The Fudgsicle Cometh? (updated)

Finance Minister on ice + fudge = Fudgsicle Budget '13

History says you should not believe BC Liberal Finance Minister Mike de Jong when he stands up and delivers his budget speech in the Legislature on Feb. 19.

De Jong was the Attorney General when ex-Liberal aides Dave Basi and Bob Virk copped a plea bargain in the BC Rail corruption trial and got their $6 million legal bill paid by taxpayers after maintaining their innocence for so many years... but let’s put that aside. 

Also, put aside that he’s a BC Liberal, the ruling party that appears to be on the way out of power under the style-over-substance Premiership of Christy Clark. 

It’s just that de Jong is delivering a pre-election budget. British Columbia governments, regardless of ideology, have had serious trouble telling the truth about finances en route to election day. This is the Land of the Fudge-It Budget. This time around, will it be a Fudgsicle?

Former Junior B hockey player and current shareholder in the inactive MSA Fundamental Hockey School de Jong laced up his skates in Victoria and hit the ice at the Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre for the cameras on Feb. 18, instead of buying a new pair of shoes, the tradition among finance ministers. He donned a Victoria Royals Western Hockey League jersey and donated $1,000 afterwards to KidSport.

Turn back the clock to March 24, 1988 when Social Credit Finance Minister Mel Couvelier gave birth to the Budget Stabilization fund -- $450 million of goodness to "help us absorb fiscal shocks." 

That was the 1980s and the Socreds evidently didn’t have the best spin doctors in their corner. The media instantly branded Couvelier’s plan the “B.S. Fund." It was the best knee-slapper since Socred Agnes Kripps proposed "BOLT" (Biology on Life Today) replace the word "sex" in 1970 (during the sexual revolution). It was surpassed in June 1996 by the nicknaming of the NDP's Cabinet Policy and Communications Secretariat (CPCS) as "cupcakes." But I digress.

“Due to the boom-or-bust nature of the B.C. economy, government revenues have been difficult to predict," Couvelier said. "In years when revenues peak sharply, transfers will be made to the fund. In years of revenue shortfall, transfers will be made from the fund.” 

Vaughn Palmer weighed-in with a March 25, 1988 column in the Vancouver Sun headlined “Mel’s Mirage: the $450 million jiggle.”

The fund does not exist in the sense that it can easily be turned into cash tomorrow, the way your bank account can. At the extremes, accounts can be manipulated to present a horn of plenty to the stockholders or a deathbed scene to the taxman.Similarly, the government slants its accounts to produce certain effects.Before an election, it wants the balance sheet to look as healthy as possible.

Couvelier sat down for a 90-minute session with the Vancouver Sun’s editorial board, which produced a story on March 29, 1988 in which Couvelier admitted it was an election ploy!

Couvelier said the fund, which amounts to a promise by the government to pay itself $450 million at some point, could be used "to support social programs or lower taxes or whatever the government decides to do with it - build highways, get themselves re-elected, whatever they want. . . "When it was suggested that re- election might be the so-called Budget Stabilization Fund's primary purpose, Couvelier replied: "Okay, that deals with motive. I'm saying the fund is there to be used for a rainy day."Now, my definition of a rainy day is not an election. But that's not to say we won't have a need to spend it in an election year."

On March 28, 1995, Finance Minister Elizabeth Cull heralded a balanced budget. NDP’s Mike Harcourt resigned from the Premiership on Nov. 15, 1995 and Glen Clark won leadership of the NDP in early 1996.

Cull tabled another allegedly balanced budget on April 30, 1996, but the Legislature was dissolved before it could be passed. New Finance Minister Andrew Petter reintroduced the budget on June 26, 1996, after the NDP won re-election. The NDP claimed “Jobs Up, Taxes Down, Debt Reduced, Budget Balanced.”

A July 4, 1996 Vancouver Sun story was headlined “B.C. finance minister admits budget ‘goof."

