It is a shame that there isn't one more candidate in the B.C. Liberal leadership race. Seven would have made it easy to do comparisons to the "Seven Dwarfs."
There is "Grumpy" -- Kevin Falcon could fill this role. I am sure that he is a very nice guy in person. Certainly he has the endorsement of two of our local MLAs which speaks volumes. But politically, he comes across as a bit of a grump. All about tearing down the things that he doesn't like.
Teachers are performing well enough? Well, got to do something about that. Rip up the contract and introduce merit pay. That'll fix them.
Hospitals not performing? Do away with public health care! Bring in a merit model. Privatize medicine. That will fix that.
Regulations? Who needs regulations? Do away with them, too.
The fact these will not fix anything is lost in the rhetoric. More to the point, what is he trying to fix?
The problem with being a "grump" is that everything is wrong. Everything is broken and in need of a "fix". Nothing is good enough the way it is.
Maybe I am misjudging the man. I haven't met him face to face but certainly the public persona comes across as someone that is not very happy with leaving well enough alone.
Then there is "Happy." Christy Clark could qualify here. Eternally sunny except when you cross her. But even then, she'll eviscerate you with a smile on her face and feel bad about doing it.
She seems like such a nice person but there is steel inside her.
The one comment that has been attributed to her campaign so far that I can't let go is that she thinks that the family is important - that we must do our best to support families - and that is why we need to ensure that both mom and dad have a job.
If we really wanted to do something for families, we would find a way to ensure that both mom and dad didn't both need a job for a family to have a decent standard of living.
Economists estimate that over the past 40 years we have gone from 46 weeks of work being sufficient to provide an average worker with a middle class income to 86 weeks of work.
In other words, the economic structure of our society has shifted so that in order to have an average middle class income, a family either has to have one parent working two jobs - for a total of 86 weeks in a year - or two parents working.
That is just for an average middle class income.
And no, a tax break will not change that. Indeed, you could zero out the provincial income taxes for middle class families and it still wouldn't remove the necessity of the dual income family.
Having both parents working is not the best way to "support the family." Having two parents at home at night, tired from a day of work, is not the best way to ensure that children get all of the parental attention they need.
Want to support the family?
Try coming up with a plan to allow one parent to stay at home and still afford a decent standard of living.
Maybe tax a corporation or two and use the resulting money to subsidize stay-at-home parents. That would be a novel idea.
But it likely won't make anyone - even Christy Clark - happy.
I could go on - Moira Stillwell as "Doc"; Mike de Jong as "Bashful" - but it would likely be pushing the analogy too far. There are also other issues to consider.
For example, there was "Snow White" - in the form of Gordon Campbell - giving his farewell to Prince George speech and telling us that the education of children is one of the most important things that we can do.
Not really so "snow white" coming from a premier, who has lead his government in what seems to be an all-out assault on education.
How many schools have we closed in Prince George? How many kids are being bused? How many support workers are no longer employed?
The government would like to lay this one at the feet of the school boards, I'm sure, but it should come back to haunt them.
Then there are the promises of resource development in the north - forestry, mining, energy - that all of the candidates are making.
Great.
But where is the development of our most precious of all resources -- people? Again, promises but little action.
Alas, the B.C. Liberal leadership race is not a fairy tale and we are all going to have to live with the ending.
