AS The Province newspaper’s Mike Smyth wrote this week, “the last time Christy Clark kicked off an election campaign, she shot for the moon by promising an economic miracle so massive that it boggled the mind,” the NDP pointed out on Wednesday.
The NDP said that today, Clark is making new promises about jobs – hoping that people won’t remember her failed promises from last time.
Last election she promised to create 100,000 jobs and generate $1 trillion with her LNG jobs plan. She even promised to form a $100 billion BC prosperity fund.
But after she failed to deliver any of those things, Christy Clark seems to have decided she’d better sing a new tune.
But what is Christy Clark’s Liberals’ record on actually supporting BC tech companies?
The NDP said that out of total government IT outsourcing of nearly $700 million in 2014/15, less than $60 million was spent on local vendors.
Just one multinational corporation took home three times more money from government contracts than all BC tech companies combined.
All of which brings to mind a few questions for Christy, the NDP noted:
* You never delivered on the jobs you promised last election. What makes your new promises different?
* If you care so much about supporting the BC tech sector, why have you repeatedly passed over small local BC tech companies in favour of large multinational corporations when it comes to government procurement?
* Will you open up IT procurement to favour local companies even if they haven’t been major donors?