More than half of British Columbians believe the provincial Liberals are dishonest, according to the latest Vision Critical Inc. survey.
But the government won't improve that standing if it continues to use flawed arguments to attack critics and spin the media.
Example one: the dust-up between children and youth representative Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond and the provincial government.
Last month, the representative asked the premier's office to hand over cabinet documents concerning a childcare program she had been investigating.
Usually, such documents are confidential.
But under the legislation that created her office, the representative has a right to all government documents except those covered by solicitor-client privilege.
Not so said the premier's deputy minister Allan Seckel - the province's former deputy attorney general.
In a letter to Turpel-Lafond that was released to the media, Seckel argued that right doesn't include cabinet documents because the government is prohibited from releasing such confidences under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act.
But the foundation of that argument started crumbling almost as soon as that letter was sent.
A layman's reading of the act suggests that prohibition only applies to the government's response to freedom of information requests - not the representative's rights.
And that could explain why the government didn't use Seckel's line of defense when it unsuccessfully argued against the representative's petition to have the court enforce her rights.
Example two: Finance Minister Colin Hansen's request to have Elections British Columbia investigate whether Bill Vander Zalm had violated the Recall and Initiative Act.
The former premier has been running a petition campaign against the government's harmonized sales tax.
But, last month, the finance minister summoned reporters to his corner office at the legislature where staff distributed a letter accusing Vander Zalm of "proliferating false and misleading information" as part of that campaign.
Specifically, Hansen charged Fight HST's was claiming there would be a "7% increase on a host of items which will see no such price increase. This is clearly misleading and contrary to the rules governing the initiative petition."
He then asked for "Elections BC's opinion on the validity of names collected through misleading information."
But as reporters eventually figured out, the maximum penalty for providing false and misleading information during a petition campaign is a fine of up to $10,000 and/or no more than two years in jail.
And, perhaps more importantly, that offense only applies to whether canvassers are truthfully presenting the purpose of their petition - which calls for the HST to be rescinded.
"As in an election campaign, it is not the role of the Chief Electoral Officer to assess the content of participants' websites and promotional material," Elections BC head Harry Nefueld advised Hansen, in a letter sent on May 7 and made public by the government seven days later.
So it appears, in both these examples, the government's arguments were just plain wrong.
And that suggests the Liberals may have an even bigger problem than the perception that they're dishonest: the perception they're incompetent.
Sean Holman is editor of the online provincial political news journal Public Eye (publiceyeonline.com). He can be reached at [email protected].
