If you haven't ever watched The Colbert Report, you may never have heard of the word "truthiness".
Colbert introduced the word to the English language in the very first episode of his satirical newscast. Its definition: "Truthiness is a quality characterizing a 'truth' that a person making an argument or assertion claims to know intuitively 'from the gut' or because it 'feels right' without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts."
I can't help but think of the term truthiness when I listen to both Premier-to-be Christy Clark and Finance Minister Mike de Jong.
Someone needs to tell Ms. Clark that the election is over. Ms. Clark is still running long after the polls closed. She is still out there working the photo-ops with ordinary citizens. You know - working class folk with their hard hats and plaid shirts.
I suppose that since she is an un-elected Premier-to-be, she can be sortof forgiven for campaigning particularly as she is competing in a by-election this week.
However, her speeches tell us it is only because of B.C.'s growing economy that we can afford to be building senior's centres and long term care facilities. At least, that what feels right.
The problem is that whether or not we build such facilities has very little to do with the growth in our economy, particularly when the government is spending capital funds that form part of the provincial debt. Over the next three years, Ms. Clark and her government plan on increasing the provincial debt from its current value of $62.5 billion to $69 billion or thereabouts.
If it was our growing economy that was allowing the government to build senior centres then we wouldn't need to be mortgaging our future. We wouldn't be running up the debt. We could simply pay the costs right now.
But that is only the most recent venture into truthiness for Ms. Clark.
She has a much more extensive record with Liquefied Natural Gas or LNG. Yup, just keep on telling the people that good ol' LNG is on its way, that LNG will save the day, that LNG will make things right, so you can sleep well tonight.
It feels good. It feels right. Heck, the cost of natural gas in Asian markets is five times the cost in North America. We can make a killing by mining it here and shipping it there.
Of course, we aren't the only ones with this idea. Australia and the United States are looking to export LNG to Asia. But should we be worried?
Heck, no. Just because they already have plants that can liquefy natural gas, terminals where they can load it on ships and contracts to deliver it to various countries throughout Asia, that shouldn't be an impediment. I mean just because we are way behind - at least a decade behind - in this race shouldn't be a problem, should it?
If you keep saying that LNG is our future; that based on today's prices, LNG could be worth trillions of dollars to the B.C. economy over the next 30 years; that the taxes and royalties that we will collect from the companies involved will allow us to pay off the blossoming debt that the B.C. Liberals are accumulating - surely that must be the truth?
After all, if you keep asserting something that feels right often enough for long enough it has got to be the truth, doesn't it?
Keep telling people that we have a strong economy and they will eventually believe it. That's just plain truthiness.
In another interesting moment of almost truthiness recently, Finance Minister Mike de Jong tabled a revised budget. It is the same one that the B.C. Liberals presented in February.
Or, at least, it is almost the same one.
The current year's budget surplus which was forecast at $197 million in February is now down to $153 million.
Think about that. The government, in February, confidently asserted that they were tabling a balanced budget. They declared that they had done all of the analysis. They had the best estimates from leading experts on what the economy would be doing. They had even gone so far as to low ball the estimates so that there would be no question that they would meet their budget targets.
And here we are, a mere four months later, being told by the Minister of Finance that the numbers in his February budget were wrong.
What's more, we are now expected to believe that he has it right this time. Just how gullible does the Minister think people are? Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me?
But if your gut keeps telling you that you have a balanced budget, and you keep arguing that point, isn't that the truth?
It is if you are Stephen Colbert.
