Byelection bad news for Liberals, disaster for Greens

VICTORIA - That was a convincing win for the NDP in Surrey, a blow for the Liberals and a disaster for the Green Party and Adriane Carr.
The Liberal spin is that it's tough for governing parties to win byelections.
True enough. The last victory by a governing party was in 1981. People can safely send a message of dissatisfaction in a byelection, without having to worry about which party will form the government.
But this was a still a sharp slap in the face for the Liberals. The Gordon Campbell party took 60 per cent of the vote in the riding in 2001, while the NDP stumbled home with 20 per cent, results that almost exactly reflected the provincial vote.
Now the Liberals could only win the backing of 33 per cent of voters, while the New Democrats topped 50 per cent.
The defeat comes less than seven months before the provincial vote next May, and after a big effort by the Liberals. They thought they had a strong candidate in Mary Polak, and poured taxpayers' money into pro-government advertising during the campaign. Campbell helped out, and they came up with a flood of spending announcements and even tax cut one week before the vote.
It didn't work. The Liberal challenge is to get beyond denial, and figure out why they have lost the support of more than half the people who voted for them in 2001.
Their first reaction was that voters just wanted to signal their dissatisfaction. In the general election voters they'll have to vote for us, said the Liberals, because the NDP would be worse. It's a complacent, even arrogant, attitude. If people think you're doing a bad job you need to improve.
For New Democrats, the win demonstrates that their dismal record in government is no longer fatal to their hopes. That's good news for leader Carole James, whose main challenge is to show that the party has changed.
The NDP was able to field campaign workers - something that didn't happen in 2001 - and run a winning effort.
The victory is also a big practical boost for the party. The NDP gets a much greater opportunity to press the Liberals in Question Period, and to get the party's views into the public debate. New MLA Jagrup Brar has six months to show up at every elementary school concert and service club lunch in the riding, and raise issues that affect all the Surrey ridings. And generally, the party gets some badly needed hope.
The big losers are Carr and the Green Party.
Carr chose to run herself in the byelection, saying that party leaders have traditionally taken the first chance to seek a seat.
The decision backfired. The Greens captured fewer votes than they did in 2001, finishing with less than nine per cent.
Worse, the byelection left voters with an obvious conclusion. A Green vote, under our current system, will be a wasted vote in almost every riding in the province.
That was fine in 2001, when it was clear the Liberals were going to win a huge majority. Voters could safely go Green, either because they liked their policies or didn't support of the two main parties. In 68 of the 79 ridings the Liberals would have romped home even if every Green voter had decided to back the NDP.
The byelection results show that things will be different this time. The Liberals and New Democrats will be locked in a number of close races, and perhaps even in a battle to form the government.
The only people who will safely be able to vote Green are those in ridings where the races aren't close, and those who don't care whether the Liberals or the NDP form government. That leaves the Greens with bleak prospects.
The results should send a warning to Campbell. People are unhappy with the style and substance of the government. It's a message that needs to acknowledged, not denied.
Footnote: Liberals moved quickly to blame the defeat on the active NDP support by big unions, which did pour workers into the campaign. But the government made a big push as well, and ultimately the defeat reflected the judgment of the 12,000 people who voted.

'Crackdown' on drunk driving really masks decriminalization

VICTORIA - Don't fall for the rhetoric about getting tough on drunk driving.
While the debate about decriminalizing marijuana rages on, we've already quietly decriminalized most drinking and driving offences in B.C.
The Liberals introduced changes to drinking and driving penalties in the brief fall session, and even got a few headlines that talked about a crackdown on impaired drivers.
But the changes - though useful - continue the process of decriminalizing drinking and driving, and treating it as a less serious offence than Parliament intended.
Canada's laws say that drinking and driving is a criminal offence.
But enforcing the law would cost money that the government doesn't want to spend, for police and prosecutors and court time. So the province has moved to cheaper alternatives, with much less serious consequences for drinking drivers.
About 51,000 drinking drivers were caught by B.C. police last year. But only 7,000 - 15 per cent - faced Criminal Charges. The rest received 24-hour roadside suspensions and were sent on their way.
In some cases, there may not have been clear enough evidence for criminal charges, and the blood alcohol level is lower for a roadside suspension is lower.
But the government's own review released last year found that police just don't have the time to process drunk drivers and do the work needed to lay charges. The government also doesn't want to pay for the prosecutors and court time needed to handle more offenders, with drinking and driving offences already taking one-quarter of provincial court trial time.
It's too expensive to enforce the law, so charges are now reserved for the very drunk, repeat offenders or people who are in accidents.
The changes to provincial laws didn't change that. The government remains unprepared to pay the cost of enforcing the law.
They amendments are useful, but relatively minor compared to all the rhetoric about the dangers of drinking and driving.
B.C. will finally end its dubious distinction as the only province that doesn't require offenders to take a course on drinking and driving, and if necessary receive alcohol counselling. (Alberta has been requiring the courses for 30 years.)
But the province still took a baby step. Only repeat offenders and the small minority convicted of a Criminal Code offence will have to take the course. The government estimates that one in seven of those guilty of drinking and driving will have to take the course. the message - intended or not - is that 85 per cent of drinking drivers aren't really doing anything too bad, and have just made a little mistake.
The other changes are also worthwhile, but small. Minimum fines for driving while suspended were raised from $300 to $500, and possible terms of vehicle impoundment doubled.
And the government introduced the use of ignition interlock devices, which require some offenders to provide a breath sample before they start their cars.
Again though, it's a small step. Only drivers who have been convicted of three Criminal Code drinking and driving offences will be considered for the program, and it remains optional. In Ontario, the device is mandatory after two convictions. (But then in Ontario a third conviction brings a lifetime driving ban, which can be reduced to 10 years. In B.C. the ban is only five years.
Overall, the changes make sense. But they are very small, even timid steps.
One reason is likely pragmatic. Make the consequences too tough and penalties too severe, and drivers will have the same incentive to spend time and money fighting them. That is what helped lead the government to move away from Criminal Code charges in the first place.
Still, the overall message is that the government is only moderately concerned about the problem of drinking and driving, and prepared to take only small measures to deter the hundreds of thousands of people who take to the roads impaired each year in B.C.
Footnote: What's urgently needed is an awareness and education campaign. The government's report on the issue found drivers weren't aware of the current penalties, and underestimated the legal consequences. People won't be deterred by penalties that they don't even know exist.

New way of electing MLAs offers great hope

VICTORIA - OK, it's confusing, but you should be wildly enthusiastic about the chance to change the way we elect MLAs and governments in B.C.
It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Once political parties are in power they aren't much interested in changing the system that got them there, even if it has huge flaws.

But Gordon Campbell, to his credit, promised to give a randomly selected citizens' assembly the chance to see if there's a better way of electing governments.
And what's more, he promised that any recommendation would go to a binding referendum at the same time as next May's provincial election.

Now they've done it. The 160 members of the assembly, after 10 months of study and consultation and public hearings, have come up with what they say is a better way.
You have six months to assess their proposal before the referendum. It deserves your full attention. The assembly came up with two basic conclusions.

First, that the current system isn't working. The make-up of the legislature doesn't reflect the votes of British Columbians. The New Democrats, for example, received 22 per cent of the vote in 2001, but have 2.5 per cent of the seats. The Green Party had the support of 12 per cent of voters, who have no representatives in the legislature. In 1996, the NDP received 40 per cent of the votes, but 52 per cent of the seats.

The assembly also found that the current system concentrates power in the hands of the party leadership, with the result that MLAs are seen as servants of the party, not the people that elected them.

Second, the assembly decided that the best way to improve the system was by moving to a single-vote transferable system, already in use in other jurisdictions.
It's painfully complicated to explain, and a full review will follow in a later column.

But basically, there are several key elements.

The legislature would stay the same size, but individual ridings would be larger, and would elect more than one MLA. Three Prince George constituencies, for example, could become one larger riding that would elect three MLAs.

And the way you vote would change. Instead of marking an 'X' beside one candidate, you would rank the people on the ballot in order of preference. One of the Liberals may be your first choice, because you like the party and the candidate.