Glen Clark's NDP government is fighting to contain a mounting controversy over allegations it misled the public by campaigning on a balanced budget that turned out to be a $235-million deficit. Clark campaigned during May boasting that the NDP had brought in a balanced budget for the 1995-96 fiscal year. 

The Province reported on March 17, 1999: “Fudge-it budget led to premier's office: The auditor-general calls actions of two finance ministers ‘inappropriate.'

Auditor-General George Morfitt criticized both Cull and Petter for “inappropriate” actions. Morfitt criticized (Elizabeth Cull) particularly for injecting "$156 million of optimism" into forecasts for how the 1995-96 fiscal year would end up, optimism even above her own staff's most optimistic forecasts. Morfitt's report shows that Cull was frequently uncomfortable with the optimistic figures that were being urged upon her, mainly through the actions of (Glen Clark)'s confidante and top aide, Tom Gunton.

Fast forward to 2009 when the BC Liberals were aiming to get Premier Gordon Campbell his three-peat so that he could soak-up all the glory as B.C.’s Olympic Premier in 2010. 

On Feb. 17, 2009, amid the Great Recession, Finance Minister Colin Hansen tabled a budget with a forecast deficit under half-a-billion dollars. After the election and after the announcement of the Harmonized Sales Tax, Hansen tabled an update. The amount of red ink more than quintupled!

The Sept. 1, 2009 headline in The Tyee said it all: "B.C. budget includes record $2.8 billion deficit, cuts, optimism." 

British Columbia will have a record deficit of $2.8 billion, according to a budget update Finance Minister Colin Hansen presented today. That's five times greater than the $495 million projected in February and insisted upon by Premier Gordon Campbell during the election campaign.Back to de Jong and 2013. 

The Liberals are trying to make it look like they’re more fiscally responsible than the 1988 Socreds, 1996 NDP and 2009 Liberals. They even hired an expert! Tim O’Neill, a former BMO economist from the Maritimes! He’s independent! Shhh, don’t pay attention to the $25,000 he’s pocketing for less than a month’s work that resulted in a 22-page report, B.C. Budget 2013: Economic & Revenue Forecasts -- Review and Assessment. Don’t dare suggest it’s just spin. Gosh, no. The government would never do that. Perish that thought!

Well, it’s 20 pages after the title page and disclaimer. The first and last pages are half each, so that’s really 19. The margins are wide and the print is big. The word count is 4,520. Hey, that’s better than $5.50 per word. Not a bad gig, eh?

The word expenditure is mentioned just once. The word expense is nowhere to be found. 

The government paid for a report on what it will be taking in, not on what it will be paying out. A report on revenue only tells half the story. 

Surprise, surprise, O’Neill has nothing really bad to say, except, perhaps the government is too bullish on natural gas. (A degree isn’t necessary to arrive at that conclusion; one need only have watched the throne speech).

“I have concluded that there are no glaring problems or inadequacies that need to be addressed," wrote O'Neill. "There is ample evidence of professional competence, analytical rigour and appropriate caution applied in the work that goes into producing the revenue projections.”

There you have it. Voters beware! 

Budget tidbit: Will any ex-convicts be on the guest list for this year’s budget speech at the Legislature in Victoria? Just wondering! Last year there was one that we know of: Jaspal Atwal. Both Bill Tieleman and Alex Tsakumis wrote about that scandal. 

UPDATE (Feb. 22): The nearly $44 billion budget did nothing, zip, nada to tame the debt! The debt goes higher: it’s $56.1 billion this year, forecast to grow to $62.7 billion next year and, by 2015, $69 billion. A make-believe scenario to tame the deficit now without anything demonstrative to address the ballooning debt only shifts the burden from today’s families to families of the future. 

How can the Liberals spend more than $16 million of your money on an advertising campaign, which includes a brief image of debt-crushed Greece at the 2-second mark in the famous dominos ad, and claim that it is being frugal and responsible with the province’s finances? Was it really necessary to give B.C. Pavilion Corporation $2.7 million to make a bid to buy the rights for the 2014 Grey Cup for B.C. Place Stadium? Certainly B.C. Lions' owner Sen. David Braley has a large enough bank account to avoid needing a taxpayer-subsidy from a government that really can't afford such discretionary spending.

