Stimulating Your Wallet

British Columbia should be proud of itself; it now has the lowest minimum wage in all of Canada. Yes, you just read that sentence correctly; every other province and territory in Canada has passed us on the minimum wage. Over here in British Columbia we have a minimum wage of $8 per hour, and if you have less than 500 hours of experience, you will receive $6 an hour. Currently, Nunavut has the highest minimum wage at $10 an hour, most likely because only 30,000 people live in the territory, but they will soon be passed by Ontario on March 31st of next year at $10.25 an hour. I am so jealous of my fellow Canadians back east.

Eleven of the thirteen provinces and territories have all increased the minimum wage in their jurisdiction at least once in the past year or two. There are two exceptions; can you guess what they are? The Northwest Territories haven’t raised their minimum wage since 2003, and in BC, we last saw an increase in 2001. Yes, eight years ago. Most provinces are planning to raise their wages to $10 an hour by next year, and the Yukon increases their minimum wage every year on April 1st. But there must be a consequence of raising the minimum wage, and that’s why BC has done it again since 2001, right?

Gordon Campbell and the BC Liberals maintain that if the minimum wage were to be raised to $10 an hour, which is proposed by the BC NDP, and the British Columbia Federation of Labour, that our province would lose small businesses, and we would suffer as a result, not benefit. Are you ready for the rant? You know you are. If you ask me, an increase to the minimum wage makes perfect sense at this very moment. If we removed the $6 an hour training wage, and increased the general wage to $10 an hour, some homeless people might be able to rent an apartment, and those currently with a home, could stimulate the economy, thus benefiting the province, not hurting it. In regards to small businesses, if a company is making so little money it cannot survive in the unstable capitalist market that is our economy, and if they shed tears because they lost little amounts of money, they most likely wouldn’t have lasted much longer anyways. Besides, most weak small businesses would unfortunately have failed by now due to the economic hurricane that is ripping through the Fannie Mae’s and Freddie Mac’s of our southern neighbours.

Now is the time to increase the minimum wage, it would help take some people off the streets, it would cause the economy to pick up steam in our province, and might even increase the BC Liberals support for a split second. 80% of British Columbians support increasing the minimum wage to $10 an hour today. My question is for the Government of British Columbia; why not?

Oh, No You Ahmadidn't!

War: it’s something that has kept the population down on our planet, and has taught new ways of how to slaughter each other in more and more deadly ways than we had previously though capable. Then there was the invention of the nuclear weapon. First the Americans developed their first one in 1945, dropped two on Japan, then the Soviets followed in 1949, followed by the United Kingdom and France in 1952 and 1960. Communist China felt out of the loop and wanted to join in by 1964, and then India and Pakistan built their own stockpile in 1974 and 1998 respectively. By 2006, Kim Jong-Il wanted to irritate the world and so he built nuclear weapons, and somewhere in between Israel may or may not have nuclear capabilities (they probably do). Today, the nations of Iran, Syria, and Myanmar are all suspected of developing nuclear weapons. One word: shit.
As a proud Canadian, I am firmly against the development of any nuclear weapons, regardless of any nations standing within the world, even if the only purpose is deterrence. In fact, if I was the Prime Minister I would try to get our great nation to join the Nuclear Weapons Free Zone, but that’s a different story... Anyways, we are now at a point in our history in which nations with very fragile governments are now developing weapons with the capability of destroying cities simply by the pressing of a single button. I’ll say it again: shit.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a very large task in front of us; we must first end the plans for Myanmar to develop nuclear weapons. Please let the issue be resolved through diplomacy and coooperation, not the worst case scenario: a ground invasion. At the same time, we must also focus our attention to Iran. Mr. Ahmadinejad is clearly anti-Semitic and when he talks about destroying Isreal and nuclear technology os neomg developed (which they do have a right to use peacefully), it makes the world a little nervous, as it should. Getting North Korea to give up their nuclear weapons would also be a tremendously difficult task. To date, only South Africa has developed weapons and voluntarily disarmed itself, while some former Soviet countries had weapons in their territory following their independence. Overall, I can't understand how this is not a more urgent issue for the world.