But your second choice might be an independent candidate who has done a good job on school board, or a New Democrat whose abilities you admire. You don't have to say yes or no to a party, but can effectively split your vote among several.

Here's where things get complex. When the votes are counted, the rankings come into play and the votes are weighted to ensure a result that reflects the preferences of the voters.

The result, the assembly says, would be a much more diverse legislature, with candidates representing a wider range of voters.

And as importantly, it would -- by ending the domination of two main parties -- lead to a greater need for parties to co-operate with each other, and would shift power from the premier's office to backbenchers.

There's room for a full debate about the pros and cons, and much to learn about the specific proposal going to the referendum. The assembly hopes to have that work done by mid-November.

But this is an extraordinary opportunity for real change, to a system that has worked in other parts of the world for decades.

Few can deny change is needed. The legislature isn't representative; barely half the eligible population bothers to vote; citizens don't feel well-served by their MLAs; and this place is an embarrassment too many days.

The citizens' assembly is composed of two people from every riding in the province, from students to seniors and farmers to scientists. They consulted the best experts, and the public, and produced a recommendation. It deserves serious consideration.

Footnote: Green Party leader Adriane Carr immediately trashed the proposal. She favours a different proportional representation system, and wants to organize a "no" campaign in the referendum. It's a short-sighted, negative response to the one best chance for change that would actually help the Greens and other smaller parties.

Government rush leaves your privacy at risk

VICTORIA - Mostly, it comes down to trust and common sense when your government says it has a plan to protect your privacy from a powerful neighbour.
The BC Liberals have - after almost no debate or public consultation - just passed a law that they say will protect British Columbians' privacy from the extraordinary provisions of the USA Patriot Act.
You should be skeptical.
This issue came up in the spring, when the Liberals decided they could save money by contracting out the administration of the Medical Services Plan and Pharmacare. The idea was to hire a private company - one that already had the software needed - and save a lot of money.
That's reasonable, with the right safeguards.
But the BC Government Employees' Union raised an alarm. In the wake of 911, the U.S. government had passed the USA Patriot Act. It pulls any companies with significant operations in America into the service of the U.S. government. They are required to hand over any information they have, on people anywhere in the world, over to the FBI, and they're forbidden to tell anyone.
So if the B.C. contracting went ahead, the U.S. government could download your medical records, your credit rating, the prescription drugs you and your children used, and plunk them into a database that would pop up the next time you decide to do a weekend in Washington State.
Why would they want to? Mostly because they can. People who have access to information want to gather and use it. It may prove useful, and it certainly justifies someone's job.
Don't worry, say the Liberals. We think we've fixed the problem with a new B.C. law. Trust us.
But trust has already been shaken. When the government appeared ready to contract out the MSP records to a U.S. company this spring, the BCGEU warned of the privacy risk. Health Minister Colin Hansen was dismissive: "The privacy of information is not compromised in the least way possible," he said then.
He was wrong. The privacy of information would be compromised, dramatically, as the government was later forced to admit.
The government still wanted to go ahead with the MSP/Pharmacare deal with Maximus Inc. of Arizona. So it has just passed legislation that is supposed to protect your private information from the reach of the Patriot Act. Companies and government would be barred from storing information outside Canada, or disclosing it. If they were asked for information by foreign government, they would have to report the request.
That leaves big companies with a choice. Obey the B.C. law. Or obey the USA Patriot Act.
This is where common sense comes in.
Because the choice is no choice at all. Disobey the Patriot Act and companies risk serious penalties, the loss of huge contracts and possible political problems in the United States, the world's largest economy. Disobey the B.C. law, and you pay a fine.
Which option would you choose when the FBI came calling?
What's most alarming is the government's baffling rush to pass this bill.
B.C. Privacy Commissioner David Loukidelis is weeks away from delivering a major report on the implications of the Patriot Act, and an assessment of the risks. He has received submissions from corporations and governments, and the best advice.
But the B.C. government has rushed through this legislation. It's not retroactive, so there's no need for haste. Delay doesn't increase the risk.
The obvious conclusion is that the government is in a big hurry to get on with contracting our information to U.S. corporations.
Privacy is a significant issue in these days of supercomputers and global networks. Your business - what you tell your doctor, how your children are doing, what you own and what you owe - should be your business.
It's important. and by rushing through a law, without the privacy commissioner's report., the government has failed to recognize the value British Columbians place on their right to personal privacy.
Footnote: How many questions or suggestions from Liberal MLAs as the changes moved through the legislature? Sadly, none. I would have expected backbenchers to have suggestions or questions about the details of the legislation that's supposed to stand behind your privacy and the FBI's appetite for information.

Tax cut good news, and timely for Liberals' byelection hopes

VICTORIA - Call me cynical, but it seems like a heck of a coincidence that the Liberals decided to offer up a sales tax cut days before a hotly contested Surrey byelection.
But leave that aside for now.
The first thing to note is that this is good news.
Knocking the sales tax from 7.5 per cent to seven per cent will cost the government about $280 million a year, which means that the average British Columbian will be about $70 ahead of the game. Not a huge amount, but a good deal for families, especially ones that are spending most of their income on life's basics.
And the second thing - leaving aside lingering concerns about the Liberals' reckless first day tax cuts and the resulting huge deficits - is that the government can afford to roll back the sales tax increase it imposed in 2002. The economy is doing well enough to generate more revenue for governments.
After that, it's time to start ticking off some concerns.
Premier Gordon Campbell denied the sales tax cut had anything to do with next Thursday's byelection in Surrey-Panorama Ridge. The latest poll suggests that the Liberals and NDP are effectively tied, given the Liberals a shot at being the first governing party to win a byelection in B.C. since 1981.
Finance Minister Gary Collins said the government wasn't sure it could afford to reduce the tax until last week, so couldn't have given you a break any earlier.
And he wanted to make the cut through legislation introduced in the House, and feared that the fall sitting might end within days. That made it risky to wait any longer, he said. (That was a surprise; the schedule calls for the sitting to last until the end of November.)
It's an argument that's impossible to refute. But the government tabled its latest financial update five weeks ago, and it projected a surplus this year of more than $1 billion. The tax cut will cost the government about $130 million for the rest of this fiscal year. If the aim was to get money in your pocket as quickly as possible, there was room to do the cut earlier. And never in B.C. history has this kind of change been made outside of the normal budget process.
Then there's the matter of the legislative committee that has been touring the province, gathering information on what should be done with the coming surpluses. They've heard a range of suggestions. Some people want to use all the money to pay down the province's debt, others want to see tax cuts of various types. And some would like the surpluses spent to restore services, or reduce surgical wait lists.
The committee is scheduled to report in a few weeks. It would have been useful to see what they learned about the wishes of British Columbians before the decision to cut the tax was made.
Collins disagrees, and says there is wide agreement that rolling back the sales tax increase should be a priority.
What's ahead, one of the media pack asked Campbell in a rare press conference. If you'll cut the sales tax by one-half a percentage point in the middle of a byelection campaign, how big will the tax cuts be in the actual election budget next February?
The premier said the budget would be based on the Liberals' existing plans.
But the plans don't contemplate the kind of surpluses that are now on the horizon. The government has room to provide adequate funding to the ministry of children and families, or effectively wipe out health care waiting lists.
Or to cut the sales tax rate in half over the next three years.
Your reaction to this cut will help decide where the money goes.
Footnote: Tax changes are supposed to be secret until they are presented to the legislature, to make sure that no one profits from advance notice. Collins announced the cut at 2:12 p.m. By 2:14 p.m. Retail BC had a press release out praising the move. The association denied any advance notice, and said they had the release ready to go in case of an announcement.

