Gordon Campbell’s Masochistic Rustad Endorsement

[Editor’s note: This is the latest in an occasional series by Mo Amir called Logic Check, whose focus is explained in a sidebar to this article.]

In a Times Colonist commentary last week, former B.C. premier Gordon Campbell embarrassingly endorsed the Conservative Party of British Columbia for reasons that are contradictory to the party’s proposals.

Campbell spills a lot of ink — and, presumably, tears — kvetching about how provincial taxes have exacerbated the cost of living.

“The cost of living is soaring because the government is addicted to taxes,” Campbell insists.

(Since 2017, the effective provincial tax rate actually fell for 99 per cent of households, while only the top one per cent of income earners saw a personal tax increase of 1.1 per cent. In fact, the lower the income bracket, the larger the tax reduction for British Columbians under the BC NDP.)

While the BC Conservatives have campaigned on lowering taxes, their tax plan is more akin to concepts of a plan.

This tracks, given how John Rustad’s Conservative party has crafted its entire campaign as a pastiche of Pierre Poilievre sloganeering: Scrap the (carbon) tax!

(The province’s capacity to eliminate the carbon tax is dependent on the federal government removing its legal requirement for provinces to implement such a tax.)

More actionably, the BC Conservatives have promised to rebate renters and homeowners starting in 2026. They have also promised to halve the small-business tax from two per cent to one per cent.

Apparently, that is enough tax relief for Campbell to endorse the party.

The Conservatives have also pinky-promised a review of tax competitiveness for the mining sector; tax credits for family caregivers; the removal of “hidden taxes” on home construction; the reintroduction of a multi-unit residential building tax incentive; tax incentives for local food processing and small farmers who rent land; and referendums for the introduction of any new tax.

But these Conservative promises lack details, without any estimates of taxpayer savings. Nonetheless, Gordo is doing a full send on the vibes.

Trust me, bro, they’ll balance the budget

Gordon Campbell goes on to scold the BC NDP for record budget deficits and provincial debt. But it’s disingenuous for any budget hawk to support the BC Conservatives for that reason.

The Conservatives promise to return British Columbia’s finances to a balanced budget, but they claim to need eight years to do it. This implies that the party would add billions of dollars to the province's debt for the better part of a decade.

In practice, it’s as good of a pledge as the BC NDP’s promise of fiscal equilibrium “in the future.”

The Conservative tax cuts alone — no matter how nebulous — would deepen the province’s budget deficit by billions of dollars. The Conservatives suggest that this can be offset, at least in part, by magically rooting out wasteful government spending.

In fact, Conservative leader Rustad promises to appoint a minister for red tape reduction and deregulation to oversee a 25 per cent reduction of “provincial regulatory burden.” However, the Conservatives have not provided an estimate for how much money this will save the provincial budget.

Rather, it’s a promise reminiscent of Ken Sim gloating about his Lean certified black belt throughout his 2022 Vancouver mayoral campaign. (After two years as mayor, Sim raised property taxes 22 per cent. His spendthrift predecessor, in contrast, raised property taxes 24 per cent in four years.)

Conservatives have also promised to spend billions of dollars, most notably on major infrastructure projects. It’s unclear how this spending won’t dramatically deepen budget deficits and overall debt without new taxes or cuts to health care, which constitutes about 40 per cent of the province’s expenditure.

The most twisted aspect of Gordon Campbell anchoring his endorsement of the BC Conservatives on fiscal responsibility is how the party hasn't yet even produced a costed platform.

Campbell blathers on about the virtues of small government and the destructiveness of fiscal mismanagement, but he debases his reputation on a party incapable of formulating a basic operating budget in a timely manner.

Ghosting his stated principles

Gordon Campbell's endorsement of the BC Conservatives makes even less sense given his direct repudiation of some of his own policy achievements.

Campbell fails to mention that it was his government that implemented B.C.’s carbon tax in 2008, which the Conservatives want to eliminate entirely. As premier, Campbell even accepted an award for climate leadership from Canadian environmental activist Tzeporah Berman. Now, he aligns himself with a party led by a climate change denier.

Campbell goes on to lasso harm reduction with scare quotes, saying harm reduction policies have not only caused harm, but forced British Columbians to leave the province.

But as the mayor of Vancouver, Campbell provided funding for Canada’s first needle exchange in 1989. John Rustad’s Conservatives have repeatedly claimed that these kinds of services enable drug addiction and “self-destructive behaviour.”

(Harm reduction supplies not only stop the spread of infectious disease, but also prevent death.)

As premier of British Columbia, Campbell championed Insite, Vancouver’s first legalized supervised drug consumption site. The Conservatives demonize these spaces as “drug dens” that they intend to shut down immediately.

Consequently, Campbell is either denouncing his historic accomplishments or shilling for a party that wants to tear down his historic accomplishments.

It’s masochistic for Campbell to endorse a party hell-bent on razing policies that he himself pioneered. Notably, the last time Gordon Campbell endorsed a candidate, that choice, Caroline Elliott, brokered the deal that pulled the plug on Campbell’s party.

Even more pathetic, he endorses a party without any regard for the moral or competent fitness of its candidates. From espousing conspiracy theories to hate to the minimization of historic atrocities to a rejection of science, the party that Gordon Campbell now endorses screams volumes about his own principles.

That reality may be the most enduring embarrassment of all from the former premier’s endorsement of the BC Conservatives.

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