In an ideal world, we would also strip the United States, Russia, China, Israel, Britain, France, India, and Pakistan of nuclear capabilities. Nobody has the right to obliterate a city in seconds. Treaties that reduce stockplies of weapons are welcome in this case, as they are likely the only path to disarmament, or revolution.

It's a dangerous, unnecessary technology. This is a large task for future generations to be faced with. My hope is that one day during my lifetime we will live in a world free of nuclear weapons, is it so hard to imagine?

The Juan de Fuca Regional District

So far, I’ve mostly discussed provincial politics, touched lightly on federal politics, and yet I have completely missed regional or municipal politics. This rant is going to focus on the Capital Regional District, and the possible creation of a new regional district.

The Capital Regional District or CRD consists of the municipalities of Victoria, Saanich, Esquimalt, Oak Bay, Colwood, Langford, View Royal, Highlands, Metchosin, Sooke, Central Saanich, North Saanich, and Sidney. Currently, it is the CRDs jurisdiction in regards to waste disposal including sewage, and as a resident of this fine region, I can safely say we add a few chemicals to disinfect some of our sewage, but beyond that we dump all the liquids into the ocean. This may surprise you, but this is not the most environmentally friendly thing to do. Langford, Colwood, View Royal, Highlands, Metchosin, and Sooke wanted their own sewage treatment plan to reduce the amount of pollutants going into the ocean. Under the plan proposed by the municipalities of the Western Communities, the new sewage treatment plant would be placed within the City of Colwood, which would allow no dumping into the ocean, and reduce usage of the plant in Victoria, by 19%.

But the Capital Regional District didn’t like the fact that they would have to dump mass amounts of money into the project, and backed off. The mayors of the Western Communities were all scratching their heads, and were irritated once more. So the Western Communities proposed creating a new Regional District on its own. Now remember this all occurred because the CRD didn’t want to fund the construction of a new sewage treatment plant to build in Colwood. If this new Regional District were to be created, now longer would we see CRD vehicles drive past, but would see JDFRD vehicles.

A new Regional District would cost exuberant amount of tax dollars, create more bureaucracy, and cause a division within our fine community despite the fact that many of us might live in Langford, or Colwood, travel through View Royal, and finally work in Victoria. We are one community, and we must addresses are problems as such. The problems that plague the Downtown core are now starting to affect the outskirts of the region. When politicians hit a bump in the road we should not attempt to divide powers and make government larger, nor should we continue on with a proposal if there is loud objection, we should work together to try to find mutual understanding.

Out of the Cold & Into the Jails!

Let’s face it; Victoria has a massive homelessness problem. In fact, a large portion of British Columbia has a sizeable minority of citizens living on the streets, including Vancouver. Now there a number of solutions for this problem, raise the minimum wage, give them long-term care beds, build shelters, etcetera, etcetera. So, when Mr. Campbell announced he was going to addresses the homelessness issue, we all expected some progress to be made. Unfortunately, rather than announce the creation of some new shelters via the economic recovery plan from the federal government, Gordon announced that the provincial government would implement a law to force homeless people into jails during “cold temperatures”.

Let’s begin with why the provincial Liberals are planning this. With the 2010 Olympics slowly coming to Vancouver, and the homeless numbers growing ever larger every month, Gordon realizes that if he can get them off the streets, his native town will look like a gem in the eyes of the world as they gaze upon Western Canada’s largest city for the month of February. I bet “cold temperatures” will be defined as anything up to 20 degrees Celsius, thus no homeless will be on the streets for a month, and then the bill will most likely become null and void.

