In my mind there is no more important function of government than the collection and distribution of taxes. Too often we hear of government waste but for the most part their intentions are good.
Recently a new specter has appeared, a type of reverse Robin Hood syndrome, where the government robs from the poor to give to the rich.
That they chose to do this in a poorly disguised attempt to win votes I find especially amoral.
First we have the federal government income splitting scheme, which will take tax money from poor single income families and redistribute it to wealthy dual income families.
Now in much the same vein the provincial government plans to take tax money saved on teacher salaries and arbitrarily redistribute it to families with young children to defray the costs of daycare. As a single parent struggling to survive I deeply resent the government taking my hard earned tax money,earmarked for education, and using it to pay for child care for families who are mostly better off than me financially.
Furthermore I am deeply troubled watching my son, who is in the critical graduation year, stay up to midnight struggling to finish homework which is necessitated by cramming in a year's curriculum into a school year shortened by 15 instructional days.
Now that the mother of all labor disputes is over we need to do all in our power to repair this badly damaged school year and it starts by finding a way to make up those lost instructional days.
While there are not many easy ways to do this, a simple solution to make up at least some of those lost days is to pay teachers to work on their pro-d days. We can't afford to take money out of one of the most poorly funded K-12 education systems in Canada.
It's a no brainer to use the money earmaked for teacher's salaries to pay teacher salaries. This would be good for students and teachers and the provincial government might even find out that they can win more votes by doing the right thing in attempting to salvage the school year rather than ruin it.
Peter Bernier
Prince George
