Campbell and James trade jabs in Vancouver

Last Updated: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 | 10:49 AM PT

CBC News

B.C. Liberal Leader Gordon Campbell was at the Vancouver Convention Centre on Monday night. (CBC)

B.C. Liberal Leader Gordon Campbell and B.C. NDP Leader Carole James traded jabs at separate campaign events in Vancouver on Monday night, wrapping up the first full week of the May 12 provincial election campaign.

Campbell outlined four years of Liberal accomplishments in a half-hour speech to 1,700 business and political leaders who attended a glittering dinner at Vancouver's new convention centre.

"How do you like this new convention centre," Campbell asked the receptive crowd as he pointed to its B.C. wood construction.

"The best building product that we have is wood and that's how we'll build the future, not just for B.C., but for marketplaces around the world," he said.

Campbell used the event to attack the rival NDP's business record, telling his supporters, "They don't have any business experience."

But the massive new facility on the waterfront in downtown Vancouver has been far from a political success for the B.C. Liberals.

The B.C. NDP have repeatedly used the facility as a symbol of financial mismanagement by the B.C. Liberals, highlighting how it was roughly $400 million over budget, and how a 2007 report by B.C.'s auditor general was critical of how the project was managed.

Meanwhile, about 100 B.C. Ambulance Service paramedics, currently on strike over wages, rallied outside the centre with a message of their own for Campbell, the B.C. premier.

"We aren't going away. We want them to know we're going to stay in their face for as long as it takes," shouted one of the group's leaders.

NDP leader promises seniors care and tuition freeze

Across town in East Vancouver, about 70 people gathered at the Polish Congress Hall to hear James talk about health care and education.

B.C. NDP Leader Carole James campaigned at the Polish Congress Hall on Monday night. (CBC)

James once again pledged to create 3,300 extended care beds for seniors, claiming the B.C. Liberals have twice failed to make good on promises to add 5,000 new care beds for seniors.

"Instead of 5,000 beds in five years, Campbell delivered 800 beds in eight years," James said in a statement released Tuesday morning. "He broke his promise, and then refused to admit the truth."

James also renewed her promise to freeze post-secondary tuition for students in B.C.

But that promise was not good enough for Shamus Reid, B.C. chair of the Canadian Federation of Students, who told CBC News the NDP should commit to cutting tuition fees, not just freezing them.

Since the B.C. Liberals came to power in 2001, average tuition fees have doubled, to just over $5,000 a year, Reid said, and he wants the parties to commit to cuts of 10 per cent next year, and further cuts in following years.

"We certainly think that the tuition fee freeze does not go far enough. The fact is the NDP caucus protested under the Campbell government every single year over the last eight years and a tuition fee freeze is effectively signing off on those increases," Reid said on Tuesday morning.