14 press releases and counting
Posted March 17, 2009 by Sacha Peter - Link
Category: News
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I’ve gone through 14 government press releases today so far (a light day compared to yesterday’s 17), and the two most interesting ones are the following – looks like that the current government is using the 1996 Glen Clark election playbook:
1. The Ministry of Environment announce that if you’re breeding tigers, lions, rattlesnakes and the like, you will have to get rid of them by April 1, 2010 (unless if you are operating them in an accredited facility such as a zoo). The Controlled Alien Species Regulation has been updated to include a whole bunch of other exotic animals. I just found the title of this release funny since when somebody mentions “Alien species”, I always think of little green men from Mars invading earth with UFOs.
Electoral impact: None.
2. A more significant press release is the announcement of nearly $800 million of infrastructure spending, of which $172 million is going toward homeless shelters, $424 million to schools and school renovations, and $67 million elsewhere.
The housing projects are obviously a political move – the NDP can attack it by saying “It’s not enough” (which the public will not listen to since most of the voting public pays for their own rent/mortgages on a monthly basis), or they can say “Too little too late” (which the public again won’t buy since they have been long since desensitized to the issue), or they can perform some financial equivalence arguments (e.g. “You spent $X on project Y, but only $172M on housing”), but again, this will not gain traction with the public.
The capital costs of the project is about $300,000 per unit, and there will be operational costs to keep each unit afloat (a ballpark estimate would be about $15,000 per unit per year). If anything, fiscal conservatives in the province will be asking “When does this end?”.
Electoral impact: Such announcements will likely figure into the “accomplishments” category of the BC Liberals during the election campaign, and to show that they are shoveling money into housing projects. Creating jobs is likely a secondary benefit of this release. Oddly enough the major part of the press release, the schools and renovations will likely not feature as much, although they can likely be parceled out to individual constituencies for separate announcements.