Healthiest Jurisdiction for those elected to it.

Part II

In 2008, Premier Campbell told Global Television: “I want to be able to look to my grandkids and say ‘you know what?

“When your grandfather was there as the premier of the province, I did everything I could to make the world as good a place as it was for me, for you. And that means we have to make some tough decisions. But at least I made them with the right thing in mind, and that was the future that they had and that all of the other grandkids in the province will have.” (Global, Dec. 31, 2008)

High school students who look to the future by applying for the Premier’s Excellence Awards should be made aware that the finalists this year, who, in good faith, went through the complicated application process, found out without prior notification, that the whole program which started in 1986, had been cancelled. They did get a hard lesson in crisis budgeting though.

Special needs children have also received devastating cuts to services. Notably, early intervention programs for children with autism have been cut resulting in over 40 layoffs of specialized staff at Queen Alexandria Hospital. Books for Babies is gone. It sounds like an obscure, cute little program, providing parents of newborns with a bag with a book, a CD, and information about library services, but it goes along with the elimination of 16 regional literacy coordinators and reading centres across the province. More than four in ten adults struggle with basic literacy skills and the next generation will probably be worse off now.

Healthy Choices in Pregnancy, aimed at reducing the number of infants born with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, was cancelled a year before it was slated to finish and leaving Vancouver Women’s Hospital with the bill.

For children exposed to violence in their homes, domestic violence programs and Transition House budgets are on the chopping block. Since children have the best chance to be screened for exposure to domestic violence if they go through a Transition House, more of them will continue living in terror and pain.

Earlier in the year Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond said she was worried about the “declining situation” with the economy and its impact, along with a weakened support system, on children: “I’m bringing forward an issue that requires attention by all people… I think there’s a systemic concern – which is a declining situation for children, the impact of cuts in the system on them, and the need to co-ordinate that system to serve them.” (The Times Colonist, June 25, 2009) Her comments were made when she asked for a joint meeting to discuss child poverty with Gordon Campbell and Carole James. The premier declined to attend the meeting.

In the 2005 Speech from the Throne, the Government of British Columbia stated that “B.C. will become the healthiest jurisdiction to ever host the Olympics.”

Healthiest jurisdiction for whom?

In 2006, B.C.’s Liberal government dealt its top political staff a 25-per-cent pay hike, two years later, more raises ranging from 22 per cent at the low end to 43 per cent for Premier Gordon Campbell’s deputy minister.

About 20 other deputy ministers were dealt a raise of 35 per cent, with salaries rising from $221,760 to a maximum of $299,215. About 80 assistant deputy ministers go from $160,000 to a maximum of $195,000.

Gordon Campbell voted to give himself a 54 per cent pay increase – an extra $89,000 a year.

There is just cause to conclude this is the healthiest jurisdiction for the children of our senior bureaucrats and politicians.

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