2005 Leaders' Debate

Summary

“What leadership is about is being positive, not negative. It’s about building for the future, not trying to take us back to the past. It’s about being optimistic, not pessimistic. On May the 17 th, the people of British Columbia will decide who is really best to lead this province forward and keep our economy going strong. It’s a strong economy that gives us the resources to improve health care and public education. It’s leadership to lay out a plan and stick to it.”  – Premier Gordon Campbell, 2005 Leader’s Debate

  • Gordon Campbell once again showed why he is the best leader to lead BC forward and keep our economy going strong . 
  •  Tonight, we saw Gordon Campbell standing by the BC Liberal record that has led BC to be Canada ’s leading economy ; while Carole James is running away from the NDP record.
  •  Carole James did not offer a single positive idea to British Columbians . The NDP is running a campaign of fear and mistruth. She criticizes everything but offers absolutely no plan, no vision and no new ideas.
  • Carole James tonight was negative, provided no vision, and ran away from the NDP record.
  • This vote is about electing a government, not an opposition. British Columbians need to re-elect a BC Liberal government to keep our province moving forward.

The Economy

  • Why should we believe the NDP now? Before the 1991 election, the NDP promised no new taxes. After the 1991 election, the NDP imposed $2 billion in new taxes.
  • The NDP leader is WRONG when she says low and middle income earners haven’t benefited from a growing economy. Here’s the reality:
  • British Columbians have the lowest provincial income taxes in Canada for all lower and middle-income levels.
  • We reduced or eliminated provincial income taxes this year for 730,000 British Columbians with incomes under $26,000 per year and eliminated provincial income taxes for all people earning under $15,500 per year.
  • On our first day in office we reduced income taxes for all B.C. families by an average of 25%, and by 28% for those earning up to $30,000 a year.
  • Examples of total provincial tax savings accumulated over 4 BC Liberal budgets (2002-05):
    • A senior couple (income of $30,000) =  $1,734 in savings.
    • A family of four (income $30,000) = $2,521 in savings. 
    •  Single individuals (income of $30,000) = $1,101 in savings.
  • The NDP leader believes government policy has nothing to do with BC’s economic growth. Carole James is WRONG. The NDP’s policy of high taxes and heavy-handed red tape led an underperforming economy that drove 50,000 people out of the province: 
    •  Under the NDP, BC’s economic growth was BELOW the Canadian average 7 of their last 8 years in government. 
    •  BC’s economic growth has been ABOVE the national average for the last 2 years under a BC Liberal government.
    • In 2004, BC led Canada in economic growth for the first time in 15 years .

Health Care

  • The NDP is WRONG on long-term care beds. The NDP closed one out of five long-term care beds in the 1990s. Half of all long-term care beds were in such a decrepit state that they had to be renovated or replaced outright.
  • Our approach is working. We have built 4,000 beds for seniors since 2001. As a result, the wait for a residential care bed has gone from 1 year under the NDP to an average of 30 to 90 days across the province today.
  • The NDP is ignoring the benefits of public-private partnerships. For example $39 million will be saved with Abbotsford Hospital ; $17 million will be saved with the VGH Academic Ambulatory Care Centre. All of this money goes into direct patient care.
  • Private clinics doubled under the NDP, and in 1999 they were the first government to use private clinics for public surgeries.
  • Carole James references a McMaster study as proof that it is not cost-effective to use private clinics in some cases – however, that study is a study of comparative AMERICAN for- and non-profit facilities, with a key author being a failed 2004 federal NDP candidate. It is not a definitive study.  

