Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Facts fall like dominoes in BC Liberal government television ads - but you still pay for it


Domino ad's 3 self-congratulatory claims fail to stand up to scrutiny 
BC government's "domino" television ad - not exactly as illustrated!
Bill Tieleman’s 24 hours/The Tyee column

Tuesday February 12, 2013

By Bill Tieleman
"I call it like the domino theory of reality. If you can go one step at a time and it seems to make sense, you can then take your audience into an area that is relatively outlandish." 
- Movie director Ivan Reitman
Unless you live in a cave with no cable, you've seen the BC Liberal government's pervasive $15 million ad campaign on television -- the one your tax dollars are paying for despite its obviously partisan purposes.
The expensive 30-second spot features rows of black dominos collapsing all around the world -- that is, until they run up against Premier Christy Clark's immovable white piece.
There's only one problem. It's not true.
"Unstable government policies have hurt people around the world," the authoritative announcer intones over ominous music guaranteed to scare small children. "Big government, careless spending and quick fixes have caused economies to collapse."
The dominos fall until they reach our fair province, when uplifting music starts and the white domino of B.C. holds firm, thankfully.
"But British Columbia is standing strong. By controlling government spending, low taxes and investing in skills training," it says.
But the facts are far different than the misleading ad.
1. Provincial spending under the B.C. Liberals has gone up astonishingly -- it has not been "controlled."
Moody's Investors Service downgraded B.C.'s credit rating in December from "stable" to "negative" because of concerns about the province's "recent accumulation in debt."
"The negative outlook reflects Moody's assessment of the risks to the province's ability to reverse the recent accumulation in debt with the softened economic outlook, weaker commodity prices and continued expense pressures," according Moody's assistant vice president Jennifer Wong, lead analyst for the province.
And no wonder. When the BC Liberals took office in 2001, accumulated provincial debt was $33.8 billion.
Today it's $57.6 billion and scheduled to jump to $66.3 billion by 2015, almost double.
That's not "controlling spending." It's that "big government" the ad warns about!
2. The ads boast about low taxes -- but B.C. is the only province in Canada where individuals have to pay Medical Services Premiums.
This regressive tax has gone up 85 per cent since 2000 and 24 per cent in just the last three years, an increase of $300 per person.
The MSP costs British Columbians over $2 billion each year in a tax that a Victoria Times-Colonist editorial called a "shell game".
And the same "low tax" government introduced a surprise Harmonized Sales Tax -- that I helped successfully oppose with Fight HST -- which shifted $2 billion in taxes from big business to consumers with new taxes on hundreds of items.
3. The province claims it is "investing in skills training" -- but our six major universities warn that 20,000 jobs could go unfilled by 2020 because the government isn't doing enough training.
"Basically, what we're saying is there's a skills and education deficit coming and, in order to deal with it, we've got to actually start now," University of Victoria president David Turpin said last month. "We can't wait to 2016 to say, 'Wow, we now have this shortfall.'"
Meanwhile, tuition fees have more than doubled under the BC Liberals and students graduate with the highest debt load west of the Maritimes.
And then there's the 70,000 Temporary Foreign Workers currently working in B.C., from coal miners to chefs to farmworkers while construction employers head to Ireland to recruit skilled trades workers.
And Statistics Canada reported Friday that B.C. lost 15,900 jobs in January alone.
When it comes to B.C. government ads, it's the facts that fall like dominos.

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16 comments:

Anonymous said...

Whatever's happened to the truth in advertising commercials....the CRTC and above all accuracy in statements made that in this case are obviously full of lies and half truths if any?

The BC Liberal party should get the bill for these ads...not the taxpayer!

Anonymous said...

Is it true that Christy and the LIBS actually used her own son in a recent ad? I have not seen it but a friend told me about it. How low can these people go?

Anonymous said...

China sued in BC to take the mining jobs. Harper's Omnibus bill said they could. China's resource workers earn, $800 per month. Harper has permitted all company's to hire cheap labor. 300 BC miners applied for those 200 jobs, the Chinese miners were given.

Christy has done nothing to, protect jobs for the BC people. We have many qualified resource people in BC and Canada. However, there will be no training. Those resource jobs, Christy is permitting China to take, by Harper's say so.

Harper's sell out of Canada to China began with Campbell, during his reign of terror. Our BC mills were shipped to China, along with our raw logs. Campbell had China send their people to school, to learn 100 English words, so they could take BC mining jobs.

Both Harper, his Cons and the Campbell/Clark BC Liberals will go as low as, the ninth ring of Dante's Inferno, to stay in office.

DPL said...

The election can't come soon enough for most BC citizen as the BC LIberals keep throwing money trying to show us what garnd folks they are

Anonymous said...

Yes it is her son, a Bieber wannabe. Putting a spotlight at his age is not a smart move. Witness what happens to other children in the same predicament.

Anonymous said...

The NDP after the election will start to throw money trying to show us what grand folks they are.

Anonymous said...

Although I would like to see Dix throwing money towards some hospitals, I hope he has some cash available to service the CC4BC $60 Billion dollar debtload.
Thank the Lieberals.

Anonymous said...

The NDP needs to only run one ad during the campaign. Show Campbell and Colin Hansen with their imfamous HST announcement days after the last election. Then the voice over " What aren't they telling you this time? As far as I am concerned that says it all about the Lying Libs.

Anonymous said...

well it won't be soon enough for the taxpayers to see this bunch of thieves gone. it would be great to see them in hand cuffs after the NDP have their BC Rail inquiry.

Anonymous said...

The NDP needs to tell British Columbians what it is they intend to do if they win the election. Never mind the crap about what the Liberals did in the past. That's well known and covered everywhere including many of the blog contributors here. and too easy to do. Why spin your wheels and not get any traction?

Do something harder and better than that.

Come up with something that tells what is it the NDP is wanting to do.

The NDp can start by putting an end to needless apppointments and set a less number of Ministries, and ensure that NDP political hacks do not get cushy appointments nor into the express line for contract jobs.

Anonymous said...

To the poster above: where were you when the Libs did all this and more for the past 11 years?

Anonymous said...

Dix wants to stop taxpayer funded propaganda near an election call. I believe that that is a good start. He put forth a bill today, but expect it to be voted down (big surprise).
I hope for an inquiry into all scandals, although it could take years to get to the truth if it ever does.

Anonymous said...

The new governments primary target should be to stop the massive fiscal bleeding.
Deal with the debt!

Anonymous said...

Exactly. That means trimming government, reducing the number of Ministries, leaving Health, Social Services and Education alone, and getting rid of un-nessesary appoitments, and dumping the Public Affairs Bureau completely.

No inquiry to scandals as that would cost alot of money, unless the scandal was something critical such as BC Rail.

Anonymous said...

Bill, how does BC's debt relate to that of other provinces? Funny how you never mention that.

Anonymous said...

there should be a investigations about breach of election avertising and Jim Shepard and is group cc4bc should be held accountable for speading enuando what about shepard doing about bc rail or maybe we should look at is past as a oil executive i think there someting rotten in demmark