Heads Won't Roll?

By Andrew MacLeod, Today, TheTyee.ca

BC's premier pledged to cut 'senior executive ranks' by 20 per cent, but can offer no proof it happened. Tyee calculations raise doubts.

When Premier Gordon Campbell announced during a televised speech in February that British Columbia would run two years of deficits, he stressed that the government was already finding places to save money. One of those places was from among the top ranks of the civil service. He promised to cut the positions for one in five of the province's senior bureaucrats. As he put it in that Feb. 2 speech "The senior executive ranks will be reduced by 20 per cent to contribute to this overall belt-tightening." The gesture, made at a time when British Columbians were being asked to accept deficit spending and reduced services, suggested the pain would be widespread. Within the civil service, workers in lower ranked jobs were assured the bosses' jobs would be affected as their jobs were. But nine months later it is not at all clear that the government followed through and met its target, despite having claimed that it did. In fact, it may only be halfway there. (More details)