Now is the time for the BC Liberals to steal some ideas that members of the Opposition like to raise before an election, and then conveniently forget if and when they are successful at forming government.

Premier Christy Clark is in the perfect position to act on some of the kinds of ideas that politicians prefer to maintain within the realm of study and discussion-the kinds of things that politicians like to promise before an election, but tend to slip from their memories after the votes are counted.

After all, the BC Liberals can't seriously be thinking that they'll still be on the government side of the legislature when the election dust settles this May.

They don't have to worry about instituting important legislation that may be unpalatable to voters, because frankly, an overwhelming number of voters already find the BC Liberals unpalatable anyway.

And for the same reason, they don't have to worry whether they will be boxing themselves in by making rules now that they'll regret having to follow later.

In fact, they have a rare opportunity to do something that should have been done long ago-and the best part is that they could saddle the (probably) incoming NDP government with its own suggestion.

The B.C. NDP is calling for provincial legislation prohibiting any government from using public money on advertising to pat itself on the back-clearly in response to the millions of tax dollars that the BC Liberal government is spending to promote its own programs and put a positive spin on some rather questionable labour and general economic statistics.

We all know it's mostly a political ploy on the part of the NDP-and a ploy that has teeth, because ordinary citizens are truly fed up with the waste of their tax money in such an obtuse fashion.

But if the Clark government were to introduce and pass such legislation before May, the incoming NDP government would be forced to abide by the very restraint they are calling for now, instead of conveniently forgetting about it after they are in charge.

No loss to the BC Liberals-and the real winners would be the taxpaying public.