When the provincial Liberals held their annual convention last weekend, Christy Clark made a surprising pitch. It seems the premier thinks her party needs 鈥渞ebranding.鈥� Apparently the term 鈥淟iberal鈥� creates the wrong vibes with the centre-right coalition she鈥檚 trying to build.
Clark didn鈥檛 say what brand name she had in mind, but in any case the delegates weren鈥檛 buying it. As Chilliwack MLA John Martin put it: 鈥淭he short of it is, if it ain鈥檛 broke, don鈥檛 fix it.鈥�
Yet Clark is right to be concerned. The Liberals didn鈥檛 so much win last May鈥檚 provincial election as the NDP blew it. She can鈥檛 count on that happening again.
More ominous, though, the government鈥檚 budget for the next three years has been pared to the bone. That means an entire term in office devoted to cost-cutting, and if Clark wants to earn public support, some of that budget pain will have to be felt by MLAs.
Inevitably, some of the choices will come across as hard-hearted or thoughtless. The decision to close Victoria鈥檚 youth custody centre, for example, seems calculated to offend.
Fairly or otherwise, governments are held to a different standard than private-sector organizations when it comes to cutbacks or closures. If a local business lays off workers or shuts an outlet, we assume there was no choice. The rule of the marketplace is absolute: Compete or die.
Things are less clear-cut in the public sector. Voters wonder: Why target this program? Surely there was an easier option. Or what harm will a little more debt do? We鈥檙e already awash in the stuff.
Except this time, the government鈥檚 back really is to the wall. A look at the expenditure numbers shows why.
According to Ministry of Finance projections, spending over the decade ending in 2017 (when the next election is due), will grow by less than three per cent annually. That鈥檚 not enough to keep up with the combined pressures of inflation, population growth and aging.
No sa国际传媒 government since the Second World War has faced so prolonged a period of belt-tightening.
For essential public services, such as health and education, these might be years the locusts ate. It will take exceptional political skill to get through this unscathed.
Which brings us back to spending cuts. The minister in charge of reducing costs, Bill Bennett, has until December to write a report.
A word of advice: The place to begin is with some of the outrageous perks MLAs have awarded themselves. End those annual jaunts to exotic places. Clamp down on expense-account boondoggles.
And if Bennett really means to get serious, he has to deal with the MLA pension ripoff.
Most employer-supported pension plans share costs 50/50 between the company and employees. Our MLAs wrote themselves a 20/80 deal, meaning they pay 20 per cent and the taxpayers pay 80 per cent.
The cost of this pork barrel is buried in regulations so evasive there can be only one purpose 鈥� to sweep it under the rug. Dollar figures are therefore hard to come by.
But a rough estimate is that taxpayers are on the hook to the tune of $4 million a year. A 50/50 deal would cost $800,000. If our figures are wrong, we are prepared to be enlightened.
In effect, British Columbians are contributing on average $47,000 to each MLA鈥檚 pension every year, though 60 per cent of the taxpayers have no work-based pension of their own.
There鈥檚 an old saying that charity begins at home. If Bennett hopes to gain public support, his cuts had better start there, too. The people鈥檚 house needs a thorough housecleaning.
