Shrinking government trend started under NDP
Elections are about setting a course for the future, but they start with an argument about what the present looks like. Governments trying to get re- elected paint a rosy picture.
The economy is booming, young people have a bright future and we’re taking care of the sick, elderly and less fortunate. Even in tough times, incumbents argue the province or country is doing better than might have been expected, given circumstances outside their control. They warn that the economy will get worse if we turn over the reins to the other, less competent, team.
Opposition parties argue in good times and bad that in one way or another, we’re going to hell in a handcart and that they have the formula to turn things around.
When the campaign for the May 14 provincial election officially begins tomorrow, part of the spectre of doom that will be pitched by the B. C. Liberals as a warning against change is that the New Democrats are the party of big government, which — it goes without saying — is bad for the economy and taxpayers.
In reaction to the NDP fiscal plan released Thursday, a top Liberal aide tweeted “# bcndp fiscal plan — raise your taxes, increase the debt and penalize success. No plan to grow economy, just gov’t.”
The Liberals certainly have bragging rights to reducing the size of government during their 12 years in office. Then- premier Gordon Campbell brought in an ambitious plan to cut all ministries except health and education by an average of 25 per cent.
When the dust settled, the cuts weren’t quite as deep as anticipated, at least at first, but budgets have continually been squeezed and with the exception of health and education, the government has been put on a diet that continued with a hiring freeze that is still in effect.
While government spending has continued to grow, it has done so at a slower pace than could have been warranted by the growth of the economy and population. That relative reduction in size of most ministries compared to the population they serve is even more dramatic when you consider that health care has consumed an ever- increasing portion of the dollars available, rising from about a quarter of the provincial budget in the mid- seventies to more than 40 per cent today.
The net impact is that the number of public servants counted by the province as FTEs, or full- time equivalents, fell by more than 10,000 from 200001 to 2011- 12, from 42,029 to 31,574, although some of those reductions have been offset by contracting out services formerly performed by public servants.
Put another way, there was one FTE for 96.1 British Columbians in 200001 and just one for every 144.8 in 2011- 12.
So the Liberals can certainly claim to be the party of shrinking government, but what about the New Democrats?
In the 1990s, the size of government also shrank relative to the general population, but at a much lower pace. Comparable numbers are hard to come by, but the provincial public service was about 10 per cent larger at the end of the decade than at the beginning, while the provincial population grew at twice that rate over the same period.
So relative to the size of the population it served, the NDP government was smaller in the end than the Social Credit government that preceded it.
That certainly makes the NDP the party of bigger government than the Liberals, but perhaps not the threat to tax and spend that the Liberals would have you fear.
All of which leads to a more pertinent question, which is whether smaller is better. B. C. now has among the leanest governments in the country. Are we better off for it as the Liberals argue, or are we starving our schools, health care and social services, as the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives argued in a report last week?
So far, it appears that for the purposes of attacking the Liberals, the New Democrats agree that a leaner government has been a meaner government, but they stop short of arguing for a return to the previous levels of staffing and the taxation that was required to support it.