BLAST FROM THE PAST: Failed NDP policies bring a search for scapegoats: Glen Clark is sticking to his vision of economic growth and job creation through big spending, high taxes and more debt by Vaughn Palmer

Vancouver Sun, January 14, 1998

VICTORIA – From the outset of his time in government, Glen Clark swore to stick with policies that would encourage economic growth, investment and “jobs, jobs, jobs.”

As a young minister of finance in the Mike Harcourt administration, Mr. Clark encouraged a huge increase in the public debt, claiming it represented “investment in infrastructure” that would boost employment. He raised taxes $1.5 billion, promising to use the money to pay for programs that would make B.C. a high- quality place to invest.

Then, as premier, Mr. Clark combined these initiatives into an electoral vision that was to be an alternative to the right-of- centre economic policies he saw sweeping the country.

“You know why investors are coming to B.C.?” he said in a televised address just before he called the 1996 election. “Because we are the only province investing in education. Because we are investing in health care. Because we are building the infrastructure, the highways, the transportation systems, the communications networks.

“These are things the private sector needs to stay healthy and strong. We’re protecting and even improving the quality of life in B.C. and that makes B.C. a great place to invest. And investment means jobs.”

During the campaign, Mr. Clark raised the stakes again, claiming his re-election represented a last chance for a left-of-centre approach to managing the economy. “What’s at stake,” he declared, addressing a crowd of supporters, “is the soul of the province, maybe even the soul of the country.”

The New Democratic Party did win, but before himself could begin the task of saving all those souls across the country, he was confronted with matters of a more temporal nature back home. The economy was stalling. Government revenues were down. And a slumping credit rating signalled that the New Democrats were running out of room to move on the debt front.

After the government moved into the second year of its mandate, there was worse news.

The forest industry, far from being able to create the 21,000 new jobs that Mr. Clark promised during the election campaign, was unable to sustain existing employment levels. Nor were investors being attracted by the premier’s economic policies. Indeed, so many of them were looking elsewhere that critics spoke of Mr. Clark being named “Man of the Year” — in Alberta.

The decline is bound to have consequences for provincial revenues, meaning Mr. Clark, who once said that balancing the budget was the “easiest thing I could imagine doing,” will be presiding over the New Democrats’ seventh consecutive unbalanced budget.

For all that, Mr. Clark is not about to admit that his big- spending, high-tax and debt-heavy policies are an impediment to the very things they were supposed to encourage: investment, growth and job creation. That’s his vision, and he’s sticking to it.

Instead, he’s begun a search for scapegoats to account for the economy’s dismal performance.

Last fall his government suggested that the mere threat of an interest rate hike by the country’s central bank would be enough to send the B.C. economy into the dumpster.

This week we saw Mr. Clark trying out another set of blame lines, this time fingering the Asian currency crisis. “It will definitely have an impact next year,” he told my colleague Justine Hunter in an interview. “There will be less growth in revenue next year, the economy will be growing at a slower rate because of Asia.”

Yes, the Asian crisis will add to B.C.’s troubles. But this province has lagged behind the rest of the Canada in economic growth for two years, a made-in-B.C. slump that has nothing to do with events in Asia.

But Mr. Clark figures he’s just the man to save the day. “I think the government has an obligation to be preparing some economic response, a strategy to deal with slower than desirable growth in the economy, and that’s what we have to do in the next weeks and months,” he told Ms. Hunter.

Hold on.

The NDP has been in power for more than six years, with Mr. Clark having a central role in economic policy-making role throughout that period, first as minister of finance, then with responsibility for jobs and investment, and lately as premier.

Now we’re told that the road to recovery is via a Glen Clark- authored economic strategy. The province has been living with his policies for six years, only to reap bitter fruit.