The best line of de Jong's budget speech? 

"Starting today, as British Columbians travel to other parts of Canada, they will be able to say with pride, “I come from B.C. where the government doesn’t spend more money than I send it. Where the government doesn’t burden future generations with the cost of programs being delivered today.”

Comedy gold. Who writes this stuff? 

Most British Columbians do not belong to the Liberals or any political party, for that matter. They’re not worried about those "socialist hordes at the gate" once feared by Premier W.A.C. Bennett. They’re actually worried about the persistent bill collectors and impatient bankers showing up at the door. 

The budget was skimpy on details. There was no detailed list of real estate for sale, nor was there a recap of major cost-cutting. 

The budget contains tax increases targeted at anyone who uses B.C.'s medical system, smokers, corporations and the perceived wealthy, those who earn $150,000 and up. All, except the health insurance premium hike, are things the NDP would have done. You could just tell that de Jong had practiced his lines. They were repeated over and over in the media. 

“I’d prefer not to have (raised taxes), clearly the guiding principle here was to achieve balance, a whole series of decisions flow from that, some of them very difficult,” he told reporters in a pre-budget briefing. “Those making more than $150,000, we're asking them to contribute a little more.” 

The budget was the bookend to the previous week’s throne speech, which included Clark’s unicorns and rainbows vision (delusion?) of a future in which we’ll be swimming in profits from the export of liquefied natural gas (meanwhile, Russia, Arab states, China, U.S. and even Australia are ahead of B.C.). 

An indication of how the Liberals (aka the Natural Gas Party) have lost the trust of the public is that the first major poll released after the budget, by Ipsos-Reid, indicated 72% of respondents didn’t 

believe the budget would be balanced and 47% of respondents disagreed with the budget. 

Cartoonist and video satirist Dan Murphy (who the Province will someday realize was a mistake to let go) weighed in with his subtle and hilarious Budget Highlights Closed Captioned for the Truth Impaired.

While the NDP called the balanced budget “bogus," independent MLA John van Dongen used more flowery language to blow the whistle on de Jong's misconduct for dealing a bodycheck to the concept of truthful budgeting. Abbotsford South MLA Van Dongen did nothing to flatter Abbotsford West MLA Liberal de Jong with his speech, archived here. 

van Dongen

“This so-called balanced budget,” van Dongen said in the Legislature on Feb. 21, “is designed to manage and manipulate perceptions. As such, it is imaginary, a mirage, a facsimile of the real thing. The facts don't back up the perceptions being left with the public in saying that this is a balanced budget.”

“Madam Speaker, think for a moment of the apparent sleight of hand that occurred Tuesday. Did we loot the treasury as may have happened in Shakespearean days? Did we rob Peter to pay Paul? Or did we bank on selling millions of dollars in taxpayer assets and depend on reaching deeper into the pockets of families and business people as government spending on advertising itself continues to escalate?

“I've been asking questions about the spending of millions of dollars by government, missed revenue opportunities and missed investment opportunities, and my search for the most basic answers has been blocked at every turn. I probably don't have to tell you what those questions are, Madam Speaker, but I can tell you my efforts to pursue those answers have led me to a continued search for good government...

"This budget is a pre-election document that can change quickly after the votes are counted on May 14. The budget faces none of the normal scrutiny of this Legislature, which again emphasizes the need to move to a fixed fall election date to remove the obvious politicizing, regardless of political party, of election year budgets.

“I have always strongly agreed with the objective of a real balanced budget, but I do not believe it is achievable in this fiscal year based on current economic conditions and the measures presented on Tuesday by the Minister of Finance.”

Regime change: T-minus 104 days?

A desperate governing party is looking at the calendar and the opinion polls and just might be realizing its stranglehold on power is running out. Better do something, anything. Quick! 

