But just as we saw in both 2001 and 2005, the premier recently presented a litany of empty promises that do nothing to help BC families, seniors and students through difficult times. The question we all have to ask ourselves, after eight years of longer waitlists, overcrowded emergency rooms, larger class sizes and skyrocketing tuition fees ….should we believe him this time?

This is déjà vu for British Columbians.  In 2001, Gordon Campbell made many of same commitments. He said he would improve patient care, that children were his first priority, that seniors would get the care they deserve, and that there would affordable tuition.

But after that election, he disclosed a severe agenda on British Columbians. A pathway that few voted for or expected.  We witnessed massive tax cuts that were paid for by cuts to health, education, and services for children.  Hospitals were closed, seniors separated, and children put at risk.

Eight years later, the economic times have changed dramatically but the crucial truth remains: Gordon Campbell can’t be trusted to focus on the fundamental priorities that make a difference in the lives of average British Columbians.  And their record during the current economic downturn proves it.

Last October while the whole world was preparing for a recession both the premier and finance minister acted like everything was ok.

Four months later, the BC Liberals look like “deer in the headlights”.  Deficits, vanishing jobs, and no recovery in sight have put eight years of BC Liberal feel-good rhetoric to rest.   British Columbian families are hurting and this government didn’t have a clue, or a plan, of what do about it.

Just last week, Gordon Campbell said he would get tough on gangs.  A few days later, his budget had deep cuts to courts, prosecutors and justice services.

In the Throne Speech, the premier said advanced education was critical to securing opportunity. The very next day he cuts funding for student aid.

The premier says children are his first priority.  His budget cuts the social workers protecting children.

First Nations still are under the “referendum” of this Premier as he pushed a 20% cut to the Min of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation.

And despite the premier’s promise not to add costs onto business and families, his budget will triple the gas tax in the coming two years.

We understand that to compete and win in tomorrow’s economy, people and infrastructure must be central to creating wealth and strong communities.   A strong business climate is essential.  But that’s just part of the equation.

To increase economic opportunity we must also make significant investments in education, skills training, and green infrastructure.  And we must ensure that universal public health care remains the social and competitive advantage that it has been for a generations.

Other jurisdictions are making those changes….so must we.

The needs of average families must be considered.  We need a plan to start building affordable housing, to reduce crushing student debt-loads, and to make work pay by raising the minimum wage.  We’ve proposed protections for seniors in care and will follow through on the long-term care beds Gordon Campbell never built.

Our Green Bond announced last week invests in green infrastructure here at home, and our agenda includes bold reforms to our forest industry to put it back on solid footing.

The real plan has to focus on helping average, hardworking British Columbians in every part of the province through these difficult times.  We can’t waste taxpayer money on pet projects, privatization giveaways, and big raises for top aides.

We need to hone in on the fundamentals, securing a better future for every family and every community.

B.C.’s budget, due on February 17^th, cannot afford to also ignore the positive, immediate economic benefits of directing new public spending on higher education in this downturn and for the future.

Recall last spring. The B.C. Liberals actually cut 2.6% from university and college operating budgets and reduced student aid by 7%.

Then after the global crisis surfaced, the Premier quickly penned his November ten-point economic plan which failed to include a single dime for education. It kept the $60 million cut from B.C. universities and colleges earlier in the year and had nothing to help our university-based research community.

This government has stayed the course on ignoring the financial problems of B.C. students – now among the most heavily indebted in Canada

We need an economic package that will deliver for post-secondary education. We can’t squander money on pet projects like the B.C. Place roof and the Vancouver Convention Centre.

We need additional operating dollars to stop declining per-student funding and support enrolment growth, we need expanded research activity, and we must raise graduate scholarships, and have actions to lower student debt – including cutting student loan interest rates and creating a four-year student grant program.

Right now, B.C.’s jobless numbers are rising quickly. And so is demand for advanced education and retraining.

