TREVOR BOLIN -- The lowest un-employment? Only if Mungall qualifies her comments by acknowledging, as StatsCan noted, people simply gave up looking for work

The following is a commentary from Trevor Bolin, leader of the BC Conservative Party

Last Friday, Michelle Mungall, Minister of Jobs, Economic Development and Competitiveness, issued a statement regarding Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey for January 2020.

In it, she stated, “The January labour force report kicks off 2020, demonstrating that our approach of building a stable economy is working”.

“BC starts the new year, again, with the lowest unemployment rate in Canada”, and then continued saying, “Our government was elected 30 months ago, and for 29 of those months, BC has had the lowest unemployment in the country”.

“In January, BC’s unemployment rate fell further to 4.5% — well below the national average”.

So how accurate is what she had to say?  Well I seriously have a hard time figuring out how she could make that declaration, given reality.

The Stats-Can Report states that ... the rate declined ... in British Columbia (down 0.3 percentage points to 4.5%) ... however the report qualified that, indicating ... there were fewer people searching for work.

So, about that stable economy Mungall was talking about?  Not so much!

And about the lowest un-employment?  Well maybe, but only if Mungall qualifies her comments by acknowledging, as Stats-Can noted, people simply gave up looking for work.

“Since forming government, our province has created more than 67,000 jobs, including 3,400 jobs last month”, said the Jobs Minister.

I invite you however, to have a look at the following chart from Statistics Canada:

While there were indeed 3,400 jobs created in the first month of 2020, that figure was calculated based on the LOSS of 6,100 full-time jobs ... and a GAIN of 9,500 part-time jobs.

What BC needs is a progressive government that is going to move forward on energy projects ... that is going to make changes to see BC forest workers back to work in jobs they can earn a real living at ... and who will stop putting road-blocks in place to development.

In other words, get out of the way of those who can and will create real employment, and real jobs with a paycheque people can actually live on.

British Columbia could and should be a global leader in exports of our natural resources.  We have industries begging for the government to remove the red tape so thousands of real jobs can get underway, and thousands of British Columbians can get back to work.

Unfortunately, what the BC NDP fails to understand is that for every industry job created and filled, there is a matching retail job equivalent, meaning jobs for all British Columbians!

The BC Conservatives can and will make BC flourish with sustainable resource development, job creation and growth, and a common-sense principled people first attitude and approach to government.

To me, that doesn’t seem like a job the NDP is capable of – they’re just not qualified.