefing document, dated one year ago today, that hinted at the possibility that the deficit projection was already in doubt well before voting day May 12.
It was only a hint, suggested in the words “risk to the forecast.” Otherwise, the document was heavily censored, as per the narrowest interpretation of the access to information law.
Ralston challenged Finance Minister Colin Hansen to clear the air by releasing the unexpurgated version. Hansen’s rebuff was twofold.
He said the briefing document did not deal with the budget in question, namely the incoming financial year (starting April 1, 2009), the one with the offending $495-million deficit projection.
Rather it was an update on the outgoing financial year, the one ending March 31 and therefore irrelevant to Ralston’s complaint.
But the finance minister refused to go the extra step and release the document so the public could see for itself. Advice to cabinet. Not subject to release under the Act. Liberals are not inclined to surrender anything they don’t have to surrender.
Ironically, an e-mail obtained by the NDP at the same time as the larger document supported Hansen’s version of events. Dated March 24, 2009, as well, it indicated that senior finance ministry officials had that day discussed changes in revenues for the third quarter of the outgoing financial year (not the incoming one), much as Hansen said.
A third document released by the NDP supported Ralston. Dated March 31, it indicated that natural gas revenues for the incoming year (not the outgoing one) were already off by $134 million from the budget projection issued just six weeks earlier.
On that basis alone, the incoming budget was already headed for trouble. By September, natural gas revenues alone were off by $500 million and the safely re-elected Liberals were admitting to a deficit almost six times larger than the premier’s supposed maximum.
No smoking gun. But more evidence, presuming anyone needed it, that the B.C. Liberals clung to their dubious deficit projection long after it was supportable by any independent analysis of the province’s deteriorating financial situation.
The Liberals clarified Tuesday that legislation to repeal the provincial sales tax and implement other changes associated with the harmonized sales tax or HST will be tabled next week, not this week as they had originally indicated.
For a discussion of the implications (or non-implications) of the timing, see the entry on my blog, View from the Ledge, on The Sun’s website.
Read Vaughn Palmer’s BLOG at vancouversun . com/PALMER
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