Liberals fumble questions about on-line betting

VICTORIA - A surreal day at the legislature.
The cabinet minister for gambling says he has no opinion on whether gambling has expanded in B.C. over the last three years.
The cabinet minister for addictions refuses to answer questions on gambling addiction. That's not my responsibility, she says.
Gambling addiction, it turns out, is the responsibility of - yes, you guessed it - the minister responsible for creating more gamblers.
Even the Liberal backbenchers - generally a pretty enthusiastic bunch when it comes to pounding their desks any time a cabinet minister answers a question - seemed dismayed. The best they could manage was a few tentative taps.
The Liberals were trying to answer NDP questions about why they had introduced Internet gambling.
For the money, obviously. There's no public policy reason for encouraging people to bet on sports events from their homes, no community lobby demanding that people be encouraged to gamble from their home computer.
The Liberal election campaign platform included a promise to rein in gambling in B.C.
Gordon Campbell - and a raft of other Liberals - spoke out against gambling in opposition. He promised, in writing, that a Liberal government would "stop the expansion of gambling that has increased gambling addiction and put strains on families."
They have done the opposite.
There were 2,400 slot machines in 10 casinos when the Liberals took over. They've doubled the number of slots in three years, and are on track towards more than 8,000 of the machines by the end of next year.
Slot machines were restricted to casinos; now the government is pushing them into community bingo halls.
When the Liberals took over, gambling netted the province $560 million - money taken from losing bettors. This year it will be more than $850 million, and they're planning on cracking $1 billion.
The Liberals have moved casinos to 24-hour operation, raised betting limits, allowed alcohol to be served on the casino floor.
And now they have become the second jurisdiction in North America to move gambling on to the Internet.
Just selling lottery tickets on-line, Solicitor General Rich Coleman told the legislature, a less-than-accurate description of the BC Lottery Corp. initiative. People are able to bet on sports events, and the corporation has introduced a new "game" just for web gamblers who want to bet on football. Those bets can only be placed through the website, a dandy traffic-building measure. (The lottery corporation made a pitch to take betting online during the NDP years, and was told to forget it.)
So, given all that, have the Liberals broken their promise to "stop the expansion of gambling that has increased gambling addiction and put strains on families." Have they in fact expanded gambling?
Coleman says some people may think so.
But what do you think, a reporter asked.
"I don't really have an opinion," said Coleman, responsible for gambling policy and for dealing with gambling addiction in B.C.
Come on. People aren't stupid. Twice as many slots, on-line betting, mega-casinos, VLTs in bingo halls, another $300 million in profits from losers.
That's expanded gambling.
It's equally weird that Brenda Locke, the junior minister for mental health and addictions, isn't responsible for gambling addictions. Some 160,000 people in B.C. are problem gamblers. Their problem is, according to the experts, like any other addiction.
Not my responsibility, says Locke. Coleman - responsible for increasing gambling revenues - is also responsible for reducing and treating gambling addiction. (That's much like putting the tobacco manufacturers in charge of reducing smoking.)
So what did they have to say, those Liberals who used to be so strongly opposed to gambling expansion on principle and on practical grounds? Kevin Krueger, for example, was once a fierce gambling critic who urged NDP backbenchers to stand up to their government on the issue. What did he say now?
Krueger - like the rest of the Liberal MLAs - said nothing at all.
Footnote: The BC Lottery Corp. web site attempts to bar people under 19 from betting. Coleman was vague in the method, but it appears that if you enter your name the corporation launches quick electronic searches of other databases to gather information about you. Expect some privacy concerns to be raised..

Jumbo headache for politicians in ski resort plans

VICTORIA - The Jumbo Glacier ski resort is shaping up to be one huge headache for government.
This should have been a good news story for the Liberals. The proposed development, near Invermere, would let people drive to a resort that offered year-round high glacier skiing, an experience available nowhere else in North America. Some 6,000 housing units, 23 lifts, stores, restaurants, lots of jobs. The valley has already been logged and mined and is hardly pristine.
The project certainly fits the government's plans. The Liberals have a junior minister, Sandy Santori, whose only responsibility it to get more resorts developed in B.C.
So you'd expect a big announcement that a $450-million project had just won environmental assessment approval, with the premier and local MLAs on hand in local communities to celebrate the good news, maybe with one of those videos the Liberals make for good news press conferences.
Instead Resource Minister George Abbott revealed the news from the Press Theatre, underground in the legislature. He took pains to distance the government from the project, and to emphasize that the decision on whether it will go ahead is up to the East Kootenay Regional District directors. The land isn't zoned for a resort; if they won't change the zoning, the project is dead.
And the district won't even have to decide until the resort developer and Land and Water BC agree on a management plan and lease agreement, a process Abbott said could take up to a year.
Why the nervousness?
The main reason is the strong local opposition to the project. Opponents point to risks to nearby grizzly bears, although the environmental asset - a huge undertaking - said the problems can be managed, in part through cutting back the size of the development. The resort also threatens the existence of long-standing local businesses, including a heli-ski operation that already operates on the glaciers.
And mostly people in the area would just prefer that the valley stay the way it is. I haven't seen any public opinion polls on the project, but Abbott acknowledged that 90 per cent of the thousands of submissions during the environmental review opposed the project for a variety of reasons.
The number of submissions doesn't count in the environmental review, which is supposed to be fact-based. The report addressed concerns about waste water, the development's size, wildlife conflicts and employment opportunities for First Nations.
But public opinion will count when the project gets to the East Kootenay Regional District directors.
Abbott had barely finished talking when the first icy blasts came from opponents. Meredith Hamstead of the Jumbo Creek Conservation Society called the decision "foolish" and vowed to go global with the battle against the resort.
Abbott did remove one of the opponents' most significant fears. He ruled out using the Significant Projects Streamlining Act to force approval of the Jumbo resort. The law, passed by the Liberals, allows cabinet to over-rule local governments and most boards and commissions to force approval of projects cabinet deems "significant."
Jumbo looked as if it met that test. But Abbott said it doesn't, and the powers won't be used. The decision is up to the regional district.
That should make for a ferocious municipal election campaign in the region next fall, when the project could just be moving to the district for review, with Jumbo as the over-riding issue. (It will also be a big issue in next May's provincial election, despite Abbott's attempt to paint it as a local decision.)
Jumbo is also a test of the government's resort policy. The project was first proposed 13 years ago, and has been working through or waiting on reviews and land use planning exercises ever since.
The fight for approval still looks tough. And if Jumbo fails, it's hard to imagine investors risking much time on plans for any new large-scale resort in rural B.C.
Footnote: Local MLA Wendy McMahon has yet to take a position on the resort, citing the need to wait for the environmental assessment. The riding is a potential swing seat in next May's election, and the resort project is going to be a critical issue for Liberal, NDP and Green candidates.

On-line betting Liberals' latest gambling betrayal

VICTORIA - I try to be kind, at least in print, but the Liberals look dead sleazy on gambling.
They said gambling was morally wrong, and destroyed families. They promised - in writing - that they would halt the expansion of gambling. Gordon Campbell said if he got the a chance he would go farther, and cut back gambling in B.C.
He's done the opposite. This month alone we get news of another new mega-casino and the introduction of government-backed on-line betting.
"I want to build an economy based on winners, not losers, and gambling is always based on losers,'' Campbell said before the election. "The only way government makes money on gambling is because you lose it.''
Now the government is working as hard as it can to make more British Columbians losers.
Take on-line gambling, introduced this week with no public announcement. Apparently that long walk to a lottery outlet was stopping too many people from losing their money by betting on sports events. There are 4,500 places to buy lottery tickets in the province, after all, one for every 700 adults.
So the government decided to let people bet on games from their homes, offering a slick Internet service.
Everyone changes their mind on some things, based on new information or changing circumstances. Governments can be expected to break promises, to abandon policies.
But we're talking about abandoning principles. Campbell and the Liberals opposed a big government gambling operation because it was wrong. They said it created gambling addicts, hurt families and turned people into losers.
It's hard to trust anyone who will trade principles for money.
That's what it looks like the Liberals have done. They haven't claimed some revelation that led them to decide it was all right to take money from the desperate, gullible and addicted. They haven't justified the abandonment of principle. They've just gone ahead, pushing slots on communities, working to recruit more people as gamblers, and looked for ways to increase the amount the average citizen loses.
The latest tactic is Internet gambling, something that use to be terrible when private companies in some offshore haven ran the games. Now it's the government running the game, and everything is fine. Gambling on the Internet is just like banking online, BC Lotteries says.
The government's new Internet gambling venture lets people bet on sports events, without leaving their homes. In the interests of responsibility, people are only allowed to lose up to $70 a week on line. That can't hurt, can it? The government hopes that within a couple of years people will be losing $10 million a month online.
You used to have to make a choice before you could gamble - drive to a casino, or stop at a lottery ticket kiosk. The person with a problem could avoid temptation. No more; the government is bringing it into their homes.
I'm not a moralist, and defend peoples' right to make bad choices.
But there is something reprehensible about a government that knows taking money from gullible or desperate gamblers is wrong, and is hurting families, but does it anyway.
When the Liberals were elected, promising to stop the expansion of gambling, there were 2,400 slot machines. They will have more than doubled that number by the end of the year. The government doesn't think enough of us are gamblers, even though about 1.9 million British Columbians place bets through the BC Lottery Corp. each month. They want to use advertising to recruit another 200,000 gamblers over the next three years. If it all works they'll pluck $1 billion from the public's pockets, twice as much as when the took over.
And they know it's wrong, but do it anyway.
We all make mistakes, and some of them have bad consequences. But this isn't a mistake, it's a plan. A plan that, as Gordon Campbell said, sets out to turn British Columbians into losers.
Footnote: The government's leap into Internet gambling comes after it banned charity raffle ticket sales on the Internet, even though established hospitals and other agencies had sold tickets online for several years. It's illegal for a charity to sell raffle tickets on the Internet; it's legal for government to run a betting shop.

