Premier’s words and actions don’t match

by Doug Donaldson, MLA Stikine

Published in the Interior News September 10, 2014

Let’s make one thing perfectly clear.  Premier Christy Clark is not in the corner of working people in this province.  More and more it is apparent she knows what to say, then does what she wants.

She says that our commonly held natural resources in BC, like natural gas, will be used to create jobs for people in the north yet she signs an agreement with China to facilitate temporary foreign workers for prospective LNG-related projects in our own backyard.

She says that worker safety is a priority of hers, while mill workers die and are seriously injured in dust-fuelled explosions at sawmills in Burns Lake and Prince George.  And yet a year and half after those tragic incidents, 42% of 144 mills inspected failed to comply with WorkSafe BC dust clean up rules.

She attended one of the most prestigious universities in the world – the Sorbonne in Paris – but manages to drop her g’s when speaking to certain crowds in an effort to be ‘one of you’, as witnessed on her belated photo-op visit to Likely in wake of the massive tailings pond breech.

And she says she believes in the public education system in BC while sending her child to an exclusive private school where tuition is more than $20,000 a year.  Her choice of course, but it certainly makes a statement about her commitment to public education.

Which brings us to the latest situation between her BC Liberal government and teachers in this province.

You reap what you sow.  Premier Clark as education minister in 2002 tore up contracts and unilaterally removed classroom size and composition from teachers bargaining and now she is facing the consequences.  So much for the ideal of collective bargaining as a mainstay of democracy in Canada and BC.  Subsequent court cases brought by the BC Teachers Federation resulted in a BC Supreme Court decision not once, but twice, that the move by then education minister Clark was illegal.  Now as Premier she wants to water down that court ruling in her settlement offers with striking teachers. Doesn’t sound to me like someone who wants to get kids back in classrooms or is concerned about classroom conditions for learning.

We need a Premier who doesn’t just focus on what to say at the moment for political advantage but someone who is interested in governing to create a better society for all, especially when it comes to such an important issue as our kid’s education.  School-age children of working people in this province should be in the publicly-funded classrooms now.  It’s time to forget the posturing, Premier, and put kids first.      

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