Frustrating campaigning against the BC Blancmange. Campbell’s central promise is a dramatic tax cut within the first 90 days, and that within four years the lowest two tax brackets will pay the lowest income taxes in all of Canada. (They already pay the third- to second-lowest, according to the Fraser Institute.) How much will the tax cut be? Won’t say. How much will it cost? Won’t cost a dime, because they pay for themselves, all evidence to the contrary. And that’s about that. Reporters sigh, and then move on to the next story — which is usually uncritical reporting of Campbell’s attacks on the state of BC’s economy.
Media docility is high enough that Campbell can say — without fear of contradiction — that our economy is mired in the doldrums with 3.4% growth, the lowest unemployment in 20 years, and booming high tech, film and tourism sectors. Forestry is struggling, which is apparently the result of high stumpage fees (which are low enough to have triggered U.S. countervails and vocal complaints from Energy Probe) and environmental red tape (which regulations would he cut? see answer to tax cut questions) — not the collapse of the Asian economy, the impending revival of the softwood lumber dispute, the global slump in lumber prices and the other things the forest companies cite in their securities filings.
We killed the salmon, we drugged the Canucks, we’ve been wedging giant crowbars into the Cascadia Subduction Zone, and Ujjal personally drives fast ferries through children’s swimming pools at high speed, swamping their little inflatable canoes…
