BC budget, without rose-colored glasses

With the last Olympic hurrah having faded into the history books and the ink barely dry on BC Finance Minister’s Budget, the province came back down to earth today with the sobering realization that our economic woes are far from over.

Colin Hansen may be happy with his budget but not everyone thinks it’s so great. B.C. Federation of Labor President, Jim Sinclair is downright mad! “The success of the Olympics cannot hide the fact BC is still in the grips of a deep economic recession”, he said. “BC is still losing jobs, 4,200 full-time jobs in January alone, yet there is nothing in this budget that will protect or create jobs. Worse still, budget cuts to public services and chronic under-funding will lead to even more job losses and delay our economic recovery.”

In Mr. Sinclair’s opinion, Colin Hansen’s budget fails to address the urgent issues facing British Columbia. Lack of practical concern for children living in poverty, reductions to student aid, continued layoffs and cutbacks in public services are critical areas where he believes the BC Government is turning a blind eye.

“We should be putting the same energy, imagination and investment that made the Olympics a success into making our province better. That’s what British Columbians wanted to hear today. Instead, the government is abdicating its responsibility to look after people in tough times. This government continues to cling to a belief that reckless tax slashing from the past will somehow provide economic benefits that have, so far, failed to materialize.”

Mr. Sinclair says that you only need talk with teachers and health care workers to discover that the government is not protecting core services in these areas at all and the modest funding increases announced today are nowhere near sufficient to keep up with the increased demand or undo the damage caused by past under-funding.

He notes that next year, post-secondary students will pay $288 million more in tuition fees than corporations pay in income taxes. “This is not how we build our economy”, he says.

He also points out that there is no strategy in this budget to create manufacturing jobs or rebuild the forestry sectors and, although British Columbia’s minimum wage of $8 per hour is a national embarrassment, the government has chosen to ignore the plight of the lowest paid workers in the province and keep the minimum wage lower than any other province in the country.