BC FORUM News from the Advocate, Spring 2017 What she said, what she did Some commentators say that Christy Clark is a great campaigner. She certainly makes lots of promises. Here’s a short comparison of what she promised four years ago and what she actually did. Freeze personal income taxes • Gave a 2 per cent income tax cut to people who earn more than $150,000 a year. Tax giveaways to the wealthiest 1% average $38,711 per person per year. Families first • Hit ordinary families with a huge shift to regressive taxes and fees while ensuring the richest British Columbians pay a lower rate of tax than everyone else. Provide affordable energy rates for families • BC Hydro rates up 28 percent. Affordable housing • While the dream of owning a home died for thousands of ordinary families, Christy Clark pocketed millions in donations from real estate developers. She refused to close loopholes for speculators. Improve health care • Health care spending per person reduced from second to eighth in Canada. • Access to home support reduced by 30 per cent. • Access to residential care beds reduced by 20 per cent, while shifting to private for-profit care. • Failed to meet minimum staffing requirements at nine out of ten residential care facilities. Recognize the unique struggle facing persons with disabilities • Took away their bus passes. Address classroom size and composition challenges • Fought against it every step of the way until the Supreme Court of Canada ordered her to do so, the culmination of a 15 year battle started by Christy Clark when she was minister of education. Grow a strong forest industry • Six fold increase in raw log exports. • 100 mills closed. • 30,000 jobs lost. Create and support jobs in the province’s technology sector • Government expenditure on information technology: just under $700 million a year. • Amount that goes to B.C. firms: less than 10 per cent. • The big winners: multinational corporations. Support shipbuilding in B.C. • New B.C. ferries built in Germany and Poland. Protect our coastline • Approved a seven-fold increase in oil tanker traffic. LNG: “It’s no fantasy” • Hired former Liberal Leader Gordon Wilson as an LNG advocate at $150,000 a year. • Number of LNG facilities built: 0. Christy Clark’s “Debt free BC” • Increased the provincial debt from $45.2 billion to $65.3 billion. • Increased the debt to GDP ratio from 21.7% to 26.7%. • Increased provincial debt per capita from $9,969 to $13,942. • Approved long-term contractual obligations – mostly for expensive private for-profit power generated on public rivers and streams – that now total $101 billion, far higher than any other province. |