(Gabriel Yiu) I recently read a peculiar article on the Global Chinese Press by Bill Yuen who is the community liaison of the BC Liberal Party’s caucus.
I find this article “peculiar” because of its logic; its logic is unsound.
The article said, “In a Chinese media news commentary show, a BCNDP candidate criticized the BC government’s contract freezing, saying it is unreasonable. What he meant in effect is to give in to the contract demand of the BCTF for a 15% pay raise, i.e. an extra expense of $2 billion. If that is the case, regardless of the consequences, it would viciously increase government spending. It means our children in the next generation will have to pay for this expenditure.”
This writer is so far the only Chinese candidate of the BCNDP and I’ve recently commented about the budget on radio and newspapers. I think Bill Yuen was referring to me.
Indeed, I do take issue with the BC Liberals for freezing government spending for three years. I said that I disapproved of freezing government spending, but Yuen said that I support giving the teachers a 15% raise. This kind of logic is pathetic, and this kind of commentary misleading.
There is a distinction between “freezing government spending” and “freezing government contract spending.” What I said on the radio and wrote on the newspapers was about freezing government spending.
I wonder whether Yuen could still remember the BC Liberals’ deal with the teachers the last time their contracts were renewed. The teachers got a 16% pay increase, plus about $4000 signing bonus for each teacher.
As a former school trustee, Yuen should know that when government freezes spending, due to inflation, population growth and factors like increase in government fees, the same funding cannot provide the same level of services compared to that of the year before.
Take education as an example. This year’s budget contains an increase of 7% for Hydro, 4% for MSP. Property tax, carbon tax and the ICBC rates will all go up. So schools have to pay higher hydro fees and carbon tax, higher employee MSP and pension and higher insurance for school bus and so on. But government has not increased funding accordingly. Then there will be the inevitable cuts, like cutting library services, education programs, special need and ESL teachers.
Think about this: what will the impact be like if government freezes its spending for three years? People think there is always some waste in the government and spending freeze would not affect services and their quality. But when we take a closer look at previous experiences, be they federal or provincial, there’re always undesirable consequences in a spending freeze. The federal Liberals’ cut in the 90s had caused big problems in our health care and the situation of the homeless.
In British Columbia, a decade of BC Liberal governance has caused damage to various areas: justice, social service, health care, education, forestry, transportation, hydro, etc. In the field of economic development, the lack of resources has resulted in a backlog of thousands of unprocessed investment applications. The opinions expressed here are not only mine, but those of the auditor general, the children’s commissioner, judges, medical professionals. They have publicly expressed their concerns and what they said was a matter of record reported on the news.
At the same time when the government freezes spending and the freeze affects public services, British Columbians have to pay more taxes and fees while big corporations continue to enjoy their tax benefits. Is this fair?
The fact is that the Liberals’ policy of favoritism towards big business has not brought about higher employment or investment. Instead, it has widened the gap between the rich and the poor, increased the burden of the middle class and made government resources insufficient. See the BC Progress Board’s report released earlier and recent commentaries by veteran pundits Will McMartin and Ethan Baron.
Of course, Yuen can hold a different opinion from mine and state his reasons, so that readers can consider and think about things from a different perspective. Then there would be a healthy and civilized discussion. But when he put words into another person’s’ mouth, that’s not appropriate. That is misleading.
Yuen concluded his article with this: “I definitely don’t believe government should incur debt to advance a certain social idea and in so doing harm our next generation. Such an action would only bring about tax increases and a loss of employment opportunities.”
Government shouldn’t incur high debt to harm the future generation -- this is indeed a wise saying. But Yuen has the facts reversed. The public should know which party has incurred $100 billion debt for BC in a decade of its governance. Which party has increased debts from $33.8B in 2001 to $133.6B in 2011?
Even in the budget which Yuen was referring to, there will be a 30% increase in BC’s “traditional” debt in three years.
Nevertheless, Yuen just ignored all this and accused the BC Liberals’ opponent of incurring huge debts for our children.
