"Scissorhands" Strikes, Programs Slashed!
Gordon Campbell is ensuring he will go down in history as The Great Decivilizer of British ColumbiaThe purpose of this website is to be a "one-stop-shop" for information about what the provincial funding cuts are doing to every level of society in the British Columbia. Read about the victims, take the poll, read about the villains, and finally go to the protest page and add your name to the on-line petitions and protests from every sector of the province. Don't see your issue here? Send us some information
On September 30, 2009, the provincial government pulled the plug on the Provincial Office of the Infant Development Programs of B.C. On paper, it was just the cancellation of a $300,000 contract. There wasn’t much news coverage. This organization, after all, doesn't have an interesting name and they do not have public relations skills.
They are dedicated people hired to provide training, advice and support to Infant Development Consultants who work with families of severely challenged infants all over our province.
Families with severely challenged infants in B.C. have received help from Infant Development Consultants under the auspices of the provincial IDP office. Despite a public outcry, the Liberals are terminating the job of Dana Brynelsen, the Provincial Advisor for 34 years, as well as five part-time regional advisors and a volunteer Provincial Steering Committee.
As of Dec. 31, 2009, all work done by the IDP will be done by ministry staff who have no experience in that field, resulting in varying degrees of service. It's now likely that the family of a child with an intellectual disability in Fort St. John will not be getting the same quality as an equivalent family in Vancouver.
In pre-Olympics British Columbia, this doesn’t rate as news.
Welcome to the New World Gorder
The Multi-Million Dollar Question
Similarly, the Campbell government in Victoria is closing a five-bed home for chronically mentally ill people in Quesnel. Hey, it’s only Quesnel. It’s only five beds. There are so many Campbell Cuts, nobody can keep track. They are rescinding six crisis lines on Vancouver Island. No big deal.
“The cuts are coming fast and furious in all directions, “ wrote Times Colonist columnist Jody Paterson on October 2, 2009, “with neither a plan nor an understanding at any level of what it’s all going to mean when the dust settles. Without a word of public discussion, vital social programs and supports that British Columbians have counted on for years are vanishing.
"Our province will end up wearing the scars of these cuts for decades. We need to shake ourselves out of our respective silos and make it stop…. This is about what we're giving up as a society. This is about services that are costing us a little money right now, but are preventing much, much higher costs down the road.”
Paterson alleges that vulnerable people are being “cast to the wolves.”In October she listed just some of the programs she had noticed were cut.. These included:
- School lunch programs
- Community mental health and addiction services
- School sports
- Intensive behavioral therapy for young autistic children
- Support for programs preventing fetal-alcohol damage in children
- Help for people raising their grandchildren
- Reading centres.
- Treatment for children who witness abuse
- Outreach for victims of domestic violence (later reinstated after a public outcry)
- Help for problem gamblers
- Elimination of B.C.'s only prosecutor specializing in domestic violence
- Support for sports for people with mental handicaps.
Library Funding Chopped
The Liberal government—with a premier who likes to publicly present himself as a champion of literacy, and whose estranged wife is school principal in Squamish—has cut teacher-librarians in schools by 20%. Library funding will be reduced 22% for 09/10.
Since Gordon Campbell took office in Victoria, there have been approximately 170 school closures. Just responsible belt-tightening, right? Prudent protection of the public purse.
The proportion of taxes paid by the wealthy has decreased in British Columbia, according to Seth Kline, B.C. director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, while the proportion of taxes paid by the poor has increased. Legal Aid services have been reduced by 40%.
Worst Child Poverty Rate for 6 years
"The people being affected by cuts are the most vulnerable, says Adrienne Montani of the BC Child and Youth Advocacy Coalition. “British Columbia has had the worst child poverty rate in Canada for six years in a row.”
B.C. now has the second-lowest percentage of long-term care beds in Canada, only better than New Brunswick. “And when they contract out cleaning and laundry,” says Deborah Bourgie of the Hospital Employees Union, “people don’t understand how that can directly impact patient care.”
HST. Lies, lies and more damned lies
Gordon Campbell denied the HST would be introduced during the most recent provincial election but it has since been revealed that he had signed an agreement to proceed with its implementation with the federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty. He lied. “Seniors especially cannot afford the proposed Harmonized Sales Tax,” says Sylvia McKay of COSCO (Council of Senior Citizens Organizations of British Columbia). “Already the homelessness of senior women in B.C. is becoming a serious problem.”
