There was another poll that predicted an NDP win, and the real poll turned out quite differently. Polls have diminished value now that so many people refuse to answer their phones – tough to get a true random sample representative of the population. Also, those with a dog in the fight – children in public school – will likely be willing to answer the poll, those without, won’t want to waste their time answering the questions.

Perhaps this question should be asked. Are you willing to pay higher taxes in the form of higher school taxes on your property, higher sales taxes, higher income taxes or a combination of any of the above in order to fund the BCTF’s demands for increased wages and benefits as well as improvements to classroom size and composition? After all we the taxpayer will be paying for this in some fashion..especially if the BCTF holds out for and is awarded more than the other public service unions have already settled for as that will trigger increases to their contracts as well. Ultimately increasing the cost to us the tax payer!

The polling company commissioned by the BC federation of labour. Pfft..why not report who paid for this poll?

Negotiation over mediation. Mediation over arbitration.

I took a look at their website, insightswest.com. They operate an interesting business. They don’t conduct polls of the general public (not that they are very accurate). They have an ‘in-house panel’ of people who have signed up to take online survey’s. They boast that their panel is “mobile-engaged’, ‘social media-savvy’ and that half of panelists are willing to submit photos as part of their response to surveys…

Jimmy: “The polling company commissioned by the BC federation of labour.”

I was wondering why mediation wasn’t an option. Now it makes sense.

NyteHawwk, good comment! Wouldn’t a very costly binding arbitration forced settlement have the potential to increase child poverty in B.C. ? As you stated correctly, the money has to come from the taxpayers one way or the other!

Now we wouldn’t like that to happen, would we? Perhaps those who teach the children haven’t given unintended consequences of that sort any thought.

Just saying.

Nytehawk, yeah, to bad they didn’t ask about raising taxes to pay for the Olympics, or the huge raise the mlas got, or fir redoing bc place roof, or our permission to take 900 million from ICBC then raise our rates, or raising hydro, or to pay crusts $475,000 yearly visa bill, or raise medical and increase wait times etc etc

P Val, just because we have a bunch of pigs at the trough now doesn’t mean we need more. I am just as tired of paying all these taxes as anyone else. We need teachers but we need good ones, not just the ones that are there for the money alone. I had 3 children that went through the school system here and I asked them how many good ones they could remember. Each of them said “maybe 3 or 4 good ones”. The teachers should be rated on how well their students do and should be paid accordingly, not just because Joe got a raise I think I am entitled too. Get into the real world.

Posted on Monday, September 15, 2014 @ 2:16 PM by P Val

Nytehawk, yeah, to bad they didn’t ask about raising taxes to pay for the Olympics, or the huge raise the mlas got, or fir redoing bc place roof, or our permission to take 900 million from ICBC then raise our rates, or raising hydro, or to pay crusts $475,000 yearly visa bill, or raise medical and increase wait times etc etc

P Val
You forgot to mention that BC lowered the corporate tax to the 2 lowest in Canada.

I love how the Liberals talk about increasing tax on individuals is really the only way to find this revenue. Tax structures on heavy industry could be revisited to make up the difference and most of these company’s would hardly notice. They make the claim that sales tax, or property tax, or even gas tax need to go up, so the average voter feels directly effected.

Posted on Monday, September 15, 2014 @ 2:27 PM by duffer

P Val, just because we have a bunch of pigs at the trough now doesn’t mean we need more. I am just as tired of paying all these taxes as anyone else. We need teachers but we need good ones, not just the ones that are there for the money alone. I had 3 children that went through the school system here and I asked them how many good ones they could remember. Each of them said “maybe 3 or 4 good ones”. The teachers should be rated on how well their students do and should be paid accordingly, not just because Joe got a raise I think I am entitled too. Get into the real world.

This can only work if the teachers can rate your student and the parent.

That’s a good point 8. Teacher’s can be great, with poor results in tests, because of what they have to work with. I met the principal of Harwin – the one that retired, and that guy was 100% dedicated, put his heart and soul into those kids, but let’s face it, those kids are three steps behind before the race even starts. Any evaluation done by student performance on him, would have been grossly inaccurate. If parents aren’t engaged in their children’s education, not much a teacher can do. That’s the whole problem the teacher’s are facing. When I went to school – 35 kids – all culturally similar, all with parents that would give you a licking if you mouthed off the teacher. Now, kids with FAS, kids whose parents speak Punjabi or Mandarin at home, so they need extra help with English, kids who’s parents who don’t care, kids with disabilities, and it goes on – hence, the teacher’s want smaller class sizes to deal with the new reality. That part of their demands I understand.

