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One of the things that has always struck me about Gordon Campbell is his unshakeable certainty that he’s always right.

It’s the hallmark of ideologues the world over. They steamroll over their opponents because they have all the answers.

Combine that with Campbell’s legendary capacity for hard work and the strong support of B.C.'s mainstream media, and it’s no wonder he lasted so long in municipal and provincial politics.

By the time Campbell became premier in 2001, he had adopted a mindset that the government was often at the root of society's problems. Therefore, it had to be diminished.

One of his first actions as premier was to introduce $2 billion in annual personal tax cuts and another $1.5 billion in annual corporate tax cuts.

In conservative circles, that's called "starving the beast": leave the government with less money so it's incapable of doing much.

He never told anyone before the 2001 election that he was going to cut personal income taxes by 25 percent.

In the last election without consulting finance ministry staff, he suddenly promised to eliminate the small-business tax by 2012. It was another way to starve the beast.

Last week in one of his final acts as premier, he announced that he would slash personal income taxes by another 15 percent. Again, this was done without any public discussion beforehand.

Campbell diminished the government’s role in our lives in other ways. He turned over hospitals' food service, laundry, and janitorial work to private contractors, again with no advance consultation.

We were told that by paying less money to the support staff, it would leave more revenue available for health services.

To accomplish this quickly, Campbell recalled the legislature and ripped up contracts with health workers. Several years later, this action was deemed illegal by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Meanwhile, the premier's office intervened to stop the health-services ministry from taking fairly radical steps to curb price-gouging by privately owned lab-testing companies. When the lab companies fought back by contacting the premier's deputy minister, we never heard Campbell say that by paying less money to these firms, it would leave more revenue available for health services. Of course, these companies were B.C. Liberal party supporters.

His approach to health workers versus his treatment of the private lab companies was a microcosm of Campbell's world view: government bad, private sector good.

That wasn’t the only example. Campbell sometimes wouldn’t approve new major health facilities unless they were financed and built by the private sector.

He also refused to give TransLink any money to build a new rapid-transit project unless it was turned over to a private company to build, finance, and operate.

In addition, he wouldn't construct major roads and bridges unless they were created through public-private partnerships.

The Campbell regime converted B.C. Ferries into a private company, even though the government remained the only shareholder. This left it free to buy ships from Germany, costing B.C. jobs, without any cabinet minister having to take responsibility for approving this decision.

Campbell went further with B.C. Rail, selling the assets to CN Rail, despite promising not to do so before the 2001 election.

He even privatized B.C. rivers by negotiating long-term lease deals with various energy companies. B.C. Hydro paid exhorbitant prices for this electricity. This weakened B.C. Hydro’s position as the publicly owned supplier of electricity, thereby undermining its ability to return dividends to the government.

One of his more astonishing proposals for reducing the size of government was to sharply cut the number of MLAs. He dropped this idea after encountering a furious backlash from rural British Columbians.

In the education sphere, he didn't come close to fully funding cost increases downloaded on school districts. Because trustees have no authority to tax, they were forced to downgrade public education, which made private schools more appealing.

Meanwhile, postsecondary students were forced to pay a much higher proportion of the universities' overall costs because Campbell froze funding on a per-student basis. That's what happens when you starve the beast.

I remember the time Campbell announced 25,000 new postsecondary seats, which sounded like a great idea. However after probing into the details, it was clear that the premier hadn’t funded these positions, which meant that students would have to pay the tab.

When it came to social services, Campbell introduced draconian cuts to welfare after the 2001 election. This was designed to make poor people less dependent on the government.

He also refused to raise the minimum wage beyond $8 an hour, ensuring our lowest-income workers were the poorest in Canada. And he essentially privatized employment standards by requiring workers to rely on self-service "kits" if they had a complaint about the boss.

Campbell offset these attacks on the poor with some of the greatest tax cuts in history to low-income earners. But that was small comfort for those facing rapidly rising medical-service premiums, tuition, transit, and rent, not to mention severe cuts in legal aid.

What were the consequences of Campbell's zeal to cut taxes and shrink government?

He contributed to a growing disparity of wealth in this province. The rich were able to keep a much larger share of their income. This encouraged a proliferation of luxurious restaurants, upscale vehicle dealerships, and luxury condominiums in Vancouver.

He also boosted the prosperity of the upper middle class, including many media executives and senior journalists.

In the process, Campbell became the darling of the corporate set, resulting in an unparalleled amount of money pouring into B.C. Liberal coffers. This funded his reelection efforts.

But his love of public-private partnerships has left the government on the hook financially for many years to come.

