In the latest Mustel Group poll, although the Liberals are ahead of the NDP by five points — down from an eight-point lead in April — pollster Evi Mustel told the Victoria Times-Colonist that “the five-point gap makes the election too close to call” when considering the ±4.0% statistical probablilty factor.
Meanwhile, Strategic Thoughts columnist David Schreck says it’s ‘payback time’ for the BC voters …

In an ideal world voters would evaluate each of the candidates, read the platforms of all of the parties, and carefully consider informed debates during the course of the campaign. In the real world people have busy lives with much more to do than follow every nuance in politics.
Traditionally voters are said to have very short memories, but the 2005 election may be very different. Most policy issues do not personally affect very many voters, hence it is easy to put them out of mind. The same isn’t true when you get laid off, have your pay cut, or have your tuition doubled. There are dozens of decisions taken by the Campbell government that inflicted significant harm on tens of thousands of voters. Chiropractors, podiatrists and physiotherapists lost patients because MSP delisted their services; on the patients’ side, they either paid more or did without. Some people skipped their regular eye exams because they no longer had coverage. Some seniors walked away from the prescription counter after learning how much more they had to pay for their drugs. The use of provincial parks declined when families got hit with $1 an hour or $5 a day parking fees. It is not just about the gut wrenching stories of seniors being separated from their spouses after 50 years of marriage as a result of the Liberal’s community care policies, or about the tragedies created when people were turned away from emergency rooms. The election is about thousands and thousands of stories big and small where people know that they were hurt as a result of a mean spirited, uncaring government. May 17th is the time when those who were hurt can inflict some pain on Gordon Campbell. For some voters, it is payback time.

Over at The Tyee, Tyee election prognosticator Will McMartin is now calling for the NDP to win 25 seats, with another 8 seats up for grabs. But when you consider that, according to the Mustel Group poll, that a full 11% of BC voters have not decided on how they’re going to cast their ballot, and news reports have Green Party support soft with the potential of half their supporters voting strategically to defeat Gordon Campbell’s government, the potential for a squeaker must be looming heavy in the Liberal camp.
And factor in, too, the record number of voters eligible to vote this time around — 700,000 more than last year and more than ever in the province’s history — attributable to a decision by Elections BC to make British Columbia the first jurisdiction in North America to allow voters to register, update and confirm registration online. Who’s most comfortable with online registration? That’s right, younger voters. And will the vote of young people go to the Liberals, considering a doubling of tuition fees at post-secondary institutions across the province over the course of the past four years; not to mention, cuts to bursaries and scholarships?
The denouement to Campaign 2005 is shaping up to be interesting, indeed, no matter how quiet the parties have been on the hustings. Campaign 2005, in the end, has become our opportunity to tell the Liberals just how unhappy we are with a government that dramatically reduced funding to legal aid; cut funding to 37 women’s centres; got rid of the Ministry of the Environment and cut staff whose job it was to protect our eco heritage.
Slashed funding for childcare; slashed funding for programmes that would have brought street kids off the streets and into safe conditions; closed 1/3 of the court houses across the province; closed major departments in 69 hospitals in BC while closing three hospitals altogether; closed 1,464 long-term care beds, 2,529 residential care beds and 1,200 hospital beds.
Raised fees in provincial parks and put parking meters in place; sold off BC Rail; gutted labour legislation to the point where it’s now almost impossible to certify a bargaining unit in British Columbia; privatized hospital services with the attendant loss of 7000 frontline health care worker jobs, leading to a radical decline in the quality of food and support services, and dietary and hygiene standards; raised MSP premiums by 50%; doubled or tripled fees for most government services, ranging from renewing your driver’s license to applying for a birth certificate; fired 3000 teachers, raised class sizes, and closed 100 schools; the list could go on and on and on.
Enough is enough. Vote for change May 17th. Kick da bums out of office.

The following is a reprint of a story originally published on VanRamblings, April 24, 2004.
Much like support by women across the U.S. for the Bush administration, support among women for Gordon Campbell’s Liberals is all but absent.
According to a recent Ipsos-Reid poll, only five percent of women “strongly approve” of Campbell’s performance as premier. Ten times more British Columbia women, 50 percent, “strongly disapprove” of the way the B.C. Liberal premier does his job.
In a recent cover story published in Vancouver’s alternative newspaper, Georgia Straight news editor Charlie Smith reports on the changes to the welfare system that have increased the health, social and other risks of, mostly female, single parents, and the increase in child apprehension that has followed; changes to employment standards that have had a disproportionately negative impact on women; a $12.7-million cut in child-care services that has all but eliminated funding for before-and after-school care for children in this province; deep cuts in programme funding for women’s services; and dramatic reductions in funding for a raft of other social programmes, including deep cuts to legal aid, and the virtual elimination of funding for school-based hot meal programmes.
In total, while introducing dramatic tax cuts for their rich friends — in the process eliminating some 50,000 goverment-related jobs to pay for the tax cuts (mostly affecting women, and the immigrant community) — the B.C. Liberals have cut $5 billion from the provincial budget, while making devastating cuts to programmes which have disproportionately affected women, aboriginals, children, seniors, the disabled, and the poor.
In 2003, a United Nations-sponsored coalition of women’s non-governmental organizations, The B.C. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (B.C. CEDAW), released a damning report (here available in pdf form) providing insight into “the wholesale withdrawal of programmes and protections” for women and children since the election of the Gordon Campbell lead Liberal government, on May 16, 2001.

