Hard work, sacrifice and commitment; It's Labour Day: Let us reflect on what has made B.C. a great place to live
Vancouver Sun
September 1, 2008
By: Jim Sinclair, president of the British Columbia Federation of Labour

Labour Day. A time to celebrate. A time to remember. A time to respect the contributions ordinary British Columbians, doing extraordinary things every day of the year, make in building a province of which we can all be proud.

But times are tougher for most people. Paycheques don't go as far. Recent studies from Statistics Canada show that the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer, while middle-class wages slide. In British Columbia, that gap continues to grow.

Most of us don't need Statistics Canada to figure it out…. Families looking for affordable child care know how tough it is. …

Increased costs, stagnant wages, no wonder we have the highest child poverty rates in Canada….

The latest insult, delivered on a Friday afternoon in August when the premier was living it up at the Olympic party in China, was to increase his close adviser's pay by an outrageous 43 per cent. This comes on top of 20-per-cent increases two years ago with a promise not to increase them for four years. So much for promises.

These salary increases have shocked, offended and outraged almost all British Columbians. They should be reversed immediately. He might also reconsider the 54-per-cent raise he gave himself last year. Does he not know how hard the rest of us work to give him that money?

But Campbell is not listening. If he were, he would not be increasing wages 43 per cent for the highest paid and freezing the minimum wage for more than 250,000 British Columbians earning less than $10 per hour. This is the height of hypocrisy. Every province in Canada has raised the minimum wage in this past year while B.C.'s has been frozen seven long years. Campbell has ignored more than 40 city councils and the Union of BC Municipalities, which agree that it's time to raise it. He refuses to hear the 78 per cent of British Columbians who say "raise the wage."…

Why do the Liberals ignore the problems facing most British Columbians? Because they think we will forget what they have done. They are counting on the rest of us to forget their arrogance, forget their big pay increases, forget their neglect of forest workers, forget the increases in everything but our real incomes, forget seniors who can't afford to pay for fuel this winter and forget a cruel seven-year freeze on the minimum wage….

But, let's also promise to remember that it's the hard work, the sacrifices and the commitment of all British Columbians that make this a great place live.