FORSETH: Jobs are evaporating, investment dollars are fleeing BC, and it took a major financial bribe for Eby’s NDP to eek out a bare legislative majority

I’ll freely admit it – there’s something about the NDP’s Ravi Parmar that just rubs me the wrong way. And the following just further reinforced that.

Forests Minister Ravi Parmar said in a statement that while Rustad is making claims about an expanded cabinet and promising to force an election, Eby and his team "gets to work on the priorities of British Columbians, like creating good-paying jobs, strengthening health care and delivering a $1,000 middle-class tax cut."

Let’s look at the claims of NDP MLA Ravi Parmar one at a time, to see how they hold up:

1) Creating Good-Paying Jobs:
Just three months ago, the Business Council of BC expressed a great degree of concern over the types of new jobs being created in out province ... and rightly so.

According to StatsCan (July 2024) year over year the total number of people employed in all industries (June ’23 to July '24) increased by 2.3% -- meantime public sector employment increased by nearly 3-fold (6.2%). That report also showed that since July 2022 there were just 5,200 new private sector jobs, compared to 63,000 new jobs in the public sector.


2) Strengthen Healthcare:
“We are struggling across the system, there are system failures across the board in all specialties but we are feeling it the hardest in the emergency room,” said Dr. Aimee Kenrick, president of the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians (Sept 2024)

‘...doctors say they’ve made “repeated and urgent attempts” to alert Fraser Health and provincial health leadership of worsening conditions in the emergency department but have received “little response.” Despite assurances from the Minister of Health that ‘everything and the kitchen sink’ is being thrown at the staffing problem, we have yet to see any practical solutions” (Sept 2024)

“These are necessities of life and we cannot shut down the E.R., and I’m really concerned when I talk to local nurses and doctors — they’re burning out, there’s a lack of staff,” Williams Lake Mayor Surinderpal Rathor said (Sept 2024)

‘... in 2023 B.C. patients faced a median wait of 27.7 weeks from GP referral to a specialist to treatment, the longest in the province since 1993 (when national estimates were first published). And this measure doesn’t include the wait time to see their GP in the first place, assuming they have one’ ~~ Fraser Institute (Sept 2024)

It seems like it is obvious to all – but the BC NDP – that their approach to healthcare is failing dismally.

3) Delivering a $1,000 Middle-Class Tax Cut:
In fact, what I will call an election bribe is $500 per individual although a two adult household could get up to $1,000. Regardless the bribe, during the provincial election, won’t be delivered until possibly this Spring – this despite the BC NDP promising, “Immediate Relief for BC Families — No Waiting, No Delays”

Right now, jobs are evaporating, investment dollars are fleeing BC (especially when it comes to forestry), and it took a major financial bribe for Premier David Eby’s NDP to eek out a bare majority government.

So much for the above statement by the NDP’s Ravi Parmar.

Let me leave you with one final thought; this from the Fraser Institute:
In 2016/17, B.C. had the second lowest per-person net government debt in Canada at $8,109 per person. Since then, the province’s net debt per person has approximately doubled, and the B.C. government has added more debt per person than any other province. Unless the government drastically changes course, things will go from bad to worse in the years ahead

In the past I worried about the financial future being left for my children and grandchildren.  At the rate the provincial NDP are adding to the public service and the provincial debt, my concern is being expanded to include any future great-grandchildren I may have.