BC FORUM News - from The Advocate, Autumn 2016

Critical issues that must be addressed in the next election

By Diane Wood, President, BC FORUM

We are about to have a very busy year – which is turning out to be the rule rather than the exception.

Over the many months, as you know, we have been focused on defeating the Harper government and reversing the harm done by its disastrous policies.

The issues at the provincial level are no less urgent and the next BC election is now only months away.

As reported in the Board of Directors’ report to our annual meeting, BC FORUM will be campaigning for a new government that will:

• Provide quality public services, not further cuts in public health care, education, transit and other key services.

• Build an economy that works for working people, giving ordinary families more opportunities to get ahead through expanded skills training and value-added industries.

Our priority must be to create wealth, opportunities and jobs in British Columbia – not to export raw logs or natural gas at rock bottom prices to create jobs in foreign lands.

• Promote public power and conservation, not pile more billions of long-term contract obligations on BC Hydro to guarantee profits for the private power producers that are industrializing hundreds of pristine rivers and streams.

Through conservation, investment and innovation, we can create good-paying jobs in every community in BC and ensure British Columbians have access to clean and affordable electricity for generations to come.

• Bring in fair taxes that are based on ability to pay, and scrap flatrate taxes like the MSP which only serve to deepen the tremendous inequality that the BC Liberals have created in BC.

• Expand public home care services to allow seniors to stay in their homes, and residential care facilities to take the pressure off acute care hospitals.

• Introduce quality, affordable child care services to enable young families – particularly women – to fully participate in building our economy.

• Take action to ensure that British Columbians are paid a living wage, not keep BC’s minimum wage at the lowest level in the country.

• Adopt a clear plan, with definite targets, to help lift families and children out of poverty.

• Recognize the right of every worker to choose to join a union and thereby have a real voice in health and safety, wages and conditions at her workplace.

We will be working with the labour movement and our allies to hold the BC Liberals to account for their mismanagement of public services, and their failure to stand up for ordinary people. With the BC Liberals’ single-minded focus on LNG, they have neglected the social, intellectual and physical infrastructure people need to succeed.

We will continue to highlight provincial election issues on our website – bcforum.ca – and in our news magazine The Advocate. Our strategy is to ensure that our members and the many others who read our communications are fully aware of the harm caused by Christy Clark’s decisions, and the opportunity we have to bring about real change just a few months from now.

We ask every BC FORUM member to join us in these initiatives. We ask you to help us grow stronger by signing up a friend, relative or coworker. An application form is printed in each edition of The Advocate, and is also available on our website. British Columbians deserve a better government, one that cares about the everyday needs of ordinary people.

We must help make it happen. Together, we can.