The Christy Clark BC Liberals are where the Bill Vander Zalm (and Rita Johnston) Social Credit was in 1991 and the Ujjal Dosanjh NDP was in 2001. Running out of ideas, detached from voters, hungry for just one more election win. 

Despite what the deluded pom-pom wearers and hired spinners will tell you, the Liberals could wake up on May 15 as a spent political force. 

Oh, they’re spending millions of dollars to tell you Canada Starts Here, when Cape Spear, Nfld. actually gets the first sun rays every day and Charlottetown in 1864 was where historians say the Dominion of Canada was conceived. And the B.C. Jobs Plan means B.C. is standing tall, like a big, old, white iPod that cannot be toppled by many smaller, old black iPods. Even if the jobs statistics don't stand up to scrutiny.

Then there’s the Concerned Citizens for B.C., the political action committee otherwise known as Jim Shepard’s Christy Clark Fan Club. Shepard and his flock want to remind you NDP leader Adrian Dix backdated a memo in 1999 when he was Premier Glen Clark’s stepandfetchit and that the NDP ordered the three-vessel fast ferry fleet that cost more than $200 million higher than the original budget and didn’t have a proper business plan. 

Shepard is blind to the fact the Liberals have bigger, newer skeletons in their closet. Such as the memos to file by Dave Basi which seem to implicate Clark in the leaking of confidential cabinet documents to a bidder for BC Rail. Clark is under investigation after a conflict of interest complaint by ex-Liberal MLA John van Dongen. The saga of B.C. Place Stadium is like a bookend. The Liberals were pondering a $100 million pre-Olympic spruce-up and roof replacement in January 2008. The final cost was $514 million and included a German-engineered retractable roof that is rarely opened. Taxpayers weren't consulted and they weren't even shown a business plan. Roof contractors are inching their way to a 100-day B.C. Supreme Court trial scheduled to begin Oct. 21. On Jan. 30, a lawyer for Canam disclosed before a judge that the company's claim against Freyssinet would be increased by $13 million to $39 million. 

Remember the infamous NDP fudge-it budget of 1996, when an $87 million surplus became a $350 million deficit after Glen Clark won election? The Liberals don’t want you to remember their 2009 faux pas when they promised a $495 million deficit during the election but delivered a $2 billion deficit budget just months after Gordon Campbell won his hat-trick. Lest you think dirty thoughts that the Liberals are going to fudge the numbers in their Feb. 19 pre-election budget, Finance Minister Mike de Jong has found another "independent" Maritimer for hire. 

Remember Stanley Cup riot investigator Doug Keefe, the former Nova Scotia mandarin who collaborated with ex-Olympics boss John Furlong and got paid $174,000? Meet Dr. Tim O’Neill, a Prince Edward Island economic consultant who is being paid at least $25,000 to look over de Jong's shoulder until budget time and give a passing grade. 

Message to Premier Clark: save money, call the Office of the Auditor General. 

But all is not lost. There are actually tiny rays of light showing through the fog that suggest someone in the Liberal party has realized the writing is on the wall. 

But is it too little too late? Just for show? 

On Jan. 30, BC Hydro announced it won't force smart meters on those customers who are holdouts, the thousands of people who are refusing to allow Corix crews on their property to install the iTron devices. 

On Jan. 31 at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Community, Sport and Cultural Development Minister Bill Bennett will announce the creation of a new agency for B.C.'s film, arts and creative industries -- a merger of the B.C. Film Commission, B.C. Film + Media and the B.C. Arts Council. They'll combine to form a new body similar to the Ontario Media Development Corporation. A one-stop shop for the creative industries. 

Bennett was at North Shore Studios for the #SaveBCFilm rally that drew 4,000 people on Jan. 22 and heard one of the many suggestions to revitalize an industry purposely left out of Clark's B.C. Jobs Plan.

