All the while, Gordon Campbell’s Lie-berals and their corporate backers say a government shortage of money means they must brutally cut back the health, education, and social services working people depend on. They did it again in their March 2 provincial budget. They (and their media) dishonestly downplayed this most recent brutality by saying it was a hold-the-line budget, even some funding hikes for health and education—oh, and $320 million in cuts to various ministries.

But the planned disappearance of 3,500-4,000 government jobs (more than eleven per cent) over the next three years means the services those workers provide will also disappear, causing more hardship and misery for people who need these services.

And Corporate Campbell KNOWS the “hikes” for education and health will not be nearly enough to cover both existing cash shortfalls and increased costs due to inflation and other causes. So, in fact, the budget imposes further cutbacks and will mean more school closures, more layoffs, and more loss of health services.

Oh, but the poor Lie-berals are out of money, and can’t get any more, they say—even though the budget provides a few new tax cuts for banks, the business tax breaks slated for coming years are left in place, and $1.5 billion in new subsidies go to the oil, gas, and mining industries.

So working people, especially the poorest among us, have to suffer some more—they say. 

Do you believe?!

SCREW THAT! We need to start re-building a province-wide, all-inclusive fightback movement— inside and outside trade unions. Whether we’re currently lucky enough to have jobs or not, BC working people have to get moving again, as we did in 2004. We have to join the few, brave anti-poverty fighters and Native activists who have kept alive some  visible, public opposition to Corporate Campbell in recent years. And we need to start thinking once more about preparing ourselves to use our most powerful weapon—a general strike across BC!

It may take a while to build up to that, especially since we now know that a handful of union leaders will try to derail tens of thousands of members who are ready to fight. But we also know that nothing short of a general strike will stop the attacks and begin to restore what we have lost.

In presenting the lie-filled provincial budget as economically necessary, the newly-penniless Campbell and his business buddies are continuing a tradition of dishonesty that we should all  be getting used to!

•  They announced $10 million in cuts to vulnerable kids and families on the eve of the Olympic circus after just spending a fortune to haul cubic kilometers of snow to Cypress Mountain by truck and helicopter.   

• When they couldn’t fund hospital beds or decent wages to caregivers for seniors, youth at risk, and the mentally challenged, they had funds for a much-needed speed-skating oval in Richmond —and to fly a back-up Zamboni from Calgary  

• Pleading poverty as the reason for school closures, they had lots of bucks for a new curling rink.

• Unable to afford livable welfare rates, they could shell out for lavish, international Olympic advertising, a new highway, and a new SkyTrain line. (Every poor person in BC could be raised out of poverty by $1.6 billion, 20% of  Olympic costs—Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).) 

• Promises to protect and increase housing for the homeless were breezily broken as hotels and rooming houses in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side and elsewhere were allowed to close, and subsidized units in the Olympic Village shrank from 33% to “possibly” building some on “adjacent” land in the future.

• High-profile land claims treaties with a few Native bands have glossed over the accelerated promotion and exploitation of other unceded— and often disputed—Native lands for resource extraction, resorts, and suburban/residential development.

• Government’s initial cost estimates for the Olympics magically escalated over tenfold to $7-8 billion, while projected economic benefits to Vancouver and the province puzzlingly shrank over 80% to $1 billion
• Oh yeah, and they also lied about not tearing up labour contracts and about not implementing the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST)! 
• Etc., etc., etc.

Unfortunately, the union leadership in the BC Federation of Labour and in most of its major affiliates (who have not organized a mass protest rally for FIVE YEARS) are not likely to initiate any of this or support it organizationally and financially once it gets going.

But that leaves the rest of us! We are many! And many of the many know how to organize. Let’s do it!