PG John- did you notice a little corporate deal lately where Tim Horton was bought by Burger King? What was the driving factor there?
Sweden is a great example of low corporate taxes and high income taxes. After all it is the people who use the schools and hospitals. It is also the people who need the jobs.
It is easy to tax corporations into moving. Their purpose is to make money and nothing stops them from moving.

In the case of Arbitration it makes no sense to go to arbitration as the teachers demands are so far out of Whack with what other public sector groups got that meeting half way would cost a large amount of money.

The facts are clear- there are thousands of unemployed teachers who desperately want jobs. P Val I used 35,000 as a number from a teachers blog.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/wente-overeducated-and-underemployed-the-teachers-college-mess/article12366486/
http://blogs.vancouversun.com/2012/01/30/three-applicants-for-every-k-12-teach
http://www.universityaffairs.ca/way-too-many-teachers.aspxing-job-in-b-c/
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-canadian-teachers-head-abroad-amid-tight-job-market-1.2426110
http://www.canada.com/story.html?id=13f0cb8d-b2b8-49bf-afff-836befb3bccd
http://www.youthandwork.ca/2013/01/is-teachers-college-worth-it-nope-heres.html
http://politicalsensei.wordpress.com/2013/06/25/too-many-teachers-already/

I say pay cuts and classroom size cuts of 25% all around. If you don’t like it get a job somewhere else that pays 71,000 a year on AVERAGE for working 37 weeks. (Good luck by the way)

Posted on Monday, September 15, 2014 @ 2:48 PM by ski51

That’s a good point 8. Teacher’s can be great, with poor results in tests, because of what they have to work with.

When I went to school the law in my house was if I crossed the teacher I had double the punishment at home.

Now its the teacher in double trouble.

Posted on Monday, September 15, 2014 @ 2:48 PM by cupricity

PG John- did you notice a little corporate deal lately where Tim Horton was bought by Burger King? What was the driving factor there?
Sweden is a great example of low corporate taxes and high income taxes. After all it is the people who use the schools and hospitals. It is also the people who need the jobs.
It is easy to tax corporations into moving. Their purpose is to make money and nothing stops them from moving.

Just in case you are not up on the buy out. Tim Horton’s sold to Burger king to gain access to the USA market. Burger King in the early days got tax break after tax break to build their multi billion dollar empire owned by a person from south America. FYI Tim’s was a Canadian owned company who also made it big off low wages and little tax benefit to Canada.

P Val…last time I checked it was your precious NDP that started the process to get the Olympics, and I don’t recall having my taxes raised to pay for them.
$900M out of ICBC? If not from there, it would have come from another one of my pockets so that’s a wash. Hydro..again your precious NDP has been harping about the need to increase rates so that Hydro could fund needed repairs and replacements of aging infrastructure…again…who is going to pay for that if not us? As for Medical…if your harping about a small increase in MSP premiums compared to what it costs to run our health system…give your head a huge shake..and wait times are more a factor of increased need and usage than funding.
You socialists always sing the same old tired song, give the unions what they want, don’t increase our taxes, make the corporations pay more, and worse case scenario run a deficit and let future generations figure out how to pay for our mess. Me I’m for paying as little taxes as possible keeping our corporations able to employ people, and not borrowing from our future!

This government has been on a massive spending party, indebting every BCer, and the cheerleaders have been silent. Why all the spending concern now? Yes, we have the lowest corporates taxes….hasn’t enticed any head offices to BC. Let’s get some tax reform. While the average worker shoulders the burden, corporate profits are hoarded, shareholders awarded handsomely and crony contracts are rampant.. The growth in my investments is taxed marginally, to say the least, and I’m only taxed on 50% of my capital gains. The wealthy have the governments ear and they want more, more , more. Personally, I’d be willing to pay some more tax for better education and health care. If you want income equality, poor public eduaction, and high crime, there’s a right wing utopia waiting for you south of the border.

“The online survey found 62% of residents (and 61% of those who have children in public school) think the dispute should be sent to binding arbitration immediately.”