We need to think about how we help the next group of B.C. entrepreneurs, scholars, tradespersons, administrators and community leaders contribute to this province. That’s why smart new public spending aimed at stimulating our economy and the skills and creativity of our citizens has to invest in our colleges, universities and technical institutes.

Comments: www.garycoons.ca 

Recall last spring. The B.C. Liberals actually cut 2.6% from university and college operating budgets and reduced student aid by 7%.

Then after the global crisis surfaced, the Premier quickly penned his November ten-point economic plan which failed to include a single dime for education. It kept the $60 million cut from B.C. universities and colleges earlier in the year and had nothing to help our university-based research community.

This government has stayed the course on ignoring the financial problems of B.C. students – now among the most heavily indebted in Canada.

We need an economic package that will deliver for post-secondary education. We can’t squander money on pet projects like the B.C. Place roof and the Vancouver Convention Centre.

We need additional operating dollars to stop declining per-student funding and support enrolment growth, we need expanded research activity, we must raise graduate scholarships, and have actions to lower student debt – including cutting student loan interest rates and creating a four-year student grant program.

Right now, B.C.’s jobless numbers are rising quickly. And so is demand for advanced education and retraining.

We need to think about how we help the next group of B.C. entrepreneurs, scholars, tradespersons, administrators and community leaders contribute to this province. That’s why smart new public spending aimed at stimulating our economy and the skills and creativity of our citizens has to invest in our colleges, universities and technical institutes.

Comments. www.garycoons.ca

http://www.bcndpcaucus.ca/en/advanced_ed_plan< ><-->

Once again he has failed to follow through. Would the Premier have us believe that his successful strategy would result in an unprecedented forestry crisis and the disappearance of family supporting jobs? His “plan” led to an overwhelming number of school closures and major cuts to health care services.

This is not a government that understands the importance of our rural communities and its crucial role in the overall wealth of this province. Instead it shows how out of touch Campbell is with the needs of rural B.C.

Wealth distribution in this province needs to be fair. We all have a solid understanding that rural B.C. generates much of the wealth for this province. Through this understanding must come a better plan.

Working with local governments will help in the creation of a rural developmental fund for the fair dispersal of wealth generated in their region and also create new and innovative economic development initiatives throughout rural B.C.

Until an effective wealth-sharing model exists, there must be additional direct financial resources provided from both levels of government to community economic development initiatives.

The needs of our rural communities have been on the back burner far too long. Rural communities must not be left behind when the government allocates services, resources and opportunities.

New Democrats in British Columbia are strongly committed to a new and better direction for rural B.C. Our rural strategy will be linked to the plans we are developing to forestry, agriculture, First Nation rights, and a green economy. This is a commitment to listen and work in partnership with people who make rural B.C. home.

More on the Rural BC Matters ………go to www.garycoons.ca

In the last few months, we have watched as the global economic landscape changed. Working families in rural B.C. know that this crisis didn’t develop overnight.

Over the last three years, thousands of family-supporting jobs have disappeared from the forest industry. This came on top of job losses due to government policies and the decline of the fishing industry, which supported families for generations.

But the Campbell government sat back and said they couldn’t do anything. The finance minister even said there was nothing the government could do about the forest industry, because they were mere ‘spectators’.

Of course, there is plenty that the government could have done. Carole James put forward a five-point plan for the forest industry, but the forest minister government refused to work with us to implement that plan, calling our proposal “false hope”.

Now, with the global economic downturn, we have even more of a reason to be worried. If Gordon Campbell couldn’t do anything other than be a spectator during the forestry crisis, how do you think he will handle the coming economic changes?

Around kitchen tables and in small businesses across the north coast, people are taking a hard look at their budgets. We’re all thinking twice about where our money is going, and what our priorities are.

It’s not just families and small businesses that are feeling the pinch. As the new economic figures released November 24th show, projected government revenues have slumped by over $800 million for the coming year, and $3 billion over a three-year cycle.

