British Columbia is a less competitive place to do business under the Liberals than it was under the NDP — 25 per cent less competitive when compared to our competitors in the United States.

This is one conclusion drawn from The 2004 Competitive Alternatives Study: The CEO's Guide to Business Costs conducted by KPMG, the international business services company.

The study reviews 27 cost components (such as labour costs, taxes, energy costs) applied to businesses in 12 sectors across 11 countries and 98 cities.

As students return to classes this fall they will be faced with another BC Liberal new era reality: higher tuition fees and more crowded classrooms. And this is after a summer of high unemployment resulting in part from the BC Liberal elimination of all provincial student employment programs.

Of all of Campbell's broken promises, the betrayal of our young people is the most damaging. Recall the Campbell Liberals promise to “focus on reducing BC's youth unemployment.” They then drove up unemployment by eliminating every single youth employment program in the province.

For most political parties, holding 77 out of 79 seats in the B.C.legislature would be enough. Not for Premier Gordon Campbell and theLiberals. The government is on a campaign to centralize power in Victoriaand remove independent authority from local governments.

Two small but important legislative changes symbolize the government'sgrowing distrust of local communities. The first strips local government inthe Kootenays of control over the Columbia Basin Trust.

The federal Liberal Party has always treated British Columbia as a strictly colonial operation. They have never developed a strong grassroots base in our province. They maintain their party organization through the distribution of federal patronage.

Thus, it was no surprise that Paul Martin abandoned local democracy in his party by appointing three people including former premier Ujjal Dosanjh, and forestry executive David Emerson as federal Liberal candidates in our province.

“Crisis, what crisis?” For the Premier, cognitive dissonance continues to be an economic policy. The Provincial government appears more out-of-touch every month as BC faces record numbers of unemployed.

Yesterday, Statistics Canada released its unemployment number for August. The survey report — conducted prior to the worst of the forest fires in the Okanagan — revealed that BC now has over 202,000 unemployed.

According to Statistics Canada, the number of unemployed has increased by 15.1 per cent from August 2002 to August 2003 from 175,700 to 202,200.

Imagine for a moment not having a bank account, or access to a financialinstitution. Having to carry all your money on your person, you would bea target for thieves or constantly on your guard. You would have to pay apremium to cash a cheque.

A bank account is needed to apply for rental accommodation or pay rent or doany number of the regular daily tasks that all of us perform. Then, imagineyou were trying to survive on income assistance in the poorest postal codein Canada.

In the early 1990s, this was the reality for most residents of Vancouver'sDowntown Eastside.

Economic strategy or communications gimmick? Five months after Premier Gordon Campbell announced his “Heartlands Economic Strategy” to support the ailing Interior economy, Interior and Island residents are beginning to wonder what the premier had in mind.

The only major economic announcement made under the “Heartlands” strategy so far is the 120-megawatt Brilliant power plant expansion announced by the government, the Columbia Power Corporation and the Columbia Basin Trust in April.

April 24, 1915, was one of the most significantand tragic days of the 20th century. On that date, the Ottoman Empirearrested and murdered hundreds of Armenian community leaders andintellectuals.

A serious economic crisis for many B.C. industries, high unemployment and a budget crisis for the government itself — the Liberal government's economic woes (and ours) are well-known. With Finance Minister Gary Collins setting records for deficit, debt and unemployment, will a major Glen Clark initiative from the 1990s save the Liberals from themselves?

Alone among B.C. industries, the oil and gas sector is booming. High natural gas prices are driving a drilling and exploration growth, particularly in that part of B.C. east of the Rockies, the Peace River country.