In other news, a recent poll shows 60% of residents have no idea how binding arbitration really works. :P

8- Burger King was bought out by a rich South American after it was built up, and essentially losing money when it was bought.

Tim Hortons is owned by many pension funds including the Ontario Teachers Pension fund. Yes they pay terribly- which is exactly the reason we should have lower teachers salaries so we can employ more teachers. My 25% pay cut idea would drop the average teacher to (71,000 times 75%) 53,500/ year plus incredibe benefits and pension (for working 37 weeks).
This in turn would improve educational outcomes by reducing class size, as well as address an economic problem. THink about 37 weeks at 40 hours a week is 36 dollars an hour plus a huge pension and benefits at 53,5000 a year. I wonder how many Tim Hortons Psychology graduates would jump up and touch the moon for pay like that?

I think the BC Government will legislate the teachers back to work rather than honesly bargain in good faith.

Mexico is part of NAFTA. We are in direct competition with Mexico for corporate investments which result in taxes and jobs. We are not doing too well! Corporations (Ford, GM, VW, Chrysler, BMW, Audi, Nissan, soon Mercedes and many other manufacturers) are building new plants in Mexico which has a much greater population base, lower taxes and lower wages.

Let’s force corporations to look elsewhere! At one point in history Canada was a mostly agricultural society. Back to the future, perhaps.

govsux – just for general info – corporations in Canada are taxed by the province they do business in, irregardless of where their head office is, based on a formula of wages paid in a province, and capital employed in that province. Getting a head office to move to a province is more a function of personal income tax rate, because wherever the head office is, that’s where the executives live, and that’s the tax rate they pay, which is why there are so many head offices in Calgary with Alberta’s 10% flat personal tax rate vs BCs top rate of 16.8% on personal income.

BC could raise taxes on corporation’s in the resource sector, because up and moving isn’t so easy when what you’re mining or cutting is in B.C., but other industries, like the film industry, just up and leave. That said, once you tax those resource industries, future development gravitates to jurisdictions with a more favorable tax regime, so it’s quite a balancing act. You can punish the company that’s already here, but one day you wake up and find all their future expansion took place in the southern states or south america because it was too punitive to do business in B.C.

Further, corporation’s major shareholders are usually pension plans, so those handsomely rewarded shareholders are often pensioners.

Good idea, let’s drag everyone down. It’s a race to the bottom folks!

“Good idea, let’s drag everyone down. It’s a race to the bottom folks!” – sadly, you are correct. Rather than the standard of living being lifted for all, corporations pit nation against nation quite successfully and lower it all. But isn’t this the same way unions got wages up – by using the increases other unions got, as a justification for them to get the same. They point to Alberta teachers as why they should get more – forgetting that Alberta teachers have to live in Alberta and the oil fields pay so well, they were losing teachers to the oil industry, so they had no choice. BC – different story.

No I think we want to bring everyone up through appropriate spending of tax dollars and excellent educational outcomes. My father in law retired 2 years ago in Sweden where he was a teacher for 29 years. His annual salary was 41,000 cdn equivalent when he retired before he was taxed the minimal Swedish income tax of 33% and exposed to the 25% HST (VAT).
By putting more people to work teaching we improve societal outcomes and increase the value of our most important resource:our people.
By wasting money on exorbitant teacher salaries that are in no way correlated with the labour market we are short changing ourselves and our kids!

Posted on Monday, September 15, 2014 @ 3:38 PM by cupricity

Tim Hortons is owned by many pension funds including the Ontario Teachers Pension fund. Yes they pay terribly- which is exactly the reason we should have lower teachers salaries so we can employ more teachers. My 25% pay cut idea would drop the average teacher to (71,000 times 75%) 53,500/ year plus incredibe benefits and pension (for working 37 weeks).
This in turn would improve educational outcomes by reducing class size, as well as address an economic problem. THink about 37 weeks at 40 hours a week is 36 dollars an hour plus a huge pension and benefits at 53,5000 a year. I wonder how many Tim Hortons Psychology graduates would jump up and touch the moon for pay like that?

If you could now lobby across the board to lower the price on all things associated with essential needs and lower inflation I’m sure you would have a deal. Now if Tims and a few more want to pay so little and profit more to accommodate the Ontario’s teachers fund I would suggest to the teachers they pull it out along with a few more and see what it does to the stock price.

