VANCOUVER — The B.C. Liberal re-election platform released Monday makes education, jobs, children, seniors and the environment its top priorities.

But there was nothing new in the platform announced a week into the campaign for the May 17 B.C. election.

Premier Gordon Campbell said that's the whole point.

"This is a plan that provides for service plans to take us out three years, unlike our opponents whose plan at best could be called a nine-month plan with a three-year, trust us,'' Campbell said.

Education and the environment are higher on the priority list than job growth and reviewing tax policy.

The Liberals appear to be done with the restructuring that delivered a balanced budget and tax cuts, but also meant public sector job cuts and wage rollbacks.

"The tax cuts worked. The discipline worked,'' said Campbell.

Now he's reaching out to families, with a promise to make B.C. the best educated jurisdiction, not only in Canada but on the continent.

He wants to start by getting closer with teachers and asking them directly about how this can be done.

Meanwhile, the NDP and the Liberals sparred Monday over spending on mental health and drug addiction services.

NDP Leader Carole James announced her party would double spending on those areas to $68 million.

But Liberal Brenda Locke crashed the announcement to accuse the NDP of promising to spend less than the Liberals already do on mental health and drug addiction.

She also claimed the former NDP government ignored and short-changed mental health for a decade.

The premier said he wants to hold a teachers' congress every year to listen to what they have to say and to learn from their experiences.

He's also banning the B.C. Teachers Federation from including political brochures in report cards or other mail that goes home with kids.

"It's not appropriate. It's wrong. It's not a place for political propaganda or political campaigning,'' said Campbell, adding he didn't think the leader of the teachers' union would like it if his party stuffed report cards with Liberal buttons and flags.

Even his party's business initiatives were family oriented. Campbell wants to help mothers get back to work after they've quit jobs to raise a child.

Most of B.C.'s small business owners are women and the Liberals say they want to help them take parental leave. There is currently no financial support for small business owners to take time off to have children.

There is no plan for further tax cuts in the Liberal platform, but Campbell said he wants to review tax policy. There could be room to ease up on the share taken from small business, he said.

Campbell promised better environmental management. If re-elected, he said, the Liberals will triple the $7 million already committed to a new rivers trust fund to better watershed management and fish habitat and restore B.C.'s waterways.

All the initiatives, from increasing the number of doctors in training to the $100 million to reduce wait times for health services, to the $100 million for home care this year, are in the budget plan.

The Liberals stick to their plan and they've proved that to British Columbians, Campbell said.

"I don't think there has been a government that's been able to deliver more comprehensively on their commitments during a political campaign than the B.C. Liberal government from 2001-2005,'' he said.