With that type of news, you would hope that our provincial government would also be thinking about where public dollars are going. But unfortunately, that’s just not the case.

Gordon Campbell made a big deal during his economic statement in October by saying he would curb government waste. But since then, he’s done just the opposite.

Night after night, the B.C. Liberals are spending millions of your tax dollars on TV ads to tell us what a great job they’re doing. When Carole James called on the B.C. Liberals to show restraint and cancel these ads, they refused.

The Premier seems to be so out of touch with the priorities of B.C. families that he actually says British Columbians want to see their tax dollars spent on slick advertising campaigns. Does that sound right to you? Wouldn’t you rather see that money go towards services like health care,  education and to alleviate the concerns our seniors have?

And apparently Gordon Campbell doesn’t think it’s a waste to award obscene pay raises to his top government executives while working families scrimp to get by and minimum wage workers fall further behind the poverty line.

Over the past few months, even while government revenues have been drying up, Gordon Campbell has handed out raises of up to 43 per cent to his top political aides. And he’s spent millions more on pay raises for top executives in crown corporations and government bodies.

And while families are watching their bottom line, Gordon Campbell has been spending your hard-earned money on thousands of gold-coloured medals with his name emblazoned on them. Yes, you read that right. Gordon Campbell actually spent public money buying thousands of these medals so that he could hand them out at photo-ops across the province.

In my opinion, the only gold medal that Gordon Campbell should receive is a gold medal for arrogance. If he really wanted to honour workers, he would have put their names on the medals, not his own.

And while Gordon Campbell spends millions of dollars on slick TV ads and pay raises for top executives, more and more people are falling between the cracks.

For the fifth year in a row, British Columbia has the highest rate of child poverty in the country, and more than one out of every five children now live in poverty in our province.

Tuition is climbing, and more and more families are finding that their dreams of sending their children to higher education are beyond their reach.

Families are struggling to make ends meet as the gas tax drives their already-high home heating bill through the roof.

If Gordon Campbell neglected so many people during the good times, can you really trust him to put your priorities first when times get tough?

In these economic times, families on the north coast and across B.C. deserve a government that will put their priorities first. That’s why I’m working with my colleagues for a prosperous province for everyone, especially for those of us who work and make our homes in rural and coastal BC. We need a plan to revitalize our communities that focuses on the needs of rural BC.

 The legislature was supposed to sit for six weeks this fall. Instead, we got five days. And those five days only came about because Premier Gordon Campbell came to the sudden realization – in late October – that the global economy was melting down.

 In cancelling the fall session, Premier Campbell told reporters that there was nothing for the legislature to do. Give them credit for consistency; other B.C. Liberal cabinet ministers have called the scheduled legislative session “busy work.”

In reality, the Campbell government is reacting to its basest political instincts in ignoring their own legislative calendar and cancelling sittings. Having fall sessions means the opposition more opportunities to point out the arrogant decisions of the government.

This fall was no exception. As British Columbians are looking to their government for help in areas such as child poverty and homelessness, the Campbell government is spending tens of millions on self-promoting TV ads. Instead of putting his effort into dealing with the forestry crisis, Gordon Campbell has been handing out phony gold medals with his name on them. Those medals are symbolic of an arrogant premier whose first priority seems to be his own re-election.

We all know examples of those hurt by the government’s misplaced priorities. Some of the worst examples came to light during this shortened fall session:

• our excellent child and youth representative, Mary Ellen Turpel Lafond, said the plight of First Nations children has gone significantly worse under this government;
  
• seniors at a care home in another metro Vancouver are being evicted because of decisions made by the Campbell government – all while there is still a shortage of space for our seniors;
  
• residents of B.C.’s first publicly funded social housing complex were being evicted, even as homelessness is at crisis levels in this province.

These stories paint a picture of a Campbell government out of touch with the needs of British Columbians. It’s precisely these kinds of stories that the premier was hoping to avoid.