Finally, let’s discover why this is breaching the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As guaranteed in the document I just stated, every Canadian has a right to live where they want to. Granted, you can’t live on the roof of a building, or in a Tim Horton’s, but you can certainly live on the streets. Now while people have died in cold temperatures on the streets, the last thing the government should do is determine what is cold and what is not, and force homeless people to go into our already overcrowded prisons. The true way to solve this problem, is to open up homeless shelters which allow couples, and dogs to enter, thus they will feel comfortable sleeping there for the night. Next, the municipality should attempt to provide employment opportunities for them, and finally allow them to purchase a designated affordable home, and if the minimum wage was established at $10 an hour, the latter portion of this plan could be carried out much quicker. While this plan won’t clear our streets completely, it will at the very least reduce the number of people sleeping on Main Street.

Taking Notes from Wacky

Electoral reform is something that has plagued Canadian politics, and in particular BC politics for the past half a century, most recently with the possible introduction of STV (Single Transferable Vote), and on a much larger scale Proportional Representation. But this rant isn’t the pros and cons of the suggested electoral system to replace our current one; no this is about a little known law established by the SoCreds way back there in the 1950’s, under the leadership of Wacky Bennett.

Currently, to vote you must be “a Canadian citizen, 18 years of age or older on election day, be a resident of the electoral district, have been a resident of British Columbia for the past six months, be registered as a voter for the electoral district, and finally not be disqualified by any provision detailed within the Election Act.” With that in mind, let’s turn our attention to Mr. Campbell’s intentions for the spring setting in March 2010. At UBCM, Gordon explained his plans to give owners of businesses an addition vote. Or, in simpler terms if you own a store, you will get one vote for being a citizen, and another for owning the store. You could potentially vote twice, three times, four times, hell the possibilities don’t stop until you run out of stores to vote for. If you own ten stores, you could vote eleven times.

There is a reason Campbell is establishing this though, due to the close election results of 2009, Gordon understands that businesses generally vote for the Liberals, and thus his party would have a better chance at winning in 2013. With the enactment of this, our very democracy will be at stake, and parties that did not truthfully win, would gain victory for another four years in which they will establish more harmful laws against the working class of British Columbia. Now is the time to stop this terrible law and protect our democracy. Let the party that rightfully wins, win; enough corruption and greed from the BC Liberals, let’s solve the problems of tomorrow, today, and bring British Columbia into the 21st century. No more bribery to the voters with tax cuts a day before the writ is issued, allow government accountability to return to our vocabulary. Enough is enough, Campbell, your time is up.

Unite4Change

What a rebel I am. See that title up there? I didn’t use spaces and I used the number 4 to represent the word four. I love to live dangerously like that. However, there is a reason I choose that title. Four federal by-elections are scheduled to occur on November 9th, to fill vacancies in the House of Commons. But who are the likely winners for these by-elections? Well, let me fill you in...

Dawn Black resigned from her seat of New Westminster-Coquitlam in April to run for a seat in the 39th provincial election of British Columbia (which she won by the way). The seat has been held by the New Democratic Party since the 2006 federal election, and since 2000 the popular vote for the NDP has consistently gone up from 15% nine years ago, to 42% last October, so our hopes of victory a month from now our realistic and not within imaginationland. Unfortunately, while we have done better every year, Conservatives have also been doing better, and while not in the recount close stage, there is potential for that to occur. Fin Donnelly, is the New Democratic candidate who is a councillor for the City of Coquitlam, and the executive director of the Rivershed Society of British Columbia. He is running against three candidates from the Liberal Party, the Conservative Party, and the Green Party respectively.

Long time MP Bill Casey resigned his seat from the House of Commons upon an appointment within the Government of Nova Scotia for a new job. While our chances for victory at first glance are relatively slim when looking at the 2008 election results, we have consistently come in second place quite far ahead of the third place candidate. Also, since our majority victory in the provincial election in June for Nova Scotia, hopes are high we might improve are results federally in the province. This November, Mark Austin will represent the New Democratic Party for Cumberland-Colchester-Musquodoboit Valley (and yes, I did spell that correctly!). He is a wild blueberry farmer, is a board member of Seeds of Survival, an environmental organization, and has roots in the Cumberland country since his birth.

