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.”

With the BC provincial party leaders off the election trail today and preparing for the leaders’ television debate this coming Tuesday at 7 p.m. on a TV station near you, VanRamblings will seek to bring you up-to-date on the various peregrinations of BC Votes — Campaign 2005.
First off, though, VanRamblings directs your attention to a couple of new entries under Sites of Interest, top right. The Vancouver Sun offers BC Election 2005, an amalgam of election-related stories, quick facts, and blogs by Vancouver Sun reporters. Yvonne Zacharias is covering the BC NDP campaign, while Jeff Lee is covering the boy in the bubble campaign (whoops, I mean, the BC Liberal campaign), with Glenn Bohn relegated to covering the also-ran, lacklustre Green Party campaign.
Then, for your amusement (we’d laugh, if we weren’t crying so loud, and the cuts weren’t such a tragedy) there’s the Amazing All-Purpose Full-Proof Never Fail Liberal Truth Translator, brought to you by the good folks at the BC NDP election campaign headquarters.
Human rights consultant and Director of the Poverty and Human Rights Project, Shelagh Day, recently spoke to concerned British Columbians about the erosion of social programmes in our province, including …

• The elimination of the Human Rights Commission in BC, replaced by a powerless adjudicating tribunal
• The Legal Aid budget slashed by 38%, a reduction in the number of offices from 42 to 7, and a decision by the BC Liberal government that the Legal Aid budget is not to be spent on family or poverty law
• Monies slashed from the Native Court Workers Programme
• The closure of 1/3 of court houses in BC
• The closure of Residential Tenancy offices, resulting in weakened tenants’ rights
• Immigrant settlement services cut by 15%
• The budget for the Ombudsman, Office of the Police Complaints Commission, the Chief Electoral Office, and the Auditor General slashed
• And, the elimination of the position of the Children’s Commissioner

A transcript of Ms. Day’s speech is available here.
Meanwhile, over at Tyee Election Central, Russ Francis’ latest story, titled Foiling Freedom of Information, takes the Liberals to task for weakening the Freedom of Information process in BC. Francis’ earlier story, titled ‘Open, Transparent and Accountable’, suggests that the BC Liberal government under Gordon Campbell has been anything but.