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With only 256 days to go until the next provincial election on May 17th, 2005, VanRamblings continues in its efforts to bring you real information on the British Columbia economy, not the claptrap that you read in the CanWest Global newspapers.
Because this proved to be an unusually busy summer for the administrator of this site, we’ve not only failed to publish daily on occasion, but have been somewhat lax in keeping up with our regular perusal of favourite websites. As such, VanRamblings has missed a couple of important stories, one of which we’ll bring to your attention below.
The catchphrase currently in vogue with the right in British Columbia (it apparently tested well with the public in focus groups paid for by the provincial Liberal party and their supporters) is: “The B.C. economy is turning the corner.” Not has turned the corner, but “is turning the corner.”
Not so, according to the Columbia Journal’s Marco Procaccini, writing in The Tyee. According to a recent report issued by Statistics Canada, B.C.’s economy continues to fall behind the rest of the country.
The report says the unemployment rate in B.C. kept rising to 7.8 per cent in May, up from 7.7 per cent in April — an overall continued increase since 2002. In the spring, when summer hiring often causes a brief jump in new jobs, it says B.C. suffered a net loss of over 15,000 jobs.
Statscan also says while consumer spending, which dropped substantially in 2003, has improved slightly since the beginning of the year, the increase is minimal and the economy remains, overall, stagnant. It also reports that overall consumer savings in B.C. have now dropped to the lowest in the country.
In 2003, B.C.’s personal savings rate as a percentage of disposable income was the worst in the country at negative 8.2 percent.
Meanwhile, with nary a peep from the media, the Liberal government continues to increase B.C.’s long-term debt, soon to hit $40 billion.
Apart from the government’s declaration of a fatwa on the province’s economy, the Gordon Campbell Liberal administration has devastated the social infrastructure of our province, as they set about to pay off their rich friends. Seven Oaks magazine offers a partial list of legislation enacted by the government as part of their regressive class war agenda. Worth a read.