Francois Lapointe is running to represent the fine constituents of Montmangy-L’Islet-Kamouraska-Riverie du-Loup in the House of Commons. Since the riding's creation of 2003, the NDP has risen from 1% support to 5%. While the chances of the Bloc winning the seat are high, we could cause some vote splitting and cause a Liberal victory. Although historically, very few people vote in by-elections and all we need is a large number of New Democrats to vote, and we could take it. Here's hoping! Lapointe is a long time environmentalist and is the President of Terra Terre Solutions, a green, non-profit organization, to provide energy alternatives for the great people of l'Islet.

Finally, the people of Hochelaga will go to the polls to elect a new Member of Parliament. The New Democratic Party of Canada has nominated Jean-Claude Rocheleau to fill this seat in the House of Commons. Since the riding's recreation in 2003, the NDP has consistently beaten the Conservative Party, but lost the seat. There is hope though, with the Bloc losing a very popular MP, there will be no favourite son, and in a very urban riding, the NDP does very well. Rocheleau has worked in the oil and gas sector for the past 30 years in Eastern Montreal, and has worked for many years with children suffering from Down syndrome. He is also the President of the NDP-Quebec section.

So in conclusion the NDP and the Liberal party will most likely win one seat each, with the Bloc gaining two seats. This will put the NDP back to 37 seats, the Liberals at 77, and the Bloc at 49. However, if all four seats were to elect New Democratic candidates, we would go up to 40 seats, our highest number since 1988.

Harmony

Way back there in Elementary School, my teachers always said that the Atlantic Provinces had it the worst in the tax scene. Why? The Harmonized Sales Tax, of course! But before I get into what has happened when provinces have introduced the tax, and what the consequences are for the federal and provincial governments of this province, let's look into how this great thing came into being.

The year was 1991 and just after Mr. Mulroney had dumped the GST off on to us, over in Saskatchewan the then Progressive Conservative Premier of Grant Devine (who I must say has an epic first name), decided to combine the PST and GST into one tax, the HST. Unfortunately, this meant that Saskatchewanians were forced to pay more because now everything had the HST on it, rather than just the PST, or solely the GST. Later that year, when the voting booths were opened up, voters didn't feel so strongly about the Tories anymore. The New Democratic Party there would win the election and soon form a majority government under the leadership of Roy Romanow. A good day for New Democrats; anyways, going back on topic...

By 1996, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland all jumped on the HST band wagon; however before combining the taxes, the PST was lowered to 8%. (Wow! The PST before then was 9%, ouch!) By April 1st, 1997 the Harmonized Sales Tax had come into effect and was 15%. At the time of the merger, all three of the provinces had Liberal governments, and all would elect Progressive Conservative governments not long after this. Today the HST is 13% in the Atlantic Provinces due to the GST cuts by Mr. Harper.

For a decade all was quite on the HST front, until March 2009. When the Government of Ontario announced they would implement the new tax on July 1st, 2010. Not long after this, the Government of British Columbia would also announce that they too would create the HST by the same date.

To date, all of the provinces that have implemented the HST have all been defeated, and while we over here in British Columbia believe that it might be another four years until we get rid of our terrible premier, we must remember, Gordon Campbell has a slim chance of victory in 2013 with 32% support in the polls. Also, from what I see over in Ontario, McGuinty doesn't look great as of now.

The Government of British Columbia currently argues that the HST will bring the province out of recession, and yet it takes little though to comprehend what this tax will really do. If people have less money, they will buy less, which in turn will hurt business, which will eventually lead to the company losing money, and finally cutting jobs. But, Gordon Campbell and Colin Hansen maintain that the HST will create jobs. In reality, it is going to do the exact opposite. Nevertheless, New Democrats in both BC and Ontario are opposed to this tax grab, and I support their campaign against this terrible idea 100%.