Publicity plays big role in projections
Government intends to keep spending on advertising, despite financial pressures
VICTORIA — The B.C. government is spending almost $4.5 million to advertise the provincial budget, electricity conservation programs and auto insurance changes, despite being sharply critical of such “propaganda” publicity campaigns by the previous Liberal government.
The government has budgeted to spend up to $600,000 to promote last month’s provincial budget, through radio, newspaper and social media ads. As well, B.C. Hydro is spending $3 million on an energy conservation awareness campaign, and the Insurance Corp. of B.C. is spending $795,000 to explain new government-ordered caps on pain and suffering in minor injury claims.
The advertising campaigns from the two Crown corporations come at a time when government ministers have described Hydro’s finances as a “mess” and ICBC as a “dumpster fire.” Both Crown corporations are facing significant pressure to hike rates, with ICBC on track to lose $1.3 billion this year and Hydro unable to freeze rates after the independent power regulator ruled this month that it couldn’t afford to lose the revenue. The government is in the middle of operational reviews of both corporations to try to find savings.
The financial problems in both Crown corporations present a major risk to the NDP government’s fiscal plan, Finance Minister Carole James said last month. The provincial government is also short of revenue for its housing, child care and health spending, so it raised or introduced several new taxes in order to generate hundreds of millions of dollars this coming fiscal year.
But the financial pressures don’t appear to have diminished government’s desire to spend large sums of public money on advertising its political message, a tactic exploited most recently by the previous B.C. Liberal government. The $600,000 earmarked to promote awareness of the NDP’s February budget compares to $663,000 spent by the Liberals to advertise their February 2017 pre-election budget. “Some programs like Pharmacare and the new affordable child care benefit will require people to apply for them, and that’s why we’re making sure to let people know,” James said in a statement. “For example, 240,000 people will have better access to prescription medicines as a result of the Pharmacare investments we made in this budget.”
Premier John Horgan used to complain bitterly about the Liberal government’s advertising spending during his tenure as leader of the Opposition. Just months before the 2017 election, he dubbed then Liberal cabinet minister Andrew Wilkinson the “minister of propaganda” for raising government’s annual advertising spending from $8.5 million to $15 million.
“How many services would this government be able to provide to British Columbians if it cut back on the propaganda and started delivering programs?” Horgan said in the legislature at the time.
Now in power, the NDP budget last month projected approximately $11 million in central government advertising for the coming fiscal year, not counting Crown corporations like ICBC and Hydro.
The NDP in opposition three times tabled private member’s legislation that would have required government advertising to first get the approval of the independent Auditor General as non-partisan and factual. “We’ll start by ending waste on Christy Clark’s partisan government ads,” read the party’s 2017 election platform.
James said involving the auditor general is still being considered as one possibility. “We haven’t made a determination about what the best route is yet, but we’re still looking at that,” she said.
Liberal house leader Mary Polak said the ad spending and quiet backtrack away from the auditor general is another example of the NDP failing to deliver on its election promises. “That was a pretty clear commitment from them,” said Polak.