And as for dragging down outcomes by dropping teachers salaries it in fact has the opposite. BC spends as much on education as a percentage of GDP as the average OECD country, but we pay our teachers in the top 10th percentile, and have some of the largest class sizes in the OECD. Who pays for those class sizes? We Do!
As for evil corporations who run around and build factories in countries where people work for less money, that is a problem that is entirely solvable. We can just keep those people out of the world trade network, and leave them in abject poverty for eternity. They don’t deserve to access our market due their low levels of wage expectations.
On the other hand we could see it as a great leveling where we the rich people are transferring some wealth to them (the poor people).
In my humble opinion this affect brings these people out of poverty and they become consumers of our goods- like low grade beetle kill lumber- in a way where we both benefit more together. But hey what do I know!

The tax system definitely favours those with money. Trickle down is bogus. Income disparity is growing and we all know why. I am as guilty as the rest, taking advantage of the preferable tax treatment I get from government. But I certainly feel for those just scraping by, while those with money can sit back and let it grow. I don’t pretend to know the answers but I’m certainly willing to ask questions. The growing mass of money at the top end is concerning, considering wages have barely kept pace with inflation. When the return on capital significantly outpaces growth in wages, we are heading down a dark and dangerous road. How far can we shrink the middle class.

How is it many European and Scandinavian countries can import raw resources, pay good wages and have decent social safety nets, offer free university and place near the top of worldwide indexes regarding poverty, quality of life, and low crime rates, while we are told labour is too expensive in Canada and we need to sell our resources to other countries and let them sell it back to us? I know they’re taxed heavily, and I’m not saying I want to be them, but how do they do it? And please refrain from the Socialist welfare state argument. We have resources, a skilled workforce, yet very little R&D and we are regressing as far as innovation and manufacturing are concerned.

Posted on Monday, September 15, 2014 @ 4:04 PM by cupricity

We have enough poverty in Canada for us to worry about countries abroad. Your idea of putting our own teachers on the boarder of poverty is un thinkable and unnecessary. BC spends the least on education. Countries abroad like Amsterdam does not have tuition and nor does Sweden to the degree level. Some how you are wanting Canada to go into a 3rd world country so corporations can create more 1 % ers. You don’t have my support or do I share your humble opinion.

Govsux-
Teachers are hard to define as middle class these days. The average income at 71,000 is just under the the top 10% at 81,000. When you consider that Teachers have 3 months of holidays it is even more of an insult to see them as hard done by.

http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/as-sa/99-014-x/99-014-x2011003_2-eng.cfm

You are very right trickle down sucks. That is why it is imperative to spread the gov’t redistribution as far as possible. Tax the rich and spread it around. Instead we have tax the rich and make another rich group(strong public sector unions).

http://www.macleans.ca/economy/business/the-new-upper-class/

top 10% that you’re hung up on means nothing. When the top 10% are paying the tax for all to enjoy education and health care its time for corporation to do their part.

But we don’t taxe the rich. I pay around 15% tax on my dividend income, and I’m only taxed on 50% of my capital gains. The argument is it spurs economic activity, the reality is, I get richer and my nest egg grows. I make enough money to take advantage of these systems. I agree most teachers make enough to also take advantage, but in this consumer economy most are too busy paying off credit for toys etc. doesn’t change the fact that the tax system favours those with money and hammers the lower income people to pay for the services the wealthy rely on. Before departing from his role at the BOC, Mark Carney mentioned that they had cut corporate taxes, yet the corps were not creating jobs, opening factories or spurring the economy. They were hoarding money and spending it outside the country.

well said govsux. its a proven fact

govsux

You are paying 15% on your dividend income in your non-registered account,which is after tax dollars. Don’t ask to pay more tax on something you have already been fully taxed on. If you have dividend income in registered accounts, don’t worry , you will pay when you withdraw it.

8 and govsux

What is your definition of rich? Hope you answer better than Justin Trudeau

Say somebody that clears $6,000.00 a month

Insights west!
What a joke. They are as prejudiced as the Fraser institute, just left leaning prejudice.
Polls mean nothing if a pre determined result is required.

Anybody out there know whar rich is?

Rich is salmon rivers to the west, mule deer hills to the south and elk covered valleys to the east.

Agreed.

Yeah, what a life in B.C.!