Children and families needs share of surplus

VICTORIA - The voices of children aren't easily heard in our society, especially the thousands of children in foster care, or in families struggling to get by.
That's what makes Jane Morley's reminder that those children, along with the families of the mentally disabled, shouldn't be forgotten when it comes time to spend B.C.'s surplus.
Morley is the child and youth officer for B.C., the watchdog charged with ensuring we do right by the people served by the ministry of children and families.
The Liberals' New Era has been bad for those people, those children lugging their few belongings from foster home to foster home, or the families desperate for help in caring for a disabled child. Budgets have been chopped, and the ministry has been plagued by mismanagement and half-baked plans.
Now B.C. plans on a surplus of more than $1 billion this year, and even more in the next two years.
Everyone has ideas on how to spend it. Cut taxes. Get real per-student education funding back to where it was three years ago. Shorten waiting lists. Build roads.
"The advantages of tourism promotion, infrastructure enhancements and increased law enforcement resources, along with many other initiatives new and old, have been drawn to our attention by a multitude of thoughtful and articulate interest groups and public officials," Morley noted in a recent comment piece.
But children and families - or at least the most vulnerable ones - are often unheard in the competition for public attention and money.
The government's budget consultation questionnaire gives people a checklist of possible ways of using the surplus. The list doesn't include restoring cuts to the ministry, or improving the lot of children and families.
"In the competition for shares of what are always limited public resource (even with a budget surplus), the voices of children and youth are not loud: they need champions to ensure that they are not forgotten when scarce resources are allocated," Morley says.
The children's ministry has seen its budget cut by $145 million since the Liberals were elected. (Even though in opposition the Liberals, including Gordon Campbell, said the ministry didn't have enough money to do the required job.).
It's time to put a significant sum back into the ministry, Morley says.
"The existence of a surplus is an opportunity for the government to provide the up-front resources necessary to achieve its goal of transforming a child welfare system that has been in place for decades and which is not easily amenable to change," she says. Fund the cost of changing the way services are delivered. Provide money to figure out what works. Pay for the move towards local control, and get the money into communities so they can decide what needs to be done.
"Real transformations do not come about easily or cheaply," she says. "The government should now spend some of the surplus that has become available on the children and youth in British Columbia."
Morley isn't alone. The BC Association for Community Living has also asked the government to reverse the cuts to ease a "crisis" in services for disabled adults.
The association has been a big defender of the government, keen to see the transition to an independent authority and willing to try and cope with reduced budgets.
Executive director Laney Bryenton says things have just gone too far. Waiting lists for services are growing, and families - including some elderly parents caring for adult children with mental disabilities - are stretched to the breaking point.
It's time to push for more money, she says, or at least the return of the money that was cut - and helped create the surplus.
Morley gets the last word.
"The voices of children and youth are not loud," she said in a report earlier this year. "They need champions to ensure that they are not forgotten when scarce resources are allocated."
Consider it a personal challenge.
Footnote: The money available to support children and families has been cut by eight per cent since the election. At the same time, inflation has pushed up the cost of providing most service by up to 10 per cent. All in a ministry Campbell used to argue was under-funded by the NDP.

Huckleberry Mine owners get a gift from taxpayers

VICTORIA - It's hard to see how letting a company off the hook for $3 million owed to the government isn't a subsidy, something the Liberals considered odious during the NDP years.
That's what the government has just done for the owners of the Huckleberry Mine southwest of Houston.
And it's likely just the first, smallest installment in taxpayers' kindness to the mine's owners. Another $14.5 million may be written off in two years, as the mine nears the end of its life.
Revenue Minister Rick Thorpe says writing off the company's debt isn't a subsidy. The government - like any other creditor - had two choices, he says. It could forgive the debt. Or the company would close the mine and 175 people would lose their jobs.
It was a business decision, he says.
But it was also a political one, and it is a subsidy. Other mining companies are out there trying to compete without the benefit of government largesse, while Huckleberry Mine gets a break.
The tangle goes back to the NDP days, when subsidies were flowing to companies.
Imperial Metals of Vancouver wanted to develop the copper mine, and in 1996 the government came up with a $14.5-million loan - about 10 per cent of the total mine cot - to help with development. It was supposed to be a commercial loan, at competitive interest rates.
But eight years later, not a dime has been repaid. The mine has been operating, although apparently not terribly successfully due to low copper prices, since other creditors have also gone unpaid. Imperial has since taken on four Japanese investors, who have a 50-per-cent share in the property.
Imperial made a $3.4-million profit last year, and is developing another mine at Mount Polley. With a well-crafted loan agreement, you would expect the government and other creditors to be able to exert some pressure and get some of your money back.
But Imperial also restructured last year, turning over the management of the Huckleberry Mine to a separate company. The ultimate ownership stayed the same, but the debts are now on the new company's books. Its only asset is the Huckleberry Mine, which is slated to shut down in a little over two years, and it has large debts. Creditors have little leverage, because the owners have don't have much to lose if the mine is forced into bankruptcy and closes now.
Thorpe notes the Liberals have closed the door on any new grants and loans to companies.
That was a good decision. If no bank or investor considers the risk worthwhile, taxpayers shouldn't be tapped for the money. And a subsidy to one company inevitably disadvantages competitors, creating a tilted playing field. The NDP's decision to pump more than $400 million into Skeena Cellulose not only cost taxpayers money, it hurt other companies trying to operate pulp mills without government cash.
Why the break to Huckleberry, without any benefit to taxpayers or commitment from the company to make regular payments? The government hopes the company will pay the remaining $14.5-million debt in late 2006, but it has no commitment and will have even less leverage then.
Huckleberry president Jim O'Rourke says the deal with creditors means they'll get first shot at any profits. With good prices the province will see payments, he says. "It was a good business deal."
Thorpe says the government had little choice. It could forgive the $3-million in accrued interest on the loan, or the mine would close. The deal was reached after negotiations with the owners.
It's not an easy political decision. Pressing for repayment - calling the company on its threat - might have worked. Or it might have resulted in the mine closing early, and the debt still left unpaid.
The Liberals - like the NDP before them, though on a much smaller scale - opted to protect the jobs, and let the debt slide.
Footnote: The Liberals appeared uncomfortable with the deal. Cabinet quietly approved the write-off, with the only public notice a 15-word reference in a list of about 70 cabinet decisions posted on the web. A decision to spend $750,000 on materials for schools rated a news release; a decision to approve a $3-million break to a company didn't.

