I think we get it now: the BC Liberals don’t see the 2017 version of the NDP as serious election threats.
Nearly one-third of the province doesn’t know who the NDP leader is – John Horgan, for those not in on the secret. Third-party (read: Liberal-encouraged) advertising is raising awareness of Horgan by noting his notable changes in position on issues. It’s a get-to-know-and-instantly-disrespect-him campaign.
And last week’s budget was a politically adept NDP balloon-piercing. It promised to reduce Medical Services Plan premiums in half starting January 1 – a splendid vulnerability the NDP could have made, but now can’t make, a meal of. It threw enough money at education as to appear to have engaged and addressed child services that have yielded scandalous episodes of inferior management. It was hardly breathtaking in commitment, but enough to go to the electorate and profess these as priorities.
Were the Liberals concerned, they would have slenderized the provincial sales tax or the provincial income tax (something to reassure their base) or reinvigorated public education, introduced a comprehensive child-care scheme or upgraded the sorrowful welfare benefits (something to appeal to the NDP base).
Instead they halved electricity bills for businesses and pruned the corporate income tax – not exactly the vote-swinging, sweaty stuff of panic.
Obviously, in making their choices, they are clearly comfortable in their competitive skin. In reading the budget documents, the largest threat the Liberals see is not from within B.C. but from without.
The stage is optimally well set. The Finance Ministry forecasts a steady picture for the next five years, with growth of 2.1% this and next year and 2% for 2019-21. Parts of the rest of Canada will catch up to our nation-leading economy during that stretch – Alberta and Saskatchewan in a rebound from a steep decline.
Christy Clark went before the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade the day after the budget and likened her laser focus on the economy to how Donald Trump corralled the American electorate.
But the association ends there. Trump, not Horgan, is her biggest immediate concern.
Buried on the 82nd page of the budget documents are risks to the economic outlook, prepared by its advisory council, and those risks are new and formidably out of our control: “uncertainty” on American trade and fiscal policy, another “uncertainty” about Brexit and yet another “uncertainty” on our exchange rate.
The “fragility” in Europe owing to sovereign debt and weak growth is clear, but our ties to that economy are relatively small compared with those of Asia, and that’s where the outlook is more directly troubling.
There is bound to be a weaker Chinese demand for B.C. exports and, as its economy shifts from an export-driven to a consumer-driven one, there might be downward pressure on commodity prices.
If the world’s largest and second-largest economies are problems, the third-largest is no feast, either. “Economic activity in Japan remains relatively weak,” the budget plan says – real GDP growth of 0.6% this year and 0.7% next.
Now, few taxpayers want to hear much about how your four largest trading partners are in spots of trouble. They want to know what the budget means to their legitimate concerns today, tomorrow and perhaps next tax year.
But the budget was about as steady as it could go in the circumstances. It didn’t rearrange a single going-forward issue. The Liberal gamble, with May 9 looming and polls eerily neck-and-neck, was to seem sensible in quitting while they’re ahead without making it look like they’re arrogantly playing safe with a lead.
They have some wiggle room to make an off-the-books promise here and there on the hustings, but where others might have used the budget as a splurge-ridden campaign kickoff, the Liberals used it to kick the legs from under the opponent.
If they see a storm brewing, it is not called John Horgan.
Kirk LaPointe is Business in Vancouver’s vice-president of audience and business development.
