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When government returns some of our money
e-KNOW Editorial
By Ian Cobb
With less than two months to go until the May 9 provincial election, a familiar four-year pattern has re-emerged.
British Columbia Government spending widens to as senior politicians and linked candidates bask in the glow of said spending and Premier Christy Clark wields her broadly adaptive charms to great effect.
No stranger to the East Kootenay, Clark returned recently for a few stops in the East Kootenay, with dollars flowing in her wake.
Four years ago the Premier made a similar visit to the region, as did Premier Gordon Campbell in elections before, dating back to 2001.
The BC Liberal Party has always made the effort to reach into the province’s outposts and that has helped the party create such a strong foothold in Kootenay East. That and the fact the riding has had a bullish MLA on the ruling side of the floor in the Legislature, who has brought a great deal of project funding to the area.
When you compare what’s been spent on highways alone in the Kootenay East, compared to Columbia River-Revelstoke where Norm Macdonald (BC NDP) has toiled for 12 years pounding at doors that won’t open, the benefit of having a Member of the Legislative Assembly on the ‘other’ side of the door is plain to see.
When you do see some spending in the non-ruling party ridings it is during the run-up to elections.
Now, before you start going off about the ‘bloody Liberals and their greed and arrogance,’ don’t forget that this four-year cycle worked sweetly for the NDP, too. And it worked for the Socreds.
It’s a game plan the federal Liberals and Conservatives have managed to near perfection, as well.
Promises of spending and actual spending are the currency of Canadian elections, as political pockets being stuffed by the most ardent corporate backers are what makes decisions happen in America.
Each nation shares the same traits but our different systems of government force different paths to be taken in order to get to the same place; power, or the illusion of it.
Because we all know that it doesn’t matter who or what is in power – right, left or centre – it is money that rules. Money speaks loudly and in many tongues.
It is hard to find fault with our current Liberal government tossing cash about the province because the Kootenay East is once again getting a share of the pie.
Who wants to complain about Kootenay Rockies getting $600,000 toward marketing efforts and helping bolster our region’s tourism industry? Funds for trades; funds for clean water initiatives; bucks for cycling/recreation infrastructure and almost a million smackers for flooding preparation in the Kootenays. Those are local funding announcements dating back to March 16 (last Thursday).
The fact is, each one of those funding announcements will see a large volume of those dollars entering the local economy. That is a good thing. Elections are usually events with positive spins for many businesses, industries and municipalities.
The trick is for the voting public to realize the game that is afoot.
Part of that game is playing one riding against another in the spending frenzy, depending on which party holds down the Member of the Legislative Assembly seat. Or blocks of smaller ridings with larger populations, in the case of the Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island, get in on funding while others are left wanting.
That, in a nutshell, is politics in B.C.
The Lower Mainland and Vancouver Island, and the Okanagan to a lesser extent, sit at the top of vote game food chain. The Kootenays are a distant outpost, considered fondly by the power brokers in Victoria but easily pushed aside when ‘bigger’ decisions need to be made.
So while the spending outburst continues and the volume of government press releases declaring great successes and leaps forward hits overdrive (the vast public relations army employed in Victoria is in a frothy fever at the time of this item being written), keep it firmly in mind that intentions behind this spending are singular in focus; re-election.
In some cases, funding announcements are also projects MLAs have worked on and pushed for and can be considered representation successes. I don’t wish to take away oomph from such announcements by being broad-brush negative. That is the case with today’s announcement of the creation of a new agency that will look after wildlife management in the province, funded by hunting licence revenues.
Finally, if you are reading this and doing a fist pump while chanting “N-D-P” – please simmer down.
In the not so distant past British Columbia was governed by the NDP, a party that loved to slam down clanking great bags of cash at election time, though the East Kootenay always seemed to be left wanting. From Mike (Jumbo’s a-go) Harcourt to Glen (love me some deck space) Clark, to Dan Miller and Ujjal Dosanjh, it was the exact same thing as what we’ve seen from Campbell’s and Clark’s Liberals.
Left, right, centre; they all play the same game. And we’re the ball /puck /shuttlecock/ etc. they bash about in their frenzy to ensure the ‘party’ stays in power. Governance is secondary in Canadian politics, as it is in American politics. The primary objective of every political party is to GET elected and then STAY elected.
And tossing about OUR cash – taxpayer dollars – in well-calculated dispersals is how they do it.
Meanwhile, on behalf of the East Kootenay, thanks for the financial help Victoria. You know we need it; and you know we deserve it thanks to our small, mostly self-sufficient population that gives the province far more than it usually gets back.
And voters, please remember the dollars re-delivered from Victoria, or Ottawa, are already yours to begin with.
– Ian Cobb is the editor and owner of e-KNOW