Safe streets bill not a real answer to urban problems

VICTORIA - I'd file the Liberals' safe streets legislation under empty gestures.
The Campbell government - after some initial scoffing - has glommed on to MLA Lorne Mayencourt's idea that tougher laws are needed to get rid of squeegee people and aggressive panhandlers.
Mayencourt introduced his version of a Safe Streets Act last spring. The private member's bill would have made it an offence to approach cars offering to clean windshields and put strict limits on soliciting money. It would bar panhandling near ATMs, or at bus stops, and outlaw threatening or intimidating behaviour or language. (Yes, those are already illegal.)
The government was cool to the idea, and the bill - along with Mayencourt's proposed new law that would let landlords bar people more easily - didn't go anywhere.
But the proposals seemed to play well with the public, so Premier Gordon Campbell sent Mayencourt off on a tour around the province to talk about the proposal. And when delegates to the Union of BC Municipalities backed the idea last month, the government decided it was time for its own version of the laws.
"People want to feel safe in their towns, they want to feel safe in their streets," Campbell said this week.
The government was expected to introduce the bill early this week, but backed away. It's tricky, as Attorney General Geoff Plant noted when Mayencourt floated the balloon, to write a law that won't get tossed on constitutional grounds or have unintended consequences. (Mayencourt's bill would have made a Girl Guide selling cookies at a bus stop into a law-breaker.)
The public reactionshows that people perceive a real problem, not just in Vancouver but in smaller communities across the province.
And this is one of those cases where that perception matters.
If people feel threatened in their communities, that is a real problem. Their right to use the streets - to go downtown shopping, or walk a child to the park - is being limited. That's unfair.
The law faces its own problems. It is a thin and crumbly line between dealing with people who are threatening, and sweeping away people because they make us feel uncomfortable. The streets belong to all of us, but much of the talk from the bill's supporters contemplates an underclass with fewer rights than the rest of us.
The law is also largely symbolic. Virtually all the things Mayencourt complained of in explaining the need for the bill could be dealt with under existing laws. He cited a case in which a woman's car window was smashed by a squeegee person as evidence of the need for the law. But assault, smashing windows, threatening people, even jaywalking are all already offences.
The laws are there. But police have better things to do than arrest panhandlers, or issue tickets that people with no money can't pay. They don't believe that would be effective.
The law is best viewed as a gesture, an acknowledgment that the public would like to see something done even if the government doesn't actually think the idea will work. In politics and life empty gestures sometimes have their uses.
Locking up panhandlers isn't going to happen, and wouldn't work if it did. The real solutions are likely to come from finding out why people - especially the most difficult people - are on the streets. Lack of treatment or housing for the addicted and mentally ill is one likely cause of problems. So is inadequate help for youths to keep them off the street, and give them a chance at a better life once they are there.
The best hope for change is a committee of five majors asked by Campbell "to tackle the challenge of mental illness, homeless and addictions in B.C. communities." The five - Kelowna's Walter Gray, Prince George's Colin Kinsley, Victoria's Alan Lowe, Surrey's Doug McCallum and Vancouver's Larry Campbell - have a chance to offer real solutions.
And that will make much more difference than another unenforced law.
Footnote: Vancouver's police chief says people shouldn't give to panhandlers, but Campbell says he does. People concerned about the problem also have the option of giving to community agencies that help people find their way off the streets. And each of us can change the tone simply by being pleasant to our scruffier neighbours.

Capital punishment: Road kill victory, lame open cabinet and quiet days

VICTORIA - Free road kill, a lifeless open cabinet and a fogbound legislature. Notes from the halls.

Day one in the fall session, and we're talking about road kill.
Every day before Question Period about 10 minutes is set aside for members' statements, a chance for MLAs to talk about whatever they want for a few minutes. (Or at least whatever they want that the party strategists consider appropriate.)
East Kootenay MLA Bill Bennett wanted to talk about road kill. Specifically he wanted to celebrate the fact that the New Era includes a partial return to the good old days when you could sling that dead deer in your trunk without having to pay any troubling fees, introduced by the NDP in 2000. (They argued that if hunters have to pay fees to kill animals, drivers should have to pay to scoop them up.)
Now the Liberals have lifted the fees for trappers, who like the dead animals for bait.
A blow for freedom, said Bennett. "Let us rejoice at the democratic spectacle of free trappers all over this heavenly province scooping up dead animals from our roadside ditches, no longer living in fear that a tax collector may be lurking," Bennett said.
The rest of us still have to pay - $61 for a dead deer, $25 for most species - but Benett hopes that will someday carrion will again be free for "British Columbians who wish to utilize road-kill for lunch, a fur coat or a living room rug."
Bennett offered more good news. A booming economy will mean more traffic and more dead animals, he said, and more chances to add new meaning to the promise to pick up something for dinner on the way home.

Maybe they should let Bennett help script the next televised cabinet meeting.
When the Liberals promised monthly open cabinet meetings it seemed like a good idea. The theory was that the public would get a chance to see decisions being made. The reality has been considerably, and increasingly, lamer.
I didn't expect sharp exchanges or big debates. The meetings were inevitably going to be managed, with the aim of making the government look good.
But I didn't expect this big a flop either, with the cabinet generally looking disengaged, sycophantic or irrelevant.
This week's meeting started out with a report on the federal-provincial health care summit, for example. Premier Gordon Campbell said what a good job Health Minister Colin Hansen had done; Hansen revealed that Campbell played a vital role. The results were rehashed, as if cabinet ministers had somehow been out of touch for the last several weeks.
Education Minister Tom Christensen reported on a useful plan to encourage elementary schools to hold open houses for three-year-olds and their families. It's a good idea, and cheap at $2,500 a school. But there were no questions from cabinet ministers about how the program would engage those families that need it most, or about whether programs were available to help kids catch up if parents realized help was needed.
Cabinet got a drought update, but weren't asked to make any decisions. They got a similar briefing on Avian flu and the mad cow disease scare. Both were fine; both could have ben covered with a briefing note to the ministers.
Then the televised meeting ended - after costing about $25,000 - and ministers adjourned to the real cabinet meeting behind closed doors, which lasted about six hours.

Half the NDP caucus - OK, Joy MacPhail - and a clutch of Liberal cabinet ministers missed the first day of the session, stranded in Vancouver by fog.
They shouldn't miss too many days. The Liberals are already hinting the session could be cut short for lack of business. Legislation on the new community living authority has to be debated, and other bills will set up the Northern Development Initiative, make some gesture towards fighting panhandlers and try to deal with privacy concerns around the U.S. Patriot Act.
But the focus is on the election now, not new initiatives.
Footnote: Premier Gordon Campbell, who doesn't make legislature attendance a priority, missed day one. He was speaking to a business group in Calgary. The sitting date has been fixed for more than a year.

Every party's future on the line in Surrey byelection

VICTORIA - The Surrey byelection called -finally - by the premier is going to give you a heck of a sneak preview of next May's election.
Each of the parties goes into the byelection under giant question marks. Opinion polls tell one story, but this is the first chance to find out what voters will actually do when they go into the ballot box and have to make a real choice.
Surrey-Panorama Ridge is a good test riding. In the 2001 election voters there reflected the provincial support for the NDP and the Liberals almost exactly. There are no huge local issues to distort the outcome, though the relative strength of the local candidates may be distorting factor.
The Liberals need to win, or at least post a strong showing.
Sure, byelections generally go against the governing party. It's a safe way for voters to send a protest message.
But the Liberals outpolled the NDP by a three-to-one margin in the riding in 2001. The byelection is coming barely six months before the provincial election, lessening the appeal of sending a protest message. And the Liberals have the advantage of a strong candidate and a big split between the Greens and New Democrats.
The candidate is Mary Polak, best known as a Surrey school trustee when that board spent almost $1 million trying to keep three kids' books depicting same sex parents out of Surrey schools.
It looked bizarre and foolish. But Polak, though a member of the ban-the-books bunch, was seen as a moderate. She has a high profile in the riding, and a good rep with a lot of voters.
If the Liberals can't win here - even in a byelection - then they face problems in a lot of ridings.
For the NDP, the question is simple. Are people mad enough at the Liberals to vote New Democrat?
NDP leader Carole James decided not to run in the byelection. She made the decision four month's ago - that's how long Campbell has been delaying - reasoning rightly that it made more sense to work on organizing around the province.
But the byelection is still a test of her ability to convince voters that the New Democrats - despite their dismal record - can be trusted. The party's candidate is Jagrup Brar, who runs a federal program that helps people start their own businesses. He's well-known in the large IndoCanadian community, not much known outside that group. He'll neither hurt nor help the NDP; James will be the one voters judge.
Green leader Adriane Carr is running for her party. It's a chance for her to gain experience and grab some media attention.
But she's running some risks. Carr is seen as a parachute candidate - she says she'll run in the general election in her Sunshine Coast home riding whether she wins or loses in Surrey. That won't help her campaign. (Although development and loss of green space are big issues in the riding.)
Carr also risks highlighting the effects of vote-splitting among those opposed to the Liberals.
Consider the prospect of a Liberal win, partly through an NDP-Green vote split, with the New Democrats in second place. That kind of outcome would leave many voters questioning the wisdom of voting Green.
The Liberals also have to worry about vote-splitting. Polls suggest voters are dissatisfied with the Campbell government, but don't see a credible alternative.
But at least a couple of parties will be trying to appeal to Liberal supporters.
Former Liberal Tom Morino is running for his fledgling BC Democratic Alliance, promising to run as a moderate alternative to the Liberals. He's run twice for the Liberals, so should know how a campaign works.
The Conservative Party, fresh from emerging the Unity Party. Unity took seven per cent of the vote in 2001. Those lost votes were meaningless to the Liberals then; they could matter this time around.
In 28 days, a lot of questions will be answered.
Footnote: The Liberals should lose votes for delaying the byelection and depriving people in the riding of representation for five months. The legislature begins sitting next Monday, and the seat for Surrey-Panorama Ridge will be empty. Campbell criticized the NDP for similar delays

