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Clark celebrates anniversary in office with attack on NDP

On the second anniversary of her upset victory in the last election, Premier Christy Clark provided the legislature with her reading of the mandate the B.C. Liberals received from the voters.
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On the second anniversary of her upset victory in the last election, Premier Christy Clark provided the legislature with her reading of the mandate the B.C. Liberals received from the voters.

"They said they wanted a government that was going to go out there and create jobs, attract investment... in all regions of the province," she declared at the outset of question period Thursday.

"Next they wanted us to support them in getting the training they need to be able to fill those jobs.

"The third thing people said: 'Leave more money in our pockets. Keep taxes low. Keep B.C. affordable,'" Clark continued. "We have a lot more to do, but we are delivering for them."

All this to much thundering of desks from government members and matching displays of indignation from New Democratic Party MLAs.

Not only had Clark ignored the question put to her by the Opposition - why is the government clawing back maternity benefits from mothers on welfare? - her claim to have delivered the goods was readily disputed.

"As with everything the premier says, you've got to check against delivery," returned NDP leader John Horgan.

"Somehow the Liberals are leaving more money in people's pockets when BC Hydro rates are going up, ferry rates are going up, ICBC rates are going up, camping fees are going up, adult basic education fees are going up. But I stand corrected: millionaires are getting a tax break."

He was referring to the scheduled expiration at the end of this year of a temporary surcharge on taxable incomes exceeding $150,000 a year.

"The question to the premier, the affable premier, the jolly but perhaps sometimes incoherent premier is this," Horgan went on.

"Will she stop taking away maternity benefits from mothers when they need them most?"

"She's getting to you," heckled deputy premier Rich Coleman, which was of course Clark's intent.

"I want to assure the honourable member across the way," said the premier, picking up on the theme, "that while he may think I am jolly, I certainly can do math: under the NDP we had the highest income taxes anywhere in Canada. We had the highest child poverty rates. We saw a New Democrat government that drove up unemployment... British Columbians had to flee in order to find jobs..."

By that point, Speaker Linda Reid was struggling, amid the cat calls and fulminations to restore order, with limited success. There, in microcosm, was a preview of the next two years of political combat in B.C.

New Democrats: You've failed to deliver what you promised.

Liberals: Our record is still better than yours.

NDP: Oh yeah? Libs: Yeah!

Repeat until May 2017.

Thursday also saw the release of a poll that suggested not much had changed since the last election, in terms of public opinion.

"The NDP has a small, but statistically insignificant, lead of three points over the B.C. Liberals among decided voters," reported Ipsos Reid firm. "The NDP is currently at 44 per cent support compared to 41 for the B.C. Liberals."

The gap was a point less than the margin of error for the online survey taken earlier this month, hence the organization's conclusion that "the two main parties (are) essentially neck-and-neck in terms of voter support."

Some consolation in those numbers for the New Democrats. Two years after one of the most demoralizing defeats in party history, they've picked themselves up and are competitive again.

They remain the first choice to defeat the Liberals, well ahead of the Conservatives (seven per cent) and the Greens (eight).

The findings offered consolations for the Liberals as well.

More of those responding thought the province was heading in the right direction (45 per cent) than on the wrong track (37 per cent).

The Liberals also led (47 per cent to 41 per cent) among folks 55 and older, which, as the pollster noted, is a segment of the electorate "that is more likely to actually turn out and vote."

A reference there to the leading explanation for why pollsters got it wrong in the last B.C. election: they oversampled younger voters, who leaned NDP but who were not inclined to get out and vote in the same proportions as oldsters.

The bad calls on Election 2013 - by pundits as well, me included - has cast a pall over the dubious art of electoral forecasting.

But in fairness to pollsters, they've never claimed their surveys constituted anything more than a snapshot of where things stood at the moment the sampling of public opinion was taken.

Note, too, that in several provincial elections since the last one in B.C., polls taken at or near the end of campaigning called the winner correctly.

The recent outcome in Alberta also vindicated election-eve polling that had New Democrats uprooting the Progressive Conservative dynasty. There being few indications that such an upset was in the works at the outset of the 28-day campaign, Alberta also served up a reminder of the first rule in forecasting elections: Campaigns matter.

On that realization, the most significant finding in the Ipsos Reid survey was probably the one quarter of all respondents who said they were either undecided or expressed no party preference at this time.

Two years ahead of Election 2017, the only safe prediction is that it will be close and hard fought, as B.C. elections usually are. Polls and punditry notwithstanding, the outcome will be decided by the leader who runs the more persuasive campaign.