LIBERALS GET A PASS ON FIZZLING B. C. JOBS PLAN

Employment: Navel- gazing NDP fails to hold government to account on economy

The latest job numbers for the B. C. economy brought a predictable reaction from both the government and its opponents Friday.

The B. C. Liberals seized on the finding from Statistics Canada that the province had added 13,000 jobs in December at a time when much of the rest of the country was headed in the opposite direction.

The critics noted that the improvement was entirely reliant on an increase in the number of folks working part- time, less than 30 hours a week. Full- time employment was down 10,000 jobs over the previous month and more than that — 20,000 full- time jobs — year to year.

But not for nothing do the monthly jobs numbers include a warning from Stats Can against making too much of any one of these periodic snapshots of the country’s economic performance: “The Labour Force Survey ( LFS) estimates are based on a sample and are therefore subject to sampling variability. As a result, monthly estimates will show more variability than trends observed over longer time periods.” One can readily grasp the range of variability by trying to use the Stats Can figures to determine how many jobs have been added to the economy under the B. C. Liberals’ jobs plan.

Start with the survey results from September 2011, the month the Liberals took the wraps off their plan: only 10,000 jobs were added between then and now. Start the count one month earlier, with the August 2011 numbers, and the economy has added 40,000 jobs.

Neither number is all that impressive as a measure of performance over two and a half years on a plan that has been the centrepiece of Premier Christy Clark’s time in office.

One also has to take into account such findings as the report this week from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. It noted how the provincial economy lost private- sector jobs through much of 2013 and only held its own

One is tempted to conclude that the most substantive product of ( the Liberals’) jobs plan to date was the $ 15- million- plus worth of tax dollars that were spent promoting it in the year and a half prior to the last election.

because of some growth on the public- sector side. Weren’t the Liberals supposed to be the party of smaller government and privatesector- led growth?

Happily for the Liberals, recent reports from the Conference Board and other forecasting agencies suggest the provincial economy will be doing better starting in 2015. ( Old joke: what do you call an economist with a forecast? Wrong. And that goes double for political pundits.)

Still, one is tempted to conclude that the most substantive product of their jobs plan to date was the $ 15- million- plus worth of tax dollars that were spent promoting it in the year and a half prior to the last election.

Nor does one need to look too far into the details of the jobs plan to see why it remains mostly a work in progress. Much of the discussion was around encouraging privatesector development, mostly in the resource sector, in the medium to long term.

The much- touted liquefied natural gas industry supplies the most obvious example. Some employment has already been created in planning and site preparation.

But even if one accepts the government’s optimistic scenario ( and I have my doubts about it), there’ll be no final decisions to proceed with even one of the projects before the fall of this year and no major LNG production before the next election year.

The public will run out of patience with the promises long before that, one has to think.

Not that the electorate will be making up its mind based on the running tally of job creation numbers from Statistics Canada. More likely, it will be a judgment about which party offers the most promise for future job creation and economic growth.

On the jobs and economic growth file, the New Democrats have been making it easy on the Liberals. The party itself confessed as much in a motion passed at the recent annual convention in Vancouver.

“There is little doubt that we failed to convince voters that we had a viable plan for jobs and the economy — to our electoral detriment,” it said, before pledging to develop “a coherent strategy and message on jobs and the economy that will resonate with members and potential voters.”

A stronger version of the same point was made by two prominent New Democrats, former MP and MLA Dawn Black and longtime party staffer and communications adviser David Bieber, in an online opinion piece published Friday on The Vancouver Sun website.

The highlights: One: “Too many voters don’t trust New Democrats to grow the economy.” Two: “In some corners of the NDP, growth is heresy.” Three: “The B. C. NDP has become a conservative force ... resistant to new ideas for a changing world.” Four: “The B. C. NDP must say yes to developing our natural resources ... If it abandons ( resource) communities it will never win an election, much less deserve to win one.” Five: “The B. C. NDP must celebrate and promote entrepreneurial aspiration ... embrace change, reward risk, and foster innovation.”

Timely observations for a party headed into a leadership race after losing three elections in a row where the lead issue was the economy and the deciding factor was not enough voters thinking the NDP had the answers.

Against that backdrop, the monthly stats do provide a way of keeping score on the Liberals’ underwhelming jobs plan.

But as any sports fan would recognize, there’s not much point in keeping score if only one team is showing up at the rink.