Taser controls, new police policies will save lives

VICTORIA - The probe of Tasers in B.C. has already paid off with an interim report that recommends tougher controls on the use of the high-tech stun guns.
Tasers were hailed as a great tool for police when they were introduced in 1998. The concept was great - a weapon that shoots darts that zap dangerous suspects with electricity, making them easy to subdue. Police would have one more alternative to shooting suspects, and both they and the person being arrested would be safer.
But in the last 12 months four deaths in the province have been associated with Taser use, in Prince George, Burnaby and Vancouver. Added to reports of almost 50 deaths in the U.S. in the last three years, the cases raised troubling questions.
The police complaints' commissioner set out to answer them, asking Victoria Police Chief Paul Battershill to head up a review.
His interim report, released Wednesday, offers practical recommendations that would allow police to continue using Tasers while decreasing the risk.
And just as importantly, the report calls on police to make changes that could save lives even in cases where Tasers aren't used.
It's a balanced, thorough review of the evidence around Tasers.
The report concludes the weapons are still useful as an intermediate weapon for police. They can disable suspects from a distance - something not possible with pepper spray or clubs - and they can allow an end to a conflict before deadly force is needed.
But it also found that Tasers haven't been treated with the required seriousness.
That's not surprising. The manufacturer's pitch has always been that the weapons pose no health risk; that claim is now being widely questioned around the world.
The report cites "significant inconsistencies" across B.C. in training police to use the weapons. A standard training course on Taser use should be developed, the report says, and all police should receive the training.
It also calls for mandatory reporting any time a Taser is used. That's routine when a gun is used, but not all police forces in B.C. require similar follow-up. Even when the policy is in place, police may not be following it, the report found.
Police should also quit buying the Taser originally introduced in the province, and switch to a less powerful model that provides a greater margin of safety.
All the recommendations make sense. The two requiring reporting and training should have been in place from the beginning, when the former NDP government approved the weapons.
But the report's biggest impact may come from two recommendations that are only partly related to Taser use.
Across B.C., and North America, people captured and restrained by police have been dying. The common scenario is a frenzied, unreasonable suspect, often on cocaine or mentally ill, who is captured, restrained, appears to be calmer and then stops breathing. (Cocaine was a common factor in the cases of all four people who have died after Taser use in B.C.)
The condition is called "excited delirium," and police aren't aware enough of the risks of death, the report found, again recommending a standardized training program. "Although relatively rare, changes in pattern of drug abuse make it likely officers will encounter victims of excited delirium more frequently," the report warns.
The risk of death also appears to be increased by the way in which the people are restrained. The report calls for a ban on use of the "maximal restraint position," where hands and ankles are bound behind the suspect's back and he lies on his chest, saying it may be linked to needless deaths.
Adopting both recommendations will save lives. The Battershill report looked at 22 restraint-related deaths investigated by B.C. coroners between 1990 and 2003. It found a "disturbing familiarity" in the cases. The victim is generally on drugs and acting bizarrely. A violent struggle takes place, without any obvious injuries. Police use restraints, and the person dies.
They were deaths that didn't need to happen.
The recommendations on restraint, and Taser use, should be adopted immediately.
Footnote: Battershill is continuing his investigation of the death of Robert Bagnell, who died in Vancouver after being shot with a Taser. He released the interim report because there was an "urgent need" to get the recommendations out to police, Battershill said.

B.C. voters checking off 'none of the above'

VICTORIA - The lesson from the latest poll is that British Columbians wish there was a "none-of-the-above" box on the election ballot.
Voters think the Liberals are doing a bad job of governing, and believe Gordon Campbell is doing a very bad job as premier.
But they're also not ready to hand government back to the NDP after their record of incompetence.
The result is that eight months before the election a significant number of voters are holding their noses and preparing to vote for a party that they don't really think will represent them, or will govern in their interests.
The latest results come from Ipsos-Reid and reveal that almost two out of three voters think the Liberals do not deserve to be re-elected based on their performance so far.
That's a huge rebuke. The Liberals attracted 58 per cent of the popular vote in the last election. Almost half the people who voted Liberal in 2001 feel like they were let down, and that the government has not done a good enough job to be re-elected.
But despite that terrible review, the Liberals and NDP are effectively tied in the Ipsos poll, each with the support of about 40 per cent of decided voters. (The Greens are at 16 per cent; Unity and others at four per cent.)
And that means that some 100,000 voters are saying that they don't think the Liberals deserve to be re-elected, but would vote for them anyway because the NDP is even worse.
It's not just the parties that are in trouble.
About two-thirds of voters disapprove of the job Campbell is doing as premier; almost half strongly disapprove. Only eight per cent say they strongly approve of his job performance.
NDP leader Carole James fares better. Almost half of those surveyed approved of the job she is doing as leader, and only one-third disapproved.
But her approval rating has dropped eight points since the last survey. James is a relative unknown; the results suggest that voters are not being favorably impressed as they watch her perform on the political stage.
The results also show once again that voters feel pressed into voting for the lesser evil.
The poll asked voters - regardless of which party they supported - to pick the leader they thought would make the best premier.
And while only 34 per cent approved of the job Campbell has done, he still had the support of 41 per cent of decided voters as the best potential premier. James was at 37 per cent, Green leader Adriane Carr was at 14 per cent, and former Unity leader Chris Delaney was ranked as the best potential premier by seven per cent of voters.
Again, some 100,000 people who believe Campbell is doing a poor job still feel he's the best of a bad lot.
This isn't a fluke. An earlier poll found that more than half the supporters of both the Liberals and NDP said they were just picking the lesser of two evils. They didn't think their party would do a good job; they just thought the other guys would be even worse.
Parties can't perfectly mirror every voter's interests and values, and people will almost always disagree with some policies of the party they support.
But it's dangerous when voters think they have no real chance to vote for a party or leader able to deliver the kind of government that they want.
And voting becomes a discouraging experience when people leave the booth sadly convinced that even if the party they supported wins, the province will be badly governed. There is no excitement or inspiration in voting for the lesser of two evils, no confidence in the future and little reason to vote.
All governments ultimately rely on the consent of the governed. That consent is at risk when voters feel they're views and values are no longer represented by any of the parties.
Footnote: The poll showed - again - the huge divide between the Lower Mainland and the rest of the province. Outside Vancouver and its sprawl 70 per cent of voters thought Campbell was doing a bad job, and a similar number said the Liberals didn't deserve to be re-elected based on their performance so far.

