Public sector labour talks in B.C. have never been easy. The unions that represent all sorts of hard-working people always want more money and better conditions, and the province always says it doesn't have the money and won't hike taxes up to pay for it.
This year is a predictable replay of the perennial deadlock.
The B.C. Liberals are busy writing a new law to send our teachers "back to work," not that they ever really stopped working, without a dime in new pay. We can't fault teachers for wanting a raise. Teaching is a hard job, and giving young citizens the skills they need to become productive taxpayers is one of the most important things any government can do. But, according the government, there just isn't the money. Hmmm, how is it, then, that the minister of finance was able to give the airline industry a two per cent tax cut on jet fuel? The Liberals have also managed to give all corporations remarkable tax cuts over the years, to the point that B.C. now has the lowest corporate taxes of all G7 countries.
We get that a strong economy helps create jobs, but when so much focus is on appeasing the markets and so little is on attending to the issues of ensuring citizens have a living wage and a vibrant public education system, we have a thinning of the middle class. And, sure enough, BC Stats came out with numbers last month that showed this province has the largest income gap in the country.
Granted, the government has to keep an eye on spending and labour is expensive - even unions understand that. What many of us can't understand is how this government can be so ideologically determined to undermine the middle class, the very engine of a strong, (and here's the key word) stable economy.