Fixing those problems isn’t busy work. Fixing those problems is why British Columbians elect their government. And it’s why they expect their representatives to spend more than five days in the legislature in the fall.

What we really needed to do was to take strong actions to secure our economy, take immediate steps to reassure British Columbians and to help the middle class. These steps should have focused on the fundamentals: middle class and small business tax relief; skills training and education; community and green infrastructure; a re-vitalized forest industry; and getting rid of government waste so we protect the things that matter most to British Columbians.

British Columbia has had the highest child poverty rates in Canada for five years in a row. During those years the British Columbian economy was apparently booming. I t seemed like all the government ever talked about was how rich we all were getting, and how much better everything was than it used to be.

However, the real tale of the economy seemed to be incomplete. The story that the B.C. Liberal government failed to tell us was the story of real incomes in British Columbia, and the real British Columbians who couldn’t make ends meet on those incomes.

Our booming economy was only ever booming for the richest people in our province. The richest ten per cent of British Columbian families with children increased their income by more than $47 000 per year from 1989 to 2006, while the incomes of poorest 20 per cent of British Columbians dropped.

We need to revisit the way we look at the economy. The huge profits of a few British Columbians can’t be seen as gains for everyone. Looking back, it’s easy to see how misleading statements about the economy were used as excuses to avoid solving the very real problems facing the people of this province.

First Call’s 2008 report card on child poverty in British Columbia shows that the majority of children who live in poverty in our province live in families where the adults have at least one full-time, full-year job.

All children deserve to be raised in stable homes, and stability simply isn’t possible without some measure of financial security. It’s discouraging that any child should be forced to suffer from poverty, especially in a country as rich as ours. However, it is even more of a concern to learn that parents are working hard, in full time jobs, and still unable to provide the opportunities their children need and deserve.  

The minimum wage in British Columbia hasn’t gone up since 2001.

It isn’t surprising that our child poverty rates continue to be high when incomes for most families remain stagnant or in decline. The economy should not to be measured by the riches of the top tenth of one percent of people in this country, but by the dollars in the pockets of ordinary individuals and families.

Homelessness is a province wide issue. It exists in communities large and small throughout the province. It exists here in Prince Rupert. 

Shelter spaces are urgently needed, but they are just the barest of essentials needed to provide for those in need. Ultimately we must aim towards increasing our supported affordable housing.

In Prince Rupert, as in communities across the province, it is not just the most vulnerable citizens who struggle to provide themselves with a roof over their heads; it is young people, seniors, students and families. We need to re-evaluate the public policies we have to create more access to supported housing.

When I learned that we would be losing apartments in Prince Rupert, I knew that many of the residents would have a very tough time finding adequate housing. In a small community like ours even a few changes can have major impacts on the available housing available. It is important for the province to work with municipalities and developers to preserve quality affordable housing units.

It is appalling for people to be paying upwards of $400 per month for little more than a small room. The government would be better off investing money in clean and safe social housing rather than paying endless rental payments to landlords. That is why the New Democrat Housing Critic, David Chudnovsky, recommended in his report, “Finding Our Way Home,” that the government immediately commit to building 2400 units of social housing, and then continue the commitment with another 1200 units per year.

It is well known that homelessness is linked to many other social problems such as poverty, mental health and addiction. We must increase mental health and addiction services to effectively address homelessness, or our most vulnerable citizens will continue to end up on the streets.

The lack of detox facilities in the region is made even more shocking by the fact that Prince Rupert may have a rate of fetal alcohol syndrome that is more than double the provincial average. This is unacceptable. We will save lives and dollars by giving people access to the services they need to heal themselves.

The government needs to be proactive with their solutions, not just in cities like Vancouver and Victoria, but throughout the province. Centralization of addiction and mental health services has contributed to the problem for both urban and rural centers.

We must also address wage inequality to address the homelessness issue. A fair minimum wage would reflect the cost of living, including the price of renting a home. Governments must also reevaluate disability, welfare and pension rates to ensure that we are able to afford clean, safe shelter.

