VICTORIA - B.C. voters can be excused for being a bit confused with the direction of the issues being thrown at them by the Liberals and New Democrats as they prepare to start the campaign for the May 12 vote.

The campaign, which officially starts Tuesday, sees the Liberals and New Democrats tossing curve balls at voters.

Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell and New Democrat Leader Carole James agree the economy and the question of who British Columbians trust most to guide the province through recessionary times will get the most attention. But there's been huge shifts on other major issues.

Campbell's big-business, pro-development Liberals enter the campaign promoting themselves as friends of the environment and champions of aboriginal rights.

The New Democrats, traditional allies of big government and the environmental movement, begin by pledging to cut the carbon tax and keeping a tight rein on government spending.

"Perhaps, it's a campaign that's turned things on their head," James said Monday in Victoria.

"I have to say I find it ironic that as a New Democrat leader, people have asked me why we're not spending more. So perhaps there's a little irony to the start of the campaign."

The twists started in the days leading up to the campaign where aboriginal and environmental groups willingly joined the Liberal government to support several land-use developments.

The stage was overcrowded last month at the legislature as environmentalists and aboriginal leaders celebrated the final approval of a resource land-use and environmental protection agreement for the Great Bear Rainforest on B.C.'s rugged central coast.

It wasn't that long ago that aboriginals were blasting Campbell for his government's 2002 provincewide referendum on treaties and environmentalists were consistently holding demonstrations over government-approved logging of old-growth forests.

But this year, Campbell vowed to enshrine a recognition and reconciliation law that says aboriginals have a historical presence in British Columbia and will never again have to argue in court that they have lived in the province for thousands of years.

The government had to put the law on hold last month after dissension from B.C. business leaders.

The Liberals also managed to help negotiate the first urban aboriginal land-claims treaty with the Vancouver area Tsawwassen First Nation. The NDP spent more than a decade promising but failing to deliver a treaty.

Campbell's Liberals also became the first government in Canada to adopt an escalating carbon tax as part of a plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by one third by 2020.

The green battle

Environmental groups, long-standing traditional allies of the NDP, officially changed direction Monday and mounted a pre-election attack on the New Democrats and their campaign promise to drop the carbon tax.

The David Suzuki Foundation, the Pembina Institute and ForestEthics held a joint news conference Monday -- a day before the official start of the 28-day campaign -- to call on the New Democrats to reverse their position on the carbon tax.

The groups said thousands of jobs in the green economy will be lost and British Columbia will lose its position as an environmental leader if the tax is dropped.

"The NDP has chosen what they think will be a publicly acceptable but climate-irresponsible approach, and that is they want to step backward the pricing of carbon and backwards on the policies that are in place in the hopes that that may get them elected," said Merran Smith, a climate director with ForestEthics.

British Columbians currently pay a carbon tax of about 2.4 cents per litre on fossil fuels, including gasoline. The tax is set to rise 50 per cent in July.

Environmental groups cheered the carbon tax, saying it puts a price on pollution and starts the economic fight against climate change.

The New Democrats said they will drop the carbon tax if elected and focus on developing a cap-and-trade system modelled after a scheme to measure and price carbon being examined by the United States, but that won't be ready until at least 2011.

Axing the tax could be popular in the northern parts of the province, where many had complained it hit them unfairly hard because people there must drive longer distances to get anywhere and must pay more to heat their homes in the colder climate.

James said her party will stick to its plan, even if it means losing support from environmental groups.

"We disagree with the environmental movement," James said simply. "We believe a bad tax is a bad tax."

Sales job the issue?

Guy Dauncey, spokesman for the B.C. Sustainable Energy Association, said James has done more to raise awareness about the carbon tax than the government, which did a poor job selling it to British Columbians.

"They failed to do the public engagement that's necessary," he said. "If anything, the public engagement around the Liberals' climate change plan was done by Carole James in trashing it."

Vancouver political consultant Brad Zubyk said the Liberals can also count on the bad economy to get them votes.

The Liberals should be able to use their reputation as solid economic managers during good and bad times, while the New Democrats have a record of economic mismanagement in government, he said.

The Liberals, unlike when the NDP were in government during the 1990s, will also be able to use the current worldwide recession to say that the current problems with the economy are more global than local, said Zubyk.

Campbell is seeking his third consecutive term, while James is fighting her second election as Opposition Leader.

Before the campaign began, the Liberals held 45 seats and the NDP held 34. Riding changes added six new constituencies, meaning the number of seats up for grabs this time is 85.