Premier gets applause and $20
Premier Gordon Campbell addressed delegates at the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention in Vancouver.
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Updated: October 05, 2009 4:43 PM
Premier Gordon Campbell received a warm reception from a room filled with municipal leaders Friday, and a $20 bill from Union of B.C. Municipalities president Robert Hobson.
The money was to repay Campbell for the same amount he jokingly offered Hobson at last year’s UBCM convention in Penticton.
This year it symbolized the deficit-laden provincial treasury and its inability to share the wealth with local governments in the tradition of the convention.
Campbell’s upbeat speech soon turned gloomy, as he listed the calamities that struck the government from 9/11 to forest fires to SARS to this year’s $2.7 billion deficit, a sharp turnaround from one of the strongest booms in B.C. history.
“We’re not just tapped out as a province, we’re tapping into our children’s future earnings to pay the bills of today,” he said.
After leading his now-familiar chant of “wood is good” and promoting the 2010 Olympics, Campbell rolled through his defence of the harmonized sales tax.
Speaking to reporters later, he dismissed a resolution passed at the convention to cancel the HST plan, saying it took place with only a fraction of the 2,000 delegates in the room.
NDP house leader Mike Farnworth said the speech was “devoid of ideas” as well as money, and the government had every available communications staffer on hand to lead the numerous standing ovations.
One of the few policy announcements was a new chief electoral officer for local government, along with a task force to study if changing shorter or longer election terms would improve turnout.
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