Numerous studies have shown that homelessness is more expensive than providing access to safe housing. Our health and justice systems are affected by the problems caused by homelessness.

The NDP’s Szilvia Barna answers the question : Do you support the Deltaport Terminal 2 (T2) plan? By saying: “No I don’t, it’s an environmental disaster. Our environment here is globally significant and this project shouldn’t be here to begin with, it should be up in Prince Rupert. They want to put a port there. If they put the port up in Prince Rupert, there’s two days less shipping coming over from Asia, so there’s less greenhouse gases, obviously, with two days less pollution. It also eliminates the problem with the South Fraser Perimeter Road, which we also wouldn’t need if there wasn’t this port. This port is a violation of several federal laws like the Species at Risk Act and also the Migratory Bird Convention Act”

The Conservative’s John Cummins replies with: “I think that with the addition now of this third berth we’ve got plenty of capacity in Delta….Prince Rupert, with the development of the container port there, is going to siphon off a good amount of traffic from Vancouver. I don’t think the prospects for Vancouver are quite as rosy as the folks out there would have you believe. I think the growth will remain strong, but I don’t think that it will grow to that extent. So, do we need this expansion? I don’t think it’s necessary.”

Our caucus and I wholeheartedly agree with these “potential” MPs and we have continuosly been pushing the province to use the massive funds they have set aside for the gateway project in the lower mainland on infrastructure for the Prince Rupert area instead. Our argument is that congestion in the lower mainland cannot be addressed as long as they continue to expand truck traffic from their ports.

Instead of spending billions on roadways that are going to fill up immediately, we are asking the government to target their funding at developing the necessary infrastructure in the northwest to ensure that Prince Rupert can be a world class port on par with those in Vancouver, Seattle and Los Angeles. This will expand the province’s ability to handle cargo while simultaneously easing traffic concerns in the lower mainland, which doesn’t have the ability to move cargo by rail with the same ease and capacity as the northwest.

If the government focuses on making the Port Prince Rupert a success instead of financing the construction of infrastructure for an expanded Deltaport, there will be huge environmental savings for the whole province. Deltaport is located in shallow waters which need to be dredged in order to ease expansion, destroying vital habitat for salmon and other fish in a region which has already seen the loss of many ecosystems due to development.

As one of the deepest ports in the world, development of the port of Prince Rupert does not require dredging and the subsequent destruction of the sea bed. There is room here to increase port activity without causing undue harm to ecosystems. Hopefully the government will see the environmental gains that can be made by supporting the development of infrastructure for Prince Rupert in order to hasten and aid the establishment of Prince Rupert as a world class port.

I believe we also need to push for both levels of government to move forward quickly…before “we miss the boat on port expansion” … on negotiations with the Coastal Tsimshian and others that may have traditional rights within the Port development area. The Supreme Court of Canada has clearly stated that the Federal Government has a duty to consult and accommodate aboriginal rights and title interests.

The Coastal Tsimshian have clearly expressed their belief that the Port Development provides a great opportunity to create a healthy economy for all residents in Prince Rupert and the immediate locality.

Investing in the Port of Prince Rupert is good for shippers, good for the environment and good for Prince Rupert and the surrounding region.

Rural British Columbia is the economic engine of the province. Indeed, one of the reasons Canada has weathered the financial meltdown occurring south of the border so well is because of our rich resource industries. Commodities are not produced in Vancouver and the other major population centers of the province. They are produced in communities like Prince Rupert.

For decades British Columbia’s small communities have produced wealth for the province. Now, it is time to reinvest in these communities so they have the infrastructure they need to grow and thrive again, to take part in a global economy that is changing, and so that they have the capacity to refine and add value to the resources that we produce.

It is almost a crime for our raw resources to be extracted and exported, only to have finished products made from our own goods sold back to us at premium prices. We have the capacity and the skilled workforce to do more ourselves. What we need is investment in our communities, so they can join the twenty-first century.

