And now:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (S.I.S.I.S.) writes: NDP SETS SPENDING RECORD PROMOTING NISGA'A TREATY Vancouver Sun, January 16, 1999 by Vaughn Palmer What started out at $2.3 million, tops, has ballooned to $7.5 million -- the most taxpayer money spent boosting a single issue. [S.I.S.I.S. note: The following mainstream news article may contain biased or distorted information and may be missing pertinent facts and/or context. It is provided for reference only.] VICTORIA - As the B.C. legislature settled in to detailed debate on the Nisga'a treaty this week, one of the first topics involved the massive over-run in the government's budget for informing the public about the controversial agreement. When treaty was first concluded back in July, the New Democrats pegged their spending for production and distribution of information about the treaty at $2.3 million, tops. "We are presenting a maximum budget," Aboriginal Affairs Minister Dale Lovick told the legislature. "We assume we're not likely to spend all of that money." But Mr. Lovick and his colleagues did spend all of that money and a great deal more. "A huge increase," was the way the minister characterized it in the legislature this week, though he quickly added: "That has been public information for some time." It was a reference to the Clark government's cute trick of releasing the updated budget figures three days before Christmas, a day chosen deliberately so as to ensure minimal news coverage and zero political fallout. Mr. Lovick's original breakdown, presented to the house in July, was to have provided $1.3 million for media advertising including print, radio and television, plus all production costs; $600,000 for direct information including printing and mailing a summary of the treaty to every household in B.C.; and $400,000 for other costs, including administration and staff. The Christmas season update showed that Santa Lovick had been very generous about increasing the budget in every way. The money for advertising was boosted almost four-fold to $5 million, including a staggering $1.6 million in production costs for some of the most lavish television advertisements ever made by the B.C. government. Direct information, including publications and travel, doubled to $1.2 million. And the "other" category climbed to $600,000, including the $150,000 set aside to finance "special events" like the Nisga'a visit to the legislature last December. Nor is that likely to be the end of the drain on the provincial treasury because the foregoing figures were relevant only up to the end of 1998. The New Democrats have budgeted a further $800,000 to be spent on the campaign up to the end of February of this year. If all that is spent -- and at this point, who could doubt the treaty-boosters will spend every penny they can get their hands on? -- the total cost of the Nisga'a treaty promotion campaign will be just over $7.5 million for a budget overrun of 330 per cent. That's not only a huge increase, it is undoubtedly the largest amount ever spent by B.C. government seeking to promote its point of view on a single issue. For comparison's sake, the health ministry has budgeted only a third as much to promote all health care programs in the province for the year, while the government as a whole plans to spend $17 million on advertising and publications. To employ another comparison, the New Democrats spent less than $7.5 million on their entire 1996 election campaign. But that was the party's own money. This was public funds, diverted to the so-called Treaty Implementation Project. The title was a misnomer, incidentally, as Mr. Lovick was pretty much forced to concede this week. The project had little to do with implementing the treaty and everything to do with selling the Clark government's position to the public. "So none of it [the budget] actually has anything to do with implementing the treaty?" was the challenge from Liberal MLA Geoff Plant in the legislature Thursday afternoon. "If the member is suggesting that the title is perhaps not as accurate as it could be, he probably has a point, yes," replied Mr. Lovick. So the project name was misleading, the budget even more so, and yet Mr. Lovick told the house he was "rather proud" of the whole exercise. "What we did was absolutely legitimate," he declared. "I certainly make no apology for it.... We, the government, decided the best thing we could do, given that we were embarked on a pretty ambitious project, was to, quite frankly promote the deal... I don't see anything in what was done there as in any way, anything to be loath to embrace on our part." Maybe there's no problem for him, as a member of a government that doesn't blink at wasting millions of dollars promoting dubious undertakings like the jobs and timber accord, the SkyTrain expansion or the fast ferries. But I have to think that this kind of reckless and uncontrolled spending could undercut public support even for an initiative as worthy as the Nisga'a treaty. :-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-: SOVEREIGNTY AND DECOLONIZATION NOT EXTINGUISHMENT AND RECOLONIZATION! For more information on the BC Treaty Commission and the Nisga'a deal http://kafka.uvic.ca/~vipirg/SISIS/Clark/BCgovt.html http://kafka.uvic.ca/~vipirg/SISIS/Clark/jan3198bctc.html http://kafka.uvic.ca/~vipirg/SISIS/Clark/aug98nis.html Letters to the Vancouver Sun - mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Letters to Vaughn Palmer - mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
