STORY 2 ITEM 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(This piece first appeared in our February 15, 2013 newspaper and is being reproduced as we get ready to celebrate the second Family Day in B.C. and as a minimum wage debate is raging in Ontario. Elsewhere in this week’s paper you will read more about both Family Day and minimum wage.)

 

THERE are two things for which I have consistently supported and praised Premier Christy Clark: minimum wage increase, which she assured me during her party leadership campaign that she would carry out, and the Family Day holiday.

In May [2012], I wrote a special minimum wage piece titled: “Premier Christy Clark Deserves Praise For Boldly Increasing Minimum Wage – Will NDP Have Guts To Promise Further Raise If They Come Into Power?” with the subheading “We need to have a FIXED FORMULA to determine the minimum wage in future.”

On May 1 [2012], B.C.s minimum wage increased to $10.25 per hour – the third and final increase promised by Clark. She went ahead despite all the opposition from greedy business folks whom the previous (HATED) premier, Gordon Campbell, had kept happy by not only freezing the minimum wage at a miserly $8 per hour (it was the highest in Canada when he came into power and it was the lowest in the country when British Columbians forced him to quit!), but also letting unscrupulous guys exploit student and new workers by actually lowering their minimum wage! Didn’t that idiot have any conscience?!

Back in February 2011, Clark told me in an exclusive interview that she would get rid of the so-called training wage and increase the minimum wage in stages. She told me that the training wage hadn’t “done what it was supposed to do, which was lower youth unemployment” and added: “Six dollars an hour is not a decent wage for anybody. And the people that are getting that $6 wage are young people and new Canadians. Six bucks is tough on them all.”

 

THE other issue was the Family Day one.

In May [2012], I slammed Global BC TV for the despicable negative slant they gave to the provincial government’s announcement about a consultation process with British Columbians for choosing which Monday in February to have the new official statutory holiday, Family Day, which she had announced in October 2011.

Clark refused to be bullied by businessmen and some others who criticized her for her decision to spend $1.5 million on parties to celebrate the first Family Day on February 11.

As I wrote in November [2012]: “The Canadian Taxpayers Federation that does excellent work otherwise was WRONG to give it all a negative slant by bitching: “Taxpayers, we’re broke. The provincial government’s borrowing money in order to balance the budget, we shouldn’t be spending it on parties like this.”

“Really?

“We shouldn’t have any fun at all?

“Oh yeah, only the rich slimebags who benefitted during Campbell’s time while the middle class suffered miserably with all kinds of fees have the right to have a good time with the money that should have gone to the middle class in the first place!

“As I have said many times before, life is NOT all about making that extra buck!”

Our materialistic society that is obsessed by INSTANT GRATIFICATION that the frenzy of advertisements keeps feeding endlessly needs to take it easy!