It must be October, since B.C. Liberal promises are dropping faster than leaves off a maple. First, the plan to privatize the Coquihalla Highway fell from the tree of Liberal intentions, then municipal policing costs drifted from the government's branches. Now, the Campbell government has cut off the growing (if stunted) trunk of liquor store privatization.

Instead of pruning 40 to 50 government-run liquor stores each year from the 224 branches it oversees, the Liberal government has caved in to the government employees' union and placed a "Business as Usual" sign around the province. That sign, remember, once characterized the previous regime's pro-union, anti-business landscaping, and was one the provincial Liberals promised to pulp and burn after routing the NDP at the polls just two years ago.

This is the type of announcement, cynically made before the Thanksgiving long weekend, that may be the policy bell-wether of a Liberal party without the intestinal fortitude to use its mandate of 77 of 79 seats in the legislature, and overwhelming popular support that it started with in 2001, to make not only
the right decisions but the easy ones.

Has this supposedly business-friendly government become afraid of the sure benefits of uncorking a free market in alcohol sales Have they suddenly found the road leaders and governors must take too lonely and frightful Are they too cowardly to act the way the electorate expected and demanded they act

This is not a case of a government that is "adapting to reality" or "learning to compromise" or "willing to listen;" this is not a situation of "accepting a lesser evil." All these vacuous clichés belong in the lexicon of the craven, anyway.

Instead, what this decision indicates -- and all within easy reach of solid evidence that the privatization of state-operated liquor outlets benefits consumers, distributors and the government treasury -- is that this government is lacking, severely lacking, in the basics of governance: and that is the will to lead.

What might the B.C. Liberals be harvesting, had they kept to their promise and
allowed the fertile ground of a free market to determine what, where, how much
and at what price alcohol would be sold and distributed in B.C.

In neighboring Alberta, which is looking increasingly better (yet again) as a place for businesses and individuals to sow their capital and talents, the number of retail outlets has grown from about 200 in 1993 to over 1,000 today. Product selection has nearly quadrupled from 3,000 items to over 11,000. And the government take from liquor sales in Alberta has risen from $400 million to nearly $550 million.

The results of the Alberta model speak for themselves. So what, instead, must have been so spectacularly beneficial to the government and consumers that Mr. Campbell would reverse course on privatization

Answer: More of the same "Business and Usual" with unions.

In the end, of course, the Liberal harvest from making friends with the unions (for a minute) might not match the government's loss of credibility and support from those who expected a bit more from a Campbell team so seemingly conscious of B.C.'s fragile reputation as a place to do business.

Why this acorn-to-oak policy wasn't initiated the day after the Liberals came to power is also less of a mystery today. They didn't have the courage to do the right thing when their standing with the public was strong, and they have even less of it today.

But this was more than a policy reversal. Running away from the public outcry against privatizing the Coquihalla Highway was one thing. Hiding from the wrath of mayors from smaller municipalities about paying their share of police costs was another. And now, the government crumbles at the whiff of wind from a union.

The result is that no sane entrepreneur would ever believe there was any hope, let alone reason to believe, that liquor-store privatization will ever come to pass, even at the end of the proposed contract extension with the union to 2006.

More importantly, should taxpayers expect a reversal on other Liberal commitments, like balancing the budget Get out your rakes.