William F. White's Vancouver general manager Garin Josey was spotted at the Canada Place Starbucks preparing for a Jan. 30 meeting in the Premier's Vancouver Office. Josey boosted the We Create B.C. social media campaign during the Jan. 22 North Shore Studios rally. He didn't tell me who he was meeting, but I confirmed independently that it was Bennett and Citizens’ Services Minister Ben Stewart.  

The Liberals are trying to looking kinder and gentler, but it’ll take more action to convince me of their sincerity. Here is my five-point, modest proposal for the Liberals to prove they're worthy of staying in office beyond May 14.

1. Notwithstanding Chief Justice Robert Bauman's Jan. 29 verdict, how about waiving the solicitor-client privilege and delivering the Basi-Virk indemnity agreement to John Doyle so he can finish his audit? 
2. Why not hire a retired judge and give him or her a one-year mandate and reasonable budget for a BC Rail public inquiry? 
3. Perhaps publish the B.C. Place renovation business plan and ask the Auditor General to launch a full-blown value-for-money audit? 
4. Possibly reveal the real reasons for the cancellation of the Liquor Distribution Branch logistics privatization? 
5. Maybe rescind all those the Freedom of Information delay letters that everyone’s getting these days? 

March madness seals Clark’s fate

Mamas, don’t let your children grow up to be British Columbia premiers.

Why? Because they would have to endure the monstrous month of March. The west coast version of the Ides of March hath 31 days and its legacy is one of resignation and rejection.

In 1991, it was the last full month in power for Social Credit Party Premier Bill Vander Zalm. The Socreds, B.C.’s free enterprise coalition, lost six by-elections, 11 cabinet ministers either quit or were fired and party members defected.



Vander Zalm came to power as Bill Bennett’s successor in 1986 as the dark-horse, outsider candidate in the famed Whistler leadership convention. By March 1991, he was under investigation by conflict of interest commissioner Ted Hughes for his role in the sale of his Fantasy Garden World in Richmond to Taiwanese billionaire Tan Yu.

Finance minister Mel Couvelier resigned in protest, proclaiming that Vander Zalm should have stepped aside while under a cloud. Vander Zalm finally quit on April 2. Deputy Premier and Transportation Minister Rita Johnston, who ran a Surrey trailer park, took over as the first female premier in Canadian history but lost the Oct. 17 election. The Socreds fell from 47 seats to seven, Mike Harcourt and the NDP took power with 51 seats and the upstart B.C. Liberals went from zero to 17, making Gordon Wilson the leader of the opposition.



Fast forward eight years to 1999. New Democratic Party Premier Glen Clark’s evening was ruined March 2 when RCMP officers (who were trailed by BCTV cameras) raided his East Vancouver house to search for clues in the North Burnaby Inn casino licence caper. Two weeks later, police searched Clark’s office in Victoria. He quit the premiership on Aug. 21 and the NDP was reduced to just two seats in the Legislature after Gordon Campbell and the Liberals won the May 16, 2001 election by a landslide.

Now Premier Christy Clark (no relation to Glen Clark) is suffering the worst month of her political career. If history is your guide, she is at a point of no return -- stick a fork in her, she's done. She will be looking for a new job immediately after the May 14, 2013 election. Maybe sooner. All because of the March from hell.

Consider the timeline for Clark's chaotic, career-defining March of 2012:

March 2: The infamous Telus news conference with the Darren Entwistle/Adrian Dix photo opportunity. Clark was inexplicably absent from a jobs and investment announcement by the biggest private corporation in B.C. (A Liberal donor, to boot.) Two days later, the government broke its silence and claimed she wasn’t invited because of a certain unresolved issue: the B.C. Place Stadium naming rights negotiations with Telus.

March 5: School’s out. B.C. Teachers Federation stages a three-day, province-wide strike over the deadlock in contract negotiations and the government's plan to legislate a new deal.



March 6: B.C. Supreme Court trial management conference between lawyers for Quebec’s Canam Group and France’s Freyssinet reveals grease leaks from support cables have damaged B.C. Place Stadium’s new fabric roof. It could cost up to $10 million to fix. An 85-day trial is in the works to begin October 2013.