Liberals raises fears of attack on ICBC's business

VICTORIA - So ICBC's board forces out their CEO and launches a national search for a replacement.
They hire a search firm - figure more than $100,000 - and come up with 80 candidates.
And what do you know, the successful candidate, Paul Taylor, was under their nose all the time, working as one of the most powerful officials in the Campbell government.
You can't blame people for being suspicious that a willingness to do the government's will and scale back ICBC was an important hiring criteria.
Taylor was brought in by Gordon Campbell after the election to drive the budget-cutting exercise. He had experience, having done the same thing in the early '90s for Ralph Klein.
But he doesn't have any experience in insurance, or a financial institution, or in consumer marketing, the backgrounds you might expect for the new CEO of a $3-billion corporation. Beyond a fairly brief stint as a senior vice-president for corporate development at TransAlta Utilities, Taylor doesn't have much private sector management experience on his resume. (That's not a prerequisite; good managers have crossed back and forth from government to the private sector.)
Still the move suggests the Liberal want someone they can count on to reduce ICBC's role and open up the car insurance market from private companies.
That was, after all their campaign promise, to introduce "greater competition in auto insurance, to create increased choice and reduce motor vehicle premiums."
But it hasn't worked out. The Liberals picked Nick Geer, a senior vice-president in Jimmy Pattison's empire, as ICBC CEO. And once on the job he decided that the current level of competition served ICBC and its customers well. He won the battles for a while, but was shoved out this summer by the government, leaving with a $450,000 severance deal.
The concept of more competition makes sense. Companies competing for your business should come up with better products and lower costs for consumers.
And right now there is no real car insurance competition in B.C.
ICBC has a monopoly on basic insurance - the coverage every owner must have to pay for damages related to injuries resulting from a crash. That's 60 per cent of the insurance market.
Optional insurance, like insurance to cover repair costs or increased liability coverage, is open to competition, in theory. But practically ICBC's monopoly on the basic coverage makes it simplest for most people to buy that insurance from the Crown corporation as well. Private companies have about 15 per cent of the optional coverage market, and their share hasn't increased under the Liberals.
Overall, that leaves ICBC with almost 95 per cent of the vehicle insurance market.
But if increased competition makes good theoretical sense, there are some giant practical problems.
For starters, any change to increase competitors' market share is going to hurt ICBC's bottom line, and thus taxpayers. (ICBC profits are expected to boost government revenues by $218 million this year.)
One option is ending ICBC's monopoly on basic insurance. But asked what effect that would have, Geer was blunt: "You would find chaos in the marketplace, you would probably see the bankruptcy of ICBC."
Or ICBC could get out of the optional insurance business. But that would reduce revenues dramatically, without allowing a corresponding cost reduction given the overhead. The result would be plunging contributions to government revenues, and rate increases for drivers on basic insurance.
Delivering on the election promise is risky business.
And pushing for more private insurance in the absence of a clear economic justification - and in the presence of clear risks - speaks of ideology, not good management.
The political risks are especially high in the months before an election. British Columbians can still remember the horror stories from other provinces about soaring private insurance rates, and seem generally satisfied with ICBC.
The Liberals have had enough problems with Crown corporations. They should go very slowly on messing with ICBC
Footnote: The Liberals should be daunted by their record of controversy at BC Hydro, BC Ferries and BC Rail. ICBC is ticking along quietly if unspectacularly under their watch: rates have risen about 13 per cent over three years and coverage has been quietly reduced, but no one has complained too loudly.

Hagen a good choice, but new ministry problems huge

VICTORIA - Stan Hagen looks like a good choice for the tough children and families job.
The veteran minister from the Comox Valley wasn't on most peoples' lists of prospects once Christy Clark packed it in.
And there's been some carping since, based mostly on the notion that Hagen is a businessman and former Socred, and thus a suspect choice for a ministry that's all about delivering services to children and adults in tough spots.
But the Socreds - for all their pro-business, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps attitudes - always stayed close to their base in smaller communities across the province. Politically and practically they recognized the importance of helping people who really needed it.
Hagen reflects those values, I'd say. He's seen the difference government can make in an individual's life, and can be engaged in that level. And that's useful in this ministry.
Not that other Liberals are a pack of Snidely Whiplashes, keen to evict the orphans from their homes. But most have shown more ability to see the big picture - like the benefits of tax cuts - than to recognize individual suffering or fears.
Hagen also has experience in more than half-a-dozen ministries to bring to bear on the huge problems facing children and families. He served in succession of ministries in the constantly changing Socred cabinets from 1986 to 1991.
Under the Liberals he managed to handle sustainable resource management with few scars. And he stepped into human resources after the Liberals' mean-spirited and wasteful attempts to cull the welfare rolls and shifted the focus back to finding jobs for people.
Gordon Campbell is likely looking for the same kind of calming effect in children and families, one of the Liberals' larger betrayals and failures. (They promised both more money and stability for the ministry, and instead delivered budget cuts and botched re-organizations.)
It's also a plus that Hagen - already at normal retirement age - doesn't have to care much about what the premier or anyone else in government really thinks about what he's doing. He's not climbing the slippery political ladder, and is in a position to do the job the way he thinks it needs to be done. If his masters don't like it, they can fire him. That's not a freedom that most cabinet ministers feel.
Hagen may turn out to be a caretaker, in the job only until the election next May produces a new cabinet of one kind or another.
But it's a critical six months for the ministry, which has been grossly mismanaged by the Liberals, just as it was by the New Democrats. (Hagen is the seventh minister in the ministry's eight-year life.)
The Liberals' plans to decentralize the ministry and move to regional authorities are stalled after a huge amount of time and energy have been squandered.
And the ministry is struggling to cope with budget cuts this year, and faces budgets that are effectively frozen for the next two years, despite rising costs and rising need. The first test for the new minister will be to win a large share of the surpluses to allow the ministry to really help children and families - to deliver on the promises the Liberals made, and broke.
The rest of the changes in the mini-shuffle are less significant.
Victoria area MLA Susan Brice was promoted to replace Hagen as human resources minister, stepping up from her job as junior minister for mental health and addiction services. It's a boost for her, but the ministry isn't likely to be a hot spot again until after the election. The Liberals have backed off most of their threats to cut people off benefits, and the next crunch won't come until job placement efforts for welfare recipients begin, inevitably, to lag.
Surrey MLA Brenda Locke replaces Brice, and Vancouver MLA Patrick Wong steps into the politically useful but practically insignificant role as junior minister for immigration and multicultural services.
Footnote: Campbell broke the tradition of swearing-in new cabinet members at Government House, shifting the ceremony to Vancouver's Terminal City Club, a posh private business club. The scene was fitting on one level. The club didn't admit women members until the '90s; the cabinet still has women in only seven out of 27 posts.

Why you should care that Christy Clark quit

VICTORIA - Set the conspiracy theories aside.
Christy Clark says she quit because she found it just too hard to balance politics and the challenges of raising a three-year-old. And that is a very good reason.
Speculation on hidden reasons for the resignation started flying as soon as Clark pulled the plug as children and families minister and said she won't run in the next election.
But I was in the middle of a brief stretch of looking after two boys, four and one, when Clark quit. And charming as Zachary and Gage are, I have no trouble buying her explanation.
There were two main alternate theories. One held that Clark was worried about the fallout from the legislative raids. Her husband, Mark Marrisen, and brother, Bruce Clark, are both high-profile federal Liberal wheels in B.C., and were named in the search warrant information. But neither are under investigation or accused of wrongdoing, and the raids are hardly a sudden development. Don't look there for the reason.
Others mused about a rift between Clark and Gordon Campbell. The theory is that she was more left-leaning, and frustrated with some of the government's policies.
The problem with that theory is the total lack of evidence. Clark has been in cabinet for more than three years. As education minister she left school districts so short of money that they closed schools, increased class sizes and went to four-day weeks. As children and families minister, she's implemented budget cuts to a ministry the Liberals used to say was starved of needed money.
I've never heard a peep that would indicate she disagreed with any of the government's policies. Anyway, I would say Clark's interest - and perhaps skills - lie more in politics than policy.
Trying to raise a preschooler while working at any job is difficult.
For Clark, the challenges were greater. Cabinet jobs are demanding and time-consuming. Building and maintaining political influence - something she values - demands more time and commitment. Evening meetings, drinks after work with colleagues, schmoozing at conventions - those are all part of the deal, and they don't fit well with a child at home.
The resignation isn't great news for the Campbell government, which has fared badly among women voters in most polls. Clark wasn't really as bright a cabinet star as many expected - she was one of those politicians more effective in opposition than in government. But she was the only woman of apparent influence in a cabinet dominated by a few men from the Lower Mainland.
Her resignation also should be worrying news for the rest of us, because of the wider implications.
After a few decades of earnest discussions and conferences about the importance of diversity in our elected officials, not much has changed. When the premiers and the prime minister got together last week to talk about health care, for example, there were no woman at the table. That's a loss.
It's not a question of political correctness. Women and men have different experiences in our society. Women remain the primary caregivers, for children and for the kind of seriously ill or dying family members who were a focus of the home care discussions at the prime minister's health summit.
But they are not part of the top-level political discussions about health care, education or other critical issues. And the decisions will be poorer as a result.
This argument is all based on generalizations.
But it's not really just about gender.
Politics as we practise them today - and this applies at least in part to all parties - tend to be most welcoming to a relatively small group of people, especially at the top. They play an important role in the big decisions. And their judgments are based in part on their life experience as middle-aged, successful males.
Valuable, sure. But it's also ferociously limited. And we're all a little worse off as a result.
Footnote: In the interests of full disclosure, I note that not only am I a middle-aged white guy, but so are my colleagues who write about B.C. politics. Aside from the CBC's Justine Hunter, the legislative Press Gallery is made up of a wonderful insightful pack of middle-aged men.

