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Lord's record by the numbers
Tory Leader Bernard Lord's campaign is hinged on what voters think about his four years in office. In the days and weeks since the election was called, Lord has bragged up three important numbers; the number of nurses his government has hired, the number of new jobs his government has created and the fact that his government has balanced four budgets in a row. But how well do those numbers really add up? Lord's 460 new nurses It's the same speech everywhere he goes, whether he's campaigning in Nackawic or Fredericton – Bernard Lord tells voters he's done "quite a bit." Especially when it comes to hiring nurses in New Brunswick. He says it in speeches, he says it on the street, and he says it in debates. "And yes, more full-time nurses. Over 460 permanent full-time nurses more than four years ago," Lord says.
Liberal Leader Shawn Graham challenged that statement during the televised CBC debate. "The reality is today there are 200 less nurses working in the province. That's a net difference," Graham said, only to be interrupted by his opponent. "Unfortunately, Mr. Graham is wrong in his facts," Lord said. "There are in fact over 460 full-time permanent nurses working today more than there was four years ago." The positions have been repeated over and over throughout the campaign: Graham says 200 fewer nurses than four years ago, and Lord says an extra 460 full-time nurses compared to 1999. But who's right? The president of the Nurses' Association of New Brunswick says Lord's numbers are closer to the truth. "There's been an increase in the full-time positions that we can see of about 439 full-time positions, if we compare 1999 to 2002." But the Lord Tories shouldn't go celebrating just yet. Brideau has some other numbers that aren't all good for Lord. There are more full-time nurses, but 77 fewer nurses overall. That's because hundreds of casual nurses switched to full-time under Lord's government, leading to a drop of more than 600 casual nurses. "Well that certainly is of great concern because you need casual nurses to be able to fill in sick time, maternity leaves, sick leaves of all kinds, bereavement leaves and so on," Brideau says.As well, Brideau says there are 300 nursing vacancies in the province and no prospects to fill them. As for where Shawn Graham got his number of 200 fewer nurses, the Liberals say it came from an Ottawa health institute. Brideau says she's not sure what to make of the Liberal claim. "I couldn't really say. I mean they obviously got numbers somewhere, but where they got them, I'm not really sure, because our numbers do not indicate the same thing." Four balanced budgets Lord also likes to make another claim when he meets and greets voters on the campaign trail; his government's four consecutive balanced budgets. "We believe in living within our means today, not spending wildly to mortgage our future tomorrow," he says. Lord says he has run surpluses in all four years in office, and over the four years, the books are balanced. But Lord couldn't have done it in 2003 without his "rainy day fund." That's the $100 million pot of money he put aside a couple of years ago, when he had really big surpluses. Without that fund, the government is actually spending more money than it is taking in this year. In other words: Lord is actually running a deficit this year. If the Tories spend and collect money at the same rate next year, without the rainy day fund, he'll have a much more difficult time claiming that his government has balanced the budget. 20,000 new jobs Lord also likes to talk alot about the number of new jobs created since his government took office in 1999. "We have made tremendous progress in the last four years. Twenty thousand more jobs today than four years ago," he says. Twenty thousand more jobs sounds like a huge number. But the unemployment rate is the traditional way of measuring the economy and it has been up and down in the last four years. When Lord's government took power, the unemployment rate hovered around 8.8 per cent. In March 2001, it rose to 12.3 per cent. In May 2003, unemployment was reported at 10.3 per cent. Vincent Ferrao compiles job numbers for Statistics Canada and he says while the rate has been fluctuating, the raw number of people working has been moving up. That's good news because it means the number of jobs is increasing faster than the number of people looking for work. "That's a good thing because what it's telling you is that employment is increasing at a faster pace," Ferrao says. "So it's more than keeping up with population growth or population decreases." Ferrao also says New Brunswick's employment growth, while lower than most other provinces, has been moving steadily upward. "Employment growth is growing stronger than what the population number is doing. So that's what you want happening. You want more jobs being created." Listen to CBC radio reporter Jacques Poitras explore Bernard Lord's record
on nurse hirings, job creation and balanced budgets. |
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