Rather than spending nearly a billion dollars on a convention centre for Vancouver, the British Columbian government should have invested in projects to make rural communities more attractive to business. I have no doubt that if we calculated the wealth that has been taken out of Prince Rupert over the last few decades, and what has been reinvested in our community we would find that for years our resource industries have been funding infrastructure in our down south urban centers.

The New Democrat team has made a commitment to take a sustainable portion of resource revenues and set them aside in a Rural Fund. This fund will be administered by rural residents for rural residents, and it will be the first of many steps towards turning around the situation in rural British Columbia.

The Campbell Liberal government has been content to allow our communities to suffer for the last seven years. They have ignored the crisis in the forestry industry, and invested nothing or very little critical infrastructure like the Cranberry Connector. Unemployment in this region is the highest in the province, and the only time it goes down is when people leave our communities.

Prince Rupert is not a community that should be left to fend for itself. It has great potential. What is needed is a government with a vision bold enough to see beyond the forest, beyond the trees, to a workable forest industry. One that creates value, not just logs for export. We need a government that can picture our region as one of global importance, one that puts our valuable resources to work for average British Columbians.

Politics, and being accountable, is all about tough questions. It is so arrogant of Campbell to think that, as premier of this province, he can avoid tough questions by refusing to show up to work. Contrary to what the Campbell Liberals would like British Columbians to believe, there is plenty of work to be done in the Legislature this session.

For starters, First Nations leaders have been working for several years to get a key piece of legislation passed that would develop a legal framework for relations between the province and British Columbia’s First Nations peoples. This legislation could help remove much of the uncertainty around land use which has made businesses reluctant to invest in British Columbia. It would also give First Nations peoples greater financial security by enhancing revenue sharing agreements across the province.

On Saturday, Sept 13 the First Nations Leadership Council celebrated the first anniversary of the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The Declaration, which was overwhelmingly adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on September 13, 2007, with 144 States voting in favour of adoption (only 4 against including Canada), affirms basic standards for the survival, dignity and well-being of the indigenous peoples of the world. Now is the time for our government to show their support for this declaration by making legislative progress on First Nations issues.

We need to meet and debate where we need to go with our provincial Port strategy….there are many missing initiatives that our region must have as soon as possible…before we “miss the boat on port expansion” ….as this Premier was warned last year!

Yet, Campbell says there is nothing to be done.

Homelessness, affordable housing and a fair minimum wage are all issues that could be dealt with in a fall session. Yet, Campbell doesn’t want to face the outrage that people in this province have expressed about the massive wage increases he gave his top bureaucrats even as he continues to deny the lowest paid workers of this province their first raise in eight years.

Campbell doesn’t care about seniors on fixed incomes who are trying to do more with less; he doesn’t care about young people struggling to pay for skyrocketing tuition fees on a minimum wage that hasn’t increased in eight years, and he doesn’t care if what he does looks arrogant or undemocratic.

If there is nothing to be done, this fall, as the Campbell Liberals claim, then why did they hammer several pieces of vital legislation through the house in the spring? Campbell’s gas tax was rammed through into law with only ten minutes of debate. Maybe if Campbell had been in less of a rush to get his decrees passed, and had actually taken the time to listen to the concerns that New Democrat MLAs were trying to raise, he wouldn’t be spending millions upon millions of our tax dollars on commercials to convince us that spending more money at the grocery store and at the pump is good for us.

There are reasons why we have debate in the legislature. Even a majority government is expected to listen to the concerns and criticisms of the Opposition. The point of a democracy is not to elect an autocratic Premier, but to elect a government which carefully considers all options and listens to reasoned debate before moving forward with legislation.

The worst and most arrogant aspect of all of this is that Campbell actually introduced legislation for fixed dates for fall sessions. Like Stephen Harper, who broke his law of a fixed election date, apparently the rules are only meant to apply to those less deserving, not to premiers like Gordon Campbell.