Arts, Environment and Social Funding Trashed
Meanwhile the systematic cutbacks to environmental organizations, arts groups, and associations that assist the elderly, the addicted, the disabled and the poor are continuing unabated and largely unchallenged. “They are doing this because they can get away with it,” says Jim Sinclair, of the Federation of BC Labour. “They can say, 'The economy made me do it, stupid.’”
Even though it was the Liberals who grossly over-estimated their revenues during the planning stages for an Olympics, somehow none of the economic mess is their fault. Groups like Moms on the Move are holding protest placards on roadsides, trying to alert the public to what is happening to social services in B.C., but mainstream media—complicit as Olympic sponsors—are turning a blind eye.
Health Care Services Hacked
Handidart services are being “redefined.” Surgeries are cancelled. Funding for Scrap-It (funnily enough) is being cut. There will soon be a six percent increase in MSP premiums with no offsetting funding increase for public sector employers. Students’ tuition fees are covering a greater percentage of education costs. Meanwhile the Early Childhood Educator Loan Assistance program will be suspended.
Publishing Arts & Culture Eviscerated
As the Olympic installations go up, infrastructure is being dissembled. In October, for instance, the Ministry of Culture, without advance notice, completely removed access for funding from Pacific BookWorld News Society, the Association of Book Publishers of B.C. and the B.C. Association of Magazine Publishers. There was no paper trail. Funding was simultaneously abolished, with phone calls, on October 6, 2009 from Andrea Henning, director of the Arts & Culture sector of the Ministry of Tourism, Culture and the Arts (Hon. Kevin Krueger).
The Arts & Culture budget has been slashed from $19.5M in 08/09 to $3.6 in 09/10, and to $2.2 for 10/11. The budget of the B.C. Arts Council was also radically cut from $8.3M in 2008/09 to $3.4 in 09/10, and down to $1.5M for 10/11 and 2012. This year it is being propped up by $7M supplemental monies left over from last year and Gaming money, but the groundwork for radical devolution has already been laid.
An all-party finance committee touring the province has recommended that arts funding be re-instated by it’s only one of 49 recommendations in a lengthy document. There’s little reason to believe the Liberals will change their stripes. It’s just optimism masquerading as good news if we cross our fingers and think the Olympics debts will disappear and all will be well.
Other Programs Hacked
The government is hoping to eliminate 1,500 direct public service jobs in the next three years. Also cut or eliminated are the Premier’s Excellence Award, Permanent Disability Benefits Program, Debt Reduction in Repayment, Loan Reduction for Residential Care Aide and Home Support Workers Programs, the Health Care Bursary.
The government is canceling LiveSmart BC, a program designed to encourage energy efficiency upgrades to homes. In 10/11, we can expect cuts of $440,000 to Domestic Violence Programs and $700,000 to Transition Houses.
"Unregulated greed is venerated"
BC FORUM represents more than 7,000 retired workers and older workers who are still on the job. Its president, Alice West, concluded her remarks to the Select Standing Committee on Finance and Government Services in Surrey on October 16, 2009, by saying, “Almost a decade ago, Mr. Campbell proclaimed a new era for British Columbia. It has turned out to be an era of selfishness. It has been an era where unregulated greed is venerated, and the public good is desecrated. It has gone too far.”
But it keeps on going.
Opponents of the Campbell government are claiming:
- British Columbia is the only province in Canada where working families have suffered a significant drop in their average income.
- British Columbia has the highest cost of living and the lowest minimum wage in the country.
- British Columbia has given bonuses to billionaires, coddled wealthy corporations, punished pensioners and raided the wallets of workers. In essence, the poor and middle class are subsidizing benefits to the wealthy with higher fees and the reduction or loss of public services.
Casino Funding Cancelled
Casino funding for community groups is being commonly cancelled without explanation. For instance, Parent Advisory Councils have had their gaming grants cut in half ($7.6 million). There will be a 30% cut to B.C. School Sports. Meanwhile the provincial government has allocated $1 million for free Olympic tickets to cronies and potential “investors.”
Cronyism has triumphed over compassion in British Columbia.
The Campbell Cuts to small fry around the province are dastardly and Darwinian.
Swifter, Higher, Stronger. Citius, Altius, Fortius. That is the Olympic motto, a motto embraced by Gordon Campbell.
Survival of the fittest.