Big hopes, small results from health summit

VICTORIA - I try to be positive, but Paul Martin's health summit strikes me as a dumb exercise.
Not that the people are stupid. B.C.'s delegation is probably typical, and the politicians and senior staffers are dead bright and fully committed to making health care better.
But I started to write this Wednesday evening. I had spent the day looking after two boys, four and one, reading stories, frying up cheese sandwiches and wreaking minor havoc in the local Toys'R'Us.
This meeting was supposed to be all about those boys. The goal was to fix health care for a generation.
It didn't.
The result - useful enough - is a little more money from the taxes you pay to Ottawa, so the taxes you pay to Victoria don't have to rise. Martin succeeded in getting the provinces to offer a nod towards accountability, for which we should be thankful.
But fixing health care for a generation? Not a chance.
The bare bones of the deal are pretty simple. Ottawa will come up with about $3 billion a year more as its share of health care funding. That translates into about $400 million a year for B.C., or enough to fund a 3.3-per-cent spending increase.
That's welcome, although hardly revolutionary. If $400 million a year was enough to fix health care for a generation, the B.C. government had half-a-dozen ways to raise the money. (Just dedicating the extra cash from the Liberals' gambling expansion to health care would produce a similar amount.)
Martin talked a lot about accountability in the unproductive run-up to the summit.
But based on the sketchy details released so far, the deal did little to ensure greater accountability to you - the consumer of the services, and the one who pays for them.
The premiers did promise that by the end of next year they would come up with standards for the wait time for key treatments, and begin reporting on how they are doing at meeting those standards. The idea is that British Columbians may be able compare their wait for hip surgery with people in P.E.I. Provinces making their citizens wait for long times will have to explain why.
But the promise is still vague, and premiers didn't commit to "meaningful reductions" in waits for critical health care like cancer treatments and knee and hip replacements until March 31, 2007.
Health ministers are going to talk about a national prescription drug strategy and report on their progress in June, 2006. The premiers say they'll phase in some sort of minimal guaranteed home care standards, if they can afford to, and report on their progress by the end of 2006.
It's all useful. But it's also the kind of thing Canadians have heard before, in the same context of federal-provincial financial wrangling.
The summit highlighted just how bizarre the health care model remains. You buy home insurance, and you know what you get. Car insurance, the same. But you pay for health insurance - about $2,700 each year per British Columbian - and you're promised nothing.
You pay, and the government makes up the coverage rules on the fly. Maybe hip replacements will be a political or medical hot button, and you'll wait three months. Maybe tax cuts will be the priority of the day, and you'll limp for a couple of years.
There is generally little information about how well, or poorly, the system is working, partly because health care providers have remarkably little useful data about what they do and what it costs.
Martin and the premiers took some small steps to improving accountability.
But mostly the meeting seemed like another federal-provincial money wrangle. Despite the promise of an open meeting, with Canadians able to see the issues being discussed, the real deal was done behind closed doors in the usual last-minute round of dealmaking.
And that will not fix health care for a generation.
Footnote: The premier's idea for a new federally funded national pharmacare plan - credited in part to Premier Gordon Campbell - never made it out of the starting gates. Campbell was one of four premiers - along with Ontario's Dalton McGuinty, New Brunswick's Bernard Lord and Quebec's Jean Charest - who represented the provinces in behnd-the-scenes talks.

Big surplus big good news for Liberals

VICTORIA - Yes, that is a real $1.2-billion surplus the Liberals are suddenly projecting for this year.
And it makes both the job of governing and their re-election campaign a lot easier.
Finance Minister Gary Collins unveiled the latest financial update Tuesday. Five months into the fiscal year things are going a lot better than he predicted. Instead of a skimpy $100 million surplus - not much in the context of $30 billion in government spending - B.C. is on track for a $1.2-billion surplus.
Things look even better for next year's election budget. The Liberals had been projecting a $275-million surplus. Now Collins is projecting $1.3 billion.
That leaves the Liberals with some enviable choices. They can spend more money, cut taxes or pay down the debt. Or, most likely, do some combination of all three.
It is good news.
Government revenues have are on track to jump about 9.5 per cent over last year. Lumber prices - in part due to a couple of hurricanes in Florida - are nearing record levels, which means both a bigger harvest and higher royalties. Natural gas prices are also high, pushing royalties about $200 million above plan. And low interest rates and a strong economy have pushed up tax revenues.
You can decide how much credit - or blame - any government can take for economic performance. No government policy change can cushion B.C.'s export-based economy from big weakness in our major markets. But the Liberals' tax cuts and move to more business-friendly policies have helped encourage investment in the province.
However before you get too fired up about plans for the money, recognize that even $1 billion isn't all that much in the government scheme of things.
Collins has already set aside $200 million as a cushion in case things take a turn for the worse.
And the Liberals are already under pressure to undo the sales tax increase they imposed in 2002. Knocking the rate back to the original seven per cent - the Liberals raised it to 7.5 per cent - would cost another $280 million.
That leaves $520 million, enough for a 1.7-per-cent overall spending increase. (The Liberals' budget for this year called for a 1.3-per-cent increase, not enough to keep up with population growth or inflation.)
Still, the Liberals can now talk about spending, not cutting. Collins unveiled the background pamphlet for a legislative committee heading out to get input on next year's budget. Should we spend, or cut taxes, or pay down the debt, it asks? How much more for schools, or health care? Those are good questions for a government to be putting before voters.
The Liberal campaign will talk about the shared sacrifice, the tough decisions and the benefits to come, with the larger-than-expected surpluses as the first big example. (And, of course, about the New Democrat's dismal record.)
That still leaves NDP leader Carole James with opportunities. She was quick off the mark in responding to the surplus.
James argued that the Liberals had simply benefited from a strong global economy. And the surpluses had been produced by shifting the tax burden on to middle and lower-income families - a fair charge - and unreasonable spending cuts, she said. Health care and education have been starved of money.
And the issue, says James, is trust. Who do voters trust to make decisions about dealing with the surplus in an effective and equitable way?
That is a pivotal question in the campaign. But there's no way of knowing yet how voters will answer.
James is lugging the NDP's past baggage, her own fiscal plans are still fuzzy and she has no track record.
But trust isn't exactly Campbell's biggest asset either. He's profoundly unpopular, according to the polls, and has already broken trust on BC Rail and other campaign promises.
Both leaders have the next eight months to persuade voters that they can be trusted.
Footnote: The government's numbers look sound, although there always risks froma volatile global economy. GIve the Liberals full credit for consistent openness in setting out the state of the province's finances, and the assumptions underlying them. They have set a high standard for transparency and - aside from a consistent conservative lean in the budgeting - for accurate forecasts.