Premier Clark has indicated that she intends to fight the election on a platform of job creation and her party has already released some misleading information on the subject.
In the last two years, there has indeed been an increase in the number of jobs in B.C. What they omit from their ad is that all of the increase happened in the Lower Mainland and in Victoria. In all other parts of the province, jobs were lost. Two hundred jobs disappeared from Prince George since this time last year.
However, my complaint is with the Liberal Party's apparent lack of interest in whether or not fair wages are being paid in the province. Throughout North America, and no doubt in this province, wages have remained fixed or shrunk while profits from the use of machines and foreign workers have streamed into the pockets of owners. The inequality in wealth ownership constitutes a serious social problem and will probably have a catastrophic consequence.
There are no doubt respectful employers with a social conscience and concern for the welfare of their employees, but there are others who will need to be coerced. All governments should see it as a part of their responsibility to encourage all employers to treat employees fairly. As far as I can tell from their public announcements, the B.C. Liberals have no policy on the matter.
The use of incentives to encourage good employers to pay living wages and disincentives to discourage bad employment practices would seem to be required. But the most obvious tactic is to support unions and unionism.
The Clark government - and especially the premier - have always been antagonistic towards the public sector unions. Strikes have been prolonged and contracts have been gutted. That stance had encouraged the private sector to take a tougher stance with their unions and other employees.
If the Liberals win this election I, for one, do not expect to see many of B.C.'s working people any better off by 2021.
Ross Pearce
Prince George
