EDITORIAL PAGE — Less talk, more action

British Columbia Premier Michael Harcourt was to lead a delegation of business executives on a trade mission to Europe later this month. But one after another, the industry moguls bowed out with imaginative excuses that didn’t fool anyone reading between the lines.

After all, it’s no secret the province’s business community is still steaming about Harcourt’s corporate capital tax, new pro-union labor laws and broken promise to balance the budget.

The rebellious executives were chastised by business columnists for being spiteful and short-sighted, and for taking an adversarial stance against the NDP government this early in its term.

Several business organizations have also been scolded for giving Harcourt the cold shoulder, which suggests the alienation of the business community goes well beyond a few executives refusing to go along as cheerleaders when Harcourt or his ministers head offshore to tell business leaders that British Columbia is a good place to invest because it now has a “fair” labor code. The business community also appears to be growing more disillusioned about the consultation process for economic and environmental policy-making. Take British Columbia’s mining industry, for example, which recently participated in a government-funded study on resource compensation.

The briefs presented by the mining community stressing the need for security of mineral tenure were ignored, and the report made recommendations that would not only destroy this basic security but render valueless mineral inventory accumulated for more than 150 years.

Companies and industry groups are finding that participating in the consultation process is not only enormously frustrating, but time-consuming. Has all this “consulting” paid off? Stu Hunter, the association’s director of environment and government affairs, says yes and no. British Columbia coal producers were able to convince the previous Socred government to provide some badly needed relief on royalties in 1991. But what was given with one hand was taken by many others. The benefits were soon negated by increased federal taxes, the new capital tax and higher power rates.

The association is still struggling to convince politicians and bureaucrats in Victoria that they are methodically taxing away a major source of employment and government revenue. Using data produced by accounting firm Coopers & Lybrand, provincial coal producers prepared a study indicating that during the past five years, the industry paid $500 million in direct taxes. During the same period, net returns to industry were a meager $8 million. Industry investment totalled $2.76 billion during the 5-year period, and the return on this investment was less than one-tenth of 1% per annum. These facts are appalling, which is why the association feels it has no choice but to develop a thick skin and continue using every opportunity available to it for input into government policy-making. But government needs to understand that the association, like many other industry groups, would like to see a little less talk and a lot more action. Concerns about taxes and regulation are the dominant issues among business leaders today, and as the recession drags on, these concerns will only become more acute.