March 7: Minister responsible Pat Bell confirms the $40 million Telus naming rights deal is dead. Bell claims the B.C. Place name is “iconic.” The government claims the deal was $35 million and wasn’t “good” for taxpayers. When that explanation doesn’t fly, it desperately claims the Telus Place signs were too big.

March 9: The resignation of Liberal bagman and Howe Street tycoon Peter Brown from the B.C. Pavilion Corporation board is confirmed.

March 11: The Province begins a series of stories on the private college company Eminata Group, calling into question the credibility of government oversight of for-profit, post-secondary education. Eminata owner Peter Chung's previous private colleges in California were fined $12 million for defrauding students. Chung donated $4,100 to the Liberals in 2009.

March 13: Clark’s news conference at the Washington Marine Group shipyard in North Vancouver to hype the half-anniversary of her B.C. Jobs Plan is overshadowed by reporters’ questions about the failed B.C. Place naming rights deal, despite new communications director Sara MacIntyre’s attempt to make a list of reporters and limit them to one question apiece.

March 14: Gum-chewing MacIntyre prevents reporters from asking questions of Clark at a photo opportunity in the Globe 2012 trade show, despite a media advisory that invited reporters to come and ask Clark questions.

March 15: The Ides of March! Bill 22 to end the teachers’ strike and outlaw another walkout passes, but the day is all about multiculturalism minister of state Harry Bloy’s resignation for breaching his oath of confidentiality by giving a Province newspaper reporter’s email to an Eminata executive. Bloy was the only MLA to support Clark's leadership campaign in 2011.

March 22: Liberal MLAs Randy Hawes and Marc Dalton quoted in the Abbotsford Times after claiming $185,000 in repairs for a Mission hockey rink’s dehumidifiers came from a non-existent $30 million surplus from the B.C. Place renovation.

Clark calls April 19 by-elections in Port Moody and Chilliwack, labels popular ex-Port Moody Mayor, former supporter and new NDP candidate Joe Trasolini a “party-switcher,” and announces an audit of TransLink to find $30 million. Transportation Minister Blair Lekstrom found out about the audit like the rest of us -- from reporters.

March 24: Clark works a rare Saturday as she joins John Yap (multiculturalism), Rob Howard (transportation secretary) and Moira Stilwell (health secretary) for a hastily called, staged swearing-in ceremony with Lt.-Gov. Steven Point for their new junior cabinet posts.

March 26: Abbotsford South MLA John van Dongen, the former Solicitor General and a five-time election winner, stood up in Question Period and dropped the biggest bombshell of the month. He quit the Liberal caucus and party to sit as an independent MLA and join the B.C. Conservatives. He cited Clark’s ties to the B.C. Rail privatization scandal and the B.C. Place naming rights deal. He also announced the hiring of a lawyer to investigate Clark over the B.C. Rail matter.

"Mr. Speaker, I had hoped that there would have been renewal in my party and in government. But, in the past 12 months, that has not happened. Indeed, every week constituents question government actions and issues that I am not able to defend. What I believe people expect from political leadership are core values that include integrity and a genuine commitment to public service.

"Integrity includes honesty, ethics and personal character. Integrity is non-negotiable. It is foundational for a strong organization. Most importantly, integrity includes accountability.

"To this day, Mr. Speaker, there are still serious unanswered questions regarding the writing-off of 6 million dollars in legal fees in the BC Rail case contrary to government policy. Questions I have been asking for a year-and-a-half, and questions the Auditor General is seeking answers to through the courts.

"Most recently, the unexplainable cancellation of a 35 million dollar naming rights agreement with Telus is another example of failed leadership.

"There have been other lapses in proper accountability and I expect more to come. When more and more decisions are being made for the wrong reasons, then you have an organization that is heading for failure."

Clark's whereabouts are publicly unknown.