Education

  • The NDP is wrong about funding. Total education funding across government has increased by $4 million every single day in B.C. Per student funding in K-12 education is up $881 per student since 2000. This is despite 30,000 fewer students in school.
  • School districts received a $150 million boost in operating funding this year – the biggest boost in a decade. And over the next three years the Education budget will increase by $253 million.
  • We are building more schools -- $2.2 billion in approved or completed capital funding for schools, including 34 new schools and 278 replacements, additions, renovations and upgrades. We are also investing $1.5 billion in seismic upgrades – 95 projects worth over $250 million are already approved.
  • In post-secondary education, with a $196 million lift over the next three years we are continuing to build on our expansion of 25,000 new seats – the biggest expansion in 40 years. A student with a B average will be able to gain entrance into many of our institutions, with more expansion to come. 
  • In comparison, the NDP has no plan for funding education beyond their 9-month platform.  

Public Safety

  • The NDP has no plan for combating crime. Their election platform offers no ideas or solutions on public safety.
  • Community policing has not been cut in BC. We have actually expanded policing – 215 more RCMP officers this year, and 100 more traffic officers on the road this year. Communities are receiving more that $40 million extra each year by returning 100% of traffic fines to communities.
  • Key BC Liberal efforts to fight crime:
    • PRIME, a computer system that gives police up-to-the-minute information from across the province on crime, suspects and missing persons; AMBER ALERT, a public alert system to help solve child abductions; New integrated approaches to policing, homicide investigations and criminal prosecution including a team that combats auto theft with strategies like the bait car program; Organized Crime Unit; Integrated Homicide Team; and ISPOT, a police team that follows known sex offenders when they get out of jail.
  • We have 153 community- and police-based services across the province, and for the first time a 24/7 victims assistance hotline that helps thousands of people every year.
  • The NDP announced a $125-million Mental Health Plan but didn’t provide any funding for it. “While it was announced, it was never in a budget. There wasn’t budget approval.” – NDP Health Minister Penny Priddy (Source: Vancouver Sun, 1 Apr 2000)
  • Now, Carole James is doing it again. She promised tonight to “invest in addiction services, support for mental illness…” This is something the NDP never did in government. 
  • In contrast, we are fully funding the $125 million Mental Health Plan. We spend over $1 billion a year on addictions services. We are also funding a $138 million capital plan to build new mental health facilities across the province from Victoria to Kamloops and from Prince George to Terrace. We recently announced an $84 million program for transitional housing programs and services for the mentally ill and those with addictions.  

The Environment

  • Carole James admitted tonight that she has no plan for transportation infrastructure in the Lower Mainland. She admits to the environmental impacts that come from congestion and bottlenecks, but has provided no vision tonight or in her platform for how the NDP government would invest to ease this congestion. 
  • In comparison, we are investing in transportation projects that will help the environment: the RAV Line between Richmond and Vancouver ; Okanagan Lake Bridge in Kelowna ; rapid transit to Coquitlam and Burnaby ; and more. 
  • Carole James still doesn’t get it on aquaculture. She says that she will put a moratorium in place, but still offers no real plan to protect the 4,000 jobs in the province that it creates. Her plan involves transition to an industry that has been researched and demonstrated to not be viable. And she doesn’t offer a single dollar to help families dependent on fish farms for their livelihoods to make this so-called “transition.”
  • The NDP allowed the creation of 34 fish farms, but provided no environmental protections. The moratorium they put in place in the late 1990s prevented existing farms from relocating to safer sites.
  • We have put in some of the toughest protections in the world, and lifted the moratorium to ensure that safe relocations could happen. Only one new farm established since the moratorium was lifted is operating today. Furthermore, fish escapes are dramatically down in B.C. – from 68,000 fish escapes in 2000 to only 40 in 2003.

Leadership

  • Carole James has demonstrated that she has created no distance between the NDP and the big public sector unions that control the party.
  • She still won’t stand up for students when it comes to education as an essential service and she won’t come clean on her plans to rip up the Labour Code. 
  •  She also refuses to be accountable for the actions of past NDP governments.
  • The NDP is best summed up by NDP candidate and former Cabinet Minister Corky Evans who said: “We made announcements about things we weren't even going to do.” (source: Times-Colonist, 17 Jan 2000 )