Drastic and discriminatory changes to provincial legislation and programmes have been made since May 2001 … that have had an especially pernicious effect on women and girls who are most disadvantaged and most vulnerable. Specifically, elderly women, and women and girls who are Aboriginal, of colour, disabled, lesbian, recent immigrants or refugee claimants, living on low incomes, or living in rural areas experience the harms … in particular and intensified ways.

In an accompanying Georgia Straight article to this week’s cover story, titled “In Their Own Words”, contributing writer Gail Johnson not only provides information on cuts of $843 million from the three government Ministries with responsibilities for child care, children, women, and families: the Ministry of Community, Aboriginal and Women’s Services; the Ministry of Human Resources; and the Ministry of Children and Family Development, through the personal stories of women across this province, she reports on the real-life impact of the government cuts to programmes for women and girls of all ages, ethnicities, abilities, and economic circumstance.

Debate excerpt

The leaders’ debate on Tuesday came and went, and consensus opinion among the pundits was that the 60-minute forum was a clear win for NDP leader, Carole James. Former BC Liberal leader and NDP cabinet minister, Gordon Wilson, was particularly impressed with James’ performance. Whether opinion on the street, though, matches that of the pundits and politicos is another matter. Next week’s Ipsos-Reid poll oughta prove very interesting, indeed, as will the latest poll from the Mustel Group, also due next week.
According to an Angus Reid poll conducted in the hours following the debate, “Voters in British Columbia saw no clear victor in last night’s showdown of party leaders.”
In this CBC story, linked from Only Magazine, the CBC reports that “Premier Gordon Campbell was forced onto the defensive during Tuesday night’s leaders’ debate, as NDP Leader Carole James accused him of being someone who can’t be trusted to keep his campaign commitments.” Only Magazine goes on to present their opinion on the leaders’ debate.

There is no question Carole James mopped the floor with Gordon Campbell and Adrienne Carr last night. She dominated the debate in a low-key, but relentless way, hammering at Campbell to explain the policies of his government to the citizens of BC.

VanRamblings’ adds another website to our BC Election blogroll, BC Liberals Suck, a timely creation by the good folks at Only Magazine.

Seven p.m. Tuesday evening, May 3, 2005: the leaders’ TV debate. A possible turning point in BC Votes — Campaign 2005.
Ramping up for the all-important television debate, the New Democratic Party released three new, very effective television ads. Windows Media Player is required to view the NDP ads on the Liberals’ despicable record over the past four years, and the necessity for a strong, balanced and compassionate government in British Columbia, a government that will allow all British Columbians to share in the wealth created in this province.
Over to the right, VanRamblings has added another site of interest to our regularly-updated BC election blogroll, this time the provocative, thoughtful and frequently updated Have You Had Enough, Yet? website, created by Surrey teacher Bill Piket, and the folks at Black Rock Communications.
In his latest column for The Tyee, broadcaster Rafe Mair suggests that “if the NDP gets a bit lucky there’s still room for an upset.”

With the Liberals sitting at seven points up you would think that May 17th would be a slam dunk for Campbell & Co. and so it will likely prove. But if there is to be an upset … I would be looking behind those numbers for signs that there may be weaknesses in the Liberal position … the Liberals must worry about Vancouver Island and large pockets of the interior and the north where their numbers are not great … then there is the environment, something that the Liberals have ignored except to the extent they’ve allowed their pals to bugger it up … (although) a seven point lead for the Liberals looks insurmountable … if it gets much closer as the day approaches, look-out. If the popular vote is that close, and the NDP gets a bit lucky, there could be an upset.

Meanwhile, Tyee contributing editor Barbara McLintock has ten questions for Gordon Campbell, ranging from his government’s position on continued public service layoff and a consequent move toward more privatization, to whether or not further cuts will be made to the child welfare budget.
Finally, Vancouver professor, poet, and polemicist Robin Mathews writes about the “attack on ordinary” British Columbians in both part one and part two of his essay, A Time to Rage, where he reflects on “the savage attack by the Campbell corporate totalitarians upon decent living in B.C.”