Who am I? I am me and this is my opinion.
There are a lot of people in B.C. who have nothing better to do than bash the government and lay the blame for our province’s woes directly at the feet of the Liberal Party. Now, don’t get me wrong – I am not a die-hard Liberal; in fact I have NEVER voted Liberal in my life.
I do, however, feel that teachers, nurses, and doctors need to take a step back and ask themselves this:
When I chose to be a doctor, did I make the choice because I wanted to heal the injured, to help those who could not help themselves?
When I chose to be a nurse, did I make the choice because I cared about people, because I wanted to ease the suffering?
When I chose to be a teacher, did I make the choice because I wanted to nurture our youth, to pass along the tools required to deal with the adult world as well as the knowledge of how to use them?
Did I choose my profession because I felt I could make a difference? Or was it just for the money?
I am not saying that these professions (and others like them) do not deserve higher wages and better tools. What I am saying is that our provinces coffers cannot sustain such a high level without higher input. Higher input means one of two things:
1) a higher tax base (ie: more people living in the province) or,
2) the people paying out higher and higher taxes in order to fund the wage demands and procure the necessary tools.
Option 2 is not a popular one with the masses - most of us are tax poor already. Alas, Option 1 is not going to happen without something to draw the companies and investors here (which also brings the workers). If our financial house is in disarray, there is now way we are going to be able to entice anyone to invest in our province, regardless of its natural beauty.
It seems that some prefer to stoop to the levels of fear mongering, mud slinging, and innuendo instead of working towards a practical solution. This serves only to remind me of little children in the schoolyard bickering over who tripped who, who actually hit who first. No matter what ANY government does, they will never be able to please the entire populace – at least this government is trying. What’s say we give them a chance before condemning them for things that are not necessarily of their making.
Mr. Campbell, don’t lose heart – Ralph Kline wasn’t liked very much when he introduced radical reforms and cutbacks, and although it is not perfect, Alberta sure has a much rosier picture now. We need to follow suit in some ways, tighten our belts as much as possible in order to have food on the table for future generations.
It is my humble opinion that the time has come where we, as the people, accept some responsibility for the situation we find ourselves in. No one likes to lose things, I know I don’t. But I would rather pay for some of the “fluff” than to see our beautiful province dragged even deeper into the maelstrom of deficiency. If people would stop whining long enough, they might just realize that the only way out of the current fiscal debt load is to cut all excessive / money-wasting programs. Only AFTER we have gotten the province financially secure can those programs actually NEEDED, be reintroduced on a priority basis.
Now I realize there is more to the story than the points I have made here, but let’s face it; the parties involved have made the monetary issue the focus of their press releases and news briefs so that is what I responded to.
You may think I am nobody, but it is nobodies like me, many that work for minimum wage; that pay the taxes to fund all the pay raises public sector workers are screaming for, and frankly my dear – I CAN’T AFFORD IT!!