March 27: Appearing weary and with deep bags under her eyes, Clark resurfaced for a news conference to criticize van Dongen. "The only thing John van Dongen accomplished yesterday was making it a little easier for the NDP to get elected in British Columbia." Clark once again uses the "nothing to see here, move along" tactic, claiming a B.C. Rail public inquiry is unnecessary. (Two of the scandal's expert observers beg to differ on the need to know all the facts about the biggest government corruption case in the province's history.)

Meanwhile, an Angus Reid Public Opinion said her approval rating fell nine points since August 2011 to 33 percent -- the second worst in the country.

Liberal defector Rick Peterson, a prominent supporter of Finance Minister Kevin Falcon’s failed 2011 leadership bid, launches his campaign for the Conservative nomination in Vancouver-Quilchena, the riding held by ex-finance minister Colin Hansen. Peterson scoffs at Clark's claims that supporting the Conservatives will pave the way for the NDP. He says free enterprise is about competition and there should be competition for the free enterprise vote in 2013.

March 28: Liberal-friendly, Prince George academic Charles Jago appointed as mediator for the BCTF dispute at a rate of $2,000-a-day. Jago, the former president of the University of Northern B.C., called his task “mission impossible.” How’s that for optimism?

Jago has no apparent mediation experience and donated $1,000 to Liberal fundraising golf tournaments in 2007 and 2010. Jago was appointed to the boards of Partnerships B.C. and 2010 Legacies Now. The September 2007 opening of the $31 million UNBC sports centre named for him drew a who’s who of B.C. cabinet, including Premier Gordon Campbell.

Falcon and Education minister George Abbott tell reporters they might not run in the next election. The two leadership losers were gearing up for a fall 2011 campaign and, had they won seats, would be six months into a four-year term. Now they are waffling as it appears their party's grip on power is fading. Life is a little less interesting on the opposition side of the house, not to mention the paycheque smaller.

Was Falcon’s claim that he might quit politics in 2013 to devote more time to his young family an intentional or unintentional subliminal jab at Clark, a single-mother who is struggling as premier after only a year on the job?

March 30: The B.C. Government and Service Employees' Union announces that it has reached an impasse in talks with the government for a new master agreement for its 25,000 members. The contract expires March 31. A strike vote is planned for April.

Clark's government, which previously said public sector workers would get no raises, is offering a 3 percent increase over two years, but BCGEU wants a 4 percent annual increase.

(The previous week, the BCGEU reached a deal with government that it claims will protect the 500 Liquor Distribution Branch workers when and if a private company takes over the government's warehousing and distribution of liquor in B.C. Odd how it took a quick month from Finance minister Kevin Falcon's announcement until the BCGEU announcement.)

March 31: The one-year countdown to the end of the Harmonized Sales Tax. The Aug. 26, 2011 referendum result effectively scuttled a fall election and forced Clark to phase-out the tax that ruined Gordon Campbell's premiership. The mail-in referendum attracted 1.61 million ballots (compared to 1.64 million total votes cast in the previous election.) Votes to scrap the HST (881,198) exceeded the number of votes the Liberals had in the 2009 election (751,661). Consumers and businesspeople alike have criticized Clark for her reluctance to phase-out the cash cow HST sooner.

In early March, Clark publicly repudiated the Telus naming rights deal for B.C. Place that would have eased the burden on taxpayers for the budgeted $563 million renovation. She ended the month in West Kelowna for the Hockey Night in Canada announcement of the $100,000 2012 Kraft Hockeyville winner.

Yes, the same Premier who declined the $35 million to $40 million deal because it wasn't "good for taxpayers" got involved in the cheese, crackers and snacks company's nationwide marketing promotion in the hopes that it would help renovate a public hockey rink.

Alas, the result was errantly leaked by Kraft to media outlets early Saturday morning. Stirling-Rowdon, Ontario beat West Kelowna by 1.2 million votes and will also get to host a National Hockey League exhibition game as a prize. West Kelowna got a $25,000 consolation prize to spruce up its rink.

Unlike the rest of her problems in March, there is no evidence that Clark is to blame. Just another case of bad luck and bad optics.