Being sold a bill of goods is a figure of speech. It means being billed for a list of goods and services that don’t really exist. Provincial governments like those of Alberta’s Ralph Klein, Ontario’s Mike Harris and, now, B.C.’s Gordon Campbell think governments have been selling their constituents a bill of goods for years. Taxes had risen in these provinces and the result, in the minds of these downsize mavens, was a bloated and inefficient bureaucracy. And despite the geography that separates these men, they are unified in their answer to the problem. All three think society should just stop payment on the bill. Which is fine, assuming the answers they think they have are right. But what if they’re wrong? What if some of the services their constituents have been paying for are worth the investment?
Gordon Campbell’s dramatic solution made huge waves mid-January, when he made unprecedented cuts to the public service in British Columbia. At the final count, one third of all civil service jobs have been slated for phase-out in the province. The idea is to save some cash (in the traditional corporate manner, i.e., dumping human capital).
But let us assess Campbell’s move by his own conservative criteria. What will the short and long-term costs of his plan be? And, more importantly, are the people of B.C. being sold a new and improved bill of goods? Criticism of Campbell has been swift and has come from all quarters. (The most damning being that his government never really had the mandate to do what they’ve done—but this is a separate issue.)
Some folks have pointed out that the value of downsizing itself is a passé management tool. Although cutting wages helps with the bottom line immediately—the short-term value—it tends to breed resentment and confusion among the remaining employees rather than efficiency—the supposed long term value of downsizing. Which is bad news for a system that (at least to Campbell) already lacks efficiency!
Other folks—and this argument is particularly popular in B.C.’s dailies—point out that Campbell’s cuts put the number of ratio of civil servants per capita in the province at the third lowest in North America. Only Alberta and Ontario dip lower. In comparison, the public service of a progressive place like… say… Texas is positively bloated!
Of course, the strongest argument—though by no means the best or most socially conscious—has already been pointed out by Kim Lunman in the Globe and Mail. As it turns out, the immediate costs of Campbell’s cuts will be much higher than originally expected. (Which, yes, goes directly back towards the bottom line… do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars.) I suppose you could argue that this only means Gordon Campbell will be “saving” less money than expected. I mean, who knows what the long-term costs might be? Only time will tell, right?
But then, it wouldn’t be financially prudent if we didn’t do some projecting (read: economic jargon for wild theory and mad conjecture.) For a glimpse of what the long-term costs of Campbell’s caper might be, we need look no further than his role models: program choppers like Alberta’s Ralph Klein and Ontario’s Mike Harris. And I should warn you: this is the point when things get a little scary. The projections certainly don’t look good.
Around the same time that Campbell was making headlines, his buddy Mike Harris was making a few of his own. In a mini-media circus, the results of the inquiry into the Walkerton water tragedy were finally made public. Back in November 2001, an economic study had estimated the cost of the crisis at $64.5 million. (The human cost was much, much higher, at seven deaths and 2 300 people ill.) Justice Dennis O’Connor found that the Ontario provincial government shared responsibility with the local public utility.
Specifically, he found that underfunding in the Ministry of Environment left it incapable of identifying problems in Walkerton. The fact that what happened at Walkerton could have been prevented is at least, if not more, disturbing than the fact that it did happen.
Meanwhile, closer to home, Campbell’s neighbour Ralph Klein has been making noise about private medicine. And British Columbians would do well to lend an ear. Their own health minister has announced he expects hospitals to close in their province as a result of economic meddling—including freezing health funding over the next three years. If all goes according to plan (I can only assume there is some kind of plan), health care in B.C. just might be in crisis. I can just imagine the types of solutions that will be proposed. And those are the long-term expectations. Exciting, eh?
So what do Campbell, Harris and Klein’s solutions show us—at least for certain? Well, they certainly aren’t selling us a bill of goods. Their proposal is much simpler: no goods, no bill, whoopee! Where before there might have been some doubt about whether society was getting its money’s worth, now there is none.
There was uncertainty, there is now clarity—we are getting less service for less money. And for Campbell, Harris and Klein, that’s as good as it gets.