By employing this approach, he managed to transfer capital spending to the operating side of the ledger. As a result, the real public debt is actually much higher than has been publicly reported. But it's concealed as operating costs on an annual basis.

This means that the post-Campbell government won’t have as much money available to spend on providing services to the public. This includes environmental protection.

Some of these costs of P3s could have been prevented had the Ministry of Finance borrowed the money for these projects.That's because governments can obtain loans at lower interest rates than the private sector.

However, that was anathema to a premier who looked upon government as the source of so many of our financial woes. Besides, it was good business for investment dealers to finance these public-private partnerships. It's worth noting that these investment dealers were generous contributors to the B.C. Liberals.

Meanwhile, problems that the government is best suited to address, such as child poverty or child care or homelessness, were largely left unattended for many years.

Only in the past couple of years has the B.C. Liberal government demonstrated any real interest in increasing the number of nonprofit housing units. Campbell's preferred option for addressing the housing crisis has been to introduce rent supplements, which puts more money in the hands of landlords.

But Campbell has steadfastly refused to call for a national housing strategy. This is despite evidence from other industrialized countries that such an approach will curb homelessness and create more security for low and middle-income Canadians.

Why would he act in this way in spite of its proven effectiveness in Europe? Maybe it's because if he calls for a national housing strategy, the premier would be admitting that governments can actually solve problems in our society.

Campbell often said that if you left more money in people’s pockets, they would spend it on goods and services, thereby stimulating the economy. And, he said, cutting corporate taxes would attract investment, creating more jobs.

This was the mantra during the Campbell years. It’s a simple message that has considerable appeal.

But the economy isn’t always so simple, as Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman and former Clinton administration labor secretary Robert Reich have pointed out on numerous occasions.

Sometimes, the public saves its tax cuts or spends it on vacations outside of the province. Similarly, corporations may take these tax cuts and invest them in places like China or India, where costs are lower.

Moreover in tough times, the beneficiaries of tax cuts might just stuff these funds under their mattress because they're scared out of their wits. This reduces the velocity of money flowing through the economy, thereby undermining growth.

Sometimes, the super-wealthy don't spend all their money because it would be too time-consuming to do so. Giving them more tax cuts loses its effectiveness after a while.

Regardless of how much money consumers had in their pockets, they sharply cut spending after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a major Wall Street bank, in the fall of 2008.

The ensuing economic meltdown threw Campbell’s 2009 budget into disarray. It came at the worst possible time—less than three months before the election.

He and Hansen, his finance minister, cobbled together some numbers to suggest there would only be a $495-million deficit. Anyone with a modicum of financial sensibility knew that this was a fudge-it budget.

And several months after the election, the B.C. Liberals acknowledged this when Hansen announced a $2.8-billion deficit.

In the meantime, Campbell and Hansen announced the harmonized sales tax. In return, Ottawa agreed to pay a $1.6-billion signing bonus. This papered over some of the B.C. Liberals’ fiscal problems, which were caused by Campbell’s systematic efforts to starve the government of funds.

For someone who talked so much about taxes, Campbell appeared to spend little time understanding the nuances. He seemed unconcerned about the vast amount of research demonstrating that growing inequality actually undermines economic growth.

Likewise, he didn’t pay much attention to research published in the British Medical Journal showing that public-private partnerships in health care increase overall costs to government.

In a similar vein, Campbell never gave much thought to calibrating what percentage of the gross domestic product should be in the public sector, and what percentage should be in private hands.

He also failed to comprehend that it's more important to make public investments during slow economic times. Otherwise, he never would have blown $883 million on a convention-centre expansion at the same time as the province was gearing up for the Olympics.

Campbell showed a remarkable lack of curiosity about the value of investments in the arts. It's a proven way of creating employment at a far lower price than a roof on a football stadium or a superfluous convention centre.

Nor did he appear to grasp the concept that the velocity of money flowing through the economy has a huge impact on its overall performance. If he did, he never would have left low-income people with so little money in their pockets with a regressive carbon tax (rather than a progressive alternative), frequent hikes to medical-service premiums, and constant transit-fare increases.

It's clear that Campbell likes his economics to be kept simple. Investment is good. Government is bad. And leaving more money in people’s pockets, especially if they're wealthy, creates a better world.

He has all the certainty of an ideologue. When you know all the answers, it’s not necessary to ask too many questions.

It's no wonder that his brighter cabinet ministers over the years, such as Christy Clark, Geoff Plant, Greg Halsey-Brandt, and Carole Taylor, decided to abandon ship after serving one term in government.

Let’s hope that Campbell's successor has a broader perspective. We don't need another incurious premier at the helm of our province.