KELOWNA – While Premier Clark will certainly drop some of her signature slogans and campaign rhetoric throughout her speech to party faithful today, chances are high she will avoid addressing a number of issues important to British Columbians:

Making life more affordable

• In the last year, Premier Clark delivered a massive 28-per-cent hydro hike to B.C. families and businesses, and implemented even more increases to ferry fares, medical service premiums and ICBC basic insurance rates.
• In the meantime, wages have remained stagnant for hard-working British Columbians. Average weekly earnings in B.C. are behind the national average, and are falling even further behind.

Child support clawbacks

• The B.C. Liberals’ child support clawbacks hurt B.C.’s poorest kids, and have been widely panned by the media and general public as callous.
• Despite overwhelming public criticism of the Liberal policy, including from the party grassroots, the Christy Clark government has so far refused to stop taking money from the very children who need it most.

Pre-election promise to protect farmland

• Despite a B.C. Liberal election promise to protect agricultural land and farming, Premier Clark is pushing through legislation that removes protection from 90 per cent of B.C. agricultural land, and encourages development over farming.

Failure to create jobs

• B.C. is third-worst in private sector job creation since the premier announced grand plans to create jobs with no actions to back them up. B.C. has actually lost 4,300 jobs over the last year.
• 11,411 people left B.C. over the last 2 years looking for opportunities in other provinces.

Record-setting debt

• Despite a campaign bus emblazoned with a “debt-free B.C.” slogan, debt has actually risen faster under Premier Clark than any other B.C. premier in history. B.C.’s debt is set to hit $70 billion by 2017 – the highest ever in B.C.