When B.C. Liberal leader Christy Clark released her party’s election platform on April 15, it contained several items of interest to voters.

For students, there was a promise to limit tuition-fee increases to a maximum of two percent through the next term of office. There was also a pledge of some free textbooks for university and college students.

This is not as dramatic as the B.C. Green party’s proposed 20 percent reduction in tuition. But it still marks a significant change from the Gordon Campbell era, when double-digit increases in student fees were often the norm.

What attracted far more media coverage, however, was the B.C. Liberals’ call for a vote on public transit in the 2014 municipal elections.

“We’ve always said that any transit plan for the Lower Mainland must be regionally sourced, it must be affordable, and it must be supported,” Clark told reporters. “What better way to make sure that it’s supported than to put it to a referendum?”

B.C. NDP leader Adrian Dix has since responded that the B.C. Liberals’ proposal “denies” the provincial government’s responsibility to provide funding for public transportation. “I think at least some carbon-tax revenues need to go to support transit initiatives,” Dix said to reporters.

The B.C. government expects to generate nearly $1.24 billion in carbon taxes this year as part of its overall $44-billion operating budget. The B.C. Liberals say they’d freeze the carbon tax at $30 per tonne. The Greens would raise it to $50 per tonne while exempting British Columbians living below Statistics Canada’s low-income cutoff, which is often described as the poverty line. The B.C. Conservatives have promised to axe the carbon tax over a four-year period.

Even though B.C. NDP MLAs haven’t called for an end to the controversial oil-and-gas drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing—or fracking—the B.C. Liberal platform document suggests otherwise. It cites opposition from one unelected B.C. NDP candidate, George Heyman, who’s running in Vancouver-Fairview.

Meanwhile, the Green party is calling for the reform of the environmental assessment office and for a “fair price on fresh water”, which is used in huge quantities in fracking operations. In addition, the Greens’ policy document—Green Book 2013—supports “a moratorium on new gas exploration and drilling” and establishing “industry responsibility for repairing the environmental damage from fracking operations”. That’s in addition to eliminating all subsidies on mining and a new tax on mining-industry profits.

B.C. NDP MLAs support the export of liquefied natural gas, which will likely require extensive new drilling. However, the B.C. Liberals have claimed in their platform that the B.C. NDP will “endanger our province’s LNG opportunity” with a tax on natural-gas extraction.

As the Georgia Straight went to press, the B.C. NDP had not released an election platform countering the B.C. Liberals’ claims.

During the campaign, Dix has tried to play up his party as a moderate alternative to the B.C. Liberals.

“It’s time for a government that lives within its means, accepts that it can’t do all of the things that it would like to do at once, and tackles priorities thoughtfully, one practical step at a time,” he told reporters.

He has also eschewed personal criticism of his rivals, even as B.C. Liberals supporters continue financing damning attack ads targetting him.

Clark has attempted to portray the campaign as a titanic battle between two vastly different political philosophies. She rarely admits that her government has already implemented several of the B.C. NDP’s more progressive proposals.

After becoming premier in 2011, Clark hiked the minimum wage significantly to $10.25 per hour, provided a $200 monthly earnings exemption for employable welfare recipients, raised income taxes on those earning more than $150,000 per year, and slightly increased corporate taxes.

The B.C. NDP has proposed a provincial review of the Northern Gateway Project, whereas the B.C. Liberals have set five conditions before they’ll give their blessing.

B.C. Conservative leader John Cummins often points to similarities between the B.C. Liberals and the B.C. NDP, emphasizing that both parties have repeatedly run deficits in government.

To address spending, Cummins wants to grant legislative committees the authority to “review actual and planned line-item expenditures by government ministries and agencies, Crown corporations, and the so-called SUCH sector—schools, universities, colleges and hospitals”.

He has also proposed a year-round “Legislative Budget Office”, modelled on the parliamentary budget office, to monitor provincial revenue and spending.

The Conservatives like pointing out that in 1971, B.C. ranked first in the country in average weekly earnings. The province ranked third in 2001, when the B.C. NDP left office, and placed fifth under the B.C. Liberals in 2011.

“It all starts with people,” the B.C. Conservatives state in one campaign document. “And over the last several decades, under both the New Democrats and BC Liberals, more and more people are leaving our province for greener pastures elsewhere, or rejecting B.C. altogether.”

That’s not to say there aren’t key differences between the B.C. NDP and the B.C. Liberals, who are still far ahead of the B.C. Conservatives and the B.C. Greens in the polls.

If the NDP wins the election, Dix is expected to restore a secret ballot for workers voting for union certification. He hasn’t stated whether or not he’ll reinstate the last B.C. NDP government’s policy that required unionized labour on publicly financed construction projects.